For the uninitiated, The Bechdel Rule, or the Bechdel Test, is a way of judging movies based on the following criteria:

1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.

The rule was first introduced to the world by cartoonist Allison Bechdel in 1985 in a comic from her popular strip, Dykes To Watch Out For. According to Bechdel, it should actually be called The Liz Wallace Test, as her friend actually came up with it, but I’m sticking with tradition, so nevermind that. The test, or rather the difficulty in finding movies that pass it, is a testament to the shocking (not really) lack of diversity in Hollywood production, even in 2010. And the problem doesn’t end with gender, obviously. Take Deggan’s Rule, an offshoot of The Bechdel Test, coined by Eric Deggans of The St. Petersburg Times:

1) At least two non-white human characters in the main cast…
2) that’s not about race.

Now it would seem, as a white man, I’m not personally injured by the failure of most movies to pass either of these tests. Our stories are being told, our concerns are being addressed, our grievances are being aired; all is well in White Boy Town. But that is not so. First off, any group that only hears it own stories is not getting the full story. Surrounded by only look-and-think-alikes, it becomes impossible not to become parochial and stagnant. After all, one of the main social benefits of fiction is the encouragement of empathy, and these narrow narratives deny us its full expression.

But as much social harm as excluding half the population from being fully realized fictional characters does, I’d say it does even greater damage to movies as an art form. Think about it. Any screenwriter/director/producer that can’t think of anything more for a woman to do than be a girlfriend, wife, mother, or kidnapped daughter is probably going to lack imagination in other areas as well. A filmmaker who only sees minorities as Issues or wacky sidekicks is, more likely than not, a hack. After all, what are stereotypes if not clichés in the real world? But why talk in generalities? Let’s look at this year’s Oscar nominees.

Boy Toys

The most egregious current Oscar offenders on the Bechdel scale are Up in the Air and Crazy Heart. They violate the letter and the spirit of the rule. The two lead actresses, Vera Farmiga and Maggie Gyllenhaal, give solid performances playing what seem like strong female characters on paper especially since [SPOILER ALERT] neither one of them choose to stay with these dysfunctional men. But that’s pretty sad consolation, given that they still both function only as satellites in orbit around the world of the male leads. The little inner life that they possess is only there to contrast against the guy’s wants and needs. They are machines to initiate the protagonist’s redemption, never coming close to being flesh and blood people themselves. And that’s a large part of why, the Academy’s opinion aside, both of these films are infuriatingly predictable Hollywood hackery. Their surprises are telegraphed a mile away, their insight are focus-grouped within an inch of their life, and their honesty has had every bit of rough edge sanded off to make it palatable to a wide audience. Much of that has to do with the incredibly limited role women are allowed to play in these stories.  Once you know the gender, you know the role they play.

Let Me Help You Help Your People

But it’s in the racial sphere where this year’s Oscar nominees really muck it up. Take box-office juggernaut, Avatar, James Cameron’s attempt to “reinvent” cinema through the use of giant 3-D Smurf warriors and sledgehammer-subtle liberal soapboxing. Far be it for me to say David Brooks got something right, but, well, David Brooks got something right in his column blasting Avatar for continuing the long tradition of “The White Messiah Complex”, and calls it a “racial fantasy par excellence”:

It rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.

Speaking of white saviors and supporting minority actors who exist only for the main character’s rdemption, let’s talk about Dangerous Minds Freedom Writers Gran Torino Radio Glory Road The Soloist Music of the Heart The Blind Side, a movie that people are forever going to be looking back at and saying, “That was up for Best Picture?” Using the cover of a true story, as usual, the movie tells the inspiring tale of one large, and largely mute, black teenage male and the saintly white lady who saves him from the life of homelessness and despair so common to ‘those people’. And, of course, learns a little bit about herself in the process. Ugh. While this has been a great vehicle for Bullocks’ redemption as an actress in the press, it’s been less effective for telling the true story of Michael Oher, who remains superfluous in his own movie, an oversized prop for Bullock’s character to lift up and lean on depending on her needs at the moment.

There are some bright spots in Oscar Land, though. Inglorious Basterds, despite the title, is more about Shoshanna Dreyfuss’s struggles than the boys, and its her scheming rather than theirs that saves the day. And while An Education doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test by the letter, it does in spirit. Still, it’s sort of the exception that proves the rule: even in a movie about a young woman learning to have an identity separate from men, she doesn’t have a real conversation with a woman apart from talking about her man. And while District 9 and Precious both have racially problematic elements, they’re nowhere near as bad as Avatar and The Blind Side in that regard.  The Hurt Locker, while unavoidably a guy’s story, could bring the first directing trophy for a woman in Oscar history. So, I guess like any progress, we have to keep repeating the mantra: baby steps. Even Hollywood can learn something if you give it enough time. Maybe.

It shouldn’t be that surprising what side Inc. magazine took in the battle of Yelp vs. Small Business Owners. That’s what they – and any other specialty magazine – are there for, after all. They exist to address the concerns, alleviate the fears, and confirm the prejudices of their niche group of readers. But the recent cover story, ‘You’ve Been Yelped’, is so intent on focusing on the harm the review site can do to a business, and so lax on the owners themselves, it can’t help but do a disservice to their readership.

The feature starts off on the wrong foot by its surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of Diane Goodman, an obviously unhinged dingbat a small business owner who took issue with some negative reviews of her bookstore on the site. Considering the sort of obscene vitriol that populates a lot of the web, user Sean C.’s review seems downright quaint:

“This place is a TOTAL MESS. I think this place needs to close down for a few days and do a thorough cleaning and organization and get rid of all the crap!”

Rather than doing what a normal person might have done – say, taking stock of how your store looks to outsiders and maybe sprucing it up a bit – Goodman began doing this:

She clicked a link on Yelp’s website, opening a tool that allows business owners to send messages to reviewers. “Why don’t you come in here and say it to my face?” she wrote. “Are you too much of a coward?” She told him that she knew who he was — so few people came into the store that it was obvious — and that the store was a mess because sales were slow. Over the next few hours, she sent several more angry messages. She warned of a “world of pain.” “Goodbye pussy boy I will be contacting your employers,” she said. And: “Your mom was a bitch and she didn’t teach you how to behave. That’s why your life is such a mess right now.”

She eventually found his address through Google to go ‘apologize’, and the two got involved in a scuffle. The police were called, and Goodman was charged with battery, though accounts differ on who started it.

More than anything, she blamed Yelp. Out of nowhere, the little company had somehow managed to get between her and her customers. It had hurt her business and caused her to humiliate herself, first online and now, improbably, in the real world. “I’ve never met any store owner who likes Yelp,” Goodman says. “We’re all gritting our teeth. It’s evil.”

No, what caused her to humiliate herself was that she behaved like someone off their meds instead of a successful business owner. Yet Inc. bizarrely chooses to view the story from her eyes, and use it as a jumping-off point for a largely critical profile of Yelp.

The magazine and its subscriber base of entrepreneurs are right to see Yelp as a challenge, and yes, occasionally, a threat to small businesses. But the point that’s not made enough in the article is just how much of a service it provides to small firms. For businesses that are doing most things right, it’s free advertising – better, actually, because it has the credibility of being from real customers. And for businesses that are doing some things wrong, it’s a uncensored survey of your clientele and a road map for improvement. Everyone’s heard of the statistic that, for every customer that complains, 26 say nothing and simply stop patronizing your business. Undoubtedly, some of those 26 are taking their beef to Yelp. Instead of shooting the messenger, the savvy business owner should appreciate the feedback and incorporate it into an overhaul. To Inc.’s credit, they eventually admit Yelp isn’t going away, and give some solid advice for dealing with it at the end of the article.

Small Business as Shield and Sacred Cow

But more importantly than the specific issue of Yelp, the article highlighted a paradox about small businesses in the American popular imagination. On the one hand, the lobbies and interest groups representing them make up one of the most reactionary and anti-progressive political coalitions around. They are on the forefront of fights against discrimination laws, minimum wage hikes, environmental laws, and the estate tax. They – or the people who claim to speak for them – endorse a laissez-faire, pull-yourself-by-your-own-bootstraps, philosophy for the individual. But when it comes to their own survival, they break out the violins, playing a tune of community cohesion and the fuzzy feelings you get when you know the name of your pharmacist. The sudden switch is whiplash-inducing, but it’s an old and familiar refrain in America: cutthroat for thee, coddling for me. To be fair, small businesses are more political shield than autonomous actor here, used by corrupt politicians as an excuse to execute whatever rollback policies their big dollar donors want carried out.

Don’t worry. I’m not about to pen a paean to the joys of shopping at a big box store, or pretend I’ve loved the sight of America turning into an indistinguishable mass of identical strip malls. But the fact-free fetishization of so-called Mom and Pop operations gets a little old after a while. The simple truth is, it’s not necessarily better to be an employee or a customer of a small business than of a big one. As a worker, you often get paid less and receive fewer benefits, and have a much tougher time forming a union. And while much is made of the soulless bureaucracy of mega-corporations, being directly under the owner is often the worst place to be for a peon. Some of the most tyrannical bosses I’ve ever had were small business owners, and a lot of my friends have had the same experience.

And as patrons, Americans clearly vote one way with their voice and another way with their wallet; the consumer inside them in an eternal, schizophrenic war with the citizen. Small businesses rank second only to the military in polls about which institutions Americans have the most confidence in, and, not surprisingly, big business is dead last. But if they really hated big companies that much, they wouldn’t be big companies in the first place. It’s a classic example of what economists call ‘revealed preference’. We’d all like to be the kind of people who shop at O’Grady’s Corner Store instead of Wal-Mart or Costco, but we’re not and haven’t been for a long time. And I’m not even sure we should feel that bad about it. I’m as bleeding heart as they come, but I like to save my sympathy and charity for the poor, not for those who fail to make money through money-making propositions. The market’s not great at everything, but I think it does a pretty good job of trimming the fat of the business community and giving consumers what they want. If you want my business, make your argument through your products and services, not by invoking guilt and nostalgia.

The bygone era of Mom and Pop stores didn’t exist because people cared about their neighbors more, or valued knowing the name of the guy they bought their gasoline from. It thrived because that’s all there was around. As soon as consumers had a different path, they took it. But it’s not all bad news for the little guys. While mega-chains kill a ton of small stores, there are instances where they actually help them, in a weird, unintended symbiosis. Starbucks certainly intends to kills off its competitors, but as often as not it ends up creating a market for upscale coffee where there wasn’t one before – a market big enough for it and a neighbor. And there are plenty of stories of independent bookstores thriving in the wake of chains moving in, especially if they know their way around the used market.

But even where they don’t help, I have a hard time believing chain stores are the last manifestation of commerce in our country. Consumer preferences change, and the pendulum won’t stay on the Big N’Cheap model forever. The smart small fries will be the ones who can capitalize on the swing back to niche, instead of whining about how the free market is actually doing its job by making a popular review site rich.

Chances are you know Patton Oswalt, even if you don’t know how you know him. You might recognize his face from TV (The King of Queens, Reno 911), his voice from that Pixar movie (Ratatouille), or his warped sense humor from either Best Week Ever or his standup specials. Hopefully, it’s the latter, because that’s the Oswalt essence, at least to me. His comedy albums have been some of the best of the last decade, skewering everything from 80’s open mics to Robert Evans to his own increasing waistline and the effect that has on his pronunciation of words that start with ‘B’. His most famous bit was, appropriately, his riff on KFC’s Famous Bowl, shown below:

But his insights don’t always end with punchlines. Reading interviews with him over the years, I’m always amazed how humble, centered, and, well, useful, his thoughts on work and success always sound. He’s usually directing his comments towards comedians, but they’re applicable to any working in a competitive creative field. When I’m feeling particularly inclined to wallow in self-pity or bitterness, a little bit of Oswalt wisdom always shakes me out of it.

Perhaps the thing I appreciate most is how much emphasis Patton puts on not doing your work simply as a means to an end. It sounds simple, but the pressure to make your motivations external is immense. Status, money, fame, acclaim, revenge, getting Daddy’s attention – all of these  pull an artist away from the practice of the craft for its own sake, and the inherent enjoyment that it brings:

From The Comedy and Everything Else Podcast:

“We’re not working in a bank. All these comedians who are like ‘I’ve been doing this for thirty years and this kid does it for five and gets a goddamned sitcom.’ That’s how it goes! What I’ve found is, usually when people say out loud how long they’ve been doing it, that’s always a red flag for me. ‘I’ve been doing this twenty years!’ No, I get the feeling you did this for a year and you repeated that year nineteen times. Like, you didn’t grow at all.

In that same podcast, he takes on the toxic effects of jealousy on comedy. As he points out, ‘success is not a finite resource’:

“See, everyone in their mind, when I was at the age I was then, thinks ‘It’s not only that I succeed, it’s that that person will fail and they’ll realize that I was right.’…So, all these all people that are driven by vengeance and ‘Oh, that crowd that hated me back at that open mic, I’ll fucking show them!’ No, you won’t show them, because they won’t remember you and no one’s going to care…What I realized is, if someone hates you when you’re coming up, like some club owner, and you go and get success elsewhere, here’s what they’ll say, “See how fucked-up Hollywood is? That loser made it.’ So there’s no winning with vengeance. You might still succeed, but you’ll be miserable.”

Another point made in this same podcast and agreed upon by all is that there’s never been a time where a performer’s success was more within their own hands. Compared to even ten years ago, the number of avenues where you can exhibit your talents has exploded.

“Especially now…if you’re a comedian and you don’t make it, it’s kinda your fault. ‘I pitched it to the three major networks and they said ‘No’, so I stopped’. What??? Well, then, you fucked up!”

As the podcast co-host Todd Glass says, these days “wherever you’re at in your career, that’s where you belong.” It sounds harsh, but I’d have to agree with that assessment – not only in comedy, but in most creative endeavors these days. There are just too many outlets and too many opportunities to get your work seen and assessed to be able to credibly blame someone else for what you perceive as your crappy career. There are exceptions, but usually if someone is stagnating it’s that they haven’t given it enough – in terms of time or work – or they don’t have enough – in terms of talent or broad appeal. The only gatekeeper these days is the public.

He doesn’t deny that there are lucky breaks, but I love his response to that:

“If you’re working a 9 to 5 and your neighbor wins the lottery, that doesn’t mean you can quit your job.”

And finally, here he is talking with the Onion AV Club about the importance of living below your means:

AVC: But you also said that, as a comic, you should want liberty, not freedom. What do you mean by that?

PO: I think people mistake liberty and freedom, and they mistake having a lot of money and possessions with, “Now I’m fucking free, I’ve got two cars and a house.” But that actually limits your liberty. I remember Tom Lennon saying, “I don’t want to own a house that’s gonna force me to do things to keep it.” Me, too. I have a very tiny house in Burbank. I drive an 8-year-old car. I’m gonna drive it into the ground. I enjoy what I enjoy. I wanna have enough money, to steal from Hercule Poirot, to meet my needs and my caprices, but I don’t want to be this, “Oh, my fucking monthly nut. I hate this goddamn movie, but I’ve gotta do it.  I don’t want to get that way. People always mistake liberty and freedom. Liberty is where I have enough money now. Having enough money has to go hand in hand with living in a way that you’re not being a slave to your possessions. Now you have enough money to do exactly what you want to do.

Alright, it’s that time again, the single best part of the whole calendar year.  No, I’m not talking about Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or any of that mess.  Not even Festivus.  I’m talking about End Of Year Music List Time!  That special moment when we can all come together and argue for hours on end about the exclusion or inclusion of this or that band that nobody will even remember next December.  OK, folks, dig in below the jump.

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Canon Fodder is a new feature in which I try to trim some fat off the bloated carcass of the film canon while also figuring out a less groan-inducing name for the series.

Entry One: A Clockwork Orange

Admittedly, A Clockwork Orange may seem a strange first entry for Canon Fodder. It’s not like it was universally loved upon its release in 1971, with critical luminaries like Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris, and Roger Ebert slamming it as repellent, corrupt, and even immoral. But, over time, a consensus has coalesced that Clockwork is a seminal work, a cutting satire ahead of its time, another notch of brilliance in a genius’s belt. Well, I don’t want to pull the punch bowl away right when the party gets going, but I think they were right the first time: A Clockwork Orange is just not that good of a movie.

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of iconic scenes and images here. But a few memorable shots and montages alone don’t make a great movie. And I also want to make clear that, while I agree with the 70’s critics I mentioned that Clockwork is lame, I don’t share their sense of moral outrage. I’m not offended by the film. I’m just bored.

One early clue something’s up (or off) is that the book it’s based on by Anthony Burgess is often described as ‘hilarious’ and ‘darkly funny’. But yet the movie starts and stays utterly devoid of humor, unless you find inherent comedy in words like ‘droog’ or ‘yarbles’, or think violence set to inappropriately upbeat music is by itself a laugh riot. OK, but it’s not a laugh-out-loud kind of ‘comedy’, fans say, it’s a satire. But by that measure, it fails even harder. Let me explain.

Here’s the structure of the movie:

1. Alex and his equally idiotically-attired friends rape, murder and generally wreck hoodlum-type havoc on their community, usually set to classical music.

2. Alex is apprehended and kept in prison for two years until he agrees to undergo a experimental new therapy called the Ludovico Technique. This consists of strapping him to a chair, forcing his eyes open, and making him watch a series of violent and grotesque acts projected in front of him, set to his favorite music, Beethoven’s 9th. The scientists have given Alex a drug that causes him violent nausea, rendering the sickening feeling, the music, and the images forever linked in his mind.

3. Alex, now a neutered shell of himself, is released to the streets. He is powerless against both his former victims and colleagues, and they proceed to take their revenge on him. One of them locks him a room and plays Beethoven’s 9th, which is now so noxious to him that he jumps out of a window to end it all. He wakes up in a hospital to find that his unsuccessful suicide attempt has put the government in an awkward and unpopular position. He agrees to publicly make amends with the prime minister in exchange for a cushy job, and the movie ends with the two smiling for the cameras while Alex subversively dreams of public sex.

The last line is Alex saying “I was cured, all right!” over this fantasy, keeping with the sledgehammer-subtle touch Kubrick utilized for the preceding 135 minutes. The message, the moral, the reason we stayed awake for all that cartoonishly staged, yet surprisingly dull, mayhem turns about to be that “You can’t force someone to be good.” That’s it? That’s your big revelation? That’s the target of this toothless satire? Doesn’t seem worth it.

Besides illustrating the adolescent and obvious messaging behind the movie, I wanted to show the synopsis to also point out how flawed the structuring is, rendering the plot painfully predictable for the entire last third. As soon as the first revenge is taken, only an idiot would fail to see what’s coming and what’s coming is a tedious rehash of what we just saw in the first third. The viewer is trapped, like Alex, watching pointless random violence, for what feels like an eternity, towards ends that are cruel and dubious.

And unlike some of Kubrick’s other duds – say, Eyes Wide Shut, this one can’t even carry you along with pretty pictures. The movie does have its share of memorable images, but overall, this is one of Kubrick’s least visually compelling films. The style is intentionally flat and static. There’s often a case for such an aesthetic, but here it’s just another element adding to a thematically monochromatic movie. And Kubrick’s penchant for cold coloring, distance, and wide-angle lensing means we never get close enough to either Alex or his victims to sympathize with their pains or their pleasures. The observer has no choice but to be detached with the wide berth the director gives them.

Oh, and the acting! We have to talk about the acting. Malcolm McDowell’s unhinged exuberance is the best part of the movie, but even he’s made to slip into the stock “Kubrick Crazy” look once too often: face tilted down, eyes agog, a bit of drool escaping his lips. But Patrick Macgee outdoes him in this regard, giving what has to be one of the worst performances of the 1970’s as his victim/tormentor Mr. Alexander. Kubrick’s sole direction to him in the last third must have been: “Look down. OK, now look crazy.” because that’s all he seems capable of doing.  See how he wins the Crazy Face award below:

In summation, A Clockwork Orange is reactionary, bombastic, and most annoyingly, boring as all hell. I submit that the attention and praise that the Cult of Kubrick lavishes on it be diverted to a more worthy work of his like, say, the phenomenal and oft forgotten Paths of Glory. I rest my case.

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