I just watched Terminator: Salvation for the first time, a movie I’ve concluded was made to ease the loss of control Americans feel. Who can blame us? The state of the economy is enough to give anyone a panic disorder.
So Hollywood gives us this action-packed film full of familiar things like salvation, duty to society; the empowerment of the poor, and watered-down lipstick feminism in the form of a hot young girl who took some kickboxing lessons. It’s about everything the first decade of the twenty-first century has been about.
This movie is a reflective product of this culture, but I still don’t know whether Hollywood is trying to promote a revolution or if they’re giving me a controlling substance, a Media pill to render me passive by satisfying my impulse to rebel against the dominant party to the right of me. Somehow, it’s hard to believe commercialists have my best interests at heart.
Then again, movies like The Women make me feel like a more assertive model for women is represented in mainstream media: we can have it all, but do we want it? Is it even healthy? And do we really want to reach our goals if it means betraying other women, and therefore ourselves? The movie says “no” to all three questions. Instead, it argues women need women friends to help them do what they cannot possibly do on their own: survive this life in one emotional piece.
I knew what kind of woman I wanted to be by watching my sister Maggie’s successes and failures, my mother’s philosophies at work, and my girl friends’ misconceptions revealed for what they are. And all of them had one thing in common: they weren’t hot, young girls who had taken kickboxing lessons nor knew how to hotwire a car. They were stupid when they were young, ignorant through most of their 20s, and sometime after they turn 30, they’re trying to fix the mess they’d made the last few years. I want to see more movies about women going through all that, and being okay with it, even as they try to prevent it. I want a heroine as barely in control as I am. Except, this woman, unlike me at my worst, is trying to be okay with it all–the fuck-ups, the wrinkles, and the betrayal. I want movies to be made about that kind of woman. I want movies to be made about that kind of woman, because I don’t have any real life examples.
What I mean to say is, there’s also a crisis of womanhood. Most of our mothers didn’t survive the war. They’re victims of the patriarchy with Stockholm Syndrome. Isn’t it worth considering whether it’s healthy to even engage with these women we call Mom , if only for those times when we are most vulnerable to judgment? Maybe rather than fight an obstacle, we should sometimes focus on avoiding it, at least until we’re ready to confront it?
Of course, the risk is becoming addicted to avoiding.
I spend at least some time every day writing for self-improvement. But last week, during therapy, I realized I’ve been avoiding people. I realized I’ve been avoiding interacting them because it’s painful, because I fear them looking at me and judging me. I realized I’ve been avoiding my social anxiety.
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