Manohla Dargis Flips
Her interview berating Hollywood for not giving women more of a chance.
I'd be more apt to agree with her general issues if she didn't make it so gender specific. Yeah, it's a dorky frat boy atmosphere in terms of getting increasingly lame movies made. The lack of woman directing is a symptom of an overall problem, but not THE PROBLEM itself. Women aren't interested in helping other women. And neither are men interested in helping women for the sake of helping women. It just isn't the way things work. All this woman-power stuff in Hollywood is just more interest-group politics. What's the difference between oil men and nuclear power men? Oil men have more money and power and influence. If the shoe was on the other foot, it wouldn't change all that much. Do I prefer more Sex in the City or more Transformers? The answer is neither.
12 comments:
Your whole last line of this post is part of Manohla's point -- that for some reason, people see movies themselves as being such a gendered thing. Like what women WANT to see is more SEX AND THE CITY. (Directed by a man, BTW, so not really making your point. Maybe substitute THE HOLIDAY?) Maybe some do, but I don't think that an overload of Carrie Bradshaw would be the result of more working female directors of mainstream features. It's just what people have decided the result would be. And that's the problem -- that all the decisions about what women (or fill in the blank with whatever non-white, non-male audience you are talking about) want to see and make have been made without those women's (or non-white, non-male audience's) input.
i don't think it's a stretch to say the main audience for SEX IN THE CITY was female and the main audience for TRANSFORMERS is male. my point was that both these movies suck - and that's a gender neutral point. and i don't think more numerical equity in male/female directors would in and of itself make any difference whatsoever in the quality of movies that get made.
No, I don't think anybody would claim that frat houses across the US took field trips to see SEX AND THE CITY on Friday nights. Or that either of those movies are great films. But I would propose that one of the reasons that they suck so much (besides bad writing, bad performances, nonsensical plots, etc.) is that someone up there greenlighting movies decides to make a movie for women with lots of smooching or a movie for men with lots of robotic combat instead of just making a good movie. The industry sees things in terms of labels and genres and demographics and not in terms of quality -- that's the problem. (Though of course quality is a subjective term so perhaps that's why it's been taken out of the equation?)
agreed. except i don't think quality is subjective.
uncreative business middlemen make decisions by demographics and quadrants because they don't have any taste and therefore don't trust their own. they also fear for their jobs when the bottom line doesn't work out and want to be able to explain their decisions to their bosses with excel spreadsheets.
yyyaaaaayyyy we agree hugsies!!!
I have to say, I really liked her article. It always irritates me that the NYT won't print swear words. It's one of the things that hinders it as a publication. I digress, however.
There are a couple of things here. One of them is that Hollywood movies and TV, like it or not, are the most important cultural touchstone of our time. As a planet. Partly, this is because they are such an immersive experience. When you are in the dark, watching a movie, nothing gets in your way, short of the badness of the movie itself. You get to live in that world and that experience. So yeah, it's a problem when (through whatever stupid reasons) the only kind of person who gets to create that experience falls consistently into a narrow demographic. Can men direct great movies about women? Yes! Hello, Thelma and Loiuse! But women can direct great movies about too. About women, but also about men. Look at the history of literature. For years the canon was all these DWM (Dead White Males, for anyone without snark and a BA in English). Did they make beautiful books and tell beautiful stories? Of course? Fucking brilliant stuff! And you know what, some women even got themselves published too (which usually ruined their lives, but hey, it's cool). But did we miss out on the 1854 version of Zadie Smith and Derek Wolcott and Hiromi Goto? Yep! We sure did!
Okay, that's the sort of moral, cultural betterment/intellectual reason I agree with her.
The other reason I agree with her is pure factual cash: good movies about women make money. People go and see them. As Dargis points out: people what to see themselves on screen. The first time I watched My So-Called Life, I nearly had a heart attack. So if we are making movies that show people (all kinds of people) themselves, shouldn't we be a little more open to having all kinds of people make them?
Look at Precious and The Blind Side-- two movies that talk about poor, young, black people in America. Which one would you say has a more condescending, soft-pitch view of that experience? Which one is confident enough to play with stereotypes without letting them run the show? The one the white guy made or the one the black guy made? (disclaimer: I work for the company that is distributing Precious)
It is, on one had, a PC can of worms. It is, on the other, totally simple -- don't let race or gender act as a disability in a director.
robyn - no one suggests letting race act as a disability in director, except for you! you're the one who attributes the blind side softness to fact that the director is white.
you believe racial/gender diversity has some sort of intellectual or cultural value in and of itself. i don't. these things are elements of who we are as people, artists, etc and of not much more significance than our height, weight, or what number sibling we are.
Re: paragraph one: Really? Wow. You totally missed my point. And thanks.
Re: paragraph two: I don't think you actually believe this, though I can see for your argument in paragraph one it's convenient for right now.
so in robyn-logic world, i'm supposed to understand your point despite what you wrote:
"Which one would you say has a more condescending, soft-pitch view of that experience? Which one is confident enough to play with stereotypes without letting them run the show? The one the white guy made or the one the black guy made?"
you imply the soft-pitch-ness of the blind side is due to whiteness and the confident-to-play-with-stereotypes has to do with blackness. nevermind that your same studio releases all the tyler perry movies which are chalk full of soft-pitch black stereotypes.
and i stand by my second paragraph. apparently in robyn-logic world neither you nor me mean what we write. i think there is a gender stereotype going on here...
Okay, let's go back to Dargis, then. You write that both women and men "aren't interested in helping women for the sake of helping women." The MATERIAL POINT Dargis is making in her interview is that it has NOTHING to do with helping women for the sake of helping women. It has to do with putting women in the director seat for the sake of helping to make good movies that women (51% of the population) want to see. She points to a number of movies that outgrossed all expectations to the bewilderment of NRG et al, when really the simple explanation is that if you make movies that invite women in (strong female characters, female themes) they will go to the movies. As someone who works in film, I'm sure you know that most entertainment is pitched to appeal to a male demographic, aged 18 - 45. Her point is: WHY? You can build a business making good movies for women. Why aren't people doing that?
She's not asking for a pity pass for the girls, or the gays, or the people of color. She's saying that Hollywood should consider that this idea that you always have to hit the ball to the male 18-45 bracket is dumb.
Tyler Perry has built a business on making African-American movies for an African-American audience. If you watch those movies, you know: they are not meant for you. Sure, you can watch them, but they aren't talking to you. They are talking to their audience.
To be more clear on what I was saying on Precious vs. The Blind Side: I don't think either movie is soft. I do think they are culturally very interesting, however, because they both deal with (a few details aside) exactly the same cultural problem, but in completely different ways. Precious is about a black girl who gets saved from degredation and abuse and The Blind Side is about a white woman who saves a black boy from poverty and crime. Precious looks at some incredibly ugly facets of human nature, it depicts the main character stealing and gorging on fried chicken (racist stereotype) and it portrays an African-American mother (a venerated figure in African-American culture) as possibly the most dispicable character since Iago. These two aspects of the story have been major discussion points in interviews with the director, Lee Daniels. I'm happy to send you clips. These aspects of the movie are only parts of a much larger whole, however, they are still a part of that whole. Do I think Daniels would have made this same movie if he was white? Do you think he would have? Who do you think he is talking to with his movie?
The African-American characters in The Blind Side, on the other hand, are pretty simple. We have Michael, the gentle giant, whose strongest character moments involve folding sheets nicely, hugging his brother who he hasn't seen for years. Folding and hugging. As for other African-American characters: the drug dealers act like drug dealers, the concerned coaches act like concerned coaches. Basically there is no character depth to any of these people. Granted, this is not an art film, but every member of the white family (with the exception of the little boy) go through a character arc with conflict and inner life. But Michael doesn't seem to have any inner life at all. We get flashbacks of his traumatic past. And one time he pushes over the evil drug dealers. But the guy is basically impermeable as a person. For a character in a story, that means I don't care about him.
Did this happen because the filmmaker is white? I don't know. But he made a movie about a bunch of white people who have transformative experiences while surrounding a black person who has zero personality or arc.
Which takes us back to Dargis's point: people are desperate to see a version of their life experience onscreen, that's why we love the movies: for the humor and the excitement and the romance, but all of that grows out of the humanity. She's pointing out that there is ample evidence for that hunger in how women have been driving box office success. The exact same thing is happening with Tyler Perry movies.
I agree with her.
May I summarize? You think the studios ought to make more movies for neglected demographics like women and minorities and old people. And you think by putting women and minorities and old people in the director's chair, the studios will achieve this goal.
I think we (you, me, and Manohla) agree the studios making decisions-by-demographic leads to a suboptimal outcome. Where we disagree is the solution. You advocate adjusting the decision-by-demographic to better reflect the population, etc. You go further to suggest we need directors of those same demographics in order to make good movies those demographics will respond to. I disagree with both of those points. I don't think adjusting the decision-by-demographic will increase the overall quality of the movies, just increase the number of shitty movies made for women, minority, and old people audiences. I believe this approach to movie-making is a recipe for continued disaster and is basically looking through the wrong end of the spyglass.
I advocate putting movie studios back in the hands of movie-people vs. business-people and privileging quality over demographics. I'd rather have 20 great movies about dead-white-males than 5-5-5-5 shitty movies fulfilling a perfect racial quota. And likewise, I'm perfectly happy to have Katherine Bigelow, Jane Campion, Nicole Holofcener, and Lynn Ramsey all making a movie a year. And yes, I'd probably watch them, despite you challenge that "they aren't made for me." Which, I find to be a neglectful point. Studios call these "cross-over" hits when there's actually a much better term for it - Good Movies. Audiences want to see GOOD MOVIES. Not black movies or white movies or women movies or guy movies. For Crissake, we watched Dirty Harry together, and you loved it.
If we focus on quality, i think the demographics take care of themselves. If we focus on demographics, it just a race to the bottom.
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