Tag Archives: women
Over the last nine posts I’ve been pondering the topic of Who Can Play Who when it comes to adaptations of existing works. To wrap things up, and because ten is a magic number to us humans, it seems reasonable to try to boil it all down to something coherent. If that’s even possible.
I find myself conflicted sometimes between what I’ll call a stage play sensibility that allows huge latitude in casting actors versus my sensibilities about live-action adaptations of well-established existing properties.
I think that changes the equation.
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14 Comments | tags: actors, adaptations, characters, gender, race, women | posted in Movies, Opinion, Society, TV
Speaking of women-centric movies and TV shows, recently I watched Hulu’s Prey (2022), the latest entry in the Predator franchise. Not to be confused with the Aliens vs. Predators mini franchise, the crossover with the Aliens franchise.
The evening was a double feature. First, I watched the second entry in the AvP series, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). I can’t say I’m a huge fan of these movies, but I’ve generally enjoyed them. Prey got lots of praise, and I’ve long wanted to see The AvP sequel (although I wasn’t expecting much from it).
As it turned out, AvP: Requiem won the night. Prey has a lot going for it but has too much Mulan and Dances with Wolves for my taste. I found it distracting and detracting.
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6 Comments | tags: aliens, science fiction movies, SF Movies, women | posted in Movies, Opinion
Women, in most societies, have long suffered as second-class citizens. In the beginning it was due to biology, but modern cultures generally erase those differences. Paradoxically, women have historically also held a revered position (“Women and children first!”). Art, literature, and social practice, all elevate them above men, albeit selectively.
Ironically, elevation is also a problem. In at least two ways. Putting anyone on a pedestal is never a good idea. That’s a topic for another time. There is also the zero-sum version of elevation: glorifying one group while disparaging, even attacking, another. That also is never a good idea.
As it applies to movie and TV roles, it’s the topic I want to discuss here.
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12 Comments | tags: actors, female characters, gender, women | posted in Movies, Society, TV
Recently I’ve been thinking (and posting) about acting roles in adaptations of existing works, especially of comics and animations. A few months ago, I ventured down the YouTube rabbit hole of fan media commentary channels where the topic is a common one. Fans naturally have strong opinions about their favorite characters.
I’ve long said sexual differences make social gender issues more challenging than social race issues (because race is a social construct). The issue of gender swapping is likewise more challenging than that of race swapping.
Here be dragons of objectification, exploitation, and the Male Gaze.
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4 Comments | tags: actors, beauty, female characters, gender, race, women | posted in Movies, Society, TV
Last time I asked, when it comes to actors playing roles, Who Can Play Who? To what degree do characters, particularly fictional ones, have fixed race or gender? How much latitude exists in adaptations of existing stories? Is there an acceptable spectrum from faithful retelling to jazz riff to based on to inspired by and finally to all but unrecognizable? If not, why not?
Last time I focused on race. This time I’ll focus on the gender side of the equation. Sexual differences and sexual attraction add a large and complex additional dimension. The question expands beyond matters of representation and actor swapping.
For instance, there is the additional notion of the Strong Female Character (SFC).
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13 Comments | tags: actors, female characters, gender, women | posted in Movies, Opinion, Society, TV
Versions of this post lived in my Drafts folder a long time. Writing about one’s childhood crushes is multiply fraught. The topic of sexual attraction is challenging, especially these days as we try to evolve our attitudes about it. Getting personal skates the line between recording my scrawl and TMI. The risk of objectification is also a problem.
But those childhood crushes were formative and abiding in my youth. They began at an early age, a long bridge to when I started dating (real beats imaginary every time). Honesty to my past seems to demand I include some mention of them in any account of my life.
So this is to toast those early loves (real and imagined).
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17 Comments | tags: Angie Harmon, Bewitched, Doctor Crusher, Judy Robinson, Kate Jackson, Lost in Space, love, Margaret Houlihan, Samantha Stephens, Supergirl, The Man Who Loved Women, women | posted in Life
This is a followup to the previous post, Year of the Woman? That one ran long, and there were some things I didn’t get to. There was also, from my point of view, an egregious memory lapse considering the nature of the post: I didn’t mention the new The Doctor. (Maybe because I’m planning a separate post about her, so she didn’t need to be in the more general one.)
There was a key aspect I meant to talk about with regard to sexual harassment, but my note for it was on a different piece of paper than my main notes. I just didn’t see it while writing the first post (it was in another room).
So now a long post gets even longer!
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2 Comments | tags: #MeToo, alpha male, bullying, Doctor Who, female, Jodie Whittaker, male, men, misogyny, The Doctor, women | posted in Society
RIP Penny Marshall
Some called last year the Year of the Woman. There are good justifications for the phrase, the recent election, what’s happened in the #MeToo movement, but Christine Blasey Ford might have an opinion on how far we have to go.
With President Obama, we were confronted with the reality that, despite progress, racism is very much alive in our culture. The past year or two has spotlighted an identical dichotomy with regard to gender. Politically, socially, and personally, we seem to become ever more divided in ever more ways.
As a white male I can speak on the core of sexism or racism only from the outside, but as a member of a group perceived to be a key source of the problems in the first place, raising my voice in support seems crucial.
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2 Comments | tags: #MeToo, Al Franken, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Klobuchar, Christine Blasey Ford, female, Geena Davis, Jackie Robinson, Laverne DeFazio, Lori Petty, Madonna, Moses Fleetwood Walker, Penny Marshall, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell, women | posted in Society
I was going to write about something completely different. Specifically: religion, spirituality, atheism, morality and ethics, faith and unbelief… that sort of thing. I like one day of the week to be different from the rest — a Sabbath, so to speak. For cultural and personal reasons (and pragmatic reasons — many businesses take today off) Sunday seems an appropriate day. I’ve got Sci-Fi Saturday; I suppose you could call it Sermon Sunday or something.
But when I sat down to write, something else came out. I thought I’d better grab it and stick it onto the blog wall before it ran away and, due to its youth and naiveté, ran afoul of Unpleasant Business. The thing about letting your mind drift is that you can never be sure where it’ll come ashore. In this case, mental notes about a possible future post morphed into… Well, you’ll just have to see for yourself.
And, yes, you have to look below the fold — no cheating!
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10 Comments | tags: blank verse, candy, female, free verse, global, local, male, men, music, poetry, Sabbath, Sunday, women | posted in Writing
Was participating in a discussion about violence against women and wrote a response that’s really too long for a comment, so I thought I’d make a post of it. This is really a comment response, so you might want to read Mark’s post, and the comments there, first.
This response does stand alone and mainly consists of statistics regarding murder and forcible rape. At the end I offer some opinions on the matter. It’s a heavy, but very important, topic.
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14 Comments | tags: Feminism, forcible rapes, men, murder statistics, rape, rape statistics, rape victims, violence, violence against women, women | posted in Rant
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