• Women in movies
    113 replies, posted
[QUOTE=G-Strogg;44481063]If it's systemic, what's the point in her going after singular movies then?[/QUOTE] Because Sarkesian is just bad at what she does. The actual test itself is fine, just shoddy applications of it cause problems.
[QUOTE=theLazyLion;44481145]I could use any means of insult towards her and it wouldn't be a sexist one, I hate her for who she is as a person and not for being a woman, can insult men by calling them a whore too, both are just insults. I'm insulting this scam artist for raking in thousands of dollars off of gullible people, and doing nothing with it other than a few 2-5 minute videos released a year.[/QUOTE] Well according to the mass consensus you can't have an opinion on that unless you gave her money, talk about the rhetoric of some people
[QUOTE=Mr.95;44481318]Well according to the [B]mass consensus you can't have an opinion on that unless you gave her money[/B], talk about the rhetoric of some people[/QUOTE] where are you even getting this and why do you think this sarcastic 'woe is me' comment (unless if you really have a terribly misplaced persecution complex) is even remotely appropiate for the thread's discussion? it's just going to potentially divert the thread into something we don't need for a healthy debate.
[QUOTE=Ownederd;44481357]where are you even getting this and why do you think this sarcastic 'woe is me' comment is even remotely appropiate for the thread's discussion? it's just going to potentially divert the thread into something we don't need for a healthy debate.[/QUOTE] I'm getting it from the fact that the majority of times her being a scam artist was brought up in the past, people usually went to that as the retort " you didn't give her money, so it's not your business, so it doesn't matter " was usually the basic outline of it.
[QUOTE=Mr.95;44481423]I'm getting it from the fact that the majority of times her being a scam artist was brought up in the past, people usually went to that as the retort " you didn't give her money, so it's not your business, so it doesn't matter " was usually the basic outline of it.[/QUOTE] ok? how is this relevant to what she's presenting? is she to blame for what that said group of people is saying? no.
[QUOTE=Mr.95;44480453]you fool you're going to summon him! [img]http://tartandsoul.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/frenchman.jpg?w=226&h=339[/img] [i]~la merde ex mod de culpabilité masculine~[/i][/QUOTE] hi!
[QUOTE=Mr.95;44480517]Why do you think she blocks comments and likes? She doesn't want anyone refuting her "researched" arguments, this way anyone on youtube can't directly call her out without making a video and looking like an ass because nine times out of ten they'll be raving maniacs instead of calm voiced, its the same sort of tactic she did with funding. Please someone do call me out how I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this because I didn't fund her.[/QUOTE] hey guess what buddy you're literally talking about her right now and making fun of her on a public forum. you can also do this on virtually any discussion board on the entire internet. i'm sorry that a single outlet of comments, a relatively spammy and useless one that is formatted poorly, is disabled? wahh!!! censorship!
Just because a movie has mostly male protagonists doesnt mean its specificaly designed or targeted towards men. In face, quite a lot of movies use the purposful lack of female casting to create a strong character. A really good example of this is Submarine, where the main character has 2 defining women in his life, both the characters fulfill (or don't) different roles in the lead characters life and to separate them in the movie is a decisive choice to show and reflect on how stretched the main character is in his life.
[QUOTE=Larikang;44481021]ITT almost everyone misunderstands the point of the Bechdel Test. (Except you, hexpunK! <3) The whole point of the test is gender symmetry. Consider the opposite test: 1. Has at least two named male characters 2. They talk to each other 3. About something other than a woman It sounds so simple, doesn't it? It's quite hard to find a movie that doesn't pass this test. So why are movies that pass the Bechdel test so few? The problem is [i]systemic[/i] i.e. movies in general. Picking out a specific movie she lists and claiming "OH SHE HATES ___! WHAT A BITCH" is entirely missing the point.[/QUOTE] Mostly because lots of people on this forum are dumb and don't understand that women (and minorities in general but that's a discussion for another thread) have been systematically put beneath the "normal" person. Like, there's a lot of shit you can think up or discuss to prove that this is an issue [I]everywhere[/I] in [I]pretty much every culture ever.[/I] Imagine that there is a 19 year old girl and a 19 year old boy working at a 4-star restaurant. If you immediately think, even for a second, that the man is the cook and the woman is the waitress, that's proof. [url=http://www.bigriddles.com/riddle/doctor-cant-operate]if the classic riddle that ends with the doctor going "I can't operate on this boy, he's my son"[/url] confused you [I]at all[/I], that's more proof. If sexism wasn't an issue in storytelling in movies and games, we wouldn't be seeing videos questioning why the majority of high-budget films star all male casts. Like, look at heist movies and action movies like Heat, Predator (actually pretty much any 80's manly man shooty shoot movie), The Italian Job (charlize theron has a role but she's not one of the "main crew" that shoots guns and shit), etc. not What's inherently masculine about robbing banks, driving fast sports cars, [I]killing[/I], wearing hockey masks, or shooting guns? Aside from what society's shaped us to believe, [I]nothing.[/I] Literally nothing. You can pull the "but men = more muscles and are more willing to kill," but for every man that's able to do that shit, there's at least 3 or 4 that are unable. And lol, yet again Anita brings up a pretty good point but is completely fucking shafted because she wasn't 100% absolutely perfect with its execution. Why do you guys think these videos exist? For her to lay down the law and say THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE? Or maybe, shocker, [I]to promote discussion and raise awareness?[/I] You're part of the problem if you sit back and go "Why should we bother? It's always been this way/ Men do this stuff, women can't! It'll feel tacky if we just shoehorn them in!" Instead of having this terrible defeatist attitude, ask questions. When you play a game or watch a movie with yet another white skinned male that kills tons of dudes ask, "why can't this character be a woman? a black dude? an old man? a hispanic lady?" Chances are (in a lot of generic garbage that comes out) the role could easily fit somebody else, but the creators either a) are too incompetent and/or lazy to consider that or b) [I]YOU[/I] keep buying shit with the typical action hollywood male. Society isn't going to just change because women have the right to get abortions or vote or whatever, we have to be proactive on [I]every level of production.[/I] [editline]7th April 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=omarfr;44481209]Isn't this one of her really old videos? I actually think her latest one was much better and well researched.[/QUOTE] Yeah, came out five years ago. She's gotten way better at conveying her point in her recent ones, though.
Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature, drama, and especially movies, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize them as either the whore or the angel.
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;44482160]Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature, drama, and especially movies, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize them as either the whore or the angel.[/QUOTE] I think the most hilarious and offensive type of female character is the type that's literally just a man but with boobs. Like, a lot of recent action movies have had a female character that kills lots of dudes and her only real role in the movie is to call the male protagonists girls/sissies/pussies/weak/etc, and just in general to be a "haha wow she's a girl!!! but she kills!" kind of joke. Seriously, ugh. Women are like, what, more than 50 percent of the population? And how many women have been born and existed, ever? Like, 10 billion? That's more than enough reference to make a good female character. There's literally no excuse.
did she just bite an apple and not finish it?
The only way these discussions will ever go away is if society is completely okay if an action movie or whatever comes out with a cast of entirely, or a cast made up entirely of pocs with no stupid token characters. That's never going to happen in my lifetime, judging by the general consensus around the internet.
[QUOTE=hexpunK;44480866]I don't think any of you seem to actually understand why the Bechdel "test" exists, it's not to name and shame films for being "anti-feminist" or whatever bizzare shit you seem to think it is. It's a metric literally just to quantify meaningful female representation in film. having female characters for the sake of them is called out by most people who understand this test, having male characters in the place of the female (so, a few unnamed guys who just talk about women) is called out, etc. It's not used to say "this film sucks hard", most of the better films we know fail the test. It's just there to point out "hey, maybe you guys should consider adding stronger female characters where possible?" [editline]7th April 2014[/editline] gw proving the point of many feminists. Rather than actually putting effort into your insult, you flew straight for the gendered slur.[/QUOTE] Do all films NEED equal representation of genders? Do all stories in life even have that?
[QUOTE=theLazyLion;44480842]That's so fucking stupid, well obviously they don't pass the test because the main characters of all those movies are men? Also why did this scam artist whore disable comments?[/QUOTE] I think she mentioned that it wasn't an accurate test that determined bad female characters, just that those particular movies are likely to contain tropes. Take Bonnie and Clyde for instance. The main female character had love interest, but she wasn't a damsel in distress, she didn't talk about men constantly, and she played an important roles in the film.
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;44482160]Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature, drama, and especially movies, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize them as either the whore or the angel.[/QUOTE] A lot of movies tend to do that, but there are also tons of movies that explore women way more. Movies like Juno and shit idk I'm not a movie scientist
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;44482160]Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature, drama, and especially movies, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize them as either the whore or the angel.[/QUOTE] And that is why I want to see more female characters like Krystal from Star Fox (Feel free to argue with me about her if you want)
If people actually agree with her they will end up hating everything in this world.
[QUOTE=C0linSSX;44480518]I hear if you turn off the lights in the bathroom and repeat "hon hon hon baguette" 3 times into the mirror he appears and bans you from real life[/QUOTE] I did this and now I'm stuck in a real life refugee camp Help!
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;44482184]I think the most hilarious and offensive type of female character is the type that's literally just a man but with boobs. Like, a lot of recent action movies have had a female character that kills lots of dudes and her only real role in the movie is to call the male protagonists girls/sissies/pussies/weak/etc, and just in general to be a "haha wow she's a girl!!! but she kills!" kind of joke. Seriously, ugh. [/QUOTE] uh what you're against gender roles but if a woman is a "badass" she's instantly a "man with boobs" yes, they may poke fun at the fact that she's a woman and she's doing things you wouldn't expect a woman to do in an action movie. that doesn't mean that's her only purpose; if she's a shallow, super-tough-badass-type character, she's just a bad character, not a "man with boobs" i understand what you mean but geez, poor choice of words
[QUOTE=MaxOfS2D;44482160]Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. A woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature, drama, and especially movies, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize them as either the whore or the angel.[/QUOTE] Preaching to the choir as most usually do. Instead of videos like this we need materials to actually educate people on just basically what makes a good character. Things like some sort of detailed tutorial series that not only identifies the problem and shows examples but actually fucking educates future creatives on how to avoid such dumb bullshit. If her recent Kickstarter including something akin to that instead of "Here's everything that is bad" I think a lot more people would be less agitated by her.
[QUOTE=Yahnich;44482335]they don't NEED to no, not at all, but the thing is 50% of the people you see in your every day life and 50% of the people you know (should know i guess) are women, so isn't it completely logical that more or less half the cast in a movie is female? And in movies where there are multiple women, why don't the women talk about something other then men? the point she's making is that most movies have a [I]consistent [/I]lack of female representation, obviously nobody would care if there's the occasional movie with only women doing stuff that would be women-focused or something like a suffragette movie or a movie with an all-male cast because it's about 70s gangsters or whatever. The point is that it's not an occasional movie, it just keeps happening now i get a lot of people hate anita and i personally have absolutely no opinion on her to be honest, but the bechdel test is pretty real and there are quite a large amount of movies that do not pass it and it's not because all movies should have girls, but because movies shouldn't always be about men and for men and by men[/QUOTE] I'm not arguing that But she has films in the list, that wouldn't be bettered by the existence of female characters in them that would pass the test. More women in more films that can pass the test is a good thing. I want that. I don't want people thinking that movies would just be qualativley "better" because they pass this test. There are many stories in many peoples lives that involve a fairly even split of genders in its events. Just like there are many stories that can be said to be more mono-gendered. To deny that this exists in our lives is somewhat wrong no? I'm just opposed to the idea that it's required. I want it to happen. Cardboard female characters are lame excuses for writing. But shoehorning in strong characters in an already good story doesn't seem to be something I'd want personally.
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;44482123]Mostly because lots of people on this forum are dumb and don't understand that women (and minorities in general but that's a discussion for another thread) have been systematically put beneath the "normal" person. Like, there's a lot of shit you can think up or discuss to prove that this is an issue [I]everywhere[/I] in [I]pretty much every culture ever.[/I] Imagine that there is a 19 year old girl and a 19 year old boy working at a 4-star restaurant. If you immediately think, even for a second, that the man is the cook and the woman is the waitress, that's proof. [url=http://www.bigriddles.com/riddle/doctor-cant-operate]if the classic riddle that ends with the doctor going "I can't operate on this boy, he's my son"[/url] confused you [I]at all[/I], that's more proof. If sexism wasn't an issue in storytelling in movies and games, we wouldn't be seeing videos questioning why the majority of high-budget films star all male casts. Like, look at heist movies and action movies like Heat, Predator (actually pretty much any 80's manly man shooty shoot movie), The Italian Job (charlize theron has a role but she's not one of the "main crew" that shoots guns and shit), etc. not What's inherently masculine about robbing banks, driving fast sports cars, [I]killing[/I], wearing hockey masks, or shooting guns? Aside from what society's shaped us to believe, [I]nothing.[/I] Literally nothing. You can pull the "but men = more muscles and are more willing to kill," but for every man that's able to do that shit, there's at least 3 or 4 that are unable. And lol, yet again Anita brings up a pretty good point but is completely fucking shafted because she wasn't 100% absolutely perfect with its execution. Why do you guys think these videos exist? For her to lay down the law and say THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE? Or maybe, shocker, [I]to promote discussion and raise awareness?[/I] You're part of the problem if you sit back and go "Why should we bother? It's always been this way/ Men do this stuff, women can't! It'll feel tacky if we just shoehorn them in!" Instead of having this terrible defeatist attitude, ask questions. When you play a game or watch a movie with yet another white skinned male that kills tons of dudes ask, "why can't this character be a woman? a black dude? an old man? a hispanic lady?" Chances are (in a lot of generic garbage that comes out) the role could easily fit somebody else, but the creators either a) are too incompetent and/or lazy to consider that or b) [I]YOU[/I] keep buying shit with the typical action hollywood male. Society isn't going to just change because women have the right to get abortions or vote or whatever, we have to be proactive on [I]every level of production.[/I][/QUOTE] I think they include "safe" cliches to ward away criticism. Some would criticize the characters for being an unrelatable "Twinkie"/"Oreo Cookie"/"Man-With-Boobs"/etc (Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Thing Reboot, "girls-with-guns" genre). Whereas some would criticize the characters for overcoming discrimination in an entertaining manner (blaxsploitaion genre, Django Unchained, Kick-Ass 2).
[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;44482580]uh what you're against gender roles but if a woman is a "badass" she's instantly a "man with boobs" yes, they may poke fun at the fact that she's a woman and she's doing things you wouldn't expect a woman to do in an action movie. that doesn't mean that's her only purpose; if she's a shallow, super-tough-badass-type character, she's just a bad character, not a "man with boobs" i understand what you mean but geez, poor choice of words[/QUOTE] i'm not talking about every badass female character, i'm talking about the ones where they could easily be mistaken for a typical male character if you just replace them on screen. and yeah my choice of words was pretty terrible tho there are plenty of female characters that are [I]women[/I] and also badass, like virtually every female on avatar: the last airbender (animated, but still valid), ripley from the first two alien movies, and jodie foster in silence of the lambs come to my mind instantly. these characters keep their femininity (having feelings, being in relationships with dudes) while also doing cool shit. not just a BEEFY MARINE, which in and of itself is a boring and flawed character type.
[QUOTE=milkandcooki;44483781]i'm not talking about every badass female character, i'm talking about the ones where they could easily be mistaken for a typical male character if you just replace them on screen. and yeah my choice of words was pretty terrible tho there are plenty of female characters that are [I]women[/I] and also badass, like virtually every female on avatar: the last airbender (animated, but still valid), ripley from the first two alien movies, and jodie foster in silence of the lambs come to my mind instantly. these characters keep their femininity (having feelings, being in relationships with dudes) while also doing cool shit. not just a BEEFY MARINE, which in and of itself is a boring and flawed character type.[/QUOTE] So if you could change a character's gender arbitrarily and it would have no effect on the overall narrative, that would be an example of a bad character?
[QUOTE=Ardosos;44483814]So if you could change a character's gender arbitrarily and it would have no effect on the overall narrative, that would be an example of a bad character?[/QUOTE] In a lot of cases, yeah, at least in stories with good narrative. In stupid action movies I don't really think it matters that much because they're not a paragon of cinematography anyways, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have more representation. Since that's the case, I don't see they we can't just arbitrarily change up an all white all male cast into something else for the sake of representation. Like, would anyone really give a shit if 2014's "4 wise-cracking male shoot gun mans action explosion movie" had an entirely black cast? I hope not.
Oh my goooooood it's like every one of her videos is a long boring essay
[QUOTE=Chubbles;44483845]Oh my goooooood it's like every one of her videos is a long boring essay[/QUOTE] this is one of her 2009 videos so no duh they're lower quality and please hold the "hurr hurr they're not quality right now!!" zinger because everyone can see it coming
I can't stand Anita Sarkeesian. There are tons of people who make excellent points about movies and games and women in those two things, but she always comes out as obnoxious for some reason.
Some films passes this test and are still terribly sexist... For example: Suckerpunch. But I think the point is to show there's very little female characters in movies in general and there should be more.
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