Movie men
Last night I went to see Fracture. It’s a genre I much like — clever criminal outsmarts cop/lawyer, sometimes to be hoist by his own petard.
I use his carefully there, because the clever criminal is always a guy. So is the cop or lawyer. Sure, sometimes there are women around — in Se7en, or the Usual Suspects, they’re there to be killed. In Matchpoint, they’re there to be mocked and killed. In Ocean’s Eleven, to be fought over. In Fracture, to be a sex object? I don’t know, the character was absurd. In Inside Man, Jodie Foster was there so they could advertise that it was a movie with Jodie Foster; she didn’t have all that much to do. And so on. Everyone knows this genre.
After the movie, on the way home, the person I saw the movie with and I were talking about it. I thought the setup was too obvious, as did he; the female character was put in for no good reason and was nonsensical. We disagreed on whether we wanted Anthony Hopkins to have been caught at the end, or Ryan Gosling to have a job at the end.
Until I complained that, yet again, it was a movie all about the guys. There was no need for it to be about the guys — Anthony Hopkins could have been Antonia Hopkins, shooting her husband because he cheated on her. Ryan Gosling could have been Ryanne Gosling. The tension between the two was not because they were both male and RG reminded AH of himself. It was because they were both arrogant assholes who looked down on the other. For minor characters, too. The DA could have been a woman — we didn’t need a Sam Waterson impersonation. The cop could have been a woman. But they weren’t.
He said he’d've preferred the female character not be in the movie. I agreed, but other characters could have been women. He said that gender balance didn’t affect his enjoyment of films, and that, indeed, he didn’t even notice it. Well, of course not. Because he sees lots of men who look like him. I make a conscious effort to notice lack of visible minorities, and people with disabilities. (I don’t complain about them as much, but I do keep it in mind.)
I tried to explain that of course he didn’t notice it, because he’s a white guy. No, no, it’s just because it’s not important to him. Yes, because you’re a white guy, and you see movies all about more white guys. If you were a woman, or not white, or not straight, you would notice this. Would it ruin your enjoyment of shows? Not necessarily. I still enjoy Heroes. But I have noticed the gender problems. I am choosing to ignore them, for this season, because all the word is that this is something the producers have noticed and intend to fix next season. So I can notice things, and think it’s a problem, and still like the show.
In a show with a large ensemble cast, it’s easier to want balance. In a movie with two characters, can you really ask for any given movie to be balanced? Perhaps not. But there’s a huge overall trend, and if you can’t poitn to individual movies where there was a conscious or unconscious choice to have male leads instead of female where it makes no difference to the plot, because hey, it’s just one movie, you’ve cut out all the ways to talk about this.
Are there any movies in this genre (essentially, moves about cons) that have more than token women? Maybe The Spanish Prisoner, but that is a 10 year old movie. Movies that use women as intelligent agents, not just the sexy distraction? I would love to watch those.
I will get over the irritation with this friend, and complain about this aspect of movies to people who are more willing to engage in argument. “Well, I just don’t notice, and it’s not because I’m a guy” leaves no room for discussion, or for the idea that perhaps this matters to other people. I’ll also look a bit into what movies I see with him, because otherwise it will drive me *nuts* after every movie.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
That’s exactly why I have never watched Heroes - few women characters. Although it is on my netflix list for when it comes out on DVD just based on your enthusiasm for it. I totally trust your tv taste.
May 17th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Well, we share taste in TV shows very closely. BTW, Pushing Daisies, the one by Bryan Fuller, who did Dead Like Me & Wonderfalls, is one of the hot new shows for fall.
Heroes is a really good show. It does have a problem with gender balance, but, honestly, what shows don’t? Even shows with female leads have them surrounded by males. Other than shows like Gilmore Girls, which only intend to appeal to female viewers.
May 18th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Well, and while I like Gilmore Girls, I think it also goes to show that programs *can* have female characters who aren’t just token women and can *still* be problematic.
May 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Well, GG had a lot of race and class issues anyhow, and then turned into Lorelei and Rory and their relationships with men show.
But I’m thinking more of shows that are aimed at both men and women, which GG was not. (This also excludes, say, Ugly Betty, which I think is fairly well balanced wrt gender.)
May 19th, 2007 at 2:41 am
Oh, yes. I didn’t mean to imply that GG was entirely problematic; the first several seasons were good.
I liked the one episode of UB that I saw; sometime I’ll have to watch more…
May 19th, 2007 at 9:52 am
Well, I think it was problematic even at the beginning, though recently it got worse, what with the intense and dull focus on relationships.
Ugly Betty is fun. It’s a soap opera, of course, but it’s fairly careful with how it treats gender and sexuality and race and class.
May 21st, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Virginia Woolf has a simple screening test about books and women, which Alison Bechdel adapted for movies:
Does it have at least two women in it?
Do they talk to each other?
About something other than a man?
TV manages to pass this test much more often than movies, maybe because TV is more about daily life since you’ve got to fill all those episodes.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I always forget that rule. Well, this movie would certainly fail. And I can’t think of many tv shows that wouldn’t pass.
It’s a good basic screening, for a first pass. Sigh. I will never get to watch a con movie that passes, I bet.
May 26th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
If you want my input…you have to go offshore to find movies with strong female leads. Take “Shoot the Piano Player” with Marie Dubois. Have you seen ANY movies that measure up to your standards?
May 26th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
If you want my input…you have to go offshore to find movies with strong female leads. Take “Shoot the Piano Player” with Marie Dubois. Or “The Bride Wore Black” starring Jeanne Moreau. Have you seen any films that measure up to your standards?
May 27th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Foreign films do tend to do better.
Of course I’ve seen movies that don’t strike me as where-have-all-the-women-gone, and I’ve enjoyed movies that do. This one in particular annoyed me, and my friend’s response annoyed me even more.