(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

droidguy1119 has an update for me on the Warner Brothers "we don't like female stars" policy that I mentioned a day or two ago. Apparently, the blogger who broke it is a crazy person. who is not well liked.

By people who might actually have made the exact faux pas blogged about. Read this article denying the no-female-lead clause. Yep, sounds like an average blogger just trying to stir up trouble...

...except for this part in the supposed "defense" of character of the studio against claims of misogyny:

As for Neil Jordan's brainy twist on the vigilante genre, "The Brave One," Robinov said he is "proud of the movie," which Foster continues to support around the world. "It's tricky," he said. "It may have been too rough for women, and we didn't get the reviews we had expected."
(emphasis mine)

That's right, ladies. A movie about a woman who experienced violence and loss and went vigilante is "too rough" for you. Any woman who claims to have sat through--and enjoyed!--Batman Begins two years ago is a filthy, lying whore. That role was clearly too rough for you, and it's a damned good thing Batman's not a chick, because no way would a chick have been able to pull that off.

When Warner Brothers would like try to try and rally a defense of what was supposedly said that isn't patronizing, self-important, and completely insulting, I'm all ears. Hell, at this point, I'd prefer to hear them fucking admit what exactly was said, even if it was, "Fucking bitches, man. They can't open movies for shit. We ain't making no more girlie pictures."

(Ire aside, there was one sterling moment of clarity that shone through the Hollywood-ese bullshit where the person being quoted suggested that a problem of marketing the film The Invasion--which was already troubled by reports of rewrites, accidents, and friggin name changes up the wazoo because until yesterday I was sure it was only called Invasion--was to blame and that the male and female leads did not promote it hurt the film's box office. That's great. I'm truly thrilled to see Hollywood exercise the old standby of, "It must be the actors!" so long as the blame is shared. But perhaps all the other things I mentioned might have had an impact? No?)

Comments

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Now that's being a little unfair. People didn't watch it, he's just speculating that the brutality of the movie scared the female demographic away. That's close-minded but I mean, he has the exit polls -- they clearly say that women were not showing up and WB expected them to. It's not like he's making a comment about women and roughness in general, he's just suggesting a reason about a movie he more than likely has audience data on.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

If he's making a comment on the demographics of who did and did not attend The Brave One, he needs to specifically say as much or risk being misunderstood. As he is trying to correct what WB is saying were words taken out of context, he'd do well to be more careful choosing his own. If he is referring to polls taken from test audiences or the like, he should say so. He should also remember that test audiences are hardly the scientific sampler of mainstream attitudes that Hollywood desperately would like them to be.

That's entirely aside from the matter of his generalizing--something that got WB into trouble in the first place (when someone decided women can't open pictures). He chose not to say "The Brave One didn't seem to attract a female audience." He backwards generalized and came up with, "Women don't like rough movies." This ignores everything, all the many, many myriad reasons women might not have shown up for this film. I bet you a shiny nickel that women showed up in nearly equal numbers to see Eastern Promises (most people I know who've seen it are women) and that's got A LOT of "rough" stuff (especially for women to see what happens to other women onscreen). I bet they even equalled the men in the audience for Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The failure of one movie with blood and violence and victimization and exploitation to attract women is not a fault of women or their taste but of the movie. This is precisely why he's out there damage-controlling over another guy who flapped his gums out of turn.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

But he didn't say "Women don't like rough movies," he said "Maybe this one specific movie turned out too rough to attract a female audience." It may be a generalization but I really don't think it's quite the generalization you are saying it is. The sentence, I think, suggests less that roughness was the issue and more that the roughness was too strong, which directly indicts The Brave One and only The Brave One. For instance, had he said "I don't think women saw it because it was brutal" or "The roughness probably scared the female audience away" then those are generalized and refer to all roughness in movies but in this case I feel he's kept it specific enough to refer to the one movie.

And I'm suggesting he has exit polls, which is when someone stands at the door after general admission screenings and not only looks at who's in the theater, but even asks some of them questions -- these are the people who actually shelled out nine bucks to go see it after it opened.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

To be fair, "The Brave One" looks a little to rough for ME.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Didn't look like anything I hadn't seen before in one guise or another, so I didn't get turned off by the prospect of it being too "rough." You know what looked too rough? In the Valley of Elah. That shit looked rough, and that's as manly-manly a movie about testosterone-driven shit happening as you can get.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The big fuss is only that instead of paying any attention to the myriad problems with this movie (or even just the three you listed), some asshat flew off about women being unable to lead action movies.

Everyone has different taste, and trying to pigeonhole it based on a release's box-office success is just stupid. I'm sure plenty of women would have watched it on DVD just fine. Maybe women are just more savvy about not spending shitloads to go to crappy movies? I mean you can make any general statement you want to if you look at this and the other film mentioned in isolation. It's fitting the facts to your theory instaed of the other way around. And it's shoving the blame onto actresses which just isn't true or fair.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

some asshat flew off about women being unable to lead action movies.

Except... he apparently didn't say that!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Right. And Mel Gibson was totally serious about not meaning those things he said about the jews...

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Uh-huh. Face it TV, your "case" is based on (a) a piece of hearsay from a (supposedly) questionable source, and (b) strained reasoning from a single piece of circumstantial evidence. (At least in Mel Gibson's case we knew about his father's Anti-Semitism, his portrayal of Jews in The Passion and so forth.) And all for what? To help Jodie Foster's career? (She'll do fine without us.) You're acting like a Soviet commissar sniffing out bourgeois tendencies, and I simply do not see the point.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, but whether or not this was ever going to affect policy, someone said women-won't-lead over at Warners. The follow-up "clarification" is as phony as any other covering-their-ass story as I've ever heard, and only makes them seem more suspicious. And there is a documented drying up of female-led movies of substance (as opposed to films designed for the "niche" audience of only women). I'd say that and Hollywood's tendency to find the quick-fix solution or blame make it likely that there're shenanigans.

I'm not burning my DVDs or boycotting WB. That was hyperbolic ire after hearing the original statement. I just don't buy the "Nothing to see here!" shit after.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

From what I heard, The Brave One was

1. A vigilante movie in the Death Wish mold
   
2. Had a slight feminist slant to it
   
3. Was stupid

Those three things together made a movie that appealed to just about nobody.

And honestly, what's the big fuss? Men and women in America have different tastes. He's not saying women are stupid, just that they don't like blood and guts, which obviously isn't the case for a lot of women (e.g., you) but may hold for a majority of them.