By Jason Apuzzo. Afshan Azad, the British actress best known for her role as Padma Patil in the “Harry Potter” films, has accused her Islamic father and brother of trying to kill her. Azad is claiming she was attacked because her father and brother apparently didn’t like her boyfriend, whom she refused to stop seeing. She claims she was left beaten and bruised. According to CNN the family is Muslim, and of Bengali descent.
Her father Abdul Azad, 54, and brother Ashraf Azad, 28, have been arrested and charged with threatening to kill her. Ashraf Azad is also accused of assaulting his sister causing her actual bodily harm.
As part of their bail conditions, the two men are required to abide by a curfew, and not travel to London or contact an unnamed man. You can read more about this on the Fox News website.
This is incredibly disgusting behavior, and there should be an immediate condemnation from the Hollywood filmmaking community. As of right now, though, I’m not seeing this story mentioned anywhere in the trades. Why do I think I know why?
LFM readers have probably noticed that we spend a lot of time here covering what might be termed ‘women’s issues,’ or otherwise spotlighting women in film and the media. One of the reasons we do this is because the battle lines in our current War on Terror are different from where they were, for example, during the Cold War. The War on Terror is as much a war over the freedoms of women as anything else, and these freedoms need to be asserted over and over again. These freedoms include, but are obviously not limited to, the right of women to make choices about their romantic and sexual lives.
We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds. By the way: we’d love to hear from all you readers right now who thought Sex and the City 2 was ‘unfair’ in its portrayal of women in Islamic society. In the comments section of her review of Sex and the City 2, Govindini debated several readers (one a Muslim female, another a Western feminist) on this point … and we’d love to hear back from these gals now about how tolerant and open Islamic society is toward women and their ambitions.
I’ve said it before here and will say it again: whatever you think of these films (and yes, we’ll be reviewing the new one shortly), they’re going to be paradigm shifters as Hollywood slowly weans itself off expensive fanboy fare. It’s just becoming too expensive for the industry to keep Harry Knowles and his army of Rugrats happy.
•There’s a lot of debate going around about who’s to blame for Knight and Day. The industry seems to be treating the film as a kind of human rights atrocity, roughly on a par with Darfur. Patrick Goldstein’s readers are saying it’s Cruise’s fault. Blogger Vadim Rizov, whom I’m reading a lot lately, is also asking a question I ask all the time: why is everyone so eager to crucify Cruise? It’s a sensible question. Here’s the answer: it’s dangerous to be too successful in Hollywood over a long period of time.
• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Happy Birthday Olivia de Havilland! Turner Classic Movies is showing her films all day long. Besides being one of the cinema’s greatest stars, Olivia was half of what is in my opinion the most charming and romantic screen couple ever when she was paired with Errol Flynn. [Footnote: it’s still amazing to me that the similarly talented and ravishing Joan Fontaine is Olivia’s sister. They were raised together in the Bay Area, near San Jose. Both of them, I’m happy to report, are still lovely and active today.] We wish Olivia the very best on her big day!
And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.
By Jason Apuzzo. There’s a budding controversy right now that DC Comics’ newly redesigned look for Wonder Woman has ironed-out her All American look, all in preparation for the inevitable debut of a Wonder Woman movie franchise. Fox News is fueling the controversy, and even Nikki Finke doesn’t like the new look for the character – and is furious at DC head Diane Nelson for letting it happen.
Fox News is calling the new Wonder Woman look ‘globalized’ (!), citing the replacement of her signature American flag briefs with skintight black leggings. Here’s what DC Comics says about dropping the flag motif from Wonder Woman’s iconic briefs [my new favorite phrase: ‘iconic briefs’]:
“We at DC Comics are exceedingly proud of Wonder Woman’s heritage and Superman’s heritage as iconic symbols of American patriotism … Suggestions that any costume changes within their 70 plus years of rich storytelling come at the expense of this heritage are unfounded. The latest evolution of Wonder Woman’s iconic costume is a central part of the latest comic book storyline. All of the classic symbols – patriotic (stars, eagle) and heroic (lasso, bracelets) – are ever-present. We encourage Wonder Woman fans to stay tuned.”
Pretty good corporatese, there. Translation: We’re keeping our options open, fearing a backlash but also eager to open our future Wonder Woman franchise in Beijing and Dubai.
Is this inevitable?
I must admit that when I first saw this redesign yesterday in The New York Times, it did not immediately scream out ‘un-American’ to me. Actually what I noticed the most was the impressive size of Wonder Woman’s … well, let’s just leave that alone. [For what it’s worth, Lynda Carter was apparently a 36C-25-35.] Otherwise I think the leggings look sleek, dangerous, and will keep Wonder Woman from getting scuffed-up when she’s tangling with … evil American defense contractors? BP executives? Wall Street hedge fund managers? Or whomever politically correct evildoers DC has in mind for her to fight. Certainly we know that terrorists will not be on that list.
The key thing to understand about the new wave of superheroes – whether Superman, Batman, the X-Men, or whomever – is that they don’t really fight for “truth, justice and the American way” any more. We all know how retro and passé that’s become in enlightened Hollywood circles.
Proper superheroes nowadays fight for themselves. They fight in order to fulfill their own personal destiny – and to look cool in their costumes while showing off their powers. Basically they’re narcissists. The key thing for superheroes to do in the modern era is to look fabulous, and advance their careers. And that’s why we already know where this new Wonder Woman series is going, don’t we? [See fan-generated Megan Fox poster to the right.]
By comparison, let’s take a long, loving look at the costume worn by Lynda Carter when she was breaking fanboy hearts back in the 1970s as Wonder Woman on television. [I may be looking at this picture for hours, actually.]
Do we have any doubts whatsoever about where this Wonder Woman stood on country on patriotism? I don’t think so.
Lynda Carter: 36C-25-35, Irish-Mexican ... and 100% American.
Note to LFM readers: I absolutely love this controversy, and will be following each line and curve of it closely. Symbols do matter, especially when they’re clothed in patriotic bustiers. [On this point, by the way, I want to recommend Govindini’s recent post on the new ‘military chic’ trend in fashion.]
Wonder Woman is an interesting superhero – perhaps the most interesting from a psychological point of view. Bringing this bullwhip-cracking supervixen to the big screen is going to be an interesting process for DC, one that will force them to confront some provocative issues, not all of which are political.
In order to make this character work, and to ensure a long-running and profitable film series, the creators of the inevitable Wonder Woman film franchise are going to need to explore female psychology with at least a fraction of the energy they typically spend on male psychology – something I have doubts about them being able to do, frankly. [Otherwise they’re just going to be left with vacuous titilation – so to speak – which is basically all Catwoman was.]
And, of course, the new Wonder Woman is going to have to look fabulous – and probably change her outfits a few times … because that’s what women do.
