Today’s lecture in CraveOnline‘s Free Film School is going to deal briefly with a rather sticky and ever-topical notion: Gender bias in films.
Movies are about boys.
Yes, there is a gender bias in movies. There still is. Movies are about boys, and they’re for boys. More specifically, they are for white heterosexual teenage boys. If the film was released during the summer under the auspices of the PG-13 rating, then it was made for white heterosexual teenage boys. If it’s an action film, it was made for white heterosexual teenage boys. If it’s a comedy, it was made for white heterosexual teenage boys.
Sure, I can list dozens – of not hundreds – of films off the top of my head that deal specifically with the dramas of women, of homosexuals, of black people, of Latinos, and even cite several films that are race/sex/sexuality blind, featuring complex and dynamic characters who are only incidentally of a minority (and yes, I realize that I just listed women as a minority; don’t freak out, it will go to my point in a second). My point, though, is that for every film that deals with women et al, there are dozens that deal with men. The concerns of men, the dramas of men, the character of men, notions of male heroism, of the masculine-driven ethos, and often just outright machismo. If a film is “cool” or “awesome,” it’s probably dealing with a male version of the world, i.e. with violence and war as a means of solving problems, and the eschewing of deeper emotional needs in favor of action. While there are action films that feature women, they’re often still within a masculine way of thinking, and very often the central woman in an action film will be presented as a fetish object for male viewers.
Superhero films are a prime example of the male-heavy ethos of Hollywood. It could be argued that The Black Widow in The Avengers was a strong female character who used her smarts to aid her superhero team, but she was only one of two female characters in a film loaded down with men, and she was played by the remarkably attractive Scarlett Johansson, who was squeezed into a very tight black pleather outfit. Imagine if The Black Widow was played by a plain-looking actress. Or wasn’t in a black catsuit. The fact remains that, however strong or resolute or complex the character was (and she, uh, wasn’t very complex at all), her presence was clearly intended to be eye candy for the overwhelmingly male audience. If that example doesn’t sit well with you, consider just about any other superhero film from the last 15 years. How many of them are about women? Catwoman? Elektra? The former of those two is a notoriously awful movie that deals heavily with the title character’s relationship with a man. The latter of those two is, well, also a notoriously awful movie that, at the very least, has little to do with her relationship with men. All the other superhero films are about dudes talking to dudes about dude stuff. You may like Christopher Nolan’s three Batman movies, but wow are they male-heavy. If there is a woman in any of these films, they typically serve as a love object for the main character. In this week’s The Wolverine, there are three female characters, although the central of them is a shrinking violet who serves as a lover to the hero, and then later as a damsel in distress.
I am certainly not blowing the lid off of anything here. Gender bias in movies is constantly being addressed in the news media, and complaints are constantly being raised as to why there aren’t more female-centric movies to accommodate the XX-chromosome imbued half of the world. Whenever a female-centric movie becomes successful (Bridesmaids and The Heat being two recent examples), news outlets treat it like an earth-shattering shock. Women? Opening movies? It CAN be done! But for now, we’re going to go back to macho movies made for straight white teenage boys.
What about movies about strong women who kick ass? Who use weapons and fists to assert their strength? This is a sticking point for me. I refuse to equate feminism with one’s ability to do violence. Indeed, if you look at the kick-ass women in popular media, they tend to be, well, men with vaginas. They react to situations as men would, and do violence the way men would. Often, you may be able to look at certain violent female characters, and can cognitively change their sex into male, without losing any facets of their character. When you refer to a female character as being “strong,” it should mean that they have great physical strength. It means they should be as complex and as interesting as any of the other male counterparts. When I see a violent, ass-kicking woman on a screen, I usually can only see the man who created that character, and all their fetishes for strong women on full display. It’s worth nothing that Wonder Woman was invented as a fetish object for her creator. Why else would she have a magical bondage lasso that forces the men she ties up to tell the truth?
Gender politics are still sticky in this great nation of ours, only made all the stickier by the way films are made and marketed. Whether or not this is actually true, the popular perception is that teenage boys represent the vast bulk of the ticket-buying audience. Studios know this, they know it’s successful to make movies with the teenage boy audience in mind, and they continue to do so. If you’re going to see any movie, chances are the main character is going to be a male (from The Purge to Turbo) and there will be a female character who will only serve as a romantic interest to that male, or perhaps as a wailing damsel to be rescued. There are many great movies about women, about strong women, about women’s interests beyond men (see this year’s Frances Ha for an excellent film about women. Blue Jasmine is another), but there is still a gender-unequal cloud lingering over Hollywood. There is a weird and specious maxim that seems to be printed on Hollywood stationary. It goes something like this: Only girls, a smaller audience, will see movies about girls. If a movie is made for boys, everyone will see it!
The Bechdel Test
There is a quick and easy test to see if your film displays a gender bias toward men, and you may be surprised (or maybe not) to see how few films actually pass this test in favor of women. In 1985, the cartoonist Alison Bechdel (Fun Home, “Dykes to Watch Out For”) offered up the following three-step criteria for judging a movie’s gender bias. Does a movie have:
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At least two named female characters,
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Do they talk to each other?, and
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Is their conversation about something other than a man?
That’s very simple, and it seems like a reasonable gauge for determining gender bias. Another comic book author named Kelly Sue DeConnick has a comparable test for gender bias in writing: If you replace the female character in your story with a sexy lamp, does it adversely effect the story? If it doesn’t, then you’re a hack when it comes to writing women. Both of these tests are not just meant to stress gender bias, but also carefully and somewhat satirically point out how women are treated in most movies: They are supporting characters in the lives of men. They are only concerned with the way they are perceived by men. When they are not damsels in distress, they are prizes to be won. Or they’re strippers or whores who are to be used for the pleasure of men. Women often serve a subservient role in most movies.
Is this based on outright sexism? Not necessarily. It’s based more on a lingering cultural fallacy about who goes to see movies and why. True, the trends seem to reinforce certain audience stereotypes (since so many movies are made for boys, there is an unspoken pact between teenage boys that they will simply not go to see girl movies), but the fact remains that audiences are scattered and diverse and movies are made for every audience. It’s just that the bulk of them fail The Bechdel Test.
Of course, a film passing The Bechdel Test is no indication of its quality. Many great movies out there may be about men, but are still grand and robust and universal and profound pieces of art (2001: A Space Odyssey comes to mind). Meanwhile, David DeCoteau’s insufferable and cheap and awful oddity A Talking Cat!?! does indeed pass The Bechdel Test. Being without gender bias, or having a view toward universality amongst the genders does not necessarily make a good movie. The Bechdel Test is just there to remind us that, well, women get the short end of the stick more often than they ought to.
Do women need to be strong and smart and complex to combat this bias? No. Indeed, it would be nice to have a dumb character, a foolish character, an evil character, a sad character, who is a woman. They don’t need to be positive role models all the time – ironically, that is also a form of bias. Is there a solution to gender bias? Yes, but it has to be a concerted effort on all our parts. We need to see all kinds of movies, and prove to the moneymen in Hollywood that we want to see strong, smart, interesting, complex, weird women in movies just as much as we want to see men do the same things. It will begin with the writers and with the studios. Writers: Write women they way they are: as whole people with full dramas. Studios: It’s okay to make those movies. We’ll see them.
Homework for the Week:
How strong is gender bias in movies? How many of your favorite films pass The Bechdel Test? Is it important that a movie pass The Bechdel Test? When is it important, and when is it not important that a film passes the test? Is a woman who does violence also a strong woman? Think of a story about a lead female character. What kind of story would you personally write? Would Hollywood make that movie? Why or why not?
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and co-star of The Trailer Hitch. You can read his weekly articles B-Movies Extended, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind. If you want to buy him a gift (and I know you do), you can visit his Amazon Wish List.
