I picked Alien 3 because Ripley is perhaps at her strongest there as a woman; in terms of the action genre, in this film she's one of the strongest iconic examples, equal with Arnie or Stallone or any of the standard male "big names." And yet, this pinnacle of equality fails the test because the story of a woman staying strong in the face of complete adversity somehow doesn't measure up to a cartoonist's idea of feminism.
Again, you're missing the point. It's not that Ripley isn't any of these things, it's that she's the only one on screen who IS all of these things. One could even argue that she is in fact so strong that she crosses the line into a cartoon herself, in an attempt to completely circumvent stereotype. Would it have detracted at all from her utter badassness to have ONE competent female member of her crew in that movie?
think my main problem is the idea that some people DO use the test as a methodology for determining whether a film is worth seeing, whether it's meaningful. Those people are, as they say, doing it wrong.
Fair. However, I think it's a valid point that a fair amount of movies don't even pass this bare-minimum benchmark regarding representation, and as you pointed out earlier, even if they do, in most cases they are still problematic in terms of stereotyping, tropes and characterization. To cite something you brought up, prison movies. Ever seen Chicago? Yeah, about that. Does it pass? Barely. Is it an excellent movie and I love it to peices? yeah. Does it have well rounded female characters? ehhhhhhhh..... not really.
frankly how long has it been since the test was established? Twenty-five years? I honestly think the modern media has begun to evolve past that at this point.
Begun, maybe. But we're nowhere near the point where this sort of dialogue isn't necessary. Just because progress has been made does not mean the work is done. We're not post-gender yet. :/
no subject
Again, you're missing the point. It's not that Ripley isn't any of these things, it's that she's the only one on screen who IS all of these things. One could even argue that she is in fact so strong that she crosses the line into a cartoon herself, in an attempt to completely circumvent stereotype. Would it have detracted at all from her utter badassness to have ONE competent female member of her crew in that movie?
think my main problem is the idea that some people DO use the test as a methodology for determining whether a film is worth seeing, whether it's meaningful. Those people are, as they say, doing it wrong.
Fair. However, I think it's a valid point that a fair amount of movies don't even pass this bare-minimum benchmark regarding representation, and as you pointed out earlier, even if they do, in most cases they are still problematic in terms of stereotyping, tropes and characterization. To cite something you brought up, prison movies. Ever seen Chicago? Yeah, about that. Does it pass? Barely. Is it an excellent movie and I love it to peices? yeah. Does it have well rounded female characters? ehhhhhhhh..... not really.
frankly how long has it been since the test was established? Twenty-five years? I honestly think the modern media has begun to evolve past that at this point.
Begun, maybe. But we're nowhere near the point where this sort of dialogue isn't necessary. Just because progress has been made does not mean the work is done. We're not post-gender yet. :/