Sofia Coppola feminism: dependent on class, race, and cultural subjugation
by guest contributor blackamazon, originally published at Having Read the Fine Print…
I have recently taken to using a term “Sofia Coppola feminism” and I intended to define it and then had an awesome/interesting time for the past couple of days but with the rising of the ugly head of this, felt it was apropos.
In short, SCF or “hipster feminism” is a parasitic feminism that not only ignores but is dependent on class, race, and cultural appropriation and subjugation. It is a feminism that demands emptiness (real or invented) of reflection, instead replacing it with self involvement. It requires that culture and emotion be reduced to tropes and materials so that possession of these trinkets is possession of the cultural significance. Removing it from actual experience and grounding it in blank slate whiteness and upper class (educationally or monetarily) wrenches it from the hands of those who experience it and tries to force them into a position of subjugation if they reject the positioning.
I came up with the term in my head when I was reading coverage of Marie Antoinette, Coppola’s most recent film. The article was in GQ and there was this kind of flip dismissal of the French booing
with words like
“It’s booing they do it more in Europe”
or
Well it’s art?
or
THEY’RE JUST JEALOUS
or
It’s what the French do….
Please understand I have not seen this film yet but my first reaction, being familiar with the director, the subject, and the director’s previous work is
VIVA LA FRANCE!
SCF ( the acronym) is a feminism that takes the idea “the personal is political” and runs AWAY with it in an awful, self absorbed, culturally decentering, yet culturally parasiting way.
SC’s three films have the proud distinction of being movies that I can’t sit through.
And I mean I can’t as in I watched The Virgin Suicides in bits and pieces over seven years before my rolling my eyes as the dumbshit kicks in.
Her talent is very visual and shehas an amazing facility for capturing ephemera.
Except she constantly tries to force this ephemera, this barely there-ness into some heavy social context.
The Virgin Suicides focuses on whiteness and pureness as the holy grail, meanwhile almost unmoors it entirely from the specificity of time frame, and the graveness of the matter.
The fact that all the girls died was less important than that they were these ephemeral creatures of light, the fact that they were abandoned by the community is less important than that all the boys wanted them.
The movie is complicit in making emptiness and the ability to be absorptive and almost formless, desirable in a way I don’t think happens in the novel.
Lost in Translation makes me violent.
It’s a racist bullshit piece of crap that had the added bonus of giving me Scarlett Johannson (whom according to that thing on my heritage I look reasonably like).
It is a movie about the shock of realizing that the world isn’t all white and that life takes work. A woman who gives up her life to follow her husband while he is working is shocked when he works.
The Japanese are presented as these odd people who are so strange and why won’t they be more understandable, in their own fucking country.
One montage that sticks out is the commercial filming which turns absolutely hilarious that the translator translates. The director is a pretentious milksop who gives way too many words to shit that ain’t that deep?
SO this is different from every other self-involved milksop how….
He’s Japanese! The isolation is not the punch line, the director isn’t, his culture in his own country is the punch line.
It succeeds by venerating whiteness as a uniter rather than commonality. Being boring, self-involved and generally distasteful is okay as long as you’re wry.
College classmates justified that I was being harsh because Tokyo was so foreign. Except
MOTHERFUCKING DUH
It’s this subtle shift from your life being the comfortable to being the new standard that is so prevalent.
SC prides herself on women as empty vessels thrust into odd situations wherein they supposedly have no control. It’s helplessness as a feminist standpoint.
It prides the making of social contacts whose only purpose is to affirm your specialness.
Marie Antoinette was of course the next logical step. She’s so misunderstood. She’s like a woman during bad tabloids! It’s so wrong. The peasants revolted not because they were starving and being lied to and ignored but because they had it in for the lady with the pretty shoes.
Except she was queen, she wasn’t some one completely powerless , but presenting her as powerless allows her excess to be candy-coated confection rather than direct conscious depravation of her people.
SC cuts connections, blurs lines and tries to wrest control of various cultural significators so that her characters, who aren’t fully formed but merely ciphers passing through, can be affirmed.
What’s more, she does it at the expense of their humanity, depth and frailty. Rather than construct or truly examine ways that they’re molded or mold themselves or interact with things to achieve this uselessness or this featherweight-ness , she establishes it as the center of the narrative and leaves it as if anyone who objected is simply gauche and uncultured or odd for not reveling in its beauty.
SCF does the same whatever the topic, whatever the concern. It makes a conscious effort to sever it from interaction with the world or others. It is as if any weight or concern to it would prevent the ability to have adornment while purposely lightening others’ concerns to market the self (or central female) as the only thing that matters. While purposely leaching and using anything to affirm its existence.
What’s more is that both the film style and the feminism style has a very nasty undercurrent of “if you can’t use pretty shiny, smart things to justify your placement at the center, your wasting away, psychic damage, or literal starvation is unfortunate but not paramount.”
Life should come easy and it is only until you’re made to live it (which is so mean and so the fault of patriarchy/foreigners or meanies/POCs/peasants) and when you are it isn’t because a world exists outside of you but simply because the world is intruding on you as you (special white women) are the center of the universe.
It’s a feminism that ultimately has such little confidence in itself that it must be made pretty by the starvation of innocents, the ignorance of culture, and self immolation to survive.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Maysie wrote:
I really enjoyed this article! The only film of the 3 that I’ve seen is Lost in Translation and I also hated it. Thank you for putting into words exactly why I hated it so much. All I could say about it afterwards was incoherent sputtering about racism and othering and entitlement as entertainment.
I certainly never would have thought to call SC a feminist ever, and I wonder if that’s something the mainstream media have done, perhaps because her movies focus on (white) women’s journeys (ha!) that de facto means her work is feminist. An analysis as simple as it is wrong.
Posted 03 Nov 2006 at 9:03 am ¶
sarahkim wrote:
Great article, thanks for posting! I have to admit that I’ve never seen any of SC’s films, even Lost in Translation, the main reason being that I didn’t like the vibe I got from the previews and press. It came out around the same time as Kill Bill, Vol. 1, which I loathed, and I wasn’t in the mood to see yet another film where Japanese people were in the background as the exotic Other. Anyway, as the person above said, thanks for putting into words why I’ve been so turned off by SC….
Posted 03 Nov 2006 at 11:56 am ¶
bertie wrote:
I have never understood SC’s “talent.” While I can appreciate her visual abilities (she’d make a decent music video director), her story-telling, and point of view are horrendous. Watching Lost in Translation is like watching a 2 hour pity-party, with 2 people not worthy of my pity. I do not understand why hollywood critics have embraced her.
Posted 03 Nov 2006 at 6:23 pm ¶
mtevc wrote:
I hated Lost in Translation too. Can you say “lack of plot?” If you are wondering about Sofia’s talent, let’s all say “nepotism” in unison.
Posted 04 Nov 2006 at 5:15 pm ¶
RobynT wrote:
Ugh, I didn’t like Virgin Suicides or Lost in Translation either. Well I guess for VS, I just felt Eh and wondered what everyone else saw in it. For LiT, yeah I thought it was too emo and was uncomfortable with how they depicted Japan. What really confuses me though is all my smart, feminist, Asian Am friends who like this stuff…
Posted 04 Nov 2006 at 6:38 pm ¶
Ziadie wrote:
Thank you for giving a person born and raised in an American culture as multiracial a chance to see the contrary to SC. So many people around me love her, and I could never seem to stomach her truly but couldn’t understand why. I’m not saying that this article gave me realization however but more an urge to explore how popular images can be distorted to be “interesting, or even liked”, aimed only to the dominant culture, which does not except or even take care to note cultural differences involved.
Posted 05 Nov 2006 at 10:22 am ¶
Daniel wrote:
Wow, Great post! Now, tell us how you really feel! Seriously, I never looked that deeply into her motivations or thinking, I just find her movies boring. I fell asleep 1/3 into The Virgin Suicides, so I am not really qualified to comment on it beyond that. For me, she is a healthy alternative to a sleeping pill.
Posted 07 Nov 2006 at 2:40 pm ¶
Christie wrote:
I’m white and live in Japan, and HATED the way Japan and Japanese people were depicted in Lost in Translation. It was so insulting and horrible. The white people in the movie were also horrible. And what was the point supposed to be, anyway? If anyone knows, please explain. Sorry, it was all lost on me… just distasteful. Maybe it seems more relevant or brilliant to people who don’t know Japan at all and can’t see how warped the view of Japan is. Or was she trying to do this ironically, yet without making it clear to the audience that this is just the fresh-off-the-plane, white characters’ warped view? I came away thinking that it is probably just Sofia Coppola’s warped viewpoint. Sick…
Posted 11 Nov 2006 at 3:25 am ¶
I am not Star Jones wrote:
Have you ever watched Sofia’s debut short, LICK THE STAR?
The film is about junior high school girls battling it out for who can be Queen Bee. I mention it be because since that short (completed 1998 and sold to IFC and FilmMovement.com — she has excellent connections!) nothing has changed in her interests or passions when it comes to filmmaking. I’ve seen The Virgin Suicides and Lost In Translation.
Refuse to see Marie Antoinette because I can watch the Bush twins for free.
Back to Sofia:
If she’s such a trendsetter, why isn’t she interested in growing intellectually or spiritually?
And yet — Hollywood rewards her with an Academy Award and more work! And people think she’s a symbol of supporting women progressing in Hollywood.
She has been invited to do a panel for women filmmakers at NYU numerous times and she always says no. Something tells my heart, Sofia would sooner be stuck in naked and penniless Baghdad than help any other woman working in Hollywood today.
Thank you for the post — it sums up my feelings exactly after reading her interview with Evgenia Peretz (another marginally talented child of privilege) in ‘Vanity Fair’.
The next time some deluded film lover starts raving about Sofia Coppola and her *vast* talents, I will have the link handy.
Posted 19 Nov 2006 at 6:18 pm ¶
Roger Skulnik wrote:
blackamazon:
a brilliant critique of S. Coppola’s work. I was dismayed when she won an Oscar (not that bad work doesn’t often get it!) for her screenplay of Lost in Translation… but for different reasons than the ones you so devastatingly lay out.
To me, the Bill Murray character is quickly shown to be a sour guy trapped in a loveless marriage for the sake of his kids, whom he adores.
The leading lady is as you describe her.
Various events lead to their NOT consummating their affair… & so we have a movie that does not stretch or challenge the possibilities of character… & becomes just one more portrait of malaise, as demonstrated by a particular hotel this time in Japan… tho the setting could be, and has been, anywhere where people do not connect.
I’d still prefer to see the kind of movie where people do connect, and have something at stake in their conflicts.
Posted 18 Oct 2007 at 6:46 pm ¶
Chapman wrote:
I cannot say that I agree with this article. While I understand it, I believe that it is a misrepresentation of Sofia Coppola’s work as an auteur. I wouldn’t debate the fact that her work idolizes whiteness, as I cannot remember seeing a black man or a notable person of another ethnic group in any of her three theatrical debuts (well there was a Hispanic kid in Virgin Suicides… what was his name? Exactly).
Coppola’s films exhibit feminism dependent upon women in certain classes and cultures. In The Virgin Suicides (1999), the film focuses on adolescent women who long to escape the establishment of their overprotective parents. We could say this is a metaphor of young women yearning to escape the establishment of right-wing ideals in the 70s, which is when the film takes place.
As for Lost in Translation (2003), which seems to be unanimously despised, I found the film delightfully plotless. I did not see a white-absorbed film that views anything unAmerican as weird and incomprehensible. I see the film as an expression of young women feeling lost in the world. Sure her husband works while she stays at home, but that is how it was for a very long time. Is the film commenting on the bored wife of the nuclear family? Or is Coppola reaching the young females of today who feel lost and out of place (where better to symbolize feeling out of place than in Tokyo?). She only finds comfort with the middle-aged man who is facing his own struggling marriage and is also lost in translation. Together they find meaning, but not sexually (which is why I find this film so fascinating), but rather by fulfilling one another’s needs.
Finally, there is Marie Antoinette (2006). Most people hate it, which I don’t find surprising. The film is historically bankrupt, has a dragging story and features Kirstin Dunst and Jason Schwartzman (no attempt at a French accent here) in all their white glory, trying to rule France. Wow… It isn’t a great film, but it isn’t a steaming pile of dung, either. The film is about the same thing the others are: a young woman out of place. The film is gorgeous, also. As for its inaccuracy in history, the film is aware of this. The soundtrack is full of 80’s pop hits. Coppola is using the name of Marie Antoinette to tell the story of a woman who is out of place in her world, not a historical epic. Take for instance the Leonardo de Caprio remake of Romeo and Juliet. Same case.
So please, before you hack Coppola apart, understand that her films have deeper meanings than “White people rock and Japanese people are weird!” I’ll stand by her.
Posted 24 Nov 2007 at 5:39 pm ¶
Lauren T. wrote:
This is a very apt commentary on both “hipster feminism” in general and Sofia Coppola’s work in particular.
I couldn’t agree more with your conclusions.
The Other-izing of the Japanese in Lost in Translation is crude and certainly made me uneasy during my first viewing of the film. The movie had its merits, I must admit, but its dismissive and mocking tone shouldn’t be ignored.
The Virgin Suicides couldn’t have been more shameless in its enshrinement of white purity, and I agree that it must have differed notably in tone from the book on which it was based.
And don’t get me started on the trivial waste that is Marie Antoinette (granted, it was pretty and shiny and fun! yay!).
Thanks for the piece.
Posted 04 Jan 2008 at 8:01 pm ¶
Ann wrote:
I don’t think this was a very apt critique. I didn’t like Marie Antoinette, but I’ll say first that I know a little bit about Marie Antoinette. She wasn’t the evil myth she was made out to be later on, but she was well-meaning and a bit clueless. It’s wrong to paint Sofia Coppola as being some sinister, vacant airhead who is determined to make rich women the object of our compassion. I think she’s just saying that she saw another Marie Antoinette, one who was silly and ignorant but also a real human being. I’m all for social justice and equality, but I also know that the people who are most against good policies are often clueless and ignorant, not malevolent beings. Some are, but not all, and Ms. Coppola understood that. The ending was terribly weak, but the movie also showed us a scared young woman who grappled in her own way to find meaning.
But the bigger point I take issue with is this idea that Lost in Translation was some sort of breeze-brain film which hates Japanese people. What? Are you kidding? I can’t believe people really said that. What movie did you see? If you want to see racism, fine. Go ahead and reduce it to that, but it wasn’t about that at all. Lost in Translation acknowledges that people, people close to us, don’t know us. We don’t even know ourselves, we can’t express ourselves. And somehow, a stranger can. Can we dare make a film about different cultures without it being deemed racist? I hate to bring up something which everyone here seems ignorant of, but: cultures are different. It’s not always all about race, and to do so is to miss the forest for the trees. The people of Texas and the people of rural Maine and the people of Manhattan are all very, very different from one another. In some places everyone is white, in some places everyone is hispanic, in some places there’s some of each, but the cultures themselves are different. Why is everyone so hell-bent on attacking her work as racist? It just acknowledges what it’s like to wake up in a strange world. Not bad, not less-than, just strange. Just different. She wanted to make a movie of things she thought were beautiful (and if anyone of you had ever read what she said about it, you would know that). She thought Tokyo beautiful, she thought it broadened her worldview, she loved those people and is friends with many of the Japanese who appeared in the film. She also knew that Tokyo was different than the place she was from, and in those differences she attempted to show how we struggle to find our way in a world which all of us often feel like strangers in.
This was a close-minded article. It was written with an attitude of judgement, not openness, not willingness to see new perspectives. I consider myself a feminist, a liberal, an advocate against racism and prejudice everywhere. This article was prejudiced. It’s one thing to not like a movie, but this was for all the wrong reasons.
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 9:55 pm ¶
lisa wrote:
Perhaps if I read this article a month ago, I may have agreed with the author in regards to the racism and ignorance of Lost in Translation but now just coming back from a month long trip in Japan, I can see that the story is in fact a depiction of Japan through the eyes of a first time visitor. I think this is what many people disregard. It is about the first time experience in Japan. Yes, the country feels extremely foreign. And no, this isn’t surprising on a whole, but it is the little things that remind you that you are worlds away. One scene that could be concidered racist is when the shower nozzle is too low for Bill Murray. This scene is completely authentic. I stayed in 5 different hotels/hostels/ryokan and am 5′4″ and had to crouch down to each shower nozzle. That is just one of the many scenes that were true adaptations for a first time visitors to Tokyo. Again, First time visitors to Tokyo.
Posted 21 Jul 2008 at 1:01 pm ¶