happinessisntapotato:

I had a bit of an awakening because of Holtzmann. No, not a queer kind of awakening, although I’m sure there are plenty of women out there who have, and that is awesome. For me, it was the first time that I can remember seeing a woman in a movie who was like me.

Women are under immense pressure to conform, to be ‘nice,’ to ‘smile’ etc. and speaking from personal experience, that pressure never lets up. There’s always some new asshole who wants to take you to task for not living up to their expectations of womanhood. The best you can do is decide that you don’t give a fuck and give them the finger.

Now back to the movie. Let’s be frank: Holtzmann is fucking weird. She dresses weird, she acts weird, she looks kinda weird, and most importantly she’s completely unapologetic about it. That never happens, and I mean in real life and in movies. This is someone who says whatever she’s thinking, who reacts authentically, who does whatever the hell she likes. This is a woman that most of us aren’t allowed to be. We are incessantly policed into conformity, because women with opinions and personalities contradict the cardboard cut-out attitude that most men have towards women. We don’t function as the expected screen onto which they can project their fantasies, fears, and desires, and that simply will not do.

But anyway. Another important thing to me about Holtzmann’s unapologetic weirdness was how much I identified with it. I envied it. I sat there during that movie and explicitly thought to myself, “This is who I am on the inside.” That had literally never happened before.

And now I want more.

I also have thoughts on Holtzmann (and also myself) as potentially on the autistic spectrum, but I’m really not familiar enough with the topic to discuss it at length. Anyone written or read anything like that? Anyone else get that from her?

Ghostbusters did a lot of very important things, one of which was proving that you could have women in a movie acting like human beings instead of a sanitised, male-ego-friendly version of women™. The version of women that we’re all under pressure to be. Holtzmann’s unapologetically weird, Abby and Patty are unapologetically larger women who can also be very loud. They don’t shrink into themselves. They’re given the space to be who they are. And the one person who isn’t like that (Erin) is very, very explicitly a depiction of the way women twist themselves to fit societal and social expectations. She dresses a certain way, she freaks out about the book because she’s trying to get tenure and Be Respectable, she spends the whole movie fighting against herself until finally she says “fuck it” and accepts herself. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s surrounded by other women doing the same thing. It’s what gives her the courage to break out of the little box she’s living in.

There’s also something to be said about Erin’s narrative, in which No One Believes Her. Erin’s backstory, her experience, and the way people respond to her narrative are a perfect metaphor for being a woman in general. How many times a day do you hear well why was she there and doing that? or I don’t see much evidence for that or you’re overreacting. This also happens to people of colour, queer people, disabled people, and other groups. People (chiefly men in positions of power) respond to her claims with contempt, scorn, and hostility because they challenge the status quo. I don’t think this was an accident. And in the end, she’s right. The movie makes that clear, but the movie also explicitly places that truth within the context of the world around her. Which is to say, she’s right, but no one’s going to admit that because are you kidding me, do you know what would happen? (”Change” is the answer, and we can’t have that.) So she has to accept public derision, and she has to be satisfied that she knows the truth, and some other people know the truth, but the world at large will not admit that it’s the truth. Wonder what that could be a metaphor for.

(Source: ifoundmybeatingheartagain)