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IMPress Polly
11-24-2013, 11:05 AM
As with the arts generally, the world of Hollywood film-making too is very sexist. This article in The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/swedish-cinemas-bechdel-test-films-gender-bias) bears out as much in a number of statistics:


Of the top 100 US films in 2011, women accounted for 33% of all characters and only 11% of the protagonists, according to a study by the San Diego-based Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film.

Another study, by the Annenberg Public Policy Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that the ratio of male to female characters in movies has remained at about two to one for at least six decades. That study, which examined 855 top box-office films from 1950-2006, showed female characters were twice as likely to be seen in explicit sexual scenes as males, while male characters were more likely to be seen as violent.

It's kind of like how Miley Cyrus is the top-selling female musician of the year, trailing 8 male artists. These things kinda tell you something about how much we as a society value women and what we value in women, doesn't it?

Anyway, the same linked article explains that, in order to address the issue of gender bias in films, the state-funded Swedish Film Institute has recently decided to endorse the application of a gender rating for all films, in much the same vein that film advisory boards currently apply ratings systems to forewarn audiences about the presence of other potentially offensive content like graphic violence, nudity, swearing, and so forth. The gender discrimination rating is already being applied by a growing number of Swedish cinemas. The application thereof is quite simple: in order to pass the gender bias test, the film must feature at least two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. Sounds like an easy test to pass, right? Well most Hollywood productions fail it, including, among the multitude of others, as one cinema director pointed has pointed out, "the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, all Star Wars movies, The Social Network, Pulp Fiction and all but one of the Harry Potter movies". On the other side, the article highlights that...


Scandinavian cable TV channel Viasat Film says it will start using the ratings in its film reviews and has scheduled an A-rated "Super Sunday" on 17 November, when it will show only films that pass the test, such as The Hunger Games, The Iron Lady and Savages.

Some critics of the test (known as the Bechdel test) claim that the methodology of evaluation is too simplistic. Overly simple? Yes, obviously. But it certainly beats the absence of any kind of test at all, that's for sure. That's how I see it. Not that it will make a huge difference, if any, in terms of what people actually opt to watch, but it should nevertheless at least help to raise public awareness of what gender bias looks like on-screen, especially with initiatives like that of Viasat Film highlighted above (which, now in the past tense, went over well, incidentally). I'm all for it!

Mister D
11-24-2013, 11:14 AM
Are most film makers male? If so, one would expect a greater number of male oriented films. Perhaps feminists should make more films? Seriously, this is like saying the Winter Olympics is rife with racism because there are few blacks.

Peter1469
11-24-2013, 11:20 AM
Sweden must have solved all of its serious issues to get to this. Maybe someday the US can afford to get this much into the weeds.

Is the Hunger Games gender biased? (Haven't seen the new one, will give it a shot during the week to avoid the crowds.)

Have you seen the trailer to the movie Nymphomaniac? I am not going to link to it because it actually has a couple of X rated scenes in the trailer.

I guess what I am getting at, who is making all of these movies with gender bias?

Paperback Writer
11-24-2013, 11:39 AM
Allow me to understand this, we can show women in cinema as a gender test as long as they kill people? Brilliant. The world needs more of that.

Peter1469
11-24-2013, 11:41 AM
Was the English Patient gender biased- it was the most boring movie that I ever saw.

Paperback Writer
11-24-2013, 02:10 PM
Was the English Patient gender biased- it was the most boring movie that I ever saw.

I'll disagree.

IMPress Polly
11-24-2013, 04:04 PM
Mister D wrote:
Are most film makers male? If so, one would expect a greater number of male oriented films. Perhaps feminists should make more films? Seriously, this is like saying the Winter Olympics is rife with racism because there are few blacks.

To answer your first question, definitely. As to your proposal that "feminists should make more films", if only it were that easy! I mean, I'd be all for that, but at the same time, one must recognize that the world is not simply a meritocracy. The fact that the arts are dominated by a particular group results in prejudice against others that participate and that prejudice does much in the way of preventing the advancement of women in the artistic fields. I'm at a loss for simple solutions. I just think the aforementioned gender bias test can only help.


Peter wrote:
Sweden must have solved all of its serious issues to get to this. Maybe someday the US can afford to get this much into the weeds.

Sweden has problems, but yeah they're not doing as bad as we are right now. They do, after all, rank 4th in the world on overall gender equality according to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report, as compared with our rank of 23rd.


Is the Hunger Games gender biased? (Haven't seen the new one, will give it a shot during the week to avoid the crowds.)

As the article points out, The Hunger Games gets an A on the Bechdel test.

(Both movies are very good, btw! I had the opportunity to see Catching Fire on Friday and found it very true to the book.)


Have you seen the trailer to the movie Nymphomaniac? I am not going to link to it because it actually has a couple of X rated scenes in the trailer.

Yeees... Why do you ask?


I guess what I am getting at, who is making all of these movies with gender bias?

Who isn't would be the easier question to answer.


Was the English Patient gender biased- it was the most boring movie that I ever saw.

Never seen it or even heard of it. Looks like it passes though by three reviewer's estimates. (http://bechdeltest.com/view/2449/the_english_patient/) :tongue: Like they say, this is simply a bias test, not a measure of film quality. :wink:


Paperback Writer wrote:
Allow me to understand this, we can show women in cinema as a gender test as long as they kill people? Brilliant. The world needs more of that.

Yes. Yes that's exactly what I was saying. :rollseyes:

If you're alluding to The Hunger Games, you might do well to consider the fact that, if anything, it's kind of a critique of violent entertainment, if anything (at least in part).

Peter1469
11-24-2013, 04:09 PM
Me:
Have you seen the trailer to the movie Nymphomaniac? I am not going to link to it because it actually has a couple of X rated scenes in the trailer.


Polly:
Yeees... Why do you ask? I imagine that you would place it pretty high on the gender bias list.

KC
11-24-2013, 04:12 PM
Some critics of the test (known as the Bechdel test) claim that the methodology of evaluation is too simplistic. Overly simple? Yes, obviously. But it certainly beats the absence of any kind of test at all, that's for sure. That's how I see it. Not that it will make a huge difference, if any, in terms of what people actually opt to watch, but it should nevertheless at least help to raise public awareness of what gender bias looks like on-screen, especially with initiatives like that of Viasat Film highlighted above (which, now in the past tense, went over well, incidentally). I'm all for it!

Yes, the Bechdel test is simplistic but ya gotta remember it was initially the result of a comic strip by a cartoonist named Bechdel, not an academic paper or the work of some think tank. I think it's a pretty good test.

Mister D
11-24-2013, 04:14 PM
To answer your first question, definitely. As to your proposal that "feminists should make more films", if only it were that easy! I mean, I'd be all for that, but at the same time, one must recognize that the world is not simply a meritocracy. The fact that the arts are dominated by a particular group results in prejudice against others that participate and that prejudice does much in the way of preventing the advancement of women in the artistic fields. I'm at a loss for simple solutions. I just think the aforementioned gender bias test can only help.



Meritocracy? Perhaps the real problem is that audiences simply won't pay to see the kind of films you desire? The solution is simple: make films people want to see. If you can't or won't do that your complaints are without merit.

IMPress Polly
11-24-2013, 04:18 PM
Pete:

Edited my earlier post to answer your question on the English Patient. :grin:


I imagine that you would place it pretty high on the gender bias list.

lol, well that's entirely possible.

Paperback Writer
11-24-2013, 06:52 PM
If you're alluding to The Hunger Games, you might do well to consider the fact that, if anything, it's kind of a critique of violent entertainment, if anything (at least in part).

It would be if you had intelligent people watching it. As is, it's mostly a bunch of girls who get their excitement deciding which of their favourite's the female lead will end up dating in the end.

Blackrook
11-27-2013, 04:41 PM
In a typical episode of Doctor Who, I've noticed, the female companion will usually have some sort of conversation with another female character about how the companion has a crush on the Doctor, but the Doctor doesn't even think of her that way.

Are you saying that feminists are not happy with the portrayal of these conversations?

Because I always assumed these kind of conversations were put in movies and TV shows for the benefit of the female audience, since they bore the hell out of me.