I've decided to post a "media analysis" I wrote as part of my Feminist Theory class in Spring of 2007.
Please note, I am definitely not an authority on feminism of any kind, this paper was my attempt to connect the various theories in feminist movement to an artifact of contemporary popular culture.
I haven't looked over it since I turned it in last May, but probably should. Don't expect all the sentences to flow, the grammar to be spot-on, or the metaphors to work--the majority of this paper was written in a dingy hotel room in a hotel just outside of Las Vegas, NV the night before grades were do. But in all seriousness, I'd like to hope that I've progressed somewhat as a writer, and that in the future I won't reuse the opening from a paper I wrote my freshman year in college.
With that said, here goes nothing.
“Invading In On The Secrets” of Just My Luck
The silver screen is a deceptive canvas on which society paints both the reactionary and the progressive, simultaneously reinforcing and challenging the dominant patterns of behavior, beliefs, and institutions of culture. Movie-going is therefore not either passive-escapist or active-normative, but rather both and neither at the same time. What makes the experience potentially so powerful is the belief that moviegoers are actively engaged in an escapist venture. This narrative of movie-going is largely unquestioned and films like (year)'s Just My Luck, a formulaic romantic comedy set in New York City ,are widely-accepted at face-value. To import the language of bell hooks, movies “mystify” the social and political implications of on-screen experience by ostensibly belonging to some other world/reality. The title of this media analysis is derived from several lyrics in a song featured in the film, which suggest a response to the uncomfortable responses elicited by a feminist reading of Just My Luck: “Was I invading in on your secrets / Was I too close for comfort / What was I just about to discover.” Analyzed through a lens of liberal, radical, and post-structuralist feminism, Just My Luck provides an interesting source for comment and critique. By reading the film from the perspectives of several perspectives of feminist theory, each with its strengths and weaknesses, and raising questions of gender, race, and class, the film is actively engaged on the plane of critical analysis.
The first scene of the film find Ashley emerging from her upscale apartment complex dressed in all white. It is a rainy day in New York City, yet she carries no umbrella. She greets the doorman, using his first name, and he responds, “Good morning, Ms. Albright” and comments on her lack of umbrella. But Ashley is the type of girl who can light the world up with her smile, literally, and the rain suddenly stops, the sun starts to shine and a cab pulls up to the curb. As she enters the cab, Ashley notices that there is money stuck on the heel of her boot. She passes the doorman, says thanks and “have a good one,” before getting into the cab. As she lifts her foot off the ground, she notices a five-dollar bill stuck to the heel of her boot. “Nice” she comments before ripping it off and saying a quick “bye” to Oscar as he closes the door for her. In the cab, Ashley dials her friend, Dana, but accidentally gets connected to a radio station which asks her to “name [the] mystery song,” she chuckles before saying “Oops.. I did it again” (the correct answer) and hanging up. Exiting the cab, two men are carrying a reflective glass window pane; Ashley takes this opportunity to check her makeup and reapply lipstick before entering the building. As she enters the elevator, she clutches a copy of the magazine Cosmopolitan. This particular sequence, though interrupted by a scene, is our first introduction to Ashley and to the larger narrative being transmitted by and within the film. The liberal feminist lens may see Ashley's success as the result of her hard work and ingenuity and although it is never shared exactly what Ashley does (until she is promoted), it certainly is valuable. The fact that Ashley, her boss, and a majority of the professional-looking women in the office environment would indicate the ability of women to succeed when allowed equal opportunities. A liberal feminist may question whether this is a reflection of the current reality, but may not necessarily see problems with the hierarchy of women found within the office and the negative treatment of women in lesser offices. Both the liberal and radical feminist perspectives raise issue with Ashley's Cosmo readership, because for the former it is a part of the “sexual sell” and the latter sees it as an acceptance of structured myths of beauty. With the introductory sequence explicated, it becomes easiest to use the specifics introduced therein to analyze the rest of the film by using feminist lenses to view the various motifs and patterns found throughout Just My Luck.
A Marxist feminist would do well to notice not just the labor that is seen, but the unseen labor as well. Moreover, central to a Marxist critique of Just My Luck would be the way in which capitalism operates to divide women. The gendered nature of certain occupations (especially service), regardless of the sex of the occupant would perhaps be an extension of this. Though initially invisible, when looking for these very things, it becomes apparent that Just My Luck is blatantly subtle in its classism. Though cordial, there is no relationship outside of the service provided between any of the support staff and those who utilize their services. There is so much that goes unseen, especially the laborious work (being done by someone) to maintain the immaculate standards of cleanliness and organization that seem to define every space occupied by Ashley or her elite co-workers. Even Ashley's friends, who relative to her are lower in the class hierarchy, occupy spaces which remain tidy in every scene. Their lower position within the elite class is marked by the cluttered nature of the cleanliness and organization of the apartment Dana and Maggie share. They are unable to remain in total control of their physical space because they are not yet entirely accepted by the bougie women that surround them—this is evidenced when the way the boss, Ms. Bradden, corrects Maggie for referring to her by her first name (Ms. Bradden had only seconds before given Ashley the green-light to call her “Peggy”). The use of formal titles as a way of announcing status is another way in which class subtly makes itself known. Jake's full name is not shared with the audience until after he has been transformed by Ashley's luck into a handsome, successful talent manager and is invited to reveal it by the wealthy music executive. Throughout the movie there is the extensive use of ornately decorated and complicated stages, lighting systems, refreshment tables and sound equipment. But the audience is never meant to question who built it, prepared it, or set it up, and the audience probably never does. At a particularly low moment in Ashley's new unlucky life, she approaches a vase of beautiful flowers. She leans over and smells them, and the audience is asked to join her in this temporary moment of sensual escape; but what should not be escaped is the question of who put them there. Who was it that cleaned the elevator that she took to her penthouse or who was it that cleaned up after the expensive and elaborate masquerade ball? Moreover, in what ways did this unacknowledged, invisible labor function to disadvantage women and their families? There is one instance in which a related issue is addressed, when the audience is invited into the doorway of the home Jake's cousin, Katie, and her grandmother (Jake's Aunt Martha) share. It is late in the evening, and Aunt Martha is off to work “a midnight shift” somewhere, wearing a waitresses outfit and a bun she keeps in the oven. There is nothing wrong with the scene and a Marxist feminist would make note of the fact that not only does the scene “fit” in the movie its naturalness and appropriateness of her leaving is unquestioned—in capitalist society, you have to pay the bills somehow. The audience is not asked to question whether Katie's emotional, physical, or mental well-being is affected by the lack of an adult presence in the household in the evenings, because there is a surrogate “mother”—in the form of a clumsy older cousin who is in few ways personified masculine, including when he uses a cotton-ball to remove the Mega-Man doll super-glued to Katie's face in a manner similar to a mother using a tissue with saliva to clean the dirty face of her child. The internalization of certain gender roles (mother/caretaker v. protector/watcher) can be discerned from the dialog that is exchanged as Aunt Martha exits:
AUNT MARTHA: Katie, mind our cousin. JAKE: I'll keep an eye on her.
Independent of the rest of the movie, this particular scene simultaneously challenges (“mind your cousin” is directed at Katie, not Jake) and recreates (“I'll keep an eye on her”) gender role stereotypes.
Capitalism certainly does not focus entirely (if at all largely) on the gender of the laborer, and class divisions do not run vertically, dividing men and women, but rather horizontally, dividing classes. But the demarcation of class borders is not enough, and within the underclass there is competition for even greater capital and accumulation of wealth, pitting each wo/man against every other wo/man for access to these resources. This is seen when there are obvious competitive divisions between the three female friends with regards to the special treatment afforded to Ashley by Ms. Bradden, and also during several scenes when Maggie and Dana display hints of jealousy as they are being supportive of Ashley—first when she becomes newly unlucky (though this is almost a proud, jealousy of the past, relishing in the present affair, yet genuinely concerned for their friend) and then when she reappropriates the luck. The latter narrative—spanning several scenes—offers a particularly delicious source of elaboration from within various feminist perspectives. The unlucky Ashley has no money, no home, nothing. But, through Dana's questioning, the audience is allowed to know that Ashley's parents are wealthy and able to support her if need be. But Ashley refuses to “admit defeat.” The liberal feminist might see this as the choice of an independent female wanting to break free from the oppressive bonds of family obligation and become her own person—her own woman. But to the radical and Marxist feminist, this “choice” reeks of race and class privilege/luxury. The conversations and interactions between Ashley and her two best friends on this topic can be viewed as a microcosm of the “equality—of opportunity or of of opportunity debate” within the various theories. After taking her luck back from Jake, In this light, Ashley defends her “unnaturally” good fortune and success by saying it is the result of her talent and skill. Maggie and Dana are caught in disbelief when Ashley loses her luck and faces problems of the “real” world like getting a zit or not having a bed to sleep on. When Maggie, an aspiring song writer, is told her song would not be performed by McFly at their concert because of the music executive's superstitious belief, she is noticeably disappointed, but accepts the decision as a part of her “lot in life,” so to speak. She and Dana become especially bothered by Ashley's attitude, who continues to dismiss the advantages her luck privileges her with. Within the context of the overarching narrative of the film, the scene means several things. But removed from that context and analyzed separately, it begins to take on new, more “colorful” flavors. Maggie and Dana are never shown independent of each other in these scenes, while Ashley most often is. The ability to occupy space on the screen is a cue to the audience of the value, worth, or importance of the character, and in this case Ashley is more important. That Maggie and Dana are largely confined to doorways (the bathroom then the front door) while Ashley is given the entirety of the living room cannot go without mentioning. A radical feminist may also take away from this the feeling that Maggie and Dana have been—throughout the film and culminating in this scene—racialized as non-white. A white individual may attribute the privileges afforded by his/her whiteness to “luck” and this scene expresses a very different narrative when read for the existence of racialized bodies.
A viral video which hit the net just a few months before Just My Luck was released made mention of “the angles”--the position of the female body in a photograph to hide or accentuate certain features. The ability of spatial location or camera angle to transmit messages to the entire audience or to select populations therein is illustrated by readings of the various techniques employed in Just My Luck. Early in the film, Ashley meets David Pennington, the handsome heir to a mega-fortune, in an elevator. As Ashley exists the elevator he asks her for a date. She leans against the wall and David raises his arm above her. Though form her point of view this is not evident, the view the audience is provided with is one of Ashley's being boxed in, trapped both between David and the wall and again between David and the audience. The audience is invited, therefore, to engage in the control of Ashley's body. Later, in a scene set at a bowling alley, the camera pans, opening to a short of a group of three women at a table. The camera pauses, for a fleeting moment, trapping the women in the frame (and in the minds of the audience) before zooming in behind them to Jake as he walks past a group of men and women. The backs of the women are to Jake and the audience watches him stare at the women's bodies. The audience is invited to engage in Jake's voyeurism by his excited laughter and the camera's panning towards and then away from the women and to Jake. It is important to note that men of all races are invited to engage in this exertion of control and domination of women's bodies through the camera, in fact the entire audience is forced to witness it. In this vein, the film only exists itself “for your viewing pleasure” if you are a man. Initially, one might think that radical lesbian feminists too would be able to engage in deriving pleasure (on some level) in the same way at men, but to argue that would be to a fallacy, because radical feminism asserts that both men and women ought to be free of such objectification. The song playing during the masquerade dance, featuring a synthesized female voice, serves almost as a bodiless narrator giving consent to men on the dance floor and in the audience, exclaiming:
My mission is to get you tonight I'm feeling hot boy, so hold me tight
This is where we're supposed to be
Don't be shy come, give it to me
The robotic/monotone voice contrasts with the sexually-charged message. The almost-whisper sexualizes the voice and its “detached” source in a very disempowering way. The final scene to be analyzed builds off of this theme of sexualizing things not typically viewed as sexual. The view of the audience switched suddenly from the excitement of Jake saving a life to a close-up shot of Ashley's exasperated, her mouth open, lips forming a circle slightly larger than a golf-ball. After a split second, it becomes clear that the gagging sounds and thrusting of her face is the result of her choking on something, but the sights and sounds of this scene are capable of being read in extremely sexual ways, especially given the angle of the shots provided to the audience. Ashley is bending forward, as Maggie comes from behind her to perform the Heimlich maneuver. The camera cuts to a straightforward, but raised, view of Maggie and Ashley. The increased elevation creates an image of one woman thrusting into the other and not of an emergency procedure. The two are never shown on camera during this scene from a point that does not invite the audience to objectify their bodies or sexualize their behaviors, an invitation that certainly is “too close for comfort.”
Just My Luck is not, by any means, an overtly racist, sexist, or oppressive film, but it is a product of a white-supremacist patriarchical society. At their most basic level, movies are stories, and Just My Luck is no exception. But within the larger picture, there are many smaller stories. Each of these is the product of a combination of props, scenes, lighting, acting, etc. and there are countless ways of combining them to form the larger narrative. Some of these narratives are more “real” than others,but none could be described as more "true" than the others. Perhaps this is the real magic of the silver screen: a hundred-member audience is a hundred possible different readings of the same film.
ENDNOTES
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