First: people, please don't feed the trolls. It is no accident brightstar's initials are BS.

Onward to commentary on the actual piece: Loved it. Thanks, Salon. My two cents is a reiteration of a very basic premise underlying this whole discussion: Hollywood movies are mostly terrible, and getting worse. I never watch them to feel aesthetically or intellectually fed anymore--the most I hope to get from a film-going experience these days is artful, over-the-top cinematic sensationalism along the lines of Kill Bill. But the flicks Hollywood has produced with me (a chick) in mind as a core audience member are inevitably the movies that send me screaming from the multiplex. To my mind, chick flicks are inevitably the worst offenders when it comes to unrealistic and insulting depictions of women (What Women Want? It aint Mel Gibson). The last convincing female character I remember seeing on the big screen is Laura Linney's flawed mother in Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. (Thank god for Laura Linney.) Squid was very much a boy's story, but the film itself certainly wasn't gendered in the stupid, reductive ways the studios so often fall prey to.

These days, if I want convincing, engrossing characters--either male or female--I turn to TV. . .wonderful, wonderful television. The Sopranos, Deadwood, Huff, Mad Men, The Wire (my god! The Wire!)--stories that aren't afraid to feature female characters who are just people doing their thing; stories that face the reality of sexism in women's lives head-on, that depict real women grappling with it, manipulating it, colluding with it, even sometimes triumphing over it. There's something completely fearless about the worlds these shows depict--they're not afraid to craft female characters who are every bit as nuanced, complex and fully realized as the males. For whatever reason, this just isn't the case on the big screen. Indeed, maybe it's just a matter of size--the studio heads are terrified at the thought of projecting real human women up there, larger than life.

I appreciate the advice on how best to show my gratitude to Salon, but until the content returns to what it was lo those many years ago when I WAS a proud premium subscriber, I'll continue to sit through the ads and throw out the occasional note of appreciation when it's merited. I actually can't wait for the day Salon's content is consistently worth paying for again. It's glimmers like this piece that keep me coming back in hope.

Well. . .that and brightstar of course.

. . .to both Broadhsheet and Canukistan Bob. Bob, you do your country proud. Let's go snowmobiling sometime.

xo,

"How could anyone troll an article like this? Is there anything to comment other than grief for the girl, and grief for the system?"

--bcrawfo

bcrawfo, you poor sweet naïve fool. I give you: Brightstar.

And once again reading the fucktard-infested letters section of Broadsheet requires me to take a shower afterward.

Thanks for the heads-up re: S. Korean cinema, I had no idea.

It's fascinating to me what a no-winner this topic is for "feminists"--whoever they are. Who, exactly, are you talking about when you say "feminists" have no right to tell you what to wear on your head? On the opposite side of the spectrum, who are you talking about when you complain "feminists" are doing nothing to help Muslim women? First of all, where is this cadre of powerful, vocal, high-profile feminists who could apparently be having such a felicitous influence on the lives of their oppressed sisters (or else are constantly, brutally foisting their superficial middle-class values upon them)? Feminist organizations, where they exist, are chronically undermined, underfunded, and persistently ridiculed and deemed irrelevant in the greater public sphere. It is a constant struggle to get our voices heard, let alone effect some kind of change.

All that your average disenfranchised feminist of today can do when she hears about the oppression of other women is speak out against it. When there's a question as to whether or not that oppression exists, we discuss it and hash it out, just like what's happening on this thread (and are promptly lambasted for being 'indulgent', 'equivocal,' 'morally relativist', etc--but Jesus Christ! At least we're trying to figure it out, which is more than a lot of people can say). The anonymous schoolteacher whose post I think was very honest and heartfelt says:

"I don’t want to say that all Muslim women are oppressed but, when Muslim women are oppressed, feminist organizations are not interested, thank you very much."

With all due respect, this isn't fair. I remember when Bush used the treatment of women under the Taliban as justification for his war, all the right-wing pundits got behind him and, for good measure, used it as an excuse to slam "Feminism" as well. Why hadn't "the feminists" been all over this? It was up to the Bush administration to look after women in Afghanistan, whereas white, privileged middle-class "feminists" clearly couldn't care less! Well, that was bullshit, but most people didn't know any better than to believe it, because most people don't actually pay attention to what real feminists are doing, writing and reading about. I'd known about the Taliban years before 911. I knew about it from reading Ms. Magazine, for christ's sake. It's very easy for people who pay no attention whatsoever to feminist media to make assumptions with regard to what "feminists" do, or do not, care about. These people keep painting "Feminism" as some kind of monolithic, powerful institution with wide-ranging influence. It's not. It's on the fringe, and getting fringey-er every day. Yet somehow this disparate, disenfranchised, disregarded coalition of like-minded souls is expected to take the weight of the world on its shoulders and then is blamed and further ridiculed for ineffectuality when it can't bear up.