I

t was a Wednesday night 
in early March. We had 
spent the day wander-

ing the narrow, balcony-lined 
streets of New Orleans, stop-
ping 
in 

quaint 
book 
shops and 
swaying 
to 
pop-

up 
brass 

bands 
in 

the center 
square. 
There was 
a 
breeze 

coming 
off the Mississippi, bringing 
with it the briny smell of fish 
and centuries old stone houses.

And vomit. There was a 

distinct smell of vomit as my 
friends and I made our way from 
bar to bar down the infamous 
Bourbon Street, encountering 
new 
friends 
(alleged 
New 

Orleans Saints players) and new 
challenges (a drink consisting 
solely of grape slushie and 
Everclear) along the way. As 
we approached our destination 
we let out shrill giggles in 
anticipation; we were doing 
something none of us, as former 
student council representatives 
and current homebodies, had 
done before. Feeling young and 
alive and independent, singles 
in hand, we walked into the Bad 
Boys of Bourbon Street, an all-
male strip club.

Confession: I saw “Magic 

Mike” in theaters three times. 
(Once was actually at a drive-
in.) When Channing Tatum’s 
star-making film about male 
strippers with big dreams and 
hearts of gold came out in 2013, I 
told everyone who would listen 
about how good it was. The film 
is surprisingly smart, unafraid 
to dig into the class and racial 
dynamics 
that 
complicate 

the stripping industry. And 
Tatum is excellent, pulling 
from his own stripping past to 
bring a conflicted gravity to a 
character that could have been 
just a meathead. I would whip 
out these reasons whenever 
anyone questioned the film’s 
integrity, 
or 
my 
obsession 

with it. But without fail, every 
conversation would inevitably 
end with me saying, “And 
c’mon, it’s hot guys stripping.”

What can I say: a girl wants 

what she wants.

The Bad Boys of Bourbon 

didn’t disappoint. The boys 
were hot, they could move, 
and they did their damnedst 
to engage the cozy Wednesday 
night crowd. I watched as my 
friends threw singles on the 
stage and even participated 
in 
the 
show, 
unabashedly 

reclaiming this place as theirs.

I 
love 
objectifying 
men. 

Really, it’s one of my favorite 
pastimes, other than reading 
biographies for pleasure and 
drinking wine from a box. It 
may sound shallow, or even 
callous, but in a world built 
on the constant, unrelenting 
objectification of women, I feel 
no guilt in turning the tables. 
I watch certain shows solely 
for the man candy. I stare a 
beat too long at the cute boy 
across the airplane aisle. Last 
week I even called a statue of 
Andrew Jackson “foxy as all 
hell.” (Like I said, a girl wants 
what she wants.) There is an 
empowerment in assuming the 
traditionally masculine angle 
of removing a person’s inner 
self from their physicality, in 
acting unapologetic of your 
primal instincts.

Take “Grandfathered,” the 

FOX comedy starring John 
Stamos 
(“Fuller 
House”) 

and Josh Peck (“Drake and 
Josh”). It’s not a great show, 
at times sharp and pithy but 
all too often sweeping in its 
characterizations. But my best 
friend and I watch it every week, 
in part pulled in by our libidos 
— she’s an Uncle Jesse fan while 
I prefer Peck’s former-chubby-
kid adorableness. As a TV snob, 
it’s a rarity for me to watch a 
show for aesthetics alone, but 
it’s refreshing to watch with 
half a brain, to whoop at the 
shirtless scenes like a bored 
frat bro.

“The Good Wife,” too, plays 

a cat and mouse game with my 
sex drive, as Alicia Florrick 
has reignited her sexuality and 
got some over the show’s seven 
season run. Alicia treats sex in 
a traditionally masculine way; 
when she wants it, she wants it, 
no strings attached. While this 
may complicate her own life, 
it invigorates mine. When her 
boss Will passionately kissed 
her in an elevator in season 
two, I rewound multiple times, 
and proceeded to tweet that 
all I wanted was to make out 
with someone in an elevator. 
When she pulled her estranged 
husband into a back room for a 
midday quickie in season four, I 
cheered. This season, when she 
hooked up with her grizzled 
investigator in her darkened 

office, my friend texted me her 
excitement in all caps, and I 
responded with a resounding 
“YASSSS.”

It shouldn’t come as a shock 

that women like sex. Women 
have attractions and urges just 
like men, whether they be for 
Channing Tatum or disgraced 
19th century presidents. I find 
admitting these feelings to 
be an open act of feminism, a 
response to millennia of women 
functioning solely for men’s 
sexual desire.

And yet. As I sat in the 

Bad Boys of Bourbon Street, 
I 
couldn’t 
help 
but 
feel 

irrevocably, 
deeply 
icky. 
I 

couldn’t 
remove 
my 
own 

sensibilities from the situation; 
I couldn’t just be a man about 
it. What were these men’s real 
names? Did they always want 
to strip, or was this a stepping 
stone for some other dream? 
Do they have families, children 
relying on the money coming 
in from this Wednesday night 
show? Do they even want to be 
here?

I ran out in a panic, texting 

a friend “I feel like this is so 
violating.” That to support 
the industry didn’t feel like a 
feminist move. That I found 
it all really sad, and not at 
all sexy. I was confused; I’m 
pretty open about my sexuality, 
and I wholeheartedly support 
compensation for patriarchal 
wrongs. 
Maybe 
I’m 
more 

prudish than I thought, but 
I found the institution to be 
irredeemably abusive.

Can 
there 
be 
feminist 

retribution in recreating an 
industry that was established 
through eons of the normalized 
sexualization 
of 
women’s 

bodies? Just because men can 
pay to enter a dark room and 
watch a woman they don’t 
know remove her clothes, and 
have been able to do that for 
centuries, does it mean I should 
feel comfortable doing it in the 
reverse? I don’t think so. I want 
it to be easier, I want equal to 
be the same as equitable; an eye 
for an eye, or more pertinently, 
a tit for tat. But an institution 
founded 
in 
a 
society 
of 

objectification, of debasement, 
of violence, can’t be turned on 
its head and made clean. As the 
phrase goes, an eye for an eye 
means the whole world’s blind. 
And I need my sight to keep 
watching “The Good Wife.”

Gadbois is watching “Magic 

Mike” for the fourth time. 
 

To join her, email 

gadbnat@umich.edu. 

GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN

An eye for an eye, a

tit for a tat

NATALIE 

GADBOIS
See ‘Foxtrot’ for Tina 
Fey and witty script

By REBECCA LERNER

Daily Film Editor

“Well, we saw 

it for Tina!” said 
my dad said as 
we drove home 
after 
seeing 

“Whiskey 
Tango Foxtrot,” 
starring 
the 

aforementioned 
Tina 
Fey 

(“Sisters”). “We 
saw it because 
we like her.”

I can’t say this is untrue. 

When 
I 
saw 
the 
ads 
for 

“Whiskey 
Tango 
Foxtrot,” 

starring Fey, produced by her 
SNL mentor Lorne Michaels 
and her husband Jeff Richmond 
and written by her “30 Rock” 
show runner Robert Carlock, 
there was a part of me hoping 
it would be the story of Liz 
Lemon working as a journalist 
in Afghanistan. That part of me, 
the same part that would fall 
asleep listening to Tina Fey’s 
book “Bossypants” on my CD 
player in high school, was not 
disappointed.

Based on the book “The 

Taliban Shuffle” by the film’s 
real life inspiration Kim Barker, 
“Whiskey 
Tango 
Foxtrot” 

follows journalist Kim Baker, 
who 
leaves 
her 
uninspired 

life in New York City for an 
international 
assignment 
in 

Kabul. Her arrival is chaotic 
and reflected in the turbulent 
and 
shaky 
editing, 
which 

quickly calms as Kim adjusts 
to life in the “Kabubble,” as 
the characters affectionately 
call journalistic life in the 
city. Kim instantly bonds with 
Tanya 
Vanderpol 
(Margot 

Robbie, 
“Focus”) 
the 
only 

other female journalist living 
in their guest house, which 
more 
closely 
resembles 
a 

continuous collegiate frat party 
than a living space for adults. 
But that’s the dichotomy of 
womanhood in the Kabubble 
— 
it’s 
acceptable, 
even 

encouraged, for these women to 

get blackout drunk and wild in 
the guest house, but it’s equally 
acceptable for strangers to call 
them whores if their heads are 
uncovered outside of the house.

Kim 
embeds 
herself 
in 

the 
military 
presence 
in 

Afghanistan and finds herself 
surprisingly 
addicted 
to 

the adrenaline rush of war 
reporting, much to the chagrin 
of both the top Marine officer 
in the area (Billy Bob Thornton, 
“Our Brand Is Crisis”) and her 
“fixer” 
Fahim 
(Christopher 

Abbott, 
“James 
White”). 

Kim 
and 
Fahim’s 
cultural 

differences 
provide 
fertile 

ground for witty one-liners 
about their personalities and 
relationship — she’s a cynical 
workaholic from New York and 
he’s a traditional young Afghan 
man trying to keep her safe. But 
the truly noteworthy aspect of 
their relationship is its caring 
yet platonic nature. There are so 
few filmic models of emotional 
connections between men and 
women without sexual motives, 
not just in the industry as a 
whole, but also in this movie. 
Pretty much every other man 
besides Fahim propositions Kim 
to have sex with him. Whether 
it’s a licentious Afghan attorney 
general (Alfred Molina, “Love 
Is Strange”) casually showing 
her the bed in his office or a 
photographer trying to look 
down her shirt when she’s 
passed out after a particularly 
rowdy party, Kim is constantly 
negotiating the gender politics 
of adapting culturally while 
successfully doing her job.

Fey, with plenty of previous 

experience in roles arbitrating 
the complexity of femininity 
in the workplace, strikes this 
balance 
almost 
perfectly. 

Before the third act, during 
which both the audience and 
Kim realize she’s been in the 
Kabubble for too long, the film 
strikes a harmonious balance 
between romantic comedy and 
war story.

And 
yet, 
critics 
and 

audiences alike are putting 

“Whiskey 
Tango 
Foxtrot” 

on trial for whitewashing its 
Afghan actors. Racism and 
problems with diversity are 
ubiquitous in Hollywood today, 
from the casting of Zoe Saldana 
as Nina Simone in an upcoming 
biopic to the recent “Gods of 
Egypt,” in which the gods in 
the North African nation are 
predominantly 
white. 
But 

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” is 
different. Tina Fey, who was 
also a producer on the film, says 
she requested a native speaker 
for the part of Fahim, but that 
the casting directors chose 
Christopher Abbott as the best 
person for the job. There are also 
the specificities of Afghanistan 
that distinguish it from other 
cases of whitewashing. Afghans 
can be Caucasians, making 
it conceivable that someone 
from 
Afghanistan 
could 

resemble Abbott. But there’s 
also a question of safety for 
the actors and their families. 
The film’s inspiration, Kim 
Barker, tweeted that “The most 
‘authentic’ people to play Fahim 
and Sadiq are Afghans, not 
people from the Middle East, 
or Pakistan or India…But what 
happens if there’s a reaction in 
Afghanistan against that actor’s 
family? … The Afghan boys who 
starred in the movie “The Kite 
Runner” had to go into hiding.” 
She went on to say that “This 
movie looks like Afghanistan! 
And the extras were Afghans 
speaking Dari and Pashto. That 
made me happy.” While there 
should be an effort to improve 
diversity 
in 
cinema 
today, 

there was never a moment 
in “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” 
that didn’t feel authentic to its 
inspirations or locations.

“Whiskey 
Foxtrot 
Tango” 

is a balancing act, teetering 
between 
absurdist 
comedy 

and a tragedy in a war-torn 
country in which almost 10,000 
American troops still remain. 
The movie doesn’t always stay 
upright, but Fey’s trademark 
sense of humor pulls it back up 
when it falters. 

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Is this the “Bound 2” video?

FILM REVIEW

B+

Whiskey 
Tango 
Foxtrot

Quality 16

Paramount 

Pictures

Daily Book Review: 
‘Sweetgirl’ a success

By SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

Percy James is used to picking 

up after her mother Carletta, 
a woman who has trouble 
staying 
away 
from 
drugs. 

When Carletta disappears in 
the middle of a blizzard, her 
daughter grudgingly sets off to 
find her, more annoyed than 
worried. But when she stumbles 
into a house and finds a wailing 
baby by an open window, alone 
except for two passed out drug 
addicts in a room downstairs, 
she 
makes 
a 
split-second 

decision to grab the baby and 
run. She soon realizes she has 
more pressing problems than 
a MIA mother strung out on 
meth.

The 
heroine 
of 
Travis 

Mulhauser’s 
debut 
novel 

“Sweetgirl” 
possesses 
every 

trait that you would imagine 
the heroine of this kind of 
story to have. Think Jennifer 
Lawrence’s 
character 
in 

“Winter’s Bone” meets Hailee 
Steinfeld’s character in “True 
Grit.” She’s unyielding and 
sardonic and refuses to be 
vulnerable and has a chip on 
each shoulder, but she’s also 
determined and self-sacrificing 

and courageous.

Percy takes baby Jenna — 

whom she subsequently refers 
to mostly as “Sweetgirl” — 
from the house because she is 
freezing and on the verge of 
becoming ill, and Shelton Potter 
and his girlfriend (the drug 
addicts) don’t look like they’re 

in any shape to be taking care of 
a child. She takes Jenna to her 
mother’s ex-boyfriend, Portis, 
a gruff yet caring borderline 
alcoholic who helped raise 
Percy and her sister once upon 
a time. She knows that he’ll help 
her, despite grumbling about it 
first. The urgency of finding 
Percy’s mother and getting 
Jenna to a doctor escalates 
once 
they 
realize 
they’re 

being pursued by Potter — and 
various members of his gun-
toting posse.

There 
are 
a 
few 
subtle 

indicators that “Sweetgirl” is 
a debut novel. The continuous 
switch between Percy’s first 
person narration and the third 
person narration that follows 
Potter is sometimes jarring 
and 
unequal. 
While 
Potter 

is 
an 
intriguing 
character 

psychologically, the parts of the 
narration that follow him and 
his dealings with threatening 
men are less interesting, and 
throughout the novel there 

are a few turns of phrase that 
don’t quite fit in with the rest 
of the book’s brusque style; the 
elegance of more sophisticated 
language feels imposing on the 
gritty, simple wording of the 
rest of the novel. Percy describes 
baby Jenna’s “strength” on a 
few occasions; though romantic 
in sentiment, this doesn’t quite 
ring true. A baby who gradually 
stops 
crying 
generally 
isn’t 

exhibiting emotional strength 
for her guardian’s sake — she 
has tired herself out.

A 
couple 
deaths 
in 

“Sweetgirl” are true plot twists, 
shocking in their abruptness. 
However, though they change 
the direction of the story, they 
aren’t utilized solely as plot 
drivers — but neither are they 
given space to be mourned. 
They’re given the amount of 
time they take to occur, then the 
remaining characters move on.

Other than Percy and Portis, 

the characterization of the rest 
of the cast is bleak; there are no 
shining heros or vibrant villains. 
No one is fully good or fully evil. 
Though this sometimes drains 
the energy from the pages, it 
also makes it more realistic.

Yet there are a few things that 

stick with you once you close 
the book — a short yet gorgeous 
description of the ocean, the 
stealthy, sucking power of a 
small town, how wallowing in a 

state of melancholy can feel more 
real than bouncing around in a 
state of fleeting happiness and 
the possibility of finding hope in 
a final goodbye. Written in sharp, 

staccato sentences, “Sweetgirl” 
is sprinkled with brittle pieces 
of bone-dry truth about what 
it’s like for a kid to grow up 
faster than she should have to.

What can I say: 

A girl wants 

what she 
wants.

BOOK REVIEW

A few things 
stick with you 
once you close 

the book.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, March 9, 2016 — 5A

