Feminist Cinema 2010
I've not seen enough films from 2010 to do a top list of any kind (I don't get to the cinema enough and it takes me a long time to rent DVDs so I'm usually about 5 years behind, so ask me for a list in five years), so instead I want to do a little top and bottom feminist films of the year. I hang my head in shame at the state of cinema's representation of women in cinema STILL! It's not the 1950s any more! I'm not implying films need a feminist agenda, it's just the simple need for films to occasionally have good female characters who are well rounded, interesting, not entirely dim-witted, second-class characters, who can assert power via means other than sexuality and money. I would like to explain it in depth, but that would take a long time and I don't have the energy. I don't expect all films to contain feminist ideals (after all, having all women being strong individuals is equally as bad as none of them being so), nor do I even expect every film to have a female character at all. I just don't like seeing mind-numbing sexism and misogyny.
So, out of the few films I've seen this year, the best feminst(ish) film I've seen is....
WINTER'S BONE
(for some reason when I embed media it's not working, so here is a link to the trailer.
I don't think I need to explain this one too much. A lead female character who's interesting, well developed, and never objectified! Shocking!
Most sexist film(s) of the year...
SEX AND THE CITY 2
It's an easy target. I'm not going to explain it, I'm just going to leave it as it is and go on to a film I have a bigger beef with because it can't be passed off as complete trash like SATC2 can. There is one film being voted as 'best of 2010' and it's taken as serious cinema (unlike SATC2)...
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
My problem is that the film is so misogynistic when it need not be! It's not enough to explain that the characters themselves are misogynistic (and apparently they're not IRL), every woman is a jibbering idiot, high or drunk, vapid groupies, or crazy jealous girlfriends. We get the point that the one 'somewhat' smart female is the only woman Mark Zuckerberg wants, and it is because of this that he not only hates all women but maybe all human kind. The issue is that ALL these women are fabricated in this 'real life' tale. It's not enough that the films aims to show misogynist characters, it takes this idea and runs with it too far, so far that the film itself becomes nothing but sexist, carried away with the idea that geeks hate 'beautiful' women because those women won't date them. The film is SO misogynistic that at the end I didn't know who to hate more; women kind or Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher. I understand this is a man's film, I don't care if there aren't any strong female roles or even a some misogyny (if it's trying to make a point about it). But they need not have SO MANY incidents of raging misogyny. There is no excuse for this just like there is no excuse for the amount of racist codes/stereotypes in Avatar. These issues have been studied enough for them to be widely known, at the very least, in the film world. It would be nice if we could at least stop celebrating films which are, at their very core, quite rotten. But these films actually say very little at all. Maybe I'm just annoyed because The Social Network was also incredibly mediocre.
So, out of the few films I've seen this year, the best feminst(ish) film I've seen is....
WINTER'S BONE
(for some reason when I embed media it's not working, so here is a link to the trailer.
I don't think I need to explain this one too much. A lead female character who's interesting, well developed, and never objectified! Shocking!
Most sexist film(s) of the year...
SEX AND THE CITY 2
It's an easy target. I'm not going to explain it, I'm just going to leave it as it is and go on to a film I have a bigger beef with because it can't be passed off as complete trash like SATC2 can. There is one film being voted as 'best of 2010' and it's taken as serious cinema (unlike SATC2)...
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
My problem is that the film is so misogynistic when it need not be! It's not enough to explain that the characters themselves are misogynistic (and apparently they're not IRL), every woman is a jibbering idiot, high or drunk, vapid groupies, or crazy jealous girlfriends. We get the point that the one 'somewhat' smart female is the only woman Mark Zuckerberg wants, and it is because of this that he not only hates all women but maybe all human kind. The issue is that ALL these women are fabricated in this 'real life' tale. It's not enough that the films aims to show misogynist characters, it takes this idea and runs with it too far, so far that the film itself becomes nothing but sexist, carried away with the idea that geeks hate 'beautiful' women because those women won't date them. The film is SO misogynistic that at the end I didn't know who to hate more; women kind or Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher. I understand this is a man's film, I don't care if there aren't any strong female roles or even a some misogyny (if it's trying to make a point about it). But they need not have SO MANY incidents of raging misogyny. There is no excuse for this just like there is no excuse for the amount of racist codes/stereotypes in Avatar. These issues have been studied enough for them to be widely known, at the very least, in the film world. It would be nice if we could at least stop celebrating films which are, at their very core, quite rotten. But these films actually say very little at all. Maybe I'm just annoyed because The Social Network was also incredibly mediocre.