Where are all the women?

Ever since I started taking ENG 380: Problems of Western Civilization, my feminist eyes (which I didn’t even know I had) have been progressively opened. Example: a simple outing to the Regent Movie Theatre yesterday was an eye-opening one.

I was on the bus, coming back from having had battery replaced at the mall—can you believe I survived half a week without a watch?—when I ran into a member of Film Interest Floor (a double suite in which I have several friends). He told me that a bunch of them were going to see American Gangster and invited me to come along. As this is one movie for which I have actually happened to see previews (I must admit, this has been one benefit to watching House every week), I decided that it looked intriguing enough. Also, a social outing to a movie would be at least marginally more productive than spending my afternoon brooding over the fact that I was not in upper state NY with the rest of the swim team. Thus, I went to see the 4:15pm showing of American Gangster.

For those of you not familiar with this movie, the basic plot is this: Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, the lacky for one of NYC’s big crime bosses. Early in the movie, his boss dies, and Frank takes his place, expanding and improving his heroin operation with the introduction of an extremely pure strain called “Blue Magic.” Meanwhile, Richie Roberts—played by a somewhat stoutly Russell Crowe—is an ex-cop, booted from his position on the force for honestly turning in upwards of $900,000. Ever the “good guy,” he takes on NYC’s drug war, pursuing—inevitably—Frank and his family in the face of social and political opposition. (And yes, I did write that extremely catchy plot summary myself; can people make careers out of these sorts of things?)

Needless to say, before the movie even started, my “anti-woman radar” went on high alert. Movies nowadays seem intent upon barraging their audiences with images and sound from the moment you walk into the theatre. I honestly thought we were missing previews when we entered the screening room, there was so much noise and commotion going on on-screen. However, big flashy movie-esque advertisements are now the norm before movies; no more idle chatter while waiting for previews to begin. (If you want to talk, you’ll have to shout into the ear of the person sitting next to you, never mind trying to communicate with someone a few seats away.)

After a sexualized car ad and a rather repetitive Fandango ad (I suppose they work, though, because I did remember that brand name), a music video began to play. It was a new song by 3 Doors Down called “Citizen Soldier.” This video is apparently a simultaneous advertisement for the National Guard, which is a very interesting ploy on the part of both the entertainment industry as well as the department of defense, but that is not what I want to point out regarding this ad. As shocking as this entertainment/military combination may have seemed, what shocked me even more was the absence of women from the video.

I saw two women in the entire video. One was receiving a medal of some sort from an obviously higher-ranking man. The other was running to retrieve her child from a man who had obviously rescued him. There were no women combatants, not even in the scenes from current day wartime situations (as contrasted with those from revolutionary times, where I would not have expected to see any women). And yet, the lyrics say the following (the bolding is mine):
On that day, when you need your brothers and sisters to care.
I'll be right here.
Citizen soldiers.
Holding the light for the ones that we guide from the dark of despair.
Standing on guard for the ones that we've sheltered.
We'll always be ready because we will always be there.

By excluding women from the video, the producers (or the band? or the National Guard?) are making the implicit claim not only that women are not involved with war, but that we are in fact not citizens. If soldier-ship is equated with citizenship, and women are not soldiers, then women are obviously not citizens, either. And we thought we had achieved equality!

Now, this was all before the movie even began. I will allow that American Gangster was a period piece and, therefore, I am willing to accept many of the roles that women played as their “places” in that particular society. (For instance, I doubt there were many women cops serving as part of the NYPD in the 1970s.) However, women were not only treated as completely secondary characters in this movie, they were treated as stereotypically weak and cardboard figures, as well. Frank’s wife, Eva (played by Lymari Nadal) is chosen by him and follows along with his every whim. She plays the typical money-bulldozed wife of any rich man, who suffers silently and even when she does attempt to take a stand, ends up acquiescing and retreating back into silent assent. Most of the other women who appear in the movie are the heroin choppers: they are black, nude, and (literally) voiceless. (The only one with a line is the “head” of the operation, and even she only gets two lines, neither which were of any significance.)

The only woman who shows any strength at all throughout the movie is Frank’s mother—she threatens to leave him if he kills a cop. Yet, the strength of this influence is still questionable, because before Frank even has the opportunity to kill the cop, his drug operation is destroyed and Richie takes him into custody. Would he have killed the man, anyway? Would his mother’s having left him even mattered? Is that all the influence women have: the threat of disappearing?

According to “Citizen Soldier,” we weren’t even visible to begin with.