Movie Monday: Frances Ha

Happy Monday! You've made it! :) I'm not sure that every Monday will be movie-based, so bear with me. Now, if you remember, I spoke last week about a movie I had seen that brought up so many questions. That movie was Frances Ha. The questions that it brought about were not questions of any sort of negativity toward the movie itself. I found the movie to be so wonderful and relatable and I cannot recommend it enough. The questions that it brought about stemmed from the one damn question Netflix insisted on asking me after the movie was over: "Do you prefer movies with a strong female lead?"

Alright, I'm about to go off on a very feminist rant (because they're kind of my thing). So, if you don't enjoy that, I'd suggest stopping here. Look, Netflix and every other entity in the free world, it is 2014. 14 YEARS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY. When will movies, books, art, etc. stop being described with any kind of feminine connotation and just be about the work itself? After a Bruce Willis movie, you're not asked "Do you prefer movies with a strong, bald white man in a lead role?" I am so baffled by reviews that I read that insist on describing women's work with as much feminine verbiage as you can shake a stick at. Can you not just describe a work of art/literature/music as being whatever adjective you so choose without basically screaming to the world that it was done by a woman? If you wrote a great book, you wrote a great book. Who cares if you have a vagina? Which brings me to another point. Can we all stop being scared of the word vagina? That's what it's called. Deal with it. You're a grown up.

I hope to one day live in a world, and raise my daughters in a world, where the merit of a work is not based on gender at all. HUZZAH! How wonderful would that be? I want to be able to look at a work of art, read a book, what have you, without the artist's gender thrown in my face. If I feel a genuine connection to your work, that's all that matters to me. And should be all that matters to anyone. Don't let your sons feel ashamed for liking something that may be predominately seen as "feminine." I was reading this incredibly interesting article the other day about YA novels and how, because of the cover design, boys are being taught to steer clear of them. Who gives a damn about the cover? If you want to read it, READ IT. Literature is something so deep and close to my soul, that I cannot imagine picking over something because it seemed "too masculine." Honestly, that's such shit. I would be more concerned with raising my sons to be polite, well-mannered, intelligent, productive members of society.

Annnnnd, that was quite the tangent I just went off on. Clearly, the title of this post is also a bit misleading. Oops. Sometimes a good feminist rant is just needed. Tomorrow we'll be back to more lighthearted fare :)