Revenge of the ...

There's a vintage Dykes to Watch Out For comic - it's in the very first book - in which Clarice (or proto-Clarice) states her simple rules for deciding whether she will see a movie:  It has to (1) have at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something other than a man.

Although this narrows the options quite a bit, it's not a bad rule to live by, I have found.    But I'll break it from time to time, if only because Hollywood occasionally manages to tell a good story despite violating Clarice's rule.  (Some of my favorite classic films, alas, do not meet Clarice's test, often having only a single woman in them.  And yet the movie women were so much more substantial than they are today, making up in content what they lacked in number.)

I broke the rule recently to see Star Wars Episode III:  Revenge of the Sith.  There are ample reviews of this waste of celluloid available on the web, including the magnificent scathing classic by Anthony Lane of the New Yorker.  So I will not offer a comprehensive review of my own. 

I do want to say a few words, though, about the particularly egregious way in which this atrocity violates Clarice's rule.  The one woman in this movie - Padme, played by the allegedly talented Natalie Portman - is reduced to the role of simpering broodsow.  Her only function in the film is to gaze longingly at the petulant Anakin Skywalker as he makes his descent into darkness - oh, yes, and to whelp, of course.  She is nothing more than a teary, bleating walking womb.  This woman is supposed to be a senator - but she is not once shown working, reviewing reports or meeting with constituents.  Instead she mopes around her penthouse in improbably elaborate nightclothes, whining at Anakin.  (In the only scene in which she undertakes any official duties at all - listening to the new emperor speechify - she seems to be sharing her box in the Senate with a delegation from another planet. What's that all about?)

No, the Senator's big line is "Anakin!  You're breaking my heart!"  And, of course, she dies, not nobly in battle, not at the treacherous hand of an enemy, but simply because she "lost the will to live" after her hubby turned evil.  Hunh? 

I was disappointed with Episode III for many reasons - and my expectations were quite low to begin with - but this short-changing of the only female presence in the prequel trilogy was just particularly disheartening.  She demonstrated a passable level of skill and resourcefulness in Episodes I and II - but all that was lost once she got knocked up - which was, after all, her only real function in the greater story.  I suppose it's a good thing that men can't have babies; otherwise, we might never see women in the movies at all. 

Comments

[Daddy's Girl]

I love this: "And yet the movie women were so much more substantial than they are today, making up in content what they lacked in number". Very true. Even films 'about women' in the present day just aren't as engrossing and layered and interesting as their classic counterparts. It used to be about the substance and gravitas of the actress - it isn't anymore. In fact I don't really know what it's about now.