The FX Networks’ new show “Dirt” will premier sometime in January 2007 and is about a female editor of two tabloid magazines. The network advertises this new show with a series of flashy commercials and a catchy song. Obviously, the title of the show “Dirt” correlates to the dirt these magazines compile about the lives of celebrities. However, the advertisements lend themselves to feminist interpretation because this “dirt” occurs only in conjunction with the female body. Any feminist interpretation can easily supplant the notion that the representation of women and dirt in these commercials exist only to illustrate the connection between the female editor and the dirt she dispenses to the masses. Coincidentally the metaphor women are dirt is a very old idea and one embedded in the discourse of popular culture and evident in these commercials.
Eleven different commercials for “Dirt” currently air on the FX channel and all, except one, are available on the FX Networks website.
This clip, which is untitled by the FX Networks, does not appear on the FX website. Why they would not mind airing this clip, but seem to overlook its absence on their website is interesting. Perhaps simulating drug use on TV is better than simulating drug use on the internet. Here a woman’s manicured hands with nails painted bright red rolls up a tabloid and uses it to inhale dirt like cocaine. What is important to note, and what is a recurring theme in all of the other clips, is that women, often associated with the color red, are always associated with dirt, reinforcing the old notion that women are dirt and their bodies are something dirty.
The clip above, entitled ‘Camera’ depicts a female carrying a camera with a zoom lens dangling in front of her vagina like a penis. As she walks towards the viewer, she grabs the camera essentially erecting her pseudo-penis, and snaps a shot collecting dirt.[i] The phallus nature of the camera emphasizes the active characteristics of the penis: it becomes erect, flashes, and captures a photograph/dirt. Conversely, this phallus obscures the vagina, which is active only in its ability to recognize and select the dirt that the camera/pseudo-penis will capture. While the phallic camera only has dirt passing through it, not becoming a part of it, this commercial as well as the others in this series suggest that the female body is inherently dirty, dirt-filled.
This phallic camera also represents technology, advancement, and science. The female body can only achieve such advancements by toting this phallic camera in her groin, taking a shot with her vagina, not her head or eyes. In fact, the omission of the woman’s face contributes to female objectification because she is a torso, a body, an object; she has no head, no mind. [ii] In Gossips, Gorgons & Crones Jane Caputi writes that these images “suggest that women have no minds” (82).[iii]
In ‘Suit’ the male face and eyes appear while only the woman’s back and arm are visible. She remains faceless. The male wears an immaculately white starched shirt, which the woman’s touch stains. These commercials continue to suggest that filth is inherent in the seductively red-clad woman. Her touch and kiss stain him. Of course, this dirt is superficial for the male. He can wash his shirt, the camera/phallus can be opened and the dirt removed, but the female in these commercials seems to need this dirt, it is like a drug, it is a part of her, inherently connected to her.
The origins of the idea that women posses an inherent stain repeats throughout history in many forms. Gerda Lerner’s The Creation of Patriarchy identifies how monotheism endows “God’s blessing of man’s seed [....while] in the story of the Fall, women and, more specifically, female sexuality became the symbol of human weakness and the source of evil” (201). [iv] It is interesting to note that man’s seed, whitish in color, stands in metaphorically for the man’s shirt in the previous clip, while female sexuality, literally her menstruation is red like her dress. Caputi notes that “[m]any anthropologists have reported that, almost universally, menstrual blood and menstruating women are considered dangerous and/or offensive” (164).
Returning to the creation myth, women are seen as the originators of our sin. Eve ate of the apple of knowledge first (smart girl). Therefore, in their book The Great Cosmic Mother[v] Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor remind us that “the entire priesthood exists to ‘redeem’ us from the ‘sin’ of being born from the Mother” (231) and these priests in almost all patriarchal religion are men. Inherently, men believe that the Bible story justifies their moral superiority, it is their job to save everyone especially woman from wickedness. This reinforces the idea that men are more pure, closer to god than women, who are associated with the earth, and in these commercials, with dirt.
The notion of women as sinful and evil are not restricted to theological concepts, even Freud perpetuates this notion as Mary Daly notes in her book Gyn/Ecology. [vi] She observes that Freud expanded “the list of maternally caused symptoms.” For example, Freud believed that the “mothers of hair-plucking children [....] induced such disturbed behavior” (266). But Daly’s observations do not stop there as she discusses and examines the “mother-hating myths,” the fairy tales which “teach that the only good mother is a dead mother” (266).
It is interesting to examine how the idea of women as dirty originated in order to elucidate the suggestiveness of these commercials and their impact on societal thought, which works on a subliminal level to solidify these stereotypical notions of women. For example, in the fourteenth century Giovanni Boccaccio writes about women’s uncleanness saying that “[n]o other creature is less clean than woman: the pig, even when he is most wallowed in mud, is not as foul as they” (qtd. in Blamires 167).[vii] Statements like these abound and create the basis for current societal thought of women.
The implications of these advertisements are obvious. Women are still objects, associated with sex, blood, and filth. These arguments are not new. The medium through which they travel has transformed, but the metaphors are still the same.
Finally, besides the visual imagery of these commercials, the song that colors the background is charged with metaphorical references to women’s bodies. Peter Gabriel sings the song “Digging in the Dirt,” which he also wrote. The best examples from the lyrics that refer to the image of women in these commercials are the following lines: “Something in me, dark and sticky / All the time it’s getting strong / No way of dealing with this feeling / Can’t go on like this too long.”Of course, this something that is dark and sticky could only refer to a woman who is menstruating. The interesting twist of this song may be that it a man sings it, but juxtaposed with the images of fragmented female bodies, the focus of the song turn to them. When he sings that this dark and sticky substance is “getting strong,” feminists would immediately see this as a good thing, but modern day gynecology would have us believe otherwise. Anything that makes us feminine is a nuisance. If we consider these lyrics from the male perspective perhaps he is disgusted by the feminine qualities that exist in his body, they are disgusting, like the dirt the woman leaves behind on the man’s shirt. It is something that must be controlled and removed, he “[c]an’t go on like this too long.” Later in the song, he sings that this substance/essence can be felt in his “head” and “toes” as well as in his “sex, that's the place it goes.” Indeed he must be frightened like many other men throughout history who perpetuate the cultural practice of circumcision under the guise of hygienic (which is untrue, proper hygiene will avoid any complications with foreskin); in reality the foreskin is too similar to labia and therefore it is removed in order to heighten the maleness of the child. Whether this song refers to the “dark and sticky” substance within women or men, one this is certain, it is always a bad thing. Anything feminine, whether it exists in a woman or a man is dirty, dark, and sticky.
For the full lyrics to the song "Digging in the Dirt" click here.
[i] In the ‘Lightbox’ clip a camera opens and rather than film falling out, a pile of dirt falls upon the table. For this particular clip, when the female snaps a photograph we can infer that she is collecting dirt, not images.
[ii] Courteney Cox’s face does appear in some of the commercials, but the actor whose hands inhale the dirt, whose feet leave behind dirt footprints, and whose torso appears in many of the commercials, never shows her face. In fact, it is interesting to note that in the ‘Tabloid Dog’ clip Cox’s face is superimposed with what looks to be a Rottweiler with it’s teeth showing, perhaps an allusion to the vagina dentata. In another clip, ‘Shovel’ Cox’s face glistens on the surface of a shovel, the metaphorical phallus about to penetrate the earth/woman. In either case, the commercials depict woman as fragmented, in pieces, without a head and when a head appears is associated with violence, carnage, animalistic characteristics, and woman turned into weapons against women (I discuss this further in the Starship Troopers blog entry below).
Shovel Clip
[iii] Caputi, Jane. Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. Santa Fe: Bear, 1993.
[iv] Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford U P, 1986.
[v] Sjöö, Monica and Barbara Mor. The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991.
[vi] Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon, 1990.
[vii] Blamires, Alcuin. Ed. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002.
Jane Caputi discusses the ritual sacrifice of women and uses the example of Marc Lépine who on December 6, 1989, “entered the college of engineering at the University of Montreal, separated out the women from the men, and then fired on the women, killing fourteen of them, because, as he averred, they were ‘all fucking feminists’ (175).[i]
Animosity towards women and feminists in general is not new. While many people would argue that things are better today than they were in the past, the truth is that society does not take women and women’s issues, as much as they are popularized and glamorized by media, as seriously as they should be.
Authors like Mary Daly, Nancy Tuana, and Gerda Lerner all criticize the male authoritarian role in forming our consciousness of history. History pushes the female out of our collective notion of history and leaves it buried. Daly criticizes contemporary historians of attempting to “re-cover” (24)[ii] the feminine, but instead literally only cover her again.[iii] While many of these female writers (feminists) are using their authority to write books, clarify, and untangle a long tradition of doublespeak in Western history, society has yet to consider these efforts worthwhile, serious, or important.
In this clip from a man’s vlog (video blog), which I found browsing YouTube.com, he discusses feminism and why he believes that feminists are children of the devil. To make his point he uses biblical rhetoric, which does absolutely nothing to support his claim. However, this kind of doubletalk is exactly what has clouded the pages of history. Only now, because of technology more and more people have the opportunity to voice their opinions about varying issues. This is wonderful, however, just as Daly and Gloria Anzaldúa suggest, women must empower themselves and their voices in order to be heard and begin to be taken seriously.
He says at the beginning of his vlog: “feminism is sin.” He explains that many of his viewers were shocked at that statement and that he would “like to correct that.” However, he never “corrects” this statement. He continues to perpetuate it. Obviously, his use of the word “correct” implies that what he had said originally, “feminism is sin,” is a false statement. Perhaps unconsciously he knows that what he is saying is baseless.
In this speaker’s clear logic, he proceeds to discuss religious issues mainly claiming that the “children of God” are few and the “children of the Devil” are the majority, what God calls the whole “world.” He emphasizes that the two are “entirely separate entities.” So far, so good, however what this has to do with feminism is not clear. He never makes a clear connection between all of the animalistic and degrading labels that God supposedly uses to describe “the wicked,” or how feminism fits into this discussion. His connection, a very flimsy one, appears later.
In order to illustrate the complete lack of objectivity and common sense this speaker posses, two statements he says are analyzed.
The first is his commentary and definition of feminists. He says they are “right to shave, concrete prune-hearted women who have sought after a man’s role, position, and function in society and have paid for it with their femininity. They are co-blokes.”
His second statement provides his listeners with an example of these feminists in action. “Some famous woman violinist speaking contemptuously (he repeatedly emphasizes this word) of the term mannered-wife on the radio and contemptuously of what they call the patriarchal society.”
First, he himself “contemptuously” describes feminists. How can he be offended that a woman questions the term, which could eventually be applied to her? The term will never be applied to him because he is a man. I have never heard of the term mannered-husband. Nor does it exist in the dictionary. However, mannered-wife does. She has the right to question this term, to speak out against it if she so wishes. However, her speaking out is a contemptuous attack against god. His speaking, his words, are truth because they are in essence the words of god. So he has the power to call women devils, or anyone else who speaks out against the system that gives men power.
After these two statements he begins to make connections between feminists and “devils.” He explains that feminists speak out against patriarchy because the “pseudo-matriarchal model of feminism you see in society today is satanic and of course they hate god’s way. God’s way is the patriarchal model that they contemptuously speak of.” If are against patriarchy, you are against god. He never tries to define “what they call the patriarchal society” or why anyone would want to speak out against it, or even what that speaking out consists of. The example he provides above is unfair and baseless.
When he says that feminists are “prune-hearted women,” he is suggesting that women make themselves sexually unavailable to men and this is not a good thing. I am concluding that based on his use of the term “mannered-wife” he considers a woman’s place to be in the home, as an object for men to fuck. Really, what else is left for us to do if we stop trying to seek out “a man’s role, position, and function in society?” Housewife...
Therefore, taking his argument one more step, any woman who is not a housewife (because being anything else would mean encroaching on men’s place in society) is a follower of the devil, dare I say: witch. Watching these videos of which there exist many, from him as well as others on the internet, makes me feel that we live in a society about to embark on a modern-day witch-hunt. Or have we already begun to do so?
This is just one example of how feminists, women, or any similar issues can be twisted and completely transformed through rhetoric. It is important to use the same technology/blogs/television/advertisements/popular culture and have women’s voices be heard in a serious way.
Feminism is a term that not many women understand or even agree upon; however, that should not make it open season for men to bash it. We have not yet fully shaped what feminism is or what it could eventually be, but if has already begun to slip away from us, then we are left with even less potentiality for the word than before.
Here are two more examples and I am sure there are many more.
Here is the second clip. This just aired on Comedy Central last month.
[i] Caputi, Jane. Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. Santa Fe: Bear, 1993.
[ii] Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston, Beacon P, 1990.
[iii] Mary Daly will “unmask deceptive words by dividing them and employing alternate meanings for prefixes” (24).
Starship Troopers[i] a film by Paul Verhoeven was released in 1997 and was loosely based on Robert A. Heinlein’s science fiction novel of the same title. There are many similarities and dissimilarities between the film and novel, and while many people criticize the modern film adaptation,[ii] the subject of this blog lies in an examination of the film, not the novel.
The film is a political satire on our country’s growing militarism and the loss of individual rights, which occur during times of war. Although filmed almost a decade ago many of the issues underlying the film resonate today. The initial criticism of this film did not grasp that it was parodying the fascist philosophy and utopian society depicted in the film, not condoning it. Starship Troopers is a film made in reaction against such a possible world. For this reason, the film depicts its characters as beautiful, yet almost mindless, obsessed with following orders. While early criticism often overlooked these details, later criticism also ignores some other interesting moments that allow for further discussion and analysis of this satiric film. There are moments in the film that create a commentary about the human race and specifically, women.
The following clip depicts the moment in the film when humans decide to launch a war against the alien bugs.
It is interesting to note a few things about this clip. To begin, the main characters discover that an alien meteor destroyed their home city of Buenos Aires. This ‘news’ appears on a large screen controlled by the Federal Network. In this clip the Fed Net is depicted numerous times and is not only the government, the source of information, or entertainment, but it also functions as a teaching tool where viewers can choose to learn more, but it is only what the Fed Net wishes to show them. The Fed Net provides these people with all of their knowledge and feeds them whatever point of view they feel is necessary to sustain their agenda.
Patriarchal history/science/theology/philosophy has worked in much the same way. Each field tells whatever is necessary in order to perpetuate the common held belief that man is superior to all other races: women, blacks, and other ‘primitive’ societies. Gerda Lerner observes, “[u]ntil the recent past, [...] historians have been men, and what they have recorded is what men have done and experienced and found significant” (4).[iii] In Nancy Tuana’s The Less Noble Sex[iv] she explains various ‘scientific’ studies which sought to associate the size and weight of a brain to the amount of intelligence possessed by the specific individual. Craniology’s popularity was due to the fact that its results could “be easily manipulated [.... Thus, craniology] was a popular method of justifying slavery. It was also used to combat the growing women’s rights movement” (68) of the nineteenth century. Tuana provides numerous examples that show how because these male scientists had preconceived notions about the results they ‘should’ obtain from these experiments, they were not at all hesitant to alter the facts or their explanations of the results in order to mold them to fit their ideas. While craniology is one example that shows how science is not always as objective as it is supposed to be, many feminist writers have begun to uncover much of the ‘history’ that has been altered or erased.
The second important quality of this clip lies after a propagandistic spread of the destruction in Buenos Aires, when the Fed Net depicts the Federal Council meeting in Geneva led by Sky Marshall Dienes. His romantic speech is indicative of the recruitment efforts of past militaristic movements aimed at falsely persuading people to join up and do their duty for the country. However, what is most telling is when Dienes states that this war effort is to “ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy now and always.” He does not discuss the need for defense against further meteor attacks, or even explains how, if at all, the arachnids sent this meteor. The only thing that is important is domination, even of a race on the other side of the galaxy. The reason why these people loathe these aliens and label them as enemies is because they are different, and their difference is threatening. This creates the urge to destroy and obliterate this ‘other.’ In the film, unexplainable differences, as well as unexpected similarities,[v] led to hatred, misunderstanding, and loathing of the aliens.
The situation with women throughout history is similar. Women often are seen as ‘different’ from men biologically and mentally mainly because of their ability to give birth and to menstruate. Before patriarchy women were associated with everything earthly, with Nature, and later patriarchy vilified women because of fear, as suggested by Nancy Tuana who examines the writings of Otto Weininger. She writes that “Weininger is [...] able to account for what he believed to be the deepest fear of man—the fear of women, who represents ‘unconsciousness, the alluring abyss of annihilation’” (65-6). This fear lies in women’s power to create life. Similarly, in the film the arachnid alien race represent a powerful force which if left unchecked seemingly has the power to annihilate the human race if they so chose. However, the film never establishes that these arachnids ever consciously try to harm humans; however, humans do consciously enter the arachnid environment and seek out the destruction of this alien race.
The beginning of the following clip shows “scientists” studying the bugs, because in order to defeat your enemy you must know them. This clip shows the final moments of the film when the brain bug is captured and later experimented upon. Interestingly, the brain bug looks very similar to a vagina. In addition, while its sides are pierced it is only when the phallic scientific torture device penetrates its mouth/vagina is a large “censored” banner erected before the scene.
Obviously, this scene is significant on many levels. It represents the patriarchal invasion of women’s bodies carried out for centuries by scientists, the government, men under the guise of research/science that is nothing more than torture and a controlling mechanism. In order to understand the mysteries of the female body scientists carried out experiments of torture. For the most part, “the purpose and intent of gynecology was/is not healing in a deep sense but violent enforcement of the sexual caste system” (Daly 227).[vi] “Dr. Charles Meigs [who] was advising his pupils that their study of female organs would enable them to understand and control the very heart, mind, and soul of woman (Daly 227) exemplifies the controlling nature of gynecological studies and a social concept understood since before written history—that the mutilation of female genetalia works as a controlling force. Daly notes that “the recent hysterectomy epidemic in the United States [...] which is a major surgery, [has been described] as ‘a simple solution for everything from backaches to contraception” (238). The list continues with birth control, which takes away control from women and places it in the hands of pharmaceutical companies. There exist issues with birth control that other women writers have criticized. To begin there are major side effects associated with birth control and part of the mystification lies not only in popular culture (commercials and other advertisements), but also with gynecology which Daly argues does not completely inform women of the benefits/risks associated with taking the pills. Inga Muscio writes in her book Cunt that she has “never heard of condoms that make men’s dicks shrivel off their bodies. [She] assert[s] that this is a calibrated reflection of who produces what for whom” (67). Women do not create birth control pills and therefore their side effects are the result of uncaring men hoping to make a profit. The health of women is not foremost in their minds. In addition, advertisements for birth control pills use language to suggest that having a period is cumbersome and annoying, a problem that can be solved, that is, removed and obliterated, just like women’s uteruses in hysterectomies. Now lighter/fewer periods is the message transmitted through the airwaves, just as radioactive as some of the procedures used on women in the past decades.
Mary Daly quotes Barker-Benfield’s study of nineteenth-century gynecologists’ writing: “There is. . . ample evidence that gynecologists saw their knives cutting into women’s generative tract as a form of sexual intercourse” (246). Similarly, the scene in the preceding clip depicts the Brain Bug mouth/vagina violently penetrated by a scientific instrument, a metaphor for the history of female gynecology.
It is a fact that women’s bodies are othered in order to lessen any guilt felt by the patriarchal society who have raped and tortured them. Similarly, in a scene not depicted in these clips, the moment the Brain Bug is captured and pulled out of her cave/womb[vii] a scientist stands erect before the bug and lays his hands on her. Someone from the crowd asks him what the bug is thinking (he has extrasensory perception[viii]) and he replies, “It’s afraid!” In response, the crowed erupts in an uncontrollable roar. These soldiers are unremorseful that they have invaded, killed, captured, tortured, and experimented on these aliens. Instead, they are proud, triumphant, righteous. Their goal is to instill fear, and in this film, they succeed.
In this clip the Brain Bug sucks the brains out of one of the main characters, Zander Barcalow, who previously sneaked a knife to the female character, Carmen Ibanez. She uses the knife to cut off the sucking appendage that comes out of the mouth/vagina of the Brain Bug.
The significance of this clip illustrates the misogyny and fear towards women and their sexuality that literally renders men brainless and sucked dry. History depicts women as unable to possess a mind of their own, or have a mind as superior to that of men. Therefore, sucking a man’s brains out would be fitting. The sucking action of the Brain Bug is similar to the female stereotype of the vamp, a woman bloodthirsty and willing to suck the life out of any man. In addition, a money hungry woman who eventually leaves men high and dry also depicts another similarity between the Brain Bug and female metaphors, in this case, the gold digger.
Right before the Brain Bug sucks out Zander’s brain he tells the bug, “One day someone like me is going to kill you, and your whole fucking race.” He then spits on the bug. The relationship between this giant vagina sucking out a man’s brains and the man swearing to obliterate the race is very similar to the “misogynistic violence” (12)[ix] identified by Jane Caputi. She writes that all women are at risk “by virtue of our femaleness, [...to be] variously beaten, brainwashed, disrespected, objectified, incested, harassed, mutilated, battered, raped, tongue-tied, defamed, enslaved, or systematically murdered by men” (12).
After Zander is dead Carmen is next to have her brains sucked out, but she has a knife and uses it to slice off the bug’s appendage, debilitating her. It is significant that a female cuts and harms the bug because through the centuries women have often been the perpetuators of female genital mutilation as well as other cultural practices aimed at suppressing women while men have remained in the background, inactive, blameless. Mary Daly writes that “among the Bambaras [...] a man who sleeps with a nonexcised woman risks death from her ‘sting’ (clitoris)” (160). The film suggests that the alien’s appendage which sucks the life out of the soldiers is a clitoris, which when erect/sexually aroused will penetrate/pierce the victim. Similar language can describe the action of the penis, which is one of the reasons why women’s clitorises have been excised throughout history. The clitoris made them more masculine, while males undergo circumcision to remove the foreskin, which resembles the female labia. Only in this case, the clitoris sucks in, rather than comes out. Still, it is a threat and only a female character can mutilate it. Nawal El Saadawi writes of female genital mutilation noting with vivid imagery the role of the daya in circumcising young girls as well as being in charge of the process of defloration where a thick and steady stream of blood was expected to flow on the wedding night. She writes about the “[n]umerous [...] nights which [she] spent by the side of a young girl [...] treating a haemorrhage that had resulted from the long dirty finger nail of a daya cutting through the soft tissues during the process of defloration” (29).[x] She criticizes the role women play in perpetuating this tradition of pain passing it down to their daughters. In a previous clip a female teacher cheers as her young pupils stomp on defenseless bugs, a metaphorical representation of the daya in today’s educational system, perpetuating stereotypes, violence, and militarism.
This final clip is one of the featurettes included in the special edition of the DVD. Those involved behind the scenes provide commentary about the Brain Bug and the reasoning for its resemblance to female genetalia.
When these male producers discuss the Brain Bug they refer to it as a “he.” One calls the alien, “The evil emperor of the bug world” while another refers to it as the “king.” The fact that this male alien has female genetalia for a mouth is interesting and explained at the beginning of this clip by Phil Tippett who says that the director was “insistent that it be offensive to everybody. Its mouth, or whatever it was, was supposed to look like something... Paul would say, ‘Perhaps it should look like a vagina; perhaps it should look like an anus, but I don’t know.’” The director wanted to make the alien look disgusting and offensive, and what came to mind was a vagina or an anus. These are interesting binaries, especially when the vagina is chosen over the anus. Therefore, while the anus excretes shit from the body, the vagina is where life begins, and the most disgusting and offensive of the two is the vagina! The implications of this are extremely interesting, but they are not new. Current society sees female bodies, vaginas, menstruation as dirty and unclean phenomena. Gone is the time when women and their bodies were sacred.
The crew working on this film also immediately associates the Brain Bug as a male because it can think and it is the ruler of the aliens. However, the need to make the bug more disgusting called for the use of a vagina. It is virtually impossible for me to imagine the Brain Bug being considered disgusting if a giant, leaking penis had been used instead. On the contrary, throughout the film the soldiers stand at attention (giant penises) and use their huge guns (giant penises) to kill, and their medical instruments (giant penises) to poke, prod, and rape the Brain Bug in one of the final scenes. At the end of the film it is suggested that the troopers will defeat the alien race, because they are recruiting more soldiers (more potential giant penises).
Part of feminism’s goal is to reinstate the importance of nature and all things organic, which in this film is another disgusting aspect of the Brain Bug. The designers thought that making the Brain Bug seem organic, by adding a rippling movement to its soft body in order to simulate the thought process, would create a more disgusting creature. Why exactly this would be disgusting is not immediately clear to me. Yet, women’s bodies are often discussed in terms of softness while men’s bodies optimally should be hard and muscular. However, the turn away from organic life towards a more mechanized one is clear in the film, but it is also clearly present in the philosophy of those working on the film. This film is supposed to be parodying today’s society, but it seems that those involved are not aware of the many levels of societal thought that have found its way into the film and buried itself there.
These filmmakers are portraying deeply embedded societal concepts about women and their bodies. Towards the end of this clip, the actor playing Zander remarks, “In a word—disgusting” and then the camera shifts to the Brain Bug’s mouth/vagina oozing with slime. Will such an image ever be beautiful/powerful/sacred/mysterious ever again?
[i]Starship Troopers. Dir. Paul Verhoeven. Perf. Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, and Neil Patrick Harris. DVD. Tristar and Touchstone Pictures. 1997.
[ii] I make these generalizations based on my visits to numerous sites where people are posting comments about this film. The links and forums at the following sites will provide further information on this film.
[iii] Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford U P, 1986.
[iv] Tuana, Nancy. The Less Noble Sex: Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical Conceptions of Woman’s Nature. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1993.
[v] The characters learn that the alien bugs have a super bug, a Brain Bug that thinks. The ability to think is often what marks us as humans. It is also a linear marker used by society to place humans high up on the hierarchy of living beings, the Great Chain of Being. As mentioned previously, craniology tried to affirm the notion that white men’s brains are the largest, therefore securing the top place in the hierarchy, justifying their control and exploitation of all other living things that do not think. The Brain Bug thinks just like a human does, and one character exclaims, “Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive!” Indeed, a thinking bug, a ‘primitive’ human, or a woman could never have the same mental capacities as a man. History reveals numerous attempts to perpetuate that myth/stereotype.
[vi] Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston, Beacon P, 1990.
[vii] Right before this scene the main character arrives to save Carmen from the bugs. The soldiers have penetrated the cave and have brought with them a bomb. He threatens the Brain Bug with it who shrinks back in fear. The introduction of the bomb/atomic power into the caves/feminine power is another metaphor for our present society.
[viii] The fact that this dildo-like character could have extrasensory perception, sensitivity to feeling/thought/emotion/other living beings, seems quite comical. Usually, women experience sensitivity to their surrounding and their own bodies during menstruation, something that the ingestion of hormone pills will eventually obliterate.
[ix] Caputi, Jane. Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. Santa Fe: Bear, 1993.
[x] El Saadawi, Nawal. The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World. Trans. Dr. Sherif Hetata. London: Zed, 2001.
