My latest column for BitchBuzz is on a pet peeve I have: Movies without Women (or the dreaded Movie with One Woman). It's an irritating popular trend in the last few decades that seems to have arisen from the focus-group approach to movie making (AKA micromanaging per the unconsidered comments of a bunch of random people).My pal Mildred shared a HitFix review of the latest Travolta/Williams fiasco Old Dogs because it made her burst out laughing.
Admittedly, it is hilarious when Drew McWeeny writes:
If you truly hate your family and you're all trapped together this weekend, and you reeeeeally want to punish them and show them just how little you value their joy, then by all means, pile into the car and rush out to find a theater playing "Old Dogs."
But I have oodles of sympathy for his wail of pain; it's a howl I have made often, though frequently only at the inadvertent viewing of a movie trailer, because I would never go to a film like Old Dogs anyway because it epitomizes one of the primary problems of current Hollywood fare: movies without women...
As usual, read the rest at BB HQ, feel free to pass it along and share with your friends.
I've been enjoying myself to much this week, including the usual Thanksgiving food coma (thanks, Robert) so now I am back with too much work facing me (also as usual, I guess).
4 comments:
Much as I've sought to avoid single-sex environments as much as possible, so too it's rare for me to watch a single-sex film...though for several reasons, an imbalance in the female direction is usually less trying, in reality and in drama, than the opposite. Not always, as such items as SHE-DEVIL are always handy to remind us (though I prefer a trifle such as the film version of THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB to a trifle such as THREE MEN AND A DUDE RANCH).
I wouldn't be surprised if Dad doesn't resent how easily the Affected Boys in the Production Offices get laid, either.
I don't object to single-sex movies where there's a point to it. On Facebook, someone mentioned Carpenter's The Thing which is a terrific film (his last good one) and is *very* interesting with regard to the presence-through-absence of women, which Carpenter uses to an advantage (consciously or not). I just hate the habit of including females and then making them non-entities.
OLD DOGS also seems to be going in for the HooRawRius notion that rape is sublimely chuckleworthy.
Ugh -- another one? What clearer sign do you need that a very specific male audience is the only consideration they have in making these films?
Post a Comment