As I get older and hear more about women’s experiences, it gets clearer and clearer to me that movies and TV are dominated by male POV
I suspect this is why so many men have weird expectations of women – our ideas of women are informed predominantly by men, not women
(how insidious it must be for girls and young women, to grow up watching representations of women as manifestations of male fantasy)
I’m not talking particularly about sex and sexy things, by the way, though that’s significant. I’m talking about much more subtle things
Watched a couple of movies tonight (Minority Report, and Off Course – a spanish film). Both obviously written+directed by men. Why obvious?
It’s obvious but also subtle. Like video game lag. The female characters have this simplistic pliancy about them, trusting the protagonist
The Terminal – what did Catherine Zeta-Jones see in Tom Hanks? It was “plot romance” – would never happen IRL. Male fantasy
Here’s a good way to contrast it. Take Prison Break + Orange Is The New Black. Two shows about prisons, written by men and women respectively. Pay careful attention to the male/female relationships between characters in both shows. OITNB more thoroughly fleshes out all of the nuance, negotiation, back-and-forth, the sussing out and feeling. (Mean Girls does this really well, too)
I don’t mean to say that male stories, takes, POVs, etc are bad. I mean, they’re literally like, 95% of what we talk about. Hero’s Journey. So like… I want to see more women-driven media. We’re missing out on half of the human experience. And it’s the more interesting half.
I was watching Get Out a few days ago. It’s a movie that makes you feel worried for a black character. Watch it, it’s really good + refreshing. I remember thinking – apart from maybe OINTB, Glow, Gilmore Girls… there are still few popular shows that make you worry about women / see things their way
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keeping an eye out for women’s art is the quickest way to expand your mind. these are so great
one of the tragic ways that women’s art, perspectives, essays, etc are framed as “we must do this for gender equality purposes”
that’s completely back-asswards
we must do this because women’s POVs, having been so underrepresented, contain some of the freshest, best insights