the line
Wondering about the line between portraying the past as sexist, which it was, and a sexist-in-the-present (2013) portrayal of the past.
The artist might argue, "Well, the important aspects of the time period only involved men as the principal actors. I'm portraying the time as it was."
But women still existed back then, they still had their points of view, they still had interior and emotional lives, they still performed work. Are you giving equal screen time to how women experienced the past? Are you portraying the sexism from their point of view, or are the women in your story irrelevant to the story?
I think it can be tricky. In the arthouse film I'm watching about the home front in the US during WW2, the focus so far is overwhelmingly on the lives of the male students, and the women are only incidental characters as mothers, librarians, girls that are kissed without consent at parties. The real story is what's going on between the men. It's unsettling for me to watch.
The artist might argue, "Well, the important aspects of the time period only involved men as the principal actors. I'm portraying the time as it was."
But women still existed back then, they still had their points of view, they still had interior and emotional lives, they still performed work. Are you giving equal screen time to how women experienced the past? Are you portraying the sexism from their point of view, or are the women in your story irrelevant to the story?
I think it can be tricky. In the arthouse film I'm watching about the home front in the US during WW2, the focus so far is overwhelmingly on the lives of the male students, and the women are only incidental characters as mothers, librarians, girls that are kissed without consent at parties. The real story is what's going on between the men. It's unsettling for me to watch.