Aaaand it took me two more months even after the above message. Sorry!
We can whittle this down a fair bit from here on out, though, I'm sure. I don't think we're that far apart.
But your whole chain of logic starts with the fundamental premise that women are more empathetic than men. Empathy is not a "you have it or you don't" trait. People can learn empathy. It might be true that in our society women (generally) are more empathetic than men, but it's not a static state of things. Ebert once referred to movies as "a machine that generates empathy". If men find it challenging to empathize with a woman, I'd rather film/art/media tackle that head-on rather than accepting it as "just the way things are". Maybe women are more empathetic than men because they are more constantly being asked to sympathize with an "other"--ie a protagonist who is not like them. Maybe the problem is that boys need more practice with this.
Agreed, but again, nothing in my statement suggested we should not tackle it, or excused the disparity in any way.
I have some pretty nuanced views on aggregate traits across sexes that you may or may not agree with, but I haven't laid claim to any of that. For the point in question, the only thing necessary to point out is that there's currently a significant disparity. I'd also say the disparity is not
wholly socially-influenced, but it's okay to disagree about that (or, more likely, about the degree). I think we should be able to note these disparities without it being suggested that we're excusing or defending them.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "lack of interest", though. Women turn up for films that cater to their interests.
Right, they show up disproportionately to the "women's films" you were mentioning earlier.
The crowd at the showing of Wonder Woman that I attended had a much higher proportion of women than any other superhero film I've ever seen in the theater.
At a certain point we need to be able to talk about this without anecdotes, though. I don't think anyone denies there's something of value/importance to women here. The question is, how much?
And even if we suppose that many or even most women don't care for action films or don't particularly care about a female lead in one, there are millions and millions of women in the US alone. If even 10% of women are interested in seeing a female lead, then it's a marketable strategy to make some films this way.
I think we disagree here, a bit. I don't think that's how the economics really work. Interest is not binary, particularly in a world where people do not lack for options. I think a better way to look at it is by determining which things get people over the thresholds of forking over their money: women may, when simply
asked be interested in more female leads, but it's not clear they'll refuse to pay to see male leads. But is the inverse true for men? I don't think so. I think men are more likely to refuse on this basis. Not saying that's good or right, but I think that's the baseline reality that studios are grappling with when making these decisions.
It's dangerous to assume that the lack of a product means that consumers aren't being vocal enough. Many parents will tell you that books with characters who are demographically (race, age, ethnicity, gender, etc) like their children are important. But despite some very recent strides, most children's books are not very diverse. It's not a lack of interest, it's not a lack of willingness to invest in such a product. It's that the industry itself is set up in such a way that impact the output in a skewed way. Movies are no different. After Michael B Jordan was cast in the Fantastic Four movie, Josh Trank wanted to cast a Black actress as his sister. He uses the phrase "heavy pushback" to describe the studio's reaction. The studio wasn't pushing back on a specific actress, they were pushing back on the *idea* of casting someone in that demographic.
I disagree that it's "dangerous." I also disagree with the implication that I'm "assuming" anything. I think I've made it pretty clear that there's no way to objectively know which is happening or in which proportion, so we have to lean a bit on ideological priors to estimate probability. I've laid my priors (and the thought process behind them) out pretty clearly: market-based explanations are simpler and more frequently the explanation for things like this. This does
not mean I'm "assuming" this is the primary explanation (let alone the only one), and it does not mean that representation of the kind you mention is not "important."
I feel like a rather large percentage of my responses are suddenly about me having to say that I wasn't saying something I clearly did not say, simply because it's something someone
could say, or perhaps something you're used to people saying when you have this kind of discussion. I can understand that on some level, but I think this discussion has gone on long enough that it should be obvious I'm actually qualifying these statements appropriately.
Did Wonder Woman drive away men who weren't interested in a female protagonist? Maybe. But did it attract female consumers who might not have otherwise watched a superhero film? Yes.
I think I agree with that, the question is which group is larger? Let's consider the possibility that they lost more in men than they gained in women, or that this is something that can easily happen, and that this is probably what stops studios from doing this kind of thing more often.
I'm not saying "women led action movies" is a subgenre that is an untapped billion dollar profit just waiting to be exploited. But I do think that there is a market for them.
Fair enough. I think the position that there's some money to be made here is a reasonable one (while the idea that there's
tons of money to be made here probably isn't), so this clarification is a good one.
I think the tricky part, too, is that there's "a market" for a lot of things, but the scale we're talking about is hundreds of millions of dollars, so the only things that get made at that level are things that hit all four quadrants. Which means, by definition, it ends up catering to the "lowest" of them, in terms of willingness to pay to see things that they can't see themselves in as easily. In other words, empathetic people who can watch any character are always going to be underrepresented in massive blockbusters. It's built into the logic of the economics.
And how do you imagine women demanding such art? Take one of my students: she's 11 years old, Black, girl, athletic. She would love to see someone who looks like her in a superhero movie. How does she make this happen? By NOT watching other superhero films? Nah, she loves superhero films! So what is her recourse?
I think the first part of this paragraph is a good question, but it's undermined by the latter, since you segue into talking about a specific person. There's no way for an
individual to demand a $200 million blockbuster for themselves, and I don't think that's a problem. It is unremarkable and unproblematic that the highest budgets are reserved for things that appeal to the greatest number of people, which means they will always reflect the demographic makeup of the market they're in.
Usually these things happen a couple ways, I think: the studios are, of course, constantly doing market research, and they see whether smaller bets pay off and scale up accordingly. A specific sub-demographic or sub-culture can be crying out for something but they can probably, from its total size, have at least a rough idea of what the
ceiling for success would be for something catered to that group, and in some cases it's just not going to be high enough to demand a massive budget. Regardless, the fact that there's no official form to fill out doesn't mean
That last qualifier is the important one, I think, because while we've ended up talking a lot about representation or equality in general, the genesis of this topic is about a subset of a subset of cinema.
But most action films are, by any metric, unrealistic. Again: if a male action star can fire a machine gun while ziplining out of an exploding building, get knocked flat by an explosion but not suffer any injuries beyond superficial bruising, and then take on 8 bad guys in hand-to-hand combat, we don't worry that little boys will think they can zipline out of burning buildings, do we? Most action films reflect an unrealistic aspiration for male characters.
The only thing I don't agree with in this paragraph is the word "but," which implies it's a contradiction or disagreement, even though I started my reply by agreeing with the premise.
TBH, a lot of these replies feel like they were written for "generic person arguing this general position," given how often they seem to be taking down things I didn't say or fighting for something I've just agreed with. Again, I can sympathize with this, I'm sure huge portions of this discussion feel cookie-cutter or very similar to past discussions you may have had, but I think a close reading will show that I'm stopping well short of the things you're arguing against.
"But girls will grow up thinking they can be stronger than boys!!". Meh. I have a lot of male students who watch sports and read books about sports. When the guidance counselor asks boys in my class what they want to be when they grow up, a solid HALF of them answer "NFL player." Even if you only look at athletes in the NCAA, only 2% of them even go pro (and specifically in football the numbers are lower, 1.6%). It's not about girls thinking they can grow up to be stronger than boys. It's about thinking they can grow up to be strong and stand up for what is right, which is the same message I would hope boys take away from action movies. This is where what is literally on screen (Scott Adkins backflips and kicks two bad guys in the face simultaneously; Gina Carano punches out a man) co-exists with the bigger theme (standing up to corruption; protecting someone who is helpless). We all just pretend to believe the former; we're supposed to walk away with the latter.
Agree on all counts. This reminds me of one of my favorite Chesterton quotes, in fact, and I think it sums up all super hero films:
“Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten."
The nuance I was talking about is the fact that unrealistic depictions can be harmful (I doubt I have to give examples), and that in the examples we're discussing now, truth is not really abandoned, it's just that the truth of the message is taking priority over literal realism. But like anything, it can be done badly or thoughtlessly, and turn into facile power fantasies or mindless pandering.
"Huge" disparities? Hmm. I mean, it seems to me that as fewer barriers stand in the way of different professions we tend to see smaller disparities. More women in the military, more men in primary education, more women directing movies, more men working as nurses.
I'm sure that some disparities will still linger, but I can't think of a profession that has gotten more skewed in the last 40 years. But maybe you are thinking of certain specific counter-examples. None of the women I've known in the military signed up to prove some sort of "girl power" point.
I think there's a subtle but crucial distinction here: you ask for examples of a profession that has gotten "more skewed," but nothing about the claim that there can be "huge natural disparities" requires that, as evidence. Huge is a relative term, and in this case it's in relation to "perfectly proportional," and not to what you seem to be asking about, which is "whatever it happened to be in 1980."
There are, indeed, "more" examples of male nurses or women in the military than there were, I just don't think it's indicative of a problem if those things end up being a long way from 50/50.
I believe it. I think that there's sort of a slingshot effect that happens. For example, take women staying at home to care for children. It's not cool when that becomes the default--"You are a woman, therefore you will give up your job to stay home". Then you see pushback. But that kind of strands women who do want to stay home and care for their children--because they might feel like a "traitor" for having that feeling. In a more open society, women would feel comfortable saying "I want to stay home with my kids and it's more important to me than continuing my former career". But I would also argue that in that same society you'd also see more men staying home with the kids. I have a few male friends who are the stay-at-home parent (usually because their partner's job has a higher salary), and they get comments and push back quite frequently because that's not a "man's job" and their wives get a ton of comments about whether or not it's "safe" to leave the kids with the dad.
Yes, big agreement on all counts. And this is kind of my concern with some of the other parts of this discussion:
good, thoughtful calls for examination and representation can turn into rote checklisting, and stereotypes can be thought of as so dangerous that the only acceptable depiction is the
opposite stereotype. Which leads to a really bizarre situation where the only safe thing to depict in fiction are the things that happen less often in reality.