annoyedI got half of what I wanted: I got air conditioning. I will be as spoiler-free as I can, but I am unhappy.
The setup of the movie is thus: four magicians, all of whom are awesome in their solo acts, are Recruited To Do Something. This isn't a spoiler; it's the premise, which leads to them teaming up and being awesome and also robbing banks and shit (all in the trailers). We have a mentalist, a classic slight-of-hand trickster, an escape artist, and a pickpocket/misdirectionist. As they start to do their shit, they are pursued by an FBI agent, an Interpol agent, a professional debunker, and a dude who got robbed.
Of the characters listed above, two are female. They never speak to each other. No, never. No, not even then. There are two secondary female characters, who also never speak to each other (one is there purely to be a pretty status symbol). The female magician is the only one who never gets an awesome moment where her field of magic, her specialization is both key to the plan and saves the day. Literally the first thing one of the other magicians says to her is "you're pretty."
YOU'RE PRETTY.
Now here's the thing: while I disagree that some roles are particularly "gendered," I can accept that right now, in our current media climate, you will want at least 75% of your romances to be between characters of opposite genders. I don't like it, but I will roll with it. And that being said, there was not a single fucking character in this movie who needed to be male. Make the smug team leader a girl, and make the ex-girlfriend an ex-boyfriend! Make the action character a girl (I basically spent every moment one of the magicians was on screen wishing he would turn into Beth Reisgraf). Make more than one important member of your team a fucking female.
And we now stand, again, at the edge of one of my biggest complaints about media today: a team with three men and one women wasn't seen as imbalanced, but the opposite team would have been. It's very possible that even a two-and-two team would have been seen as dominated by women. I am not calling for gender equality in every movie. I saw The Fast and the Furious 6 earlier this month; it was male-dominated, and it was fantastic. Not without its issues—what is?—but well-balanced, casting-wise, with multiple interesting, nuanced female characters who were allowed to interact.
When I go on these "why was so-and-so a guy" rants, someone always says "would you have this complaint if the cast were exactly gender reversed?", and I always say no. I still say no. Because there are so many male-dominated action movies and caper flicks and summer blockbusters that adding a few female-dominated examples would not be "reverse discrimination," it would be balancing the backlog. What I really want is gender neutrality. I want a team of two girls and two guys robbing banks with slight-of-hand and being awesome, rather than another movie that reduces me to a prize or a non-entity.
It's exhausting being this unhappy all the time.
The media won't let me stop.
June 9 2013, 02:37:12 UTC 4 years ago
POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR Star Trek AND Fast 6. There will be shouting.
On Thursday, I saw Star Trek.
I came out of Star Trek saying, "Well, okay. They did better than the first one. Uhura actually got a little bit of Cool that wasn't entirely related to her being Spock's girlfriend; we added a second female to the bridge crew -- even if she never spoke to Uhura; the council scene featured possibly half women, and they even managed a plus-sized (for Hollywood) woman of color on the Bridge as a very secondary character. That's better..." I mean, they still haven't managed to cast a woman admiral with a speaking role (is there any reason the villain couldn't have been a mom instead of dad?) and why do these woman not wear PANTS for the love of all that's holy, but...better than Reboot #1? Also, why did we have to break HER leg? Seriously? Was that the only reason she was on that bridge?
Then yesterday I saw Fast 6, and...
Three female leads plus several supporting female characters. Every single one of them had a moment in the movie where they picked up a weapon and and performed actions equal to that of their male counterparts. When things became dangerous, they picked up guns and stood back to back with another person (sometimes male; sometimes not) to defend themselves AND THE OTHER PERSON. I can not gush enough about the beauty of a joint lock performed by Gina Carano. They ask competent questions, make decisions that are useful and relevant, demonstrate agency at all times, and they kick ass verbally, physically and professionally. (Seriously, Gina? More fight scenes, please.)
We won't even get into the people of color differences because... F&F6 makes a point of being inclusive of people of color, and it shows. Star Trek does not, and it shows.
Yes, I can find issues. The women are mostly wives and girlfriends. The men are still The Best, and they still outnumber the women. There was the obligatory Hot Chicks and Cars Scene. It was The Girl who needed saving in the end. It would be nice to have a good fight scene between a man and a woman where gender wasn't relevant but skill was. HOWEVER: if you told me that I had to be a woman from either F&F6 or ST, I would pick F&F6 hands down. And I've got to say, when I look at Geek Movie vs Street Racing movie, and it's the Street Racing movie that feels more welcoming to me, MY COMMUNITY IS DOING IT WRONG!
OTOH, F&F6 has taken in over $500Million world-wide, and it's done well in the U.S. Its target audience is a lot younger and hipper than I am. Maybe I should be grateful that better diversity is showing up in movies targeting that demographic and take it as a sign of progress. Right now though, I'm less interested in being grateful, and more interested in hitting my Geekdom over the head with a stick and saying "STOP! DO BETTER THAN THIS."
July 29 2013, 15:34:12 UTC 3 years ago