On Fri, 23 Aug 2013, Rohan McLeod <rhn@jeack.com.au> wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
.........snip though no comment on :
"Also the anti-sexist context; seems to miss the more general problem of the cliched nature of story-telling;(so evident in Hollywood's view of the world). That is how to tell a story in a way which will be appealing to an audience, whose real interests are very narrow ? "
Firstly you need to learn to quote correctly. When you reply you have each line of quoted text prefixed with "> ". So when you quote someone who's quoting someone it will start with "> > ". I've corrected the above lines.
I think that in many cases movie producers could add some diversity without most viewers noticing the difference. Such issues are most noticed by people who aren't affected by them, men tend not to notice sexism, white people tend not to notice racism, straight people tend not to notice homophobia, etc.
.....and wealthy people probably don't notice issues which are of concern to poorer people;
Wealth is a different issue. For example the "Fast and the Furious" movies feature many very expensive cars that the vast majority of the population will never be able to afford to drive. Obviously the majority of people who watch such movies expect that the characters will be more wealthy than they are. But they could have had more than two significant female characters in a F&TF movie without compromising the plot.
somehow the absence of particular ideological standpoints would seem a fairly minor component in the cliched conformity which is commercial cinema. Not that I blame directors, who need to borrow millions from investors; who expect a high chance of a good return on their investment; I suppose the miracle is that every so often a new subject matter and /or a new way of telling a story does become successful box-office !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(2010_film) I really doubt that investors micro-manage film production to the degree that could cause the Bechdel test to be failed. Salt was re-written to star Angelina Jolie instead of Tom Cruise. When a change that significant can be made to a movie after casting has been done it seems obvious that changing the roles of some secondary characters wouldn't be difficult. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/