The media has a lot to answer for and in the past 10 years or so women's lib must have been set back centuries by the portrayal of women. Popular culture reinforces stereotypes these days - but there seem to be plenty of girls/women who are prepared to embrace the idea that being feminine means being ditsy, superficial, shallow, self-absorbed etc. Being a "girly girl" is not seen as derogatory, but a celebration of what is seen to be feminine and is somehow empowering. This stems from the success of women like The Spice Girls, Katie Price, the girls from TOWIE and Kim Karshardian, who are apparently role models. They have not been exploited by men but have succeeded (financially and by exposure in the media) on their own terms by being true to themselves and not compromising any part of their femininity - which means what? Flaunting their bodies? Giving up their privacy? Anyone who has ever watched daytime TV on ITV from 6am to 2pm will see one programme after another addressing women on the basis they are only interested in gossip about celebrities, fashion, make up, cooking, dieting and soaps. Serious discussion usually involves agreeing that *****philes are nasty, children should be looked after and it's up to a woman what she does with her own body (re cosmetic surgery, abortion etc). Of course, presenting women in this way is not celebrating feminity or empowering other women, it's patronising and unrepresentative. But it has an effect. Many people are very impressionable. Have you noticed how many women now adopt the voice of 7 year old girl when speaking? Or giggle for no apparent reason? How many girls post pictures of themselves pouting on social media, heavily made up and often underdressed? You could be mistaken for thinking this was the exaggerated behaviour of women desperate to attract and please men, but it's apparently symbolic of how empowered they are and comfortable being "girly". Utter tripe. It's easy to see women as trivial if you allow yourself to accept the media's portrayal of women as representative. Seriously? Absolutely.
Umm - I'd imagine that the negative reactions to the casting were more to do with all the leads being female, yeah. Maybe it was all to do with people sharing your opinions about Melissa McCarthy and had absolutely nothing to do with her and the rest of the leads being female. Maybe. TBH I'm not that wedded to any particular analysis of Ghostbusters and the reasons/volume of criticisms around it. I admit that I only just found out who Melissa McCarthy is after a Google search and I've not seen any of that director's films (though I've been told a few times that Bridesmaids is good). Seems a bit of a coincidence, though, that the very straw that broke the camel's back after all the hundreds of reboots and demonstrations of Hollywood's moronic lack of imagination (we live in a world where Battleship was made into a film), after all the ones that came out this year alone, that the one film that really took the flack for a decade-plus of re-boots and re-makes was the one that had an all-female team replacing an all-male team. So. Yeah - maybe that's all it was. Just people finally being sick of re-boots and this is the one that took the flak. Absolutely nothing to do with the re-gendering of the main characters. Maybe. But Ghostbusters aside the fact is that Hollywood is a gigantically misogynistic, moronic puke-machine. There are hundreds of examples and analyses to prove that fact and the specifics of exactly why a bunch of fan-boys actually got especially upset over the 1000th remake of that year is really irrelevant to that overall fact.
Of course most people who go on about feminism are dumb and say/do dumb things. Most people who are capitalists are dumb and say dumb things in defence of capitalism, most people who are socialist are dumb and say dumb things in defence of socialism. Most people are dumb. Tempting though it is I think it's best to avoid using idiotic examples of what it is you are arguing against and its even more important to not conflate the weakness of these examples with the weakness of the overall idea. Morons being morons about feminism is not a problem emanating from feminism - its a problem emanating from morons.
No. No it was not. Feig was announced as director in August 2014 The all-female cast was announced in January 2015 When did the backlash begin? August 2014. It's like that idiotic image that was doing the rounds on social media a few months ago, namely this one... please log in to view this image ...which not only managed to be oblivious to the fact that you could have put a dustpan and a packet of Quavers in the lead roles of a Star Wars film and make a pornographic amount of money (feel free to joke about the prequel trilogy pretty much doing that...) but to say Hollywood is telling us "female and minority leads don't sell" rings hollow when they cast Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen instead of change the character to Keith Everdeen, and it's hardly new given Sigourney Weaver was the key element of the Alien franchise thirty years ago. Same goes for the claim about minority actors, considering The Rock is half Samoan and half black yet he's Hollywood's go-to guy for blockbusters, Will Smith's got a long list of blockbusters to his name from the past twenty years, and so on. Give people an excuse and they'll find an agenda regardless of the facts - and if you think that's an "idiotic argument" then you're underlining the problem just as much as your casual dismissal of facts just so you can push your tired argument that has no basis in reality.
Eh? So "The backlash" began in August 2014?! Fine. I'm sure "the backlash" (by which I'm sure we both mean a bunch of people leaving negative comments online) did begin then. I'm sure that with every lame-ass film that is announced by studios there are some people going online saying "Wow - that sounds ****". What's your point? You seem to want to say that all negativity aimed at that film was due to it being a reboot, that the actress always plays the same role, that everyone thinks the director is lame... Do you really, seriously think that none of the negative noises being made were because the cast was all-female? Really? Really? TBH I'm not that into changing your mind if you honestly don't feel that Hollywood reflects and magnifies average social attitudes. Or maybe that there are no problems re racism/sexism in the world and Hollywood simply reflects this fantastic fact? You sure that you're not just so used to tutting about stupid people bitching about racism/misogyny etc that you've convinced yourself that those things aren't real? I mean - saying "It's all fine - Sigourney Weaver made some films 30 years ago, there's Will Smith..." It's like pure satire. I just loaded up the first page of Netflix. I reckon the ratio of male to female faces that I just saw was about 3:1. Just as one very simple metric. Please don't target that particular point, though. There are thousands more where that came from. Films with almost all men are nothing special. Films with almost all women are niche interest and Hollywood would proceed very cautiously and calibrate all their marketing appropriately.
There are of course people who would have an issue with all women leading film casts. Doubtless much of the reaction to Ghostbusters was in this regard just as much as there was a serious critical reaction to what has been by all accounts a pretty poor and unneeded remake (anecdotal feedback from people I know who have seen, both male and female). However I think that remaking Ghostbusters with an all-female cast, or having a 'Jane Bond', does nothing for feminism or the women's movement as it implies that women can only succeed in cinema by repurposing and subverting male roles in cinema. If we want to prove that women can play what in the past have been leading male cinematic roles lets have more original roles please. Mad Max had fantastic female characters playing what would have historically been male roles and yes, there was an MRA backlash to it but critical reception was fantastic and deservedly so. Let's have more originality in this especially when it comes to finding important and stereotype-changing roles for women. I think lenny and hbic both make valid points. While the film industry and indeed Western society as a whole has a way to go, people will find an agenda anywhere if they look hard enough. The Graun were running articles complaining that Ghostbusters was stating that black women couldn't be scientists for crying out loud.
Just skimmed through this quickly. Looks like a really good debate. Look forward to reading it properly tomorrow when I'm not exhausted, and hope to be able to contritribute without blowing a gaskett again
I can't agree with the Guardian about this, as it's clearly nonsense, but the casting was rather poor. Winston was a seemingly normal everyman character in the original, a sensible contrast to the other three mad scientists. The character was a fairly small part though, due to Eddie Murphy's unavailability at the time. Leslie Jones' character appears to be a horrible stereotype, on the other hand. She comes across as one of the overblown part-within-a-part bits that Murphy puts on in his films. Think the pretend African guy in Trading Places or the flaming gay act in Beverly Hills Cop. Feig got stick for boasting his progressive values and then having the only black character also be the only uneducated one. I can completely understand that.
backlash noun a strong negative reaction by a large number of people, especially to a social or political development Hmm...so there was this reaction by a large number of people to the news that Paul Feig would direct a remake of Ghostbusters, which was both strong and negative, and it existed long before a single member of the cast was announced. Would that be the dictionary definition of...a backlash? It would? And does that...backlash have nothing to do with the cast? It does? Then that means you can shove that passive aggressive use of quotation marks where they belong. Do you really want to focus on the misogyny angle like a dog with a bone when there are countless other reasons people were against this film, such as the examples I have previously listed? Really? Really? Then that makes you part of the problem, because as I clearly stated when I brought up the response to Richard Roper's review in the Chicago Sun-Times getting slammed because he gave a bad review to a movie that happened to have women in it, when there's people screaming "MISOGYNY!!!!!!!!!!!11"" at the top of their lungs no matter how completely baseless that comment actually is it becomes as farcical as white middle class people telling Native Americans that they should be offended that there's an NFL team called the Washington Redskins. This whole "misogyny" agenda (that's a correct use of quotation marks, by the way) has sparked two sets of equally farcical people to crow on about it: conservative websites who want to think the movie is pushing a "girls kick ass" agenda (and, no, I'm not making that up - I accidentally watched about thirty seconds of one) and they are appalled because they prefer an agenda of "girls cook dinner" or whatever the hell their agenda is, and the aforementioned people desperate to find an agenda and crow about it regardless of the facts. There's two terms for these people: I prefer to call them easily-led idiots, but Sony Pictures prefers to call them free advertising. And that's where your stance begins to fall apart, because as I said several posts ago the narrative Feig was pushing guaranteed there would be plenty of free advertising for the film, so by the time he declared himself the first director in Hollywood to work with female leads (which must've been news to the bloke who directed three of the Hunger Game movies for a start...) the film was getting so much free advertising that Feig deserved a cut of the marketing revenue - and this free advertising also served to gag any criticism. So if you saw the trailer and thought the film looked like utter ****e, it didn't matter: you're a misogynist for not wanting to see it, end of story. What's pure satire is your increasingly baffling attempts to avoid engaging with an actual discussion. You say Hollywood is a "misogynistic puke hole" and get arsey when I point out that's bollocks: it was bollocks when the first Hunger Games movie came out just as it was bollocks when Sigourney Weaver was the backbone of the Alien franchise just as it is bollocks when countless films are sold on Meryl Streep being in the leading role. And if Hollywood is so misogynist, why did they pay Jennifer Lawrence $52m for the Hunger Games? Or Sandra Bullcok $20m + a percentage of the profits for Gravity? Or Angelina Jolie $20m for Maleficent or Salt? What else is hopefully satirical is you saying films starring women are "niche": what the hell was niche about The Hunger Games? That was topping up Lionsgate's pension fund for four straight years! It's hardly Black Swan. I'm not even going to address that idiotic argument (no need for quotation marks here!) you said about me pretending there's no such thing as racism or misogyny. As for your Netflix argument, that's just garbage and you know it is - because the Netflix algorithm factors in what you have watched on Netflix as part of its recommendations. So you saying there's a 3:1 ratio of male to female faces (without a screengrab to prove it, how inconvenient...) is just as much your fault as the world's misogynists coming together to dictate that House of Cards should be on your recommendations ahead of Orange is the New Black, or whatever Bacofoil-sponsored version of events that you want to believe.
Sorry those quote marks pissed you off so much. Do you know why I'm focused on the criticisms of Ghostbusters that were about the fact that the cast were all female? Because this was a conversation about sexism. This was not a conversation about Ghostbusters. I really don't care about Ghostbusters. I do care that a chunk of people will feel negatively about a film purely because they think that having four female leads is feminazism. Now even if that criticism is only 10% of all the (probably justified) criticism of the film as a whole that makes absolutely zero difference to what I'm saying. Because, remember, that this discussion is not about Ghostbusters. The fact that there is *any* criticism of a film purely on the basis that the cast is female is somewhat relevant to a discussion on sexism, no? I want to "focus on the misogyny angle like a dog with a bone" because, er, I want to stay on topic. That's all. I'm sure it'd be interesting to talk about online reactions to Hollywood studio announcements or what sort of roles Mellissa McCarthy plays etc but they're not really the topics in hand are they? I'm not reviewing Ghostbusters, I'm not denouncing Ghostbusters, I'm not denouncing the denouncers of Ghostbusters. I'm just pointing out that it's a bit of a *thing* for lots of people when a film is largely female and they will criticise it purely for that fact. You seem to agree with that. I do, however, owe you an apology. Just re-read your comments and you do indeed make it clear that you believe that some of the criticism of Ghostbusters was due to it having a largely-female cast. For me that is *all* I'm talking about. No - I didn't put a screenshot up of my (or my wife's - I didn't check) Netflix page. You seriously want me to? You won't believe what I said unless I do? It's all just a conspiracy and I'm making stuff up? Okaaaay... (FYI my approximation was earily accurate - just counted - it's 15:4) I'll not really bother defending the statement that Hollywood is "a mysogynistic puke-hole" because it's just a silly, funny, hyperbolic way of saying that I don't much care for Hollywood and that I think it has a long history of mysogeny. Perhaps "sexism" would be more appropriate. Though I think that treating people as objects and literally only hiring them if they **** you might be more towards the "mysogeny" end of things. The casting couch was (is?) a real thing. See Tippi Hedron's career once she turned down Alfred Hitchcock. Google it. As for how women are pretty, young, silent presences in films more than men here you go: http://polygraph.cool/films/ I can barely believe that, in 2016 and with someone who seems relatively aware of culture in many respects, I am having to point this **** out. Oh and some women get well paid in Hollywood? Great stuff. I guess that Fredrick Douglass writing in the 19th century shows that all was well for blacks in the USA in the 19th century. That some bird called Elizabeth was queen in the 16th century shows there was equal opportunity for women. The phrase "the exception proves the rule" springs to mind here. Here's a fairly simple infographic: http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/E...0-1024.Hollywood-Earnings-Divid.jl.101915.jpg I think that that the number of times you have had to mention the Hunger bloody Games says something about your argument that there is no sexism in Hollywood (IS that what you're saying? I'm still not 100% sure). I response I will offer you, oh, basically almost all other films. BTW there were far more male roles in Hunger Games than female ones. And 55% of the dialogue for this exemplar of a film that you've highlighted was spoken by male characters. Oh well.
I'm going to have to book tomorrow off. Gonna take all day to read this ! re the Hollywood discussion : is this industry a one off, because the top stars are all essentially unique and nit comparable with one another ? Also, is it not the case that more people will pay to watch Harrison Ford than they will Helen Mirren ?
BTW I actually started looking up the posters of the top 10 films to count the male/female faces. This was obviously a bloody stupid metric and it showed almost immediately. Posters aren't much use in a very basic analysis of such things. But it's telling, I think, that the first poster I came to was for Suicide Squad. And what did I find? Well it's a film about a bunch of bad-ass villains. And there are, obviously, more men than women. But what's that? 3/4 of the females are sexy and booby?! What?! How can this be?! What a gigantic surprise. Still atleast the men were also semi-naked and dressed in...oh. No they weren't. And the next one I checked was Jason Bourne. ONe picture of Jason Bourne. No surprises. The next one was a film called Bad Moms. The video trailer still showed a woman showing me her arse. And these women are being defined by how they're moms?! Wow. So surprising. And what's that? They are going to be both judged ("Bad") for "partying like a mother"? Still at least "Bad Moms" is just a regular, normal film. Definitely not a chick flick. Just a regular film. Loads of men will feel comfortable going to see that just like women go to see films populated almost entirely by men.
Doesn't this suggest that this is a non-Hollywood and non-male issue, though? Hunger Games was written by a woman and the production company is owned by a woman. Is Suzanne Collins a misogynist? Is a percent of dialogue not a good way to judge that in a film?
Of course - it's not a like-for-like comparison. That's why I was a little sceptical when Robin Wright said she should get as much as Kevin Spacey for House of Cards. Kevin Spacey is basically a bigger star and a more valuable asset. TBH even though I've mentioned the gender pay gap in Hollywood above I do not see it as a central point to my general understanding of how/why Hollywood is, famously, a misogynistic puke-hole.
Talking of Robin Wright, if you or anyone else is partial to a bit of a gangster movie, and you haven't seen State of Grace, I recommend checking it out when you can love that film, and Gary Oldman is on top form.
I don't think that sexism can never be channeled through / promulgated by a woman any more than racism can never be channeled through / promulgated by someone who's black etc no. The problems of a misogynistic society are not perpetuated only by a small group of evil sexist men. They are perpetuated by all of us, men and women and, as with racism, we need to be aware of our more questionable learned behaviours, challenge ourselves and basically try to be as self-aware as possible.
I'd actually argue the opposite. It's precisely BECAUSE we are all taught to walk on eggshells, that we all take offence so easily. To me, it is the "learn your rights, learn how to take offence and when you should feel offended" culture, that causes the most problems.
