Objectification of women

Collapse

Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Objectification of women

    So. I got into one of those discussions you don't want to get into with a co-worker. Short version: we're talking about the death of Alan Rickman and I don't want to be too too much of a Harry Potter fanatic, so I mention Love Actually.

    She goes into a tirade about how she hates Love Actually because of the "messy structure" and how she totally couldn't get into any of the characters and yadda yadda.

    I say, well... it really does a great job of depicting love. Really illustrating it --

    Then she goes on that the reason she hates it is that she feels the movie objectifies women.

    Ok. Well. I just watched the deleted scenes and the movie was originally close to three hours long. He cut it. That can lead to some structural- wait, objectification of women?

    These are people that are falling in love with each other. There's not objectification. In fact, Hugh Grant's character specifically likes Natalie for her personality. Okay, yeah, there's that cheesy dancing video thing. But that's just for contrast-- to show we live in a gross, petty kind of world but some people are really in love. There's the Walking Dead guy in love with Pirates of the Caribbean woman, but even though he clearly thinks she's beautiful, he's in LOVE with her. He's not objectifying her. He loves the details.

    Anyway.

    Question is:
    Do you think a movie about love or a rom com or a romance or whatever can escape the wrath of feminist theorists? If so, how? (For example, the theme song for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend gets all meta and calls them sexist for calling her that.) Or does a writer just move on and know this person isn't the audience?

    Second question: Do you think people have higher/stronger/weirder/ expectations for female writers than for male ones?

    And -- how do write about love in a cynical world and in a feminist world etc? There's nothing wrong with writing a good love story and yet there are some people who so fundamentally don't believe in love it's like they're atheists about it. They get outright angry. Threatened.

    My theory: Love Actually has the ridiculous dancers and porn people just like chocolate chip cookies need salt. Otherwise it would be too sugary.

    Finally: How do you deal with readers who want your script to be something it's not -- it's like they have an agenda of what the world needs or something. Like -- does it mean what you're writing is "out of style" or out of synch with what the world is looking for or ...?

    I don't even have my feedback yet. I'm just thinking if this person read what I just wrote it doesn't have any brave Frozen freedom "I don't need a man, I'm so awesome on my own" kind of scene.

    Anyway. Have at it. Skewer me. But advice and wisdom is helpful, too.

  • #2
    Re: objectification of women

    I think if one person's harsh opinions are enough to make you question everything about modern society and writing, then you're going to have a problem. Like, just getting through life will be hard for you, much less writing. The so-called "outrage culture" has definitely risen since then, but Love Actually came out in 2003, so it's not like it's some relic of a bygone age.

    In general, done thoughtfully, critique is good. I think it's a good thing that people think critically about movies and the messages they send and discuss that with other people. That doesn't mean you have to listen to all of it. I can definitely see how some of the story lines in Love Actually objectify women, or at least how a person can argue that (it's a "show not tell" thing - if a character says he loves the details, but the movie only shows us that he thinks she's pretty, we're going to assume he made most of those details up). It's not my favorite, I think it's super uneven and frequently cringey, but I have some friends who love it and I don't think they're misogynists or anything.

    In an ideal world, everyone could take in opinions and critiques and shuffle through them, then keep the stuff that's valid or will work for them and discard the rest. In the world we live in, you just kind of have to figure that some people aren't your audience. Don't worry about it unless you're finding that most people aren't your audience. Given that Love Actually continues to be pretty popular, I don't think you have that problem if that's the kind of stuff you're writing.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: objectification of women

      Originally posted by cvolante View Post
      Question is:
      Do you think a movie about love or a rom com or a romance or whatever can escape the wrath of feminist theorists? If so, how? (For example, the theme song for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend gets all meta and calls them sexist for calling her that.) Or does a writer just move on and know this person isn't the audience?

      Second question: Do you think people have higher/stronger/weirder/ expectations for female writers than for male ones?

      And -- how do write about love in a cynical world and in a feminist world etc? There's nothing wrong with writing a good love story and yet there are some people who so fundamentally don't believe in love it's like they're atheists about it. They get outright angry. Threatened.

      Finally: How do you deal with readers who want your script to be something it's not -- it's like they have an agenda of what the world needs or something. Like -- does it mean what you're writing is "out of style" or out of synch with what the world is looking for or ...?

      I don't even have my feedback yet. I'm just thinking if this person read what I just wrote it doesn't have any brave Frozen freedom "I don't need a man, I'm so awesome on my own" kind of scene.

      Anyway. Have at it. Skewer me. But advice and wisdom is helpful, too.
      I've never seen Love Actually, so I can't speak for that film, but I do think you're taking some wide swings at the end.

      There's totally the possibility to write a love story in a feminist world. It's just a matter of writing women as fully rounded people and not prizes to be won or one-note relationship harpies.

      Not sure about the love cynics or love atheists you're talking about. But why would you write a rom com to please them anyway? It's like writing a fantasy story trying to capture the people who can't stand anything with swords and magic.

      And expectations for female writers vs. male writers are called prejudices. All that should be expected from any writer is a good script.

      Finally: dealing with readers who expect your script to be something it's not. There are two different people. People who are willing to pay you to make your script what they want, and people who aren't. You can decide for yourself what you want to do about it.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: objectification of women

        i personally find Love Actually insipid and loathesome on multiple levels but its "objectification of women" would be low down on my list of faults with the story

        http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?...52C1A9659C8B63

        i don't know what you mean by "feminist world." all feminism to me means, at the root, is treating women as the equal of men. shouldn't be hard to write a love story where that basic premise remains true throughout. indeed, one of the best rom-coms ever, Tootsie, is about a male chauvinist who finds love only by learning how to become a feminist. so yes, i think you can write a feminist rom-com.

        all the other stuff, you have no control over. not everyone is going to like, much less "get," your script no matter how hard you try. any more than i am ever going to love Love Actually, despite the fact that many others in the world think it's fantastic. that's just the reality of the marketplace. write what you want to write and put it out there. either it will connect or it won't. nothing you can do about it except write the best thing you know how to write.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: objectification of women

          Back when I was in school, I took a women in film course. A couple classes into the semester we took a look at PRETTY WOMAN. I was able to see the argument that it's a movie where even though the female character is empowered, she's reliant on a man to achieve that empowerment.

          However, once we got to the shopping scene, I was totally lost. The teacher showed us the part where Julia Roberts' character goes back into the store that refused to cater to her the day before and waves it in the workers' faces. I was thinking to myself, "Yeah, alright, this is the part where she's on top of the world. Woohoo!" Turns out, according to the teacher, that the scene was actually perpetuating the stereotype of women as catty. "She had to go rub it in the other woman's face unnecessarily."

          I just couldn't wrap my head around that at all. I'm fairly certain that's one of the most popular scenes of the whole movie. For what it's worth, neither could many of the females in the class (I'm male). I think the class lost about half its students within the first few weeks and it was almost entirely made up of women.

          I think as a whole, this feels like one of those instances where the minority opinion seems loudest. LOVE ACTUALLY made $250m after all.

          At the same time, readers are almost entirely made up of recent college graduates. And I'm sure we're all aware of the current climate on many campuses across the country. So your point about some readers having their own agenda is fairly accurate. I wouldn't worry about a critique from a reader saying you're not what the world is looking for though. They don't know what the world is looking for themselves.

          Of course, they still get to say "pass" on your script...

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: objectification of women

            I'm a feminist and I have nothing against LOVE ACTUALLY (not that I speak for all feminists).

            However, it could be said that it portrays "love" from a predominantly male perspective. The women are wooed and won over, essentially becoming the thematic objective of the male characters. Most of the woman characters show very little personal autonomy and characterization, other than being varying degrees of manic-pixie-dream-girls. The message underneath most of the stories is, "If you want to get a girl, just say 'I love you' to them."

            Only Emma Thompson and Laura Linney's storylines are shown through the female character's POV. Both of which end in heartbreak, and an underlying message of, "Well, you can't have it all, girls."

            It's also a romcom that throws in scenes specifically "for the guys" (i.e., The porn stand-ins; and the dorky guy with the British accent who goes to America and gets Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards to fawn all over him). So, yeah, it does willfully parade boobies around for the guys to ogle.

            Again, in the history of male-driven cinema, I don't consider LOVE ACTUALLY to be a particularly egregious example of the objectification of women. But I wouldn't say it's a gender-balanced portrayal of "love."

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: objectification of women

              Originally posted by cvolante View Post
              Do you think a movie about love or a rom com or a romance or whatever can escape the wrath of feminist theorists? If so, how?
              You need to begin by seeing that your question is somewhat tendentiously phrased. My coworkers at my subsistence job literally believe that Obama is arming gangs of urban blacks to provoke an uprising and declare martial law, and that vaccines are a giant hoax. Someone, somewhere, will always be irrationally outraged about just about anything, so this bogeyman term "wrathful feminist theorists" lets the wielder lump together the most deranged examples ("Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica is a 'rape manual'!") with the most innocuous ("hey, maybe the female lead in this superhero movie can do something more than sew the boys' costumes and bring them snacks").

              Finally: How do you deal with readers who want your script to be something it's not -- it's like they have an agenda of what the world needs or something. Like -- does it mean what you're writing is "out of style" or out of synch with what the world is looking for or ...?
              Art -- especially narrative Art, the Art of the cinema, the Art of the novel -- has a way of getting out ahead of the culture. It transports the audience to an unexplored frontier on the moral landscape, where they find a place has already been prepared for them. They've never been there, but the author made them feel at home because he knew their needs and their fears and their questions and provided for them beforehand. That's Uncle Tom's Cabin, that's Twelve Angry Men, that's Brokeback Mountain.

              I don't want to exaggerate the influence of regressive, illiberal elements of the Left in 2016 America, but I also don't want to downplay it. Professional outrage-merchants of all political stripes will always find a way to judge your work on something besides its artistic merits. But if your story can get out ahead of someone and make them cry tears of joy when the male lead in the rom-com rescues the distressed damsel from her loveless arranged marriage, then... that's how you do it.

              You don't beat an ideology of joylessness by arguing with it. You beat it by bringing people to where the joy is.

              And if that means maybe stepping back for a second and realizing that certain genre tropes about gender roles have become hackneyed on their own terms, played-out cliches actively getting in the way of joy, then it looks like everybody wins.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Objectification of women

                Worrying too much about what is or isn't politically correct is a death spiral.

                My friend has a sister in law, who works with physically handicapped people. When they get into discussions about her work, it doesn't matter what term he uses to describe them (and he has no desire to insult anyone), he's wrong. Even when he asks her how to refer to them, a couple of months later the term she told him to use is no longer correct when he uses it and she goes into another tirade.

                Let's face it -- some people wake up, each and every morning, determined to be offended by something. And sometimes they really have to strain to be offended.

                If you respect people and respect your characters (except for those you intentionally make despicable), that's all anybody can do. If you "accidentally" offend somebody, you "accidentally" offend somebody (that's why they call it an "accident"). Move on and stay out of the death spiral.
                "I just couldn't live in a world without me."

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: objectification of women

                  Originally posted by Bunker View Post
                  However, it could be said that it portrays "love" from a predominantly male perspective. The women are wooed and won over, essentially becoming the thematic objective of the male characters. Most of the woman characters show very little personal autonomy and characterization, other than being varying degrees of manic-pixie-dream-girls. The message underneath most of the stories is, "If you want to get a girl, just say 'I love you' to them."

                  Only Emma Thompson and Laura Linney's storylines are shown through the female character's POV. Both of which end in heartbreak, and an underlying message of, "Well, you can't have it all, girls."
                  This. Most of the time when we talk about objectifying women we talk about behavior that reduces them to T&A.

                  But there's a more pernicious level of it, which is most commonly seen in the "woman as reward" trope. That is to say, the female characters don't exist for their own purposes, but rather to serve as prizes for the men. "Oh, you learned your lesson, great! Now you get a hottie!"

                  Those stories objectify women by turning them into trophies.

                  It's been way too long since I've seen Love Actually for me to have an opinion on if it actually does this or not. And it's tricky, because we want our heroes to have happy endings and a happy ending, for most people, includes a partner to share it with.

                  At the end of the day, you can't obsess about if various groups of people will like your movie or not. You can, however, be aware of the tropes that you are susceptible to falling in to by virtue of your perspective, and strive to do better.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: objectification of women

                    Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post
                    This. Most of the time when we talk about objectifying women we talk about behavior that reduces them to T&A.

                    But there's a more pernicious level of it, which is most commonly seen in the "woman as reward" trope. That is to say, the female characters don't exist for their own purposes, but rather to serve as prizes for the men. "Oh, you learned your lesson, great! Now you get a hottie!"

                    Those stories objectify women by turning them into trophies.

                    It's been way too long since I've seen Love Actually for me to have an opinion on if it actually does this or not. And it's tricky, because we want our heroes to have happy endings and a happy ending, for most people, includes a partner to share it with.

                    At the end of the day, you can't obsess about if various groups of people will like your movie or not. You can, however, be aware of the tropes that you are susceptible to falling in to by virtue of your perspective, and strive to do better.
                    Exactly, and much of the time these tropes become harmful in aggregate - it's not that Love Actually itself is such a problem, so much as it is yet another example of using women as passive rewards or motivators for men that maybe doesn't get much credit for being that way. I find that's a key misunderstanding people have with this kind of critique - they think it's a direct attack on that movie in particular, when really that movie's usually just an example of a more pervasive thing.

                    The best approach is to be aware of general trends and tropes, but not take particular criticism too personally. But that's tough to do, so if you need to just avoid it all in order to keep your focus on writing I have no issue with that. Just take note if you're getting the same criticism from multiple sources, and let the one-offs go if you're not good at putting them in context.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: objectification of women

                      Originally posted by omjs View Post
                      The best approach is to be aware of general trends and tropes, but not take particular criticism too personally.
                      This is important. There's a tendency (particularly from younger people) to take that kind of criticism very personally, as if they are being called sexist, and then to get defensive. And I understand why it can feel that way.

                      With this particular trope, the solution to usually just to give more agency to your female characters. The problem isn't really that the female lead ends up with the male lead at the end, but rather that it seems to be ALL she does.

                      Asking questions like, "Does she have her own journey? Does she make decisions that are crucial to the heroes' success? Does she have her own, independent goals?" will usually get you there.

                      We all have blind spots, and that's okay, so long as we handle it gracefully when they get pointed out to us.

                      If somebody points out that a movie you like objectifies woman, rather than dismiss her as an angry feminist theorist, ask her what she means. In this case, I suspect that cvolate assumed she was talking about nudity when she was, probably, talking about something else entirely.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Objectification of women

                        Bottom line, you could make the greatest movie in the history of the world that scores all the awards made, plus awards made up just so they could give them to your movie and there will still be people out there who hate it. There will be people who will dissect it so much they start to find things in there you never even knew existed. It's just the way of the world. You can't let it bother you.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Objectification of women

                          Do you think a movie about love or a romcom or a romance or whatever can escape the wrath of feminist theorists?
                          No.
                          Do you think people have higher/stronger/weirder expectations for female writers than for male ones?
                          No.
                          And -- how do write about love in a cynical world and in a feminist world etc? ... There are some people who so fundamentally don't believe in love it's like they're atheists about it. They get outright angry. Threatened.
                          Write the truth.
                          How do you deal with readers who want your script to be something it's not -- it's like they have an agenda of what the world needs or something. Like -- does it mean what you're writing is "out of style" or out of synch with what the world is looking for?
                          Write the truth. Can you really do anything else?
                          I don't even have my feedback yet. What I just wrote ... doesn't have any brave Frozen ... "I don't need a man, I'm so awesome on my own" kind of scene.
                          Maybe that discovery answered an important need for somebody. But it does not have to be universalized to apply to everyone everywhere and become your truth.

                          "The fact that you have seen professionals write poorly is no reason for you to imitate them." - ComicBent.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Objectification of women

                            I am both a wrathful feminist theorist and a person who loves (and writes) romcoms.

                            As others have said, the key is to write women as fully rounded characters and consider their POV. How women perceive a situation isn't always the way men do.

                            For example, in Love Actually, the problem I have with the Andrew Savage/Keira Knightley storyline isn't that he "objectifies" her or only thinks she's pretty, it's that filming her the way he has is kind of creepy-stalkery. And dude, that's your best friend's wife. Not cool. I don't think an actual woman would react the way Keira does if she discovered her new husband's best friend had a videotape full of surreptitious recordings of her. I think most women would be mortified at best, and possibly terrified because hello - serial killer collage.

                            Good romcoms also make it clear why the characters are meant for each other (especially if they don't yet see it themselves). WFT that I am, I didn't like Trainwreck too much, mostly because I could not see any reason anyone would fall in love with Amy Schumer's character.

                            The Tall Guy, Richard Curtis' first film, is a delightful rom-com that clearly shows why Emma Thompson and Jeff Goldblum's characters fall in love, and a depicts an honest reaction from Emma when her character is cheated on. (Again! Poor Emma.)

                            As for what to do about readers who want your script to be something else - do nothing. Your story is your story.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Objectification of women

                              Try not to let other people's hang-ups effect your creative process too much, or stick in your craw. People are people, everybody objectifies everybody. Classical statues, paintings, ideals of beauty which change over time, *it's all objectification.* Unless you're watching porn or snuff films, people who get huffy about this kinda stuff are just that -- huffy. They have issues, and you shouldn't let them effect you. Life is hard enough. Be well

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X