NYT Article: "Is There a Real Woman in this Multiplex?"

lesbiaphrodite

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Summer Movies
Is There a Real Woman in This Multiplex?

In a season dominated by male-oriented fare like “The Incredible Hulk,” leading female roles seem largely limited.

By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: May 4, 2008
IRON MAN, Batman, Big Angry Green Man — to judge from the new popcorn season it seems as if Hollywood has realized that the best way to deal with its female troubles is to not have any, women, that is.

Summer Movies
A special section featuring the return of Indiana Jones, “Sex and the City,” “Hancock,” breakthrough performances, upcoming releases, trailers and more.

Not that it hasn’t tried to make nice with the leading ladies, in films like “The Invasion” (with Nicole Kidman) and “The Brave One” (Jodie Foster). Yet, after those Warner Brothers titles fizzled, the online chatter was that the studio’s president for production, Jeff Robinov, had vowed it would no longer make movies with female leads. A studio representative denied he made the comments. And, frankly, it is hard to believe that anyone in a position of Hollywood power would be so stupid as to actually say what many in that town think: Women can’t direct. Women can’t open movies. Women are a niche.

Nobody likes to admit the worst, even when it’s right up there on the screen, particularly women in the industry who clutch at every pitiful short straw, insisting that there are, for instance, more female executives in Hollywood than ever before. As if it’s done the rest of us any good. All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become. That’s as true for the dumbest and smartest of comedies as for the most critically revered dramas, from “No Country for Old Men” (but especially for women) to “There Will Be Blood” (but no women). Welcome to the new, post-female American cinema.

Nowhere is our irrelevance more starkly apparent than during the summer, the ultimate boys’ club. Over the next few months the screens will reverberate with the romping-stomping of comic book titans like Iron Man and the Hulk. The sexagenarian Harrison Ford will be cracking his Indy whip (some old men get a pass, after all, especially when Steven Spielberg is on board) alongside the fast-talking sprout from “Transformers.” Hellboy will relock and load, tongue and cigar planted in cheek. Action heroes like Will Smith, Brendan Fraser, Nicolas Cage, Mark Wahlberg and Vin Diesel will run amok, as will funny guys like Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Jack Black and Seth Rogen.

[Quotation of copyrighted material reduced per our forum guidelines.]
 
"Hollywood" and "have a clue" do not fit in the same sentence. And that includes those studios with female CEO's. Equal opportunity "duh".
 
Golden rule, I'm afraid, and it works for books as well as movies: Girls will go see guy movies (depending) and read books with male heroes as they've learned to identify with those characters, to see them as human beings, not as a a separate species. Guys won't see girl movies (unless dragged by a girlfriend), and they won't read books with a heroine instead of a hero, because women aren't "human beings"--they're another species.

Just imagine if Harry Potter had been Harriet Potter an you'll see what I mean. Even if Rowling hadn't changed anything but Harry's gender, does anyone think those books would have had even a 10% of their world-wide popularity?

That's the way it is, and so long as that's the way it is, Hollywood will follow. It's something everyone always seems to forget. Hollywood almost never leads the way.
 
It's something everyone always seems to forget. Hollywood almost never leads the way.

Er. I think that is the whole point. I know they don't, and so do all real cineastes.
 
It's something everyone always seems to forget. Hollywood almost never leads the way.

Er. I think that is the whole point. I know they don't, and so do all real cineastes.

Because cineastes tragically believe that film is an art form but Hollywood coldly and practically believes it's a product.
 
Anyone who dismisses everything inside a bag just because of the name of the store printed on it is being, at best, foolish.

Hollywood is about money and the most visible products from them are going to be the ones that they think will make money. 3113's post is the most intelligent one in the thread.

Yes, Hollywood sees movies as products. Because they ARE. That does not mean they cannot also be art.

I hate it when people just throw out blanket statements like that. You aren't at the opposite end of the spectrum. You are at the two ends of a "U" and you are a lot closer to the other end than either is to the middle.

Le sigh.
 
Anyone who dismisses everything inside a bag just because of the name of the store printed on it is being, at best, foolish.

Hollywood is about money and the most visible products from them are going to be the ones that they think will make money. 3113's post is the most intelligent one in the thread.

Yes, Hollywood sees movies as products. Because they ARE. That does not mean they cannot also be art.

I hate it when people just throw out blanket statements like that. You aren't at the opposite end of the spectrum. You are at the two ends of a "U" and you are a lot closer to the other end than either is to the middle.

Le sigh.
Name a Summer blockbuster that you consider art...

(I'm sure there's something-- my mind is blank though)

Close encounters on the third kind-- was that a Summer release?

Bladerunner

Those are an awful long time ago...
 
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Name a Summer blockbuster that you consider art...

(I'm sure there's something-- my mind is blank though)

Close encounters on the third kind-- was that a Summer release?

Bladerunner

Those are an awful long time ago...

My idea of art is different than a lot of people's.

Batman Begins
X Men 2
Contact (I think that was a summer movie)

I love Hollywood, and I love that it exists, even if a lot of movies they put out are crap. At least they are trying. Day in and day out they try to make as many movies as they can as well as they think they can afford to. They aren't trying to make crap. Crap doesn't sell. They are trying to make quality. It just doesn't always show.

I feel sorry for the rap that Hollywood gets. I don't find it deserved at all.
 
Name a Summer blockbuster that you consider art...

(I'm sure there's something-- my mind is blank though)

Close encounters on the third kind-- was that a Summer release?

Bladerunner

Those are an awful long time ago...

My definition of art is likely to differ from yours... which is NOT a bad thing, at all.

However, the bag I was referring to was marked Hollywood, not Summer blockbusters.

Regardless. Close Encounters fits, IMHO, as does Blade Runner. And Star Wars. And the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Many would not call those art, yet they would refer to Shakespeare as art. Wake up. Shakespeare was the Speilberg of his day, not the Jackson Pollack.

And having invoked Stephen, how about Schindler's List?
 
Er. I think that is the whole point. I know they don't, and so do all real cineastes.

That's probably true, but I don't think that is the point the author was making, although it isn't irrelevant to her point.

Many would not call those art, yet they would refer to Shakespeare as art. Wake up. Shakespeare was the Speilberg of his day, not the Jackson Pollack.

If Shakespeare had been the literary Jackson Pollack of the Elizabethan Era, Hamlet's soliloquy would begin something like this:
ApehjaAYojas XOHJoa,
lajljxnjaqp skWEBtryebv.
 
3113

Very true.

But there are chick flicks that have blown the doors off the competition. GONE WITH THE WIND is the best example. In the 30s and 50s there were numerous female stars and films that were artistic and commercial giants. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Judy Garland etc.

Where women fail is in trying to be macho stud-muffins like guys. That is, what they want to be is antithetical to what they are, and audiences arent interested.
 
3113

Very true.

But there are chick flicks that have blown the doors off the competition. GONE WITH THE WIND is the best example. In the 30s and 50s there were numerous female stars and films that were artistic and commercial giants. Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Judy Garland etc.

Where women fail is in trying to be macho stud-muffins like guys. That is, what they want to be is antithetical to what they are, and audiences arent interested.

Nice post, JBJ. The 40s were a great period for women in film. I love those old Rita Hayworth movies especially. Also, Bette Davis in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Damn, that was a delicious and often hilarious film.
 
All but this part:

3113
Where women fail is in trying to be macho stud-muffins like guys. That is, what they want to be is antithetical to what they are, and audiences aren't interested.

The only thing antithetical is that the tendency of Hollywood to sex things up - Calamity Jane was more Roseanne Barr than Sharon Stone. There's a reason Bea Arthur can only get a lead role in a chick movie in spite of being a first class actress. You do get a little more realism on TV occasionally, Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless did a credible job of portraying women in traditionally masculine roles without it being rendered meaningless through excessive bimbification.

There are plenty of action female action heros in American history, and history in general, they just tend to get fobbed over due largely to this very attitude: Revolutionary war heros, pirates, you name it.

My fave femme actress is Jennifer Tilly, she gets some good roles where she gets to flex her considerable feminine wiles.
 
Absolutely intriguing article that I could respond a lot to if I cared (I at least care enough to read). Some equally nice posts to the thread, and nice being my way of saying short of nothing substantial. BUMP, though. Interesting, Lesbia. :kiss:
Summer Movies
Is There a Real Woman in This Multiplex?
 
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