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Folks who raise problems about media, but don't offer solutions

DonZabuDonZabu
edited 2011-11-15 19:24:33 in Media
Or if they do offer solutions, they're very wishy-washy about them. Like "Oh, you don't necessarily have to start watching movies that are Bechdel-compliant, nor do you necessarily have to start making movies that are Bechdel-compliant, we just want you to notice it more, that's all. Yeah."

Comments

  • MalkavianMalkavian
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    Noticing is the first step to actually getting solutions. Gadflies are important.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    blah blah bechdel is not really that important and it's just pointing out a tendency in film.blah blah solving doesn't involve following what the test actually proposes blah blah proper writing blah blah

    Anyway, with that out of the way, I have to say that things don't get solved if you don't know what you're solving.
  • MalkavianMalkavian
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    When Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, I doubt he knew how to solve it.
  • DonZabuDonZabu
    >blah blah bechdel is not really that important and it's just pointing out a tendency in film.blah blah solving doesn't involve following what the test actually proposes blah blah proper writing blah blah

    So what does it involve? What changes, if not that, are we going to have to make to reach the "solved" state? And why should the test exist if following the proposition it presents won't bring us to a better state? Why not invent a different test that does?

    >Anyway, with that out of the way, I have to say that things don't get solved if you don't know what you're solving.

    Except we've been knowing about this stuff since at least the 70's, or at the very least it's been discussed since that time. But (according to the same contingencies that were complaining about this back then as well as today) hardly anything as changed. At this point, we're just dragging our heels.

    ^ There, he presented unions and socialism as the solutions.
  • NyktosNyktos
    a little muffled
    I think that the point of the Bechdel test is that people should make movies that follow it; I doubt most people who consider it to have any merit at all would disagree.

    The ideal state would be if the number of movies that pass it is similar to the number of movies that pass the male version.
  • ClockworkUniverseClockworkUniverse
    OOOooooOoOoOOoo, I'm a ghoOooOooOOOost!
    ^That, pretty much. While I think the idea is that there should be more movies that follow it, the idea definitely isn't that all movies must follow it. Just that not enough do.

    The basic point is that it's a really minor set of guidelines, and yet still isn't met by all that many movies.
  • MalkavianMalkavian
    edited 2011-11-15 19:50:50
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    Not enough people know it, which is the problem. Too many people still actively resist it. Plenty of people present an obvious solution to the Bechdel test problem. WRITE BETTER WOMEN.

    Also.

    >Folks who
    >Folks is a synonym for people
    >People who 


    EDIT: On another note, you know what movie I was going over that's actually pretty good about treating it's women? 

    Thor.

    Yeah, I know. It's not ground-breaking. It doesn't do anything all movies shouldn't be doing anyways, but it's still there, and in a hyper-macho superhero film to boot.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    edited 2011-11-15 19:55:46
    You can change. You can.
    Wait

    I thought the Bechdel test was joke from a one off strip. Not an academical concept.

    v Eh, might as well keep it, if you're gonna reply. :P
  • MalkavianMalkavian
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    It's not. People made a big deal of it.

    I raged when I saw a trope page empasizing something 'passing' the bechdel test, almost as if to go "It's totally not sexist! See?'
  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    I'm reminded of an adage that Napoleon Bonaparte had a policy that if you reported a problem without suggesting a solution you were to be executed.

    The most appropriate response I can think of is "Yes, that's why he was a dictator."
  • BeeBee
    edited 2011-11-15 21:52:41
    I thought this was going to be about deeply-embedded and widespread corruption in the media industry due to concentration of power and conflicts of interest.  If all you're worried about is a nebulous test on substantive gender diversity, just watch more stuff that does it well.
  • SchitzoSchitzo
    They're somethin' else.
    The Bechel Test can go fuck itself. pretentious masturbatory dipshit concept
  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    It and its reversal do a good job of highlighting how obsessed everyone is with love/romance in fiction. I doubt it's useful in anything outside of that, though.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    Well, it does point to a certain trend in movies where female characters are peripherical to the main characters. But love interests being shallow is an old thing, really.
  • MalkavianMalkavian
    edited 2011-11-15 22:15:50
    MORONS! I'VE GOT MORONS ON MY PAYROLL!
    ^^^^The trouble is how little of it there is.
  • ThemThem
    edited 2011-11-15 22:14:43
    Good people don't end up here.
    ^^ ...basically what I meant. The fact that there are characters in a work whose sole purpose is to be a love interest is kind of wasteful, at best.
  • RedEyedAbyssRedEyedAbyss
    edited 2011-11-15 22:20:20

    I don't mind so much that their role is solely to be a love interest. The problem is they're not even good at that.

    UPDATE: And since I neglected to put a solution, well, it's simple isn't it? Give me reasons why the love interest is a good complement to the protagonist. Things like showing kindness and acceptance, especially when no one else would. Of course, that doesn't necessarily have to be traits of a romantic relationship, but people are really obsessed with those for some reason.

  • ThemThem
    edited 2011-11-15 22:21:30
    Good people don't end up here.
    Why?

    [EDIT] To both statements, I guess. Why doesn't a one-dimensional character bother you? And what makes the character good at serving that purpose?

    ...I suppose the concepts are linked in my mind, in that a one-dimensional character is fighting an uphill battle to convince me to take them seriously as a character in the first place, let alone fulfill a particular narrative role. I'm not sure if that relates to what you were talking about, though.
  • MillerCrossMillerCross
    You can change. You can.
    I don't mind so much that their role is solely to be a love interest. The problem is they're not even good at that.

    You don't see the problem with a character being nothing but a finger waiting for a wedding ring?

    At all?
  • RedEyedAbyssRedEyedAbyss
    edited 2011-11-15 22:36:16

    Key phrase: "so much". The latter is a bare minimum which most shallow love interests can't even reach. Yes, love interest characters annoy me, but this is a primary, rudimentary reason for my dislike. Obviously, that only succeeds in making the character 2-D rather than 1-D and is thus a starting step rather than a total solution.

    And I find it particularly damning that many not love interest characters or characters that don't end up with the protagonist in the end fulfil the role much better than the actual supposed love interests.

  • ThemThem
    Good people don't end up here.
    Heh. Edit-ninja'd.
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