(no subject)

[meganbmoore]

Someone please rescue me from exploring The Hathor Legacy's archives.  I am currently trapped in this post (regarding whether or not female audiences are "listened to") and the links in it to other articles.

A couple quotes:

When women dropped over half a billion to see Titanic, frequently citing Kate Winslet and/or her character as their reason (and the special effects in more than a few cases), it was dismissed as a fluke. The biggest gross-earner of all time, and we’re not allowed to learn anything from its success because it was just a fluke. And why was it a fluke? Uh, something about when it was released, and what else was out, and er, stuff. Conventional wisdom. Don’t question it.

On the DVD extras for Firefly, a Fox sci-fi series that was troubled from the get-go and cancelled after 15 episodes, Chris Buchanan (president of Mutant Enemy, creator Joss Whedon’s production company) said:

“The initial results - they made the network nervous. The men didn’t respond as strongly as they thought they would, and the women responded more strongly.”
 

But you know, back to Titanic for a moment.  Err...when it came out I was one of the masses of teenaged girls who were "ZOMG! Best romance ever!"  (leave me alone!)  And then I got over it and went into the seemingly-required "that movie and Leonardo DiCaprio suck and are overrated!" phase...and then I got over those.  Now I like it for Rose.  And the special effects.

BUT!  a spoilery question!

Was Jack fridged for Rose?  Ultimately, his main purpose is to show her that she can do what she wants: break out of her sheltered little world and live her own life by her own merits.  That accomplished, he dies, and Rose moves on to a more fulfilling life, and other men.



ETA:  This and a comment remind me of a thought I've had a few times but never put enormous thought into.  Does it seem to anyone else that attention to women and movies comes in waves?  Like, you have the 30s-50s, where parts of various movies-if not entire movies-seem to be specifically geared towards women, not just in terms of romance.  And then it's like studios went "Hey!  All women need is to have a woman there.  We'll just tuck her into the background and focus on the guys.  Who are more interesting anyway.  All women want is a romance anyway."  And then you get to Sci Fi and fantasy getting popular, and somebody notices "Hey!  I think some women like this stuff!"  and we get Heroines.  And then studios got deja vu and went "Hey!  All women need is to have a woman there.  We'll just tuck her into the background and focus on the guys.  Who are more interesting anyway.  All women want is a romance anyway." again.

Leia:  Politician, rebel, soldier, leader.  Dictates her own life and fate.  Says "stuff you" when men object.
Padme:  Politician, leader, sometime-fighter.  Starts awesome, ultimately reduced to a source of Anakin's angst.

Both spawned from the same brain, just a couple decades apart.

Comments

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Your point about there being few Hollywood movies with interesting women is spot-on (I want to use that particular phrasing because unfortunately Hollywood does produce a number of 'women-oriented' movies, but most of those are incipid romcoms where women are neurotic, useless basketcases only needing to marry and of no intrinsic interest whatsoever).

It also made me realize why I think I ended up going off the deep end so for dramas. While I wouldn't call a vast majority of them feminist (most of them have fairly traditional 'love conquers all' message, not that there is anything wrong with that), they are woman-oriented and their heroines are as present and as interesting as the men, whether it's a historical epic (the current Kingdom of the Winds has a plethora of strong and interesting women characters) or even a fluffy romcom (I wouldn't consider the heroine of ISWAK a feminist model or even particularly bright, but there is no doubt ISWAK is her story, told through 'her' lens, unlike a lot of American movies which purport to be telling a woman's story but in reality barely bother creating a character at all).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Caveat to first paragraph: And the men in them aren't much better. Why are so many of us comparatively crazy for 27 Dresses when those movies normally give us hives? Because both leads are likable, perfectly competent, and have actual personalities.

I give dramas a lot of slack for THINGS THAT ENRAGE ME because they do tend to focus on the female. And with period dramas (and movies and books) you usually have a conscious effort to give the female characters things to do. (In Emperor of the Sea, the heroine has her own rivalry and plotline going on the whole time. And Damo and Hwang Jin Yi are all about the heroine.) Granted, part of this is because I think the creators tend to be more aware of the need to pay attention to the female, due to the societies of the time.