A Dland friend asked me a couple days ago, feminist to feminist, what I thought of Closer. Now that I've seen the movie, the question has provoked an important theoretical distinction in my cinematic thinking, and I think it makes a fruitful starting place for this blog.
There are probably several grounds on which one could make a feminist critique against this movie. Objectification of the female body in the strip clubs. Men who treat women like interchangeable property. Women who return again and again to abusive, self-destructive relationships.
But that would seem to suggest that there are some subjects, like stripping here, or rape or prostitution, that are not compatible with pro-feminist cinema; or that such subjects should ultimately be condemned, or at the very least be ultimately empowering.
I don't think that's the case. I think there's a difference between an honest portrayal of the way things really are (even if that's personally offensive to me as a woman), and the portrayal of women in unnecesarily demeaning and anti-feminist ways, whether conscious or unconscious. There is a difference, say, between a unjudgmental look at what goes on in strip clubs, and having a professional secretary or nurse wear short skirts and cleavage-revealing blouses. There is reality, which isn't always flattering, and then there is actual exploitation.
I think Closer explores honest, if dark and negative, sides of humanity. Alice is neither troubled nor liberated by stripping. Anna uses her body as a bargaining chip. Neither Larry nor Dan see women as equals. And for all involved, sex is ultimately a sadistic game. But doesn't all this go on in the world? My point is, the characters and plot do not have to be actively pro-feminist, as long as everything about the film itself is real and relevant.
Anyway, I don't have a feminist problem with Closer. On that point, I find it pretty neutral.
A full review on the film should be posted soon, unless this diary is as much of a bust as most of my projects (or at the moment, my main diary) usually are.
