Mannequin

I can’t decide if Mannequin is a movie filled with metaphors for a man’s sexual insecurities and all-around bouts of self-loathing OR if it’s just really cheesy and bad in the way that only movies made in the 1980s can be. Yes, it stars Andrew McCarthy, the flavorless lug in Pretty In Pink who manages to suck out most of the charm that Duckie puts into that movie. It seems that Andrew’s job in movies is to sulk around to provide some sort of pseudo balance to the flamboyant gay/not gay man that befriends him or is somehow simply in the same movie.

In Mannequin, Andrew is a “weird” guy who gets a job dressing windows at a department store. Well, I think in the beginning he’s hired as a janitor or as a mannequin dresser or something. Then, voila, he makes these amazing window dressings. Amazing? Yeah, right. Please—before I go any further—allow me to explain these AMAZING pieces: the mannequins are all dressed in undergarments! The mannequins are simulating a tennis game by having a ball (that is on a string) sway back and forth! Amazing! Believe me, even when I first saw this movie as a very little girl, I knew this window dressing was boring at best. I played along then, so bear with me now. As you probably know, he’s not doing these displays alone. The mannequin comes to life. And, it’s Kim Cattrall who, in 1987, looks incredibly gorgeous. I mean, WAY too good for meal-y Andrew McCarthy. Of course, Andrew’s uber-flamboyant co-worker is named Hollywood. I always thought he was Anthony on Designing Women. Does it even matter if he’s not? It’s practically the same person. Anyway, I guess that’s the movie’s way of adding spice, much like the juxtaposition to Duckie in Pretty In Pink. Listen, it doesn’t really work. Andrew is bland. Just let him be that way! Do not infiltrate a movie with gay stereotypes just to add color to a vanilla actor. Now, that’s boring.

But, let’s get into what this movie is REALLY about. Like I said before, the mannequin is leggy and gorgeous and an amazing (completely mediocre) designer. She only comes alive when Andrew is alone with her. What is this movie saying? A man is so insecure that he must completely possess a beautiful woman? I mean, she is giving him the pleasure. She is for him and him alone. Why can’t she be seen by others? Maybe, he’s so insecure that he believes that if she goes out into the world, she will understand that she can do so much better than him. Maybe, if she were to brave society, she would realize that there is more to life than the male gaze (this ONE male gaze). She would maybe understand that her life does not have to be about giving this man pleasure—pleasure by way of her body and her talents. The more I write this, the more I am disgusted with this movie. Men, it seems¸ are so insecure in relationships and in themselves that they think that in order to hold onto a beautiful, smart woman, they have to literally hold on to her and cloak her from the effects and influences of society at large. The mannequin in the movie holds a blank stare when in the presence of other people (besides only Andrew). We accept her dead eyes and then embrace her loveliness and charisma when she is alive with Andrew. Maybe we do accept that because we are all so programmed to believe that women are most alive when validated by the presence of the one man, the one “special” man who chooses such possession. I swear, I am holding back the impulse to shake the intelligence back into every girl or woman who has ever copped to the belief that they are only worthy if a man deems them to be. Don’t think I leave myself out of this notion; I am shaking the cobwebs out of my own brain as I write.

Grey Gardens (revisited)

The documentary, Grey Gardens, was made in 1975 by the Maysles, two filmmaker brothers. I already reviewed the HBO movie by the same name starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. I praised Barrymore just because I thought her acting was good. In the documentary, Little Edie talks about someone playing herself in a movie. She doesn't want anyone to do that. No. If anyone were to play Little Edie, it would be Little Edie. Well, I'm back again to give Drew her props. She looks just like Little Edie--and talks like her, and dances like her, and (dare I say it?) she even captures her charm.

I didn't know anything about the documentary until the HBO movie came out. Of course, that film sparked my interest in the real-life Big Edie and Little Edie (the Beales). I learned a lot in the documentary. I learned that the Maysles really came to love these two women, and that their portrait of them would not have been so endearing had they not. The documentary has become sort of a cult hit. I get why; it's really because of Little Edie. She is an icon and an eccentric--an articulate eccentric. In other words, she's kind of irresistible. Little Edie promotes a sort of thrift store glamour. She's a Bouvier, and with that name comes a social status that turns out to be unshakable. Oh, her fashion sense. It is quirky, but completely spot on. She's really great with color choice and even the manipulation of fabrics and whole outfits. Little Edie wears brooches on her hand towel turbins and 1950s bathing suits as a base beneath an upside down skirt.

The women are not crazy--just over the top and real. The documentary now comes with previously unseen footage of the Beales. They are incredibly charming and social. Little Edie manages to engage in the filmmakers quite a bit, even though they try to stay out of the shot. A 2006 interview from the surviving brother, Albert Maysles, reveals that there was always a bit of a running joke between the brothers and Little Edie about who Little Edie was after. She played it up, too. But, she didn't play it up for the camera. The camera just happened to be there. I think that is the charm of Little Edie. Of course, that is also the charm of the documentary. It is a ride.

Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee

I entered the eighth grade in a new school in a new town. I cannot much remember the first days of other school years or even the first days of new jobs. However, I remember my first day of eighth grade and pretty much every day after that for the year. I got called a boy by the choir teacher. Consequently, I yearned to crawl into a ball and never leave the corner of the room. This town I moved to was small, and the mindset of the people felt small, and my bedroom felt small, and my tolerance for ignorance was becoming smaller and smaller. See, eighth grade was a time when I was really trying to understand myself and express myself. That is when I began to listen to "peace" music, like Joan Baez. I became, more than ever, interested in women's liberation. Most of all, though, I became interested in Native Americans. I was obsessed, you might say. When I fall in love, I fall hard. This was no exception.

I started to read about the American Indian Movement of the 1970s. I devoured the autobiographical books of Mary Brave Bird. I learned about the incarceration of Leonard Peltier and watched documentaries about him. I was convinced, then, that he was wrongly convicted of murdering FBI agents. I would write the White House on a fairly regular basis, urging the powers that be that Peltier was a political prisoner and nothing more. Those White House folks always wrote me back, saying that the Peltier case was still pending. "Yeah, right," I thought, as I popped in the CD of Joan Baez singing Prison Trilogy. I would like to say that I discovered the American Indian Movement on my own, that I just happened to be reading my encyclopedia when I decided to learn more about the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and the 1970s re-taking of the land. No, that did not happen. What did happen was there was a television movie called Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (based on Mary Brave Bird's books). I saw it and something clicked. The Native Americans were strangers in their own land; on some level, I could relate.

See, a 13 year old is sort of a stranger to herself. I mean, I was. I was awakening to the strength of my beliefs and realizing the passion behind my convictions. That's heavy for a kid. I needed help, so I transformed my struggle into the struggle of the American Indians. I made their struggle my struggle and vice verse. The historical, 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre was a slaughter of the American Indians. Then, in the 1970s, the American Indians (via the American Indian Movement), many of whom were living in poverty or who were indoctrinated with Christianity, came together to re-claim their land, to re-claim their identity. A symbol of the A.I.M. was the upside down American flag. That was used to symbolize the dissatisfaction of the American Indian people within American society.

My own mind was awakening to certain injustices and wrongs in our society. I understood the American Indians' overall unhappiness with the state of their world. I understood their unhappiness really by way of my own unhappiness with the world. I was coming into a time of my life (a state in which I still currently dwell) when I hungered to understand and paricipate in social movements for the betterment of society. Well, in a sort of solidarity with the idea and passion of social change that I saw in A.I.M., I painted an upside down flag and hung it on my window. I still remember when I was made to take it down for fear that people would shoot at the house if they saw it. (That's the kind of small town in which I was living.) I knew my flag was freedom of expression. I knew that it was unfair to take it off the window. But, I did it. I did it and I thought I understood the oppression of the American Indians. I now know how selfish I was for even relating my own pain to a whole people's. I did learn later, though, that there is no hierarchy of pain or oppression.