Women and Hollywood: What is it about Sweden? What's in the water? On the heels of my recent piece about what the Swedish government is doing to combat the gender disparity in the directing ranks, now comes news that four Swedish cinemas are creating a gender rating for films using the Bechdel Test as the criteria.
3 comments:
I'm glad that something is being done about the gender disparity. Even if the Bechdel Test just brings attention to it, at least the word it getting out there. The director this article quotes has no idea what the question was or the quote was taken out of context to make the director seem like an idiot. Sure some bad shows pass the test, no one wants to see women talk about engineering. Drama is fun and exciting for people. That's what people want; drama between women over a man. I recently started watching Bones and even in that show the two main girl characters talk about guys and sex. It is almost a part of our culture unfortunately. Nothing can be done. Let's just face it. Good job, Sweden, for pointing out a flaw in humans!
I understand what the author is saying, but in the end I think the Bechdel test is not really a way to make change. It does "highlight the lack of gender diversity," but it's only an indicator of the current situation. I also think, rather ironically, that the author is misunderstanding what Hynek Pallus said -- Pallus is not saying that the the Bechdel test indicates quality, he's pointing out that just because something passes the Bechdel test doesn't automatically mean it helps change the general view about gender. And I agree with that -- the Bechdel test is particular enough in that it can demonstrate that women's conversations in most popular media are inane, but it doesn't do much more than that. Even films that don't pass the text are able to move the conversation on gender roles forward in a good way.
Wow. I think about the role of women in film every so often, but not too much or it gets a little depressing. I remember always being frustrated as a kid because there was always such a lack of female super heroes in cartoons. In video games there is always one or two choices for female characters (in fighting games -- and those characters are scantily clad). Honestly, I don't get too upset over it, but I do wish for more strong, or just normal female characters in general. This Swedish rating system -- the Bechdel Test -- is super interesting and really made me think a lot about films that I've seen. Starting to approach talking about gender disparity in media? Sounds good to me! Even just working towards media integrating real people instead of stereotypes and perfection would be so great. So many times people grow up with a certain image in their mind, and when it is not attainable, or when you find you don't fit into it, a person can feel lost, alone, angry..any number of emotions that can lead to something drastic, or just a general sense of frustration.
Post a Comment