Director: Pitof
Screenwriters: John Rogers, John Brancato, and Michael Ferris
Story By: Theresa Rebeck
Starring: Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, and Benjamin Bratt, Frances Conroy, and a bunch of cats.
Dear Darlingszzzzz,
Would you agree that the way we respond to a film—or even a painting, a piece of music, a book—has to do with something inside of us, an internal and inherent belief system? Our own way of operating in the world?
I have found it to be true. As a teacher, I have stood in front of so many classes, with people of all ages and backgrounds, asking questions like the one above. I present material and I ask, ask, ask. The best thing a teacher can do for any of us, in my opinion, is open up a space inside us for contemplation and consideration, and then continue to keep providing such a space to come back to. It is a truer and deeper form of learning, when we know things through our own processing and experience. Some may call that “revelation” or epiphany. Oprah says it is an “a-ha” moment.
The teachings we often get from a regular, boring, fixated world, on the other hand, tell us exactly what to think or believe. We are directed, mostly. “Here is how to spend your money. Here is how to vote. Here is what you need.” The messages are about “convenience,” complacency, convincement.
With all of this in your aura now, go with me on this journey to love and celebrate the 2004 film Catwoman, which has a 20-year anniversary this year. It stars Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, and Benjamin Bratt. It is directed by Pitof, a French director, and written by three men who did other superhero movies: John Rogers, John Brancato, and Michael Ferris. The story idea came from a playwright named Theresa Rebeck. So why didn’t this movie land big? Why was it such—what the industry would call—a flop?
I’d venture to say politics.
We have a country where politics is the closest thing many people get to a religious experience. And when politics is such a religious force, this whole jawn is a little scary. Oui?
Oui.
This film is not avant garde or especially unique, didactic or hard to grasp. It vibrates with our love of the underdog, our formula for good winning over evil. It has a beautiful and very fit woman star—Halle Berry. She is not a white woman, and yet she is quite beautiful. So, we have to wonder, could a heroine’s ethnicity be the reason the movie didn’t land bigger? If it were Scarlett Johansson crawling on a wall and wearing tight black leather, would the American populace have rushed to theaters? Or heck, would any blonde in leather have worked here? If Catwoman’s love interest, instead of being the Peruvian suave gentleman, Benjamin Bratt, had been, say, Brad Pitt, or some Italian mafioso type, would we have had the buy-in of a nation of Godfather-lovin’ Scorcese Kool-Aid drinkers chompin’ at the bit for merch and a sequel?
I wonder.
We can’t let critics or star-ratings and reviews dictate our understanding of cinema and story, good and bad, false and true. We have to look at the scales and balance things in a deeper understanding of what makes a strong film (or art in general), and who has the privilege to be lauded as the most talented. Sometimes, success has nothing to do with talent, but what we believe, or have been conditioned to believe. Skill, quality, effective formulas, strong acting…vs. who is white, and who is black, and who is Latino, and who has the “right” connections to industry leaders (such as, even, the pope?), and where is the money coming from, and what do those people want, and who is getting the money, and who is paying for the marketing, and how much are they going to keep paying for the marketing? Much of the way money is directed is about what people believe. Where do they put their hopes? What has worked before, and why? And, of course, the other question we have to ask in cinema is, who knows Leonardo DiCaprio, the king of Hollywood? He can definitely help you make your movie, if he wants to. Strangely.
Blada blada blada blada, boom, bingo.
So, let me just say, that Catwoman, as a film, is a delightful treat, and an awesome conversation-starter.
What a great way to spend a snowy day, or any day of the week, really, if you want a little boom-and-pow heroism and hope to light up your day.
Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) has a lovely apartment. And when she loses her job by telling the egomaniac corporate villain that she will no longer accept his horrible treatment of workers, I am not even worried about how she is going to keep that lovely apartment! I just, don’t even care. Like, real estate comes second! I believe in her resourcefulness, her ingenuity! I want that egomaniac corporate villain to stop poisoning the populace of the United States of America with his harmful products! And I want his Sharon-Stone-wife to stop caring so much about what her corporate egomaniac husband thinks, and who he is taking to bed in a fancy hotel! She is worth more than his indiscretions, and she can make it on her own, if she had a little self-esteem.
What I want is for Catwoman to keep showing up, with her whip, and her claws, and her purrs, and her hisses, and her ability to knock down the gunslingers and puppets and robots who are all operating under the assumption that money is power and it is life. They continue to put profits before people’s health and wellbeing. These robots and cogs believe and support operations where all that matters is prestige and what something looks like on the outside rather than what it feels like on the inside, or who it hurts! These guys need a good cat-scratch to wake up. And Batman is busy in his man-cave, not even known.
Patience Phillips/Catwoman is an honest and kind and humble human being. She uses her power for good, not evil. And if she makes a mistake, she says sorry. (How sweet.) What she allows for herself in that catsuit, and when she is transformed, and when she knows and owns what her leather catsuit can do—is an inner fierceness, the fire, the warrior spirit and the wit needed to outsmart the toxic patriarchy.
(This revolution is entirely possible.)
Let’s keep in mind that a patriarchy is not inherently toxic. If we had a worldly patriarchy aligned with that Heavenly Father Jesus talks about, we would be chilling and enjoying our wine and our bread on beaches and stuff. It would be awesome. We’d be laughing and loving and fishing and enjoying the fruitfulness that comes all the time with an enlightened society. We’d be taking care of women, babies, and poor people. Homelessness would be over, or it would be all the rage! We’d be spiritually alive and happy and peaceful.
But Patience Phillips lives in the problematic patriarchal paradigm where work culture is a beast, and many people believe in and think money is the root and source of everything, and too many people overlook problems or concerns because they want to stay close to those in positions of worldly power. With this mode of operating, many of us enslave ourselves for flimsy projected goals or ideologies rather than the wider reality that no day is guaranteed, and conscience is the key to a happy and rooted life.
So…20 years after the making of Catwoman, let’s take a new and fresh look at Patience Phillips and Pitof’s work. Patience can knock down male operatives in just a few minutes. She can walk on wires. She can defeat a modern Lady Macbeth who is even more evil than her vicious corporate husband. Patience can get out of jail. She can woo and even say “Adios” to a handsome detective who is in love with her. (I am not sure I would have let that one go). Her freedom is her joy and it is her wealth. And once she has that freedom and her inner fire, and her spirit renewed, she refuses to give it up. Even if it means being the lone cat strutting through alleys and lingering on the tops of skyscrapers.
She knows what power is.
I’d love a sequel.
Purringly,
Ms. Wonderful
Ms. Wonderful’s Detective Yogi Cat, who meditates.
