Sexy sexism talk
-
Well, then, I'll just go back to marketing to men. boobs get slightly bigge
And a certain segment of women.
-
Um, stories always consider the importance of a character in how they relate to other people.
To try to divorce a person from every other person, would leave everyone just looking at their cell phones for the whole movie like real life. Ironic.
How about chick flicks where the man's importance is entirely how he relates to the woman.
Woman discovers the lie and the relationship is ruined? No, don't just find another woman. Stop everything you're doing and make up, because you can't possibly exist without this woman.
I mean, the vast majority of movies that the feminists use as examples are movies marketed to men. Of course the women are background noise, it's James fricken Bond.
Now take a movie marketed specifically to women, and men become psychotically co-dependent on the women in the story, and have zero importance other than how they relate to women.
Even classic stories were like this.
Search
classic story about sisters and who they marryFirst result
Little WomenEven stronger example,
Pride and Prejudice.
A story specifically where the men don't matter unless it's about how they relate to the women. You could change the personality and traits of any of the men, and it wouldn't change the story. The only requirement in that they must relate to the women in the same way.
-
This was covered already. The test is useless when applied to individual movies. All it says about a given film is if it passes or fails the test. It's like measuring the weather to get an idea of what the climate is like in a give place. If you go outside and it's raining, does that mean it always rains? Well, no. You only took one sample. So you repeat the experiment through the year, and hopefully then you can make some assessment of the place.
Likewise, it's when applied to a statistically significant amount of movies that you can start to make an assessment based on the test. It doesn't matter if an individual movie passes it or not. What's curious is that when applied to many movies, so few pass it.
The question that is raised is, if women talk with each other about things other than men in real life, why is it that so few movies manage to portray it in their two hour runtime?
Notice that it isn't a condemnation in itself, it's merely raising a question. Movies don't need to reflect reality, of course, but if an aspect of movies is far removed from the norm, it's fair to wonder why it is so. For example, cars in movies set in the US drive on the right lane, matching reality. If most movies showed cars on the left lane, that would be seen as a weird "coincidence", and it would be fair to wonder why so many movies show cars driving wrong. Even if every individual movie had a plausible rationalization for the fact, you'd wonder why Hollywood is fixated on the idea of cars driving in the wrong lane.
-
Maybe floppies ain't so bad:
The [UK's Department for Work and Pensions]'s legacy systems still run on Fujitsu mainframes using the VME operating system installed in 1974.
-
Maybe floppies ain't so bad:
The [UK's Department for Work and Pensions]'s legacy systems still run on Fujitsu mainframes using the VME operating system installed in 1974.
Certainly not defending this, but it might not be quite as bad as it sounds:
As a creation of the mid-1970s, with no constraints to be compatible with earlier operating systems, VME is in many ways more modern in its architecture than today's Unix derivatives (Unix was designed in the 1960s) or Microsoft Windows (which started as an operating system for single-user computers, and still betrays those origins).
except:
adopted the EBCDIC character encoding.
-
That's fine, but when your subset is action movies, is it at all surprising when you don't see two women sipping tea talking about the weather.
Likely, they'll be asking each other how to kill Bond, and then they fail the test.
I've given examples as to why this test is totally pointless, and won't represent the problem at all.
It merely measures something that's unrelated to movies at all.
Do you measure how many people use the restroom in movies and wonder why this, normal everyday task, isn't represented?
Maybe movie people don't have to use the restroom.
Maybe it's bias against people with normal restroom use.
There's absolutely no reason to have an offtopic discussion in a movie. And if the movie revolves around the characters interacting (like say in a chick flick) what conversation is necessary other than them talking about how the guy fucked up?
Take an action movie, female lead. Reverse the test.
Are we going to bitch that the henchmen don't stop and talk about their nails?
-
Are we going to bitch that the henchmen don't stop and talk about their nails?
Punching the hero could certainly break one.
-
That's fine, but when your subset is action movies, is it at all surprising when you don't see two women sipping tea talking about the weather.
The subset is not action movies. Most write ups about the "test" (which is not a standard practice or anything, it arose from some pointed commentary in a comic once) point out failing ratios in aggregates across many genres.
Do you measure how many people use the restroom in movies and wonder why this, normal everyday task, isn't represented?
This is actually something that is pretty commonly discussed in pop culture, mainly for comedic effect. The obvious answer, of course, is that people aren't shown in the bathroom unless that advances the plot.
Matching that to the Bechdel test, then, the question arises: how come women talking about something other than men so rarely advances the plot?
-
Fujitsu mainframes
Nothing wrong with those ... We had a new one installed last year ... I bet some parts of that code have their origin in the '80.
-
-
-
It actually helps stabilise the building ... We are not going anywhere ...
-
That's a better question.
But my point is that two very big genres will always fail the test. Action movies will rarely contain a conversation that advances the plot that doesn't discuss the teams involved, and then the teams involved will have a high probability of having one man. Therefore they almost all fail that test.
Romance comedies automatically fail the test. However, it fails the test both ways. Perform the test with the men, how many have a conversation that doesn't talk about a woman? How many have a conversation that advances the plot that doesn't talk about women? Therefore they ALL fail that test.
I can also reverse the roles and show that if genders were reversed, classical movies would fail the test. That's my "Pride and Prejudice" test.
The spectacular thing is that the movie revolves around women needing to marry so they don't become poor. The epitome of gender inequality. And yet, it would fail a reverse gender test, because the men don't matter other than how they relate to the women.
Therefore, the test fails to produce any evidence of anything.
Stories revolve around how characters relate to each other.
The only way to have a movie where women don't discuss men and still advance the plot, is to remove men from the plot altogether.
So the only thing the test is good for, is finding a movie where women are the main characters, and ALL men have roles that are insignificant. An exact role reversal of what they are complaining about. This subverts their quest for equality.
-
Your focus is somewhat myopic -- you are so focused on people talking about other people that you ignore people talking about systems (or abstractions, for that matter). And yes, such conversations can advance a plot.
-
-
Except that it requires two women to do it.
So, in Lucy, where the woman is talking to the men about a system she proposes in a way that exemplifies her superiority to them intellectually, that doesn't count.
In the 300 sequel. When Gorgo leads the men to battle, that doesn't count.
In Tomb Raider, when Lara beats up a horde of men, then talks about the item she needs to steal, that doesn't count.
All very strong women, and yet their entire movies don't count.
And my entire point is that the true metric should be the successes of women in movies, not who they talk to and why.
-
You miss the point of what I'm saying.
You assert that:
Stories revolve around how characters relate to each other.
when that's not necessarily true! (Easy example: TWA 800 -- the story (in reality, not as some movie tells it) is about the detective work itself, and the conclusions it led to.)
And my entire point is that the true metric should be the successes of women in movies, not who they talk to and why.
Part of the problem with your proposal is that people don't relate well to highly successful characters of any sort -- make a character of either gender too successful, and it starts working against most of the tools of plot formulation that are generally understood in the writing world.
(How do I know this? The hard way! I've managed to RP characters of both genders as successful enough at what they do that they can't be main plot characters because of that success...)
But you're right, people can have a discussion about something that isn't other people.
However, that's going to be very rare in a movie.
And I'm sure some MPAA exec would be very confused when I try to explain to him why I prefer to be a creator over a consumer when it comes to content...
-
This post is deleted!
-
Part of the problem with your proposal is that people don't relate well to highly successful characters of any sort -- make a character of either gender too successful
But that just shows that part of the test is just irrational.
If you show a successful woman, and feminists still complain that they don't identify. You've proven that they can't even identify what they're looking for.
Feminists don't want to see a successful woman, they want to see a successful feminist.
It's so delusional, they've gone from accusing successful women of allowing themselves to be objectified to get ahead, to now completely hijacking the successes of successful women, saying that the woman couldn't have been successful without the efforts of feminism.
What successes of feminism? They're still claiming nothing's changed.
And that's the problem. The ideal world the feminists imagine is non-falsifiable. We'll never reach it, because it can't be defined. They can always say, "not there yet", even past the point that society jumps the shark in an effort to appease them.
There's always some intangible invisible discrimination buried so deep that we don't even know we're doing it.
It's got a name now.... "microaggressions".
And they can't define what a microaggression would even look like.
Convenient.
-
If you show a successful woman, and feminists still complain that they don't identify. You've proven that they can't even identify what they're looking for.
Yep.And that's the problem. The ideal world the [s]feminists[/s]SJWs imagine is non-falsifiable. We'll never reach it, because it can't be defined. They can always say, "not there yet", even past the point that society jumps the shark in an effort to appease them.
FTFY (SJWs and feminists form a fairly classical two-set Venn diagram).It's so delusional, they've gone from accusing successful women of allowing themselves to be objectified to get ahead, to now completely hijacking the successes of successful women, saying that the woman couldn't have been successful without the efforts of feminism.
What successes of feminism? They're still claiming nothing's changed.
Wat.There's always some intangible invisible discrimination buried so deep that we don't even know we're doing it.
Need I mention Jane Goodall's work observing xenophobic behavior in chimps?
-
Wat.
I read an article where a successful woman said she wasn't a feminist. And a particular feminist said the successful woman HAD to be feminist, because the successful woman benefited from feminism.
Yet, tomorrow that feminist will tell everyone, "the patriarchy!!! the patriarchy!!!"
Need I mention Jane Goodall's work observing xenophobic behavior in chimps?
You mean chimps developed a behavior that produces more survivable chimps?
-
That Bechdel test is pretty ingenious, actually.
Once the percentage of movies in the last year that pass that test is about equal to the percentage of movies in the same year that pass the reverse of the test (at least two men, talking about something other than a woman), you could claim that equality (at least in movies) was 100% achieved.Having Lara Crofts beating up men is literally meaningless compared to that. And entirely optional.
-
But my point is that two very big genres will always fail the test. Action movies will rarely contain a conversation that advances the plot that doesn't discuss the teams involved, and then the teams involved will have a high probability of having one man. Therefore they almost all fail that test.
You might not have understood the test, I think. All it takes is for there to be ONE conversation, between two women, that isn't about men. It's not that the movie should have no conversations between women about men.
For example, in a hypothetical action movie, all it takes is for two female characters to have one conversation where they arrange to hit the gym later, for example. Or maybe one guides the other in how to disarm a bomb. The test is minimal, and as someone said before, it is trivially easy to pass. Which is why it is odd that so few pass it.
You brought up Lara Croft, for example. How come in her movies, Lara has not a single female friend? Would it be so out of place to have a glimpse of her civilian life before the action stuff started? Most male leads will have a chance to down a beer with a friend at the bar in action movies, either at the beginning or the end, as a means of establishing character.
Perform the test with the men, how many have a conversation that doesn't talk about a woman?
If you reverse the test, the parameter becomes "two men, that have a conversation, not about women", and I'm sure that's most movies in general. Even romantic comedies. Many revolve around a man growing up from being a manchild and taking responsibility and entering a commitment, and as part of that you see him with his buddies messing around. Which makes them pass the test.You seem to keep forgetting: the test says nothing about INDIVIDUAL movies, it's meant to think about trends. And all it takes is ONE conversation that is not about men to pass it. It doesn't ask that every conversation in the movie has to avoid it.
-
Lara has not a single female friend?
Not at all surprising.
I know women that shun talking to other women.
-
You mean chimps developed a behavior that produces more survivable chimps?
Yes, and we inherited that behavior, at the expense of our ability to get along with each other in a modern, interconnected world.@created_just_to_disl said:
That Bechdel test is pretty ingenious, actually.Once the percentage of movies in the last year that pass that test is about equal to the percentage of movies in the same year that pass the reverse of the test (at least two men, talking about something other than a woman), you could claim that equality (at least in movies) was 100% achieved.
OTOH -- come to think of it, @xaade's taking an overbroad view of what "talking about a woman" and "talking about a man" mean re: the Bechdel test, or, for that matter , what Kian talks about:For example, in a hypothetical action movie, all it takes is for two female characters to have one conversation where they arrange to hit the gym later, for example. Or maybe one guides the other in how to disarm a bomb. The test is minimal, and as someone said before, it is trivially easy to pass. Which is why it is odd that so few pass it.
You brought up Lara Croft, for example. How come in her movies, Lara has not a single female friend? Would it be so out of place to have a glimpse of her civilian life before the action stuff started? Most male leads will have a chance to down a beer with a friend at the bar in action movies, either at the beginning or the end, as a means of establishing character.
Or even sandwiched between the action stuff, for crying out loud!
-
Because, I don't care.
I honestly don't care what her background was.
I want her to skip over that and start punching people, and doing backflips.
Man or woman, doesn't matter. I don't care what the backstory is. That's just there for immersion.
A movie can start and end with a carchase and I'll love it.
And I think that's part of the reason why we're in this situation.
You could have a movie with only women, doing the same things, never mention a man or talk to one, and I'll love it. The gender of the character rarely matters to me.
-
You could have a movie with only women, doing the same things, never mention a man or talk to one, and I'll love it. The gender of the character rarely matters to me.
I think you just hit on why you don't understand the meaning of the Bechdel test -- you treat characters as systems, to at least some degree. (I'm the same way, although I do grasp how the test works from a theoretical perspective.)
-
I want her to skip over that and start punching people, and doing backflips.
That's fine. But we need context for who is getting punched, and there's really no reason why the conversation that establishes who and why is getting punched can't involve two women. It doesn't even have to be the two women alone. If there's a group huddle, and two of the members are women, and the huddle discusses the plans for the upcoming punching, that would pass the test!The test is interesting, I think, because it highlights two things: one, that many movies have very few women cast in speaking roles, even in roles that don't require a physically fit person (mission control types). And even in movies that have women, it's very rare to see the women interact at all. Take The Avengers, you have Black Widow and Eyepatch's assistant both as women. And yet they never interact with each other, despite there being ample room for them to be friends, or even to resent each other. But as far as each is concerned, the other doesn't exist.
If it was just The Avengers, it wouldn't matter. What's curious is how common it is that female characters won't interact.
-
Guardians of the galaxy has the two daughters that hate each other.....
..... because of the balance of attention they get from their "father".Failed the test.
Do you see what I mean?
You can link all their conversations to really being about the stress caused by their relationship with their "father". And thus, they are talking about a man.
You could even say that their actions really only advance the plot of their "father" vs. the actions of Starlord.
Kill Bill has two women adversaries interact.... because of Bill.
I know what I'm talking about. I've seen feminists take movies apart and somehow connect every single one to "patriarchy!!!"
while you're trying to link it to the abuses it's received at the hands of radicalist left-wingers who don't know the meaning of half the gibberish that they spew out.
But I think I'm confusing the function of the test, and the possible interpretations that people can make of its results.
-
I know what I'm talking about. I've seen feminists take movies apart and somehow connect every single one to "patriarchy!!!"
I think @kian is applying the test in a sane, rational fashion -- while you're trying to link it to the abuses it's received at the hands of radicalist left-wingers who don't know the meaning of half the gibberish that they spew out.
-
But I think I'm confusing the function of the test, and the possible interpretations that people can make of its results.
The "function" of the test, such as it is, is for a fictional character to decide whether she sees a film. Here's where the test is from:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/Dykes_to_Watch_Out_For_(Bechdel_test_origin).jpgThat's the original source. It's only purpose is to spark a conversation. Applying it to individual movies is meaningless. There are good movies that fail it, and bad movies that pass it. There can be good reasons to fail it, even.
It's interesting because they're just three rules, and at first glance you'd think it easy to pass. But nearly half of all movies (from what I read) fail it.
-
Is it observed gender, or gender preference?
Do two men, who say they are women, having a conversation about transgender surgery pass the test?
-
-
-
-
OTOH, if you are determined to force something other than what your audience wants to see, you'll run out of resources with which to make movies.
Except I don't think that's an either-or. I think the current situation arises mostly in two ways. At an unconscious level, I think writers default to guys because that's what they're used to. (And also because most writers are guys, but that's somewhat a separate issue.) At a conscious level, you will occasionally see people say "people prefer guys in most roles"... but I strongly suspect what they're doing is mostly looking at the movies that are doing well, seeing they are mostly guys, and concluding that must be what people want. But this is pretty ridiculous, because if most movies you make in the first place fit that criteria, of course most movies that do well will fit that criteria.Having good female characters doesn't seem to be much of an impediment to box office success. For example, I haven't actually seen this, but Interstellar was on a list of movies that pass at least the low bar of the Bechdel test. That's made something like $450 million worldwide profit. Maybe more; I don't know if the numbers I'm looking at include video sales or just box office.
The biggest historical case against this was Billy Jean King vs Bobby Riggs, where she beat him in a match. Evidence continues to pile up that he threw the match (starting with how obviously poorly he played). Women's athletics may be interesting, but in general can't compete directly against men.
You say that as if you're disagreeing, but considering I said that there are differences between the sexes I'm not sure in what way you are doing so...Our lifespan has increased with our BMI, so pretty good, historically speaking.
Considering how many health problems can be caused by being overweight (or have a common cause as being overweight), it seems much more likely to have increased despite increases in BMI rather than because of it.Given how easy it would be to game, it probably says something that it hasn't been. Perhaps that something is "most people don't care", perhaps not.
>>> "most people don't care" not in [ ... "there are no bad effects", ... "is symptomatic of a problem", ... ] TrueWell, that's a fascinating theory except that there used to be a lot of male teachers. Paranoia chased them out.
I'm not arguing the movie industry is all powerful or anywhere close to that, just that they have an influence.One would think they'd be more concerned with a woman accomplishing something, rather than avoiding men.
You do have a point that you could have a strong female lead and still fail the Bechdel test. But turn it around: how many movies would fail a guy version of the Bechdel test? Can you think of any? Probably there's some movie with like one character who goes off on an expedition and never talks to anyone, but...(Later you bring up romance comedies. You might be right there, but I still kind of doubt it, for the reason Kian said: "Many revolve around a man growing up from being a manchild and taking responsibility and entering a commitment, and as part of that you see him with his buddies messing around.")
As said above, a Bechdel test failure does not mean that an individual movie is sexist. Heck, as you point out, it could be sexist against guys. But I honestly don't see how someone can look at the sentence "half of movies made do not have two female characters talk to each other about not a guy" and think "yes, that is a natural and right state of the world."
But my point is that two very big genres will always fail the test. Action movies will rarely contain a conversation that advances the plot that doesn't discuss the teams involved, and then the teams involved will have a high probability of having one man. Therefore they almost all fail that test.
Having a man on the team doesn't ensure a failure unless you only have two people on your team. I can almost guarantee that probably every episode of Firefly and Serenity pass the test for example. (I could imagine the one where Wash and Mal are captured might not.) That's not quite action... but it's definitely over kind of in that general area of the spectrum.
-
I'm not arguing the movie industry is all powerful or anywhere close to that, just that they have an influence.
Heh. It certainly wasn't just them.
-
But my point is that two very big genres will always fail the test. Action movies will rarely contain a conversation that advances the plot that doesn't discuss the teams involved, and then the teams involved will have a high probability of having one man. Therefore they almost all fail that test.
A movie doesn't automatically "fail" the Bechdel Test just because a woman talks to a man.You need two female characters. They need to have one conversation about something other than men. That's pretty much all that's required.
Daughter: hello mother.
Mother: hello daugher, would you like to eat some food?
Daughter: yes mother, but I need to finish my homework first.
Mother: what are you studying, daughter?
Daughter: I am studying European History from 1939-1945, mother.
Mother: I see, daughter, a lot of stuff happened then, didn't it?
Daughter: Yes, mother, a lot of stuff indeed!
Mother: very well then daughter, let's meet up later, once you have finished.BOOM you have just passed the test!
Filed under: flunked out of screenwriting school
-
Need I mention Jane Goodall's work observing xenophobic behavior in chimps?
Might be worth a mention: I'd read a post about it.
-
Filed under: flunked out of screenwriting school
That is very possibly the worst dialog I have ever read. :)
-
That's fine. But we need context for who is getting punched,
Says you! Let the punchening commence...
-
the worst dialog
Did you notice that the two characters were referring to each other only by their familial relationship, and that they did that in every line? :<qqcx>D
-
Considering how many health problems can be caused by being overweight (or have a common cause as being overweight), it seems much more likely to have increased despite increases in BMI rather than because of it.
Those who deny climate change are unlikely to realize the difference between correlation and causation. Historically speaking.
-
also, have you ever noticed that for something called "floppy" they are decidedly rigid?
They're called 'stiffies' in South Africa. The 5 1/4-inch ones are still floppies though.
Man, I have a shelfful of stiffy disks in my closet.
(Please don't add an ff ligature to shelf-ful; Knuth doesn't like it.)
-
You're failing to quote the whole strip. It's missing the punch line. (Granted, it's Wikipedia's fault. They do silly things in the name of fair use.)
-
I found out Americans don't call them that when I complained in tech class “it's not detecting my stiffie”.
I was real popular after that, or something.
-
At an unconscious level, I think writers default to guys because that's what they're used to.
Yeah, I think the subject of the test is pretty picayune, and I certainly don't pretend to understand the workings of the minds of overwhelmingly progressive movie writers.
You say that as if you're disagreeing, but considering I said that there are differences between the sexes I'm not sure in what way you are doing so.
Just expanding and emphasizing. I remember reading about that growing up, and only recently heard anything that cast doubt on her beating him. Also: WNBA.
Considering how many health problems can be caused by being overweight (or have a common cause as being overweight), it seems much more likely to have increased despite increases in BMI rather than because of it.
Could be. Still, we're also living longer, so there's more time for stuff to go wrong. I'm convinced the big problem is that our bodies evolved for situations of general scarcity. Hmm...maybe I should wander over to the FWP thread...
But I honestly don't see how someone can look at the sentence "half of movies made do not have two female characters talk to each other about not a guy" and think "yes, that is a natural and right state of the world."
I think, "Just watch the fucking movie. Is it entertaining or not?" But I'm sure I'm part of the problem, so...
-
Those who deny climate change are unlikely to realize the difference between correlation and causation. Historically speaking.
They should just go watch those Ice Age movies. The sloth was hilarious. Plus, lots more ice than you see today. Well, maybe not today, today, but you know what I mean.
-
Plus, lots more ice than you see today. Well, maybe not today, today, but you know what I mean.
Yeah, looking pretty nippy out my window this morning. We are already in double digits though, so I am wearing Bermuda shorts to my meetings today.
-
I'm convinced the big problem is that our bodies evolved for situations of general scarcity.
Also, as a result of that, those who most readily stored fat for lean times were most likely to survive the winter. Now that we have a generally large caloric surplus in developed nations, shit is going awry.
