美国国家公共电台 NPR The Fierce Female Characters Of Film In 2018

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Strong female characters seem to have had a pretty good year in Hollywood.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK PANTHER")

DANAI GURIRA: (As Okoye) Drop your weapon.

SHAPIRO: "Black Panther" had several, Danai Gurira's war general for one.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BLACK PANTHER")

GURIRA: (As Okoye) I'm not a spy who can come and go as they so choose. I am loyal to the throne no matter who sits upon it.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Then there were the queen movies, "The Favourite" and "Mary Queen of Scots."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS")

SAOIRSE RONAN: (As Mary Stuart) Tis your voice raised, sir. And you would lower it in my presence.

SHAPIRO: Despite these and other fierce heroines, studies continue to show that women are not equally represented on the big screen. NPR's Elizabeth Blair spoke¹ with some of the creators of this year's female-led movies about whether this is really beginning to change.

ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE²: Power isn't always pretty. In "The Favourite," there is a scene where the 18th-century queen of Great Britain and Ireland gets a scolding for wearing too much eyeshadow.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FAVOURITE")

RACHEL WEISZ: (As Lady Sarah) Who did your makeup³?

OLIVIA COLMAN: (As Queen Anne) We went with something dramatic. Do you like it?

WEISZ: (As Lady Sarah) You look like a badger⁴.

BLAIR: That's Rachel Weisz's Lady Sarah telling Olivia Colman's Queen Anne she looks like a badger. "The Favourite" is a kind of absurd tragicomedy in which women talk about makeup and the military. Along with Emma Stone, the three main characters in this love and power triangle are female. Queen Anne is childish and moody⁵ and a reluctant monarch⁶, says Colman.

COLMAN: She's in a position she never chose to be in. She's highest on the mountain in the nation at the time, and - but she would - probably would rather not be if she could guarantee that she could have more happiness in her life. She doesn't know if anyone loves her for real.

BLAIR: It is lonely at the top. And flattery will get you everywhere.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE FAVOURITE")

EMMA STONE: (As Abigail) Your hair is so lustrous⁷. It's something people in court comment on.

COLMAN: (As Queen Anne) Really?

STONE: (As Abigail) Mmm hmm.

BLAIR: "The Favourite" is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Mia Mask, a film professor at Vassar College, says he brings to life the adage⁸ that absolute power corrupts⁹ absolutely.

MIA MASK: He's really making us think about how one can have a moral core and center but be knocked off center in particular ways and how women can also succumb¹⁰ to the same desires for power that men do.

BLAIR: It's a different story, says Mask, when women gain their power out of necessity. She points to the movie "Roma."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROMA")

DANIELA DEMESA: (As Sofi) Buenas noches, Cleo.

YALITZA APARICIO: (As Cleo) Buenas noches, Sofi.

BLAIR: Set in 1970s Mexico City, Cleo, played by Yalitza Aparicio, is a domestic worker who takes care of everything - the children, the house, the pet dog's waste. When the father abandons the family she takes care of, his wife tells Cleo, we women are always alone in the end.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROMA")

MARINA DE TAVIRA: (As Sofia, speaking Spanish).

BLAIR: Cleo seems to have known this all along. Mia Mask says she has a kind of power we rarely see honored in movies.

MASK: One of the strongest themes is that women, mothers, domestic caretakers have a kind of underappreciated tenacity¹¹ of spirit. They're really the backbone¹² of these families.

BLAIR: That's true of another female-led movie from 2018, a very different movie, the action heist thriller¹³ "Widows" in which four women become partners in crime out of necessity. The alpha is played by Viola Davis.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WIDOWS")

VIOLA DAVIS: (As Veronica) We have three days to look and move like a team of men. The best thing we have going for us is being who we are.

ELIZABETH DEBICKI: (As Alice) Why?

DAVIS: (As Veronica) Because no one thinks we have the [expletive] to pull this off.

BLAIR: They need the money to pay off the debt their dead husbands left them. "Widows" is directed by Steve McQueen with a screenplay by Gillian Flynn.

GILLIAN FLYNN: The first time I talked to Steve, I said, you know, some of them have to have kids.

BLAIR: Flynn wanted the women to feel identifiable.

FLYNN: So that anyone could look on-screen, any woman could look on-screen, be like, yeah, I feel like that might be what it would feel like if I was trying to figure out how to do this.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WIDOWS")

MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ: (As Linda) If this whole thing goes wrong, I just want my kids to know that I didn't sit there and take it.

BLAIR: I just want my kids to know that I didn't sit there and take it. "Widows" was adapted from a 1980s British TV series. The movie was in production well before the #MeToo movement made it into the mainstream¹⁴. But Flynn can't help but think audiences, especially women, will cheer them on.

FLYNN: Ultimately they are coming alive because they are finding rage and finding their empowerment and pushing back. And that was so much - has been so much of what the #MeToo movement has been about.

BLAIR: Women and power - how they wield¹⁵ it, fight for it, abuse it. Movies in 2018 offered a range of stories. "Mary Queen Of Scots" explores the rivalry¹⁶ and kinship between Mary, played by Saoirse Ronan, and Queen Elizabeth, played by Margot Robbie. In this scene, Elizabeth serves her advisers¹⁷ a cool dressing¹⁸ down. It plays like a boardroom scene, a female CEO admonishing¹⁹ her all-male board of directors.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS")

MARGOT ROBBIE: (As Queen Elizabeth I) What have you produced in all your troubles between our kingdoms, discord²⁰, war, death? And now you have the boldness to doubt my judgment²¹. You had better question yours.

BLAIR: She might sound strong, but these queens are constantly grappling with how to use and keep their power without getting beheaded by the men who surround them. Only one succeeds. "Mary Queen Of Scots" is directed by Josie Rourke.

JOSIE ROURKE: It's specifically a movie about the cost of power. So one of the things that the screenwriter, Beau Willimon, and myself were really keen to portray²² is what these women had to sacrifice in order to keep ahold of their thrones at a time in history where people thought - many people thought that the idea of a queen was a complete aberration²³.

BLAIR: We've come a long way since then. Or have we?

ROURKE: I was the first woman - this is actually ridiculous when I say this out loud. I was the first woman director to run a major London theater. So until I took on that job, that job had never been done by a female director before. And that was only 7 1/2 years ago.

BLAIR: Josie Rourke, Gillian Flynn and Olivia Colman all say there's no shortage of powerful female characters out there. We're just not seeing enough of them on-screen. A study of movies released in 2017 by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that just a third of the top 100 movies had a female lead or co-lead. But Olivia Colman is optimistic. She points to the TV phenomenon "Doctor Who." For the first time ever, a woman is in the starring role. Colman recalls a YouTube video of a little girl watching the announcement.

COLMAN: When it's revealed who the doctor is, she just sort of bursts into tears and says, it's a girl.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: The new doctor is a girl.

COLMAN: And it's one of the most beautiful things. Girls are so thrilled that there's a female role model, and boys are sort of accepting of it. And so the next generation - it feels so promising²⁴ that if we show that it's 50-50, they're going to just take it as the norm.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DOCTOR WHO")

JODIE WHITTAKER: (As The Doctor) We're going to rescue hostages. Anything that compromises them is dangerous. And if you kill him, you become the same as him.

BLAIR: For years, conventional wisdom in Hollywood held that heroines didn't have the same commercial appeal as heroes. But another study by the research firm shift7 and Creative Artists Agency found just the opposite. From 2014 to 2017, movies led by female characters outperformed movies led by male characters. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？

4 badger   

v.一再烦扰，一再要求，纠缠

参考例句：

• Now that our debts are squared.Don't badger me with them any more.我们的债务两清了。从此以后不要再纠缠我了。
• If you badger him long enough,I'm sure he'll agree.只要你天天纠缠他，我相信他会同意。

5 moody   

adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的

参考例句：

• He relapsed into a moody silence.他又重新陷于忧郁的沉默中。
• I'd never marry that girl.She's so moody.我决不会和那女孩结婚的。她太易怒了。

6 monarch   

n.帝王，君主，最高统治者

参考例句：

• The monarch's role is purely ceremonial.君主纯粹是个礼仪职位。
• I think myself happier now than the greatest monarch upon earth.我觉得这个时候比世界上什么帝王都快乐。

7 lustrous   

adj.有光泽的；光辉的

参考例句：

• Mary has a head of thick,lustrous,wavy brown hair.玛丽有一头浓密、富有光泽的褐色鬈发。
• This mask definitely makes the skin fair and lustrous.这款面膜可以异常有用的使肌肤变亮和有光泽。

8 adage   

n.格言，古训

参考例句：

• But the old adage that men grow into office has not proved true in my experience.但是，根据我的经验，人们所谓的工作岗位造就人材这句古话并不正确。
• Her experience lends credence to the adage " We live and learn!"她的经验印证了一句格言: 活到老，学到老！

9 corrupts   

（使）败坏( corrupt的第三人称单数 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏

参考例句：

• The unrighteous penny corrupts the righteous pound. 不正当得来的便士使正当得来的英镑也受到玷污。
• Blue cinema corrupts the souls of people. 黄色电影腐蚀人们的灵魂。

10 succumb   

v.屈服，屈从；死

参考例句：

• They will never succumb to the enemies.他们决不向敌人屈服。
• Will business leaders succumb to these ideas?商业领袖们会被这些观点折服吗？

11 tenacity   

n.坚韧

参考例句：

• Tenacity is the bridge to success.坚韧是通向成功的桥。
• The athletes displayed great tenacity throughout the contest.运动员在比赛中表现出坚韧的斗志。

12 backbone   

n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气

参考例句：

• The Chinese people have backbone.中国人民有骨气。
• The backbone is an articulate structure.脊椎骨是一种关节相连的结构。

13 thriller   

n.惊险片，恐怖片

参考例句：

• He began by writing a thriller.That book sold a million copies.他是写惊险小说起家的。那本书卖了一百万册。
• I always take a thriller to read on the train.我乘火车时，总带一本惊险小说看。

14 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

15 wield   

vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等)

参考例句：

• They wield enormous political power.他们行使巨大的政治权力。
• People may wield the power in a democracy.在民主国家里，人民可以行使权力。

16 rivalry   

n.竞争，竞赛，对抗

参考例句：

• The quarrel originated in rivalry between the two families.这次争吵是两家不和引起的。
• He had a lot of rivalry with his brothers and sisters.他和兄弟姐妹间经常较劲。

17 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

18 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

19 admonishing   

v.劝告( admonish的现在分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责

参考例句：

• It is waste of time, admonishing you. 劝告你简直是浪费工夫。 来自辞典例句
• To date, the Doctrine of Cheng Fu still exerts its admonishing effect. 时至今日，承负说仍具有警示作用。 来自互联网

20 discord   

n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐

参考例句：

• These two answers are in discord.这两个答案不一样。
• The discord of his music was hard on the ear.他演奏的不和谐音很刺耳。

21 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

22 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

23 aberration   

n.离开正路，脱离常规，色差

参考例句：

• The removal of the chromatic aberration is then of primary importance.这时消除色差具有头等重要性。
• Owing to a strange mental aberration he forgot his own name.由于一种莫名的精神错乱，他把自己的名字忘了。

24 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。