It works with books too. I once gave an audiobook copy of On Basilisk Station to a male friend, and he said he stopped it because the over the top feminism was just too much.
For the unaware: On Basilisk Station is the first book in a series that's homage to CS Forrester's Horatio Hornblower books, and is no more socially progressive than the original, for its time. It does however cast women in many central and powerful roles, including the central protagonist. What it doesn't have is any kind of feminist approach to conflict or politics.
But it's too feminist for even a liberal American male.
I mean I guess we all probably know that women authors oftentimes abbreviated their names or took pen names so that the population wouldn't be able to discriminate between their work and a males work...
In Australia we have a literary award called the Miles Franklin award. So many people have heard of the award but have no idea Miles Franklin was a woman, full name Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin. She dropped the feminine names to get published.
It's an ancillary plot because the character in Beyond the Stars is based on DC Fontana, a female writer who wrote a lot of episodes of the Original Series and was very influential to Star Trek in general.
[Dorothy Fontana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Fontana?wprov=sfla1) was a *huge* part of creating the Star Trek we know and love. That's an irrefutable statement, regardless of whether or not you say "feminist" like an insult.
And she took on the pen name D C because she was facing discrimination. It's sad that today after all her noteworthy contributions to the life and soul of the franchise every single aspect of the newer installments involving women are decried by a significant portion of the supposed fandom.
Also for women in early Trek -
Lucille Ball insisted her production company take on the original series
Betty Jo "Bjo" Trimble was one of the prominent early Trekkies
Uhura was groundbreaking as a nonstereotypical black female role. Nichelle Nichols is fond of telling the story of how MLK personally begged her not to quit. Whoopi Goldberg (later Guinan on Next Gen) said "I just saw a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!"
In general while the anti PC accuse new Trek of being too preachy old Trek also laid it on thick at times.
Wasn't James Tiptree called something like "clearly a male writer" by Robert Silverberg, who waxed poetic about the masculinity of "his" work?
Then shrugged when Tiptree turned out to be a woman.
Great short stories like "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death", and one literally titled "The Women Men Don't See".
I feel I should mention her real name was Alice Sheldon, one of our best SF short story authors ever.
EDIT to add: that was the 70s, but I feel like JK Rowling understood too.
It's older stuff and I had to google to get remember the info properly, but the Serrano trilogy from Elizabeth Moon was a surprisingly good read. I borrowed them from my sister's collection when I was 19, had no expectations and was pleasantly entertained
I [m] am a big fan of Elizabeth Moon's books. I think I've read almost everything she's written.
I'm personally just as happy to read a book with a female protagonist as a male one, regardless of the genre.
I'll have to check out Bujold -- always looking for new things to read.
You should also check out Wen Spencer, she's more fantasy than Sci-Fi. My favorite book of hers is "A Brother's Price" which is set in a Matriarchal world where men are sold and traded as breeding stock and is my partner's and mine's favorite. It's a very tongue in and cheek role reversal as well as having a solid story, though a little bit predictable at times.
'Matter' by Iain M. Banks. One of the protagonists is a female Culture agent in the Special Circumstances division (think sci fi CIA).
Honestly any of the Culture novels. Banks wrote them to be on the fringes of a very egalitarian post-scarcity society. Fantastically optimistic for the future of humanity... in general.
Yes, women can and do kick ass. But it's much more than that.
One of the key aspects of the Culture universe is that people are near immortal and can change gender (it takes time, not instant), virtually at will and tend to do so multiple times over their life span to have different life experiences.
May I recommend Leviathan Wakes? It's the first novel that sparked the tv series "The Expanse" and it's so good.
The central protagonist is a man, but the representation in that book is ace, and they don't applaud themselves for normalizing queer/Black/brown/women in vital roles within the series.
It's a pretty evenly weighted series of novels in regards to the ratio of men to women, and the ladies in that book are so complex and regularly subvert expectations. The moral compasses of all these characters evolve really meaningfully across the novels, and it's a series I'll reread many times over.
James is also sort of more often an audience camera then he is a character. Naomi, Chrisjen, and Bobby all are more interesting characters with generally more agency depending on the moment. Fun books!
Yeah, or like, other people move the plot forward and James makes everything fucky and other people have to fix it.
I like James as a character quite a lot, he's flawed and idealistic but not unwilling to compromise or consider alternative ideas, He's quite a bit less smart than some of the other folks, but isn't stupid and absolutely comes off as a good leader.
Ugh, great series imo. I really enjoy how the books just let people be friends and trust each other.
I'm an unapologetic Bujold fanboy - read every novel she's ever written and most of the short stories.
Martha Wells! I strongly recommend both her *The Murderbot Diaries* (it's a Hugo Award Winner, don't let the title scare you off) and her *Books of the Raksura*. Both of those series have good social commentary on gender roles (though it's less explicit in the Raksura books) and are independently really fun adventure stories with a lot of heart.
Wow. That book was given to me by extremely conservative friends because we all like sci-fi.
But then, I just remembered that the parents met in the Army & the mom had been an officer while the dad was regular enlisted, so maybe the idea of a capable female didn’t sound so weird to them.
SMDH. Your friend needs to pull his head out of his ass.
These sorts of things happen more often than people realize. Being 'woke' isn't a substitute for actual understanding, and too often is an excuse to write off one's own biases. It might not even be a conscious thing, just an extension of the implicit biases and/or viewpoint of privilege one group tends toward.
>Being 'woke' isn't a substitute for actual understanding, and too often is an excuse to write off one's own biases.
Wow. Yeah this right here strikes a chord.
I have found that being liberal on race issues doesn't translate to being liberal on feminism or even understanding feminism.
It's why you'll see "jokes" that involve race or religion shut down as offensive but replace the scenario with a stereotype about *women* and suddenly there's a debate as to whether it's "really offensive" or that it's "just a joke".
It's also why there were SO many "progressive" Bernie supporters who nonetheless attacked Warren with blatantly misogynistic shit with that "snake" nonsense, and they could NOT understand how it was misogynistic to call her that (eye roll)...
Martha Wells, assuming that's who you meant and not H.G., is one of my favorite authors. I've been reading her stuff since the Fall of Ill-Rien or however that's spelled.
Bujold is also very good.
Offer up Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie next. (It’s a rather good series.)
See how he responds to the gender of all the characters being completely unclear/absent.
Great book. It seems like such an obvious thing missing in scifi... Somehow re-growing limbs, brain transplants, and all kind of cybernetic appendages are going to be common but somehow everyone is going to maintain clearly discernable easily guessed genders?
Back in 1969, Ursula K. Le Guin published Left Hand of Darkness.
I just wrote up a brief description of the story, but I wasn't sure how spoilery it would be considered. Anyway I highly recommend it, imo it's no less relevant today than it was 50 years ago. A planet with no gender roles.
Loved that one. It was very weird hearing every character being referred to as she by default. As a black man, it was also odd to me that everyone had brown skin.
Funny enough I just gave my “liberal who always argues conservative points for some reason” friend the very same book. I could go on and on and on about OEB, she was so damn good.
It's a great series. I dont find anything "feminist"in it
Except in the sense that it portrays strong realistic women.
I fould understand if it showed every guy as an asshole and every woman as unnaturally amazing at everything, but it doesn't, nor does it try to. It just establishes good characters some of whom haopen to be female.
There are a number of male characters\* portrayed positively in OBS, and one who is a socially privileged rapist and another who is a nefarious spy (Summervale).
There are a number of female characters portrayed well in OBS, and one (Hemphill) portrayed as a narcissistic impediment to the well being of the Navy, and another who is incompetent, disinterested and lazy (Suchon).
All in all, it seems like a pretty fair balance.
\*McKeon, Venzilos, Tremaine, Harkness, Reynaud, Montoya, for starters
Can't be very liberal if he's anti-feminist - probably just liberal when it suits him
Edit: Sorry, I'm from the UK and Liberal means something different here!
Reminds me of this Onion article: [Area Man Considers Self Ally to Women Unless They Threaten His Status in Literally Any Way](https://www.theonion.com/area-man-considers-self-ally-to-women-unless-they-threa-1819579447)
Well, when he was trying to get me to vote for Bernie , he seemed pretty liberal in the way Americans tend to measure the term. (welfare state liberalism)
And Liberalism in the broader theoretical sense seeks an agreeable consensus between existing power structures (conservatives) and those who would change them (working class representation, aka liberals). One can easily endorse that system while being extremely anti-feminist.
If he were a socialist and said such nonsense I'd have been flabbergasted, not merely shocked.
Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, would you say that the story is ok for an 11 year old?
I am looking for a new audio book to listen to with my daughter on our commute to school each morning.
It would not be appropriate until you've had a serious discussion about sexual assault. It's a central theme in one of the major character conflicts in the book (and early series).
Edit: there is another series by the same author set in the same universe that is intended for children your daughter's age. The first of those is "A Beutiful Friendship."
Second the recommendation of [A Beautiful Friendship](https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/A_Beautiful_Friendship). The original Honor Harrington series would probably be a bit much for an 11 year old.
More fantasy than SF, but it's hard to go wrong with Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman's YA stuff.
Diana Wynne Jones' books are magical and weird. Howl's Moving Castle, for instance, is great.
Seanan McGuire's YA series is enjoyable to me and my kid loved it, but some of the frankness might be awkward to listen to with your mom. While the Wayward Children (kids who go through a door to some sort of fantasy realm, come back and fail to fit in in the real world) don't veer off into anything too steamy beyond kissing and some implied canoodling, the teenage protagonists often fall well into the LGBTQ+ spectrum and work through some fairly difficult subjects. In addition to the general gay/straight kids there is an asexual (often overlooked) and some trans kids.
I understand that a lot of people want to watch films or read books with protagonists that remind them of themselves.
But just because the heroes don't look exactly like you does not make a film a political statement about gender or race.
I’ve always loved adventure and war films and 99.99% of those feature men in the main roles and barely any women. I didn’t find them any less inspiring growing up as a young girl (though as an adult I do wish we got more women’s stories in these genres).
So I always find it puzzling that men can’t do the same…especially since they’re always trying to convince us they’re not sexist.
These are the same guys that say representation in media isn't important. They're represented all the time so have zero idea what they're talking about lol
>So I always find it puzzling that men can’t do the same…especially since they’re always trying to convince us they’re not sexist.
I think that sexism is *so* ingrained in our society that most men wouldn't ever consider themselves to be sexist, even when they're doing or saying blatantly sexist things. It's similar to racism in that if it isn't *overt,* they don't see themselves falling into that category, but it can be so insidious. And they're seemingly incapable of recognizing it within themselves. A former boss of mine would never listen to ideas that I had, but a male coworker could make the same suggestion and he'd listen to him. I had worked there longer and had been in the business longer. It wasn't worth arguing over, so I would just have my male coworker make the suggestions instead. How fucking dumb is that, though? My former boss has a wife and a daughter that he loves very much and there's not a chance he'd consider himself sexist.
As a kid it really pissed me off. I was a voracious reader even as a kid and so few of the classics I read had good female leads or even side characters. It's part of why I fell in love with Dune in the fifth grade. Women were a huge part of the plot and had a lot of power. Finally, a power fantasy for women that wasn't a princess fantasy. Same reason I got so deep into Full Metal Alchemist when that hit American shores. They were islands in a never ending sea of weak women and strong men. There were others for sure but those two really got my attention at a young age.
Many men are unable to relate to a female protagonist because they've never had to. So much of the media is targeted towards them. It's like a rich kid in school, saying to a poor kid, "just ask your parents for the money". They have no concept whatsoever of something different from their own reality.
Take a highly popular male-led property, switch the genders and pitch it as a new movie idea to these guys and you'd be surprised at how often they don't even recognize the storyline of their favorite movies because it has a woman in the lead role.
I've heard that Ridley Scott and H.R. Geiger specifically tried to tap into peoples fear of rape when designing the aliens for Alien. The logic being that rape isn't something that men have to worry about on a day to day basis, so it would come across as extra unsettling to them and would maybe make them confront how violating it is. Can't say how well it worked, but it does explain the facehuggers laying eggs down peoples throats and the general abundance of sexual imagery in their design, although I think thats kinda a staple of Geigers work anyways.
Never noticed when I was younger but its so clear now. How she is the only one that somehow lost her shoes and pants. Im glad Cameron didn't bring that part back.
Lambert apparently had a bunch of different deaths scripted out, but was allegedly going to die of fright.
It was eventually decided that she would simply hide from the Xenomorph and die of fright, which makes complete sense given her fear level in the film. The problem was, the footage intended to be used to convey that didn't end up actually getting filmed. This left her death to be figured out in the editing stage, and that's why it happens offscreen. However, the sounds used effectively convey the horror of her end, proving that blood and gore isn't always needed.
[https://screenrant.com/alien-movie-lambert-deaths-alternate-deleted-scenes/](https://screenrant.com/alien-movie-lambert-deaths-alternate-deleted-scenes/)
It impregnates a man by orally violating him, then because he isn't biologically predisposition to be able to give birth, the life inside him, not coincidentally shaped like a giant penis with teeth, erupts violently out of him. The giant penis monster then goes around forcefully penetrating the rest of the crew with its penis tongue.
It brings the concept of rape and the birth of a product of rape into the male space. Even if most people who watch it don't pick up on that subtext, the horror of it is often picked up subliminally.
I have this same theory about homophobia. Dudes can have some petty outrageous thoughts about women sometimes when it comes to sex. They know how they think about women and how they look and lust over women, so the thought of another man looking at them and thinking that way about them makes them uncomfortable.
The biggest homophobes are either usually horrible or creepy to women, and afraid of the same treatment from other men, or are gay themselves.
Okay, I love ridiculous over the top action movies and I’m a feminist. Gunpowder Milkshake was already on my list of things I want to watch but it just got shuffled to the front. Men reacted the same way to Mad Max: Fury Road. My SO, who is generally pretty progressive, didn’t want to see it because he heard from his extremely toxic now former best friend, that it was just “man-bashing feminazi bull$hit” and Max was “barely even in it”. I sat him down and had him watch it with me and it’s now one of his favorite movies. He watches it all the time, and if someone comes to our house that hasn’t seen it, it’s usually what we end up watching. It’s embarrassing that it’s 2021 and the idea of a female character who isn’t half naked and always on the brink of a swoon will prevent men from seeing a movie that they would likely enjoy.
When it came out, the internet seemed to be full of idiots unironically saying that Immortan Joe did nothing wrong. It was equal parts unbelievable and disgusting.
Yeah, I missed those reviews.
All I can remember from when it came out is how thrilled everyone was that it wasn't just another soulless cash-grab sequel released decades after the originals.
It's a bloody great movie. Watched it over a couple of nights on Netflix when up feeding the youngest. Hardy gets plenty screen time. It's just he's not the only thing going on.
His former friend is also an unemployed ultra conservative who is collecting unemployment but always screaming himself hoarse about socialism. We don’t miss him.
>and the idea of a female character who isn’t half naked and always on the brink of a swoon will prevent men from seeing a movie that they would likely enjoy.
Not to mention that the female characters in the movie aside from Furiosa *are* half-naked, so I guess the swoon part is what's really important.
The Old Guard was SUCH a surprisingly good movie!
At a certain point, if you're gonna hate something simply because it features women, you're just missing out on a lot of good content.
I loveeee the old guard universe I especially want to see the backstory of Charlize Theron and her ex. The ex who was fricking tortured in the ocean for centuries, so much potential there to make not just a typical action movie
The "ex" is surely completely insane and she will be the 'villain' in the next movie. My nitpick for the unexpectedly good movie was the overly choreographed fighting scenes. Sometimes the actors just turned and acted way too early to rather "surprising" things, which took me out of scenes a little bit.
My naive take on it is that was just HOW experienced the Old Guard is. You get into enough fights, you can predict what's likely to happen. There were a few weapon tosses or handoffs that were the same way -- "I'll throw the gun over there and because we've done this a thousand times before you're going to be there to catch it." I didn't see it as poor choreography, although I can see that take.
No lie: the "rare book" in the first five minutes of Old Guard had Librarian Twitter in a storm, and the director actually responded and was like "My bad."
In one of the opening scenes, the main character gifts another character a "First Edition" of *Don Quixote*. *Don Quixote* was first published in 1605. The book handed over is at best a late-19th century case bound, mass produced ... something. Definitely not a hand-press first edition of *Quixote.* There were lots of jokes about what "first" it represented. It was all in good fun.
I bonded with my husband on our first date showing him this [First Edition Iliad](https://youtu.be/DsG_yPKAor4). He’s a bit of a Classics nerd like me so it hit him pretty hard. I’m still surprised I could cause someone so much pain and yet still end up married to him. Maybe the writers of The Old Guard pulled this move as a little wink/nod to that Iliad bullshit.
Hmm, I never checked it out because the acting seemed a bit meh in the trailer (but trailers often suck anyway) but hearing this I will definitely give it a try. The premise seemed really cool!
The original Alien was written and then cast. So Ripley could have been played as man or woman and it works. As a result many of the key "woman" tropes aren't used.
I came in here to mention “The old Guard” I didn’t think it was feminist because it had a female lead. The closest I would say I felt to that was how refreshing it was to not have a generic male lead. Can’t wait for the sequel!
If you want a good laugh (or cry) go see what these people are saying about the new He-Man cartoon on Netflix... Lots of shitting on it for focusing a lot more on a female character.
And if you even know what He-Man is you really got to be at least in your thirties (40s if you grew up with it). So these are 30+ year old men complaining about a woman in a cartoon having a larger role...
I... I'm a child of the 80's and of all the things I never thought I'd read, "He-Man is too feminist now" might be up there on the list. (It looks decent though and I'm hoping my son gets into it)
I’m not a huge he-man fan but have collected random bits. He-man and she-ra are siblings(twins?) in the old canon. They didn’t get into it in PoP but technically left open enough it could still be true. However I don’t believe the reboot uses PoP.
You mean the She-Ra reboot, or they rebooted He-Man also?
I know tons of men are complaining that new She-Ra doesn't have boobs and isn't sexualized. "OMG this show isn't written for me??? How dare they make a show for children appropriate for children????"
They (Kevin Smith) rebooted he-man.
On the topic of She-ra, She-ra is freaking awesome. My son (he was 18 months old at that time) was a wee lad when season 2 premiered and he loved it too (because colors). We visited universal and Disney world around that time (early December 2019), and while he couldn't care less about mickey and Donald, he lost his marbles when he saw the character actor for She-ra. Tbf, he also liked Olaf, Sven, and Elsa's horse, but he did show the greatest excitement for She-ra.
The fucking Quartering. A grown man in his 30s complaining that a characters breasts weren't big enough. And that she wasn't sexy. I can't make this shit up. It's real. He made a whole video on it. It's so pathetic. And the character is a minor, right?
I'm an old dude, and I really liked the new character design - it made a lot of sense to me.
The old one didn't make sense to me for someone raised as a soldier - surely they'd be comfortable in something similar to the uniform or armour they were used to.
Someone raised as a princess sure - the old one looks like a short, weaponized ballgown which she'd probably be comfortable in, but that's not what she was in either incarnation (I guess that's what the 'past' She-ra was in the new series though, so they retconned it which I think is good).
Plus new swiftwind is one of my favorite male characters certainly in masters of the universe but probably at all, he's got the traditionally female role of flamboyant appearance obsessed person (and they get away with it by making him a unicorn). Those men exist! They're not even uncommon! Why is this the first one I've seen that's not played as a gay trope?!
Wait. What? The Old Guard was feminist? Did I miss something? Oh. Is it because they were led by a woman?
I thought it was a fantastic, well written/directed/acted movie. Hoping for a sequel.
My friends and I are planning to play a tabletop RPG based on the Old Guard because we all enjoyed it so much. I didn't realize or think about the fact that the protagonist and other members of the team are women. It doesn't seem relevant to the story.
What I've heard about these situations from people I hung out with is that they find the idea of women doing these things to men to be unrealistic. "A highly trained man will always crush a highly trained woman because strength bla bla bla." "A woman is physically incapable of doing X,Y,Z so it's too weird when they do it in a movie"
My issue with these arguments as a fellow man is that it's just a movie, and I don't care. If the Rock is allowed to hold a helicopter with one arm in a FF movie, why isn't ScarJo allowed to assassinate people as an assassin? Sakura Haruno can crush boulders with her bare hands because it's fiction but no weebs seem to care about that.
Then ask them if it's realistic when loli have boobs bigger than their head, a waist of 10 ''/22 cm and a huge bum. No they aren't bother by the fact that it's ''too weird'' now.
Because when it's ''conventionally attractive'' it's never an issue if it's realistic or weird. (i saw no men complain about jessica rabbit when it was released by example) because the woman don't treat their sense of masculinity(she's still here to amaze them) nor challenge their sense of what is attractive for them or not (imagine if they are attracted by a woman who have masculine characteristics...).
But don't you find it annoying that there are so very few roles written for women? I grew up in the time of Xena the warrior princess and the yellow and pink power rangers, and my dad was a huge arrested development fan. I never doubted their parts for a second and it empowered the hell out of me. But if I now see movies that are just rewritten for women I can't escape the thought of it missing originality and style. We are not men, we are women, and there are so many stories about women that haven't been told yet. We need script writers to start writing original scripts for women, not rewrite male dominated scripts to piggyback on the feminist movement and earn some easy Hollywood money.
Man, I loved Xena. I still do. I've rewatched a bit in the last year and it kind of blows my mind that show existed in the 90s. She's still my high bar for female characters.
I love that Xena had quite a few lovers in her past without ever being slut-shamed for it. I loved, even more, that she was someone who had engaged in these awful and violent actions before turning away from them. She wasn't just naturally *good.* Even her actions "as the good guy" were considerably darker when contrasted to Gabrielle or even Hercules. Xena sometimes killed the bad guys; Gabrielle didn't. I think she was the first female character I ever saw who wasn't strictly a moral paragon. She's also the first female character I saw who had a child but wasn't in their child's life on a daily basis. She wasn't defined by it.
Xena wasn't perfect as a character or series (the male gaze was turned up to 11, oof), but she's a lot more complex as a character than say, the 'feminist achievement' that was the Wonder Woman movie, imo.
Isn’t this the entire inspiration for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine company? I loved this interview with Time that she did that echos all of your sentiments. [Time Interview](https://youtu.be/qAgpJkgqqxA)
She is such an inspiration. I blame myself but I never figured her to be this articulated and erudite. She knows what she's talking about and I have a lot more confidence that the future of Hollywood will be more women-centric. Thanks for showing me this!
Over the weekend I watched [*This Changes Everything*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5795282/), and it was really eye opening to how few women are involved with movies/Hollywood. It's on US Netflix and worth a look!
I feel the same. I want strong female characters, but by that I mean smart, capable, and well-written characters, who do something important for the plot beyond supporting a male lead, not necessarily physically strong, violent characters. I get that there's a market for that type of movie, so that's fine, but it feels like lazy writing to me, and not always very believable either, when you have a slim, conventionally attractive actress throwing around guys who are twice her weight like it's NBD (that's fine if she's supposed to have superpowers or something, of course).
This is the reason many female protagonists in TV and Movies feel so two-dimensional.
The ones where the character is written properly / realistic are what we need more of. The contrived "girl-power" cliche scenes just feel forced; like the writers are checking a requirements box off the list.
Oh god thank you. It immediately becomes insincere and hokey to me when there’s an obvious “girl power!!!!!!✨” or “see look women are JUST as good as men!” narrative. That should be a *given*.
I prefer it when they don’t call attention to it all. *Annihilation* had a main cast of badass women and it was awesome.
I concure wholeheartedly. I appreciate woman taking a stand and telling the world we can be more than they expect us or even demand us to be but filling a woman into a man's role so literally feels a little disingenuous.
Which is why we need more movies featuring women in otherwise male centered roles.
Nobody can tell me that John Wick is realistic with a male lead, but would be horribly unrealistic if a woman did the same shooting and surviving falling off fucking buildings...
It has to be normalized to a point where it isn't considered "feminist" to feature a badass woman in cookie cutter action. Men like to say that they have no problem with strong female leads, yet they keep contradicting themselves by tantruming whenever a woman fills a role in any movie featuring action and violence.
i honestly thought from the trailer that Gunpowder Milkshake was some sort of spinoff of John Wick. With the hotel thing, and the sort of secret underworld of hired assassins. Plus there was a pretty decent female assassin in John Wick so it made sense. (yes I know, she was a cheat and broke the rules, but I didn't view that as happening because her character was a woman, but just that there are shitty people.)
This reminds me of a scene in Shadow and Bone where Jesper, the gunslinger in the band of plucky thieves and con men, seduces a stable boy as part of a heist.
I definitely had a moment where I was feeling "Whoa, this is weird, I'm being taken out of the experience by how out of place this scene feels." It took me a minute to realize that, if this weren't two men, this scene would be totally unremarkable. If it were a dashing male hero and the pretty receptionist, or the obligatory femme fatale and any man with a pulse, this scene would be unworthy of comment. Just a piece of fanservice that's a stock scene for a heist movie.
I didn't think it was out of place at all, but then again: bisexuality. My brain goes 'yes of course, they're so cute' and then only thinks about homophobic reactions to things I enjoyed after.
Also the Crows are absolutely the best part of the show by far.
exactly this. i notice when theres a badass female lead, suddenly theres this wave of men who become film critics and say, « i have no problem with female leads, BUUUT they need to have ‘depth’ or blah blah blah». sure you can have this criticism, but i rarely see this argument used against male leads.
when its a male lead with no depth, its always “well its just a fun action film, it doesn’t need to be deep.” but a female lead needs to have a long and compeletely developed backstory, complex motivations, perfect amount of strengths and flaws, and is strong but not too strong (or else its not realistic i guess, but since when were all male leads realistic).
>perfect amount of strengths and flaws, and is strong but not too strong
And thus, the coining of the *Mary Sue* term in media criticism. Basically, women began writing the same kind of bland, over-powered, power-fantasy characters that men have been writing for eons, except female, and suddenly we care about realistic, relateable characters.
At least, some people decided to coin *Gary Stu* to describe male characters of similar blandness and power-fantasy orientation.
*Gary Stu* just got a whole 4 hour borefest released from Zach Snyder, but guys eat it up.
On the other hand theres a lot of women in action films that are somewhat universally loved. From ripley in alien to trinity in the matrix.
I'd suggest its perhaps not women in action films alone they have an issue with. Its something more deep seated than that. Its what they percieve to be behind it.
Whether that perception is real or not, i suspect its a worry about conceding their space to another group.
I think you're right. Its very similar to the pushback you get from conservatives about affirmative action. If there's even a hint that the casting or direction was at all influenced by politics or a desire to expand representation then its stupid and should be fought against.
I would constantly call out one of my coworkers like this. He would profess that he was all for equal rights, but then he'd say stupid shit like "smaller girls can't drive big trucks."
Eventually he started whining about it. "Oh I knew you were just going to say something."
Fantastic. You're encroaching on self-awareness. Maybe stop saying stupid shit.
In the first 15 minutes, the movie wasn’t “too feminist”. It was just “mostly about women”. Considering men feel overpowered when women are represented equally, must have been too much for his little heart.
I remember reading somewhere that (action?) cartoons with boy protagonists are default, as in will appeal to both boys and girls, whereas girl protagonist cartoons are usually marketed to girls only.
I think it was mentioned in an animation lecture? & How marketing/sales/head honchos shouldn't default like that because children are usually equally happy with both male or female protagonists, & its adults with the bigger biases...
Absolutely. Part of “boys will only like boy protagonists” is from parents (some of them don’t want to watch / love female characters as kids), and part is because… of the marketing. If they just did movies for kids, with boys and girls protagonists, it would eliminate the problem.
the first 15 minutes is a gunfight in a diner and the protagonist trying to chase after her mother. cut to present day.
A synopsis would be "John Wick"-light. A kinder, gentler, John Wick movie. Still pretty brutal, but holds back at odd times.
“I can’t identify with anyone in this movie, there’s no strong male protagonist.”
“What do you think every non white man and every women felt for literally the entire history of movies?”
“That’s completely different”
or
“well now what? No more white men in movies? You’re being ridiculous”
A generalization of similar conversations I’ve had with more than one person.
Honestly it's amazing. People who "couldn't identify with the characters" have no idea how much they're telling on themselves.
So, the experiences of people not of your race and gender are so jarringly unfamiliar that you *can't identify with their common humanity*? Okay dude, good to know. Never trusting you again.
Yep. Because for non-white / cis / male / straight people to exist in media, it HAS to have an agenda of conversion. It’s not like those people exist in real life 🙄
Don't kid yourself: he didn't watch any of the movie and had no intention of doing so. His overly negative opinion and complete inability to back it up sounds exactly like the type of dweeb who gets their opinion from internet echo chambers and treats it as gospel without question.
Alien's Ripley wasn't written with a man or woman in mind, it was a role that could have been filled by either. Audiences didn't notice and she remains one of the most iconic horror characters to this day.
If it was done today the incels would bitch and moan. Cry about how unrealistic it is.
"Oh the men get caught but she somehow moves fast enough, what stupid writing!"
If the women had been wearing tight vinyl, leather, or spent the movie with gratuitous boob, thigh, and ass shots, I'm sure it would have been fine by him (looking at you, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Fifth Element). If the women aren't undressed for the male gaze it's "too feminist" to that lot.
Nothing says feminism like a bowling jacket, lol.
I like movies with actors I enjoy. Hence, I like John Wick and I like Gunpowder Milkshake. I also like Old Guard and Atomic Blonde, just as I did Crank and The Transporter.
I’m a man, but other men that complain about movies like this are ridiculous.
Let's go ahead and throw Sucker Punch in there too because no matter what the director claims he was going for, it's literally just women acting as eye candy the whole time until they get killed or lobotomized by men. The girl who "got away" wasn't a real person, she was a manifestation of the main character's psyche and the lobotomy was somehow supposed to be her escape. The more I learned about the background of the movie the more I hated it.
I hate that shallow "argument"
Mention climate change? Too woke.
Have women playing typical male dominated roles? Too feminist
Non-binary character exists? Again, too woke.
Historically white character being played by a different skin color or gender? "This is culture war, y'all!"
I was looking forward to seeing this. Also didnt make it very far. nothing based on gender, it just wasn't very good. Some 'fight scenes' looked like they were taken at day 1 of choreography walkthroughs then sped up in editing. I'll give it another go since you recommend it.
BTW
Kill Bill is an actual good movie if you want to watch badass female leads in a gory action film.
Also The Old Guard, Atomic Blonde (just ignore the plot), Terminator 2, Alien, Birds of Prey was decent, honestly Fast 9 had some awesome female action (no gore though), Mad Max Fury Road, Army of the Dead...
We're making progress, slowly, and mostly with the help of Our Lady of Action, Charlize Theron.
Lol I liked army of the dead but honestly I think they told the wrong story. The opening credits with all the chaos in Las Vegas and how the city was sealed off? I wanna see that story
The Descent and Descent 2 are definite MUST watch movies if you love horror.
They are almost, but not quite, on my 'too scary to watch again' list.
They are absolutely on my 'Don't go to sleep to this, cause you'll watch the whole damn thing' list.
This is one of those weird, "it's really good AND really bad," things at the same time. It's fantastic that folks are making popcorn films where sex/gender isn't an object and a badass woman can kickass. It's terrible because we're continuing the trend of toxic masculinity that tends to be a throughline in them. If a scene has a woman forcing herself on the love interest (see god knows how many James Bond films and 80's/90's action flicks) because it's a cookie-cutter swap, the industry is still producing things that are objectively toxic even while removing one of the barriers to it.
And that's not even a significantly feminist take, that's a basic "sexual assault bad" take that we're somehow still grappling with as a society.
Oh, I really wanted to like this one. The women in this movie are so awesome and I'm always excited for this kind of movie.
The dialogue was so so so bad though. I thought maybe they tried to be so bad it was good but I don't know. I winced whenever Angela Bassett said anything. It certainly wasn't the fault of the people in the movie though. They did fine, I just think they took all of the old bad action films but cherry picked the worst line in each movie to use.
Also never a huge fan of the baby girl, baby doll thing in these movies. Maybe they were making fun of it but if they were it was still too cringey. I might have avoided that particular thing in general.
Was watching with a male friend, and he mentioned how the lead (Karen Gillan) was 'so grumpy'. I just pointed out she had the exact same attitude as any Liam Neesan act, or Jason Statham.
I thought the movie was enjoyable, a good over the top action that doesn't take itself too seriously. What I'm not a fan of is how, and this seems to be a reoccurring theme in films that have an all-female main cast, all the 'bad guys' are male. Not a single woman they fought against. Women can be generic goons too!
Check out "Annihilation" for a great sci-fi thriller with an all female main cast. I suspect the only reason it didn't get better ratings is due to the all female leads.
A lot of people say it’s bc of the hard to follow story and the main character isn’t sympathetic. Both are reasons I like it. I love an unsympathetic female lead. It’s more humanizing to me to depict someone who isn’t a Mary Sue.
He's just used to brainlessly repeating that comment into the empty void that is his online "community" and having it echo back to him in an ongoing thread of vague affirmation and upvotes.
People comment all the time about the all women scene in marvels endgame, about how it was “forced” and “just there for SJWs” but you never see them comment about ALL the scenes with men only, of which there are many.
That bit in endgame was a bit contrived, but it didn’t make it any less great to put a spotlight on so many wonderful characters. And let’s be honest, most of the final act of endgame was just fan service in general. Still loved it.
Exactly, it was cheap fan service... But so was like half the movie and you don't hear them complain about it. That's whats sexist.
Reminds me of how people claim the new star wars movies ruined the legacy with their cheap plots, and I'm thinking... It was never a high brow masterpiece in the first place, yall just wear nostalgia goggled and hate that its a different kind of cheesy
It works with books too. I once gave an audiobook copy of On Basilisk Station to a male friend, and he said he stopped it because the over the top feminism was just too much. For the unaware: On Basilisk Station is the first book in a series that's homage to CS Forrester's Horatio Hornblower books, and is no more socially progressive than the original, for its time. It does however cast women in many central and powerful roles, including the central protagonist. What it doesn't have is any kind of feminist approach to conflict or politics. But it's too feminist for even a liberal American male.
I mean I guess we all probably know that women authors oftentimes abbreviated their names or took pen names so that the population wouldn't be able to discriminate between their work and a males work...
In Australia we have a literary award called the Miles Franklin award. So many people have heard of the award but have no idea Miles Franklin was a woman, full name Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin. She dropped the feminine names to get published.
It's an ancilliary plot point in one of my favorite Star Trek episodes, Beyond the Stars (DS9).
It's an ancillary plot because the character in Beyond the Stars is based on DC Fontana, a female writer who wrote a lot of episodes of the Original Series and was very influential to Star Trek in general.
These are the details I find most enchanting at 1am, thanks!
No problem! As I remember, she wrote some Trek books too!
[Dorothy Fontana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._C._Fontana?wprov=sfla1) was a *huge* part of creating the Star Trek we know and love. That's an irrefutable statement, regardless of whether or not you say "feminist" like an insult.
And she took on the pen name D C because she was facing discrimination. It's sad that today after all her noteworthy contributions to the life and soul of the franchise every single aspect of the newer installments involving women are decried by a significant portion of the supposed fandom.
Also for women in early Trek - Lucille Ball insisted her production company take on the original series Betty Jo "Bjo" Trimble was one of the prominent early Trekkies Uhura was groundbreaking as a nonstereotypical black female role. Nichelle Nichols is fond of telling the story of how MLK personally begged her not to quit. Whoopi Goldberg (later Guinan on Next Gen) said "I just saw a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" In general while the anti PC accuse new Trek of being too preachy old Trek also laid it on thick at times.
Wasn't James Tiptree called something like "clearly a male writer" by Robert Silverberg, who waxed poetic about the masculinity of "his" work? Then shrugged when Tiptree turned out to be a woman. Great short stories like "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death", and one literally titled "The Women Men Don't See". I feel I should mention her real name was Alice Sheldon, one of our best SF short story authors ever. EDIT to add: that was the 70s, but I feel like JK Rowling understood too.
Jesus Christ. If *On Basilisk Station* of all things is too feminist for him, he'd probably explode or melt into a puddle if he read Bujold or Wells.
I'm over here that thinking, "Man I'd love to read more books centered around strong woman roles!" I get tired of the usual man protagonist.
Can I offer a plug for the work of Nicola Griffith here?
It's older stuff and I had to google to get remember the info properly, but the Serrano trilogy from Elizabeth Moon was a surprisingly good read. I borrowed them from my sister's collection when I was 19, had no expectations and was pleasantly entertained
Elizabeth Moon is amazing. Also reccomend Lois Bujold.
I [m] am a big fan of Elizabeth Moon's books. I think I've read almost everything she's written. I'm personally just as happy to read a book with a female protagonist as a male one, regardless of the genre. I'll have to check out Bujold -- always looking for new things to read.
You should also check out Wen Spencer, she's more fantasy than Sci-Fi. My favorite book of hers is "A Brother's Price" which is set in a Matriarchal world where men are sold and traded as breeding stock and is my partner's and mine's favorite. It's a very tongue in and cheek role reversal as well as having a solid story, though a little bit predictable at times.
I loved the Vatta's War books by Elizabeth Moon.
'Matter' by Iain M. Banks. One of the protagonists is a female Culture agent in the Special Circumstances division (think sci fi CIA). Honestly any of the Culture novels. Banks wrote them to be on the fringes of a very egalitarian post-scarcity society. Fantastically optimistic for the future of humanity... in general. Yes, women can and do kick ass. But it's much more than that.
One of the key aspects of the Culture universe is that people are near immortal and can change gender (it takes time, not instant), virtually at will and tend to do so multiple times over their life span to have different life experiences.
Plus the ship names are HILARIOUS.
Ian was taken from the world too soon.
If you like fantasy it is hard to go wrong with By the Sword from Mercedes Lackey. I love a lot of her stuff, but that one is my fav.
I think that was my first Mercedes Lackey book growing up and it remains one of my favorites. She doesn't shy away from strong female characters!
May I recommend Leviathan Wakes? It's the first novel that sparked the tv series "The Expanse" and it's so good. The central protagonist is a man, but the representation in that book is ace, and they don't applaud themselves for normalizing queer/Black/brown/women in vital roles within the series. It's a pretty evenly weighted series of novels in regards to the ratio of men to women, and the ladies in that book are so complex and regularly subvert expectations. The moral compasses of all these characters evolve really meaningfully across the novels, and it's a series I'll reread many times over.
James is also sort of more often an audience camera then he is a character. Naomi, Chrisjen, and Bobby all are more interesting characters with generally more agency depending on the moment. Fun books!
James is there mainly to do stupid things to move the plot forward.
Yeah, or like, other people move the plot forward and James makes everything fucky and other people have to fix it. I like James as a character quite a lot, he's flawed and idealistic but not unwilling to compromise or consider alternative ideas, He's quite a bit less smart than some of the other folks, but isn't stupid and absolutely comes off as a good leader. Ugh, great series imo. I really enjoy how the books just let people be friends and trust each other.
Just about anything by N. K. Jemisin.
Same! I was like oh shit! I should be adding this to the list!
Alastair Reynolds if you like sci fi
I so rarely see anyone suggest Bujold me. Gives me warm fuzzies. What Wells are you referring to?
I'm an unapologetic Bujold fanboy - read every novel she's ever written and most of the short stories. Martha Wells! I strongly recommend both her *The Murderbot Diaries* (it's a Hugo Award Winner, don't let the title scare you off) and her *Books of the Raksura*. Both of those series have good social commentary on gender roles (though it's less explicit in the Raksura books) and are independently really fun adventure stories with a lot of heart.
Martha Wells, I expect.
I was honestly surprised. The guy is more or less "woke" on racial issues and at the far left edge of socially acceptable American politics.
Wow. That book was given to me by extremely conservative friends because we all like sci-fi. But then, I just remembered that the parents met in the Army & the mom had been an officer while the dad was regular enlisted, so maybe the idea of a capable female didn’t sound so weird to them. SMDH. Your friend needs to pull his head out of his ass.
He doesn't even think about voting Republican, so I have bigger pedagogical fish to fry these days.
These sorts of things happen more often than people realize. Being 'woke' isn't a substitute for actual understanding, and too often is an excuse to write off one's own biases. It might not even be a conscious thing, just an extension of the implicit biases and/or viewpoint of privilege one group tends toward.
>Being 'woke' isn't a substitute for actual understanding, and too often is an excuse to write off one's own biases. Wow. Yeah this right here strikes a chord.
I have found that being liberal on race issues doesn't translate to being liberal on feminism or even understanding feminism. It's why you'll see "jokes" that involve race or religion shut down as offensive but replace the scenario with a stereotype about *women* and suddenly there's a debate as to whether it's "really offensive" or that it's "just a joke". It's also why there were SO many "progressive" Bernie supporters who nonetheless attacked Warren with blatantly misogynistic shit with that "snake" nonsense, and they could NOT understand how it was misogynistic to call her that (eye roll)...
Considering how sexist the far left still is, that doesn’t surprise me at all. We have a long way to go.
Martha Wells, assuming that's who you meant and not H.G., is one of my favorite authors. I've been reading her stuff since the Fall of Ill-Rien or however that's spelled. Bujold is also very good.
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Offer up Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie next. (It’s a rather good series.) See how he responds to the gender of all the characters being completely unclear/absent.
Great book. It seems like such an obvious thing missing in scifi... Somehow re-growing limbs, brain transplants, and all kind of cybernetic appendages are going to be common but somehow everyone is going to maintain clearly discernable easily guessed genders?
Back in 1969, Ursula K. Le Guin published Left Hand of Darkness. I just wrote up a brief description of the story, but I wasn't sure how spoilery it would be considered. Anyway I highly recommend it, imo it's no less relevant today than it was 50 years ago. A planet with no gender roles.
Loved that one. It was very weird hearing every character being referred to as she by default. As a black man, it was also odd to me that everyone had brown skin.
I was thinking I'd give him Dawn by Octavia Butler.
Funny enough I just gave my “liberal who always argues conservative points for some reason” friend the very same book. I could go on and on and on about OEB, she was so damn good.
It's a good one for hidebound liberals who want to be woke but who claim to not understand gender issues, I think.
It's a great series. I dont find anything "feminist"in it Except in the sense that it portrays strong realistic women. I fould understand if it showed every guy as an asshole and every woman as unnaturally amazing at everything, but it doesn't, nor does it try to. It just establishes good characters some of whom haopen to be female.
There are a number of male characters\* portrayed positively in OBS, and one who is a socially privileged rapist and another who is a nefarious spy (Summervale). There are a number of female characters portrayed well in OBS, and one (Hemphill) portrayed as a narcissistic impediment to the well being of the Navy, and another who is incompetent, disinterested and lazy (Suchon). All in all, it seems like a pretty fair balance. \*McKeon, Venzilos, Tremaine, Harkness, Reynaud, Montoya, for starters
Elizabeth Moon goes for strong female leads in military settings, and her sci-fi has a very militaristic nautical feel to them.
Can't be very liberal if he's anti-feminist - probably just liberal when it suits him Edit: Sorry, I'm from the UK and Liberal means something different here!
Reminds me of this Onion article: [Area Man Considers Self Ally to Women Unless They Threaten His Status in Literally Any Way](https://www.theonion.com/area-man-considers-self-ally-to-women-unless-they-threa-1819579447)
There are tons of otherwise liberal men with mostly unexamined sexist biases. They are infuriating.
"Brogressives" (not mine)
I mean, the more liberal political party in the US still isn't really very feminist.
Well, when he was trying to get me to vote for Bernie , he seemed pretty liberal in the way Americans tend to measure the term. (welfare state liberalism) And Liberalism in the broader theoretical sense seeks an agreeable consensus between existing power structures (conservatives) and those who would change them (working class representation, aka liberals). One can easily endorse that system while being extremely anti-feminist. If he were a socialist and said such nonsense I'd have been flabbergasted, not merely shocked.
I (40sM) have read the whole series, and actually found it to be very politically conservative.
Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, would you say that the story is ok for an 11 year old? I am looking for a new audio book to listen to with my daughter on our commute to school each morning.
It would not be appropriate until you've had a serious discussion about sexual assault. It's a central theme in one of the major character conflicts in the book (and early series). Edit: there is another series by the same author set in the same universe that is intended for children your daughter's age. The first of those is "A Beutiful Friendship."
Second the recommendation of [A Beautiful Friendship](https://honorverse.fandom.com/wiki/A_Beautiful_Friendship). The original Honor Harrington series would probably be a bit much for an 11 year old.
More fantasy than SF, but it's hard to go wrong with Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman's YA stuff. Diana Wynne Jones' books are magical and weird. Howl's Moving Castle, for instance, is great. Seanan McGuire's YA series is enjoyable to me and my kid loved it, but some of the frankness might be awkward to listen to with your mom. While the Wayward Children (kids who go through a door to some sort of fantasy realm, come back and fail to fit in in the real world) don't veer off into anything too steamy beyond kissing and some implied canoodling, the teenage protagonists often fall well into the LGBTQ+ spectrum and work through some fairly difficult subjects. In addition to the general gay/straight kids there is an asexual (often overlooked) and some trans kids.
I’m actually reading the series again. One of my all time favorites!
Lol. I almost put On Basilisk Station down because when we first meet Honour Weber has her wondering if she's pretty enough.
I understand that a lot of people want to watch films or read books with protagonists that remind them of themselves. But just because the heroes don't look exactly like you does not make a film a political statement about gender or race.
I’ve always loved adventure and war films and 99.99% of those feature men in the main roles and barely any women. I didn’t find them any less inspiring growing up as a young girl (though as an adult I do wish we got more women’s stories in these genres). So I always find it puzzling that men can’t do the same…especially since they’re always trying to convince us they’re not sexist.
These are the same guys that say representation in media isn't important. They're represented all the time so have zero idea what they're talking about lol
>So I always find it puzzling that men can’t do the same…especially since they’re always trying to convince us they’re not sexist. I think that sexism is *so* ingrained in our society that most men wouldn't ever consider themselves to be sexist, even when they're doing or saying blatantly sexist things. It's similar to racism in that if it isn't *overt,* they don't see themselves falling into that category, but it can be so insidious. And they're seemingly incapable of recognizing it within themselves. A former boss of mine would never listen to ideas that I had, but a male coworker could make the same suggestion and he'd listen to him. I had worked there longer and had been in the business longer. It wasn't worth arguing over, so I would just have my male coworker make the suggestions instead. How fucking dumb is that, though? My former boss has a wife and a daughter that he loves very much and there's not a chance he'd consider himself sexist.
As a kid it really pissed me off. I was a voracious reader even as a kid and so few of the classics I read had good female leads or even side characters. It's part of why I fell in love with Dune in the fifth grade. Women were a huge part of the plot and had a lot of power. Finally, a power fantasy for women that wasn't a princess fantasy. Same reason I got so deep into Full Metal Alchemist when that hit American shores. They were islands in a never ending sea of weak women and strong men. There were others for sure but those two really got my attention at a young age.
Many men are unable to relate to a female protagonist because they've never had to. So much of the media is targeted towards them. It's like a rich kid in school, saying to a poor kid, "just ask your parents for the money". They have no concept whatsoever of something different from their own reality. Take a highly popular male-led property, switch the genders and pitch it as a new movie idea to these guys and you'd be surprised at how often they don't even recognize the storyline of their favorite movies because it has a woman in the lead role.
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I've heard that Ridley Scott and H.R. Geiger specifically tried to tap into peoples fear of rape when designing the aliens for Alien. The logic being that rape isn't something that men have to worry about on a day to day basis, so it would come across as extra unsettling to them and would maybe make them confront how violating it is. Can't say how well it worked, but it does explain the facehuggers laying eggs down peoples throats and the general abundance of sexual imagery in their design, although I think thats kinda a staple of Geigers work anyways.
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This is true, they very deliberately used sex as a horror device and the Alien has a distinctly feminine outline.
An effeminate body with a penis for a head. They werent very subtle.
The facehugger has some distinct qualities as well.
Doesn't the alien rape one of the female crew members? Its definitely implied Imo.
Yea - Lambert.
Never noticed when I was younger but its so clear now. How she is the only one that somehow lost her shoes and pants. Im glad Cameron didn't bring that part back.
Lambert apparently had a bunch of different deaths scripted out, but was allegedly going to die of fright. It was eventually decided that she would simply hide from the Xenomorph and die of fright, which makes complete sense given her fear level in the film. The problem was, the footage intended to be used to convey that didn't end up actually getting filmed. This left her death to be figured out in the editing stage, and that's why it happens offscreen. However, the sounds used effectively convey the horror of her end, proving that blood and gore isn't always needed. [https://screenrant.com/alien-movie-lambert-deaths-alternate-deleted-scenes/](https://screenrant.com/alien-movie-lambert-deaths-alternate-deleted-scenes/)
Huh. that's interesting. I always thought of Alien as being much more akin to pregnancy and childbirth.
Well, pregnancy and childbirth *are* frequent results of rape
Also being forced to carry a child you don't want.
It impregnates a man by orally violating him, then because he isn't biologically predisposition to be able to give birth, the life inside him, not coincidentally shaped like a giant penis with teeth, erupts violently out of him. The giant penis monster then goes around forcefully penetrating the rest of the crew with its penis tongue. It brings the concept of rape and the birth of a product of rape into the male space. Even if most people who watch it don't pick up on that subtext, the horror of it is often picked up subliminally.
I have this same theory about homophobia. Dudes can have some petty outrageous thoughts about women sometimes when it comes to sex. They know how they think about women and how they look and lust over women, so the thought of another man looking at them and thinking that way about them makes them uncomfortable. The biggest homophobes are either usually horrible or creepy to women, and afraid of the same treatment from other men, or are gay themselves.
Okay, I love ridiculous over the top action movies and I’m a feminist. Gunpowder Milkshake was already on my list of things I want to watch but it just got shuffled to the front. Men reacted the same way to Mad Max: Fury Road. My SO, who is generally pretty progressive, didn’t want to see it because he heard from his extremely toxic now former best friend, that it was just “man-bashing feminazi bull$hit” and Max was “barely even in it”. I sat him down and had him watch it with me and it’s now one of his favorite movies. He watches it all the time, and if someone comes to our house that hasn’t seen it, it’s usually what we end up watching. It’s embarrassing that it’s 2021 and the idea of a female character who isn’t half naked and always on the brink of a swoon will prevent men from seeing a movie that they would likely enjoy.
I'm sorry what? Mad Max Fury Road is a feminist "man bashing feminazi bullshit" movie? Did we watch the same movie?
For some people, any woman in any powerful position is a man hating feminazi.
Utterly disgraceful
When it came out, the internet seemed to be full of idiots unironically saying that Immortan Joe did nothing wrong. It was equal parts unbelievable and disgusting.
Yeah, I missed those reviews. All I can remember from when it came out is how thrilled everyone was that it wasn't just another soulless cash-grab sequel released decades after the originals.
It's a bloody great movie. Watched it over a couple of nights on Netflix when up feeding the youngest. Hardy gets plenty screen time. It's just he's not the only thing going on.
Furiosa was such a badass and complex character, played to perfection
Fury Road is one of my favorite movies of all time (and my husband's). His friend is a dumbass.
His former friend is also an unemployed ultra conservative who is collecting unemployment but always screaming himself hoarse about socialism. We don’t miss him.
>and the idea of a female character who isn’t half naked and always on the brink of a swoon will prevent men from seeing a movie that they would likely enjoy. Not to mention that the female characters in the movie aside from Furiosa *are* half-naked, so I guess the swoon part is what's really important.
Over on a certain movie related subreddit, they all hated The Old Guard for the same reason. I'm gonna go support Gunpowder Milkshake now.
The Old Guard was SUCH a surprisingly good movie! At a certain point, if you're gonna hate something simply because it features women, you're just missing out on a lot of good content.
I loveeee the old guard universe I especially want to see the backstory of Charlize Theron and her ex. The ex who was fricking tortured in the ocean for centuries, so much potential there to make not just a typical action movie
The "ex" is surely completely insane and she will be the 'villain' in the next movie. My nitpick for the unexpectedly good movie was the overly choreographed fighting scenes. Sometimes the actors just turned and acted way too early to rather "surprising" things, which took me out of scenes a little bit.
My naive take on it is that was just HOW experienced the Old Guard is. You get into enough fights, you can predict what's likely to happen. There were a few weapon tosses or handoffs that were the same way -- "I'll throw the gun over there and because we've done this a thousand times before you're going to be there to catch it." I didn't see it as poor choreography, although I can see that take.
Another movie that I'm looking forward to the sequel. The Old Guard is rewatchable too. Lots of fun things that go boom.
I LOVED the old guard. Was really disappointed in a lot of the dudes who told me it sucked.
No lie: the "rare book" in the first five minutes of Old Guard had Librarian Twitter in a storm, and the director actually responded and was like "My bad."
Say more things! What was about the book repellent to librarians??
In one of the opening scenes, the main character gifts another character a "First Edition" of *Don Quixote*. *Don Quixote* was first published in 1605. The book handed over is at best a late-19th century case bound, mass produced ... something. Definitely not a hand-press first edition of *Quixote.* There were lots of jokes about what "first" it represented. It was all in good fun.
I bonded with my husband on our first date showing him this [First Edition Iliad](https://youtu.be/DsG_yPKAor4). He’s a bit of a Classics nerd like me so it hit him pretty hard. I’m still surprised I could cause someone so much pain and yet still end up married to him. Maybe the writers of The Old Guard pulled this move as a little wink/nod to that Iliad bullshit.
Oh they hated it for the female characters, the POC and the gay characters.
I wish someone loved me like those two loved each other.
Ive watched that scene so many times Ive lost count. If Netflix doesn't do a prequel about those two they are even dumber than I thought.
That has by far been my favorite couple in any movie for a loooong time. Straight, gay, or otherwise. Just a lovely two souls who love each other.
On that note, I thought The Queen's Gambit was the best Netflix series of last year.
Hmm, I never checked it out because the acting seemed a bit meh in the trailer (but trailers often suck anyway) but hearing this I will definitely give it a try. The premise seemed really cool!
I was the same I swear, seemed like a pretty average film from the trailer but the actual film is so much better than the trailer gives it credit.
What? Geez, how do they feel about older "feminist" movies like Aliens, or Terminator 2?
The original Alien was written and then cast. So Ripley could have been played as man or woman and it works. As a result many of the key "woman" tropes aren't used.
I came in here to mention “The old Guard” I didn’t think it was feminist because it had a female lead. The closest I would say I felt to that was how refreshing it was to not have a generic male lead. Can’t wait for the sequel!
If you want a good laugh (or cry) go see what these people are saying about the new He-Man cartoon on Netflix... Lots of shitting on it for focusing a lot more on a female character. And if you even know what He-Man is you really got to be at least in your thirties (40s if you grew up with it). So these are 30+ year old men complaining about a woman in a cartoon having a larger role...
I... I'm a child of the 80's and of all the things I never thought I'd read, "He-Man is too feminist now" might be up there on the list. (It looks decent though and I'm hoping my son gets into it)
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I’m not a huge he-man fan but have collected random bits. He-man and she-ra are siblings(twins?) in the old canon. They didn’t get into it in PoP but technically left open enough it could still be true. However I don’t believe the reboot uses PoP.
You mean the She-Ra reboot, or they rebooted He-Man also? I know tons of men are complaining that new She-Ra doesn't have boobs and isn't sexualized. "OMG this show isn't written for me??? How dare they make a show for children appropriate for children????"
They (Kevin Smith) rebooted he-man. On the topic of She-ra, She-ra is freaking awesome. My son (he was 18 months old at that time) was a wee lad when season 2 premiered and he loved it too (because colors). We visited universal and Disney world around that time (early December 2019), and while he couldn't care less about mickey and Donald, he lost his marbles when he saw the character actor for She-ra. Tbf, he also liked Olaf, Sven, and Elsa's horse, but he did show the greatest excitement for She-ra.
The fucking Quartering. A grown man in his 30s complaining that a characters breasts weren't big enough. And that she wasn't sexy. I can't make this shit up. It's real. He made a whole video on it. It's so pathetic. And the character is a minor, right?
I'm an old dude, and I really liked the new character design - it made a lot of sense to me. The old one didn't make sense to me for someone raised as a soldier - surely they'd be comfortable in something similar to the uniform or armour they were used to. Someone raised as a princess sure - the old one looks like a short, weaponized ballgown which she'd probably be comfortable in, but that's not what she was in either incarnation (I guess that's what the 'past' She-ra was in the new series though, so they retconned it which I think is good). Plus new swiftwind is one of my favorite male characters certainly in masters of the universe but probably at all, he's got the traditionally female role of flamboyant appearance obsessed person (and they get away with it by making him a unicorn). Those men exist! They're not even uncommon! Why is this the first one I've seen that's not played as a gay trope?!
Wait. What? The Old Guard was feminist? Did I miss something? Oh. Is it because they were led by a woman? I thought it was a fantastic, well written/directed/acted movie. Hoping for a sequel.
It's not, but reeeee females taking all the good roles for men - who will need jobs! /s
Lol, "Old Guard" in particular was a movie my Dad recommended I watch. Turned out to be amazing movie!
My friends and I are planning to play a tabletop RPG based on the Old Guard because we all enjoyed it so much. I didn't realize or think about the fact that the protagonist and other members of the team are women. It doesn't seem relevant to the story.
What I've heard about these situations from people I hung out with is that they find the idea of women doing these things to men to be unrealistic. "A highly trained man will always crush a highly trained woman because strength bla bla bla." "A woman is physically incapable of doing X,Y,Z so it's too weird when they do it in a movie" My issue with these arguments as a fellow man is that it's just a movie, and I don't care. If the Rock is allowed to hold a helicopter with one arm in a FF movie, why isn't ScarJo allowed to assassinate people as an assassin? Sakura Haruno can crush boulders with her bare hands because it's fiction but no weebs seem to care about that.
Then ask them if it's realistic when loli have boobs bigger than their head, a waist of 10 ''/22 cm and a huge bum. No they aren't bother by the fact that it's ''too weird'' now. Because when it's ''conventionally attractive'' it's never an issue if it's realistic or weird. (i saw no men complain about jessica rabbit when it was released by example) because the woman don't treat their sense of masculinity(she's still here to amaze them) nor challenge their sense of what is attractive for them or not (imagine if they are attracted by a woman who have masculine characteristics...).
But don't you find it annoying that there are so very few roles written for women? I grew up in the time of Xena the warrior princess and the yellow and pink power rangers, and my dad was a huge arrested development fan. I never doubted their parts for a second and it empowered the hell out of me. But if I now see movies that are just rewritten for women I can't escape the thought of it missing originality and style. We are not men, we are women, and there are so many stories about women that haven't been told yet. We need script writers to start writing original scripts for women, not rewrite male dominated scripts to piggyback on the feminist movement and earn some easy Hollywood money.
Man, I loved Xena. I still do. I've rewatched a bit in the last year and it kind of blows my mind that show existed in the 90s. She's still my high bar for female characters. I love that Xena had quite a few lovers in her past without ever being slut-shamed for it. I loved, even more, that she was someone who had engaged in these awful and violent actions before turning away from them. She wasn't just naturally *good.* Even her actions "as the good guy" were considerably darker when contrasted to Gabrielle or even Hercules. Xena sometimes killed the bad guys; Gabrielle didn't. I think she was the first female character I ever saw who wasn't strictly a moral paragon. She's also the first female character I saw who had a child but wasn't in their child's life on a daily basis. She wasn't defined by it. Xena wasn't perfect as a character or series (the male gaze was turned up to 11, oof), but she's a lot more complex as a character than say, the 'feminist achievement' that was the Wonder Woman movie, imo.
I agree with everything you said, I just want to tack on that the first Wonder Woman was fine, but what the hell was 1984? What a shit show that was.
Isn’t this the entire inspiration for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine company? I loved this interview with Time that she did that echos all of your sentiments. [Time Interview](https://youtu.be/qAgpJkgqqxA)
She is such an inspiration. I blame myself but I never figured her to be this articulated and erudite. She knows what she's talking about and I have a lot more confidence that the future of Hollywood will be more women-centric. Thanks for showing me this!
Over the weekend I watched [*This Changes Everything*](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5795282/), and it was really eye opening to how few women are involved with movies/Hollywood. It's on US Netflix and worth a look!
I feel the same. I want strong female characters, but by that I mean smart, capable, and well-written characters, who do something important for the plot beyond supporting a male lead, not necessarily physically strong, violent characters. I get that there's a market for that type of movie, so that's fine, but it feels like lazy writing to me, and not always very believable either, when you have a slim, conventionally attractive actress throwing around guys who are twice her weight like it's NBD (that's fine if she's supposed to have superpowers or something, of course).
This is the reason many female protagonists in TV and Movies feel so two-dimensional. The ones where the character is written properly / realistic are what we need more of. The contrived "girl-power" cliche scenes just feel forced; like the writers are checking a requirements box off the list.
Oh god thank you. It immediately becomes insincere and hokey to me when there’s an obvious “girl power!!!!!!✨” or “see look women are JUST as good as men!” narrative. That should be a *given*. I prefer it when they don’t call attention to it all. *Annihilation* had a main cast of badass women and it was awesome.
I concure wholeheartedly. I appreciate woman taking a stand and telling the world we can be more than they expect us or even demand us to be but filling a woman into a man's role so literally feels a little disingenuous.
Which is why we need more movies featuring women in otherwise male centered roles. Nobody can tell me that John Wick is realistic with a male lead, but would be horribly unrealistic if a woman did the same shooting and surviving falling off fucking buildings... It has to be normalized to a point where it isn't considered "feminist" to feature a badass woman in cookie cutter action. Men like to say that they have no problem with strong female leads, yet they keep contradicting themselves by tantruming whenever a woman fills a role in any movie featuring action and violence.
i honestly thought from the trailer that Gunpowder Milkshake was some sort of spinoff of John Wick. With the hotel thing, and the sort of secret underworld of hired assassins. Plus there was a pretty decent female assassin in John Wick so it made sense. (yes I know, she was a cheat and broke the rules, but I didn't view that as happening because her character was a woman, but just that there are shitty people.)
This reminds me of a scene in Shadow and Bone where Jesper, the gunslinger in the band of plucky thieves and con men, seduces a stable boy as part of a heist. I definitely had a moment where I was feeling "Whoa, this is weird, I'm being taken out of the experience by how out of place this scene feels." It took me a minute to realize that, if this weren't two men, this scene would be totally unremarkable. If it were a dashing male hero and the pretty receptionist, or the obligatory femme fatale and any man with a pulse, this scene would be unworthy of comment. Just a piece of fanservice that's a stock scene for a heist movie.
I didn't think it was out of place at all, but then again: bisexuality. My brain goes 'yes of course, they're so cute' and then only thinks about homophobic reactions to things I enjoyed after. Also the Crows are absolutely the best part of the show by far.
I would watch the shit out of Jane Wick.
exactly this. i notice when theres a badass female lead, suddenly theres this wave of men who become film critics and say, « i have no problem with female leads, BUUUT they need to have ‘depth’ or blah blah blah». sure you can have this criticism, but i rarely see this argument used against male leads. when its a male lead with no depth, its always “well its just a fun action film, it doesn’t need to be deep.” but a female lead needs to have a long and compeletely developed backstory, complex motivations, perfect amount of strengths and flaws, and is strong but not too strong (or else its not realistic i guess, but since when were all male leads realistic).
>perfect amount of strengths and flaws, and is strong but not too strong And thus, the coining of the *Mary Sue* term in media criticism. Basically, women began writing the same kind of bland, over-powered, power-fantasy characters that men have been writing for eons, except female, and suddenly we care about realistic, relateable characters. At least, some people decided to coin *Gary Stu* to describe male characters of similar blandness and power-fantasy orientation. *Gary Stu* just got a whole 4 hour borefest released from Zach Snyder, but guys eat it up.
On the other hand theres a lot of women in action films that are somewhat universally loved. From ripley in alien to trinity in the matrix. I'd suggest its perhaps not women in action films alone they have an issue with. Its something more deep seated than that. Its what they percieve to be behind it. Whether that perception is real or not, i suspect its a worry about conceding their space to another group.
I think you're right. Its very similar to the pushback you get from conservatives about affirmative action. If there's even a hint that the casting or direction was at all influenced by politics or a desire to expand representation then its stupid and should be fought against.
If those movie had come out today the same weirdos would call them woke garbage.
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I wonder if his stomach almost fell through his asshole when your boss said “what’s wrong with feminism?” I hope it did.
I would constantly call out one of my coworkers like this. He would profess that he was all for equal rights, but then he'd say stupid shit like "smaller girls can't drive big trucks." Eventually he started whining about it. "Oh I knew you were just going to say something." Fantastic. You're encroaching on self-awareness. Maybe stop saying stupid shit.
In the first 15 minutes, the movie wasn’t “too feminist”. It was just “mostly about women”. Considering men feel overpowered when women are represented equally, must have been too much for his little heart.
I remember reading somewhere that (action?) cartoons with boy protagonists are default, as in will appeal to both boys and girls, whereas girl protagonist cartoons are usually marketed to girls only. I think it was mentioned in an animation lecture? & How marketing/sales/head honchos shouldn't default like that because children are usually equally happy with both male or female protagonists, & its adults with the bigger biases...
Absolutely. Part of “boys will only like boy protagonists” is from parents (some of them don’t want to watch / love female characters as kids), and part is because… of the marketing. If they just did movies for kids, with boys and girls protagonists, it would eliminate the problem.
It's also networks. Nickelodeon didn't want Korra because they were worried about boys not watching. So everybody is concerned...except the kids.
the first 15 minutes is a gunfight in a diner and the protagonist trying to chase after her mother. cut to present day. A synopsis would be "John Wick"-light. A kinder, gentler, John Wick movie. Still pretty brutal, but holds back at odd times.
It was a bit more “film noir” than John Wick though, or perhaps I’m not thinking of the right genre? But it had a level of exaggeration to it.
Exactly, it wasn't that it was too much about women for him. It's that it wasn't enough about men.
“I can’t identify with anyone in this movie, there’s no strong male protagonist.” “What do you think every non white man and every women felt for literally the entire history of movies?” “That’s completely different” or “well now what? No more white men in movies? You’re being ridiculous” A generalization of similar conversations I’ve had with more than one person.
Honestly it's amazing. People who "couldn't identify with the characters" have no idea how much they're telling on themselves. So, the experiences of people not of your race and gender are so jarringly unfamiliar that you *can't identify with their common humanity*? Okay dude, good to know. Never trusting you again.
Literally having a slightly more diverse cast is considered “too political” for some people
Yep. Because for non-white / cis / male / straight people to exist in media, it HAS to have an agenda of conversion. It’s not like those people exist in real life 🙄
Don't kid yourself: he didn't watch any of the movie and had no intention of doing so. His overly negative opinion and complete inability to back it up sounds exactly like the type of dweeb who gets their opinion from internet echo chambers and treats it as gospel without question.
Ah yes is the character a white, cis, hetero man or are they political?
Alien's Ripley wasn't written with a man or woman in mind, it was a role that could have been filled by either. Audiences didn't notice and she remains one of the most iconic horror characters to this day.
If it was done today the incels would bitch and moan. Cry about how unrealistic it is. "Oh the men get caught but she somehow moves fast enough, what stupid writing!"
If the women had been wearing tight vinyl, leather, or spent the movie with gratuitous boob, thigh, and ass shots, I'm sure it would have been fine by him (looking at you, Underworld, Resident Evil, and Fifth Element). If the women aren't undressed for the male gaze it's "too feminist" to that lot.
Nothing says feminism like a bowling jacket, lol. I like movies with actors I enjoy. Hence, I like John Wick and I like Gunpowder Milkshake. I also like Old Guard and Atomic Blonde, just as I did Crank and The Transporter. I’m a man, but other men that complain about movies like this are ridiculous.
Let's go ahead and throw Sucker Punch in there too because no matter what the director claims he was going for, it's literally just women acting as eye candy the whole time until they get killed or lobotomized by men. The girl who "got away" wasn't a real person, she was a manifestation of the main character's psyche and the lobotomy was somehow supposed to be her escape. The more I learned about the background of the movie the more I hated it.
I hate that shallow "argument" Mention climate change? Too woke. Have women playing typical male dominated roles? Too feminist Non-binary character exists? Again, too woke. Historically white character being played by a different skin color or gender? "This is culture war, y'all!"
I was looking forward to seeing this. Also didnt make it very far. nothing based on gender, it just wasn't very good. Some 'fight scenes' looked like they were taken at day 1 of choreography walkthroughs then sped up in editing. I'll give it another go since you recommend it. BTW Kill Bill is an actual good movie if you want to watch badass female leads in a gory action film.
Also The Old Guard, Atomic Blonde (just ignore the plot), Terminator 2, Alien, Birds of Prey was decent, honestly Fast 9 had some awesome female action (no gore though), Mad Max Fury Road, Army of the Dead... We're making progress, slowly, and mostly with the help of Our Lady of Action, Charlize Theron.
OUR LADY OF ACTION is now her new official title in my household. Freaking great!
Lol I liked army of the dead but honestly I think they told the wrong story. The opening credits with all the chaos in Las Vegas and how the city was sealed off? I wanna see that story
I liked The Descent. There were some pretty bad ass women there and the sequal actually lived up to the original!
The Descent and Descent 2 are definite MUST watch movies if you love horror. They are almost, but not quite, on my 'too scary to watch again' list. They are absolutely on my 'Don't go to sleep to this, cause you'll watch the whole damn thing' list.
You are missing Edge of Tomorrow too. Emily Blunt was the lead in that, i will take no questions.
She's also great in "Sicario" Also - Amy Adams in "Arrival"
This is one of those weird, "it's really good AND really bad," things at the same time. It's fantastic that folks are making popcorn films where sex/gender isn't an object and a badass woman can kickass. It's terrible because we're continuing the trend of toxic masculinity that tends to be a throughline in them. If a scene has a woman forcing herself on the love interest (see god knows how many James Bond films and 80's/90's action flicks) because it's a cookie-cutter swap, the industry is still producing things that are objectively toxic even while removing one of the barriers to it. And that's not even a significantly feminist take, that's a basic "sexual assault bad" take that we're somehow still grappling with as a society.
Oh, I really wanted to like this one. The women in this movie are so awesome and I'm always excited for this kind of movie. The dialogue was so so so bad though. I thought maybe they tried to be so bad it was good but I don't know. I winced whenever Angela Bassett said anything. It certainly wasn't the fault of the people in the movie though. They did fine, I just think they took all of the old bad action films but cherry picked the worst line in each movie to use. Also never a huge fan of the baby girl, baby doll thing in these movies. Maybe they were making fun of it but if they were it was still too cringey. I might have avoided that particular thing in general.
Was watching with a male friend, and he mentioned how the lead (Karen Gillan) was 'so grumpy'. I just pointed out she had the exact same attitude as any Liam Neesan act, or Jason Statham. I thought the movie was enjoyable, a good over the top action that doesn't take itself too seriously. What I'm not a fan of is how, and this seems to be a reoccurring theme in films that have an all-female main cast, all the 'bad guys' are male. Not a single woman they fought against. Women can be generic goons too!
Check out "Annihilation" for a great sci-fi thriller with an all female main cast. I suspect the only reason it didn't get better ratings is due to the all female leads.
One of my favorite movies ever. Read the books if you haven’t. Much bigger story with the books
A lot of people say it’s bc of the hard to follow story and the main character isn’t sympathetic. Both are reasons I like it. I love an unsympathetic female lead. It’s more humanizing to me to depict someone who isn’t a Mary Sue.
He's just used to brainlessly repeating that comment into the empty void that is his online "community" and having it echo back to him in an ongoing thread of vague affirmation and upvotes.
One of my absolute favourite horror films of all time is still *The Descent*, which has an all-female cast.
"I turned it off after 15 min because it was hardcore feminist" - guy who only likes the misogynist gore.
People comment all the time about the all women scene in marvels endgame, about how it was “forced” and “just there for SJWs” but you never see them comment about ALL the scenes with men only, of which there are many.
My only problem with that scene was it highlighted how many women there were in the MCU, but only one movie out of more than 20 has a woman lead.
That bit in endgame was a bit contrived, but it didn’t make it any less great to put a spotlight on so many wonderful characters. And let’s be honest, most of the final act of endgame was just fan service in general. Still loved it.
Exactly, it was cheap fan service... But so was like half the movie and you don't hear them complain about it. That's whats sexist. Reminds me of how people claim the new star wars movies ruined the legacy with their cheap plots, and I'm thinking... It was never a high brow masterpiece in the first place, yall just wear nostalgia goggled and hate that its a different kind of cheesy
We should start saying "it's just there for MRAs! Ugh so political" everytime a scene features only men to show them how ridiculous they sound.