A Gender Bias in ‘Short Cuts’? Debate Goes On : Robert Altman’s Microscope Is Neutral on Sexes

In Nov. 29th’s Counterpunch “Robert Altman’s ‘Short Cuts’ Is a Blunt Attack on Women,” UCLA grad student Sandy de Grijs chastises Robert Altman’s film “Short Cuts” for its use of female nudity in a “disturbing pattern,” portraying men as “powerless in the face of women’s sexuality and (as a result) women are to be resented and blamed for this.” She uses this observation to argue that the film is riddled with misogynistic overtones. This is not the case.

Altman’s approach to narrative filmmaking is documentarian, not editorial. His camera is often perched in a faraway corner--some distant vantage point from which the action is dissected with an omniscient soundtrack and a zoom lens.

In “Short Cuts,” he uses this approach to drift dramatically among 10 narratives at once, exploring the marvelous coincidences and eccentricities that pervade life in middle-class America.

The stories are loosely based on writings by Raymond Carver, an acclaimed short-story author whose own life was marked by a devastating divorce and bouts with alcoholism. Carver has been accused of misogyny on occasion--many of his stories concern male antiheroes crippled by divorce settlements and strained relationships with their children. Others celebrate the simple joys of marriage, childbirth, falling in love.

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In “Short Cuts,” Altman draws from both varieties.

Altman uses female nudity in “Short Cuts” to draw parallels among three of the stories: a group of fishermen who discover the naked body of a murder victim, a doctor who ruminates obsessively about his wife’s fidelity, and a pool man frustrated by his phone-sex-operator wife’s equation of sex with money. In a fourth (unseen) reference, an older man is seduced by his wife’s sister.

Yes, the variety of reactions the men have to these encounters (indifference, rumination, rage and temptation, respectively) are meant to emphasize the undeniable sexual power of the female form. Are we to assume this is an unsavory stereotype?

What de Grijs is insinuating is that the women in the film are using their sexuality to achieve control. Not so: The women are depicted as oblivious to, or at least nonchalant about, their nakedness.

“Why does naked make it art?” Matthew Modine’s doctor protests at one point, leering at a nude painting of his sister-in-law. The answer is: It doesn’t.

The nudity is used as a metaphor for the openness that these women possess. That Modine’s character projects his sexual insecurities upon these displays is a telling comment on the facade of masculinity--a recurring Carver (and Altman) motif.

In fact, the women in “Short Cuts” are shown empathizing and bonding emotionally in ways that their men cannot approximate. This element is best developed in the characters played by Julianne Moore and Madeleine Stowe--sisters who commiserate about their marital reality and find comfort in sneaking a beer mid-afternoon to swap sexual fantasies.

But it’s also apparent in the friendships shared by Lili Taylor with her mother and best friend; in Anne Archer’s need to mourn for a murdered girl she never met; in Lori Singer’s attempts to find common ground with Annie Ross.

One particularly telling scene: Andie MacDowell’s grieving mother accepts Lori Singer’s consoling embrace--then moments later shrugs off her husband’s.

The only character who legitimizes de Grijs’ argument is Christopher Penn’s: the working-class man reduced to a random act of violence to vent his (literally earth-shattering) rage. In our horror we’re left to wonder: In a society that equates sex with money and death, that forgives rapists and acquits bigots, is this catharsis? The answer is a resounding no.

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In a recent interview on E! television, Altman addressed this subject directly: “I don’t treat women ‘that way,’ ” he said. “This is how I see women being treated.”

Under Altman’s microscope, both genders are subject to scrutiny. The men of “Short Cuts” run the gamut from the staid supportiveness of Bruce Davison to the Corvette-revving philandering of Charles Rocket. His women are jaded but also virtuous, honest.

I commend de Grijs for airing her concerns, and I appreciate the opportunity to assuage them. When you see Robert Altman climbing onto a soapbox--trust me--it’s only to get a wider angle.