Another film I've recently watched in the cinema was Coco avant Chanel - "Coco before Chanel" - starring Audrey Tautou as Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Tautou was great, but the film itself reminded me of the ongoing frustration dodging many a biopic (or film based on a true story, if you like) centred on a woman, as opposed to films portraying a male historical figure: most of them focus on the romance, with the work which made the woman in question famous being given just a nod or two. In this particular case, the film is, forgive the metaphor, wearing its colours up, in its title, so I didn't get in with the expectation of seeing Coco Chanel, professional woman. And I thought it was remarkably honest in the depiction of the mistress system, in lack of a better term. When young Gabrielle gets rebuffed in her initial attempt to get on the stage, she invites herself to the mansion of an earlier admirer, and she's quite aware she'll be expected to provide sex and entertainment to earn her keep. Her initial position, sometimes eating with the servants, sometimes presented to the guests, makes the economic and social dependence blatantly obvious, and the film doesn't romantisize it. And yes, we do see her take an interest in clothing, critisizing the Belle Epoque style which doesn't allow women to breathe, developing her own style through the picture. But the focus is still firmly on her love life, her two big relationships; in the last five minutes, she becomes an independent designer, but we never see any of the struggles from that period because it's all done in montage.

And this is fairly typical for a movie about a famous woman. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen has a few discreet mentions of Denys Finch-Hatton, but no more. Out of Africa, the film, makes the Karen/Denys affair front and center of the story. Camille Claudel? Is all about the Camille/Rodin affair, with Isabelle Adjani not allowed to age to boot so you could be forgiven for assuming Camille goes from being Rodin's student to sculptor to nervous breakdown and getting locked up in an asylum within two or three years instead of twenty. One of many, many reasons why, Cate Blanchett notwithstanding, I disliked the first Elizabeth movie so much I didn't even bother with The Golden Age are such clunkers like the "my queen rules with her heart, not with her head" line (this about Elizabeth Tudor!) and here, too, the focus on the affair with Robin Dudley who wasn't even presented as very interesting (which the real thing was). One of many reasons why I admire the 70s series Elizabeth R (with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth) is that they had the great idea of letting the first episode, The Lion's Cub, start with teenage Elizabeth literally keeping her head and fighting for survival in the aftermath of the Seymour affair (instead of making it about Seymour), and then proceeding through Mary's reign focused on the relationship between the sisters, again not on Elizabeth's love life. Which gets its place later in the series, but we're not introduced to Elizabeth as the heroine of a romance, or through her qualities as a lover as opposed to those which later kept her on the throne and assured her success.

Back to movies about women. I think the time where I'm not just irritated but revolted was with Artemisia, about baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Now, if you've heard about Artemisia but aren't very familiar with her work, chances are you do know two things - her violent Judith paintings, such as this one, and the fact she was raped by the painter Agostino Tassi who was sued and found guilty in a seven-month-trial. (This trial is a gruesome example of how the burden of proof was on the victim; Artemisia was interrogated using a device made of thongs wrapped around the fingers and tightened by degrees, an especially cruel torture for a painter, to ensure she spoke the truth.) Yet in the movie Artemsia, her relationship with Tassi is presented as a passionate love affair, with her father as the villain who sues Tassi out of jealousy, Tassi (who already had been guilty of raping his sister-in-law and one of his wives) as a gentleman who accepts the blame rather than letting Artemisia suffer through the trial... and of course there is precious little about Artemisia's work, let alone her post-Tassi career.

Now I was all set to rant about the patriarchy, but the director of Artemisia and the director of Coco before Chanel are both women. Moreover, a recent essay at ship_manifesto made me wonder whether the extreme focus on romance in movies about women isn't also part of the same phenomenon that informs fanfic being overwelmingly dominated by shipping, both het and slash-wise. In said essay, which is about Jo/Laurie from Little Women, the description of the original reception of the novel runs thusly: With no other outlet for their obsession, readers flooded Alcott and Thomas Niles with letters expressing their love for the book. And what did the Little Women fandom write about? How much the Marches reminded them of their own sisters? How scared they were when Beth was ill? How they knew exactly how the girls felt about having a father away in the War? How much they admired Jo for pursuing a career and resolving to support herself and her family instead of being concerned with snaring a rich husband and how they wanted to follow her example of independence? No. All the fans wanted to know was: when does Jo marry Laurie? Children’s writers and other media producers are used to this reaction by now, how it’s all about the shipping, and are even able to occasionally laugh at it. However, this was a new phenomenon to Miss Alcott, and her journals clearly show she was appalled: “Girls write to ask who the little women marry, as if that was the only end and aim of a woman’s life” (Journals of Louisa May Alcott 167)

Ms. Alcott, I feel for you. Also, fandom hasn't changed much in a century or more. And of course directors and scriptwriters, be they male or female, are aware of this. (Also tv producers, one assumes, hence the presentation of John/Aeryn and removal of any non-John-related storyelements for Aeryn in Farscape's season 4 and Roslin/Adama and (nearly) any non-Adama related issues for Laura Roslin in BSG's 4.5. Grrr, argh.) Still, I can't help and contrast and compare. A relatively recent film like Milk certainly makes its hero's love life an important part of the story (all the more important as his sexual identity is crucial to the story it wants to tell), and both Scott and the hapless Jack get their share of screentime; how Harvey relates to them is crucial for his characterisation. BUT Harvey's romances still don't dominate the picture; you can't say this is what Milk is about. The political activism, the struggle to get elected, the proposition 6 campaign, all this gets more attention than Harvey's love life, and justly so. Or take another film from recent years based on real events, Capote. Again, we get to meet Truman Capote's partner (played by Bruce Greenwood). And the relationship Capote forms with Perry Smith isn't without its subtext. But the focus in the later is more on the bizarre twist on the writer/muse constellation this presents, and the paradox that Capote in order to be able to tell Smith's story has to wish it to be ended and Smith dead, and Capote's long-suffering boyfriend (another Jack) is important to the story for what he comments on this writerly behaviour; he doesn't have any "let's discuss our relationship" scenes. Now, were fanfic to be written based on Milk or Capote - I have no idea whether or not it is - I'd still expect it to be shippy in nature, focused on the romances or potential romances, not on the political activism or writer ethics respectively. Because fanfiction really is this way. But in that case, it would not mirror the emphasis from the source material.

Just in time before the Oscars, I took my chance to watch this, though our reporters here augur that Sean Penn is going to bet beaten by Mickey Rourke because of a) the comeback factor, and b) the fact Penn got a best leading actor award not too long ago. Be that as it may, Milk was a fantastic film, pulling off the West Wing trick of making politics feel exciting and inspiring, managing to offer a vibrant picture of a community as well as of its hero, and following the rules of the biopic without feeling by-the-numbers even once.

( He's Harvey Milk and he wants to recruit you. )