Biopics

Thoughtful analysis of why some women get biopics, and some don't:

Dr Arrow says biopics typically require its female protagonist face a series of struggles against adversity before she can emerge triumphant.

So Tina Turner survives being a punching bag in What's Love Got To Do With It?, while June Carter Cash endures husband Johnny Cash's alcoholism and drug addictions in Walk The Line.

Alternatively, the actor portrays those who endured a downward spiral into drug hell, mental illness or murder before a tawdry death.

Think Sylvia, in which Gwyneth Paltrow's Sylvia Plath suffers writer's block, depression and a bad marriage to poet Ted Hughes before killing herself at age 30. Or Diana Ross's depiction of a drug-addled Billie Holiday in Lady Sings The Blues.

These conventions also affect the stories that are chosen, Dr Arrow adds. "As American film scholar Dennis Bingham points out, we make films about Billie Holiday not Ella Fitzgerald, Dian Fossey not Margaret Mead, Frances Farmer not Katharine Hepburn.

"I think women are often shown to have more difficulty combining a public role with their private life than men."

But why do famous women have to suffer to earn a biopic in the first place? Is fame and success that difficult to swallow?

Dr Arrow says biopics were first made in the 1930s as part of a wave of social responsibility that washed through cinema.

"Biopics were committed to educating and uplifting the population by celebrating the achievements of great figures from the past, usually men," she says.

"They were there to provide role models for audiences, with a crucial sheen of truth, given that they were based on real life."

Dr Arrow says biopics of the famously tragic fulfil this educational role, with the audience clearly meant to worship the likes of Tina Turner, Loretta Lynn or June Carter Cash because they are survivors.

...Life lessons aside, biopics are also a symptom of Merchant-Ivory syndrome: making low-profit films for the greater good of cinema as well as an Oscar. While summer blockbusters bring in the box-office dollars, biopics allow studios to maintain their cultural and critical kudos, says Dr Marc Brennan, of Sydney University's department of media and communications. "This is as important for those who work for the studio as those who have shares in these institutions."

And job satisfaction, as much as a regular pay cheque, is ultimately what makes us get out of bed every morning.

As Paltrow puts it: "Films like Sylvia are obviously not blockbuster material, but they make me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile."

...Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is set to be the next famous woman to be immortalised on celluloid. The BBC's website reports the proposed film will focus on the weeks leading up to the Falklands War in 1982. However, no one has yet been signed to play the Iron Lady.

Also in the pipeline is The Gospel According To Janis, which documents the hard-drinkin' antics of Janis Joplin, who pickled herself to death in Southern Comfort in 1970. Movie news website imdb.com reports Zooey Deschanel will take up the bottle as Joplin in the film, yet to begin production.

There are plenty more big-living ladies ripe for a big-screen biopic, as opposed to a two-bit telemovie or walk-on part in someone else's film (think Gwen Stefani's Jean Harlow in The Aviator). Or a thinly veiled fiction like Beyonce's "I'm not Diana Ross" role in Dreamgirls or Bette Midler's Joplin-like character in The Rose.

Hollywood's elder stateswomen must be champing at the bit to play presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, especially since Emma Thompson showed how it should be done in Primary Colors.

Condoleezza Rice's life story - who else has an oil tanker named after them? - screams Oscar winner.

Nor can it be long before Here Lies Love - A Song Cycle, former lead singer of Talking Heads David Byrne's musical about Imelda Marcos, follows Evita onto cinema screens.

It must be only a matter of time before we see a Bollywood musical about assassinated Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and a Lollywood spectacular about former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto.