So school is back in full swing and my plate is very full. I'm going to respond to a few points here. But if you feel like I skipped over a point that you thought was really important, let me know and I can go back. One of my pet peeves in a discussion/debate is when someone responds but conveniently skips over a point I thought I'd made really well. I'm not trying to do that, so feel free to redirect if I didn't respond to a particular part you want discussed.
And I don't mind noting those disparities. My only objection is when something like empathy it's regarded as a static and not a fluid characteristic. Because if we talk about something like empathy as if it's an unchangeable metric, then it can become an excuse for not expecting more empathy from people. (ie "Men have a lower level of empathy, full stop, so we just can't ever expect them to like/want art centered on women.").
Now, I do think aggregate differences are inevitable to some degree, but I don't think they're fixed at their current point (to say that would be saying culture plays no role, which is equally as absurd as saying culture is responsible for all differences).
That's why I specifically said that some films should be made this way. If a studio could only release one film a year, then you have to go with the one thing with broadest appeal. But these days theaters can show a lot of films at a time
I hear what you're saying about gain/loss. If a male-centered narrative pulls in 100 male and 100 female audience members, and a female-centered narrative gains you 10 female viewers but loses you 30, you're at a net loss. I get it. But I would really like to see some actual studies about how the gender of leads impacts a willingness to see films.
I actually stand by my use of the word "dangerous" here. When a group is underrepresented (or in any other way under-served), I think that it's a problem to say/assume/assert, essentially, that they must not care enough to advocate for what they want and are not interested in equitable treatment.
It puts the onus of change on people who (despite being an economic force) might not actually have the power to force such change (I will again here reference diversity in literature and specifically in children's literature).
I'm uncomfortable with using that uncertainty as an argument for maintaining the status quo.
I think this at odds with the desire for data, too, since that data has the potential to show things that would also be "dangerous" by this standard.
But this isn't true. Look at the MPAA study again. White audiences make up 53% of frequent movie goers. Latino audiences make up 24%. Women make up 51% of the movie-going audience. I don't think that these demographics are reflected in most blockbusters.
You wrote "I agree with films being aspirational, though that can be bad, too, when depictions are unrealistic in certain ways, or because the defense of art as "reflecting truth" is inevitably weakened when the truth its reflecting is a value judgment or desire about what things ought to look like "
In the context of this discussion we were specifically talking about women leads in action movies being aspirational. I was disagreeing the premise that it's problematic if depictions are "unrealistic" or "reflecting judgement or desire about what things ought to look like."
In the context of this discussion we were specifically talking about women leads in action movies being aspirational. I was disagreeing the premise that it's problematic if depictions are "unrealistic" or "reflecting judgement or desire about what things ought to look like."
I'm honestly at a loss to explain how, multiple times, I've explicitly agreed with you and somehow received a contradiction in response anyway.
I'm pushing back to say that this is true of pretty much ALL action, not just action with female leads.
I mean, I'd like some examples. How might a female lead doing unrealistic things be harmful? (Any more so than a male action lead doing unrealistic things.)
You wrote: "I believe, pretty confidently, that more equal societies will still see huge disparities in choice of profession, entertainment, and other things like that."
I reacted with surprise to this because it seems to me that as societies get more equal there are fewer gender disparities in profession and entertainment.
I reacted with surprise to this because it seems to me that as societies get more equal there are fewer gender disparities in profession and entertainment.
YI'm not disputing that there would be some gender disparities in a perfectly equal society (say, more men in the military), it was the word "huge" that surprised me. How big of s disparity is huge in your mind? Is 55-45 a huge disparity? 60-40?
I know that's where some people are terrified film is headed, but I just don't think it's true.