Padaviya

iamabutchsolo:

We all know the trope: The person(s) of color (overwhelmingly the black guy) gets killed off first, especially in a horror film. Well here is a brief list of such films, many of which not only feature the person of color dying first, but feature the main white characters ultimately saving the day:

• Night of the Living Dead
• X-Men: First Class
• King Kong
• Scream 2
• Predator (1 & 2)
• Serenity
• State of Play
• Deep Rising
• Kill Bill: Volume I
• Jaws: The Revenge
• House of Wax
• Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem
• Stargare
• Aliens
• The Shining
• Leviathan
• Terminator (1 & 2)
• Red Dawn
• Jurassic Park
• Gremlins
• Hollow Man
• Hulk
• Predators
• United 93
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
• Super 8
• Cursed
• Killjoy
• Queen of the Damned
• Transformers (Not a complete fit in the trope since it’s not human-based. The only autobot to die in the film is Jazz, the jive-talking autobot voiced by a black actor)
• 300
• Resident Evil
• The Mummy (1 & 2)

And believe me, I could probably find many more if I looked a little harder. (Feel free to correct me on any films, as I have not seen a few of these films).

So, what is the point of this list? Well, it’s to illustrate that even if at first glance, a film may show potential of diversity, people of color are still, in many respects, disposable in films. It’s just enough time to introduce the idea that these films are inclusive by introducing some racial diversity, yet allows them not to have to explore the nuances of these characters of color by killing them off, to focus on the true protagonists - the white folks.

Now, let me make it clear: the individual films listed are not necessarily racist because the feature this trope, and the reasoning for killing of the character of color might not be a conscious choice. Rather, the focus is how the overall trope itself is racist, as it is evident in several films that even if there are people of color in films, they are likely to be killed off or rid of early on, further illustrating Hollywood’s penchant for not telling stories of people of color in any meaningful way and only actively engaging a white-centered audience.

You know what I really hate? Making the same amount as men for the same work. Also, choices. Jesus, I fucking hate choices. What I like is lying on a fainting couch and just having my ass grabbed. And weeping and popping pills to combat the vague malaise that comes with having no options to establish my own identity.

Because the definition of feminism is pretty simple. It’s corny to say that “it’s the radical idea that women are human beings”, but the dictionary defines it as “The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.” Men AND women can support that idea, and have, pretty successfully, over the past 100 or so years. Perhaps their efforts have moved us into a place where it’s just something we don’t really think about anymore.

Still, on a pretty serious note, if you look at want ads in the 1950′s, you’ll see they were broken down by male and female categories. Women couldn’t get to work in, say, publishing because all the junior editor jobs were in the “male” section. Your option was to be a secretary even if you graduated at the top of your class. Maybe we don’t identify as feminists because we don’t have any perception of how absolutely bizarre the world would be, by our standards, without the feminist movement.

(click through to see the slideshow of celebrities and their anti-feminist quotes)

I hesitated to insert this bit of commentary into my review of Winnie the Pooh because I’m dead serious about it, and I couldn’t find a way to make it work amongst the preposterous “complaints” about the film that filled my “screed.” (Though obviously not everyone can see sarcasm even when it’s staring them in the face.) But there’s this, too: what I’m about to complain about is not something that’s uniquely a Winnie the Pooh problem but yet another example of a problem that plagues our pop culture. So it didn’t seem fair to make it seem like I was piling on poor old Pooh.

Here it is now.

I was sitting there watching Winnie the Pooh and letting the silly, utterly inconsequential sweetness wash over me when suddenly it struck me, for the millionth time but with the power of a new ephiphany: Every single character but one here is male… and the only female character is defined exclusively by her motherhood.

Pooh? Male.

Piglet? Male.

Eeyore? Male.

Owl? Male.

Christopher Robin? Male.

Rabbit? Male.

Roo? Male.

Kanga? Mother.

*sigh*

Now, we’re not “supposed” to point out unpleasant stuff like this about kiddie movies. We’re supposed to just relax and enjoy them and let them wash over us and not think about it too much. But that’s why it’s so insidious — and yes, I mean that deliberately: insidious.

If our pop culture were pretty balanced among some stories that were mostly about boy characters and some stories that were mostly about girl characters and some stories that were about a fairly balanced bunch of both boy and girl characters and some stories that 75/25 boys/girls and some stories that were 75/25 girls/boys, and so on, it wouldn’t matter. But this is not how it is. The vast majority of stories are about male characters. The vast majority of stories about groups of character feature lots of different male characters — often defined by various traits: The Fat One, The Smart One, The Clumsy One, The Daring One, and so on — and perhaps, if we’re lucky, a single female character who is defined solely by her gender: The Girl One. Nothing beside femaleness is needed to define this character: she is not brave or cowardly, reckless or prudent, smart or dumb — she’s just the girl. She’s probably pretty, because that’s how you know she’s a girl: she’s there to make the world more pleasant for the male characters. She might need to get rescued at some point. She’s almost definitely the carrot dangled in front of The Leader One, with the prospect of her as the prize he wins if he succeeds.

Now, in the world of Pooh, Kanga does not serve this purpose… but she also serves no other purpose but to be mothering. She says and does pretty much nothing but deliver gentle maternal scolds to all the boys around her, who clearly — boys being boys and all — need it. (That’s sarcasm.) But there’s no reason in the universe why Owl could not be female: no story hinges on Owl being male. There’s no reason in the universe why Rabbit could not be female: no story hinges on Rabbit being male.

No, I don’t think that A.A. Milne chuckled evilly to himself and set out to exclude female characters from his stories because he hated women. He was only unconsciously regurgitating the biases of our culture: that maleness is the default, the neutral, and that there’s no reason for a character to be female unless ladyparts are required (such as, in this case, having given birth).

Here’s where the insidious comes in: When all children see are stories in which boy characters run the gamut of human potential and girl characters are only notable for their girlness, they internalize these notions. They learn that boys can do anything and girls can only be a narrow sort of “girlness.” Girls are never The Funny One or The Depressed One or The Wise One.

Kids see this in even the “inoffensive” children’s stories, like Winnie the Pooh’s tales. Like in the Toy Story movies, which grudgingly allow more than one female character in, but again only when they must be female — of course Bo Peep and Jessie the Cowgirl have to be girls — but never when the gender of a toy is absent or ambiguous: Rex or Slinky or Hamm or many of the other toys could have been female, but aren’t. Even the really good, really wonderful, really must-see stories follow the same plan.

It’s depressing to realize this, if you care about exposing children — boys and girls alike — to fairer, more humanist ideas about what they are capable of.

And that’s why it must be pointed out. When even the “nice” movies engage in this, these biases get deeply ingrained and powerfully reinforced in our individual subconsciouses and in our cultural supraconsciousness.

I’m not suggesting that anyone should have changed Milne’s characters in the name of feminism. I am suggesting that we need to be creating new stories that allow girl characters to express the full range of human experience to balance the likes of Milne out… and to make sure that when someone creates a “nice” new story, its Rex or Slinky or Hamm aren’t create male by lazy default.

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” the third installment in this $1.5 billion franchise that just set a new record for a Fourth of July weekend opening, follows what has become a Hollywood action movie tradition of virtually erasing women, despite the fact that women buy 55% of movie tickets and market research shows that films with female protagonists or prominent female characters in ensemble casts garner similar box office numbers to movies featuring men.

Only two featured characters in the large ensemble Transformers cast are women, and none of the Transformers (alien robots, for the uninitiated) are female. And the two female humans consist of an unmitigated sexual object and a caricatured mockery of female leadership.

Let’s start with “the object,” Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), the one-dimensional, highly sexualized damsel-in-distress girlfriend of protagonist Sam Wikwiki (Shia LaBouef). Carly wears stiletto heels, even when running from murderous machines (except when the filmmakers slip up and her flats are visible), and she is pristine in her white jacket after an hour-long battle that leaves the men filthy.

The movie opens with a tight shot of Carly’s nearly bare ass as she walks up the stairs:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC32Bw9uYho]

In a later scene, Carly is reduced to an object as her boss (Patrick Demsey) compares her to an automobile in a conversation with Sam:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2WI7f9eeUM]

And in case the audience doesn’t know to leer at Carly, they get constant instruction from a duo of small robots that look up her skirt and Sam’s boss (John Malkovich) who cocks his head to stare at her ass:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byC8cmWg6K8]

Sam’s “friend,” Agent Simmons (John Turturro), also ogles Carly and suggests she be frisked against her will:

[wpvideo ojm7ZvjZ]

In a disturbing scene of sexualized violence, Carly’s (robot) car sprouts “arms” and threatens to violate her:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-yEghxhpMk]

Normalization of female objectification causes girls/women to think of themselves as objects, which has been linked to higher rates of depression and eating disorders, compromised cognitive and sexual function, decreased self-esteem, and decreased personal and political efficacy. Ubiquitous female sexual objectification also harms men by increasing men’s body consciousness, and causes both men and women to be less concerned about pain experienced by sex objects.

Transformers 3 is pitched as a “family movie” and the film studio carefully disguises it as such with misleading movie trailers showing a story about kid’s toys. (Okay, I still have an Optimus Prime robot…) Young kids were abundant at both screenings I attended, taking in the images with little ability to filter the message.

************

It would have been easy for Michael Bay to positively present the second female character, Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing (Frances McDormand). Instead, she is a tool to openly mock female leadership and promote female competition.

McDormand does her best to breathe some realism into Director Mearing, but the script calls for a caricature with “masculine” leadership traits – arrogance, assertiveness, stubborness, etc. – who is ultimately “put in her place” at the end of the movie with a forced kiss. Women continue to be vastly under-represented in positions of corporate and political leadership, partially due to the double-bind of women’s leadership where, in order to be considered acceptable leaders, women have to project a “masculine” image for which they are then criticized.

Director Mearing’s authority is challenged by virtually everyone she encounters in a way that simply wouldn’t make sense for a male character in her position. Sam openly challenges her in this scene:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYahdFFjZXk]

Director Mearing’s authority evaporates when Agent Simmons comments, ”moving up in the world, and your booty looks excellent”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb4m0JuROnU]

Director Mearing is even challenged by a transformer. [SPOILER ALERT: Director Mearing is the only one to challenge this transformer’s intentions, and she gets no credit when it turns out she was right.]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEz8DOa9I78]

This Transformer again puts her in her place with the dual meaning of “I am a prime. I do not take orders from you”:

[wpvideo EDGYfp2T]

Director Mearing also has a running theme of not wanting to be called “ma’am.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srsWDT6w8HI]

The “ma’am” theme doesn’t readily make sense since Director Mearing isn’t young and doesn’t appear to be trying to look young. But it does make sense when viewed through the lens of director Michael Bay intentionally mocking women’s leadership. Remember the flap when Senator Barbara Boxer at a hearing requested that a general use her professional title instead of “ma’am”?:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0CprVYsG0k]

The “ma’am” theme resurfaces in a particularly troubling scene where Director Mearing meets with Sam and Carly, who, in good double-bind fashion, challenges whether she is even a woman:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIZOWPaoiDk]

Bay does include a few minor female characters with lines – Sam’s mother, the nagging mother/wife; Director Mearing’s subservient Asian assistant; a scene with both the “Olga” and “Petra” Russian woman stereotypes; and a Latina with a bare midriff who has a “Latin meltdown”:

[wpvideo pLgrLBNm]

If Michael Bay can buy off the most accomplished actors and even musician/social activist Bono to participate in such harmful media, what hope is there in the war that pits girls/women (the Autobots) against unrepentantly sexist movies makers (the Deceptacons)?

atrapforfools:puremindlessvandalism:

that there are 7 reported incidents of women being physically abused by him, and in one incident, he SHOT his fiance in the arm with a .22? In another he threatened to kill his girlfriend Brittany Ashland and knocked her out. All of this glorifying of charlie sheen over tumblr and twitter is absolutely sickening. It is no wonder why he has served NO jail time for his history of abuse against women.

STOP FUCKING SUPPORTING THIS MISOGYNISTIC ASSHOLE!!!

(Source: sheer-powder)

Larry Harnisch, of The Daily Mirror, sent in a link to a story at the NYT regarding study released by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media about the under-representation of women and girls in “family” movies — that is, movies rated G, PG, and PG-13. The authors looked at all English-language fictional G-rated films released in the U.S. or Canada between September 2006 and September 2009 (a total of 22 movies). They also looked at the 50 highest-grossing films for both PG- and PG-13-ratings, meaning a total of 122 movies is included in the analysis. They focused on characters that were either mentioned by name or spoke at least one word in the movie, leading to a sample of 5,554 characters. Of those, 70.8% were male and 29.2% were female.

Consistent with patterns in Hollywood in general, women made up a small proportion of directors, writers, and producers in the movies studied:

The authors found that movies with female directors and/or writers had more female characters than those with male directors/writers, with writers seeming to have a stronger effect than directors:

Of course, this could be because female directors/writers actively try to incorporate female characters into movies or because studios are simply more comfortable hiring female directors/writers to work on movies with female characters than they are other types of films, leading to a concentration of women working on such projects.

Comparing the results of this study to an earlier analysis of films from 1990-2006, we see that the gender imbalance isn’t improving over time (though since the methodologies differed slightly, the data aren’t absolutely comparable and so are more indicative of a general trend; the authors did make statistical adjustments for the methodological differences):

Of course, none of this gets at the content of the films. The study found that female characters were generally younger than male characters, made up only 17% of group or crowd scenes, and often had plotlines that centered entirely around interests in romance.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana.  As these photographs show, Charles was about the same height as Diana, perhaps even shorter.

(Daily Mail)

(also Daily Mail)

(BBC)

When Charles and Diana were posed together formally, however, they were typically arranged so as to suggest that he was significantly taller than her, or at least to disguise the fact that he was not.

A photo from their engagement announcement with Charles on a step behind her:

(BBC)

And more:

(Family Inequality)

(Diana Forum)

(Shine)

This effort to make Charles appear taller is a social commitment to the idea that men are taller and women shorter. When our own bodies, and our chosen mates, don’t follow this rule, sometimes we’ll go to great lengths to preserve the illusion.

Season Twelve’s far-fetched scenarios are so far removed from reality that they jeopardize some of our best efforts to raise awareness about sexual assault and increase survivors’ access to victims services. Instead, SVU is perpetuating our national delusion that rape is not a serious epidemic nor something likely to occur in our own lives.

In the two years I spent working as a volunteer advocate providing trauma counseling to rape victims in an emergency room, none of my cases packed the shock value one finds now in the stories on SVU. In fact, they were quite mundane compared to the TV series’ favored tales of poisoning, revenge, dark dungeons and religious cult rituals. The emergency room testimonials I was privy to–those quotidian, common experiences of rape–have not found their voice on SVU this season.

I am thinking, for example, of one teenage girl I met in the ER who had been raped by her sister’s boyfriend. He used verbal intimidation and his dominant strength to carry out the attack, but very little violence (apart from the rape, which itself is an act of violence). But she had no bruises, no cuts, no broken bones. And it was over in 10 minutes. There would be no subsequent trail leading detectives to uncover some egregious corporate scandal of grandiose proportions, an underground black market for selling babies, or some rare, poisonous concoction. But does that make this girl’s trauma any less worthy, less urgent, less heart-wrenching?

But why would Foster even think that “The Beaver” — her latest directorial effort, starring Mel Gibson as a guy who (stop me if this sounds familiar) loses it all and finds redemption and happiness again courtesy of a hand puppet — would lull us into forgetting that the guy is an unapologetic mysoginistic anti-Semite who repeatedly calls his ex to unleash a torrent of expletives and threats?

Girl geeks of the world, rejoice. One of our own—brainy activist witch Hermione Granger—has come into her own.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I” burned up the box office its first weekend, riding to history on a wave of devotion from a worldwide fandom bewitched by the magical wizard and his world-in-peril. But Harry, our scarred and spectacled protagonist, made room for his best friends Hermione and Ron to shine in this film, as the three of them embarked on a fugitive life away from their quirky wizarding school and its legions of supporting characters.

And so this penultimate installment, in many ways, became Hermione’s movie. Her emotions and choices, classically heroic, anchored a piece of the epic story that would have felt muddled and rootless without her.

Director Chris Yates underscored his focus on her right from the get-go …