***There are a lot of spoilers in this post, so read at your own discretion. Also, this post is unusually long, so you might need to read it outside of your email browser.***
There’s a scene in Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet) – a best picture nominee about a woman who is suspected of killing her husband – where we watch Sandra (Sandra Hüller) and her husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) fight. From the trial surrounding Samuel’s death, we learn that their marriage was complicated and far from idealistic. It seems that they were both unhappy and, to varying degrees, were looking to find ways to fill their emptiness. The fight between them displays years of resentment, anger, dissatisfaction, and even the slightest hope that there is still some semblance of the person the other fell in love with. But what the fight is actually about is an unfair division of labor.
Samuel feels he has taken on a lot of responsibility for caring for their son and refurbishing their home. He wants more time to work, and he feels he’s made too many concessions for Sandra, which has allowed her writing career to blossom. Sandra disagrees.
She reminds him of her domestic work and argues that he’s often hid behind a false performance of generosity to avoid putting in the effort required to realize his potential. She’s mad that he’s blaming her for how his life has turned out. And likely, she’s mad that he’s assuming her life is any easier or better than his when what’s aggravating him affects her too.“You complain about the life that YOU chose!” she yells at him from the other side of the kitchen counter, her voice heavy and exasperated, “You are not a victim.” Her face is animated by fury, heartbreak, and utter conviction. The power of her words feel all the more impactful because we know she’s right, and Samuel, indignant, languid, and perhaps even in awe of her honesty, knows she’s right, too.
The whole scene is incredibly rich and effective. But these two lines especially have stuck with me because they elegantly get at the fundamental problem of womanhood under patriarchy: we do not get the same kinds of choices and are not offered the same protections or privileges as men.
These limitations of womanhood are usually most visible through marriage, motherhood, and the ways in which we are othered, usually because of our sexuality. In theory, the tensions in these social roles make them rich fodder for film. But often, these characters and stories aren’t handled with nuance or critical engagement, reproducing flat understandings of women’s lives, desires, and frustrations.
This week, I’m taking a closer look at women’s roles in the Best Picture Category and thinking about what the past year’s collection of wives, mothers, and sexual outliers in film has taught us about womanhood.
Wives:
Famously, I care very much about being a wife. But something that stresses me out to no end is the thought that I could marry the wrong man and give my life and love away to someone who absolutely does not deserve it. Such is the fate of most wives in the Best Picture Category.
Let’s start with Oppenheimer and Maestro, two biopics/”great man” movies. Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt) and Felicia Montealegre (Carrey Mulligan) find themselves married to men whose calling, genius, and/or hubris make them both difficult and easy to love. In both cases, Oppenheimer and Bernstein’s “greatness” initially attracts both women to their husbands. Over time, it’s also what leads to deep frustrations. Both men are completely immersed in their work and are guided by their belief that they are capable of greatness beyond what’s currently possible. As such, their wives both weigh them down as people asking for time and attention and yet are fundamental to their success as caretakers and support systems. Kitty and Felicia are thus expected to provide but ask for nothing in return. In a way, I read both films as suggesting that such is the burden of choosing great men to marry.
But what if you marry an idiot like Lily Gladstone’s character, Mollie Burkhart, in Killers of the Flower Moon? I find this pairing to be the most rich and interesting, largely because Mollie reads Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio) as a kind of trickster figure whose stupidity will always ensure his failure. And yet, she can’t deny being charmed by his simplicity and intrigued by his persistence. I appreciate that the film doesn’t cast her as an idiot for falling for him, but rather seeks to understand how love can make us believe in better and make us trust beyond reason, which is the kind of faith that makes the promise of marriage so daring and romantic. It also helps that the film doesn’t consider Mollie Ernest’s Wife but rather Ernest as Mollie’s Husband. She holds the power in the relationship, which is why she becomes the target of violence. The film doesn’t fault her for choosing him; instead, it highlights how often Ernest decides to ruin what is good.
In Past Lives, Greta Lee’s Nora may not be considered a wife figure, but marriage and long-term partnership are at the center of her story. Throughout the film, we watch Nora consider what her life could have been had she been with her childhood sweetheart in Korea, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). While it is somewhat implied that she has a stronger connection with Hae Sung than with her white American husband, Arthur (John Magaro), we also understand that her life and career would have looked so different had she married Hae Sung or moved back to Korea. “He’s so Korean,” she tells Arthur as they brush their teeth after spending the day with Hae Sung, who she hadn’t spoken to for 12 years, “like, sooo Korean.” His Koreanness becomes a kind of shorthand for a traditional life that it seems Nora does not want but maybe misses or envies because it grants a kind of cultural authenticity. Marriage then, and the deep love that it requires, is presented as a pathway to self-actualization, bringing forth and making possible versions of ourselves that are only legible with the help and love of our partners. When Nora ultimately decides to stay with Arthur, we understand that she’s choosing this version of herself and letting go of the version that her relationship with Hae Sung represents.
Across these relationships, we can see how choice is a critical aspect of marriage for women. We have to seriously consider who we marry because that choice impacts the outcomes of our lives (in heterosexual pairings at least). Although there isn’t room to get into how those choices are shaped, I think it’s worth noting that of these four examples, the white women are the ones who are defined by their marriages, and the Women of Color are challenged by their marriages.
Interestingly, this racial divide also maps onto the way these women are granted protections or sympathy. While Kitty is not necessarily a sympathetic character (she’s a drunk who pretty clearly hates being a wife and mother), her strife is still painful to witness. It is also suggested that her husband could intervene in the situation more. Similarly, we watch Felicia, who is in some ways passive to her husband's abuses, and understand that Bernstein’s fatal flaw is his inability to care more for the woman who cares for him so devotedly. And while we are compelled to be concerned for Mollie – especially when she’s so sick she can’t speak or move – and Nora, these women are also figured as strong enough to eventually land back on their feet, mostly because they aren’t as dependent on the men around them.
Mothers:
It’s a bit of a surprise that fewer films are centered around/featuring mothers. Still, perhaps it shouldn’t because motherhood is a relationship between women and children, and marriage is thought of as a relationship between women and men and The Academy almost exclusively cares about men. At any rate, it’s striking to me that the women whose roles are best described as mothers are also Women of Color.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s performance as Mary Lamb, a grieving mother and kitchen manager at the private school where the film is set, is my favorite part of The Holdovers. She plays the role with such warmth, humor, and emotional depth, which grounds the film for me. Admittedly, it’s hard for me not to read her character and the loss of her son, who was drafted into the Vietnam War, in the context of a wider history of Black motherhood in the US. As the head of the kitchen for a primarily white prep school, she can easily be characterized as “the help”/”mammie” figure, which I think the film tries to address by having a student say something racist about her allowing Paul Giamatti’s Mr.Hunham to come to her defense. In that moment, he’s a stand-in for the filmmaker and even the audience, who is appalled by the racism that she experiences. The scene, of course, does more to show how good Mr.Hunham is than it does to protect Mary.
But more interesting to me is the way we see Mary grieve her son, who was taken too soon and made to fight in a senseless war. There’s a brief moment where she alludes to the fact that most of the boys she serves at the school will be able to avoid being drafted because of their accumulated status and wealth enabled by their whiteness. Her son didn’t have the same privileges. And in turn, neither does her claim to motherhood. Again, her son's fate highlights the lack of choices offered to her. She can’t make a call or pull strings. She doesn't have the same tools of protection to use in his or her own defense. But knowing how the cards are stacked against her, she clings to the innocence of her child and the sanctity of her grief. In the absence of control or choice, she decides to focus on the most human parts of her and those she loves.
While I still struggle with my decision to categorize America Ferrera’s role in Barbie as a mom character, I can’t ignore how much of Ferrera’s role is oriented around caring for Barbie (Margot Robbie) and also about earning her daughter’s (Ariana Greenblatt) respect. At one point, she says, “I’m just a boring mom,” a loaded statement but one that I expect many women can resonate with. Like husbands, children demand a lot, so after what women give them, what is left or possible to make life exciting or self-satisfying? I think many mothers would say that being a mother does that, but I think what’s interesting about Ferrera’s role in Barbie is that her character wants to be a mom and so much more. A central question of Barbie is exploring those possibilities, but I don’t think it give us a good sense of what those options could be for Ferrera’s Gloria.
Sexual Outliers:
It cannot be ignored that two of the three women in this category die. Sexually deviant women – which is to say, pleasure-seeking women – are always punished, which is unfair and also deeply unsettling to watch on film.
Florence Pugh’s character Jean in Oppenheimer is one that I think will haunt me for the rest of my life. She’s manic, maybe deliriously in love, and legitimately mentally unwell. We mostly see her have sex or fight with Oppenheimer, occluding her from respectability and also denying her any real depth outside her relationship with him. Her death in the film functions to highlight Oppenheimer’s greatness because it's implied that she can’t live without him but also because she 1) was being so sexually promiscuous and 2), like Kitty, chose the wrong man to fall in love with. Similarly, Cara Jade Myers's character Anna, in Killers of the Flower Moon, is a tragic sexual figure whose indulgence in sex, drinking, and partying leaves her exposed to violence. In both cases, choosing to be sexually deviant results in ultimate punishment.
Although Barbie (Margot Robbie) isn’t sexual, it’s her decided uninterest in a romantic relationship with Ken (or anyone else for that matter) that marks her as a sexual outlier. Ultimately, her decision to be completely independent makes her a heroine – she is choosing to bravely open herself up to facing all of life’s trials, joys, and mixed experiences. While the film is keen to remind viewers that any path one chooses is fair and right, so long as it really is the choice you want to make, it’s also telling that Barbie can only experience the most freedoms and pleasure as a single woman. In light of the portrayals of mothers and wives, it makes sense why it might be best to go at this unpartnered and with a community of friends, as Barbie decides to do.
The Combos:
Wives + Sexual Outliers:
It’s rare that wife roles also explore sexuality in a meaningful way, but what I appreciate about Poor Things is its attempt to think about female sexuality as a method of self-actualization that is impeded by marriage. While we are left guessing what/who Bella Baxter is for most of the film, it eventually comes to light that she was married before she died and was reanimated. In her second life, she’s also constantly entertaining and changing her mind about marrying the men who love her/love sleeping with her.
It feels important to highlight how, in the film, marriage is figured as a methodology of possession that entraps women in unequal partnerships. For the most part, Bella realizes this and finds that the sexual freedom she enjoys as a single woman extends to freeing up her time and energy, allowing her to pursue her own questions and interests. In this example, choice, specifically when it comes to sex and relationships, is made to be the ultimate freedom. While Bella does experience her trials and emotional lows, they are not catastrophic (like for other sexual outliers) but rather are experiences that all give her information about herself. Like Barbie, she is choosing to embrace the mess of life.
But I think what makes this sexual freedom possible without major punishment is the fact that Bella maintains very clear boundaries and feels no qualms about doing so. Marriage, while nice in theory, doesn't work for her. But partnership outside of marriage does. Sex feels good for her, but only when she wants it and her partner(s) are willing to prioritize her pleasure alongside their own. While I’m not willing to call this film a feminist text, I think it’s doing a lot of interesting work around womanhood.
Wives + Mothers:
Generally, I don’t think there is much for the women in American Fiction. Still, I can’t deny that Leslie Uggam’s role as Agnes Ellison, the family matriarch, is central to the story unfolding. And I appreciate that she is genuinely a complicated figure. She seems to both love her late husband and understand how he failed as a husband and father. And while she loves her children, she’s pretty openly homophobic and disappointed that her son (Sterling K. Brown) is gay. There are things she is 100% wrong about and also things she is 100% right about. It feels fitting that she is most comfortable with her contradictions as she ages when one is likely most resigned to the fact that that’s how things are. She is also uninterested in changing because they are already that far. But it's striking that she only has the freedom to be honest because she is older and her husband is gone. While women, as they age, are often invisiblized, Agnes’s character suggests a kind of freedom that comes from not being under constant watch or scrutiny.
The Holy Trinity:
Where else could this survey end then with the woman who started it all: Sandra in Anatomy of Fall. She’s a wife (until she’s not), a mother, AND a sexual outlier. Throughout the film, we watch Sandra be on trial for the alleged murder of her husband, but really, what we watch is a woman getting told all the ways she’s wrong. Her husband’s therapist comes in to testify and basically tells the court that she was a terrible wife who made her husband depressed. When it comes up that her son became blind after an accident, she’s made to discuss how it’s challenged her and caused friction in her marriage, making her seem like a mother who does not love unconditionally. And it’s also brought up in court that she has had affairs, including with women, marking her not only as a bad wife but as queer as well. This movie gets into all of it and does not shy away from exposing how unfair and painful womanhood is. And at the same time, it also makes clear that only women are strong enough to endure the burden.
Going back to the lines in the fight that started this piece, Sandra and women, more broadly, aren’t given many choices. We can become wives, mothers, outliers, or a combination. But that’s it. That’s how we become legible to the world around us and how we then can access other social worlds and resources. That these are our options are functions of capitalism and patriarchy that rely on our labor and ability to reproduce socially. As this film makes evident, we also are not given much credit for that. We aren’t victims of patriarchy or capitalism because that would assume that harm was done to us. We don’t get to languish or lament. But as Sandra shows us, we have to act.
***
As I reflect on a pretty good year in film, I am left wanting more. This has been an exercise in thinking critically about women in movies, primarily about men, demanding I put in thoughtful excavation and careful attention. By no means is this observation meant to be self-congratulatory, but rather to emphasize how hard one has to work to get women in the conversation. Although 2023 was dubbed the “Year of the Girl” partly because of Barbie's success, so much work remains. I’m excited to see what comes. And I’m hopeful I’ll get to add a new category to next year’s survey.
Happy Oscar Weekend!