My dad was deathly afraid that his children would discover sex, so I was only allowed to watch G-rated movies and Hays Code movies until I was in my late teens. I still don't think I've completely adapted to the changeover from "12 men sit in a room and argue about justice" to "Boom! Smash! Young straight white man save everyone! Physics no matter at all! Raaaaawr!"
At least the "only straight white men are important except in niche films targeted exclusively outside of that demographic" theme has carried over*. So that's familiar and comforting.
(No, no, it's not.)
Recently, I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. The main characters are a young, handsome, straight, white male (who, oddly, doesn't age at all over the several-year timeline of the movie) and a genetically-modified super smart CGI chimpanzee. There is one woman, but she is The Girlfriend and has very little personality or screentime beyond that. Also, sign language was introduced, but not really treated like a real language that can communicate real ideas (at least, not between humans). Still, it asked some interesting questions, and the chimpanzee was not a standard handsome white guy, so I was pretty happy.
*Women have 33% of speaking roles in Hollywood, and 24% of female characters appear partially naked in films, compared to 8% of male characters. Not too surprising because 86% of screenwriters are male.
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/04/25/failing-the-bechdel-test-women-on-screen-dont-have-much-to-say/
Women are also under-represented among directors and executives.
Friday, September 23, 2011
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