This piece contains spoilers for A Star is Born. Read at your own risk.
A Star is Born has been out for nearly three weeks and since, has raked in major money, and generated a ton of awards buzz for its stars, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
The film follows the journey of Ally (Gaga), an aspiring performer who meets music star Jackson (Cooper). Jackson encourages Ally to perform on stage with him, which launches her career. After that, they fall in love and get married, all while Ally must navigate her newfound fame and Jackson struggles with his waning career and substance abuse issues. The result is a sometimes beautiful—and often heartbreaking—story of love and ambition.
As I was sitting in the movie theater holding back tears, one question was lingering in the back of my mind: is A Star Is Born a feminist film?
Well, that depends on how you define feminism.
If you view feminism as women having equal opportunity and freedom to make choices for themselves, then this film checks out. Ally consistently chooses for herself throughout the film—deciding to change her look for the record label, choosing to pursue her solo career and deciding to stay and support Jackson in his time of need.
But if you see feminism as an equal power dynamic between men and women, things get a little murkier.
See, what troubles me is the power dynamic between Jack and Ally at the beginning of the film. Jack’s career is certainly more established than Ally’s. So, he uses his position and influence to bring her to the stage and turn her into a star overnight. And while it’s not explicitly discussed, throughout the rest of the film there is a sentiment that Jack feels that he made Ally’s career, and should be there, even when she embarks on her solo project.
In interviews promoting the film, Lady Gaga has kind of addressed this, telling Variety in one interview, “A hundred people could be in one room and 99 don’t believe in you, but just one believes and it can change your whole life and Jackson believes in Ally and his belief in her changes her life.”
And that message is fine and good. But I keep asking myself, why does it always have to be a man kickstarting a woman’s career?
This is the fourth version of A Star is Born, with previous iterations released in 1937, 1954 and 1976. Each of the previous versions tells the same story as the current release: man finds talented girl, man helps girl with career, man feels threatened by girl and their story ends in heartbreak.
This is 2018. Why did we have to watch this same story again? There are huge female music stars today (hello, Beyoncé). Why couldn’t it be a story of a powerful woman helping a man start his career? Why does jealousy and anger have to be a part of it? Why can’t we watch a successful couple love and support each other?
I guess what I’m trying to say is that while on the surface A Star is Born may appear feminist, I’m getting tired of watching films where a woman turns to a man for help in her career. We’ve seen that story to many times, and in this day and age, we deserve better. Give me films starring powerful women that support each other at the top. That’s a movie I would gladly watch.