Article on gender diversity in movies

[PennLady]

I know it's movies, but some of this could apply to writing as well, I think. Not finished it yet, but it brings up some interesting points, I think.

http://www.sharctank.com/5-worst-arguments/

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Todays boys are feminized and will love the gal warriors.

I just added a female detective to a series tho she doesn't lower her voice, swagger, and come on like a sex-less robot. She works people. Her motto is TAKE NO PRISONERS, and that's her goal...to keep people outta jail. I borrowed a line from Prince Escalus. MILDRED! COME WITH ME! AND SHARON! COME SEE ME THIS AFTERNOON.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I liked it, but no one was listening.

The comments were like wading in mud.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

It would be pretty hard to write Lit. stories without female characters. Except in GM, of course.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I liked it, but no one was listening.

The comments were like wading in mud.

I don't know what the secret to happiness is, Cruel2BKind. But the secret to unhappiness is reading the comments section of any article on the internet.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The secret to happiness is filling your life with joy.

 

[MichaelinChina]

Hoping your thread starts taking off with some insightful comments.

Unlike the crap posted from the usual suspects. Glares @ JBJ

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Hoping your thread starts taking off with some insightful comments.

Unlike the crap posted from the usual suspects. Glares @ JBJ

Go see DOLF.

 

[StrangeLife]

The secret to happiness is filling your life with joy.

Well, it is filling somebody with something...

 

[Aynmair]

Hoping your thread starts taking off with some insightful comments.

Unlike the crap posted from the usual suspects. Glares @ JBJ

I won't even pretend that this will be insightful, but it's interesting that in some ways the acceptance of gay culture, same sex marriage and so on has made more progress than female equality. Women still earn somewhere around 70 cents to an average dollar of men's wages in the US, and even though there are a few exceptions, women still haven't cracked the glass ceiling. In academia there is documented bias against women not just by men but also by women (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/science/bias-persists-against-women-of-science-a-study-says.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html). So maybe it's no surprise that the entertainment industry is still as it is, though it IS a shame!

What some people are trying to figure out is how to change it. It took many gay activists at various points in history to be unafraid to speak out (with respect to HIV, gays in the military, gay marriage), but women still seem to be stuck on some sort of treadmill to nowhere when it comes to this. And many women who speak out are shut down not just by (some) men, but also by women.

Perhaps this issue is not altogether different than the attitudes of LW trolls?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Excuses for losers.

I recall the first gal I hired. She couldn't work full days till she found suitable childcare (tho she said she had childcare when I hired her). Then she wanted a 2 week vacation one month into the job. Then she phoned me the morning she was s'posed to be back from vacation, wanting another 2 weeks. I fired her.

 

[TxRad]

To JBJ, one example covers a whole gender.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't see a discussion here of how this is connected to writing--or even should be. The article is myopic, I think. How many men do you see in The Help or Steel Magnolias. Gender representation is a function of the work being presented. In fact, I think Hollywood bends over backward to cater to the "gotta have representation" crowd.

I think the choice of Star Trek is an unfortunate one for those wanting everything to be representational of gender on a national scale without regard to what the work is. There are--and have been--a lot of strong women roles in Star Trek, but if you think back to when Star Trek was running, how many women were actually in the real "go to the stars" projects? Close to zip. Star Trek overrepresented the presence of women in that particular setting (to offer the sex lure to male movie goers).

Hollywood has always gone to ridiculous lengths to get female romance element roles into American Westerns for settings in which, in the actual period, there were close to zip women--and certainly not sexy ones.

There'd have to be a whole lot deeper study than this to convince me that women were at a disadvantage in movie roles, and then I still would say, "What does this have to do with a situation that a writer choses to write about?" Are you suggesting that a writer should think national-proportion gender balance before writing and to be limited to that? Nertz to that. I mainly write GM. I'm not going to through women into my stories just to satisfy some anal retentive PC group. But even when the story I'm writing is not GM, I don't start off thinking gender balance. I start off thinking about actual situations.

 

[Aynmair]

A continuing conversation

It would be pretty hard to write Lit. stories without female characters. Except in GM, of course.

No question one size doesn't fit all, and women would have only marginal? supportive? jealousy-ridden? (just a few examples) roles in GM fiction.

I don't see a discussion here of how this is connected to writing--or even should be. The article is myopic, I think. How many men do you see in The Help or Steel Magnolias. Gender representation is a function of the work being presented. In fact, I think Hollywood bends over backward to cater to the "gotta have representation" crowd.


it's not the best and does have some vision issues, but it brings up some good points.

I think the choice of Star Trek is an unfortunate one for those wanting everything to be representational of gender on a national scale without regard to what the work is. There are--and have been--a lot of strong women roles in Star Trek, but if you think back to when Star Trek was running, how many women were actually in the real "go to the stars" projects? Close to zip. Star Trek overrepresented the presence of women in that particular setting (to offer the sex lure to male movie goers).



The original and follow-up TV series indeed broke all sorts of barriers. In fact, didn't the Nat'l Air & Space Museum have a long- running blockbuster show exactly on that topic, sometime in early 2000s or late 1990s?

Hollywood has always gone to ridiculous lengths to get female romance element roles into American Westerns for settings in which, in the actual period, there were close to zip women--and certainly not sexy ones.


But here you are giving a perfect example of what Hollywood's idea of what women's roles should be limited to. And yet they've done better in the last 20 years, for sure. As has the BBC, hats off to them!!

There'd have to be a whole lot deeper study than this to convince me that women were at a disadvantage in movie roles, and then I still would say, "What does this have to do with a situation that a writer choses to write about?"

To the extent that culture is embedded in fiction writing and fiction is affected by cultural context, it has quite a lot to do with it. But ultimately, everyone does their own thing!


Are you suggesting that a writer should think national-proportion gender balance before writing and to be limited to that? Nertz to that. I mainly write GM. I'm not going to through women into my stories just to satisfy some anal retentive PC group. But even when the story I'm writing is not GM, I don't start off thinking gender balance. I start off thinking about actual situations.

See my first bit above, and 2nd, your Wolf Creek series certainly has an incredibly strong woman at its certain, and you're pretty proud of it (with reason). And yes, she is portrayed in the context of her time, surrounded by men men men, and yummy hot ones I might add .

 

[sr71plt]

But I didn't purposely stretch to make the protagonist in "Wolf Creek" a strong woman. I started from the model of a strong woman in real life. I didn't force myself to write in anyone's gender PC demands of what I should/could write. So, no, I'm not going to compromise my writing on the basis of what the current fad is on any diversity demands.

 

[Aynmair]

But I didn't purposely stretch to make the protagonist in "Wolf Creek" a strong woman. I started from the model of a strong woman in real life. I didn't force myself to write in anyone's gender PC demands of what I should/could write. So, no, I'm not going to compromise my writing on the basis of what the current fad is on any diversity demands.

I, for one, am not asking you to. well, maybe I did, a little, in some PMs.

The point is, there ARE women characters out there worth talking about, you just sometimes have to think another 10 seconds or so to get there.

I stress I don't personally care what anyone writes about, as long as they write about it well; the rest is icing.

 

[Swilly]

The author is guilty of doing what they accuse others of doing. Those five arguments don'tanswer the question of why this happens. Follow the money. If HHollywood could maximize profits by adding women, they would.

 

[Aynmair]

The author is guilty of doing what they accuse others of doing. Those five arguments don'tanswer the question of why this happens. Follow the money. If HHollywood could maximize profits by adding women, they would.

Angelina Jolie does do pretty well at the box office, as do many other superstars. I've got another ~30-40 years to see where this all goes. Lucky for me, I'm a screen addict.

 

[lovecraft68]

I, for one, am not asking you to. well, maybe I did, a little, in some PMs.

You and pilot pm back and forth?

Interesting because when you click send a pm on your ID this comes up.

Aynmair has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her.

From my experience people who choose on their own not to accept pm's turn them off and do not have the option in the drop tab beneath their names.

people who have had that taken away from them by the site get the above message.

So I wonder how you are exchanging Pm's with Pilot?

Or are you talking to yourself? I think my visit to this thread may have just led to an alt outing.

Sadder and sadder it gets for SR.

But I knew you were his alt after the baiting "but some people like yourself have done research" remark pilot made to "you" with the big wink as in "this person knows I'm the real deal"

Damn. This might be worse than the 4glory6 alt.

Thanks for making this a worthwhile visit.

 

[sr71plt]

Ah, there's my stalker again with his nose up my ass.

She meant e-mails, LC. For the record, she did PM me once, and I wasn't able to answer her by PM, but did so by e-mail, because she had pretty much dug down deep into my writing via e-mail already and I had her address. Like you, she researched enough to know who I really am. Unlike you, however, she doesn't pretend not to acknowledge that that is who I really am. She's one of a few here who know my background from independent research. That's what lets me just ignore your ranting on and on about who I couldn't be and couldn't have possibly done--because not only do both you and I know you are lying about it--so do some of the others posting here. Meh.

You need to try to develop a life for yourself, LC (although I know it's getting late for you). You can't have mine. It's taken.

Later: Interesting that LC tried to PM Aynmair, though. Presume this was connected with his obsession with me. She's probably lucky he couldn't get through.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You and pilot pm back and forth?

Interesting because when you click send a pm on your ID this comes up.

Aynmair has chosen not to receive private messages or may not be allowed to receive private messages. Therefore you may not send your message to him/her.

From my experience people who choose on their own not to accept pm's turn them off and do not have the option in the drop tab beneath their names.

people who have had that taken away from them by the site get the above message.

So I wonder how you are exchanging Pm's with Pilot?

Or are you talking to yourself? I think my visit to this thread may have just led to an alt outing.

Sadder and sadder it gets for SR.

But I knew you were his alt after the baiting "but some people like yourself have done research" remark pilot made to "you" with the big wink as in "this person knows I'm the real deal"

Damn. This might be worse than the 4glory6 alt.

Thanks for making this a worthwhile visit.

I suspect he's Mistress Lynn too.

 

[SecondCircle]

Anyway, when I write characters I just pick the ones that fit. If the story is best served from female POV, I do that, and vice versa. I never really see a story and say "shit there needs to be more Asian American females in this story."

The only time I came close was in a story that still sits unfinished in my computer. It's not erotic, it's... I dunno what the fuck it is. Horror mainly, but it's not important. Anyway the protag for a while was just one guy. Then there came this character that had kind of a sidekick role, another guy.

But the more I wrote sidekick guy, the less interesting he got. I dunno why. I had this obscure side character, a female, who started to tear through the fabric of the "side" and into the spotlight. I replaced lame sidekick guy with Grace. Still that character wanted more. Grace became the second protag, not a sidekick but a tag team partner.

And it brought a pivotal element of balance and harmony to the entire story.

...I mean, if it was finished (as my wife keeps nagging me to do). But Grace became the yin to Jack's yang. Or whatever. Her characteristics were a pleasant polar opposite of his, and vice versa, which served as a fulcrum that guides their everyday struggles. Changed everything.

Now that still wasn't really a conscious "put a woman in there" choice, not for the sake of diversity or equality. It still just served the story better.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Truthfully speaking, even the "strong woman" tag itself irritates me a bit.

Would you like to search for stories with a "strong female lead"? There is no search for strong male leads you'll notice; they're just male leads. Strong is mostly implied by the whole leading part, as we typically don't tell stories about uninteresting, mind-numbed igits, unless they have vaginas, of course. Then we're all about mind-numbed igits. In fact, we prefer them. In this summer's new blockbuster thriller watch Megan Fox play with a booby-trapped Rubik's Cube while naked in, "Out Foxed".

Strong women, however, have to be quantified, to set them apart from all of the stories featuring "weak women", "women who love doing laundry", and "women who are so stupid you can turn the lights off and they won't even know". It's like a cautionary label. Warning: this story contains women who are able to do basic math, and by the end, the bitch might even do a word-problem or two. Gird thy loins!

You know what else has a tag like stories "featuring a strong female lead"? "Stories featuring talking animals." Because you have to differentiate them from the normal stupid-ass animals. Somebody might see something that intrudes on his preferred reality and become uncomfortable. We have to put a disclaimer on it so people know what's coming. If you know the animal is going to do something weird, like, show intelligence, it's not that weird anymore. It's kind of cute, really.

Look at that woman wearing a suit and going to work. Oh, look now! She's fighting for civil rights! How adorable. She thinks she's people!

 

[patientlee]

Strong women, however, have to be quantified, to set them apart from all of the stories featuring "weak women", "women who love doing laundry", and "women who are so stupid you can turn the lights off and they won't even know". It's like a cautionary label. Warning: this story contains women who are able to do basic math, and by the end, the bitch might even do a word-problem or two. Gird thy loins!

You will never find one of these women in my stories. If that's a deal breaker for you, you probably shouldn't read them.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

You will never find one of these women in my stories. If that's a deal breaker for you, you probably shouldn't read them.

I know of your distaste for arithmetic, dear. And I'll read your stuff no matter how devoid of Algebra it may be. Still, nothing gets me hot like a good quadratic equation. Something to consider!