WWTBAM Bored

As quantitative as you can get on this subject, anyway.

I'm glad someone is finally holding Hollywood's feet to the fire.

mrkelley23 wrote:As quantitative as you can get on this subject, anyway.

I'm glad someone is finally holding Hollywood's feet to the fire.

By using the top 50 grossers they're ignoring that it's usually the male who decides which movies to go to. If you look at the Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc. made films, you will see the majority are woman-oriented.

For many years I avoided movies & TV shows that didn't have characters or subjects I was interested in. Still do, but I've gotten a little slack, or bored enough to relax my high, high standards a little. But I never avoided or boycotted them based on the production crew or cast.

I don't expect many people on/in the media to look like me or be "exactly" like me, because they aren't in real life. I've looked at old photographs of my family, said "who's that Italian girl?", then realized it's me. I'm the only olive-skinned family member, though not the only one with curly hair. (I have a cousin on my father's side who's the only Olive in their family, too; my Mom's family looks mainly-Nordic).

What tends to irk me are stereotypes I am close to that aren't gotten right. I can accept that that guy on SNL imitating their relative who was always hollering about "shvitzing" probably had such a relative, but I didn't, & I really resent this being a Jewish stereotype now.

Chicago Med when it was last on (a week ago) had a brother & sister who were supposed to be my age going on & on like some stereotypical Jews from the 50s about "the goyim" & "you got that disease from eating pork"; sorry, people who did talk like that, with those New York accents despite supposedly being Chicagoans, would be in their eighties & nineties, not 60s.

And by far the worst boss I've ever had is a woman.

I like to watch British dramas not only for the good writing & acting but because they historically have & continue to have actors who look like real people, not models. If you don't look like a model & you're on an American drama, the wardrobe & makeup department are instructed to go overboard in making you appear homely. America Ferrara looks a lot better as herself on award shows than on "Ugly Betty" (yeah yeah, that's the name of the show, but they wouldn't have cast somebody with, say, a facial deformity, because they want her to be "made over" convincingly at some point. In the old days they signaled "homely" by hairbuns on the women, & glasses. Nowadays they pick someone they really think is homely.). Mayim Bialik looks a whole lot better on award shows than on "Big Bang Theory".

What I'm round-aboutly saying here is that it isn't "women" or "diversity" that's going to make a difference in the *product*, though of course it means a paycheck to the actual employee; its what the particular woman &/or diversity-rep person has to say & gets to do.

Does anyone else find it disturbing that you can fail the "Landau test" simply by having a female main character get pregnant? Is that now considered a negative for women? Everything else strikes me as arbitrary. Movies magically become beacons of hope after you hire a fifth female out of ten camera operators? Latina characters don't count for the "Villalobos test" if they have accents or don't speak English? What if the movie is set in Mexico or Spain? What if not speaking English is integral to the character? You fail the "Villareal test" by establishing a female character as a matriarch, but can make up 2/3 of it by having her be a reckless mother making bad decisions?

All of these tests are crap because instead of treating movies like experiences that make you feel things, they make them into rote checklists of events that must be present (or not present), else you aren't "progressive enough," whatever that means. Characters have to be neatly stuffed into their boxes, or the creators must be bigots. *sigh* I hate political "cultural criticism" because actual enjoyment of culture never factors into it, leaving just a joyless slog.

CarShark wrote:Does anyone else find it disturbing that you can fail the "Landau test" simply by having a female main character get pregnant? Is that now considered a negative for women? Everything else strikes me as arbitrary. Movies magically become beacons of hope after you hire a fifth female out of ten camera operators? Latina characters don't count for the "Villalobos test" if they have accents or don't speak English? What if the movie is set in Mexico or Spain? What if not speaking English is integral to the character? You fail the "Villareal test" by establishing a female character as a matriarch, but can make up 2/3 of it by having her be a reckless mother making bad decisions?

All of these tests are crap because instead of treating movies like experiences that make you feel things, they make them into rote checklists of events that must be present (or not present), else you aren't "progressive enough," whatever that means. Characters have to be neatly stuffed into their boxes, or the creators must be bigots. *sigh* I hate political "cultural criticism" because actual enjoyment of culture never factors into it, leaving just a joyless slog.

Do any of the tests make a whit of difference to the moviegoing public?

ghostjmf wrote:For many years I avoided movies & TV shows that didn't have characters or subjects I was interested in. Still do, but I've gotten a little slack, or bored enough to relax my high, high standards a little. But I never avoided or boycotted them based on the production crew or cast.

I don't expect many people on/in the media to look like me or be "exactly" like me, because they aren't in real life. I've looked at old photographs of my family, said "who's that Italian girl?", then realized it's me. I'm the only olive-skinned family member, though not the only one with curly hair. (I have a cousin on my father's side who's the only Olive in their family, too; my Mom's family looks mainly-Nordic).

What tends to irk me are stereotypes I am close to that aren't gotten right. I can accept that that guy on SNL imitating their relative who was always hollering about "shvitzing" probably had such a relative, but I didn't, & I really resent this being a Jewish stereotype now.

Chicago Med when it was last on (a week ago) had a brother & sister who were supposed to be my age going on & on like some stereotypical Jews from the 50s about "the goyim" & "you got that disease from eating pork"; sorry, people who did talk like that, with those New York accents despite supposedly being Chicagoans, would be in their eighties & nineties, not 60s.

And by far the worst boss I've ever had is a woman.

I like to watch British dramas not only for the good writing & acting but because they historically have & continue to have actors who look like real people, not models. If you don't look like a model & you're on an American drama, the wardrobe & makeup department are instructed to go overboard in making you appear homely. America Ferrara looks a lot better as herself on award shows than on "Ugly Betty" (yeah yeah, that's the name of the show, but they wouldn't have cast somebody with, say, a facial deformity, because they want her to be "made over" convincingly at some point. In the old days they signaled "homely" by hairbuns on the women, & glasses. Nowadays they pick someone they really think is homely.). Mayim Bialik looks a whole lot better on award shows than on "Big Bang Theory".

What I'm round-aboutly saying here is that it isn't "women" or "diversity" that's going to make a difference in the *product*, though of course it means a paycheck to the actual employee; its what the particular woman &/or diversity-rep person has to say & gets to do.

I continue to be puzzled and dejected by how many people think so much about race, color and ethnicity. On the scale of how I judge people, these things are FAR down the list, if they are on the list at all. And the only reason they come into play is if it seems to be an issue for the other person.

In my experience, race, skin color and ethnicity are major issues to liberals and democrats. While there are racists (those who believe their race is superior to any others) on both sides of the political graph, they are really few in number. They are given much more influence in relation to their numbers by liberals, who make it an issue in almost every circumstance and also use it as a political weapon.

Just my opinion. We need to start judging people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin. I believe some very wise person said that, and it's a shame his advice is still being ignored by many people in power. Even people who knew him personally.

Carshark and Flock:

All I can suggest is that it is easy to see this type of discussion as a threat, if you're in the position of power. When you're a white male, it's easy to say that you judge people based on the content of their character. But test after test has shown the reality (and power) of implicit bias.

This article, when read closely, does not suggest that these tests are authoritative and should be applied to every movie, to form some sort of quota system that might make things more "equal." What it is demonstrating is that women and people of color are still not represented anywhere close to proportionally in the Hollywood game. As someone else pointed out, other places are putting out high quality material while using crews , directors, and casting that do pass these so-called tests. It's the major Hollywood machine that continues to be a white-male dominated place. And the rationale for using the top 50 grossers (as pointed out in the second paragraph) is to show that the bias is present in the top echelons.

Go ahead and be angry, go ahead and disagree. But this is a real problem, and it's not going away any time soon.

mrkelley23 wrote:Carshark and Flock:

All I can suggest is that it is easy to see this type of discussion as a threat, if you're in the position of power. When you're a white male, it's easy to say that you judge people based on the content of their character. But test after test has shown the reality (and power) of implicit bias.

This article, when read closely, does not suggest that these tests are authoritative and should be applied to every movie, to form some sort of quota system that might make things more "equal." What it is demonstrating is that women and people of color are still not represented anywhere close to proportionally in the Hollywood game. As someone else pointed out, other places are putting out high quality material while using crews , directors, and casting that do pass these so-called tests. It's the major Hollywood machine that continues to be a white-male dominated place. And the rationale for using the top 50 grossers (as pointed out in the second paragraph) is to show that the bias is present in the top echelons.

Go ahead and be angry, go ahead and disagree. But this is a real problem, and it's not going away any time soon.

You msy be entirely right. Should we not indict the entire purchasing public for all of this horribleness?

Beebs52 wrote: Should we not indict the entire purchasing public for all of this horribleness?

That's been one of the defenses of the current system, that women (or minorities) didn't have the right stuff to handle a major studio release. The success of Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, and Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele, would tend to disprove that.

As for Flock's arguments that race and sex don't enter into his evaluation of people, unfortunately, statistics don't bear him out. Decisions are made on such criteria as who has the better work ethic, who is a team player, who has the ability to think outside the box, etc. There is no objective test to determine these things, so managers make them based on feel and gut instinct, and predispositions towards race and sex, even if you don't consciously realize them, enter into those decisions.

silverscreenselect wrote:As for Flock's arguments that race and sex don't enter into his evaluation of people, unfortunately, statistics don't bear him out.

What statistics do you have on Flock?

Estonut wrote:

silverscreenselect wrote:As for Flock's arguments that race and sex don't enter into his evaluation of people, unfortunately, statistics don't bear him out.

What statistics do you have on Flock?

He knows everything, as he constantly demonstrates.