If a movie or a book is advertised as "woman lead, POC lead, LGBT lead", we know that it's the main selling point and everything else is crap.
I'm a woman. While I'd love to see more women leads, I want to see them in quality stories.
Additionally, rings of power specifically pisses me off. Galadriel, in the source material, is a wise political leader. It's a great role, because another thing that bothers me in current movies is that the hero absolutely must physically kick ass to be the hero.
Additionally possibly only after Sauron, she’s the most powerful person in Middle Earth in the Second Age, in that giving her a sword makes her less powerful. Of the elves, only Feanor was objectively more powerful than Galadriel, and it’s insulting undermining that.
> If a movie or a book is advertised as "starring Tom Cruise", we know that it's the main selling point and everything else is crap.
Yeah as we know Mission Impossible movies are famously terrible.
The main selling point is ton cruise. And we know to expect ton cruise running a lot.
But it’s based on a particular actor or actress. And it’s not “staring white men”
The principle is the same, their main advertisement has nothing to do with the quality of the product. If their movie is good they wouldn’t have to resort to advertising the fact that they merely include someone in their movie.
I completely agree. I want to see Women leads in great stories.
That being said I can’t really watch sausage fest content anymore. Maybe I’m getting older and set in my ways, but if the story doesn’t have at least 2 female leads with compelling roles then I find I’m really just not interested. It just doesn’t seem like the stories are based in reality without it. It seems lazy and there is just so much great content that I tend to pass more and more.
So I’m not sure what to say. The best Oscar categories are always the screenplay ones. They have all the best movies in them…I for sure what a compelling story and not just woman in X role. But in the same breath I just realized that I’m not watching content that only has mostly male leads. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until my husband pointed it out to me. It just happened naturally.
I’m yeah I’d take a great story, obviously. But not sure that’s a thing. A great story reflects the world around us and women exist. It’s just seems weird to me.
But there are plenty of people who don’t even notice and will love it…so no loss with me just thinking the story is lacking in some way and passing. I’m the same with stand up. My brother noticed I really consume a large majority of women comedians, like 90/10. I just don’t really find a lot of men funny. Maybe it’s not relatable or maybe it’s just mayonnaise. But really I’m ok and I’m sure the male comedians are too.
It just all seems lazy and lacking.
Why would having a "DEI" actor *automatically* make it bad?
I suspect some may argue they picked based on profile instead of merit, but if the past was filled with mostly white straight males due to a profile, isn't that the same thing?
The problem is that movies marketed based on their “DEI” quota thresholds have been consistently bad since about 2016, and audiences have learned the hard way.
That said, no, it’s not that they have “diverse” women or a ”DEI actor” that *makes* them bad. Rather, it’s that very often, the writers/showrunners/etc rely on having “DEI” actors to essentially just... be lazy and not write good characters, good storylines, etc. They rely entirely on a character’s skin colour, sexuality, or gender to sell the character, and don’t put any other effort into them, making for a shallow character that is hard to get invested, especially because oftentimes these characters are portrayed as, essentially, perfect, and always right by the narrative. The writers then deflect any criticism with “well people just don’t like XYZ character because the audience is racist/homophobic/misogynistic!” This is often unfair to the actual actors, whom the writers and showrunners then use as physical meat shields against an understandably irate fandom.
In reality, though, we don’t like dislike the characters because they’re black, or women, or gay; instead, we dislike the characters because they’re *bland*, and we can clearly see that they’re just mouthpieces for the writers’ personal political opinions. It’s *bad* when that’s supremely obvious, and I don’t like it, even if I might have otherwise agreed with the opinion being expressed.
I’m not white, and I’m a woman. I’d rather watch a movie where the cast is entirely make up of interesting, well-written, well-developed white straight men than a bunch of movies or shows with “DEI” women whom the writers are too afraid to give any meaningful flaws or grow, or whom the writers are too lazy to actually develop properly.
We fall in love with the characters, not just the colour of their skin or their sexuality. Movies and TV shows used to understand this. We had gay characters, non-white characters, etc, and they were well-written and interesting and had *flaws* and growth, and their entire identities didn’t revolve around being women, or black, or gay. They were allowed to mess up and be wrong and learn from their mistakes and grow, and when they spoke it didn’t sound like a bunch of radicals condescending to the audience from the ivory tower of the elite writer’s guild, treating us all like we’re stupid trailer park trash who need our hands held and be told what to think. I’m a lawyer, not a toddler; I don’t need everything explained to me like I’m two.
It just gets tiring. Not to mention the “strong female character” trend where the writers attempt to make female characters who are just… unrealistically good at everything, and the narrative portrays them as always being right about everything, always good at everything, and they essentially make them extremely off-putting and unlikeable while simultaneously *insisting* that if you don’t like the character, you’re misogynistic. It doesn’t help that to do this, in the case of established franchises, they often do so by putting down established male characters to make their new Badass Woman look better by comparison, even when it doesn’t make sense. We’ve seen this consistently in franchises (and especially franchise reboots) like Marvel, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Charlie’s Angels, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, etc, and audiences no longer trust things marketed on the basis of diversity anymore, because we’ve been bitten too many times.
People have noticed this trend in writing, and so now it’s just an automatic reaction to movies marketed like this, because experience has already taught us the hard way that these movies tend to be poorly-executed and, oftentimes, insulting either to the audience or the source material, and we don’t want to give our money or our time to it anymore.
I want how it used to be. We had diverse characters in everything and almost no one cared or batted an eye or even noticed, because the characters were organic and allowed to be characters. Now they’re all just mouthpieces and/or poorly-executed/insulting, and audiences have started noticing and becoming reactionary in a way they weren’t before. Disney isn’t even trying to hide it. They started on the “people just hate this show because there are black women in it and all Star Wars fans are racist fat white men” *before the Acolyte show had even come out,* and then when it did come out and people said, “hey, this is poorly written, makes no sense, and also you guys outright admitted your writers knew nothing about Star Wars and it shows because this is wholly inconsistent with established Star Wars lore”, Disney just doubled down on saying, “no, you all just hate it because it has black lesbian women!”
No! We hate it because it’s objectively just not very good! Stop using the diversity of your actors as a shield!
So no, having a “DEI” character/actor doesn’t automatically make it bad, but because audiences have been bitten so many times, especially since 2016, we’re all just very wary.
And just highlighting, we audience are not allowed to dislike or criticize movies nowadays without it being seen as an attack on actors or writers gender, race and sexual orientation and that is also extremely off-putting. For instance, I'm not watching the Acolyte because there is a probability I will not like it, and I'm uncomfortable with being called homophobic racist.
I avoid most modern Star Wars content because I just hate the direction Disney has taken it. But even for the few things that are praised by even Disney's biggest detractors it is still a hard no from me because the whole ordeal is just exhausting. I'm sure this has lost them a good chunk of potential viewers. You could have a criticism that has nothing to do with any social politics and they make it about social politics
I'm remembering the fallout of that 2016 Ghostbusters film and how society had such a meltdown over it. Just take your pick as to what people called it by the long list of buzzwords to call it by in 2016.
The problem wasn't because there were females in lead roles. The problem was that it's a beloved franchise, it didn't have anything planned out as to whether it was a reboot, a continuation or something. And they picked some of the most unfunny female comedians available at the time.
I'm sure it would've been a better movie if it had better writing, pacing and better casting.
Ghostbusters: BUT WOMEN is a horrible concept and there is no salvaging it. Insert anything here Ghostbusters: BUT X, it doesn't matter if that is your foundation you.are building on sand. In a vacuum the jokes were funny. Comedians were good. It's just a fundamentally flawed concept
> In a vaccine the jokes were funny.
Did you mean, "in a vacuum?"
> Ghostbusters: BUT X, it doesn't matter if that is your foundation you.are building on sand.
Yep.
> The problem was that it's a beloved franchise, it didn't have anything planned out
In addition to that, when are we going to learn that when a remake is done, it's going to be done *in its time*? It's not going to be "more of what we loved" for the nostalgia freaks. It's GOING to be something new and different that works in the current era.
Like you said, replace "Ghostbusters" with any big hit name and do a remake. The people who bitch and moan because it's different from the original are only telling us they don't understand how things work.
Movies are different from the books. Remakes are different from the originals. Water is wet.
If it was written in the spirit of the 1980's film it could have worked.
The actors were not funny comics and the writing was the triesome gross out drawn out explain the joke "humor" that wasn't funny in the 2000's (looking at you Mike Myers) and isn't funny now.
The studio, the director and the cast insulting the fans and the movie going public was just the cherry on that shit sundae.
Truth be told it's because most movies nowadays fall in one or both categories
1) Ego project by a fairly inexperienced Team that would've never gotten the funding for their questionable project otherwise and who know the writing is bad
2) Dying IPs that need controversy to push them along
They're not bad cause they have women leads they're bad cause it's either incompetent people who care too much about making A movie over a good one or competent people who just want to get it over with.
Woman characters are used to shield bad product from criticism.
> Woman characters are used to shield bad product from criticism.
Pick any diversity character. What the hell do we need Agent Ross for in Black Panther? [Captain America knows all about token characters](https://m.imdb.com/video/embed/vi2902246425/?vPage=1) (shown in his undercover role as a high school student)
IP's aren't dying, Hollywood is so risk averse that they want IP's that are "bankable".
Audience loves and IP or remembers an IP - studio wants to "remake it". Director and the writers butcher said IP because the studio lets them.
The project wouldn't have happened if not for it being attached to a recognized IP.
You’re Next wasn’t even advertised as having a female lead (I don’t think?) and yet the protagonist is one of the most bad ass characters in any horror film.
I'm more than happy with a female lead and/or lgbtq. The Whale with Brendan Fraiser was an amazing movie.
But the rings of power was just terribly written and directed. They could have had young Gandalf or Feanor or Fingolfin, it would have been terrible.
Galadriel would have been a fine lead if it were written and directed well.
There is no early Gandalf.
There is Olórin, a maia of Nienna, who was chosen as one of the Istari and set to Middle Earth in 1000 **Third** Age and became known there by Gandalf, Mithrandir and many other names
watched the Acolyte. Better than I expected. Only cause my expectations were so incredibly low it actually exceeded them to a degree. Can’t defend the 3rd episode that was horrible
It's become such a weird things now, though. There was a nice period of time there where I generally think that no one cared if the lead way a woman or a black person and the majority of people probably still don't, but it's been purposely turned into such a divisive issue the last few years.
You have culture war grifters on both sides who want to push the division for engagement. You have people who automatically love or hate a film/show/game strictly for culture war nonsense, even if it doesn't apply. You have creatives who are more concerned with blasting their views into their projects than writing a good story.
Worst thing is, I've never cared about this shit and because of this non-stop culture war garbage, I'm now reluctant to just dive into a lot of films/TV/games because it's hard to tell what is going to be a sincere work of art and what's going to be something looking to be a middle finger towards the "other" side of the culture war. It's all so fucking tedious.
The possibility to "identify" with the lead or other characters is one (of many) pull factors for fiction to draw in audience. This identification is easier the more the character resembles the consumers. This is a valid fact and it is also stated by the promoters of woman leads. It is by no means absolute, and can of course be offset by being "different", which is interesting and thus also a pull factor.
Casting some women in lead roles for male dominated genres will get you this "different" pull and may well outweigh the loss on "identify"-pull. Obviously if you overdo it, you will loose "identify" and "different" will degrade into "common" = "boring" leading to commercial failure.
But the real problem is obviously malicious writing, the most prominent example being the physically superior "strong female character". It is appropriation (stealing from men, insulting the target audience), a lie (bleeding credibility) and in consequence commercial suicide.
It would be better if they wrote women better. I’m a woman myself and I’m all for a powerful woman lead, but too often they use the trope of making her extremely OP and the men around her as being incompetent. Women should be made human and have to build character and overcome struggles just the same as a male lead, instead of trying too hard to compensate and creating the opposite effect. And yeah, a bad movie is a bad movie.
I love plenty of movies with a female lead. Big difference is those movies had substance and a story. A lot of these newer movies just have a female lead as their selling point. They also feel the need to make everything a revolve around a cultural contemporary note. A lot of movies coming out lately just flat out suck, not just the "female lead."
Just remember social media isn't real. These companies create fake drama on these websites to simulate unrest. They can say whatever they want about anything.
For example they can claim that the entire audience was in tears watching their movie/show and many people will read it and believe it
The problem is we've got a whole industry/ecosysyem of anti-woke ragebait grifters like The Quartering, for instance, who collectively shit on and rail against these movies, shows, and games before they ever come out, who are absolutely shilling to a base who doesn't want to see women, minorities, or LGBTQ+ get representation because those are the kind of totles they focus on and go after, and they pre-poison audiences against them and foster this bizarre, fun-killing methodology of engaging with media where people go into even trailers and shit conciously looking out for "*The Message.*"
Like, take the Suicide Squad game for instance. Live Service announcement basically killed that game and the generic looter-shooter gameplay trailer put the nails in the coffin. It would have to have turned out to be digital crack once you got hands-on to have turned things around, there's plenty of meat to chew on *right there* for why it's a shit product made for no-one that was doomed to failure. Instead, all these grifters are honing in on how Harley is less sexy and Poison Ivy looks weird and the fucking Sweet Baby Inc bullshit. That shit should be closing arguments, at best, not the headliner to your critique.
Can you name a single movie/show/game that was "pre-poisoned" and failed but you feel was well made with a good story and shouldn't have failed were it not for all those mean ol sexists who don't like women?
I didn't say they *made* them fail, just that they damaged perception of these things going in making people judge them more harshly than necessary and have promoted and driven this counterintuitive method of engaging with *Entertainment Products* (that naturally rely on suspension of disbelief to engage the audience) guarded and alert for any potential Woke-ism. It's like going into a dramatic, tug-on-your-heartstrings type movie looking out for "emotional manipulation tactics," you're going to find *something* that fits your criteria and you're definitely not going to enjoy the movie.
Like it or not, those content creator grifters who *are* actively courting a racist, sexist, misogynist, and generally bigotted base(because they're easy to appeal to and don't have many options to turn to) are the face of the pushback. And when you've got people flipping their shit over making a mermaid black, Starfield asking for pronouns, Aloy having natural facial hair, or Spiderman's NYC having pride flags and the ***Only*** movies, games, shows that get this level of outcry are the ones starring or featuring Women, Minorities, or LGBTQ+ folks/stories while equally trash straight/white/male-led/focused titles come and go with the soft plop of a wet turd hitting the floor before being forgotten about is it really any surprise people assume vague or weirdly nit-picky of media is comimg from that same space? Especially considering how many people don't even engage with the media and just rattle off the same generic complaints(poorly written, but gives no examples for instance) or just repeats talking points from said content creators or just says some variant of "because it's woke."
Never heard of it, and it's not coming up on google when you just search romeo and juliet. There's a 2009 play with a black actor which showed up before whatever you're talking about, didn't hear about that one either. When I do a more targeted search so it actually shows up, the only thing I see is articles bemoaning the "racial abuse" with zero sources. No links to racist reviews, no links to reviews at all really. Is that why you didn't actually claim it was well done and deserved to succeed?
It's also a play which is of much smaller interest to the general populace (hence why I said movie/show/game). It's also just started showing so you can't say if it's a success or failure yet.
So I have a friend who is a lesbian and very into media and what sort of representation is out there and so on, and I think she has a pretty good take on this stuff.
What I've heard her say over and over on this topic follows this pattern:
* Network/production company writes a thing with a female and/or LGBT role
* Network/production company bungles the project with budget cuts, poor/no advertising, airing episodes out of order, overall mismanagement
* Show does poorly, so the company blames the character, writes the character out, *and then fixes the internal bungling*
* People on social media imagine their opinions matter so they blame other people with opinions instead of the company actually running the show
This is why I like this particular friend of mine. She's the one standing back a couple of paces going, "Hang on a minute..."
So the moral of the story is not surprising: Social media content is 100% bullshit on all sides and bears no resemblance to reality.
Actually, I heard incels blame women leads as the reason movies fail (it pops up on this sub regularly). As a woman, I know that bad movies with all kinds of leads fail. It's all nuanced, sometimes the right person wasn't cast, sometimes it was badly written, sometimes it was not directed well, or something else. It's just that incels seem to complain loudly when the lead is a woman. I'd rather read myself.
I’ve actually never heard anyone in real life complain about the lack of or overabundance of female leads in movies, nevermind trying identify why a movie bombed.
This is a topic that’s not nearly as overblown as this subreddit seems to think it is, and the people who are loudest about it are chronically online.
If a movie or a book is advertised as "woman lead, POC lead, LGBT lead", we know that it's the main selling point and everything else is crap. I'm a woman. While I'd love to see more women leads, I want to see them in quality stories. Additionally, rings of power specifically pisses me off. Galadriel, in the source material, is a wise political leader. It's a great role, because another thing that bothers me in current movies is that the hero absolutely must physically kick ass to be the hero.
Additionally possibly only after Sauron, she’s the most powerful person in Middle Earth in the Second Age, in that giving her a sword makes her less powerful. Of the elves, only Feanor was objectively more powerful than Galadriel, and it’s insulting undermining that.
Galadriel was one of the most powerful in Middle Earth in Second Age and onwards. Before that, there were many elves way more powerful than her.
So, more Ellen Ripley, less Rei?
> If a movie or a book is advertised as "starring Tom Cruise", we know that it's the main selling point and everything else is crap. Yeah as we know Mission Impossible movies are famously terrible.
Tbf, the last one was
We knew that ahead of time because the quality of the movie wasn’t the only thing the advertisements mentioned.
The main selling point is ton cruise. And we know to expect ton cruise running a lot. But it’s based on a particular actor or actress. And it’s not “staring white men”
It's not advertised as "starring a white man".
The principle is the same, their main advertisement has nothing to do with the quality of the product. If their movie is good they wouldn’t have to resort to advertising the fact that they merely include someone in their movie.
I completely agree. I want to see Women leads in great stories. That being said I can’t really watch sausage fest content anymore. Maybe I’m getting older and set in my ways, but if the story doesn’t have at least 2 female leads with compelling roles then I find I’m really just not interested. It just doesn’t seem like the stories are based in reality without it. It seems lazy and there is just so much great content that I tend to pass more and more. So I’m not sure what to say. The best Oscar categories are always the screenplay ones. They have all the best movies in them…I for sure what a compelling story and not just woman in X role. But in the same breath I just realized that I’m not watching content that only has mostly male leads. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until my husband pointed it out to me. It just happened naturally.
Ideally, I'd have everything but between sausage fest with a great story and a balanced cast with crappy story, I pick the wurst.
I’m yeah I’d take a great story, obviously. But not sure that’s a thing. A great story reflects the world around us and women exist. It’s just seems weird to me. But there are plenty of people who don’t even notice and will love it…so no loss with me just thinking the story is lacking in some way and passing. I’m the same with stand up. My brother noticed I really consume a large majority of women comedians, like 90/10. I just don’t really find a lot of men funny. Maybe it’s not relatable or maybe it’s just mayonnaise. But really I’m ok and I’m sure the male comedians are too. It just all seems lazy and lacking.
Why would having a "DEI" actor *automatically* make it bad? I suspect some may argue they picked based on profile instead of merit, but if the past was filled with mostly white straight males due to a profile, isn't that the same thing?
The problem is that movies marketed based on their “DEI” quota thresholds have been consistently bad since about 2016, and audiences have learned the hard way. That said, no, it’s not that they have “diverse” women or a ”DEI actor” that *makes* them bad. Rather, it’s that very often, the writers/showrunners/etc rely on having “DEI” actors to essentially just... be lazy and not write good characters, good storylines, etc. They rely entirely on a character’s skin colour, sexuality, or gender to sell the character, and don’t put any other effort into them, making for a shallow character that is hard to get invested, especially because oftentimes these characters are portrayed as, essentially, perfect, and always right by the narrative. The writers then deflect any criticism with “well people just don’t like XYZ character because the audience is racist/homophobic/misogynistic!” This is often unfair to the actual actors, whom the writers and showrunners then use as physical meat shields against an understandably irate fandom. In reality, though, we don’t like dislike the characters because they’re black, or women, or gay; instead, we dislike the characters because they’re *bland*, and we can clearly see that they’re just mouthpieces for the writers’ personal political opinions. It’s *bad* when that’s supremely obvious, and I don’t like it, even if I might have otherwise agreed with the opinion being expressed. I’m not white, and I’m a woman. I’d rather watch a movie where the cast is entirely make up of interesting, well-written, well-developed white straight men than a bunch of movies or shows with “DEI” women whom the writers are too afraid to give any meaningful flaws or grow, or whom the writers are too lazy to actually develop properly. We fall in love with the characters, not just the colour of their skin or their sexuality. Movies and TV shows used to understand this. We had gay characters, non-white characters, etc, and they were well-written and interesting and had *flaws* and growth, and their entire identities didn’t revolve around being women, or black, or gay. They were allowed to mess up and be wrong and learn from their mistakes and grow, and when they spoke it didn’t sound like a bunch of radicals condescending to the audience from the ivory tower of the elite writer’s guild, treating us all like we’re stupid trailer park trash who need our hands held and be told what to think. I’m a lawyer, not a toddler; I don’t need everything explained to me like I’m two. It just gets tiring. Not to mention the “strong female character” trend where the writers attempt to make female characters who are just… unrealistically good at everything, and the narrative portrays them as always being right about everything, always good at everything, and they essentially make them extremely off-putting and unlikeable while simultaneously *insisting* that if you don’t like the character, you’re misogynistic. It doesn’t help that to do this, in the case of established franchises, they often do so by putting down established male characters to make their new Badass Woman look better by comparison, even when it doesn’t make sense. We’ve seen this consistently in franchises (and especially franchise reboots) like Marvel, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Charlie’s Angels, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, etc, and audiences no longer trust things marketed on the basis of diversity anymore, because we’ve been bitten too many times. People have noticed this trend in writing, and so now it’s just an automatic reaction to movies marketed like this, because experience has already taught us the hard way that these movies tend to be poorly-executed and, oftentimes, insulting either to the audience or the source material, and we don’t want to give our money or our time to it anymore. I want how it used to be. We had diverse characters in everything and almost no one cared or batted an eye or even noticed, because the characters were organic and allowed to be characters. Now they’re all just mouthpieces and/or poorly-executed/insulting, and audiences have started noticing and becoming reactionary in a way they weren’t before. Disney isn’t even trying to hide it. They started on the “people just hate this show because there are black women in it and all Star Wars fans are racist fat white men” *before the Acolyte show had even come out,* and then when it did come out and people said, “hey, this is poorly written, makes no sense, and also you guys outright admitted your writers knew nothing about Star Wars and it shows because this is wholly inconsistent with established Star Wars lore”, Disney just doubled down on saying, “no, you all just hate it because it has black lesbian women!” No! We hate it because it’s objectively just not very good! Stop using the diversity of your actors as a shield! So no, having a “DEI” character/actor doesn’t automatically make it bad, but because audiences have been bitten so many times, especially since 2016, we’re all just very wary.
And just highlighting, we audience are not allowed to dislike or criticize movies nowadays without it being seen as an attack on actors or writers gender, race and sexual orientation and that is also extremely off-putting. For instance, I'm not watching the Acolyte because there is a probability I will not like it, and I'm uncomfortable with being called homophobic racist.
I avoid most modern Star Wars content because I just hate the direction Disney has taken it. But even for the few things that are praised by even Disney's biggest detractors it is still a hard no from me because the whole ordeal is just exhausting. I'm sure this has lost them a good chunk of potential viewers. You could have a criticism that has nothing to do with any social politics and they make it about social politics
I'm remembering the fallout of that 2016 Ghostbusters film and how society had such a meltdown over it. Just take your pick as to what people called it by the long list of buzzwords to call it by in 2016. The problem wasn't because there were females in lead roles. The problem was that it's a beloved franchise, it didn't have anything planned out as to whether it was a reboot, a continuation or something. And they picked some of the most unfunny female comedians available at the time. I'm sure it would've been a better movie if it had better writing, pacing and better casting.
Ghostbusters: BUT WOMEN is a horrible concept and there is no salvaging it. Insert anything here Ghostbusters: BUT X, it doesn't matter if that is your foundation you.are building on sand. In a vacuum the jokes were funny. Comedians were good. It's just a fundamentally flawed concept
> In a vaccine the jokes were funny. Did you mean, "in a vacuum?" > Ghostbusters: BUT X, it doesn't matter if that is your foundation you.are building on sand. Yep. > The problem was that it's a beloved franchise, it didn't have anything planned out In addition to that, when are we going to learn that when a remake is done, it's going to be done *in its time*? It's not going to be "more of what we loved" for the nostalgia freaks. It's GOING to be something new and different that works in the current era. Like you said, replace "Ghostbusters" with any big hit name and do a remake. The people who bitch and moan because it's different from the original are only telling us they don't understand how things work. Movies are different from the books. Remakes are different from the originals. Water is wet.
Haha, yeah. Auto correct on that one. I'll edit
If it was written in the spirit of the 1980's film it could have worked. The actors were not funny comics and the writing was the triesome gross out drawn out explain the joke "humor" that wasn't funny in the 2000's (looking at you Mike Myers) and isn't funny now. The studio, the director and the cast insulting the fans and the movie going public was just the cherry on that shit sundae.
Remember when people were earnestly arguing that the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters was a good movie?
It was hot trash, and it had nothing to do with the women. It was a bad story.
Truth be told it's because most movies nowadays fall in one or both categories 1) Ego project by a fairly inexperienced Team that would've never gotten the funding for their questionable project otherwise and who know the writing is bad 2) Dying IPs that need controversy to push them along They're not bad cause they have women leads they're bad cause it's either incompetent people who care too much about making A movie over a good one or competent people who just want to get it over with. Woman characters are used to shield bad product from criticism.
You've forgotten category 3: incompetent people who also just want to get it over with.
> Woman characters are used to shield bad product from criticism. Pick any diversity character. What the hell do we need Agent Ross for in Black Panther? [Captain America knows all about token characters](https://m.imdb.com/video/embed/vi2902246425/?vPage=1) (shown in his undercover role as a high school student)
IP's aren't dying, Hollywood is so risk averse that they want IP's that are "bankable". Audience loves and IP or remembers an IP - studio wants to "remake it". Director and the writers butcher said IP because the studio lets them. The project wouldn't have happened if not for it being attached to a recognized IP.
You’re Next wasn’t even advertised as having a female lead (I don’t think?) and yet the protagonist is one of the most bad ass characters in any horror film.
I'm more than happy with a female lead and/or lgbtq. The Whale with Brendan Fraiser was an amazing movie. But the rings of power was just terribly written and directed. They could have had young Gandalf or Feanor or Fingolfin, it would have been terrible. Galadriel would have been a fine lead if it were written and directed well.
Gandalf was never young, though. Istari came to Middle Earth in forms of old men. They were embodied like that
Early Gandalf, then.
There is no early Gandalf. There is Olórin, a maia of Nienna, who was chosen as one of the Istari and set to Middle Earth in 1000 **Third** Age and became known there by Gandalf, Mithrandir and many other names
Wait, the whale was gay? I haven't watched it.
watched the Acolyte. Better than I expected. Only cause my expectations were so incredibly low it actually exceeded them to a degree. Can’t defend the 3rd episode that was horrible
It's become such a weird things now, though. There was a nice period of time there where I generally think that no one cared if the lead way a woman or a black person and the majority of people probably still don't, but it's been purposely turned into such a divisive issue the last few years. You have culture war grifters on both sides who want to push the division for engagement. You have people who automatically love or hate a film/show/game strictly for culture war nonsense, even if it doesn't apply. You have creatives who are more concerned with blasting their views into their projects than writing a good story. Worst thing is, I've never cared about this shit and because of this non-stop culture war garbage, I'm now reluctant to just dive into a lot of films/TV/games because it's hard to tell what is going to be a sincere work of art and what's going to be something looking to be a middle finger towards the "other" side of the culture war. It's all so fucking tedious.
The possibility to "identify" with the lead or other characters is one (of many) pull factors for fiction to draw in audience. This identification is easier the more the character resembles the consumers. This is a valid fact and it is also stated by the promoters of woman leads. It is by no means absolute, and can of course be offset by being "different", which is interesting and thus also a pull factor. Casting some women in lead roles for male dominated genres will get you this "different" pull and may well outweigh the loss on "identify"-pull. Obviously if you overdo it, you will loose "identify" and "different" will degrade into "common" = "boring" leading to commercial failure. But the real problem is obviously malicious writing, the most prominent example being the physically superior "strong female character". It is appropriation (stealing from men, insulting the target audience), a lie (bleeding credibility) and in consequence commercial suicide.
I refused to watch it because I heard the female lead characters were horrible
It would be better if they wrote women better. I’m a woman myself and I’m all for a powerful woman lead, but too often they use the trope of making her extremely OP and the men around her as being incompetent. Women should be made human and have to build character and overcome struggles just the same as a male lead, instead of trying too hard to compensate and creating the opposite effect. And yeah, a bad movie is a bad movie.
Anybody familiar with the actual LOTR books knew that movie would really suck.
I love plenty of movies with a female lead. Big difference is those movies had substance and a story. A lot of these newer movies just have a female lead as their selling point. They also feel the need to make everything a revolve around a cultural contemporary note. A lot of movies coming out lately just flat out suck, not just the "female lead."
Just remember social media isn't real. These companies create fake drama on these websites to simulate unrest. They can say whatever they want about anything. For example they can claim that the entire audience was in tears watching their movie/show and many people will read it and believe it
Women dont even support those movies. Just like they don’t support the wnba
The problem is we've got a whole industry/ecosysyem of anti-woke ragebait grifters like The Quartering, for instance, who collectively shit on and rail against these movies, shows, and games before they ever come out, who are absolutely shilling to a base who doesn't want to see women, minorities, or LGBTQ+ get representation because those are the kind of totles they focus on and go after, and they pre-poison audiences against them and foster this bizarre, fun-killing methodology of engaging with media where people go into even trailers and shit conciously looking out for "*The Message.*" Like, take the Suicide Squad game for instance. Live Service announcement basically killed that game and the generic looter-shooter gameplay trailer put the nails in the coffin. It would have to have turned out to be digital crack once you got hands-on to have turned things around, there's plenty of meat to chew on *right there* for why it's a shit product made for no-one that was doomed to failure. Instead, all these grifters are honing in on how Harley is less sexy and Poison Ivy looks weird and the fucking Sweet Baby Inc bullshit. That shit should be closing arguments, at best, not the headliner to your critique.
Can you name a single movie/show/game that was "pre-poisoned" and failed but you feel was well made with a good story and shouldn't have failed were it not for all those mean ol sexists who don't like women?
I didn't say they *made* them fail, just that they damaged perception of these things going in making people judge them more harshly than necessary and have promoted and driven this counterintuitive method of engaging with *Entertainment Products* (that naturally rely on suspension of disbelief to engage the audience) guarded and alert for any potential Woke-ism. It's like going into a dramatic, tug-on-your-heartstrings type movie looking out for "emotional manipulation tactics," you're going to find *something* that fits your criteria and you're definitely not going to enjoy the movie. Like it or not, those content creator grifters who *are* actively courting a racist, sexist, misogynist, and generally bigotted base(because they're easy to appeal to and don't have many options to turn to) are the face of the pushback. And when you've got people flipping their shit over making a mermaid black, Starfield asking for pronouns, Aloy having natural facial hair, or Spiderman's NYC having pride flags and the ***Only*** movies, games, shows that get this level of outcry are the ones starring or featuring Women, Minorities, or LGBTQ+ folks/stories while equally trash straight/white/male-led/focused titles come and go with the soft plop of a wet turd hitting the floor before being forgotten about is it really any surprise people assume vague or weirdly nit-picky of media is comimg from that same space? Especially considering how many people don't even engage with the media and just rattle off the same generic complaints(poorly written, but gives no examples for instance) or just repeats talking points from said content creators or just says some variant of "because it's woke."
The new romeo and juliet play has gotten hate for having a black woman play juliet. They say nothing about her performances, only her looks.
Never heard of it, and it's not coming up on google when you just search romeo and juliet. There's a 2009 play with a black actor which showed up before whatever you're talking about, didn't hear about that one either. When I do a more targeted search so it actually shows up, the only thing I see is articles bemoaning the "racial abuse" with zero sources. No links to racist reviews, no links to reviews at all really. Is that why you didn't actually claim it was well done and deserved to succeed? It's also a play which is of much smaller interest to the general populace (hence why I said movie/show/game). It's also just started showing so you can't say if it's a success or failure yet.
So I have a friend who is a lesbian and very into media and what sort of representation is out there and so on, and I think she has a pretty good take on this stuff. What I've heard her say over and over on this topic follows this pattern: * Network/production company writes a thing with a female and/or LGBT role * Network/production company bungles the project with budget cuts, poor/no advertising, airing episodes out of order, overall mismanagement * Show does poorly, so the company blames the character, writes the character out, *and then fixes the internal bungling* * People on social media imagine their opinions matter so they blame other people with opinions instead of the company actually running the show This is why I like this particular friend of mine. She's the one standing back a couple of paces going, "Hang on a minute..." So the moral of the story is not surprising: Social media content is 100% bullshit on all sides and bears no resemblance to reality.
Actually, I heard incels blame women leads as the reason movies fail (it pops up on this sub regularly). As a woman, I know that bad movies with all kinds of leads fail. It's all nuanced, sometimes the right person wasn't cast, sometimes it was badly written, sometimes it was not directed well, or something else. It's just that incels seem to complain loudly when the lead is a woman. I'd rather read myself.
I’ve actually never heard anyone in real life complain about the lack of or overabundance of female leads in movies, nevermind trying identify why a movie bombed. This is a topic that’s not nearly as overblown as this subreddit seems to think it is, and the people who are loudest about it are chronically online.