Films & Feminism

What have you been watching?

Re: Films & Feminism

Postby IamNotCreepy » Wed Sep 06, 2017 3:56 pm

52xMax wrote:To be fair, the first Ocean's Eleven movie starring Clooney and Pitt is a remake of a 1960 movie starring Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, and that was a pretty good movie. Thirteen was great too; Twelve is a steamy pile of garbage.

I don't think that remakes or adaptations, reboots, re-imaginings, etc. necessarily have to be bad, and there are plenty of examples that demonstrate that's not the case. But it is fairly easy to just take an intellectual property and re-brand it as girl power, expecting people to show out of solidarity or feminism or whatever, rather than putting more effort than just casting women on the lead roles because it's a trend. It's not only lazy, in many cases is cynical and opportunistic, which is why even people who identify as feminist are not very welcoming to these sorts of projects. The reason I don't like them is because most of them suck.


And I think that hits at the heart of the matter. It seems really gimmicky, and if they don't put in effort more than the concept, it's going to suck.

That doesn't mean that it can't be a good movie, it's just that I'm skeptical that it will be based on past history.
  • 3

User avatar
IamNotCreepy
TCS Admin
TCS Admin
 
Posts: 1521
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2015 5:00 am
Location: Inside the "Cone of Uncertainty"
Show rep
Title: Chasing after the Wind

Re: Films & Feminism

Postby NoodleFox » Sun Sep 10, 2017 2:28 am

Lord of the Flies remake but with women? Why can't they just...make a movie that ISN'T a remake or reboot to genderbend? It can't be because creating something is hard work, naw - maybe the patriarchy doesn't want to hear women's ideas, that has to be it! /s
Okay, I'm going to try and explain why this genderbend LotF won't work and it's a lazy attempt to score good boy points with feminists (2 guys are directing it, so it's already a wash) and a stupid, vapid attempt at rehashing someone else's idea that already has strong allegorical and symbolic pull.

William Golding served in WWII and suffered years after, hence the time period which the novel takes place in and the running theme with the boys.
“I began to see what people were capable of doing. Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head.”

Now, the boys are your average boys (from that era) and, when faced with a life or death scenario, try to survive while keeping their wits and social norms and morays about.

That backfires drastically when the group breaks up into two, having one boy (Jack, symbol of savagery and lust for power) lead against for the original group(led by Ralph, symbol of order and society). Things further devolve when paranoia sets in after they hear of a "beast" lurking in the woods (it's a dead guy hanging from a parachute) and the more they believe the "Beast" is out there, the more fearful they become, which begets into more ruthlessness until Jack's group is fully capable of using the younger boys and killing the "opposition."

Now, I can go on about this book, but I'll just cut to my point:

This book is, among other themes, about not just good versus evil, but rather humans aren't evil so long as society and civilization keep the evil within at bay - humans are evil without structure, democracy errodes into anarchy without strong leadership, humans will murder if they can get away with it or there's good reason to (essentials, items of worth, kill the "bad guys" before they kill you, etc).

Now comes the fact that they are boys on the verge of adolescence: the older boys may have started puberty, at latest near the end; hormones are kicking in, they still need elder guidance in regards to things such as empathy, they're ignorant in the ways of the world - add to the fact that men, by average, are the more aggressive of the two sexes.
Men are more prone to asserting dominance, break off into groups, aren't privy with their feelings, more likely to be the instigate violent crimes (assault, rape, murder, etc) due to primal instincts that made survival easier - just because we've been to space doesn't mean we lost what we started with.

Can women be as primally savage as men? Sure, but it isn't in their nature - unless you gather a bunch of girls with symptoms of sociopathy or with a history of abuse or some with higher testosterone levels, you might get some pseudo resemblance to Lord of the Flies, but I'm not entirely sure if women can descend into the sort of level men are capable of.

Men are just...different from women and this sort of book isn't ideal to genderbend - way too much is placed on allegories for war and the atrocities man can and will do; can you really imagine a bunch of lanky girls torturing animals and killing other girls, let alone refusing to get along with each other and not talking about how horrible they feel?

Can you imagine girls reverting to the sort of savagery of men, accepting primal evil in the end instead of trying to be rescued? Because that's pretty much how the book ends.


But other than this argument I have, I'll ultimately sit back and watch the shitshow on both sides.
  • 2

User avatar
NoodleFox
Frequent Poster
Frequent Poster
 
Posts: 169
Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 8:16 pm
Location: Kekistan
Show rep
Title: Third Person Facepalm-er

Re: Films & Feminism

Postby gisambards » Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:08 am

I think the fact that women would be very different in this situation is what makes this is a potentially interesting idea, however. As I say, it could almost certainly go wrong and be a terrible film. But if it's good and handles the gender difference well, surely everyone would find that more interesting than yet another direct adaptation of the book?

I also find it hard to believe that this film is intended to be feminist point-scoring. If the film is accurate, the kinds of people that insist films like Ghostbusters 2016 were a good thing will hate it - it's going to be hard for it not to paint female characters in a bad light.

Lastly, I find it bizarre people keep calling this a "remake". It's an adaptation. The last adaptation of Lord of the Flies was 27 years ago, and the last good adaptation was 54 years ago. I don't think it's a bad idea to have another go at it now, and I think it's better that they've tried to come up with some sort of twist on the already thrice-done formula. It's just unfortunate that that twist happens to look similar to an unfortunate marketing trend already going on in Hollywood, but I think it's a gut reaction to that marketing trend that's causing people to automatically dismiss this as a concept. It's actually a perfectly reasonable concept with the potential to be very interesting.
  • 5

User avatar
gisambards
TCS Junkie
TCS Junkie
 
Posts: 2088
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:45 pm
Show rep

Previous

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests

cron