REVIEW Hollywood's assault against women The current erosion of past economic and social gains of working people, minorities and women under conser- vatism has not been without its counter- part in Hollywood. The steady flow of films _with unrestrained racist, anti- workingclass and anti-female content reflects this right-wing seal of approval in its open season against equal opportuni- ty. Fatal Attraction is no exception. This tasteless, mean-spirited soap opera/ splatter combo takes a traditionally sympathetic victim — the single, preg- nant woman who has been seduced and abandoned and transforms her into a sa- tanical victimizer. Glenn Close stars as Alex, a publisher with ambitious, calculating designs on Michael Douglas, a corporate lawyer who is married. Alex pursues and en- traps him into a brief affair, which results in pregnancy. She then refuses to allow the indifferent Douglas to terminate the relationship. The alternately domineer- ing and deranged Close goes to ever grea- ter lengths to demand affection or at the least, attention, leading all concerned into a bizarre web of violence, obsession, suicidal gestures, harassment, kid- napping and bloody carnage. It is no accident in Fatal Attraction that the villain is given the masculine name Alex or that she is a career woman who threatens both family life and con- ventional patriarchal sexual mores, here termed ‘‘the rules.”” Women who in re- cent decades have begun to fight for pro- fessional positions long monopolized by the male-dominated ruling class. have posed a threat to their entrenched pow- ers and have been viewed as sexual mut- ants — masculine, scheming and predat- ory. Douglas, as a lawyer, represents bourgeois tradition, the status quo, law and order, while Close signifies an evil threat to that conventional moral (and economic) authority. The script by James Dearden was re- jected by several major studios, includ- ing Paramount, the company that even- tually made the film, because the Holly- wood barons didn’t like the un- sympathetic portrayal of the male lead, nor the sympathetic depiction of Alex, who in the original script commits suicide. Co-producer Sherry Lansing, the first woman to head production at a big studio when she became president of 20th Century-Fox in 1980, spent nearly five years seeking a studio for the film, which was finally accepted by Para- mount after the character of Alex was transformed into a subhuman psycho. Fatal Attraction, unfortunately, is not alone among Hollywood’s newest at- tacks against women’s empowerment. In the film Bestseller, yet another female publisher is singled out, by a hitman in an irrelevant scene thrown in for apparently no other reason than to allow the male character to heap humiliation and scorn upon her for ‘‘trying to be better than housewives,’’ as he slices away at the Fatal Attraction Schools get peace book The largess of a local businessman, Harry J.C. Walker (above, left with Ald. Libby Davies) means public school students across Canada can read the mes- sage of peace engendered at Vancouver's Peace Symposium last year, co- sponsored by the 1986 city council. His donation ensured a new printing of End the Arms Race — Fund Human Needs, which reprints the symposium and the peace declaration made at the 1986 Walk for Peace rally, was mailed to 1,453 Canadian high school libraries. Dr. Tom Perry Sr., who co-edited the book with Dr. James Foulks; said the book has already become a bestseller in Canadian terms, having sold more than 5,000 copies. clothes in her closet. And in another up- coming film, COP, a serial killer only targets feminists as his victims. But even more disturbing about Fatal Attraction and many other such films is the manner in which disputes between people are handled. Many critics were alarmed by how this psychological thril- ler suddenly degenerated into a bloody horror movie at the end. It is this absence O ¥EARS oF Packed hall honours Mac-Paps INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY Spanish Civil War veterans, mainly members of the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion (left to right, Arne Knudsen, a member of the Edgar Andre Battalion, and Len Norris, Lionel Edwards, Rosaleen Ross of the British Battalion, Fred Mattersdorfer and John Johnson), display Mac-Pap banner at the conclusion of a packed banquet honoring the 50th anniversary of the battalion comprising Canadians who ignored government restrictions and volunteered to fight fascism in Spain in 1936-39. Edwards, a former captain in the battalion and national secretary-treasurer of the Mac-Paps veterans organiza- tion, reminisced about the fight and Sean Griffin, editor of the Tribune which sponsored the banquet, said although the Mac-Paps have yet to achieve official government recognition as war veterans, their contribution has, and continues to be honoured by progressive and democratic organizations around the world. Also attending were Mac-Pap members Hank Heskith and John Derencinnovich, and British battalion members Stan Giles and Frank Riley. 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 28, 1987 of confidence in dialogue, com- munication and self-examination in fa- vour of violent solutions to problems that stands as a significant sign of the times under conservatism where brute force and military aggression around the world take priority over diplomacy and negotiation. — Prairie Miller People’s Daily World Close, as the villain, is a career woman who threatens both family life and con- ventional patriarchal sexual mores.