I was recently tagged in
a discussion asking this question, and now's the first time in a week
I've been able to sit down and write anything. So here goes. Now,
there's two ways to go about answering this:
IN TERMS OF STORYTELLING: This would come down to how women are literally represented as characters, who the protagonist is, does the story have a misogynist or misandric message, etc.
IN TERMS OF FILMMAKING: Do things like shot composition and cinematic language relate to gender? Is there a more "feminine" way to shoot a film? I don't feel we really know this because of the overwhelming lack of female DP's! A bit ironic as there are so many female photographers, but I find so few women in the cinematography field. When Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director, everyone made such a big deal. She was the first woman to win and only the fourth to ever be nominated. But no one has addressed the fact that not a single female DP has EVER been nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar.
So I can only give my own experiences here:
Ever since college, I started writing scripts that focused more on women not for any of my personal politics, but for economic reasons: the Drama department consisted mostly of girls and the female roles in scripts were always the easiest to cast. Yet the majority of mainstream plays and musicals had predominantly male casts (DAMN YANKEES in particular is criticized for having virtually no female roles) and here my school was struggling to cast it when it had a pool of actors consisting mostly of women. So I went in a different direction. The first feature screenplay I ever wrote was about a female filmmaker named Sara, who was adequately described as a portrait of myself with a vagina. It also seemed to me that female characters allowed for more complexity, plus women make MUCH better villains. From Lady Macbeth to the Wicked Witch of the West, women play evil better than me. Is that a sexist attitude? I don't know; I just always felt that Darth Vader was a great badass, but he didn't scare me. Witches did!
Having written a few LGBT characters, I think that area tends to be slanted as well. In high school, when WILL & GRACE was at the peak of its popularity, I noticed that there were tons of gay men characters on TV, but lesbian characters were marginalized. Movies with transgendered characters are almost always about men-turned-women, and never the vice versa; I guess the former is "funnier." My first film is about a lesbian, but it's not about lesbianism. I wanted to do a character, where character and emotions came first, and gender and sexuality are only enhancements of this character, not definers.
One thing that Feminists often bring up is how many men have a misunderstanding of the term and assume it to simply mean misandry. I'll admit to feeling that way for the early years of my life, but I think that once again, the movies have constructed this fake definition. I am turned off by is the standard "chick flick" and the stereotype of what this. This is Faux Feminism; something that panders and puts artifice and occasional misandry over quality storytelling or filmmaking. [Furthermore, why are they always associated with sappy titles? Ever see MUSIC OF THE HEART with Meryl Streep? It's actually a good movie, but why in the fuck did Wes Craven choose a title that no self-respecting man would ever go for?] I remember seeing FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (a movie often cited as a textbook example of a chick flick) with my first girlfriend. It's been many years so my memory may not be fair to the film, but I felt it was so artificial in its Feminism. The Abusive Husband felt phoned-in, abusing his wife in a cartoonish way that seemed to say to the audience "There! Have we made it clear that this guy is bad?" Most of all, it bothered me that Kathy Bates's character went from being bossed around by her husband to bossing him around by the end. I found the movie hypocritical, while my then-girlfriend happened to love it. Now maybe I missed something, but the movie has never really called me back. The majority of "chick flick" and made-for-Lifetime movies I've seen seem to be in the same vein.
Finally, there's the issue of sex in cinema. While many, many, MANY movies have featured sex scene with female nudity (whether or not this is misogyny or exploitative is a whole other issue), there never seemed to be many scenes in mainstream movies where the female characters just TALKED about sex. I love writing dialog about sex; having women discuss desire and admit to pleasure. I think this shines the most interesting light on characters. As a kid, I realized that indie and foreign films focused so much more on discussions about sex, and I was hooked. Perhaps the single best example of this is Almodovar's ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, which may well be the most feminine film ever made, a movie that celebrates Woman as an Actress, Mother, Lover, Nun, Drag Queen, or Transsexual. But for a more mainstream example, I think there's a strong reason why SEX AND THE CITY became the hit it did. The show focused on two things: sororal relationships and TALKING about sex. The result wasn't just that women loved the show, but that they loved watching it with other women! When the 2008 film adaptation came out, there was talk of women buying out entire cinema showings so that they could pack the place with all of their girlfriends and watch it together. My girlfriend at that time mentioned she wanted to see it and when I offered to take her she said, "No, that's a movie that girls have to see with other girls." Watching films is just as communal an experience as the process of making films is, and if SEX AND THE CITY was able to affect that communal experience, that might be making a stronger statement than we realize.
So is SEX AND THE CITY a truly feminist work? It's a show that has always had male fans, and while I personally didn't watch it enough to follow it, I could tell from the few episodes I've seen that the writing was very good and treated its characters intelligently. I think good storytelling is universal, and all I can do is write as I find interesting. You may think differently: perhaps male characters are more interesting to you than women; that's fine. But I feel this little editorial has left me with the following conclusions: 1. Story comes before Political Message, 2. Characterization comes before Gender, 3. Intelligent Writing is inclusive of everyone, and 4. Sexuality is just plain interesting, especially about women.
Dang, I wrote a lot. I didn't even get to talk about LITTLE WOMEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, ANIMAL HOUSE, or FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, all of which relate to this subject. But I hope I gave an interesting answer to the question...
IN TERMS OF STORYTELLING: This would come down to how women are literally represented as characters, who the protagonist is, does the story have a misogynist or misandric message, etc.
IN TERMS OF FILMMAKING: Do things like shot composition and cinematic language relate to gender? Is there a more "feminine" way to shoot a film? I don't feel we really know this because of the overwhelming lack of female DP's! A bit ironic as there are so many female photographers, but I find so few women in the cinematography field. When Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director, everyone made such a big deal. She was the first woman to win and only the fourth to ever be nominated. But no one has addressed the fact that not a single female DP has EVER been nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar.
So I can only give my own experiences here:
Ever since college, I started writing scripts that focused more on women not for any of my personal politics, but for economic reasons: the Drama department consisted mostly of girls and the female roles in scripts were always the easiest to cast. Yet the majority of mainstream plays and musicals had predominantly male casts (DAMN YANKEES in particular is criticized for having virtually no female roles) and here my school was struggling to cast it when it had a pool of actors consisting mostly of women. So I went in a different direction. The first feature screenplay I ever wrote was about a female filmmaker named Sara, who was adequately described as a portrait of myself with a vagina. It also seemed to me that female characters allowed for more complexity, plus women make MUCH better villains. From Lady Macbeth to the Wicked Witch of the West, women play evil better than me. Is that a sexist attitude? I don't know; I just always felt that Darth Vader was a great badass, but he didn't scare me. Witches did!
Having written a few LGBT characters, I think that area tends to be slanted as well. In high school, when WILL & GRACE was at the peak of its popularity, I noticed that there were tons of gay men characters on TV, but lesbian characters were marginalized. Movies with transgendered characters are almost always about men-turned-women, and never the vice versa; I guess the former is "funnier." My first film is about a lesbian, but it's not about lesbianism. I wanted to do a character, where character and emotions came first, and gender and sexuality are only enhancements of this character, not definers.
One thing that Feminists often bring up is how many men have a misunderstanding of the term and assume it to simply mean misandry. I'll admit to feeling that way for the early years of my life, but I think that once again, the movies have constructed this fake definition. I am turned off by is the standard "chick flick" and the stereotype of what this. This is Faux Feminism; something that panders and puts artifice and occasional misandry over quality storytelling or filmmaking. [Furthermore, why are they always associated with sappy titles? Ever see MUSIC OF THE HEART with Meryl Streep? It's actually a good movie, but why in the fuck did Wes Craven choose a title that no self-respecting man would ever go for?] I remember seeing FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (a movie often cited as a textbook example of a chick flick) with my first girlfriend. It's been many years so my memory may not be fair to the film, but I felt it was so artificial in its Feminism. The Abusive Husband felt phoned-in, abusing his wife in a cartoonish way that seemed to say to the audience "There! Have we made it clear that this guy is bad?" Most of all, it bothered me that Kathy Bates's character went from being bossed around by her husband to bossing him around by the end. I found the movie hypocritical, while my then-girlfriend happened to love it. Now maybe I missed something, but the movie has never really called me back. The majority of "chick flick" and made-for-Lifetime movies I've seen seem to be in the same vein.
Finally, there's the issue of sex in cinema. While many, many, MANY movies have featured sex scene with female nudity (whether or not this is misogyny or exploitative is a whole other issue), there never seemed to be many scenes in mainstream movies where the female characters just TALKED about sex. I love writing dialog about sex; having women discuss desire and admit to pleasure. I think this shines the most interesting light on characters. As a kid, I realized that indie and foreign films focused so much more on discussions about sex, and I was hooked. Perhaps the single best example of this is Almodovar's ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, which may well be the most feminine film ever made, a movie that celebrates Woman as an Actress, Mother, Lover, Nun, Drag Queen, or Transsexual. But for a more mainstream example, I think there's a strong reason why SEX AND THE CITY became the hit it did. The show focused on two things: sororal relationships and TALKING about sex. The result wasn't just that women loved the show, but that they loved watching it with other women! When the 2008 film adaptation came out, there was talk of women buying out entire cinema showings so that they could pack the place with all of their girlfriends and watch it together. My girlfriend at that time mentioned she wanted to see it and when I offered to take her she said, "No, that's a movie that girls have to see with other girls." Watching films is just as communal an experience as the process of making films is, and if SEX AND THE CITY was able to affect that communal experience, that might be making a stronger statement than we realize.
So is SEX AND THE CITY a truly feminist work? It's a show that has always had male fans, and while I personally didn't watch it enough to follow it, I could tell from the few episodes I've seen that the writing was very good and treated its characters intelligently. I think good storytelling is universal, and all I can do is write as I find interesting. You may think differently: perhaps male characters are more interesting to you than women; that's fine. But I feel this little editorial has left me with the following conclusions: 1. Story comes before Political Message, 2. Characterization comes before Gender, 3. Intelligent Writing is inclusive of everyone, and 4. Sexuality is just plain interesting, especially about women.
Dang, I wrote a lot. I didn't even get to talk about LITTLE WOMEN, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, ANIMAL HOUSE, or FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, all of which relate to this subject. But I hope I gave an interesting answer to the question...
No comments:
Post a Comment