media: tv/movies

I suspect most Soc Images readers will, by now, be familiar with the Bechdel Test — the set of criteria for evaluating whether female characters are included in movies in even minimally non-male-centered ways, made popular by Alison Bechdel of Dykes to Watch Out For. To pass, a movie has to have at least two female characters who have at least one conversation with one another about something other than a man. For a quick overview, see our repost of Anita Sarkeesian discussing the Bechdel Test.

Leah B. let us know that there’s a website, Bechdel Test Movie List, entirely devoted to rating movies based on the criteria (with the stipulation that female characters have to actually be named to count). It consists of a list of movies that have been added and rated by readers; there are currently over 2,000 movies produced between 1900 and 2011 rated on the website. This is, obviously, nowhere near a random sample; as you’d expect, it’s highly weighted toward more recent movies, and of course not everyone agrees on the ratings (you can add a symbol to show you disagree and leave a comment on a movie’s rating page).

That said, the site includes a stats page that is interesting to look through just for a snapshot of the inclusion of women in these movies. Here’s a breakdown of the entire list; green indicates movies that passed all three tests, yellow passed 2, orange passed 1, and red didn’t pass any of the three:

It’s fun to browse through, for entertainment value and a starting place for thinking about the Bechdel Test and pop culture.

We have posted in the past about the controversy surrounding the casting of the movie The Last Airbender. Many fans of the original series were upset that Asian characters were recast as White, with the main cast initially containing no non-White characters at all. This fits in with a more general lack of Asian main characters in Hollywood.

More recently, a different controversy about race and casting emerged when African American British actor Idris Elba was cast as the Norse god Heimdall in Thor, though this character was always White in the comic book series.

Anthony N. sent in a video by MovieBob at The Escapist that discusses concerns over race in casting Thor and why recasting a White character with a non-White actor doesn’t have the same implications as recasting a non-White character with a White actor does:

,/p>

Abby W. let us know about a disturbing scene in this week’s episode of the TV show Gossip Girl. The scene depicts an interaction between two individuals, Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf, who have turned into one of the show’s anchor couples that fans root for, always ending up together again despite their on-again off-again nature. In this episode, they’re off again and Blair has been dating someone else (a prince, of course). According to Zap 2 It, earlier in the episode, Chuck apparently humiliated Blair by talking about their prior sexual escapades in front of her boyfriend’s mother. She then goes to Chuck’s penthouse to tell him that her boyfriend has proposed to her, leading to this scene (warning: though he doesn’t hit her, if you’re sensitive to images of violence, you may want to skip the video):

So after publicly humiliating her by referring to her sexual past, Chuck tells Blair “you’re mine” and that she can’t be with anyone else, grabs her and throws her onto the sofa, and when she reiterates that it’s over, he ends up punching a window and injuring her with flying glass. And yet, in an interview with E!, one of Gossip Girl‘s executive producers says that this shouldn’t been seen as abusive behavior. In fact, if there’s anyone to be worried about, it’s Chuck:

I think it’s very clear that Blair is not afraid in those moments, for herself. They have a volatile relationship, they always have, but I do not believe—or I should say we do not believe—that it is abuse when it’s the two of them. Chuck does not try to hurt Blair. He punches the glass because he has rage, but he has never, and will never, hurt Blair. He knows it and she knows it, and I feel it’s very important to know that she is not scared—if anything, she is scared for Chuck—and what he might do to himself, but she is never afraid of what he might do to her.

Ah, Chuck…He’s such a classic romantic hero, like Rhett Butler, sort of strong enough that you can stretch him pretty far.

…

He’s always had that Gothic thing, and those guys are always imbued with a dark side in addition to their vulnerability about their girlfriends.

It’s a disturbing example of the way that controlling and violent behavior by men toward the women in their lives is often depicted as evidence of passion that the female character totally accepts (they just “have a volatile relationship,” so it’s “not abuse when it’s the two of them”). Chuck’s repeated mistreatment of Blair (apparently last season he promised his uncle he could have sex with Blair as part of a business deal) is excused (he’s drunk, and really upset about whatever he learned about his family!), and in fact, his inappropriate behavior is romanticized by the executive producer and the interviewer. A man who publicly humiliates his girlfriend, uses her sexuality as a pawn in business deals, and leaves her injured from flying glass when he finds out he’s losing control over her (not to mention tried to force a 14-year-old girl to have sex with him in the very first episode of the show, back before we were supposed to find him lovable) is still referred to as a “classic romantic hero” who should not be seen as abusive or scary.

In fact, the promo for next week’s episode reinforces the message that Chuck is acting like this because he needs Blair so much that he falls apart without her, and individuals with nefarious plans are intentionally using this knowledge to get to him. So Chuck isn’t abusive; he’s a fragile victim who just loves Blair too much for his own good:

This is particularly disturbing given that the show is popular among teens, many of whom experience abuse in their relationships but are unsure how to deal with it or whether it “counts” as abuse. These types of representations of normalize such behavior, excusing the men who engage in it and giving the message to women that being treated in such a way isn’t a major warning sign but, rather, evidence of a man’s deep passion and vulnerability.

In 1991 writer and cultural critic Katha Pollitt coined the phrase “The Smurfette Principle” to draw attention to the tendency for movies, TV shows, and other cultural products to include one, and just one female (source). For the unfamiliar, The Smurfs was a children’s television show, airing from 1981 to 1989, populated by a whole world of little blue men and one (sexy) blue woman:

(source)

In her latest in the series Tropes vs. Women, Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian applies The Smurfette Principle to today’s movies and shows.  How far have we come?

——————-

For more tropes, see Sarkeesian on The Manic Pixie DreamGirl and Women in Refrigerators.

Transcript after the jump:

more...

It must be a cliché that American movies are, overwhelmingly, made for 17-year-old white boys.  Goodness knows that there is plenty of evidence on this website to back up the cliché.  In light of this, I am surprising floored by the actual data showing who goes to movies.  It’s not that I didn’t know that women, people of color, and grown-ups went to movies.  It’s just that seeing it in technicolor just drills home the fact that the making of movies to please white male kids is ideological, not capitalist.  And that’s always an interesting observation to make.

55% of tickets sold are sold to not-men:

40% of tickets sold are sold to non-white people:

72% of tickets sold are sold to legal adults (i.e., not-kids, though they may be buying tickets for kids):

Data from the Motion Picture Association of America (via Racialicious).

See also our post on how about 1/3rd of ESPN’s audience are women.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Alli, YetAnotherGirl, Molly W., and Laurence D. all sent in links (via The Mary Sue and Feminist Law Professors) to a post at The Achilles Effect on gendered language in children’s toy commercials. Crystal Smith created word clouds based on 658 words in 27 TV commercials generally aimed at boys (products included “Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Kung Zhu, Nerf, Transformers, Beyblades, and Bakugan”) and 432 words from 32 TV commercials generally aimed at girls (products: “Zhu Zhu Pets, Zhu Zhu Babies, Bratz Dolls, Barbie, Moxie Girls, Easy Bake Ovens, Monster High Dolls, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, Polly Pocket, and FURREAL Friends”).

This clearly isn’t a random sample of all toy commercials on all TV channels to all age groups; as Smith points out, it ignores toy companies that can’t afford TV ads, and it’s not a huge sample. However, given that these are popular toys that were being marketed during shows (such as cartoons) that are aimed at children, the word clouds provide a basic overview of gendered language in toy ads.

The word cloud for the boys’ list shows the emphasis on action and violence, with others depicted as opponents, a nemesis, or enemies:

For girls, the words are much more about appearance/fashion, relationships (friends, friendship, etc.), and playing mommy:

You can see larger versions at Wordle (girls and boys) and Smith says she has a reference list of all the commercials she a reference list of all the commercials available, which I requested. I’ll update the post with the list when I get it.

UPDATE: In response to my email, Crystal Smith cautioned, “This is a very small sample of brands that tend to appear frequently during kids’ cartoon blocks on TV. They are highly gendered toys, which explains the incredible contrast between the two lists.” She sent along the references; the girls’ list is available here, the boys’ list here.

Feminist Frequency‘s Anita Sarkeesian has released the first of her series of short videos examining the roles women are often assigned in movies and television.  In this one she goes after the “manic pixie dream girl,” or the female side character who helps the male main character find himself, love life again, or overcome some obstacle.  This character, Sarkeeisan argues, is problematic because she “perpetuates the myth of women as caregivers at our very core”; her main role is to “‘fix’ these lonely sad men, so that they can go ‘fix the world.'”  The women themselves?  They’re too busy being adorable.

(Transcript after the jump.)

more...

Yesterday I posted about media coverage, and possible exaggeration of, the problems at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan. As a follow-up, over at Japan Probe I found a clip of Charlie Brooker discussing sensationalist of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor. His takeaway message: If you can’t distinguish your news teasers from a video game ad, you may have a problem:

Also, Fox News seems to have somehow mistaken a club in Tokyo for a nuclear reactor: