This week in my Film Genre class on Asian Horror, we screened "Ju-On," later remade as "The Grudge", which revolves around a haunted house. Long ago, the man who lived there killed his wife and child after he came to suspect that his wife had had an affair. The ghosts return to kill anyone who enters the apartment.
Like Ringu, this film felt cheesy and dated enough that I could handle it without being completely freaked out. Although there is some gore, mostly in the reveal of the bloody broken body of the female ghost at the end, none of the murders take place on screen, and there's a pretty silly image of the mother and child ghosts looming over one of their about-to-be victims as she huddles in bed.
The director, Takashi Shimizu, has stated that the story was inspired by the rise of domestic abuse cases in Japan, and through its imagery and character development, the film touches on the fury felt by Japanese men (unfortunately this is not limited to Japan) at the rising independence of women, who were shucking off the sole roles of wife and mother to enter the workforce. Poor men, emasculated and left in the dust by these wild loose women who've abandoned their kids to babysitters and the television. Luckily, we've now as a society moved well beyond that phenomena of men feeling ownership over women's bodies and autonomy. Ha ha ha ha ha, just kidding.
The film also feels firmly planted in the male gaze, exhibiting the horror/disgust that men feel about what women's bodies are capable of (when the broken body of the female ghost is revealed, covered in slime and gore and painfully dragging itself down the stairs, it is blatantly reminiscent of a fetus exiting the birth canal, and you can almost feel Shimizu holding an appalled exhibitory hand toward it, going "Eeew").
The "bad mom" trope is also quite present here, as the child ghost keeps manifesting to young women who enter or are lured to the house. They assume he's a neglected child, in one case having been locked in a closet, and in another, left alone in the house to watch television.
Having worked in the entertainment industry for going on 20 years before returning to school, the depiction of men murderously rageful when faced with women they can't control feels quite familiar. Right now, though, it's the disgust/hatred of moms who dare to take their mom-selves out of the home and seek to pursue careers beyond their children that resonates the most with me. I am the only mother in my cohort, and the only single parent (there are two dads who have more children than me, which I'm sure is incredibly difficult, but they also have spouses who I'm perhaps erroneously assuming handle the majority of the childcare). I don't know why I thought USC would be out in front of the slow-coming movement to bring more women into positions of creative leadership in film and tv, partly by making it more manageable for them to take care of their families AND work. One of the big ticket items in IATSE's almost-strike of last year was creating a better quality of life for crew members, partly by lessening work hours so they can spend time with their families. More than one USC professor stood on a soapbox in front of our class and claimed to 100% support IATSE. Companies like Shondaland have incorporated on-set childcare into their workspace; others have adopted French film hours, which condense breaks in order to keep to a ten hour day.
At the end of my first semester, I found out that in semester two, we would be expected to shoot 6 full weekend over 14 weeks. Two consecutive weekends, three times. My daughter was five at the time, going to an after care program after school so that I could attend my own classes, making it to pick her up at 6pm. The time we spend together is the harried mornings as we both rush to get ready for school, the hour and a half in the evenings before bed, and the weekends. She still cries if she doesn't feel like we're getting enough quality time.
I didn't have classes on two days during the week, so I went (at the urging of another professor) to a professor who had a leading role in the class in question. I explained my situation: not only would these many weekend shoots prohibit me from being able to spend quality time with my daughter, they would add another approximately $2,000 to my tuition, in babysitting expenses. I explained the situation to him and asked if I could have some flexibility in shoot dates. "Have you been to mental health services?" this dude asked, continuing, "Cause it seems like you're experiencing a lot of stress around balancing your commitments." I can't even convey how outrageous and offensive I found this statement, but my face apparently conveyed it just fine, because he squeaked quickly backwards on it and told me to come up with a solution. "How about I shoot Friday/Saturday instead of Saturday/Sunday?" I offered. He said he would take it up the chain, but let me know that the only reasons considered worthy of allowing a shoot date change were actor or location availability, certainly not children.
Next, I received an official USC letter from someone important in the department, stating that they could not jeopardize the education of my two trio mates by making any exceptions for schedule changes (um... WHAT). This person let me know that if I felt like I needed to take a leave of absence until my schedule became more manageable, the door was right over there. Alas, my child will still be my child, under my care, for the next 12 years, so I don't think a leave of absence will help.
There was a lifeline of "at this time" in the letter, so I scheduled an appointment with another Someone Important in the department to ask if there was any wiggle room. This person said no, absolutely not. "Here's what I'd do," she said. "Never mention your child again. As time goes on, if there's an actor or space availability, go with that." Unfortunately the first professor I went to felt it necessary to give MY professors a heads up that I wanted to change the shoot schedule because of a child rather than reasons-deemed-acceptable. I never did ask for a schedule switch, but my two trio mates did, for a location issue, and were denied. Meanwhile, I wanted students all over my cohort get permission on a case-by-case basis to shoot on days during the week. It felt like a very pointed, biased approach.
I mostly feel like this: USC SAYS "NO THANK YOU" TO MOMS AT SCHOOL. Take your bags and move to the left and how dare you bring your mom shit up in here.
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