Laziness and egotism

[shreena]

A while ago, I read these two blog posts.  They are about why so many films don't pass the Bechdel Test.  They are awesome, awesome posts.  You should read them.

Also, I think the author's central thesis - that the reason why people discriminate even if there is no profit in it boils down to "laziness and egotism" just explains so much in general

Comments

[gonzo21]

Although Doctor Who was specifically made by the BBC to be 45 minutes long (instead of an hour as it would usually have been for a UK drama) so that it was easier to sell to America, so they only have to cut 3 minutes out to make it fit into an american tv hour, with all the ads.

But no, I don't know why they couldn't have made it an hour long, and then the american station could have just scheduled it into a 90 minute slot. There seems to be a weird attitude in American tv scheduling world where everything has to be an hour long, because people apparently can't cope with things that start at half past or quarter past the hour.

I think tv schedulers have a very low opinion of the watching publics intelligence level.

[shreena]

The thing is that, if they really wanted to, they could change the number of ads in order to make programmes fit. It's not the law or anything always to have exactly the same number of ads they usually do or anything.

[yiskah]

I think the US Queer as Folk did OK, didn't it? But in general I agree with your point. I'd also be pretty irritated if I were American, as it seems that TV execs are constantly underestimating the intelligence and adaptability of the TV-watching public.

[cangetmad]

Which ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy: see under "Scottish people understand working-class English accents, but not vice versa as they don't really hear them much."

[whatifoundthere]

You may enjoy Captain Awkward's take on unconscious sexism and racism in movie casting.

[thekumquat]

Very interestting; thanks for the links.

They always used to blame everything on the 'test audiences' of mainly teenagers, of both sexes - most famously the change to the ending of Pretty Woman where originally she dumped the guy but then they filmed an extra bit where she came back.

Given that the article refers to young people growing up in an increasingly equal (or elss unequal world), I wonder how much is still down to test audiences. I have to admit that teenagers often seem more conservative than older people, maybe trying to make sense of a confusing world?

Also how much is down to the advertisers, at least on TV. If a show is great but you can't attract the companies to pay big bucks to advertise during it because they don't think it will get the audiences, it won't last long enough to get those audiences in the US system.