July 24th, 2008
by
Yonmei
Although not specifically related to science-fiction, I thought it likely that any of you who don’t read The Hathor Legacy regularly (because I didn’t, even though it’s on our blogroll) would find Betacandy’s posts on Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test and Why discriminate if it doesn’t profit? as interesting as I did. (The posts are from early July, and link back to a post in late June about Female characters exist to promote male leads for network profits.
There’s a lot worth reading in those three posts (and the comment threads that follow) but a quote I particularly chew over is:
Right. A bunch of self-back-slapping professed liberals wouldn’t want you to think they routinely dismiss women in between writing checks to Greenpeace. Gosh, no – it was they. The audience. Those unsophisticated jackasses we effectively worked for when we made films. They were making us do this awful thing. They, the man behind the screen. They, the six-foot-tall invisible rabbit. We knew they existed because there were spreadsheets with numbers, and no matter how the numbers computed, they never added up to, “Oh, hey, look – men and boys are totally watching Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley like it’s no big deal they’re chicks instead of guys.” They always somehow added up to “Oh, hey, look – those effects/that Arnold’s so awesome, men and boys saw this movie despite some chick in a lead role.”
One of my favourite books about making movies is Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman. In one chapter, “Protecting the Star” he outlines the difference between movies made in the days when studios had power, where background characters could have zinger lines, and movies made now (the book was published in 1983, but if anything, Hollywood’s got worse in the past 25 years) must give everything to the star.
(There’s a line in The Barefoot Contessa, 1954, starring Bogart and Gardner, which isn’t spoken by either of the stars, but by a background character: Bogart’s wife in the movie. “What she’s got, you couldn’t spell, and what you’ve got, you used to have.” Goldman makes a compelling case that if that movie had been made in the 1970s/1980s, when the star has everything, that line would have gone to Bogart – because it’s the best and most memorable line in the scene, so the star would have wanted it and got it.)
And the star is usually, as Betacandy notes, going to be a white man. (Goldman, unsurprisingly, doesn’t note that all the stars he discusses in any detail are men, and that almost all of them are white.) But what Goldman does make clear is: making a movie is a joint project between actor(s), camera operator, director, editor, producer, production designer, and writer, that if any one of them screws it up the movie will fall over, and that (he repeats this multiple times) nobody really knows anything.
Back when Samuel R. Delany was writing the novel that never got out, Voyage, Orestes!, it was a truism in book publishing that all novels had to have a straight, white, male central character – or characters – for the reader to “identify with”. Voyage, Orestes! couldn’t be published in the 1960s, because the two central characters were neither of them straight/white/males – a black woman and a gay man, I think Delany said they were.
Back when Suzy McKee Charnas was writing Motherlines (published 1976) it was a truism – it was a given! – that to be interesting, novels had to have male characters. Charnas’s written about this at length – how she had never encountered a novel which had no male characters – not one – and though the structure of Motherlines made sense, she was not sure if anyone would find it “interesting”.
What I found interesting about Betacandy’s posts is that they outline in convincing detail why it is that the movie/TV industry in California is still stuck in the 1960s – and why Joss Whedon comes across as such a rebel just because he did, some time ago, manage to write a TV series in which two women sometimes talked to each other about something other than a man.
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- More blogging by
Yonmei at
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Filed under TV & Film | Comments (14)
I’d never heard of “Adventures In Screen Trade” but now want to read it.
I didn’t know that Delany had an unpublished novel! I guess he has no plans to publish it now either, eh? Too bad.
Come to think of it, Buffy and Willow are two of the characters I most closely identify in television and film. Do you have anything to recommend (TV, film, book) that has better portrayals of both men and women?
Voyage, Orestes! can’t be published: the 1000+ page manuscript (both the original and the carbon copy) were lost, in separate incidents. (From The Motion of Light In Water.)
Actually, Motherlines is by Suzy McKee Charnas. Elgin wrote Native Tongue.
why Joss Whedon comes across as such a rebel just because he did, some time ago, manage to write a TV series in which two women sometimes talked to each other about something other than a man.
Yes! That’s it exactly! Whether or not one thinks he deserves a “feminist cookie” we can debate til nightfall, but perhaps the bigger point to take home is: he’s as feminist as TV creators are “allowed” to be. And it’s 2008, here – 30 years since shows like Cagney & Lacey opened the door… and nobody really followed.
cofax – fixed, and thank you.
BetaCandy – yes! And Cagney & Lacey‘s owners and directors kept thinking C & L was “unsuccessful” and canceling it, and then were always surprised at the strength of the audience reaction.
I believe Tenko (a BBC/ABC series set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp for women) was a similar “surprise success” – but the BBC is used to having surprise successes, and didn’t just dismiss it or try to cancel it. (3 series/30 episodes, is quite long for a BBC series.)
Significantly, while all of Tenko is available on DVD, only one season of C&L is available, and that only from episode 7.
Yeah, I’m annoyed by the failure to put out the rest of C&L already.
I’m not familiar with Tenko – I’ll see if it’s available at Netflix, though. Sounds like something I’d like to see!
When I’ve written about C&L, people have mentioned in response that the BBC has put out a few shows featuring two women leads since then. I’m glad of that, but the US hasn’t even done that. I mean Kate & Allie (sitcom about two divorced female roomies and their kids) looks progressive to me now, and it should look ordinary.
All I can say about this is that I now have another reason for explaining why I don’t want to work in the American film industry. I’m waiting for the day when they catch up with some semblance of reality.
Yeah, I’m annoyed by the failure to put out the rest of C&L already.
This is getting more and more OT for sf, but who would one write to if urging the makers of C&L to put out the complete first season? Because then I’ll buy it – even if I have to buy US.
Sorry about the OT. As far as I can tell, it’s MGM you’d write to. Sony is their parent company, but apparently they released the first season via Fox rather than Sony. I’ll try to look into this further – if I find something, I’ll post it on Hathor because others may be interested too.
This link from a while back explains the how the producer felt MGM was stonewalling him on releasing the first set, which apparently he fought tooth and nail to get out. I’m assuming this is a hint as to why the further seasons haven’t come out yet:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Cagney-Lacey/7062
I was elated earlier today when I realized my current favorite TV show, The Middleman, passes.
The protagonist and her roommate often talk about art, politics, protests, and so forth.
Sad that something which should be a given (female characters discussing something other than men) should be such a rarity that it’s worth mention.
[...] Feminist SF – The Blog! said: What I found interesting about Betacandy’s posts is that they outline in convincing detail why it is that the movie/TV industry in California is still stuck in the 1960s – and why Joss Whedon comes across as such a rebel just because he did, some time ago, manage to write a TV series in which two women sometimes talked to each other about something other than a man. [...]
[...] few months ago, Yonmei at Feminist SF – The Blog! asked me who to write to get more seasons of Cagney & Lacey on DVD. I called MGM and asked who I should talk to about this. The receptionist had no idea and forwarded [...]
The best TV programme ever… bring it out on DVD!
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