So let me get this straight:
Claire’s nephews see Owen wrestling with a dimorphodon then Claire smashing in its skull and shooting it dead with a rifle.
And yet, he’s the one they feel safer with?
I WOULD HAVE KILLED FOR THAT SCENE IN THE EXACT OPPOSITE: “this doesn’t feel very safe can we stay with you” “boys it’s too dangerous you need to-” “actually we meant aunt claire.” “yeah did you see her SHOOT A DINOSAUR c’mON”
jurassic world
Jurassic World’s Jurassic problem
Ironically, those high heels are actually by far the least sexist trope
involved in the writing of Claire. They’re something Bryce Dallas Howard
insisted on, feeling that they suited her character, and she nailed it.
Because high heels may be a impractical symbol of femininity, but
they’re an impractical symbol of femininity that can outrun a T-Rex, because Claire is just that good. Awesome! See, that’s how you do a woman “embracing her femininity” – you do something other than tying said femininity exclusively to her uterus.
The biggest problem with ‘Jurassic World’ isn’t a woman running in high heels
The biggest problem with ‘Jurassic World’ isn’t a woman running in high heels
The Internet is currently obsessed with the gender politics of Jurassic World. The controversy started back in April when Joss Whedontweeted his dissatisfaction with a clip from the film: “I’m too busy wishing this clip wasn’t ‘70s era sexist. She’s a stiff, he’s a life-force—really? Still?” However, since the movie’s release, that criticism has turned into a collective roar that would make Indominus Rex proud.
It seems like everyone is weighing inon the issue of Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Jurassic World’s chilly female lead. Is she an awful caricature of a career woman? Or is she a flawed human being who Learns a Life Lesson and then starts kicking ass with the best of them? And most importantly—can anyone actually run through the jungle in high heels?
One of the most frustrating things about films like Jurassic World is that they’re not intentionally sexist. In fact, according to their creators, they’re intended to challenge gender roles. In an interview with Italian film publication In Bad Taste,Trevorrow saidthat the movie starts with “characters that are almost archetypes, stereotypes that are deconstructed as the story progresses.”
According to Trevorrow, “the real protagonist of the movie is Claire, and we embrace her femininity in the story’s progression.” It’s hard to know exactly what that means, unless it’s a reference to Claire’s superhuman ability to run through the jungle in high heels. Most likely it has something to do with the final scene, where Claire apparently feels her biological clock ticking for the first time as she gazes soulfully at her nephews hugging their parents; she then shoots Owen a smoldering I-want-to-have-your-babies look before the two of them ride off into the sunset together. Apparently embracing femininity means rolling up your sleeves and getting dirty, while finally realizing that motherhood is your natural destiny.
Perhaps the real problem with Jurassic World isn’t so much that it’s sexist, it’s that the creators don’t understand why it’s sexist. Based on his interviews, it’s pretty clear that Colin Trevorrow thinks that Claire is a Strong Female Character, and this arguably makes it worse than if Trevorrow was just your run of the mill misogynist—ala Michael Bay. It’s one thing to churn out bad sexist media when you’re not paying attention, but it’s quite another to hit so far off the mark when you’re apparently giving it your all.
When explaining the reasoning behind Claire’s character, Trevorrow said, “There’s no need for a female character that does things like a male character, that’s not what makes interesting female characters in my view.” That type of statement right there encapsulates everything that’s wrong with movies like Jurassic World—the idea that women are some kind of specialty characters that need to be handled differently than others.
But instead of wondering what makes a female character interesting, why not ask what makes anyone of any gender interesting? What makes a person interesting? What will appeal not just to women viewers but to everyone watching the movie?
To fix this problem, we need to stop treating female characters as if they have an asterisk next to them and start treating them like people.
This is horse shit. Why should we bring feminism into this? It’s a movie about fucking dinosaurs (who are all female, BTW) meant to entertain but you want to turn it into a soapbox for a rant? Why does anything even remotely resembling old-fashioned femininity suddenly an insult to all women? So, since I believe in true love and romance, I must be weak and dumb? Or if I am not ready and willing to out-do any man in my vicinity, I am holding my gender back? I don’t understand how this MOVIE could raise a feminist issue.
Fun facts, apparently:
- If a movie features dinosaurs, you’re not allowed to make note of the potentially problematic aspects of the human characters
- Movies made for entertainment cannot be criticized or ranted about
- If all the dinosaurs are female, the movie is EXTRA not-sexist
- Criticism against a movie featuring sexist archetypes means your personal and unrelated opinions on romance is a sign of your weakness
- Media is incapable of being either sexist or feminist and talking about it is a waste of time and also somehow insulting to women who believe in true love
I liked Jurassic World, but I would have liked it a lot more without the sexist, workaholic-mothers-are-destroying-society subplot/tropes
I MEAN ALRIGHT (spoilers ahead)
Claire’s a ‘cold’ workaholic manager who can’t remember her nephew’s ages. She seems like a nice enough person, and competent, but we’re meant to judge her and judge her and judge her for…what, exactly? Not wanting kids? She’s referred to at least once as “the mother” of the park/the Indomitus Rex, the implication being that she’s a bad mother and it’s all kind of her fault, but she’s not a mother! And she doesn’t seem bothered about being one! And that should be fine! But the message we keep being hit over the head with is, “Women who place their work commitments above having children are selfish and will cause dinosaurs to run amok’ I mean, Claire isn’t remotely actually cold to her nephews – she’s just too busy to take them out to the park, so has her assistant do it. On the scale of likes-kids to hates-kids, she’s not even an Alan Grant! Yet her whole story revolves around Defrosting the Ice Queen (with as many sexist tropes, including an unasked-for kiss in the heat of the moment, as possible thrown in) and making Claire into a maternal figure worthy of a relationship with the alpha male Owen. Who likewise expresses no interest in children (actual children, not his raptors) but that’s okay cos he’s a dude? I guess? Anyway,
IT GETS WORSE
You’ve also got Karen, Claire’s sister and mother of the aforementioned nephews, who is going through a divorce. This is making her younger son unhappy and her teenage son a total jerk. In one scene, we see her calling her sons from her office only to be hurried into a meeting, implying that her devotion to her work is causing her family problems. And yet in all other respects she seems like a good mother, so we’ll take this one as a ‘maybe’, but
IT GETS WORSE
Claire leaves her nephews with an assistant, Zara (played by Katie McGrath! Hi there!) who like her boss seems competent enough but is clearly not interested in kids. (I can’t remember if she’s even seen actually antagonising them, but I don’t think so.) They give her the slip to go and explore the park. The next time we see her, she’s running towards the boys when she’s grabbed by a pterodactyl, tossed around as she screams, dunked into the Mosasaurus tank and eaten. She’s the only character to get such a gratuitous death scene, and – for why? I’m reminded of Gennero from the original movie, but he actually ran off and left the kids in danger; Zara just…cares more about her Blackberry than the kids she’s watching? (Who at that point aren’t in any danger at all.) Not exactly a crime, certainly not one deserving of GRATUITOUS DINO VIOLENCE. Her character’s presented in such a misogynistic way – attractive young woman stuck to her phone and not interested in children; therefore killed. You can’t imagine a man playing that same role, can you? I can’t.
Um, basically – pretty much every woman in this film is judged by their attitude to children and family, and/or their ability to be a caretaker, and if they don’t want one or don’t have that ability then they’re judged or punished in some way. I was so disappointed by that.
I… strongly disagree, and I’d seen a fair amount of this commentary before I saw the film, so I couldn’t help watching for it.
The first Jurassic Park movie was about a workaholic man who had to protect two young kids, that weren’t his, under extreme conditions. This movie was about a workaholic woman who had to protect two kids, that weren’t hers, under extreme conditions. I’ve had (self-identifed feminist) friends decry Claire’s character as ‘careerist bitch’, and I honestly think this says SO MUCH MORE about the audience than it does the character. Claire is business-minded and competent and obviously very clever, and her narrative is similar to the defrosting the ice queen trope, but I STRONGLY DISAGREE that this is to make her a maternal figure. Claire’s biggest moments – luring out the T-Rex on her own, which had nothing to do with the kids; saving Owen by shooting the pterodactyl off him (the context of what you describe as ‘an unasked for kiss’ which seemed pretty mutual to me) again had nothing to do with the kids (bar them seeing her and asking in awe, ‘Is that Aunt Claire?’. I.e., ‘DAMN, she a BADASS.’) In fact, that last moment specifically positions Claire as the hero defending Owen (which is not the case throughout the whole film, no, but then again Claire is not a character trained in action. The film only has one trained ‘dinosaur wrangler’ and it’s Owen, making Claire all the braver to my eyes). THAT’s the context in which the kiss takes place; after she saves him. You know, like every single male action hero who saves a woman and gets the climactic kiss as a reward.
I honestly don’t understand why you mention Owen as not being interested in children ‘but it’s ok because he’s a dude’ when all the interaction he and Claire had with/searching for/defending the kids were exactly the same. In fact I think Owen had significantly more screen time huddled into a closet clutching two children in his arms and trying to keep them from being eaten.
Re: Karen – I was under the impression the ‘meeting’ she was hurried into was literally a legal meeting about the divorce, and that was why the kids had been sent away while the parents sorted that out. I could be wrong. She was also very obviously a committed parent, hence all the phone calls and trying to encourage Claire to spend time with the boys. At no point did the narrative either punish or reward her in particular for this.
Zara is literally the only female character in the film that I would agree gets punished disproportionately for her inattention. Is the character presented in a misogynistic way? Well, maybe. I think she was a character written to serve a specific purpose in the plot (’babysitter that gets distracted so the kids can wander off and the plot advance’). She was also one of the few secondary/tertiary characters that we saw much of. I would list the guy and the woman in the control centre, the Indian park owner, the warmongering villain, and the head scientist at around that level too. I don’t know what film you were watching if you don’t think those last three men got gratuitous dino-deaths too.
The pattern I’m seeing in response to Jurassic World is ‘it’s sexist because the female character was a workaholic and the hero was a white dude!’. To which I say, look at the lens through which you’re watching the film. Because there is absolutely zero question in my mind that the hero’s journey was Claire’s. The growth was Claire’s. The main character was Claire. Yes, Chris Pratt was very sexy, but he’s basically the hot girlfriend who the main character ‘earns’ when they learn to be a true hero. Claire isn’t learning to love children so that at the end she can settle down and churn out babies! She’s put in a survival environment and asked to protect two kids she has a responsibility for, and she does it despite it being established that she is WAY out of her depth. If anything, the end of Jurassic Park hints that Sam Neill’s character has learned to love children and might want some of his own. (This is dropped in the sequels, but). Jurassic World very carefully does not do this!!! At all!!!
You know what the pattern I’m seeing in the Jurassic World response? I’m seeing people holding the character and narrative of a woman to a much higher standard than the character and (almost identical) narrative of a man in the original. YES, I understand that because of the history of film, the context of these arcs is different when we see them performed by different genders. But there is so much hypocrisy in the criticism of this film, and it boils down to the same old message: that the story’s somehow not as good with a woman.
((I did not mean to write this much and this is not meant as a personal attack on you OP, I am just SO FRUSTRATED))
Well, I do want to make it clear that I like Claire…I REALLY like Claire, in fact, and most of my general crossness with this movie comes from my suspecting it doesn’t like her half as much as I did. I know the hero’s journey was hers, but I also felt like we’re not meant to like the person Claire was at the beginning of the journey, and I liked that person too, flawed though she was. And of course she’s not a bitch. No woman’s a bitch, because ‘bitch’ is a word intended to dehumanize a woman rather than say anything at all about her.
It’s true that Claire’s story is almost identical to Alan’s, but there’s so much baggage in a story about a childless woman learning to care for kids, baggage that a childless male’s story just won’t have. It’s not a case of double standards so much as the fact that those double standards already exist in almost every facet of society – men aren’t usually asked by the media when they’ll become a father, fathers aren’t asked how they balance work and child-rearing, companies rarely have policies about not hiring men ‘in case they want to have kids soon.’ (That last one, and worse, is still frequently thrown in the faces of women who dare to have a career.) It’s just…not a comparison I think works. At all. There are a lot of cases where you can transfer a story previously led by a male to one led by a female, and make it work. But this wasn’t one of them, because we live in a sexist society, because in the real world Claire’s choice to not have children would be seen as selfish and Alan’s choice to not have children would be seen as perfectly reasonable. That’s the crucial context that argument (that people are holding the character and narrative of a woman to a much
higher standard than the very similar character and narrative of a man) is missing.
I think this article and this post and this post kind of sum up what I think about the movie. I don’t even think it’s a particularly bad movie! It was loads of fun! (Gratuitous, strangely misogynistic deaths aside.) But it still features a scene where a woman tells her sister that her having kids is an ‘if’ and her sister replies ‘Not if, when!’ and the sister’s meant to be the one who’s right.
weren’t the first two jurassic park movies pretty good with their lady scientists/girl characters too? (or at least better) -reluctantheroine
I’ve only ever seen the first one, but I loved Lex and Ellie. And the movie treated them waaaay better than the new one treated Claire! Bah!
I just want to be clear that I still like Claire Dearing. I’m not critiquing her portrayal because I’m determined to hate her? I’m not being analytical and expressing my opinions to convince anyone that she shouldn’t like her. I just expected more, especially after the women in the previous films, and I think there are ways to push her into a more creative character whose explicitly granted actual respect. I hope no one’s getting from my posts that I wholly despise her because I don’t. I’m just very, very critical of media that seeks to place women in leadership roles as if they’re so progressive only to not even recognize their own pitfalls and failures to actually elevate her from the heavy tropes/stereotypes and not make her likable to the general public only when she shows ‘badass’ qualities and basically performs masculine tasks. The double standard that women have to be women and perform masculine tasks while still looking pretty doing them in order for people to support those women is what I’m having a problem with, rather than her being likable and treated fairly the entire way through.
She was feminine and in a high-ranking position. I wish she was also portrayed as liked by her employees and employer instead of constantly insulted by them.
She was an aunt and sister. I wish her sister understood her career-oriented focus and didn’t chastise her for going on with her daily routine (like what did Karen expect them/her to do? why didn’t Karen emphasize it was important that she changed her schedule beforehand? why didn’t Karen tell Claire before they even got on the plane what her expectations/hopes were for their time bonding? why didn’t Karen tell Claire Zach is mean to Gray earlier? how could Claire possibly know that and why is she villainized by her own sister?) with words belittling her choice to not have children yet, and I wish her nephews’ perspectives/the script didn’t demonize her for not knowing small things about them. Karen and her husband are just as responsible for encouraging a relationship between their sons and their aunt. I wish Gray and Zach weren’t blatantly portrayed as her afterthoughts when the I-Rex escaped.
She wasn’t impressed with her perceived incompatibility and the impression that Owen didn’t really respect her on their first date, so she didn’t want a second date. I wish he had asked her a legitimate question about why she didn’t want a second date and actually valued her input, and instead the conversation wasn’t spun so we’re given the message that she’s a frigid, judgmental, stuck-up prude who needs to loosen up, and how she should loosen up should involve the male protagonist’s genitals.
She got off her high horse and asked Owen to help her find her nephews, putting her biases and pride aside for the better of her family. I wish Owen hadn’t immediately insulted her inability to recall their ages.
She charged into the jungle, with no experience whatsoever with tracking, dinosaurs, self-defense, and kept her demeanor together for the most part, and wanted to save her nephews herself because security ignored her orders to go get them. I wish Owen’s first response had been admiration/encouragement for her go-getter attitude and her bravery to be so out of her element, instead of fucking harping on her wardrobe.
She killed a dinosaur to save Owen’s life. I wish immediately after the nephews didn’t say they’d feel safer with Owen instead of her, when all they’d seen of him up to that point was him flat on his back wriggling around and her saving him, and oh, hey, some skills driving a jeep backwards (which is something I do every single day). Oooh. Ahh. What a fucking hero and how funny. Good one, script.
She realized the lab was evacuated/ing and started understanding how Dr. Wu and the corporations/military were making decisions without her being fully informed and therefore denying her actual consent even though she would be reamed in the media as the scapegoat while they ignored the safety of everyone for profit. I wish she had been able to voice all of that to the bad guy after he condescendingly calls her “Honey.” I wish she had been given a motivating monologue showing more of her growth and development and her advocacy for the wellbeing of all of her guests.
She drove the ambulance to save her nephews from the raptors. I wish instead of the nephews aggrandizing themselves (‘Wait ‘til we tell mom how we fought off dinosaurs!’) for rolling shit out the backdoor (that the raptors evaded) and finally turning on a shock-stick they said something affirming about their aunt’s driving, her slamming a raptor into a tree, their aunt protecting them like she promised she would.
She got the T-Rex as reinforcement. She got to re-enact Dr. Grant’s prolific flare scene in the first movie. She used herself as bait to save her family. I wish it had actually been her idea– not Gray’s “more teeth,” thing, even though I understand it and it was fun cooperation between them. (I actually thought when he said “more teeth” that she was going to COMBINE the T-Rex+Mosasaurus by leading BOTH the Rexes to the Mosasaurus because the Mosasaurus has the most teeth. Wonderful.) I wish she didn’t suddenly have a slit up her skirt revealing her thigh. I wish her hair wasn’t magically curled and she wasn’t all wet while the boys were dry. I wish she didn’t look like she was a damsel out of a King Kong movie laying on the floor underneath the Rexes, bosom heaving. I wish she didn’t have to shout a misogynistic and gross line to Lowery to get him to open the gate (”Be a man for once in your life!” reinforcing that she has to display masculine traits–or transversely the traits have to be regarded by herself as masculine even though we all know they’re not gendered traits realistically–to be respected by other characters/the audience).
I understand the people who like her as the movie portrays her. I understand the moments that made people pump their firsts. I understand people who like her with Owen, especially because Pratt and BDH have palpable chemistry. I understand how hero arcs work and that she had to fail in order for prevailing to be more exquisitely and strongly celebrated in our audience’s ability to relate to her. But constantly and needlessly and recklessly and stereotypically giving others the ability to undermine her and discount her at almost every turn pisses me the fuck off, and that’s what I’m criticizing. She deserved better.
I liked Jurassic World, but I would have liked it a lot more without the sexist, workaholic-mothers-are-destroying-society subplot/tropes
I MEAN ALRIGHT (spoilers ahead)
Claire’s a ‘cold’ workaholic manager who can’t remember her nephew’s ages. She seems like a nice enough person, and competent, but we’re meant to judge her and judge her and judge her for…what, exactly? Not wanting kids? She’s referred to at least once as “the mother” of the park/the Indomitus Rex, the implication being that she’s a bad mother and it’s all kind of her fault, but she’s not a mother! And she doesn’t seem bothered about being one! And that should be fine! But the message we keep being hit over the head with is, “Women who place their work commitments above having children are selfish and will cause dinosaurs to run amok’ I mean, Claire isn’t remotely actually cold to her nephews – she’s just too busy to take them out to the park, so has her assistant do it. On the scale of likes-kids to hates-kids, she’s not even an Alan Grant! Yet her whole story revolves around Defrosting the Ice Queen (with as many sexist tropes, including an unasked-for kiss in the heat of the moment, as possible thrown in) and making Claire into a maternal figure worthy of a relationship with the alpha male Owen. Who likewise expresses no interest in children (actual children, not his raptors) but that’s okay cos he’s a dude? I guess? Anyway,
IT GETS WORSE
You’ve also got Karen, Claire’s sister and mother of the aforementioned nephews, who is going through a divorce. This is making her younger son unhappy and her teenage son a total jerk. In one scene, we see her calling her sons from her office only to be hurried into a meeting, implying that her devotion to her work is causing her family problems. And yet in all other respects she seems like a good mother, so we’ll take this one as a ‘maybe’, but
IT GETS WORSE
Claire leaves her nephews with an assistant, Zara (played by Katie McGrath! Hi there!) who like her boss seems competent enough but is clearly not interested in kids. (I can’t remember if she’s even seen actually antagonising them, but I don’t think so.) They give her the slip to go and explore the park. The next time we see her, she’s running towards the boys when she’s grabbed by a pterodactyl, tossed around as she screams, dunked into the Mosasaurus tank and eaten. She’s the only character to get such a gratuitous death scene, and – for why? I’m reminded of Gennero from the original movie, but he actually ran off and left the kids in danger; Zara just…cares more about her Blackberry than the kids she’s watching? (Who at that point aren’t in any danger at all.) Not exactly a crime, certainly not one deserving of GRATUITOUS DINO VIOLENCE. Her character’s presented in such a misogynistic way – attractive young woman stuck to her phone and not interested in children; therefore killed. You can’t imagine a man playing that same role, can you? I can’t.
Um, basically – pretty much every woman in this film is judged by their attitude to children and family, and/or their ability to be a caretaker, and if they don’t want one or don’t have that ability then they’re judged or punished in some way. I was so disappointed by that.
Edited: Actually, I think (after flicking through a few reviews) the mother might have been in a meeting with the divorce lawyers rather than in a work meeting. But I think the other points still stand! OH DINOSAUR MOVIE WHY WERE YOU SO DISAPPOINTING ON THE FEMINISM FRONT
The most overt instance of a character being punished for femininity does not go to Claire, however, but her assistant Zara. Her big crime in the narrative is talking on the phone while babysitting Claire’s nephews at an attraction — the minute she turns her back on them, they take the opportunity to run away from her.
The next time we see her, she dies in the most elaborate and gruesome death scene ever in any of the four Jurassic Park movies. You know how usually when a dinosaur eats someone in these movies it’s pretty quick? This one goes on and on and on. I’d compare it to the sort of thing you’d see in Sharknado, but even those instances tend to be brief, because you can only see a human suffer for so long before it starts to feel like torture porn.
What awful thing did this character do that watching her scream for nearly two minutes would be gratifying for the audience? Is it because she was wearing high heels and talking on her phone like a Chatty Cathy?