Super Social Analysis: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and LGBT in Movies

[ChelseaNH]

I am more forgiving of actors taking roles that are wrong for them.  They're the most visible symptoms of the problem, but the root cause is the people who offer actors roles that are wrong for them -- directors and producers.

[galax-arena]

the root cause is the people who offer actors roles that are wrong for them -- directors and producers.

Oh, definitely. But that doesn't mean that the actor (depending on the situation) should get off scot-free, IMO.

 

I say "depending on the situation" because I sort of have a sliding scale based on the actor's status in Hollywood. Like, I don't expect a struggling white actor who's just starting out to turn down a whitewashed role at the expense of being able to pay the bills or put food on the table. But if you're an A-lister? Screw you.

[VCRTracking]

The last movie she was the lead in was Easy A in 2010, and since she's only either been in ensembles or played the love interest, even in her one big franchise, the rebooted Spider-Man movies which have been a disappointment. She's not struggling but she's not at the very top either.

 

Actors, whether struggling or A-list love to play as wide a variety of characters as they can withing their skillset. They put on make up, learn accents, even wear a fatsuit to play a character that's socially acceptable in modern times. Now blackface and yellowface are obviously out of the question.  However it's only been recently that it was unacceptable for a white character to play an ethnic group other than Caucasian because as long as you just got a good tan it wasn't deemed offensive. Out of most of the Hispanic characters in Scarface, only Steven Bauer is actually Cuban with the rest white(F. Murray Abraham is half Assyrian). Johnny Depp wanted to play Tonto because it was another interesting character like Jack Sparrow and didn't care if he was another ethnic group because Hey, he played a freak with scissors for hands! He can play anybody!. He thought if he just put on white facepaint which covered up his face, as opposed to putting on brown makeup it would still be okay and he was very, very wrong. If Stone had went full on yellowface with black hair, makeup that made her eyes slanted, colored her skin and speaking broken English than I would be right with you telling her to screw herself, because any 25 year old should know better. Instead she was offered the role of a 3/4 caucasian person who looked white and who you would only know was Asian from her last name(and she could have married a Asian man named Ng.) and because she told people. They didn't even ask her to change her blonde hair color or how she talked so how is she going to think that that she was entering Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's territory? Now she learned a lesson the hard way that in today's world it's not okay for a white actor to play a POC character, 3/4s white or not.

Edited March 9, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Dejana]

I remember those comments by Sheryl Lee Ralph. 

 

But Aaliyah was light-ish brown. Certainly lighter than Jennifer Hudson. So wouldn't that be the same issue as Beyonce playing Deena?

 

Here's a photo of Beyonce and Aaliyah together and yes, they're both lighter than JHud but I don't think Aaliyah was ever revered/reviled for being a light skinned black woman, the same way Beyonce has been. When they were doing that Lifetime movie about Aaliyah, Zendaya was announced, there was a huge backlash about her being too light for the role and she dropped out before filming began (lucky break for her, lol). So I feel it would have been less of a light/dark thing, as much as that was a thing with Dreamgirls, though IMO it ended up being a lot about all the...feelings, people had about Bey vs. JHud at the time. Like, when Beyonce said she held back vocally to sing as Deena, the less charitable said she was just making excuses for Jennifer having a bigger/stronger voice. Maybe, but the story did go that Deena was more of a light-voiced pop singer and that's not strictly Beyonce's wheelhouse. Also, she spoke about crash dieting for the role and not eating much during filming, and it's really noticeable at times how much thinner she is, than what's normal for her. I just thought about how it would've been if Aaliyah had been around, because she was never a vocal Olympics sort of singer to begin with, and wouldn't have had to guzzle cayenne pepper water to fit into the costumes.

 

IIRC, the Emma Stone character in Aloha had both Chinese and Hawaiian ancestry, which makes the whole casting decision even more misguided.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Dejana

[JustaPerson]

I was under the impression that her character was supposed to be 1/2 chinese and 1/2 hawaiian, not 1/4 of both combined. In that case I'm a little less bothered by it tbh. I've met a lot of part asian, part caucasian people who looked more like Emma Stone than they did me (an full asian person). 

[raezen]

I was under the impression that her character was supposed to be 1/2 chinese and 1/2 hawaiian, not 1/4 of both combined. In that case I'm a little less bothered by it tbh. I've met a lot of part asian, part caucasian people who looked more like Emma Stone than they did me (an full asian person).

That's what I understood about the character as well. I don't have a problem with the idea that some biracial could look like Emma Stone but there was a comedian recently that said the issue wad that in Hollywood white actors could play any role but poc could only play poc and even then the best of those roles were already taken by white actors.

[angora]

With the "she was only 25" argument, I wonder how much of it was "she didn't know better" versus "she was more easily persuaded."  I mean, I know plenty of 25-year-olds who know that a white actress playing a POC, even a character who's white-passing, is racially insensitive.  But when an older director with decades of experience in Hollywood assures her that it'll be fine, I could see her wavering and deciding to trust his judgment.  My guess is we'll probably never know exactly how it went down.

 

Why not cast someone like Chloe Bennet from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?  I wouldn't say it's obvious that she's part-Asian, and they could have lightened her hair if they'd wanted to.  (The same of course goes for any mixed Asian/white actress who would fit the bill of what Crowe was looking for, but Bennet was the first familiar face I thought of.)  I mean, I know the real reason - Emma Stone is more famous than Chloe Bennet - but after all the various whitewashing controversies of recent years, you'd think people would know better.

 

But I guess that's the thing.  Hollywood keeps proving that it DOESN'T know better, because this keeps happening.  Lots of people with a lot more experience and Hollywood clout than Emma Stone have made the same decisions and gotten burned for them, but that hasn't stopped the practice.

 

It reminds me a little of a standup bit from Trevor Noah, where he talked about the racial demographics boxes on forms in America and not being sure which box to check.  The woman helping him with the form said he could put down "whatever he wanted," nodding in approval when Trevor suggested he check "Black," but when he changed his mind and decided to go "white," she was clearly uncomfortable with the idea.  He went on to observe that being mixed is treated like a one-way street, that no matter where you fall on it, you can only go "toward Black" (or Latin@, Asian, or other non-white race, and the analogy assumes that one of your races is white.)  But if mixed actors are getting pushed down that road due to whatever one-drop rule Hollywood employs, it's not fair for white actors who shouldn't be on that road in the first place getting to go wherever they want.

[VCRTracking]

I wouldn't have known Mark Paul Gosselaar(Zach from Saved By the Bell) was half Indonesian unless he mentioned it recently on Jimmy Fallon. If he was in a movie was set in Indonesia and he'd play a character that was half Indonesian and there were a lot of Indonesians in the cast I wouldn't think anything was off. If, however the other main characters were white and he's the representative Indonesian I'd think the filmmakers were pulling something.

 

Moving the subject about POC actors this topic was probably discussed but I've been thinking about it again. Aziz Ansari

 

Aziz Ansari once turned down a role in 2007's "Transformers" because he refused to do an Indian accent. His friend Ravi Patel took the role instead, and while Ansari doesn't fault him for it, the "Parks and Recreation" alum did illuminate a bigger problem in Hollywood.

"Should I do an accent? Should I not do the accent? That's a thing that a lot of minority actors grapple with," Ansari said during an EW Fest Q&A for his semi-autobiographical Netflix series, "Master of None," over the weekend.

"It was a role for like a call-center guy who has an accent. And I was like, 'No, I'm not doing it.' And then Ravi was like, 'I'll do it.' And Ravi did it and made some decent money. And I don't have anything against someone who does the accent. I understand. You got to work, and some people don't think it's a problem."

 

 

I think it depends on the situation. If the accent is basically used just for a joke(like that Transormers example), then it's demeaning. But if the role is not a stereotype but fully fleshed, well written character who just happens to speak in an accent and is already funny not because how she talks(Constance Wu as Jessica Huang on Fresh Off The Boat) than I think it's okay.

Edited March 10, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Athena]

I wouldn't have known Mark Paul Gosselaar(Zach from Saved By the Bell) was half Indonesian unless he mentioned it recently on Jimmy Fallon. If he was in a movie was set in Indonesia and he'd play a character that was half Indonesian and there were a lot of Indonesians in the cast I wouldn't think anything was off. If, however the other main characters were white and he's the representative Indonesian I'd think the filmmakers were pulling something.

 

To be specific, MPG is half-Indonesian in the sense that his mother was/is an Indonesian national and grew up in Bali. She herself is half-Indonesian and MPG is one quarter Indonesian and 3/4 Dutch. I do agree there are lots of half-Asians who do not look Asian or even half. Olivia Munn is half-Asian (her mother is of Chinese descent) and so was Merle Oberon, but both can get away with being more Caucasian looking. 

[Ms Blue Jay]

I'm tired of reading "a 1/4 Asian person who looks white" or "so and so actor looks white".  That's a subjective reading.  A lot of white people don't realize that people like Rob Schneider, Mark Paul Gosselaar, Dean Cain etc. are part Asian because they were never told any differently but for goodness sakes, to people who grow up around a lot of people of colour and multiracial people, and who care to find out about people's backgrounds, they "look" to me like what they are and I find it important to honour their backgrounds.  I've known that MPG is part Indonesian since I was a child, meaning, decades ago.  In most cases the actors are extremely proud of their heritages and bring it up often (which is why MPG brought it up AGAIN on The Tonight Show recently) but the MEDIA doesn't care to touch on this because it doesn't sell the story they want.  Who gives a flying f*** that Cameron Crow thinks that the woman that he met "LOOKED white" to him.  He is not an authority on this issue and has proven himself to be ignorant.   It was a stupid casting decision regardless.  

 

I personally am tired of the justification for Emma taking that role.  Whether you blame Cameron or her.  What is the difference.  There are so many parts where it would be great to give a minority actor their chance to be in a movie, like "Aloha", or television (a Native person on "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"), and there's all bullshit justifications for why the powers that be cast a white actor in that role.  I wish that they would just be HONEST and say "I am Cameron Crowe and I wanted to work with Emma Stone" or "I am Tina Fey and I will cast Jane Krakowski no matter what part it is" instead of some ignorant-ass justification for why this particular white actor just HAD to be cast.  There are so many minority actors out there.  If you want to write about minority races then cast them.  If you won't cast them, then don't tell their stories.  It's 2016.

 

I do not think Olivia Munn looks white, for example.  When you grow up around a lot of mixed people then you can often can spot them right away to the point where it's distracting and you cannot help wonder what their background is.  Nobody is an authority on what race these people read as.  I thought Ed Westwick and Jason Lee were part Asian for a long time.  Apparently they're not.  So I wouldn't cast them as part Asian characters.  In my opinion you're casting a minority role then cast a minority actor.  It's not difficult.

 

I'm not saying she should get a pass, I'm just not going to think she's a racist or horrible person because the director told her character was based on a real person he knew who was 1/4 Asian but looked white and was proud of her heritage while not looking like it and that just by honoring that character everything was going to turn out fine.

 

Cameron wants to write about a person who is proud of her heritage, so he casts an actor who doesn't share the heritage of the character.  That's almost brilliant in how stupid it is.  I'm just happy that the movie lost money.  

Edited March 10, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[galax-arena]

Who gives a flying f*** that Cameron Crow thinks that the woman that he met "LOOKED white" to him. 

I have a friend who thinks that Maggie Q looks fully white. She thought that Dwayne Johnson was white too. We were with some other friends when she said so and you can't imagine the level of side-eye the rest of us gave her.

 

Good thing she's not a casting director!

 

ETA: I've also come across people who think that Lucy Liu has to be biracial because she has freckles. 

Edited March 10, 2016 by galax-arena

[VCRTracking]

That's a subjective reading.  A lot of white people don't realize that people like Rob Schneider, Mark Paul Gosselaar, Dean Cain etc. are part Asian because they were never told any differently but for goodness sakes, to people who grow up around a lot of people of colour and multiracial people, and who care to find out about people's backgrounds, they "look" to me like what they are and I find it important to honour their backgrounds.

 

 

 I thought Olivia Munn was mixed when I saw her host on Attack of the Show years ago so when she talked about her Chinese mother on the show I never went "Whaaa?!!!" Dean Cain I thought looked that he might have Asian heritage when I first saw him on 90210. Then when he was cast as Superman on TV I read that he was half-Japanese and I thought "Well that explains it." Mark Paul Gosselaar looked white, with the blonde hair, facial features and his name. Never bothered to look more into it because frankly I never cared about the cast of Saved By the Bell to investigate. I wasn't looking into Screech's background either. Same goes for Rob Schneider who looked white to me and I only found out was half-Filipino because of an SNL Mother's Day special where he came out with his Filipino mother. A lot of people, black and white thought Pete Davidson on SNL might be mixed African American but he his bio says Jewish, Sicilian, Irish, Scottish, German and English descent.

 

Who gives a flying f*** that Cameron Crow thinks that the woman that he met "LOOKED white" to him.  He is not an authority on this issue and has proven himself to be ignorant.   It was a stupid casting decision regardless.

 

 

It wasn't that the woman looked white just to him but that most people who met her assumed she was white and that she always had to explain her heritage. He should have just made her a minor character.

Edited March 10, 2016 by VCRTracking

[Ms Blue Jay]

Mark Paul Gosselaar dyed his naturally black hair blonde throughout the runs of all the Saved by the Bells.   Bless him. It's hard for me to not see Pete Davidson as half black, that's how I read him as well.  (I know I'm wrong, and there are some other actors I keep reading as such, but aren't.)   Reminds me of one of my favourite comedians Fred Armisen who is actually also part Asian.  Vin Diesel is half black but shaves his head so that nobody sees his natural hair... Sad (my opinion). 

 

I've also come across people who think that Lucy Liu has to be biracial because she has freckles.

 

I feel ashamed that I used to think (East) Asian people couldn't naturally have curly hair.  Lo and behold I travel to Asia last month (for the fifth time) and meet several Asian people who certainly did have naturally curly hair; I even met a man with an Asian afro.  So beautiful!

Edited March 10, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[proserpina65]

I would've said that Olivia Munn looked of Mediterranean heritage to me, possibly part Italian or Spanish.  I've never thought she looked part Asian.  Same with Dean Cain.  Just goes to show how perception varies.

[galax-arena]

The National Film Board of Canada commits 50% of its production budget to films by women.

[Ms Blue Jay]

This is a great and fascinating watch; a lot of examples we have touched on here.

 

(I see now that AimingforYoko posted this on February 22 -- here it is embedded for easy viewing.)

 

Edited March 11, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[Rick Kitchen]

Rob Schneider's daughter, singer Elle King, is blonde haired and fair skinned, you wouldn't know she is a quarter Filipina.  Her coloring is pretty much the same as my niece, who is also one quarter Filipina.  But in Rob Schneider's case, I can see how you wouldn't know his mother is Filipina, whereas in my niece's case, seeing her father it's pretty clear. Genetics are a funny thing.

[VCRTracking]

Also Paula Patton's son with Robin Thicke, Julian whos blonde and fair and blue eyes :

 

Paula's mother is white and father was African American, Robin of course, is white, so their child is a 1/4 African American but takes after Robin's mother, actress Gloria Loring from Days of Our Lives:

Edited March 12, 2016 by VCRTracking

[JessePinkman]

It's hard for me to not see Pete Davidson as half black, that's how I read him as well.

He looks so much like my 1/4 white, 1/4 American black, 1/4 Jamaican, 1/4 Chinese cousin that my brain refuses to believe his smorgasbord of whiteness.

 

Here's a photo of Beyonce and Aaliyah together and yes, they're both lighter than JHud but I don't think Aaliyah was ever revered/reviled for being a light skinned black woman, the same way Beyonce has been.

 

That picture is all about the flash that's on them, I mean, Michelle looks lighter than Beyonce. Aaliyah was definitely light-skinned. 

[VCRTracking]

Aaliyah never got to reach the heights of world wide popularity that Beyonce would reach. Maybe she could have but we'll never know.

Edited March 12, 2016 by VCRTracking

[GHScorpiosRule]

The international trailer. It has a lot more Chris Hemsworth:

 

 

 

I don't care if this makes me sound shallow, but I love that Hemsworth is using his natural Aussie accent.  And I really wanted to hear him say "Who are you going to call?" like Annie Potts did.

[xaxat]

From the Alex Proyas hissy fit posted by Ms Blue Jay.

 

 

(though the sad SJWs and constipated critics have been doing their best to kill it)

 

The term "social justice warrior" (SJW) makes me laugh. Hard.

 

It's supposed to be a derogatory term. But when I hear it I think of people I admire like Martin Luther King, Gloria Steinem and Cesar Chavez. 

 

What were they supposed to do in order to change a rigged system? Ask nicely?

[VCRTracking]

Well, civil disobedience was the less violent alternative, dating back to Gandhi.

[methodwriter85]

Also Paula Patton's son with Robin Thicke, Julian whos blonde and fair and blue eyes :

 

Paula's mother is white and father was African American, Robin of course, is white, so their child is a 1/4 African American but takes after Robin's mother, actress Gloria Loring from Days of Our Lives:

Damn, the kid looks even whiter than Wentworth Miller. Now THAT is someone who would have had no choice but to pass in Segregationist South.

 

Speaking of, Natalie Wood once played a black woman passing as white in the movie Kings Go Forth. She also played a Mexican in another movie, aside from her Puerto Rican impression in West Side Story. (God, if that movie had happened now, complete with Natalie doing her accent, she would have been raked over the coals on social media.)

 

I do think the girl in Imitation of Life was far more believable. (Susan Kohner was apparently Mexican mixed with Jewish Czech blood.)

Edited March 14, 2016 by methodwriter85

[VCRTracking]

Also they put her next to Sandra Dee, who was incredibly white(not just in looks), even for the Fifties!

[Epeolatrix]

The girl in the original Imitation of Life, Fredi Washington, was perfect for her role, since she actually was an African-American woman who was light enough to pass. She didn't, though, saying, "I have never tried to pass for white and never had any desire, I am proud of my race. In 'Imitation of Life', I was showing how a girl might feel under the circumstances but I am not showing how I felt."

[xaxat]

If you are like me and will not be able to get a ticket to Hamilton before 2021, the cast just performed a couple of songs at the White House.

 

https://youtu.be/wrP5To9L4ts?t=3205

 

Movie connection? Lin-Manuel Miranda is in talks to play the Dick Van Dyke role in the Mary Poppins sequel.

 

[JustaPerson]

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that the first time I saw West Side Story, I actually thought Natalie Wood was Latina before I looked her up and saw her very Russian name.

[Ms Blue Jay]

That's not embarrassing.  I thought that Richard Pryor was a blind actor after watching See No Evil, Hear No Evil and apparently I was far from the only one!  A good performance is a good performance.  (But yeah, WSS was 1961 and I wouldn't accept that casting today.)

Edited March 15, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[NutMeg]

Rob Schneider's daughter, singer Elle King, is blonde haired and fair skinned, you wouldn't know she is a quarter Filipina.  Her coloring is pretty much the same as my niece, who is also one quarter Filipina.  But in Rob Schneider's case, I can see how you wouldn't know his mother is Filipina, whereas in my niece's case, seeing her father it's pretty clear. Genetics are a funny thing.

Holly crap, I never realized that Elle King was Rob Schneider's daughter! Love her!! and while I'm not a big fan of his movies, he seems really nice and fun in interviews.

[xaxat]

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Nina Simone biopic. 

[VCRTracking]

The late actor Steve McQueen and Neile Adams(who is Filipina) had two kids. Daughter Terry Leslie who was blonde(she died in 1998 and Chad(who was one of the Cobra Kais in the original Karate Kid, looks like his father but has black hair and brown eyes like his mother). I found this old family photo, the story of it is:

The McQueen family was in Westwood in 1969, just taking a walk, when Steve spotted a photo studio and decided they should go in and have a picture taken. This picture was under his direction and he called it their "Andy Hardy" picture. He loved this, according to Neile.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 17, 2016 by VCRTracking

[blixie]

 

 

Speaking of, Natalie Wood once played a black woman passing as white in the movie Kings Go Forth. She also played a Mexican in another movie, aside from her Puerto Rican impression in West Side Story. (God, if that movie had happened now, complete with Natalie doing her accent, she would have been raked over the coals on social media.)

I do think the girl in Imitation of Life was far more believable. (Susan Kohner was apparently Mexican mixed with Jewish Czech blood.)

 

Weird since I think Kohner and Wood are practically twinsies. Every time I think of Sirk's Imitation of Life, I think how great Natalie Wood was in that movie. Heh. Then I have to remind myself it's actually NOT Natalie Wood.

 

I appreciated Coates pointing out the bitter irony of employing the kind of colorism racism that fed so much of Nina's work, in a  film meant to honor her. UGH. I realize that the makers of Nina are employing the Ridley Scott  bullshit excuse of needing a "name" actor to "sell" the movie, and that Adepero Oduye hadn't made a mark with her 12 Years a Slave performance yet, but she would have been my pick if they wanted to skew younger, Viola if they wanted to skew older. 

[VCRTracking]

Weird since I think Kohner and Wood are practically twinsies. Every time I think of Sirk's Imitation of Life, I think how great Natalie Wood was in that movie. Heh. Then I have to remind myself it's actually NOT Natalie Wood.

 

The first time I saw Imitation of Life I thought "Wow Natalie Wood is really good in this!" Kohner's voice even sounded like Wood!

[Cobalt Stargazer]

I go to baseball games all the time and the game is what brings people together.  Not the cheerleaders.  

 

I'm sorry if anyone here is a cheerleader - I do find the whole thing quite a bit sexist - no offense to anyone personally. 

 

 It's the embracing the non-feminist cheerleading that pissed me off, not necessarily embracing sports.  I think once you grow as a couple you're going to take on the superficial likes and characteristics of your partner and vice versa - that is normal and makes sense to me.  I don't think you lose your identity if you start to like the same music, hobbies, sports, movies, etc. as your partner.  It's natural for people to influence one another.  It's giving up your principles that I personally have the issue with.   Other than this fucking cheerleader angle at the end, I really loved the movie.

 

 

You're quoting me, why?  I said that cheerleading is sexist.

 

The bolded part above is for emphasis. My sister was a cheerleader until she gave it up to be a band geek instead, and I think if you told her she was not a feminist because she was once a cheerleader (or a fucking cheerleader, which I guess is some Skinemax thing) there would probably be harsh words and dirty looks.

 

But I digress.

 

The point I was trying to make is, I don't see anything feminist about doing exactly what some forty year old man-child would be doing. Amy Schumer is thirty-four. Seth Rogen will be thirty-four in eleven days, but Seth's history of being an irresponsible, pot-smoking slacker in movies seems to be the source of many people's irritation with him. Why even bring Knocked Up into the conversation unless there are comparisons being drawn? That's part of the analysis too, and I was simply pointing out that while the similarities are there, it would probably not have been considered "subversive" and/or "positive" if the character of Ben had continued to party all the time rather than be a parent to his kid. It would have been considered juvenile and pathetic. Because the playing field isn't level, and that means guys are supposed to straighten up and be adults.

 

Also, Trainwreck doesn't end with Amy and Aaron being married, since she actually dumped him because she allowed her father's lesson about monogamy being unrealistic freak her out. Is that a positive thing, to let someone who is basically an irresponsible jackass, and Amy points this out during his eulogy -

 

Hello. Thank you for coming. Gordon David Townsend, not that great of a guy. He was kind of racist, and homophobic. He was a drunk. He was a drunk. He once apologized to me for missing a volleyball game that he was at. He had, umm, made signs with my name on them. When I was eleven, this kid, Brandon Lipinsky. Remember Brandon? He stole my bike, and maybe he was just borrowing it, but our dad went over there and beat the shit out of Brandon's dad, and his grandpa, and Brandon. I bet he personally offended everyone here. Right? Raise your hand if our dad ever offended you.

 

Yeah. He was an asshole. When I asked him to tell me the story of how he proposed to our mom, his response was "Who?". I know he was joking, he loved her a lot, but, uhhh... He was really sick for a really long time. Which isn't fair, because, I don't think anyone else was more alive than him when he was younger. He thought it was payback. he thought it was karma, and that's why he got sick, but I don't think so. I think he was the greatest dad. He always made me feel loved and important. I know he fucked up. I know he probably hurt everyone here. But raise your hand if he was one of your favorite people.

 

I don't question that she loved her dad, because I'm sure she did. But if we really analyze everything she said at his funeral, there's......not a whole lot there to love. Much less emulate. It's like saying, "Well, I know he treated you badly, but he was never mean to me, so whatevs." Which is a different gripe for a different time.

 

In sum, while I know its a trope that Love Solves Everything, there's really no sign of that in Trainwreck. Amy still had a fairly long road to travel, IMO, and she'd really only started on it. Maybe they broke up or one of them moved away or they just drifted apart, as real life couples sometimes do. I don't know what to think of the idea that that would be a happier ending than the one we got.

[Ms Blue Jay]

Yes, that's right, the playing field isn't level.  That's how I feel.  I don't care if someone has been a cheerleader or wants to be a cheerleader or is a cheerleader, that is great for them, and not anti-feminist.  But the playing field literally isn't level when professional sports is dominated by men (in some sports) and in many sports only female cheerleaders with fantastic bodies need apply.  That isn't an even playing field.  If there were more male cheerleaders in professional sports, that would be something interesting.  I went to a NBA game the other night and there was a female referee, I thought that was fantastic.  There is a female Mets mascot, I think that's very cool.  And so on.  The playing field isn't even which is another way of saying patriarchy exists.

 

People can think different things of Amy's character in Trainwreck versus Seth's character in Knocked Up and I think that's okay.  There are major differences in age (Amy 34 vs Seth's character was 23) in those characters.  The genders are different.  Seth's character  was going to be a FATHER.  Amy's character was NOT having a child. They're not equal characters, which is why some might find Seth's character annoying and root for Amy's character to embrace being who she was.  Giving up alcohol because you're worried you're an alcoholic or destructive or angry towards your family makes total sense and is not anti-feminist. That's obvious. But if she's having consensual and safe casual sex with people and/or "partying", that's not harmful.  The movie did show a subversive female character in Amy at the beginning of the movie.  It is rare that you see romantic comedies where the woman is only interested in casual sex and not being Married Happily Ever After.  So Trainwreck showed that for once.  That's why Sex and the City was such a phenomenon.  When the show began / if you read the novel that the show is based on, the women were so unapologetic about having "sex like men".   The women were incredibly cynical about love and romance.  They didn't believe in fairy tales.  It was about cynicism in 1990s Manhattan, but also, women being liberated from judgement for having casual sex.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Ms Blue Jay

[Trini]

Speedy Gonzales animated film in development. No mention of the racist text and subtext of the original cartoons, but Mexican Eugenio Derbez is involved with the production.

[xaxat]

 

So, Storm is now a super villain? That means every mutant played by a POC (including a Guatemalan who is playing an ancient Egyptian) during Singer's run is either dead or evil. (Although I'm sure Storm will have a change of heart at some point during the franchise run.)

 

This change pisses me off. I haven't read the comics in decades, so I don't know what the character is like now. But back in the 70s and 80s she didn't just bring much needed gender and racial diversity, she was a great character. Smart, tough, compassionate. . . and, to my teenage self, punk rock Storm was smoking hot.

 

In addition, as long as Jennifer Lawrence is part of the cast, Storm will never become the leader/co-leader of the X Men like she was in the comics.

Edited April 4, 2016 by xaxat

[VCRTracking]

I'm sure Storm will join the team by the end of the movie.

 

 

Speedy Gonzales animated film in development. No mention of the racist text and subtext of the original cartoons, but Mexican Eugenio Derbez is involved with the production.

 

Setting aside some of the old Mexican stereotypes all the mice wearing somberos and Mel Blanc's accent Speedy is one of the few actual heroic Looney Tunes characters with a superpower who outwits Americans like Sylvester the Cat and Daffy Duck.

Edited April 4, 2016 by VCRTracking

[methodwriter85]

Amy Schumer Balks At Being Called "Plus-Size"

[JBC344]

 

So, Storm is now a super villain? That means every mutant played by a POC (including a Guatemalan who is playing an ancient Egyptian) during Singer's run is either dead or evil. (Although I'm sure Storm will have a change of heart at some point during the franchise run.)

 

This change pisses me off. I haven't read the comics in decades, so I don't know what the character is like now. But back in the 70s and 80s she didn't just bring much needed gender and racial diversity, she was a great character. Smart, tough, compassionate. . . and, to my teenage self, punk rock Storm was smoking hot.

 

In addition, as long as Jennifer Lawrence is part of the cast, Storm will never become the leader/co-leader of the X Men like she was in the comics.

I agree about the Jennifer Lawrence part and that Storm has yet to be portrayed as the "great badass" that she is in the comics, but I don't know if I would chalk that up to an issue of race.  To me it is just not great storytelling.  Storm being part of the "villain" side at least for most of Apocalypse to me seems like a fun idea and a way to combat and give a new spin on how that character has been portrayed before. 

 

Also Storm has been a character in now 5 X-Men movies with her being "good" in the previous four, and now "bad/villain" for now most of the fifth movie.  For me, the issues with the X-Men movies have more to do with storytelling and lack of character development than they do with race.  Also those issues effect the white characters just as much if not more than they do the POC. 

[Julia]

Well, I think labeling women over size 12 - which is to say the overwhelming majority in America, given that the average-sized woman wears a size 14 - as the outliers from a 'normal' size is problematic no matter who they're celebrating. But yeah, calling Amy Schumer plus-sized because she's four sizes smaller but doesn't have toned arms pretty much says it all about how ridiculous the whole thing is.

[Ms Blue Jay]

The Rogue One Star Wars movie trailer has been released, and filmmaker Lexi Alexander is tweeting about how a lot of male tweeters are up in arms about yet another Star Wars movie with a female lead ;)

 

[methodwriter85]

The Rogue One Star Wars movie trailer has been released, and filmmaker Lexi Alexander is tweeting about how a lot of male tweeters are up in arms about yet another Star Wars movie with a female lead ;)

 

 

This honestly looks like a fan film with better production values.

[absnow54]

I was impressed that the trailer passed the Bechdel Test, because it looked like another "lone girl leads an army of her bros into battle" from the early promotional images.

 

This honestly looks like a fan film with better production values.

What if we could capitalize off the success of The Hunger Games and the Star Wars franchise at the same time!

[Trini]

The Rogue One Star Wars movie trailer has been released, and filmmaker Lexi Alexander is tweeting about how a lot of male tweeters are up in arms about yet another Star Wars movie with a female lead ;)

I was impressed that the trailer passed the Bechdel Test, because it looked like another "lone girl leads an army of her bros into battle" from the early promotional images.

 

I enjoyed the original trilogy, and I have no interest in more stories from the Star Wars universe... but y'all have piqued my interest for this one.

[VCRTracking]

This honestly looks like a fan film with better production values.

 

Any Star Wars movie that doesn't revolve around a Skywalker or Solo is probably going to feel like a fan film. The only thing that makes it feel that way for me is the lack of aliens.

 

I like that they got Genevieve O'Reilly back as Mon Mothma, after most of her scenes were cut out of Revenge of the Sith.

Edited April 8, 2016 by VCRTracking

[FormerMod-a1]

Film Dialogue from 2,000 screenplays, Broken Down by Gender and Age

 

This doesn't tell us anything new, but the interactive charts are pretty nifty.

 

[Ms Blue Jay]

Ew, that makes me feel kind of sick to look at.

[FormerMod-a1]

This one is even worse, for me, and quite telling.