Day 78 -- Itty Bitty Titty Committee

Released: September 28th, 2007

Starring: Melonie Diaz, Nicole Vicius, Carly Pope, Deak Evgenikos, Lauren Mollica
  
Writer/Director: Tina Mabry and Abigail Shafran/Jamie Babbit

Description: High School grad and all American gal, Anna finds her purpose and herself after she hooks up with the radical feminists in The Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

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It is always interesting to watch a movie from a perspective that you are not all that familiar with in your life. Whether it's a movie like "The Help" that is told from the position of a black maid in the south in the 60s, or the Japanese in WWII. Many movie goers don't venture too far outside of what they know and what they can relate, too. But I feel that a movie's overarching story should not be a reason to avoid a movie.

"Itty Bitty Titty Committee" is told from a world that is the complete opposite of mine. The movie centers around a small feminist organization known as Clits in Action, or C(i)A, which for me is not a group that I've been around too much. As much as the movie talked about the ideals and beliefs of the group, it also told a good story.

A lot of movies that I have watched that involve homosexuals -- male or female -- tend to be more of the stereotypical variety, but the women in this movie are not. While some do look the part, they do not act it. Meat (Evgenikos), for example, looks like how most men see lesbians: short hair and wearing more masculine clothing, but she doesn't portray the mainstream "butch" lesbian. This especially comes through when she talks to Anna (Diaz) about not falling for Sadie (Vicius). The situation is treated just like a heterosexual relationship, and not some crazy story to make it seem more exotic. It help to show some close minded people that we are all alike.

All I kept thinking through out this film is how relatable all of character were. They weren't treated like alien beings that do and react to thing in a completely different way than everyone else. The actual conflict in this movie was the relationship between the women, and not the conflicts they faced because of their views of the world. Sure, some things were thought provoking, but the storytelling was spot on and it didn't feel like I was watching a propaganda film. It was much closer to a coming of age film.

Most of the credit for the likeable characters belongs to the actors. Diaz especially was brilliant as she transformed Anna from a naive teenage lesbian into a strong, independent woman who ends up leading the group in their most public demonstration: putting a penis on top of the Washington Monument and blowing it up on live TV (Spoiler: it was fake). 

The only actress I found myself constantly rolling my eyes at was Carly Pope. There were multiple times in the movie where I felt she was trying to hard to be a tough girl. The character of Shulamith was supposed strong willed and opinionated, not like a girl looking for a bar fight. She nailed this at times, especially the protest scene in Sacramento, but failed in most of her early scenes with Diaz. I realize she didn't trust her, but I felt her character would have had a more condescending tone than the confrontational one she had with Anna.

One of the big flaws with the film is that they had the most generic love triangle. The problem with most love triangles is that there's always one choice that's better than the other, and the film gives no consequences to the person that has been stringing along two people. They always end up happy. I would just once like to see the person at the top of the triangle end up unhappy, and the other two move on and find happiness. There was not one point in the movie from the moment they met that I didn't think Sadie and Anna would end up together.

"Itty Bitty Titty Committee" is an engaging movie that can be related to from any perspective. I went into the movie expecting bad acting and lazy writing, but I quickly became interested in the story and the characters. While it's not perfect, the movie is surprisingly watchable. It is definitely an example of not judging a book by it's cover.

Rating: 5.5/10 -- Solid characters and a story that doesn't get convoluted when it easily could have been. Even though it was less than 90 minutes, the was still some fat to trim, especially the scenes involving Anna's job -- there's no way she would have kept that job as long as she did in real life. Could have spent that time telling deeper backstories on the women.