Tuesday, April 18, 2017
A Feminist Farce?
Daisies is the first film we have screened by a female director that focuses on women protagonists. Yet this film is far from an easy film to interpret. Do you see a feminist "message" in the film? Or is this film lampooning such a message? Is this film highlighting and ridiculing sexist views of women? What about the fact that the women protagonists are hardly the paragons of virtue (They have, after all, "gone bad.")? Please enlighten us.
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ReplyDeleteThe Czech New Wave’s Daises, directed by the female Vera Chytilova, includes a variety of underlying feminist attributes that contribute to the film’s overall pro-feminism attitude. The entirety of the movie is to show how a pair of young girls “went bad” during the restrictions placed upon the citizens in this Communist county. By “going bad”, the women fight against societal norms and regulations in an attempt to find a sense of freedom where there is little to be found. This includes unique sexual relations amongst each other and with the older gentlemen; they choose to interact intimately as their sexual orientation is questionable and as they fight against the men whose sole desire is an exchange of dinner for sex. In their world no one is telling the women what to do, therefore they choose not to follow the rules placed on them by this Communist patriarchal society, and act as they wish. The director portrays this flip of gender roles as it is the men who are fooled and played by the women, not the other way around. This is evident when the piano player and butterfly collector calls one of the girls saying that he misses her dearly and hopes that she will come over again. Completely disregarding the call, the females continue their own conversation and tune out this thirsty male on the other end of the line, while he begs to hear one of the women confirm that she is listening and cares about him. The girls show their defiance and power over the lesser man as he begs while they ignore him. Vera Chytilova’s female aspects of the film shine in this moment and continue to be a powerful piece in the creation of Daisies.
DeleteThe film Daisies definitely has a feminist slant that is largely based on the fact that the protagonists “go bad.” This film depicts “bad” women and is saying that women do not have to be obedient and subservient to men, as most were during the Communist regime at this time. The rules and norms imposed by the patriarchal society do not apply to these women, and they achieve a sort of freedom. One of the first scenes shows a meadow with a fruit tree in it reminiscent of the Garden of Eden. In this story, Eve, the woman, is to blame for the downfall of humanity, and this film is critiquing that sentiment. The women are also seen eating food multiple times throughout the movie, including the banquet at the end. This could be interpreted as not an appetite for food, but rather a sexual appetite. The women’s appetites cannot be controlled by men, and they are free to do as they please. At one point, when a man calls the apartment, confessing his all-consuming love and desire for the woman, both of the women are seen using scissors to cut phallic foods like sausages and bananas. This can be seen as the women taking away the man’s power and controlling him instead of the typical order of societies in which the men control the women. Throughout the whole movie, the women are seen to be turning the tables on the men and taking control of them. Earlier in the movie, the man who calls later in the movie is seen with one of the women, and she begins to strip, covering herself with framed butterflies. The butterflies can be seen to represent the woman herself, as the man collects them and frames them to put on the walls of his house, like he wants to collect her to have as a trophy wife. The butterflies must be killed in order to be kept, and this film is saying that women have the life taken out of them by men once the men take control and own the women. The many instances of feminist ideas throughout the movie give it an overall feminist message that supports the uncontrolled woman.
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ReplyDeleteThroughout the wildly confusing film, there are several feminist messages seen through both the story and the two main characters' minor actions. The film's premise is that two girls decide that since the world is bad, they should go bad as well. Right off the bat this challenges the social norm for women, be well behaved. Throughout the movie there’s plenty of examples of them being poorly behaved, from trashing a restaurant, to having a food fight, to stealing food from a farmer. One thing that all these have in common is food. During the whole movie, seldom is there a scene where they are not stuffing themselves full of food. This behavior was not considered lady like by any means. Another unladylike action seen throughout the movie is the girls’ tendency to pick up old men for free meals, then leave them afterwards. Their disrespect towards men does not stop there, at one point, one of the protagonists meets a man who has strong feelings for her. After leading him on, he calls her and spends a while confessing his love for her as she ignores him while cutting up pickles. The final symbol throughout the film depicting their disrespect towards men and their unladylike behavior is the cutting up of various foods, all of which have one thing in common, they look like a penis. Cutting up these things that symbolize the male genitalia, goes to show their complete disregard for what they believe all men want, sex.
Because Daisies is a movie directed by a woman with two woman protagonists, I feel that it is necessary to analyze it with some sort of feminist lens. Throughout the film it becomes clearer and clearer that there is, on some level, a feminist agenda that the director was intent on propagating. The film starts with biblical allusion in the garden of eden, and the scene replicates what is considered by many to be the original sin. This sin, being committed by a woman in both scripture as well as the film, kicks off the beginning of two girls “going bad.” The ownership of this sin
ReplyDeleteThe cutting up of various phallic foods such as sausage, banana, and cucumber acts as a direct dismantling of male domination. Both the destruction and the consumption of manhood by the two women is depicted in this scene, as well as throughout the entire film.
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