How I Know I'm Right
On this back and forth about quality vs. demographics as an approach to movie making. Yesterday, after I wrote the above-linked blog post I walk downstairs to grab lunch and a couple of old ladies are walking nearby and I can overhear their conversation -
"It's like that movie...what was that movie called again..."
"I don't know."
"The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly."
"Oh...I love that movie."
"Yeah, that's a great movie."
These are two old ladies talking. Old freaking ladies. If you had to guess, you'd think they'd want to watch Last Chance Harvey - but no - they're talking Leone. That's how I know I'm right.
7 comments:
Greg, you are totes missing the point here! I don't think anybody is proposing affirmative action in filmmaking here. Nobody wants films to be made simply because the director or writer is a certain gender or ethnicity. The overarching issue is: why are films written by women or featuring female leads (or fill-in-the-blank with other non-white-male-group, but for these purposes I'm just going to focus on the male/female breakdown) seen as being less worthwhile than films about or helmed by dudes?
I did some gathering of my own statistics yesterday and looked at this year's Black List. Now I obviously did not do an intensive, in-depth study and I have not read every script on the list and my counting may be off by one or two, but here's what I found: there were 97 films on the list. Of those 97, only 13 were written by or even co-written by women. OK, so let's say that's just the way things work, there are more male screenwriters than female screenwriters, so statistically it makes sense that more males would be on the Black List. But then look at the subject matter - and [according to the loglines], only 21 of them featured female leads or even co-leads (i.e. the logline says the film is about a couple or something). That's only a little bit more than 20%. I don't want to give the Black List more credit than it deserves - it's certainly not a definitive objective look at the best scripts - but the basic gist of it is that it is the industry's most well-liked screenplays of the year. Why doesn't the industry like "female" movies as much as "male" movies? (Female and male in quotes here because I just can't think of a more articulate way to describe what I'm talking about here.)
In fact, it seems like your argument quoting the little old ladies is actually reiterating that very perspective - you're saying that it seems completely right that they should like Leone, despite the film being quite male-centric. You use this to prove the point that demographics don't apply. But a better example would've been if you'd overheard some bodybuilders talking about AMELIE or JUNO, for example (though even these are imperfect examples, as they're both directed by guys, but I'm just mentioning them because they were generally well-regarded films with female leads), and saying how much they enjoyed them. What your anecdote proves here isn't that all good movies appeal to all people regardless of what demographic the viewer or the movie is believed to fit in -- it reinforces a belief that white male stories are universal, and that other stories are niche markets. That's the problem.
Don't misunderstand me, here -- I will reiterate that I think we all agree upon the fact that movies should be made based on quality. That should be the primary criteria, no matter what the charts say. But for some reason, movies by or about women are not seen as worthwhile stories or as able to reach a broader audience. I think that there are a lot of reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that the film industry is so hung up on this belief that it does not allow "female" movies (again with the quotes) to be made with the same resources and dedication as "male" movies. The result is this self-propogating cycle in which the "female" movies are accordingly lame as hell and therefore don't bring in good numbers, and thusly studios see this as an affirmation of their hypothesis that movies by/about women don't have universal appeal.
I don't want anybody to give me a job just cause I've got boobies. But I also don't want them to disregard an awesome script I wrote just because it's not about a guy.
Whoa whoa whoa. I don't know where we got the idea that I advocate some sort of series of hermetic bubbles in which people only watch movies about people like themselves. That's obviously completely ridiculous. Part of the reason we watch movies is to be taken somewhere else.
I also don't know where we got the idea that I advocate shitty movies from one-legged lesbian virgins over good movies. Who wants to watch bad movies? Not me, except with certain groups of friends and booze.
Have men made beautiful, insightful, touching movies about women? Completely! Look at Ang Lee, that guy is like a chameleon or character and setting. Crouching Tiger to Sense and Sensibility? Holy shit!
But not everyone has that dexterity. It's not the end of the world. John Huston always making Westerns doesn't make him a bad director, it just makes him a guy that makes Westerns. Ditto John Hughes with teenagers.
But you work in Hollywood, as do I. Don't try and tell me that the only reason someone gets greenlit to direct a movie is their innate talent and skill and nothing else. Why the hell do Chris Columbus and Brett Ratner still get to make stuff? Because their movies make bank? Come on, the studios throw so much P&A behind a shiny concept or a branded, cast movie -- how can they not make a certain amount of cash?
If we are going to keep up this discussion, focus less on "how you know you are right" and dumbing down my points and more on trying to understand what I'm saying before you automatically shelve it in your knee-jerk, anti-PC shelf, please.
We are dealing the issue of IS vs. OUGHT.
I use the little old ladies story because IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED in the real world. The reason I didn't cite the example of bodybuilders talking Devil Wears Prada or whatever is because I didn't witness it. Regardless, the point stands - a good movie appeals across the board.
And Robyn - I'm not missing your point at all or dumbing it down. Both you and Kat think the studios and audience should see more movies about women/minorities/etc and pay attention to awesome minority and women scripts/directors. What more is there to get?
My point is still the same...you can't get around the demographics issues by tweaking demographics.
I hope to see you at the WNBA finals. And Robyn, please stick to the arguments and avoid the ad hominem attacks on Public Musings.
Not "should", will. That's the point.
I'm not really interested in baseketball.
RE: the whole discussion about women in film etc.
I'll agree that rates aren't the best way to look at the issue. However, the point is that outside of the entertainment industry or circles of movie aficionados (which is where I'll openly admit I am), a name like Katherine Bigelow or Jane Campion just doesn't mean as much to people (ring the right bells, so to speak) as the likes of Herzog or Woody Allen. While I've heard of all the male directors discussed here and could name at least one film from each director, even if I haven't seen any of them, I know next to nothing about the female directors mentioned. Is it because these women directors are less talented or is something else happening?
Personally, I think that, in a broad sense, we still have this idea that creative (white) males are the "geniuses" out there whose works have to made for the good of all mankind, whereas creative females at most have to be supported for the self-esteem of other females (and blacks for blacks, etc.). This is what Kat is saying about the universalization of (white) male stories; we can and do identify with them. But you have to ask yourself if that identification is made by pure choice or limited by the selection of available films and their marketing. And if it is pure choice, why don't female directors get the same recognition/press/funding?
And you have to realize that for creative people who don't happen to be white males, it's really a double-edged sword. Even if you, as a member of an underrepresented group, distance yourself from the "issues" of that group, your identity will likely still be scrutinized by the public eye, whereas it's very unlikely that someone asks "How did your identity as a white male influence the making of this film?". I think this is actually what leads people to market themselves and their identities in "niche" markets; it's easier to satisfy the stereotypes than fight them. This is especially true of women, because there is a huge market out there for media that is targeted at women. We are, after all, not a minority.
Of course, maybe it's just a matter of time. You could argue that we've seen this kind of lag before with older media, like the novel. Literary women seemed to arrive on the scene just as printed literature was becoming (mostly) obsolete. If we're really looking to the future, I guess we should be sending women into the heart of video game design and related media.
"creative people who don't happen to be white males" - I heard about this new field, something called 'music' where apparently some non-male-whites are finding success.
a response to one of margaret's points -
we still have this idea that creative (white) males are the "geniuses" out there whose works have to made for the good of all mankind, whereas creative females at most have to be supported for the self-esteem of other females (and blacks for blacks, etc.).
well, i certainly don't have any reason to think the "genius" thing from above is true and don't think the data support it anyway, so many of working "genuises" of today's cinema are foreign born anyway. as for supporting minorities for the sake of supporting minorities, it is exactly this attitude i find offensive and have been arguing against from the get go of my posts.
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