Sep 2, 2017

Double Dare

Saw Double Dare, a documentary about stunt women in Hollywood, about two stuntwomen in particular: Zoe Bell and Jeannie Epper. Jeannie is an aging stuntwoman who used do the stunts on Wonder Woman in the 70s. If she were a man, would be now transitioning into the role of stunt-coordinator but in the backwards, socially conscious but socially regressive land of Hollywood, she's just out of work. Zoe is now fairly well-known from Tarantino's Kill Bill and Death Proof but at the time of filming here is an up-and-coming hopeful. You want her to succeed though. She's got an absolutely winning personality, always smiling and laughing, even after breaking her bones. The thesis of this film essentially is that both of these women are awesome.

In addition to just enjoyably hanging out with these two awesome ladies, the film is also about sexism in stunt-land. In one scene Jeannie is on an awards committee for a stunt-person's award show. She asks if maybe some of the categories could be separated by gender (best fight by a woman, for instance.) The room blows up, some men accusing her of giving out participation trophies and others deferring to the terrible sexism of Hollywood which of course they are completely powerless before and completely separate from. I mean, I'm coming to this meeting from the outside, with half of a documentary behind me, but this seems really stupid and gross.

There are a few tangential scenes like that (there's a hilarious but off-topic bit with a headshot photographer who is also an actor, but is getting out of the acting game before he becomes "too famous". Riiiight.) but for the most part, we just get to hang out with Zoe and Jeannie and their awesome families, listening to old men talk about how great Jeannie was, how great Zoe will be. It's not a very meaty film, but the two ladies are so much fun! There are worse ways to spend 90 minutes.

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