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

[starri]

Boy Erased, based the memoir of the same name.  Oh, I'm not sure I can sit through this one.  Even the trailer was giving me feels.

[Irlandesa]

Oy.  When I first saw a tweet saying that John Chu wanted to make a Thai cave movie, I read it as John Cho and I've been thinking it ever since.  Now things like referencing Crazy Rich Asians, which I didn't think Cho had anything to do with, make so much more sense.  It's Chu...not Cho. 

Oops.

[Silver Raven]

1 hour ago, starri said:

Boy Erased, based the memoir of the same name.  Oh, I'm not sure I can sit through this one.  Even the trailer was giving me feels.

Woah!  Troye Sivan! Not to mention Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Edgerton and Flea.

[NUguy514]

Hmm, I haven't been that impressed with Lucas Hedges yet, and Nicole Kidman's Southern accent was sounding really iffy in the trailer, but I hope to be proven wrong on both of those counts.

[methodwriter85]

When I was watching The First Purge, I thought, "Of COURSE the black female lead has lighter brown skin and pretty European facial features." Man, I've been reading this thread too much. It did stand out to me though given that the movie is making a statement about racism yet they made sure to cast a girl who's just black enough for the street cred but not so black that she looks too far away from Western beauty stands.

[methodwriter85]

If I'm being really honest, I feel like I was over watching movies about gay men getting tortured/punish/dying for being gay a good 10 years ago. That is pretty much what I loved about Call Me By Your Name- it managed to be Oscar bait about non-straight people and it managed to avoid 1.) gaybashing 2.) angsty outings 3.) gay conversion camps, 4.) gay suicide or suicide attempts, and 5.) Death by AIDS. (Or in the case of a movie called the Trip, death by diabetes.)

The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which reps the lesbian side, seems to have a bit more levity but I've developed this weird aversion to Chloe Grace Moretz.

I'll probably wind up giving both movies a shot but we'll see.

On 7/13/2018 at 5:15 PM, HunterHunted said:

If she had said that she understood the concerns, but the ugly truth of the entertainment business is that this film might not get made with a trans actor, certainly wouldn't have a $30 million budget, and might never break out of the indie or LGBT festival circuit, people would have understood why she took the role. The fact of the matter is that it's cynical, but that's the world. Tangerine got a lot of praise, but I bet fewer than a 500,000 people saw it. It made $700,000 at the box office. No one has seen it, but the Danish Girl made $62 million. Sometimes you need that celebrity and mainstream machine.

Honestly, I feel like even that wouldn't have been enough. The reasoning is sound but the trans movement is REALLY heated right now. I know a draq queen who got booted from his show at a coffeehouse in Philadelphia because he wore a beard in character and a trans barista found that transphobic and refused to even talk to him about it, I feel like some are just too far heated to respond to logic.

Another interesting twist to that whole debacle are the subset of lesbians who feel like they're getting "erased" by the trans movement and that ScarJo's character was a butch lesbian, not a trans man and it's revisionist history/lesbian erasure to pretend otherwise.

Boy Meets Girl was another movie about a trans woman played by a trans woman that got completely ignored as well.

A Fantastic Woman does seem like it's been well-received (it won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award) but it also only made about 3 million at the box office.

[Scarlett45]

On 7/13/2018 at 6:48 PM, starri said:

At least she's free to take the role as one of the members of the Thai soccer team now.

On a different tack, if we're getting a biopic of Tab Hunter and Anthony Perkins, I want one about William Haines.  He was an actor in the Golden Age of Hollywood, given a choice by Louis B Mayer in 1935:  a lavender marriage and his career, or his boyfriend.

He went with the guy.  And they stayed together for almost 50 years.

I think this would be a great film, especially given that he stayed connected to Hollywood through his interior design business. There could be some fun cameos of other stars. 

[Scarlett45]

On 7/17/2018 at 7:57 PM, starri said:

Boy Erased, based the memoir of the same name.  Oh, I'm not sure I can sit through this one.  Even the trailer was giving me feels.

It looks good.

This is shallow but Russel Crowe isn’t a man who gains weight well. The extra weight sags his features and makes him look weary. 

[Spartan Girl]

So did anyone catch the new Fantastic Beasts trailer that showed a scene of young Dumbledore seeing Grindelwald's image while looking into the Mirror of Erised?

[Scarlett45]

7 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

So did anyone catch the new Fantastic Beasts trailer that showed a scene of young Dumbledore seeing Grindelwald's image while looking into the Mirror of Erised?

No I will go look. 

[scarynikki12]

If only he weren’t played by Depp. But that’s a long awaited answer to a Book 1 question and it’s a good one. 

[Cobalt Stargazer]

On 7/13/2018 at 2:22 PM, Wynterwolf said:

 

On 7/18/2018 at 2:49 AM, methodwriter85 said:

Honestly, I feel like even that wouldn't have been enough.

Pintrest agrees with you.



At least one of the references is obviously intended to be humorous, but the meme covers a number of cases where actors play someone who is the opposite of their real selves. In other words, a character, and even if Heath Ledger hadn't passed away so soon after the release of Brokeback Mountain, he and Gyllenhaal deserved those Oscar nominations. BTW, that was the same year Philip Seymour Hoffman won for playing Truman Capote and Felicity Huffman was nominated for Transamerica. Whatever my opinion of Johansson's abilities as an actress are, the backlash that made her quit this project just highlights every other time no one says anything when they cast someone who doesn't fit the role exactly. How it benefits anything to not have the story told at all unless they cast a transgender actor escapes me, but I admit to not being as 'woke' as I could be. It just seems very strange to accuse the industry of being homophobic for not giving the Oscar to Ledger for being a straight guy playing a gay man while they did give the Oscar to Hoffman, who was also a straight guy playing a gay man. If the problem is Johansson herself, since this isn't the first time she's 'ruined' something just by being involved, they could cast someone else if the project goes forward, but I'm not sure who would pass muster and be bankable by industry standards.

[ApathyMonger]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

even if Heath Ledger hadn't passed away so soon after the release of Brokeback Mountain, he and Gyllenhaal deserved those Oscar nominations

It was over two years later. You're getting Brokeback Mountain confused with The Dark Knight, which probably doesn't happen that often. :)

[Silver Raven]

Disney is working on a new movie, Sadé, about an African girl with magic powers who works with the country's prince to fight off a sinister force. Ola Shokunbi and Lindsey Reed Palmer will co-write the screenplay.

[methodwriter85]

11 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Whatever my opinion of Johansson's abilities as an actress are, the backlash that made her quit this project just highlights every other time no one says anything when they cast someone who doesn't fit the role exactly. How it benefits anything to not have the story told at all unless they cast a transgender actor escapes me, but I admit to not being as 'woke' as I could be.

I mean, I get it. I understand that there are transgender actors there who want roles and I get the frustration at seeing those roles go to people that aren't actually transgender. But at the same time, you're looking at a percentage of a percentage in terms of population, and the economic and practical realities of moviemaking means that you can't always find the actor who fits the part exactly. I mean, there's a reason why they didn't cast an actual quadriplegic for Will Traynor in Me Before You.

Edited July 28, 2018 by methodwriter85

[AimingforYoko]

6 hours ago, Silver Raven said:

Disney is working on a new movie, Sadé, about an African girl with magic powers who works with the country's prince to fight off a sinister force. Ola Shokunbi and Lindsey Reed Palmer will co-write the screenplay.

You mean it's not about a woman with a magical voice who causes babies to be born?

[Irlandesa]

11 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

It just seems very strange to accuse the industry of being homophobic for not giving the Oscar to Ledger for being a straight guy playing a gay man while they did give the Oscar to Hoffman, who was also a straight guy playing a gay man.

They gave it to Forest Whitaker that year*.  And while Hoffman played a gay character, the story was about how Capote investigated and wrote In Cold Blood more than it was about his sexuality or love story.  Brokeback Mountain was an  unadulterated love story about two men whose circumstances made it difficult to be their true selves. 

*I think the homophobia accusation was more about the academy going with Crash as Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain than it was about Ledger losing.  Whitaker had the "long time vet" narrative and Ledger would have been the youngest winner in that category.  The academy is more likely to award a younger actress than a young actor.

Ultimately, what I think doomed Scarlett was her reaction.  If she feels there's a case to be made, make the case.

55 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

I mean, there's a reason why they didn't cast an actual quadriplegic for Will Traynor in Me Before You.

This is a chicken or the egg thing, really.  Is it that there are no capable paraplegic actors who could play the role or, because they're paraplegic, they just don't get the opportunity?  

[NUguy514]

39 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

They gave it to Forest Whitaker that year*.  And while Hoffman played a gay character, the story was about how Capote investigated and wrote In Cold Blood more than it was about his sexuality or love story.  Brokeback Mountain was an  unadulterated love story about two men whose circumstances made it difficult to be their true selves. 

*I think the homophobia accusation was more about the academy going with Crash as Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain than it was about Ledger losing.  Whitaker had the "long time vet" narrative and Ledger would have been the youngest winner in that category.  The academy is more likely to award a younger actress than a young actor.

You're right about why Crash won over Brokeback Mountain (homophobia, at least in part; the old, straight, male fucks members flatly refused to watch Brokeback Mountain, which I didn't believe until my boss at the time, who knew a number of Academy members, told me it was sadly the case), but Whitaker won the year after that.  Hoffman did, indeed, beat Ledger (and undeservedly so).  I think the Academy was more comfortable with the stereotypical, shallow portrayal of Hoffman (that, importantly and as you said, didn't include a romantic angle) (also, people had decided Hoffman should have an Oscar, so there you go) than with Ledger's searing performance (that, importantly, was all about the love story).  Frankly, Hoffman was a distant fifth for me in that otherwise incredible Best Actor lineup; I thought Capote was his least interesting performance, so of course he won for it.

[starri]

I'm sure it will never happen, but with the X-Men coming home to Marvel, and the fact that Iceman and Pyro are a couple now...

[Wynterwolf]

10 minutes ago, starri said:

I'm sure it will never happen, but with the X-Men coming home to Marvel, and the fact that Iceman and Pyro are a couple now...

Yeah... possibilities!  Plus I really hope they also get that in order to tell these kinds of stories well, they need to respect and incorporate the voices of the people who are part of that marginalized group.  So I hope they are also working on expanding the writer/director/producer crew beyond middle-aged cis het white men.  

[Cobalt Stargazer]

23 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

They gave it to Forest Whitaker that year*.  And while Hoffman played a gay character, the story was about how Capote investigated and wrote In Cold Blood more than it was about his sexuality or love story.  Brokeback Mountain was an  unadulterated love story about two men whose circumstances made it difficult to be their true selves.

*I think the homophobia accusation was more about the academy going with Crash as Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain than it was about Ledger losing.  Whitaker had the "long time vet" narrative and Ledger would have been the youngest winner in that category.  The academy is more likely to award a younger actress than a young actor.

Ultimately, what I think doomed Scarlett was her reaction.  If she feels there's a case to be made, make the case.

So content matters. Okay, I can see that. OTOH, as much as Brokeback Mountain is a love story,

 

Jack dies before he and Ennis really get the chance to be together, and he might never have known it if he hadn't gotten his postcard back. There's no happy, joyous ending, which they deserved, and Ennis ends up as a lonely old man with nothing but a shirt and his memories.

As for Johansson, I just keep coming back to the reaction when Eddie Redmayne was cast in The Danish Girl. Not many people liked that either, but Redmayne hadn't already been branded as someone who steals work from other actors. He did win the Oscar for playing Stephen Hawking, but I guess the demand for realism only goes so far. He's still one of those horrible straight white men, but maybe if Johansson had turned down Ghost in the Shell before this happened, this would have a different feel to it. Conundrum: if Scarlett had said 'No' to playing Major, would she have been backlashed off of the project we're talking about nnow?

Edited July 29, 2018 by Cobalt Stargazer

[Irlandesa]

22 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Okay, I can see that. OTOH, as much as Brokeback Mountain is a love story,

A love story doesn't mean a happy ending.  When I say it's a love story, it's a story about them as a duo, about them falling in love, about them having sex....etc.  I mean seeing another man flip another man over and spit into his hand certainly challenges the comfort level of some viewers in a way "that man over there is my boyfriend but let's talk about my work" wouldn't.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Irlandesa

[Zuleikha]

Ultimately, what I think doomed Scarlett was her reaction.  If she feels there's a case to be made, make the case.

I think she did, but people didn't like it. Her point was that this was an industry standard practice, so why should she alone not take a role. Where she was wrong is that she didn't follow that the norm has genuinely changed over the past couple of years. Her timing was unfortunate. (where she may have had a better point is that it's unclear to me how clear it is that the main character is actually a transman rather than a butch lesbian, and if indeed a transman, whether Tex Gill had any of the medical aspects of transition that would make a transman a better choice. Transmen's bodies and voices generally masculinize significantly on hormones, so a medically transitioned transman doesn't necessarily better represent a pre-medically transitioned transman). I understand why she would be interested in the part, but I'm glad she stepped down. Even setting aside some of the potential nuance in the actual history of Tex Gill, Scarlett's a horrible physical match. Someone like Lea Delaria would be a much more defensible non-transman choice.

I do think there's a gender aspect that no one is willing to interrogate about why Scarlett's faced stronger, more persistent criticism for choices that have been standard choices. What is the actual difference between her casting as the Major and the remakes of the Ring, the Grudge, Death Note, or Edge of Tomorrow? Alita: Battle Angel has a predominately white/Latinx cast, and I'm barely hearing any criticism of the actors or Rodriguez. She seems to have gotten scapegoated, and I don't think it's coincidence that a white, Jewish actress is taking the heat when there have been more men doing those types of roles. 

[Trini]

18 minutes ago, Zuleikha said:

What is the actual difference between her casting as the Major and the remakes of the Ring, the Grudge, Death Note, or Edge of Tomorrow?

I've only watched one of these movies and I'm not familiar with the source material for most of them; but as far as I can tell, these were all 'Americanized' adaptations. Ghost in the Shell was still set in Japan, and Major was still a Japanese character.

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, Zuleikha said:

I think she did, but people didn't like it.

Yeah, I should have said make a better case--one that respects the point of view of those arguing against her casting.  For instance, you bring up better points. 

[Zuleikha]

Ghost in the Shell was still set in Japan, and Major was still a Japanese character.

I haven't seen it, but my understanding was that the Johansson Ghost In the Shell was set in a generic, international future location--not Japan specifically. Is that wrong? But in either case, for all intents and purposes, it was also a Westernized adaption with other non-Japanese characters. Major Mira Killian was not Japanese, so I think it's an oversimplification to say that Major was still a Japanese character because her original self was Japanese. They didn't have Johannson playing Motoko Kusanagi!

[Trini]

8 hours ago, Zuleikha said:

I haven't seen it, but my understanding was that the Johansson Ghost In the Shell was set in a generic, international future location--not Japan specifically. Is that wrong? But in either case, for all intents and purposes, it was also a Westernized adaption with other non-Japanese characters. Major Mira Killian was not Japanese, so I think it's an oversimplification to say that Major was still a Japanese character because her original self was Japanese. They didn't have Johannson playing Motoko Kusanagi!

Ah, so they did change the name.

[aradia22]

Quote

I haven't seen it, but my understanding was that the Johansson Ghost In the Shell was set in a generic, international future location--not Japan specifically. Is that wrong? But in either case, for all intents and purposes, it was also a Westernized adaption with other non-Japanese characters. Major Mira Killian was not Japanese, so I think it's an oversimplification to say that Major was still a Japanese character because her original self was Japanese. They didn't have Johannson playing Motoko Kusanagi!

Same, which is not unusual because that movie didn't do well, but I think even if they changed the character's ethnicity, it still looked bad because the majority of the other roles were filled my Asian actors. It goes to the white savior/background minorities thing and it still looks like whitewashing. 

[Zuleikha]

Per IMDB, it doesn't seem true that the majority of other roles were filled with Asian actors, though. It looked to be fairly inclusive, which is arguably more appropriate for the futuristic world than the anime's all-or-nearly-all-Japanese portrayal. That also doesn't address why movies like Edge of Tomorrow, Death Note, and Alita: Battle Angel received/are receiving so much less criticism or why Scarlett Johansson received all of the criticism even though she wasn't the director and other non-Japanese actors also took significant roles.

Hmm... we're getting far afield from LGBT themes... perhaps we should move to another thread. Or watch it so we at least really know what we're talking about. :

[Proclone]

On 7/29/2018 at 11:09 PM, Zuleikha said:

Per IMDB, it doesn't seem true that the majority of other roles were filled with Asian actors, though. It looked to be fairly inclusive, which is arguably more appropriate for the futuristic world than the anime's all-or-nearly-all-Japanese portrayal. That also doesn't address why movies like Edge of Tomorrow, Death Note, and Alita: Battle Angel received/are receiving so much less criticism or why Scarlett Johansson received all of the criticism even though she wasn't the director and other non-Japanese actors also took significant roles.

Hmm... we're getting far afield from LGBT themes... perhaps we should move to another thread. Or watch it so we at least really know what we're talking about. :

Not to continue to go off topic, but I did see it and it's, first of all, a pretty terrible film and Johansson is pretty terrible in it, which does her no favors (for better or worse it's easier to forgive some unfortunate implications if the performance is at least good).  But also a big issue with the movie is that she is actually an Asain character, her "ghost" or brain was placed in the robotic body that looked liked Johansson...which actually multiples the unfortunate implications in my mind.  Her creators could have made her look like anyone and they chose to make her look like a white chick...yeah.

Back on topic, I do think the reaction to Johansson being cast was colored by the perception that she's done this before, taken the role that probably should have been played by a minority.  I'm not sure that all the criticism was completely fair, but her response really did her no favors.  While I think more trans and LGBT actors should play LGBT parts, I don't personally think that a cis or straight person should never play an LGBT character.  Like I said earlier I think that especially in the case of trans characters it depends on where in their physical or medical (if there is one) transition they are.  I can understand casting a cis actor if a chunk of the story takes place before the character comes out or medically transitions.   And I'm not sure if this movie was planning on depicting the character prior to transitions, but the implication in all the articles seemed to imply it focused on the running of the massage parlors after the character had already socially (and perhaps medically) transitioned.  So it makes Johansson seem like a poor fit for the role even discounting the unfortunate implications her casting causes for the moment.  Even more than cis-washing (I'm not sure if I just made that term up or not) the part, it seems a case of attractive-washing (I'm pretty sure I just made up that one) the part.  They cast Johansson because they didn't think anyone would want to watch a movie with someone who actually looked like the person who was depicted looked in real life.  Which happens all the time in biopics, but seems exceptionally ickier when casting an attractive cis woman to play a transmasculine part.  It seems to say, "it's okay to be trans, but if you kind of still look like a conventionally attractive woman, that would be great."

[aradia22]

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HistoricalBeautyUpdate

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdaptationalAttractiveness

[methodwriter85]

Back to topic...

Does anyone else remember Hellbent, the gay horror movie from the mid-2000's about a group of friends who get killed by some masked villain during Halloween parties in Hollywood?

I thought it was okay, especially by horror movie standards. You kind of expect shitty acting with slasher fics anyway. I kind of wish there had been more movies done along in that vein, instead of the weird DeCouteau "horror" movies.

I did think it was funny that one guy had basically been "safe" from the killer because he was wearing drag, which basically made him "asexual" by the masc4masc gay community standards. Being that he was normally a hot stud, said character couldn't stand being ignored, leading to him

Spoiler

hitting on the actual killer while partially taking off his drag, leading to the killer beheading him. Opps.

I thought that was some pretty funny commentary on gay culture- the way straight-acting studs are so elevated and worshipped while fems are treated as nothing, especially during that Abercrombie and Fitch time period. Putting the former in the literal heels of the latter for one night and seeing it drive him crazy was funny.

Which reminds me of the (terrible) Broken Hearts Club, where everyone oohs and ahhs over Dean Cain's character because he seems "completely straight." (Actually wordage from Timothy Olyphant's character.)

I like to think we've gotten away from that as the whole Abercrombie thing collapsed, but then lumbersexual took its place so who knows.

[starri]

8 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

Does anyone else remember Hellbent, the gay horror movie from the mid-2000's about a group of friends who get killed by some masked villain during Halloween parties in Hollywood?

Using the "grade on a curve" scale that I normally have to use with these movies, I actually really liked Hellbent.  They obviously got a lot of mileage from being able to film on the cheap at the WeHo Halloween Carnaval, and slasher movies are supposed to be grindhouse-y anyway.  The actors aren't terrible either.  Of course, my favorite, the dorky redhead, dies first after he gets a date with the hot jock he had a crush on.

One half of the couple that dies in the cold open looks so much like James Franco I'm not entirely sure it wasn't him under a pseudonym.

[methodwriter85]

I had a mild thing for Andrew Levitas at the time because of his appearance on Party of Five and Undressed a few years before that. It was pretty enjoyable and I did particularly think the scene where they kill off Andrew's character in the middle of the dancing crowd and nobody notices was well-done. Mainly because you really could see that happening. I've always felt like festivals would be a great breeding ground for serial killers, because people are so trusting and so not on their guard at them. And nobody's really paying attention except to whatever they're doing.

Edited August 1, 2018 by methodwriter85

[ChromaKelly]

On 5/31/2018 at 10:47 AM, Wynterwolf said:

What I love about Steve and Bucky as a romantic couple, is that it finally gives me an on screen version (and in a high-budget, Major Media platform!!! with extremely talented actors!!!!) of the kind of romance I love, which I almost never get to see on screen in any form or configuration (mm, fm or other).

I’ve already gone into detail elsewhere about what that entails for me, but to give some clearer, more concrete examples of what I see in their on screen dynamic (as it's written and portrayed), here are some book examples (just with eventual consummation of the romance, all with explicit content).  These are all extremely similar to what I see on screen with Steve and Bucky, a slow burn, battle-couple romance between two guys who love each other:

Shades of Gray by Brooke McKinley (amazon link).  This is my favorite MM romance book ever, and it’s not an accident that a lot of it is so very similar to what we’ve already seen on screen with Steve and Bucky, to the point where I could actually see CE and SS playing these characters.  But it’s not for the faint of heart, it’s dark and gritty and full of angst and violence and blood.  But it’s also a beautiful slow-burn romance with an ending that feels truly earned to me (and that I can see reflected in Steve visiting Bucky in Wakanda in IW).   These guys go through hell, but they eventually find their way back to each other (which is not a spoiler, it’s part of the reader/writer contract for a ‘romance’). 

Pretty much anything written by Josh Lanyon (note: the author is a woman, she started using a male pen name many, many years ago… I find that problematic, but I’ve read her reasons for why she did it, and I can understand, even if I disagree… but I love her writing so much).  She has a formula she follows, there are certain things… character types, story points, personality quirks, that recur in nearly all of her stories.  She also uses physical disabilities a lot.  And very nearly everything she’s written has a Steve/Bucky AU dynamic to me (except her Holmes & Moriarity series… they’re basically McShep).

Jordan Castillo Price – her Victor Bayne series is terrific (the author doesn’t out him as autistic, but he very clearly reads as autistic to me, and she does have another book with an ‘out’ autistic character), as well as many of her other stand-alones.  Hell, she even wrote a three-way (not usually my preference) that I loved, which was basically a Steve/Bucky/Tony AU.

I am always looking for other MM romance authors/shows (whether "canon" or not), if anyone has any suggestions (particularly any authors who aren’t cis women).

Thank you, I'm going to check these out. I am a Stucky shipper, but more in the they have entwined destinies/have been through so much/ etc. I'm really over the LOL LOL they are gay and need to bone faction.
Re: Steve and Bucky in IW. There is no way that's the first time Steve has seen Bucky in two years. I have to believe he's been visiting him since he came out of cryo.

[Wynterwolf]

1 minute ago, ChromaKelly said:

Re: Steve and Bucky in IW. There is no way that's the first time Steve has seen Bucky in two years. I have to believe he's been visiting him since he came out of cryo.

Yeah, absolutely.  And the writers and the Russos confirmed that was their intent with how they set up the first scene between them in Wakanda.  I would love to see them get at least some sort of Due South-style ending in an end credit scene in A4, but regardless of what they do on screen, that will still be my headcanon.  

[festivus]

2 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

I would love to see them get at least some sort of Due South-style ending in an end credit scene in A4, but regardless of what they do on screen, that will still be my headcanon.  

What kind of ending is it? I've never seen that show.

Yeah I'm glad they confirmed that wasn't the first time they'd seen each other because I would have never believed that. I don't even ship them in a romantic way on screen but yeah there's no way they didn't spend some time together hangin' with the goats. I read a fanfic where Bucky named the orneriest one Steve. When I saw that blooper clip of Danai laughing at the goat I was like, Yep that's Steve the goat alright.

[Wynterwolf]

4 hours ago, festivus said:

What kind of ending is it? I've never seen that show.

At the end of the series, Fraser and Ray K [corrected!] (Fraser was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, originally from the Northwest Territories and Ray K was a Chicago detective) retire from their police jobs, strap into a sled decked out in off-the-grid camping gear,  and led by Fraser's companion Diefenbaker (a deaf white wolf), and go off into the wilds of the Canadian Rockies together on an "adventure".  

So for Steve and Bucky, my headcanon will always be that Steve joined Bucky on his goat farm in Wakanda... that way Steve can retire in peace (especially if the world believes he's dead) and Bucky can help protect Wakanda as the White Wolf.    

Edited August 3, 2018 by Wynterwolf

[Apprentice79]

4 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

At the end of the series, Fraser and Ray V (Fraser was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, originally from the Northwest Territories and Ray V was a Chicago detective) retire from their police jobs, strap into a sled decked out in off-the-grid camping gear,  and led by Fraser's companion Diefenbaker (a deaf white wolf), and go off into the wilds of the Canadian Rockies together on an "adventure".  

So for Steve and Bucky, my headcanon will always be that Steve joined Bucky on his goat farm in Wakanda... that way Steve can retire in peace (especially if the world believes he's dead) and Bucky can help protect Wakanda as the White Wolf.    

Steve and Bucky could live their lives unmolested as a couple. T'Challa could give them Wakandan citizenship and all that it comes with.  It would be unprecedented and it would be a signal that Wakanda was opening it's borders to outsiders.  

I hope that Bucky becomes the White wolf in future Black Panther sequels and beyond...

[scriggle]

4 hours ago, Wynterwolf said:

At the end of the series, Fraser and Ray V (Fraser was a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, originally from the Northwest Territories and Ray V was a Chicago detective) retire from their police jobs, strap into a sled decked out in off-the-grid camping gear,  and led by Fraser's companion Diefenbaker (a deaf white wolf), and go off into the wilds of the Canadian Rockies together on an "adventure".  

So for Steve and Bucky, my headcanon will always be that Steve joined Bucky on his goat farm in Wakanda... that way Steve can retire in peace (especially if the world believes he's dead) and Bucky can help protect Wakanda as the White Wolf.    

Off topic but it was Fraser and RayK who dogsledded off into the sunrise to find the hand of Franklin. RayV maarried Stella Kowalski, moved to Florida, & opened a bowling alley.

On topic: I like your headcanon for Steve and Bucky.

[Wynterwolf]

5 minutes ago, scriggle said:

Off topic but it was Fraser and RayK who dogsledded off into the sunrise to find the hand of Franklin. RayV maarried Stella Kowalski, moved to Florida, & opened a bowling alley.

Right! Ugh... I always got them mixed up back in the day... I guess somethings don't change.  D'oh!  

[starri]

In all honesty, one of the most agonizing kills in a horror movie was Jada Pinkett Smith dying at the beginning of Scream 2, where it seems to be part of the show.

As I enter what is chronologically middle age, or my twilight years as the gays reckon time, I find myself increasingly annoyed by straight actors playing gay who can't generate any kind of believable sexual chemistry with their onscreen romantic partner.  There are exceptions to that, of course, but it seems like I only truly buy it when at least half of the pair is actually gay.  I was watching the wrap-up movie for Looking, which was 50/50 in terms of the stars, and it just kind of clicked for me that it's the X factor that makes me actually buy something.

[Trini]

USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative annual report:

Quote

Don't be fooled by the prominent success of recent films like Wonder Woman and Get Out – Hollywood still has an inclusion problem, according to the latest study from USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

The group's ever-expanding annual report – today's release, "Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films," covers the top 100 movies each year from 2007 through 2017 – shows no significant statistical improvement in the representation of women, people of color, LBGT characters or characters with disability over the past decade. "We're not seeing an interesting trend either downward or upward across multiple years to suggest there's a concerted effort to be inclusive," AII founding director Stacy L. Smith tells THR.

...

In 2017, 70.7 percent of the 4,454 speaking characters were white, 12.1 percent were black, 6.2 percent were Hispanic, 4.8 percent were Asian, 3.9 percent were mixed-race, 1.7 percent were of Middle Eastern descent and less than 1 percent each were coded as Native American or Native Hawaiian. It's worth noting that these designations are for characters, not actors – in 2015, one of the 3.6 percent of mixed-race speaking characters was Aloha's Allison Ng, played by Emma Stone.

It was a dissonance the researchers were prepared for. "A lot of us were familiar with the most notable examples of whitewashing," says study co-author Marc Choueiti, who adds that the team counted Stone's character announcing her mixed-race ethnicity three times during the film.

Direct link to report (with charts and graphs) in the article.

[Trini]

USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative annual report:

Quote

 

Don't be fooled by the prominent success of recent films like Wonder Woman and Get Out – Hollywood still has an inclusion problem, according to the latest study from USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

The group's ever-expanding annual report – today's release, "Inequality in 1,100 Popular Films," covers the top 100 movies each year from 2007 through 2017 – shows no significant statistical improvement in the representation of women, people of color, LBGT characters or characters with disability over the past decade. "We're not seeing an interesting trend either downward or upward across multiple years to suggest there's a concerted effort to be inclusive," AII founding director Stacy L. Smith tells THR.

...

Although women represent 50.8 percent of the U.S. population, they represented just 31.8 percent of speaking characters last year, a disparity of almost 20 percentage points. This prevalence has held constant; among the 48,757 speaking characters in the 1,100 top-grossing films since 2007, just 30.6 percent have been female. One major reason for this gender disparity is that women have a much shorter onscreen "lifespan" than men: There tends to be gender balance among child characters (52.7 percent male to 47.3 percent female in 2017), with the gap slightly widening in the teens (55.3 percent to 44.7 percent). But by age 40, 75.4 percent of characters were male.

...

In terms of who serves as the focus of a story, female-centric films hold steady at about a third of each year's crop of movies, but in 2017, only four women of color and five women over the age of 45 played leads or co-leads. ...

 

Direct link to report (with charts and graphs) in the article.

[Trini]

From the report:

Quote

Sexually revealing clothing varied by character gender. Female characters (28.4%) were far more likely than male characters (7.5%) to be shown in tight or alluring apparel. Put differently, females accounted for 64.9% of all instances of sexy attire across the 100 top films of 2017. Nudity (see Figure 1) also varied with character gender (M=9.6%, F=25.4%), but most instances involved only showing cleavage, a bare midriff or skin in the high upper thigh region. Beauty also was gendered, with females (11%) receiving more appearance comments from other characters than their male (3.9%) peers.

...

Together, the results in this section point to the fact that gender roles are still wedded to tired stereotypical tropes. Females are more likely to be sexualized, young, or shown as parents or caregivers. These findings suggest a problematic binary for female actors, frequently being cast as either the object of interest or a motherly figure. Some of these traditional roles may be explained by the gender of content creators across popular films, a subject for the next section of the report.

[memememe76]

On 09/04/2018 at 6:36 PM, methodwriter85 said:

 

I would say that Pretty In Pink is probably the cleanest in terms of sexism in the Ringwald trio. Even the bitchy beautiful blonde is pretty much covered up the entire time.

I would like to believe this is due to Molly being more confident as an actress, John being more secure as a writer and director, and the studios believe in both Molly and John as moneymakers, so let them be. 

[JBC344]

On 7/27/2018 at 6:33 PM, AimingforYoko said:

You mean it's not about a woman with a magical voice who causes babies to be born?

Ha ha. Soon as I saw the name I immediately thought " Wow, Disney is doing a Sade biopic. I'm there."

Btw, this needs to happen. 

[Dejana]

Rebecca Hall to make directorial debut with adaptation of Nella Larsen's 1929 novel Passing; Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga are attached to star. Ms. Hall says she was drawn to the material due to family history of a biracial American grandfather. FWIW, I remember hearing about her ancestry long before she was going to direct this project, so it's not something she's revealing just now. 

https://deadline.com/2018/08/rebecca-hall-passing-movie-tessa-thompson-ruth-negga-nella-larsen-novel-1202440801/

Edited August 7, 2018 by Dejana

[aradia22]

I read the book in school and I remember being kind of meh on it. I don't remember any of the plot points or characters any more. But as a general topic it's worth exploring. I'm up for a movie that's more intense than the book. Has Rebecca Hall ever written a movie? 

[Dejana]

I downloaded the story last year but found it hard to get into. With this news, I read the Wikipedia summary and

Spoiler

there's an ambiguous conclusion: the heroine is found out and falls from a skyscraper to her death, but did she jump or was she pushed, and for the latter, was it her awful bigot husband or her frenemy, convinced her own husband was having an affair with her bestie?

In the right hands it could be really melodramatic and one of those hotly debated movie endings.

And I hope this isn't taken the wrong way, but is it bad that I kind of wish this is been made 10 years ago with, IDK, Maya Rudolph and Rashida Jones? I am just thinking of how they are going to make Tessa Thompson look like someone who does/could go through life passing for white and am imagining a really regrettable makeup job. 

Edited August 7, 2018 by Dejana