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Reviews
Living Dolls: The Making of a Child Beauty Queen (2001)
Spot the Barbies
Filmmaker Sharon Cookson follows the beauty pageant path of Swan Brooner. Coached by her mother, Robyn, Swan is taught how to behave on stage, how to be looked at. She is told to make eye contact, or to `spot' the judges. As theorist John Berger would say Swan is the surveyed, while the judges are the surveyors. We as audience members are surveyors as well, but we see the whole picture, including the training, the `tough love' that Robyn provides, the make up and hair process as well as seeing Swan act like a kid once in a while. Through seeing all of this, the camera does not re-objectify her and does not present her to us as a sexual object, as opposed to a simple tape of just the beauty pageant itself may do. We as an audience are a panopticon (Foucault's term for an instrument that sees all) because we see all of these things, or we see all of what Cookson wants us to see.
Robyn forms her daughter's looks and behavior based on the stereotypical female, such as Barbies (hence the title Living Dolls). A big part of the pageants includes close up headshots, even for those as young as a few months, where they are made up to look like pre-madonnas posing for Vogue. Their eyes are accentuated with eyeliner and big eyelashes, fake teeth, as well as hair extensions, hair coloring, and make up caked on to a ridiculous extent. Swan and the other girls are also encouraged to flirt with a man who serenades them, by batting their long, fake eyelashes.
Another rather ironic and disturbing part of the documentary is Robyn's role as a mother. Yes she is putting all this time and energy into her daughter, but she neglects the rest of her family. Her other daughter insists that she's dedicated, yet when her other son Bubba runs away, she seems un-phased and determined to stay focused on Swan's pageants. Later Bubba gets put into a juvenile detention hall, yet Robyn still insists on using over 70,000 dollars on Swan rather then helping her son.
This in depth look at child beauty pageants and the non existent childhood of Swan makes a big statement and critique not only on the practice of pageants but of the people behind the pageants, the parents.
Real Women Have Curves (2002)
No Hollywood Stereotypes Found Here...
Real Woman Have Curves plays to those sick of the normal Hollywood stereotypes of beauty. The big theme of the film, literally and physically, as told from the title, is Ana's weight. Not often and almost never do we see a leading lady not fit the Hollywood standards of thin and made up; always having perfect hair and make up, even after just waking up. Here Ana and the rest of the women and `real'. Ana's figure, although less then perfect for Hollywood standards, doesn't stand in the way of her being successful and to come out on top.
Ana and her family's low economic standing also forces her to work in her sister's factory, making dresses for cheap that are later sold for a lot more then pocket change. Although reluctant Ana's responsibility to her family comes through and she does what she can to help. Also being of a traditional Latino family Ana experiences repression by her mother to stay at home, learn to cook, sew, clean, and to prepare to care for her future husband whom ever that may be. Throughout the film, mirrors are used to cast reflections in the frame of Ana's mother Carmen, to show her eagerness to see Ana as a mirror image of herself.
Real Woman Have Curves is an entertaining movie for those who wish to look past Hollywood stereotypes such as perfect body, generic white families, and typical romances.
Das schreckliche Mädchen (1990)
Verhoeven's Stage
Using Brecht's idea of Epic Theatre, Michael Verhoeven creates a stage upon which audiences can learn from the past, and critique such instances from World War Two and Nazi Germany through the main character Sonja's struggles.
Brecht wanted Epic Theatre to use history and let audiences apply it to the present. This type of theatre makes you aware that you are watching something staged, so that you analyze the situation rather then feeling the same emotions of the characters. Verhoeven does this very nicely using a few alienation effects (also know as vefremdungs effekt). One scene taking the walls down of Sonja's living room and having it float through town while people anonymously call and threaten her family. Here the idea of Foucault's panoptican (an instrument that can see everything) comes into play as well. Sonya has no anonymity from the public, which is made up of the church, the government, the media, and the fifth establishment (the elder generation that serve as a link from the past to the present), yet she cannot identify any of them specifically. Later on again in a different sequence, Verhoeven brings back the walls. It is here that Sonja learns some names she can use to defend herself, and the walls of defense are back. Bringing back the walls also helps alarm the audience, just in case they were becoming too comfortable without them.
Another part of the film is Sonja's family. In many scenes the children are seen crying and the father, Martin, tending to them and getting rather flustered. At one point he yells at Sonja telling her how her children would like their mother. Later on at the end of the film we learn that he has left her. Verhoeven plays on Sonja's obsession for finding the truth as a distraction from her family, yet there are parts where she still says she needs to stop, for the safety of her family because of threats. I think the scenes of neglecting the family are overdone to not show the point that Sonja is a bad mother, but that she wants her children to grow up and learn to love their Heimat (homeland), which during WWII was given a negative political term. She wants to make things better for her children so they don't grow up learning all of the corrupt things the her town has been covering up.
The Nasty Girl is a clever and great cinematic film that makes you think, rather then feel. As the viewer you walk away learning something.