In the last couple of weeks, I have sought out more movies than usual. Like many—dare I say most?—people in this country, I’ve been overwhelmed by the dark political situation, and I have desperately needed periods of escape.

LA LA LAND, a movie widely praised by critics, nominated for Academy Awards in multiple categories, and already the recipient of several Golden Globes, struck me as the perfect escapist vehicle, a glamorous romantic musical, beautifully shot, and apolitical, just what the doctor ordered for these trying dark days of the Trump Regime.

I went to the show alone and sat back with my popcorn and chardonnay for a couple of hours of mindless entertainment. But midway through the movie I found myself seething. The two main characters, a man and a woman in love, are both seeking artistic fulfillment, the man in classical jazz, the woman as an actress. The road to a fulfilling life as an artist is rarely smooth. In this case, when the female character, after many disastrous auditions, creates a one-woman show which flops, she decides to give up acting. Up to that point, I was on board. But then—guess how she gets back into the game? Because the man tells her to do so! He almost commands her to attend her next callback. She obediently does as he instructs and subsequently becomes a star.

What a tired and insulting trope this is: that women need men to tell them what to do, that there is always a man behind every woman’s success. Are we still telling this outdated story? Do we really believe this? Why didn’t anyone involved with the LA LA LAND production think to question this critical plot point? Can’t we be telling stories in which a woman succeeds because of her own agency?

Perhaps I wouldn’t have objected so much if the movie had been directed by some old Hollywood veteran whose paradigms are still stuck in the past, but LA LA LAND is the brainchild of a young man, 32-year-old, Harvard-educated Damien Chazelle. If this is the way most young men are thinking—even educated young men—we women have a great deal of work to do. We cannot take it for granted that young men are growing up any differently from their fathers or grandfathers.

So there I was in the dark theater seeking escape, but firmly immersed in politics again. How naïve of me to think that Hollywood glamor could release me; it only served to remind me forcefully than ever that there is no escaping the political, even in art, especially now.

Photo credit: jjay69 via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

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