In which cases, specifically? Do women superheros cause consternation, do you think? If so, why? How is a physically strong woman someone “too distraction” when a man is not.
Again, I think in some cases, the argument can be made for the particular gender of a character, where necessary, but in many cases, the gender is irrelevant, I’d argue.
I knew someone would link that dumb ass movie.
I think you’re going off on a tangent. I didn’t say anything you’re implying, like seeing a strong woman being confusing as you said. I meant specifically gendered roles, as said above a pregnant woman, or for example a geisha being played by a man. Though in my very same post i said that practically all roles can be gender bent, it just depends on what the film maker’s intentions are.
To play devil’s advocate, the church does play a pretty strong role in daily life for people in southern Westeros. The religion of the North isn’t organized, but faith does play a strong role in the daily lives of Northerners and Iron Islanders. Also, up until the later books, the church is weak politically, so the idea that the nobility only pays lip service to religion isn’t too far fetched (especially considering that Westeros has at least de facto freedom of religion)
But regardless, I think the “He puts the themes he wanted in those books because he wanted to put them in his books.” argument is weak in this case. Ultimately, its true, but the reason that GRRM wants to include these themes (I’m obviously speculating here) is that these themes have historical relevance (i.e., sexual violence was common throughout history), and they’re typically ignored by the fantasy genre (i.e., much of the writing in the books is deliberately deconstructing fantasy tropes). It’s a choice by the author, but it’s not an arbitrary choice.
Maybe… could be I misunderstood the point you were making? (Rereads) I guess I misintepreted what you meant, so my bad!
I think I read this as being “a gender of a character being other than the default male might confuse or distract a viewer.” Presumably you meant something else. Can you clarify for me?
I think that completely informs Cersei’s interactions with the militant wing of the southern faith in the story (both in the books and the show).
That’s good exercise for them, unless they are resigned to complete passivity.
I love how in Ryan Trecartin’s videos such as those of the Re’Search Wait’S series have people switching genders, merging and splitting identities even within the same narrative.
I did mean it going both ways, changing a gendered role to the opposite thing, not as in casting ladies in more varied things. I can definitely think of imagined examples of gender bending being extremely interesting and fun, but i can also see actual examples of these casting choices potentially being problematic because the intention behind the switch might be just a lazy cash grab by a studio. I really really hate to use Ghostbusters as an example because i love all the actresses involved but personally it felt exactly like the move was just a cash grab, and the movie didn’t seem to be all that interesting.
Maybe these kinds of reactions from movie goers are inevitable, but i look forward to it being the norm. My favorite thing is seeing how people gender bend well established characters, especially for cosplay.
Note: Hope that made sense or clarified your question. I’m really tired today so i’m having trouble collecting my thoughts.
I mean, if you really want to get into gender discussions, yes some men do have a uterus.
Sure. And that’s fair enough. But the instances of transgendered men carrying children to term are sufficiently small enough to not make my point irrelevant - most transgendered men don’t get pregnant post transition, yeah? I certainly don’t think that transgendered men aren’t men nor that transgendered men can’t play men in films or anything of that nature.
[ETA] Also, given the general treatment of trans people in hollywood films, who do you think would be cast to play a transgendered man in your average hollywood film?
Every movie that extends a “franchise” is a cash grab. Some manage to be good movies nonetheless (Godfather 2 the type specimen) but most are crap even beyond the prediction of Sturgeon’s law.
A movie with a all new, and funny, premise, starring four talented and funny actresses, might have been way more successful, but as we know, the biz doesn’t run that way any more.
Short odds they’ll ignore that aspect, make the ship avatar ultra-sexy, and force in a plotline with a rugged, rule-breaking bad-boy male officer, most likely. Oooh! Oooh! And they fly around solving murders! In SPACE!!!
(actually, I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the pitch explains that large portions of the second book involve cups of tea, and absolutely no Space Battles. It should be enough to give the ‘can we make it a procedural?’ crowd a mini-stroke)
Wait, what? I’m having trouble parsing that. Did you just say
Godfather 2 was a good movie?
Story Pitcher: “Also, in this futuristic society most people from the ruling aristocracy have dark skin.”
Fox TV exec: “Next!”
I dunno, this would be the perfect pretense for Fox to make a show about how white people are repressed. I’m sure they’d love it.
(small reminder that a shit ton of trans people don’t transition medically at all, or have kids first, and the number of trans men getting pregnant is in fact large enough to create a demand for the products of Butchbaby & Co., a company that creates masculine maternity wear)
Well, actually, (DAMN – that just made my soul do a cartwheel), it’s a little bitty bit more complicated than that. Like how most of the major studio heads/producers/writers/decision-makers are men. Instead of saying “well, it’s their fault,” maybe we should ask WHY they are mostly men?
And the 9-year-old girl I saw dressed as the new Harley Quinn at DragonCon is not something I care to see again. It’s not just comic books, either. Here’s the Strawberry Shortcake I played with in the 1980s:
Here’s the Strawberry Shortcake I can buy for my daughter today:
The bigger question, again, is WHY this has happened. What’s next? Holly Hobby with a tramp stamp? Mrs. Beasley as a cougar? (I’m showing my age here …)
My take on it that people aren’t “sexualized” (made to be sexual), it is that people simply are sexual (embodiments of sexual behaviors and expressions). People cannot be made more or less sexual any more than they can be “bilateralized” into symmetry.
That said, there are many corny signifiers of “sexy” in popular culture which are symbolic and arbitrary and don’t actually have anything to do with sex. Around Halloween, the prevalence of stereotyped faux-sexy costumes demonstrate this as well as anything.
The way out of it, to break the conditioning, is to break the symbols out of the commodity ghetto. People are taught that it is important to prostitute themselves in every way except sexually, and then people wonder why images of sex in the culture aren’t healthy! Don’t buy or sell into the notion of the commodification of human experience. Sex and desire are unrelated concepts. Sexuality is like any other mutual activity in that there are processes which are performed by the participants rather than a supply/demand scenario of anything which can be “acquired”. There is no actual object of desire to be pursued, one either embodies sex or one does not. So fixing it means ending traditional gender roles, as well as the traditional signifiers of “sexy”.
