Melissa Silverstein: Gender Reassignment Required

"And the thing I keep telling people is go support a woman directed movie," insisted Melissa Silverstein declared on WBAI's Women Media Center program January 4th. And yet she really doesn't.

In that interview alone, she was praising New Moon as speaking to women and blah blah blah. Left out of her raving over a bad, bad teeny-bop crap-fest was the fact that this sequel to Twilight was, unlike the first film,
directed by a men.

"And the thing I keep telling people is go support a woman directed movie," insisted Melissa Silverstein.

"Here's the thing," she said only minutes later, "I am -- I'm not going to take any props away from Kathryn Bigelow and what she did but she made a boy movie. She made a movie that blow things up. And that's why she's going to win, because the boys like her movie. [. . .] But it's a war movie and I'm just going to say it's a boy movie."

"It's a boy movie!" hollers Dr. Melissa spanking it on the ass and setting back the cause of feminism. Can we get Melissa signed up for gender reassignment because her behavior is not helping feminism but perfectly in keeping with the sexism we would expect from a man.

A movie is a movie, the audience is the audience. And women in film have had to battle for advances whether they're actresses, writers, directors, DPs, you name it. They have to battle sexist notions of what a woman can and cannot do and what a woman will and will not accept onscreen.

Melissa Silverstein opens her mouth and doesn't just stumble over "statistics" (she is unable to pronounce that word properly), she hurts the cause.

Gender stereotypes. Feminism exploded them. Among the many feminist battles (none of which Melissa seems aware of) was getting little girls on the packages of model trains. Girls played with trains. But the (male run) companies were convinced that if girls were put on the package, boys wouldn't want to play with trains anymore. Gloria Steinem wrote about that in her essay "Sex, Lies, and Advertising" (first published in Ms. magazine, later collected in Steinem's Moving Beyond Words). So Ms. couldn't get model train ads. So Ms. couldn't get this car or that car ad. Because of gender stereotypes.

And at this late date, Melissa's labeling films "boy movies" and "girl movies."

Not content to attack only in the New York region, she shows up at Women's Media Center last week yet again attacking Bigelow.

For those who do not know, Bieglow is only one of four women ever nominated for a Best Director Academy Award (feature film), only the second American woman. Tonight she may very well be the first to win. If she does, it will be because of her tremendous talent and she got a lot of support from women and men in the industry but she got very little support from women in the commentary set. Damn little.

They attacked her, they ripped her apart. It wasn't enough that she compete with the men nominated this year for Best Director, they also wanted to pit her against every 'good' woman who's ever directed a film.

And last week, Melissa typed up more of her drivel, "In spite of the deep and abiding desire to see a woman break through this particular glass ceiling, the real possibility that the first Oscar award winning woman director will win for making a war film is almost a kick in the gut to many who make the types of films that most interest female ticket buyers." A war movie isn't an area for women? Someone tell it to Kimberly Peirce who directed the powerful Stop-Loss (2008). Tell it to Nancy Dowd who won her Academy Award for writing Coming Home (1978). Tell it to Jane Fonda who not only won an Academy Award (her second) for acting in that film, but whose production company (IPC) made the film. Tell it to Dorothy Arzner who was often the only women director as the talkies came to the forefront and who directed the war film First Comes Courage (1943). Tell it to Lillian Hellman who wrote the script to The North Star (1943). Tell it to Dawn Steel who, as the president of Columbia Pictures, championed Casualties of War. Tell it to June Mathis who wrote the script to The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (1921). Tell it to Joan Chen who directed Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (1998). Tell it to Ann Hui who directed Boy From Vietnam (1978), The Story of Woo Viet (1981) and Boat People (1982). Tell it to Nancy Savoca who directed Dog Fight (1991).

And you know what? We can go and on and on.

Because war is something that effects men and women.

Melissa Silverstein wants to grump that Kathryn Bigelow directed a film about war -- apparently neither the Afghanistan War nor the Iraq War has touched Melissa. How lucky for her. Listening to her plug her favorite film of late, by her favorite film maker, it was as though she were describing a spot of Earl Grey Tea, taken on the back porch, with an afghan tossed over her lap. That may be her idea of nirvana but many film goers would reject that notion.

Just when you think it can't get any worse, Melissa plays the card you'd hoped she wouldn't.

"Not surprisingly," huffs Melissa and you can just hear the long meow coming, "the men seem to love Bigelow the person. [. . .] It's just that the men like her -- a lot. They like the way she looks, the way she talks, and of course that she made a movie that blows things up."

Oh Goddess. We had thought, after all the catty attacks on Gloria Steinem during the early part of the second wave, all the carping about her looks and trying to discredit her because men found her attractive, we had thought the days of attempting to discredit a woman due to her being good looking were long, long gone. But, no, Melissa wants to make it about looks.

Excuse us, Melissa, you write about film. Could you please refer us to any other piece you've written where a male director's looks were commented on?

It's amazing that Melissa wants to reference a 2008 column by Gloria Steinem because Melissa's entire output reads like that of a writer who really needs to familiarize herself with the works of Gloria Steinem and other feminists.

Tonight, Kathryn Bigelow may beat the odds, may become the first woman to win Best Director, having directed the amazing film The Hurt Locker. If she does, it'll be a great moment for art, a great moment for directing, a great moment for women and a great moment for Kathryn. What it will not be is a moment that the commentary set, female division, can claim credit for because instead of attempting to help Kathryn become the first or even just shutting their mouths throughout the process so as to do no harm, they have worked overtime to actively defeat her. And that Women's Media Center ran Melissa's garbage is deeply, deeply disturbing. A woman's place -- pay attention, Melissa -- is wherever the hell she damn well wants to be.

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This piece was written by Ava, C.I., Dona, Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man and
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz).