In support of stereotypes (Rings)

[GKarsEye]

Dig
this article
about a chick for whom the Lord of the Rings films don't jive.
Now, clearly, this is someone who's never read the books and doesn't appreciate the story. She's just wrong about some things objectively, like her "criticism" that Sam is the character for whom we end up feeling the most at the end, which is actually the point. And this:

Beneath a veneer of humanism that allows viewers and critics to think the movies are about Something Big — Good and Evil! Fathers and Sons! — both series are really about special effects. Yesterday's light sabers are today's Mount Doom. They offer an escape into an imagined world of warriors, where emotions are paid lip service but never truly expressed — an approach that is always easy for adolescent boys to embrace.

But my point in posting this isn't to demonstrate one woman's misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for the films. It's to provide an example of the kind of thing that I've mentioned and always get slammed for saying on these boards: the disparaty of science fiction and fantasy between the genders. It's real. Here is a perfect example.

The author goes out of her way to explain how it's a boys' movie. She furthers makes her own gender look foolish by constantly drooling over Viggo Mortensen.

Yes, I know this rarely applies to the women here, because obviously B5 fans are more likely to dig this stuff. But in the real world, it's why I've learned to restrain my unabashed geekish love of the genre- because I still wants to get laid.

Just another invalid point she makes: complaining about the Oscar buzz around the movie. Well, lady, tough, because "chick flicks" (a term she herself uses) have dominated the Oscars. Just look at some of the nominees and winners: Chicago, Moulin Rouge, The English Patient, Hours (it just don't get more chick flick than that one, folks), Shakespear In Love, and so forth.
The Geek boys are allowed one.

 

[PillowRock]

I stumbled onto this article independently (although, for the life of me, I can't remember how I got to see it without having registered at NYTimes.com).

First off, based solely on that article (since I know nothing else of her), she seems to be ....... easily confused or distracted by superficial things. The reason she found it odd that Sam was the most "Human" wasn't anything like she had thought him a secondary character. It was because he was a hobbit and she figured all of the humans (narrowly defined) should be more "Human", more well rounded and more easily identified with, than any non-human. She also seems to think that anything with any significant special effects is always just about the F/X, regardless of how much story or character development is going on.


But on to your point.
I'm not convinced that the real gender disparity issue is science fiction and fantasy. I think that it *may* be something else that tends to corellate with those genres.

I've seen studies (or synopses of them) about how men and women, in terms of percentages across entire populations, tend to relate differently. Men *tend* to be more comfortable than women with interactions happening on shoulder-to-shoulder basis, looking out away from each other with relatively little actually being spoken (with a working hypothesis pointing out that tracks with having been out on the hunt, scanning for prey etc., for lots of generations). Women *tend* to be more comfortable with face-to-face interaction with more constant verbal interaction (with the working hypothesis that this tracked with doing the work in "home" area while the hunting party was out).

When someone is writing a story that revolves around the kind of interpersonal issues that occur entirely (or even primarily) as face-to-face verbal interactions, they rarely have a good reason to shift the story into a different setting for SF or fantasy (unless it is a single episode in an SF TV series). If an author is going to go through the extra work and trouble to build up an unknown "world" surrounding their story, there is going to be some reason for it. That means that those stories generally have something to do with that larger world. As a result the vast majority of stories which the author has put into an SF or fantasy setting have more of a shoulder-to-shoulder vibe to them than a face-to-face one.

I think this might be why a smaller percentage of women than men identify with and like SF and fantasy. However, this is not something that unique to SF and fantasy. It is the same thing that tends to make most war movies, westerns, and mob flicks (among others) turn out to be "guy flicks" as well.

I'm not at all sure that LotR, with all of its fantasy elements, has any greater of a gender disparity than something like, say .... Kelly's Heroes[/] where the quest of the relatively small group of fighting companions to get to an important location in the fortified territory of the enemy is framed in a familiar world that has existed within living memory.


That isn't to say that I don't know women who see SF or fantasy trappings and refuse to give something a chance. I have two comments about that:

1) That could still be because the have learned that basically everything with those trappings is a "shoulder-to-shoulder" story (even if they don't consciously think of it in those terms).

2) I also know plenty of men who do the same thing.


At any rate, this is all just a hypothesis. I obviously have no means of testing it.



PS: One other thing that the author of that article does not understand:
There can be real emotion in shoulder-to-shoulder interaction.

 

[Recoil]

The author goes out of her way to explain how it's a boys' movie. She furthers makes her own gender look foolish by constantly drooling over Viggo Mortensen.

The funny thing about this, is the dude has been in a lot of movies before and no one seemed to notice, care, or think he was all that. Yea, this lady is pretty clueless. What a worthless article.

 

[Elenopa]

The funny thing about this, is the dude has been in a lot of movies before and no one seemed to notice, care, or think he was all that.

Ahh, but Viggo looks completely different with long dark hair and a beard. I really don't like him in real life; short cropped blond hair.

Then again, I have a thing about dark haired bearded Rangers.

 

[hypatia]

Well, I certainly know of several co-workers who really like science fiction. But I suppose that's to be expected when you hang out with math and science teachers.

Eh, I have a lot that I don't like with some modern sci-fi projects. Like why all the big movies have to be comic book based now, it seems. And when they do decide to do something more serious (like the rumored "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov), they have to make a casting choice like Will Smith. And, from what I've heard, not even use any of the actual stories in the Robot series of Asimov's either. Or, only remotely based on a part of one story or something like that.

Bah! I don't buy that good written science fiction can't translate into good movies. I just think it's tough to make them so they will make a mega-profit.

So we are back to the comic book sci-fi again. Get a big name and those will make bucks for you. If only there was more room for smaller, independant sci-fi films.

I'd gladly take cheaper special effects just to see better stories.

 

[admiraldave]

If anyone is interested, there's a rebuttal by Stephanie Zacharek. She basically calls the criticism "lazy gender-typing".

 

[GKarsEye]

That's an interesting hypothesis.

I wonder, though, if too much of modern social theory is based on the hunter-gatherer model. For one thing, why are so many so quick to jump at societies that functioned thousands of years ago to explain modern behaviour, when so much change has happened within the last couple of generations? There's plenty to mine there without resorting to our hairy ancestors. But more importantly, the more anthropologists learn about ancient social constructs, the more diverse it seems to be. Not every human or proto-human society was hunter-gatherer. It really mostly depended on geography.
But that's digressing from the suject of the thread.

I wonder if women and men tend to few fictional settings differently. In my experience, a lot of women tend to look at places like Midde-Earth and "a galaxy far, far away..." as childish. Not always disparagingly so- even the ones that like it just treat is a flight of fancy they allow themselves to indulge in. More men tend to take it more seriously.

An example of this is when my then-girlfriend and I went to see Attack of the Clones (in a theater with a digital projector, of course ). During the ride home, I was poking fun at the dialogue and poor characterisation. She was genuinely confused as to why I would bother thinking about that stuff in film so swamped in fantastical situation and special effects. Because she didn't take it seriously at all, she ended up enjoying it more than I did.

 

[Demon]

An example of this is when my then-girlfriend and I went to see Attack of the Clones (in a theater with a digital projector, of course ). During the ride home, I was poking fun at the dialogue and poor characterisation. She was genuinely confused as to why I would bother thinking about that stuff in film so swamped in fantastical situation and special effects. Because she didn't take it seriously at all, she ended up enjoying it more than I did.

Well, I'm in total agreement with you rather than your girlfriend

They ran Phantom Menace on TV here tonight, and I watched it again, just to see if it was as bad as I remembered.

It was.

The effects were great, but that's all the movie had, which isn't enough. I want plot, characters, and great effects on my Sci Fi/Fantasy movies. The LOTR trilogy works because it has all three

 

[Bab5nutz]

Years ago, my mother and I went to the movies Full Metal Jacket and Platoon . On both occasions, we were the only women in the theatre. It was rather a strange experience to say the least.
On the other hand, when I belonged to a science-fiction society a few years back, most of the members were women.
On the two occasions that I have gone to see ROTK so far, he audience has been about 50/50. It will be interesting to see what kind of audience I'm part of when I go and see
Master & Commander.

But honestly, I read this article almost a week ago, and I thought "what a load of old cobblers!" Talk about stereo-typing. I know men who prefer "chick flicks" over "boys's own" films, and women [myself included], who would rather take in a good action flick anyday.

 

[PillowRock]

I wonder, though, if too much of modern social theory is based on the hunter-gatherer model.

Possibly. I think the theory is that society was in that mode for long enough that the its requirements modified the gene pool through implicit selective breeding. Whether that is true or not is open to debate (even ignoring the likely sassy POV on that one).

However, the shoulder-to-shoulder vs. face-to-face comfort levels in modern humans were the part of the study that was done with direct testing (though I can't remember the details of the methodology, and doubt that I could find the write-up again). The link to prehistoric hunter/gatherer societies was only in the section where they were speculating on possible explanations for their observed results.


(Oh, and if any of the mods would like to add the missing "i" in the brackets after the Kelly's Heros title, making the rest of my original response a bit easier to read, that would be nice. I didin't notice that before I went away for Christmas and it won't let me edit the post now.)

 

[PillowRock]

I know men who prefer "chick flicks" over "boys's own" films, and women [myself included], who would rather take in a good action flick anyday.

Undoubtedly. That was never at issue. The point is that if you had a large sample of the population rate movies, there *are* movies where there is a statistically noticable difference in the average ratings along gender lines. Of course there are also others where there are similar divides along age lines, and probably other variables as well.

 

[firey_angel]

The author goes out of her way to explain how it's a boys' movie. She furthers makes her own gender look foolish by constantly drooling over Viggo Mortensen.

Well of course it's foolish. Now drooling over elf is completely understandable and rational

Angel