When I love a piece of entertainment, I love that piece of entertainment. I will probably ride alongside it through the gates of hell. And for the first few weeks after I’ve first encountered it, my friends and readers and coworkers will hear a lot about said piece of entertainment.
My latest obsession is Director’s Cut. Not sci-fi, but cult-y and off-the-beaten-path enough that it may well appeal to the geek set.
It’s also written and headlined by stage magician and social mythbuster Penn Jillette as part of a passion project. He fell in love with the “found footage” works of Adam Rifkin (the director of Look). Jillette wanted to team up with Rifkin to make his own work in that vein. He – Penn, that is – also wanted to play the villain.
One thing he insisted on in his crowdfunding announcement video? The female lead had to be GREAT.
Like, really great. The script (which I got to read as I was a backer) was open-ended enough that any actress could become its focus. The role went to Missi Pyle. Pyle is not a no-name by any means, but not a massive headliner. You may remember her as Tony Shaloub’s alien paramour from Galaxy Quest.
But I have nothing but respect for Pyle after seeing Director’s Cut. Because not only did it put her through the wringer, it also demonstrated her ability to play one of those rare and beautiful butterflies of modern entertainment: the “Strong Female Character.”
What the heck is a “Strong Female Character”?
There’s a lot of talk these days – and rightly so – about creating more Strong Female Characters. We see attempts come and go. Occasionally, someone even sticks the landing. But there seems to be, for writers and critics at large, a misunderstanding of what exactly the phrase is meant to encapsulate.
Generally, “strong female character” brings to mind a Lara Croft or a Wonder Woman: someone who’s kickass but also has a back story, who’s tough but not unemotional. And don’t get me wrong: I love Lara Croft. I love Wonder Woman. But what they are, and what they have in common, is not necessarily the definition we’re looking for. And it all really comes down to simple grammar.
That is: in the phrase “strong female character,” “strong” (at least to me, a female fan) is meant to modify “character.” Not “female.”
So, what’s a strong character? In writing terms, it’s a believable one. Not necessarily one who’s emotionally or physically tough, but one who actually behaves like a human being would behave. A character can be strong while sobbing over a breakup or being really quite wrong about something. And while having role models is excellent and necessary, a strong character can just as easily be a sidekick or a villain. It’s a matter of how fleshed out they are as a human being – not necessarily how “tough” they are.
To branch off into a completely different movie, look at Hush. Our lead, Maddie, has only one real conversation with another female character. It’s all about her recent breakup. The Bechdel Test is shattered straight out of the gate. However, the discussion is believable – and you know, women do talk about breakups – and serves to inform the audience that she is alone in her house before the horrors of the film take place. Maddie then proceeds to be both strong and vulnerable, intelligent and emotionally traumatized. She is not a Wonder Woman. But, she is a strong character who also happens to be a woman.
And that’s a risky move to make: trying to write a female character who is strong enough to resonate, even in traditionally “weak” situations.
Who’s in Charge?
Director’s Cut is a film-within-a-film starring Penn as Herbert Blount, a guy who’s pitched in enough money on crowdfunded cop thriller Knocked Off to get an executive producer credit. This is all well and good… Except that between this and his undying love for Missi Pyle, he now considers himself entitled to a far bigger piece of the pie than his set crowdfunding reward.
The movie is presented as Blount’s ideal version of Knocked Off, as he has “taken over” from Rifkin. “Taking over” in this case involves intercutting scenes from the actual movie with personal camera footage, CCTV footage, and scenes he films in his basement after kidnapping Pyle from the set and forcing her to play out the third act of the movie his way. Yeah. That actually happens. He “rewrites” the end of the film. He inserts himself as the hero and Pyle’s savior from a horrible work environment.
Everything we see of our female lead has passed under the knife (or, more accurately, through the freeware editing suite) of a man.
Not only that, but an abusive, criminally-minded man who has very specific intentions when it comes to how he wants us to see both him and her. All things considered, it sounds pretty unforgiving for Pyle’s character. And while in the fiction of the piece it’s definitely unpleasant, the film overall allows her to shine. Yes, even when she’s tied up in in a guy’s basement with no hope of escape.
The reason is a simple and straightforward one. There are no shortcuts if you want to create a strong female character and depict scenes like this.
How They Did It
As one of the backers behind Director’s Cut, I got an inside look at how the film was being made. Between this and a watch of the film in full once it became available to backers, I got a good, clear view of how Penn, Rifkin, and Pyle managed to make the movie’s central victim a compelling and realistic character.
First and foremost is, thankfully, the mindset of our villain, Herbert Blount. While he is dangerous and self-centered, he also adores his “muse.” His prime directive is making sure we love her as much as he does. That, combined with his relative emotional immaturity, means that there is no actual exploitation. Blount makes a point throughout the movie’s commentary that he doesn’t believe in such things. That’s some interesting character information in the fiction of the piece. But, outside of the fiction, it’s an excellent safeguard for making sure any scenes in which Pyle is a victim don’t run the risk of becoming exploitative.
There’s also the fact that our heroine is allowed to be imperfect.
Much of the action is on-set drama, with Pyle expressing discomfort that her co-star (Harry Hamlin) is getting too into the kissing scenes and disappointment at how the crowdfunding aspect of the film has affected life on set. She’s never cruel. But, she’s given space to show her willingness to stand up for herself. She’s human. And she acts at times how we wish we would in her situation, and at others how we know we would.
The biggest success, though, is that Missi Pyle’s Director’s Cut alter ego isn’t written specifically to be a Strong Woman. She’s simply written to be a believable character in unpleasant circumstances. Is she brave? Yes. Does she cry? Also yes. She gets mad. But, she also clearly knows enough about obsessive types to know when to play along to stay safe. Every scene she’s in, despite being controlled by Blount, shows a capable person doing her best to survive her circumstances, whether that’s a difficult film shoot or the demands of a crazy fan.
It feels (and sounds) a bit like a cheat to say that writing a Strong Female Character simply involves writing a woman well and thoughtfully.
But it’s true. While there are for sure tropes that have been overused in cinema when it comes to women, overuse or bad execution of a topic shouldn’t necessarily mean that we can never see it.
In the wake of Director’s Cut, which was crowdfunded because Hollywood didn’t want it, I would love to see more writers get brave. Write women in situations where it’s allegedly “impossible” to write them well. Ask yourself: Do we consider this off-limits because it’s bad? Or because it’s difficult? The two aren’t always the same.
When we limit the tools and plot points at our disposal for fear of getting it wrong, we limit the stories we allow ourselves to tell.
Instead, we should be pushing ourselves to get to the core of the issue: completely readdressing our view of writing women, rather than building a framework in which we feel safe doing so. There’s always room for tough ladies. And, to her credit, Missi Pyle in Director’s Cut is no slouch when push comes to shove. But there are more and bigger stories to be told, featuring characters who are multifaceted regardless of gender.
It shouldn’t take a magician to pull off this kind of stunt.
Comments are closed.