‘As you know if you look at the credits of movies, it’s not very common to see a female star, writer and producer, especially for a big summer movie.’
Two-thirds of the way into our discussion of Alice Through The Looking Glass, the sequel to 2010’s live action Alice reboot, screenwriter Linda Woolverton (with writing credits on Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Mulan, she’s basically responsible for the best bits of your childhood) has spelt out one of Hollywood’s manifold gender problems. It’s still rare for what those in the business call a ‘tent-pole movie’ (read: a sure fire hit that will take enough at the box office to ‘hold up’ a studio for the coming season) to put a woman at the forefront of a story; even rarer to see women behind the camera or in the edit suite on such a film, their names dominating the production credits.
Whatever you thought of Disney’s steampunk, slightly off-kilter take on Lewis Carroll’s classic tale - and like everything that Tim Burton puts his name to, Alice is an acquired taste - it certainly proved that a film fronted by a woman (in this case, Australian actress Mia Wasikowska) could strike gold at the box office, generating over $1 billion in ticket sales. Returning to our screens in 2016, Alice’s Disney stablemates include Elsa and Anna from Frozen, touted on its release as a feminist fairytale, and Rey, the heroine of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Progress?
For Mia, it’s has become slightly easier to find films where female characters are more than just an afterthought. ‘It’s getting less of a ‘thing’ that you have to hunt to find those really great characters. Alice is still quite a unique film – it’s not a superhero movie where typically, the female characters will be a girlfriend. She is the superhero. That’s super rare for a mainstream film.’ With a post-Wonderland CV that includes roles in Jane Eyre, Tracks, Maps To The Stars and Crimson Peak, she adds ‘I’ve been really lucky to play a number of really wonderful female characters, complex characters. I love Alice’s positivity and spirit, getting to explore that brighter side.’
For those familiar with Carroll’s sequel, Through The Looking Glass bears little to no resemblance to its source material (‘I came here and asked [Carroll’s] permission,’ Woolverton explains. ‘He has a little statue, a bust in the park. I had a little writer’s block, so I went and asked him if it was alright. He said yes!’) In this film, Alice is a competent sea captain, returning from a trade voyage to China and thoroughly dismayed by the constraints her gender poses in Victorian London. Naturally, a message of female empowerment – is high on the film’s agenda.
‘From the beginning, [Alice] starts off from such an empowered place. She’s spent the last two years as captain of her own ship, and even when she gets back, despite the fact that expectations of her are so low, she’s able to hold on to the idea that she’s worth more; that she should be doing what she loves,’ Mia explains. ‘She has this innate sense that she can be more than just a housewife, or a clerk.’
This time, even Alice’s costumes are aesthetically more progressive – albeit less liberating for the actress wearing actually them. ‘There was much more freedom, I think - I had a skirt that actually disguised some pants, and some trousers, although they were super high-waisted. The minute you sit down you’re like, “Ugh!” [Oscar-winning costume designer] Colleen Atwood is brilliant and also evil – she makes these amazing costumes but you really do have to be tied into them.’
Challenging our expectations of what a female character can and should do has always been high on the agenda for screenwriter Woolverton: after all, this is the woman who fought to have Beauty and the Beast’s Belle with her ‘nose stuck in a book’ rather than baking cakes and arranging flowers. ‘There was no question that this would ever be a love story. Alice’s story has always been about her journey, becoming herself,’ she says. ‘There’s not a lot of self-doubt in her. Now it’s just her, doing herself in the world.’
The film’s producer Suzanne Todd adds, ‘We feel like it’s still pretty relatable – there are still some limitations or cultural notions that there are things that girls can’t or shouldn’t do. When we developed the story, we felt that unfortunately [some of the scenarios] are still true, which is why we wanted to be part of the conversation.’ While women no longer face the threat of being incarcerated for hysteria (which hangs over Alice in one of Through The Looking Glass’s more troubling scenes), we’re undoubtedly subject to a series of assumptions that can all too often feel pretty Victorian.
Todd herself has had a pretty diverse career in film production, managing to defy being pigeonholed by her gender – despite the inevitably unhelpful remarks of male film critics. ‘People sometimes look at my list of movies and think that it’s odd. “Austin Powers? Momento? Alice? Die Hard 2?” I’ve always just tried to make movies I wanted to see. I can tell you I’ve been to more than one press junket where I’ve had a male reporter say to me, “Wouldn’t it be easier if you focused on romantic comedies? Shouldn’t you just make movies like M_ust Love Dogs_, isn’t that what girls are better at?” I can watch Richard Curtis movies ten times over, but I don’t JUST love those movies.’ Must Love Dogs AND Die Hard 2? We’ve just found ourselves a new career idol.
With a schedule of planned live action reboots that will take the studio well into the next decade, Disney is revising its formula. After the runaway success of Frozen, combined with cinemagoers’ desire for darker - OK, darker for Disney - origins stories like Maleficent (another Woolverton creation), it’s no longer enough for filmmakers to present young girls with a well-coiffed heroine who aspires to marry an equally well-coiffed hero, preferably with an inherited title. Instead, she can wield a lightsaber and fix major electrical faults like Rey in Star Wars, or value her sister’s friendship over gaining a husband, as in Frozen. Even more explicitly than its predecessor, Through The Looking Glass re-orientates the Alice narrative as a fable about self-belief and challenging what’s expected, with particular resonance for girls and young women: it's ‘Alice as she deserved to be told,’ according to Todd. It’s a laudable – though sometimes a little heavy-handed – message, and whether the film succeeds for you or not will probably be down to your tolerance of Johnny Depp’s technicolour Hatter. ‘She’s very self-assured. That I admire – that sense that she’s just going to be who she is, and not care about how people perceive her. That’s really refreshing and very evolved, to see that sense of self-respect,’ Mia explains.
In taking on such an iconic character – and as the lead in a big budget Disney film aimed at young women – does Wasikowska feel perturbed at the idea of being considered a role model? ‘I think I was about 17, 18 when I was cast as Alice. I think there’s a certain amount of pressure [as an actress], but I feel like I’ve consciously been able to stay out of that. The only time I was really tested was at the very beginning when the first Alice came out: people checking what I was going to be… They soon realised I was super boring! I don’t know what the perception is, but I’ve always felt that perception is much more about the person perceiving it than the reality.’ Carrollian, indeed.
Alice Through The Looking Glass is in cinemas now.
**READ MORE: 44 Amazing Up-And-Coming Actors To Look Out For This Year
**
READ MORE: Eight Incredible Actresses Destined For Future Oscars Glory
READ MORE: How Do You Pronounce Saoirse Ronan? The 'Brooklyn' Actress Tells Ellen