Yesterday, Emma and I saw Going Shopping:
Emma: OK: Going Shopping. The script was apparently co-written by the star (Victoria Foyt) and her husband (Henry Jaglom), who directed it. Did you find that the subject matter - women's obsession with shopping - was dealt with in a feminist or chauvinistic way?
Lauren: That's a great observation, and I love that you did a little homework. I think it's kind of a slight film, so slight perhaps that it doesn't even register on either end of that spectrum. It didn't even seem to have a point, much less an ideological perspective.
Emma: Slight is correct. Slight, but not without its charm I thought. But what you say about it being hard to identify an ideological stance is interesting, because the film raises these thorny questions and then doesn't actually take them anywhere...
Lauren: Exactly - I found that very frustrating. With Green Street Hooligans, the film comes dangerously close to cliche just to prove the point that violence is not the answer to life's problems. Going Shopping, on the other hand, was like a half-hour situation comedy about women. But then again, we're so conditioned by society to think that women's interests are frivolous that it's hard to parse apart any underlying significance without feeling like there may be an implicit prejudice. I mean, the conversations among men in Green Street Hooligans were no more interesting just because the stakes were presumably higher.
Emma: Right. Because in Going Shopping the range-of-women-talking-to-the-camera device was used to show, as I took it, how plagued with unhappiness and insecurity most women are. That seemed more the subject of the film than the significance of the palliative measure - shopping - frequently taken.
Lauren: There was definitely neurosis on display. I kept asking myself what the point was, when it's obviously going to have a happy ending.
Emma: Comparing this film to Green Street Hooligans is actually worthwhile because in the latter we were shown intense male dysfunction not usually publicly displayed. And in Going Shopping we have the same with women.
Lauren: Absolutely. It's a quintessentially American thing, I think, to have the internal dysfunction of the characters be more central than the plot. I am glad we waited a day to discuss Going Shopping, because, while it felt as light, sweet and airy as frosting immediately afterwards, it has failed to leave any lasting impression on me whatsoever.
Emma: I wouldn't say it left no impression, but it certainly didn't leave much. But I don't think that was the director's intention! I'm struck that you say there was obviously going to be a happy ending because I couldn't tell at all. I think that was one of the disorienting things about the film for me. I had no idea whether it was going to end horribly or not.
Lauren: It felt like an episode of Three's Company. Have you seen that show? It was really popular here in the 1970s and had a long life through syndication. Essentially, it was a madcap romp through the lives of single people in Southern California apartment complex. And every episode was the same in that some zany plot had to get resolved. Going Shopping lurched toward that premise pretty early on...
Emma: I haven't seen Three's Company but I have a pretty good idea of the kind of show it was. Plus it was taken from a British show, Man About the House. It seems, and it may not behove me to admit this, that Going Shopping engaged me emotionally more than it did you...
Lauren: Well, there were things that I genuinely appreciated about the film. Like, as we discussed a bit, that idea that our mothers' generation was raised to be reliant on men in a way that women our age realize can often be very damaging. For instance, in the sense that Holly G (Victoria Foyt) refused to manage the business aspects of her shop, and had to learn a difficult lesson about the true cost of letting her boyfriend manage her finances. That was painful to watch. I understand why she would want to just focus on the design aspects of her work, and let "the man" worry about the bottom line, but it was really tragic when that unfolded so unfortunately. I thought that piece was really well done, as was the overall examination of men's influence on the lives of Holly, her mother (Lee Grant), and Holly's daughter Coco (Mae Whitman). That was the most effective element of the film for me.
Emma: Yes... Certainly the silly plot in Shopping - Holly having the weekend to find a large sum of money or she'd get evicted from her store - was nothing more than an hanger (appropriate metaphor alert!) for the "issues". But I did experience a certain familiar horror watching the speaking-to-the-camera women, especially the bit where they talked about how much they hated looking in the mirror.
The money stuff: I found it just so, so implausible that she wouldn't even have looked at a bank statement. But I suppose, as you've said, it's to do with Holly being of a different generation, one which is more accustomed to deferring to men.
Lauren: As well, the role of shopping in women's lives as debtors. The political economy of shopping drives me crazy. I think women are encouraged to spend money in ways that undermine their independence over a lifetime, e.g Women get manicures. Men buy real estate.
Emma: Yes, but that dichotomy is so deeply entrenched in history and biology and all the forces that make women direct their energy to looks and men to power. I suppose this is why this film failed to satisfy - there are all these complex and fascinating elements to the subject matter that were barely alluded to.
Lauren: Absolutely. That's a dead-on critique. I liked the multi-generational characters in the film, especially the 10 to 12 year old girls who were obviously learning patterns about relating to each other and their mothers, etc. through shopping.
Emma: The most subversive plot line, I thought, was the fact that Holly's mother was a career shoplifter! I actually really loved that.
Lauren: Yeah, that was a perfect expression of her inner neediness, and her dissatisfaction with how much attention she felt she received.
Emma: Her own neediness, and her determination that her daughter wouldn't go without or not feel a proper sense of status amongst her peers.
Lauren: Yes. Status was such a core element of the film.
Emma: But somehow the audience weren't being asked to judge the mother, but understand that she did, and still does, what's necessary.
Lauren: Definitely. And while Henry Jaglom did an excellent job of outlining some of the complex issues underlying women's (and some men's) fascination with the acquisition of material goods it just seemed to get unwieldy so quickly...
Emma: I agree. And I found the film's appearance very strange. The shop was horrible, the clothes were horrible. It was supposed to be a story about women's obsession with fashion and beauty and acquisition but that wasn't conveyed in an authentic way.
Lauren: That's L.A., baby! Pretty naff in some respects.
Emma: I know that's a big part of it! But nobody was chic or attractive - well, maybe the 12 year olds.
Lauren: Well, I guess it was supposed to be about "real women," as defined by affluent white women in a major US metropolitan area. You know what - this film would have been a killer documentary.
Emma: It would have been so much better as a documentary. Except I don't think that women would be that honest in a documentary about the emotionally rollercoaster of shopping and what it really means to them.
Now, what did you think about Holly's romantic storyline with the cutie from Northern Exposure?
Lauren: That's a fair assessment. Miles (Rob Morrow) was more like her anti-love interest, which was amusing. Like, so not sleek! But she's a fashionista! Isn't that wild!
Emma: It was as if he were being offered up as the counterpoint to all the other disgusting male characters - Holly's ex, her mother's boyfriend, the loan shark - the clincher being that he was a shopaholic! Like a woman.
Lauren: Right. And she says that he's "not masculine" in their first encounter. They should have just made her a lipstick lesbian.
Emma: Hee. Ooh, I'd forgotten that she called him not masculine. You see, I just feel that this husband and wife filmmaker team had sat down and thought they were going to look at some really thorny issues of gender, and then got a bit lost.
Lauren: Well, for starters, it was about 180 different characters talking about one thing.
Emma: Yes - that was too much.
Lauren: I understand it's a universal topic, but calling this an ensemble film would be an understatement. It was more like a flash mob; all over the map, and about that chaotic.
Emma: All true. Yet I quite enjoyed it, and I think this was because the performances from the main players - Holly, her mother and daughter, her love interest, the gross guys - were deeply convincing despite the questionable material they were working with.
Lauren: Despite my many reservations, I am going to concur with you that the film, overall, is enjoyable. How many peonies should we give this one?
Emma: It's difficult! I don't think it should get more than two. But two isn't terrible.
Lauren: Two it is.
Le Cineclub Rating:
(two out of a possible five peonies)
Previously: Green Street Hooligans.
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