why hollywood movies really don't support feminists.

there are soooo many examples of how hollywood movies have butchered the female-heroin (heroin? hero?), even in the name of "feminism" Tauriel for eksample, yuk... i saw this video, and omg it is so important for people to realise just this, and how society sorely needs to see this and understand it and we need to be exposed to a different view. How els are we supposed to get rid of sexual harassment (#metoo!) and butthurt guys who clearly don't know how to react when given a no.



slightly different perspective, but also a really good video on the subjet (and the reason why i can't stand the big bang theory anymore, it was fun when i was 13, as i am older and wiser, not so much. the points being made here and also the portrayal of women is a big NO from me)



also this is disturbing...

on a positive note though

Norc wrote:there are soooo many examples of how hollywood movies have butchered the female-heroin (heroin? hero?), even in the name of "feminism" Tauriel for eksample, yuk...

heroine*
heroin is the drug. I think you can call a real-life woman a hero, but the main character of a movie or book or play, if female, is usually called the heroine.

Anyway, aren't these videos about sexually aggressive men in movies or tv, and female roles that play into that? There are countless movies with a female protagonist that successfully tells a story without butchering what it means to be heroic and female. One of my favourite movies, Million Dollar Baby, is the good example I think.

If we're talking about how Hollywood uses the sex appeal of women in an unhealthy way to sell movies, then I agree. But that's not the title of this thread.

i am sorry i couldn't think of a good title for this thread.

you say you know countless of movies with good female protagonist, and although i agree on Million Dollar Baby, it is the exception (and also based on a true story).. you'd have to give me more examples than that... there is far more examples of predatory masculininty aka. how rape culture is enabled and poor potrayal of women where all their worth is seen in regards to a man.. for example all their actions are motivated by a male character, be it the hero, a fatherfigure or a love interest. often these movies, made with the male gaze, are the ones we see... and one should be aware of it and not swallow it all like a good girl in those low budget pornos.

for example all their actions are motivated by a male character, be it the hero, a fatherfigure or a love interest- Norc

{{I propose the Buffy defence here- the argument about everything swirling round the male lead is because they are the LEAD, not because they are male.
In Buffy everything swirls round Buffy, other characters defer to her, talk about her when she is not there, she is their main motivating factor- and thats because she is the LEAD not because she is female.
Most stories follow this route, one or two central characters around which the narrative revolves, under the hood in fact the entire narrative is really jumping to the passage and arcs of those characters through the story- thats how it works.
That's not to say there is not an issue with female actors getting enough of these sort of central roles, but when they do, as in Buffy, the story is entirely motivated by them just as much as if they were male- in fact if the character of Buffy were male that show would fail every feminist test on the go. And thats stupid. }}}

I like the Buffy defence.

I'm also reluctant to judge comedy on equal footing with other film making. The essence of half of comedy is poking fun at ingrained social structures. Romancing the Stone is a good example of this: he was acting the masculine hero type, but she was always the one pulling him out of trouble. It's somewhat subtle, but uses gender roles themselves to subvert them.

All that said, I totally agree that movies and all other art forms tend to re-enforce gender roles. It's just the path of least resistance. Part of the problem is that film makers generally revere the older films, so the tropes perpetuate themselves.

Norc wrote:i am sorry i couldn't think of a good title for this thread.

you say you know countless of movies with good female protagonist, and although i agree on Million Dollar Baby, it is the exception (and also based on a true story).. you'd have to give me more examples than that... there is far more examples of predatory masculininty aka. how rape culture is enabled and poor potrayal of women where all their worth is seen in regards to a man.. for example all their actions are motivated by a male character, be it the hero, a fatherfigure or a love interest. often these movies, made with the male gaze, are the ones we see... and one should be aware of it and not swallow it all like a good girl in those low budget pornos.

My post was just deleted before I could post it. Curses!

Anyway, I think I said something like:
MDB is based on a short story that might be based on a real life boxer who was paralyzed in 1996, I think. So it's only roughly based on a true story, if at all.

I remember wording it better, but I think I typed:
Things have changed a lot for female roles since the days of Soylent Green, when Charlton Hesten's character was repaid by prostitutes with sex for protecting them, and who slapped these women around if they acted out of line. Now-a-days, Hilary Swank gets the Best Actress Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby, the last several Disney princess films have featured independently-minded girls/women who have defied the traditional Disney princess stereotype, and there are more women working behind-the-scenes in the film industry than ever before. That includes directors and producers, the ones with the most choice-making power.

I think there will always be a portion of society that calls out for more change, and more progress, but I'm only responsible for what I can personally affect and I already try to watch movies and TV shows with interesting characters and stories. Inherently, many of these movies have roles for women that are nuanced and well-written.

I can think of several fairly recent movies with good female protagonists, if you like.

Lady Bird, The Clouds of Sils Maria, Sicario, Room, Short Term 12, Personal Shopper, Gravity, 10 Cloverfield Lane, Florence Foster Jenkins, 20th Century Women, or Brooklyn. (Bolded films are especially good.)

But to Norc's point - none of those have achieved cultural icon status. I think Thelma and Louise may come close, though.

The Alien movies are cultural icons.   And the female lead got there by being first written for a male, then substituted.

Correction: it was written unisex. Have to say that was an unusually prescient move. Have any other scriptwriters done this deliberately?

Soylent Green was a great film, slapping hoes or not. its many years since I watched it but it certainly had a profound effect on me. its one of the first dystopia movies.

Xena the Warrior Queen was another good tv show, first lesbians too if memory serves me right. I think tv shows have a better record for feminism. One of the reasons I love GoT are the great female characters, not stereotypically beautiful but strong and self sufficient. Ygritte, Brienne, Yara, lady Olenna, and Arya.

How could you leave out Lady Lyanna Mormont?

Mrs Figg wrote:Soylent Green was a great film, slapping hoes or not. its many years since I watched it but it certainly had a profound effect on me. its one of the first dystopia movies.

Xena the Warrior Queen was another good tv show, first lesbians too if memory serves me right. I think tv shows have a better record for feminism. One of the reasons I love GoT are the great female characters, not stereotypically beautiful but strong and self sufficient. Ygritte, Brienne, Yara, lady Olenna, and Arya.

Most of the women on the show are stereotypically beautiful though (whatever stereotypical beauty is).

Forest Shepherd wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:Soylent Green was a great film, slapping hoes or not. its many years since I watched it but it certainly had a profound effect on me. its one of the first dystopia movies.

Xena the Warrior Queen was another good tv show, first lesbians too if memory serves me right. I think tv shows have a better record for feminism. One of the reasons I love GoT are the great female characters, not stereotypically beautiful but strong and self sufficient. Ygritte, Brienne, Yara, lady Olenna, and Arya.

Most of the women on the show are stereotypically beautiful though (whatever stereotypical beauty is).

Most of the women on the show which are given a positive treatment by the showrunners are also quintessentially not feminine. Rather I think there is a misunderstanding of them as strong characters because they act quintessentially as our perception of masculinity, which sadly we take to equal strength. I find the Brienne of the book infinitely better than the show version, and I never liked the book version much, for her lack of berserker aggression, an the emptyness of emotional impact in her of her use of violence. I'll recall norcs Tauriel line from above.

I find the dismissal of norcs point of view so out of hand rather surprising, and I am not convinced by the Buffy defense. It forgets, one, the proportion of male and female protagonists, and, two, how our male female stereotypes and unhealthy gender roles are cemented by the much used prism of the male protagonist in so many cases.

One exception does not make up for a general industry tendency. And if the claim is Buffy turns the gender role issues on the head, as in we are shown gender stereotypes and unhealthy gender roles from the opposite perspective in one case, how is that better?

(Admittedly, I have never watched Buffy. )

{{ Who is a good example right now Blue as its about to undergo a gender change, but hopefully not a character change!
In which case the often leveled charge at Who, that it is sexist because everything and everyone ultimately revolves around the male Doctor is about to be set on its head.
With the Doctor a woman I am quite sure the show will continue to revolve around the Doctor- because they are the title character. Does that instantly mean the show has gone from sexist against women to sexist against men? It makes no sense. }}}

Bluebottle wrote:I find the dismissal of norcs point of view so out of hand rather surprising, and I am not convinced by the Buffy defense. It forgets, one, the proportion of male and female protagonists

I'm pretty sure Petty agreed in the post where he mentioned Buffy that there's a problem with not having enough female lead characters.

and, two, how our male female stereotypes and unhealthy gender roles are cemented by the much used prism of the male protagonist in so many cases.

I think I agree but I also think that this affirms that the larger issue is not how female supporting characters are written (though there are absolutely a ton of issues there!) but that not enough stories are told from a female perspective, which really boils down to the fact that not enough main/POV characters are women or girls.

That's just my take obviously and I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to feel. I think that the videos in the OP about how the writing of many romances is creepy and how depictions of male characters often reinforce toxic notions of masculinity are very apt.

Well, I guess I would say it is both, because you first wrtie most stories with a male protagonist. But I agree with Petty that while the proportions are an issue, the gender of the protagonist is not in itself an issue. It only becomes an issue because of the proportion, and that the writing aggravates the issue of proportions by writing characters of different genders in steretypical and gender role (whatever the you define gender role as) based fashion.

It is a whole issue. One part is what kind of stories are written (mostly ones with male protagonists, the second part is how many stories are written which aggravates the first part.

Eldorion wrote:

Bluebottle wrote:I find the dismissal of norcs point of view so out of hand rather surprising, and I am not convinced by the Buffy defense. It forgets, one, the proportion of male and female protagonists

I'm pretty sure Petty agreed in the post where he mentioned Buffy that there's a problem with not having enough female lead characters.

Yes, I did notice that. Which was why I didn't argue against Petty, per se, but against the Buffy defence.

Bluebottle wrote:Well, I guess I would say it is both, because you first wrtie most stories with a male protagonist. But I agree with Petty that while the proportions are an issue, the gender of the protagonist is not in itself an issue. It only becomes an issue because of the proportion, and that the writing aggravates the issue of proportions by writing characters of different genders in steretypical and gender role (whatever the you define gender role as) based fashion.

It is a whole issue. One part is what kind of stories are written (mostly ones with male protagonists, the second part is how many stories are written which aggravates the first part.

I think we're more or less on the same page, then. I hope it's clear that I'm not arguing that we shouldn't have male protagonists anymore or anything and I'm not necessarily setting out to criticize individual stories for having male protagonists (though some there's plenty to criticize about some stories, sure) but the cumulative effect is a detrimental one.

And obviously the writing of supporting characters can be detrimental too and is deserving of attention even if I don't think that fixing that will really get to the root problem.

I think the Buffy Defence helps define a large part of the problem being the ratio of male to female leads, leaving stereotypical roles as the rest of the problem. Anything else left?

The counter trope to the "Born Sexy Yesterday" mode (I think he coined a flop of a term but can't come up with another one) is found in Earth Girls are Easy. In this the male aliens are beautiful and innocent, and the women like it. It also plays with women being superficial about sex in a way men are often portrayed.

I guess in this regard it must come down to a general approach of writers, and if you are more likely to chose male protagonists, you are probably more likely to address the characters in different ways that also influences how they are written.

Some statistics might provide more clarity however, not that I have time to look them up

Bluebottle wrote:I find the dismissal of norcs point of view so out of hand rather surprising, and I am not convinced by the Buffy defense. It forgets, one, the proportion of male and female protagonists, and, two, how our male female stereotypes and unhealthy gender roles are cemented by the much used prism of the male protagonist in so many cases.

I don't see unhealthy gender roles being played out in many movies though. The movies I mentioned have prominent female protagonists, but I think most current movies have just fine gender roles.

Bluebottle wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote:

Mrs Figg wrote:Soylent Green was a great film, slapping hoes or not. its many years since I watched it but it certainly had a profound effect on me. its one of the first dystopia movies.

Xena the Warrior Queen was another good tv show, first lesbians too if memory serves me right. I think tv shows have a better record for feminism. One of the reasons I love GoT are the great female characters, not stereotypically beautiful but strong and self sufficient. Ygritte, Brienne, Yara, lady Olenna, and Arya.

Most of the women on the show are stereotypically beautiful though (whatever stereotypical beauty is).

Most of the women on the show which are given a positive treatment by the showrunners are also quintessentially not feminine. Rather I think there is a misunderstanding of them as strong characters because they act quintessentially as our perception of masculinity, which sadly we take to equal strength. I find the Brienne of the book infinitely better than the show version, and I never liked the book version much, for her lack of berserker aggression, an the emptyness of emotional impact in her of her use of violence. I'll recall norcs Tauriel line from above.

so define 'quintessentially feminine' then? aren't you just as guilty of stereotyping female characters when you say quintessentially 'not feminine' you are defining female as socially prescribed and set in stone.

I think what's happened is "quintessentially feminine" is so narrowly defined that any of a wide spectrum of behavior outside that definition risks being defined as masculine. Which is nuts.