From the US census bureau "In 2011, 9 percent of all nurses were men while 91 percent were women. Men earned, on average, $60,700 per year, while women earned $51,100 per year." So even in traditionally female occupations, men somehow contrive to do better
When was the last time you read an interview with or an analysis of a male politician/actor/scientist/sportsperson/writer/campaigner/artist etc where the interviewee was asked about how their being a man affected their life and work? Right. Now see if "being a woman" isn't somehow relevant to the policies/roles/research/training/writing/issues/artwork etc for their female counterparts when they are interviewed.
We still live in a world where a significant chunk of people thought it was a very confrontational, feminazi thing for 50% of the two main characters in the new Star Wars film to be female. Or that having an entirely female fictitious group of people pretending to chase ghosts around is very political but having an entirely male fictitious group of people chase ghosts around is, well - that's just normal. In fact all films that are entirely about men interacting with other men whilst at some point shagging a woman half their age are just normal. Ones that have a female lead character are "women's films", mind and as such are niche interest films.
To be fair, that ghostbusters film was because the story had 4 men chasing around ghosts. It wasn't ever about it's got women, it was because the story protoganists were totally changed. If they made a film called Marie Curie and had a bloke play Marie Curie i'm sure there would be outrage. I don't remember their being any criticism of the star wars film because of the female leads, only that some people didn't think the film was any good. Please correct me if i'm wrong. I do think there should be more female representation in Hollywood but without forcing studios to change their formula (kind of how they just keep throwing out ****ty reboots and never create anything imaginative), i'm not sure how this will change without legislation
Anyone been to a toy shop recently? You know that aisle which is entirely pink? That's one way of telling that feminism is not "finished" any more than racial equality is "done". My niece was programmed from the first days of her life to "love pink". She was also told repeatedly how a) pretty and b) stupid she was. I am not exaggerating or distorting. She was told that she was "a little Barbie" and her learning was often undermined and mocked in a way that her two older brothers was not. When, as a 3 year-old, she spelt "box" "bocs" (or something equally logical) she was, in front of me, mocked and told that it didn't matter because she was pretty. Now my brother *is* a twat, don't get me wrong. But don't tell me that loads of people don't get treated like my niece was every day just because they're female. They are. Whole industries are built on it happening to a greater or lesser degree. It's stupid and wasteful and cruel and immature and holds all of us back. Sorry but equal rights for women has not "been accomplished".
Ghostbusters isn't a documentary on the life of Pete Venkman, though. Just did a quick Google search and came up with page after page of people feeling the need to respond to crying man-babies who think it's really a *thing* for a film to have a lead character who is female: http://screencrush.com/rogue-one-female-lead-angry-fans/ Not The Force Awakens but you get the gist. Apparently there was a *lot* of criticism aimed at that film by people despairing at how "PC" it was to have one black lead and one female lead. I definitely do not think its the place of government to legislate for film scripts/casting! Popular culture in the form of Hollywood is a lazy, brainless thing that will not take any sort of political or cultural lead! But it will definitely follow wherever society at large goes. Government may be able to help that. But much of what needs to change is too subtle and insidious for laws to get too involved I think.
...which was an extraordinarily cynical move on the part of the producers. When it was first announced Ghostbusters was being remade, there was a negative backlash - not least because the timing of the announcement made it look as if Hollywood were waiting for Harold Ramis to pop his clogs so they could get their grubby hands on the rights to make some of that lovely, lovely money. There was a second backlash when it was announced Paul Feig would direct, as he's a hack director who is responsible for the cultural genocide that is Melissa McCarthy's career. So how do they counter that wave of negativity? By creating a narrative, and as soon as the all-female cast was announced the narrative that stated anyone who was against the film was a misogynist was created - and bloody hell did they push that narrative hard for the best part of six months between the initial trailer and the film's release.
And as I've repeatedly stated, that figure doesn't tell the whole story. Men tend to chose more financially rewarding roles and do more overtime, while women prefer flexibility and work less hours. Don't nurses tend to get paid the same amount, depending on their role and seniority, anyway? I'm pretty sure that it's all structured and there's little room for negotiation.
To be honest there's probably a lot of deep social short-comings besides misogyny that are demonstrated if adults are really getting their knickers in a twist *in stages* over the re-making of bloody Ghostbusters. You're not saying, though, that there weren't a bunch of people who were not particularly aware of Ramis dying and had no idea who the director was but who had a "Feminazi!" reaction purely because their special kids' film had women as leads now and that's just PC Gone Mad?
Maybe not in the US? (Where such structures could well be, like the inability to own rocket launchers, a terrible constraint on one's freedom).
There were clearly a few idiots that hate the idea of women doing the film in general. The amount of stick that the film got can't all be put down to that, though. Making another Ghostbusters film and having some of the original cast feature, but not making it a sequel was stupid. A lot of people hated the idea of a reboot and the trailer seemed to confirm everyone's fears that it was going to be ****. It was panned for a whole host of things, including the effects and the tone, as well as the apparently stereotypical black character. I haven't seen it yet, but apparently it's actually a fairly watchable film. The build-up to it's release was horrible bungled, though. Insulting the original fans, as Paul Feig clearly did, was incredibly stupid.
I wasn't sure about that, so I had a quick browse around before I posted and it does appear to be the case. My search wasn't that thorough though, so I could be wrong.
You're not saying there was a negative reaction to the casting because Melissa McCarthy plays the exact same character in so many of her interchangeable films that seeing her name on the cast list is enough reason to be against the film. More importantly you're ignoring the main point, namely how there has been a growing backlash in recent years to Hollywood cannibalising itself with a tsunami of remakes. There's been plenty of remakes that have been either greenlit or even released which received a large public backlash in the last couple of years, not least Robocop and The Crow, and Ghostbusters was the straw that broke the camel's back - as demonstrated by the film failing to break even at the box office. Which takes us right back to the blatant attempts to avoid all criticism by pushing the misogyny narrative. Were there people who were against the film because it had an all-female cast? Sure...but there were people against the film because they are sick of remakes, because they don't like Feig's work, because they don't like McCarthy taking the Adam Sandler route to success (i.e. playing the same character in every single film), because the initial trailer was utter garbage, because the film is a beat-by-beat rehash of the original rather than doing something new, or because rather than getting a new Ghostbusters movie instead a New Ghostbusters movie they don't want is hurled at them - or because they don't like being insulted by a hack director pushing a narrative rather than accept that maybe, just maybe, his film might be a fetid turd.
Neither: there's a mention of Zuul in the mandatory post-credits scene (because all blockbusters have to have a post credits scene, because Marvel Spam always has a post credits scene...) but that's a sequel hook for a sequel that might not happen due to the film failing to break even and Feig making the IP toxic with his delusions of being Emmeline Pankhurst.
They tend to be Paul Feig films, too. Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy and now Ghostbusters. He's directed six films and four of them have Melissa McCarthy in a prominent role.
I genuinely wouldn't be amazed if there are structures about such things and that the reasons why men are paid more than women are more than just purely that they own a penis. You're right that there are many social constructs/pressures and norms which mean that men are more likely to seek out senior positions, take less holidays, do more overtime and take less, if any, parental leave. Isn't there also research that suggests that women are far less likely to ask for a pay rise than men? (Obvs not relevant in this nurse example apparently). In a world where a woman asking for a pay rise is a bitch and a man doing the same is strong (for example) there are all kinds of background social assumptions and norms that hold back women's pay, potentially, as well as very obvious "it's this wage for a man and this wage for a woman" situations.
Women don't negotiate on pay as much as men do, as they believe there's social stigma against it, apparently. As recent figures show that young women actually earn more than their male counterparts, I'm not sure how accurate that view is. The average seems to flip past the age of 35, which could either be a societal change or due to children becoming an issue.
Not just Feig films, though: Tammy and Identity Theif weren't Feig movies, and she was playing the same character in those as well. One thing that certainly sticks out is two Youtubers made videos saying they wouldn't see the film and refused to review it, but the reactions were very different. On the one hand James Rolfe of Cinemassacre had the full spectrum of slogans hurled at him - "misogynist!", "anti-feminist!", "don't stand in the way of women in Hollywood!", the works - on the other Comic Book Girl 19 didn't have any of these hurled in her direction for...obvious reasons. Similarly, when Richard Roper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it a bad review he was inundated with comments (a lot of them weren't posted by women, it has to be said) accusing him of the full gamut, but that missed the point: his job as a reviewer is to say if he thought a film was good or bad, and his review said he found it unfunny, uninspired, loud and annoying - so what was he supposed to do, put those aside because the film had an all-female cast?
