Saturday - November 09, 2013

movie dangers – male chauvinism - be on the lookout

If I were new to this sort of thing, that is, posting things to a site like ours, I might start out by saying, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Or something similar.  Or maybe I’d say, you won’t believe this but ...
Thing is however, I now can believe it and you will have no doubts either.  Together we have seen or in the case of bmews we have read about some really strange stuff.  I don’t think I have to list it all. So, I’ll simply pick up where I left off about a week ago when I shared a story with you from Sweden, where a school decided to ban gender specific words, and toys also are under the gun in the gender wars.
Now how is this for the continuing nut case insanity coming from Sweden.

Wait, hang on just another second.

I forgot to tell you their new system is named after an American! Oh boy.  Did we need this?  The bigger question is, when will it arrive in America?
It isn’t that it will hurt anyone or destroy a good movie.  It’s just that it’s plain silly. I have watched several videos over the last few weeks, and have not seen what the politically correct say I should notice. 

Cinemas in Sweden introduce ratings that indicate if a movie features SEXISM (and every Star Wars and Lord Of The Rings film would need one)

To get an ‘A’ rating movies must have at least two female characters who talk to each other about something other than men

Scandinavian cable TV channel Viasat Film says it will start using the ratings in its film reviews

By Ted Thornhill

Cinema goers are used to looking out for warnings of nudity and violence in films. Now another category has been added to the list of movie dangers – male chauvinism.

Cinemas in Sweden have introduced an ‘A’ rating to highlight films that have a shortage of ‘female perspectives’.

The guidance system – named the Bechdel test after US feminist Alison Bechdel – will monitor whether at least two female characters talk to each other about subjects other than men.

‘The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, all Star Wars movies, The Social Network, Pulp Fiction and all but one of the Harry Potter movies fail this test,’ said Ellen Tejle, the director of Bio Rio, an art-house movie theatre in Stockholm’s trendy Sodermalm district.

Bio Rio is one of four Swedish movie theatres that launched the new rating last month to draw attention to how few movies pass. Most visitors have reacted positively to the initiative ‘and for some people it has been an eye-opener,’ said Tejle, reclining in one of Bio Rio’s cushy red seats.

Beliefs about women’s roles in society are influenced by the fact that movie watchers rarely see ‘a female superhero or a female professor or person who makes it through exciting challenges and masters them,’ Tejle said, noting that the rating doesn’t say anything about the quality of the film. ‘The goal is to see more female stories and perspectives on cinema screens.’

The state-funded Swedish Film Institute supports the initiative, which is starting to catch on.

Scandinavian cable TV channel Viasat Film says it will start using the ratings in its film reviews and has scheduled an ‘A’ rated ‘Super Sunday’ on Nov. 17, when it will show only films that pass the test, such as The Hunger Games, The Iron Lady and Savages.

The Bechdel test got its name from American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who introduced the concept in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985. It has been discussed among feminists and film critics since then, but Tejle hopes the ‘A’ rating system will help spread awareness among moviegoers about how women are portrayed in films.

In Bio Rio’s wood-panelled lobby, students Nikolaj Gula and Vincent Fremont acknowledged that most of their favourite films probably wouldn’t get an ‘A’ rating.

‘I guess it does make sense, but to me it would not influence the way I watch films because I’m not so aware about these questions,’ said Fremont, 29.

Sweden’s advertising ombudsman watches out for sexism in that industry and reprimands companies seen as reinforcing gender stereotypes, for example by including skimpily clad women in their ads for no apparent reason other than to draw eyeballs.

Since 2010, the Equalisters project has been trying to boost the number of women appearing as expert commentators in Swedish media through a Facebook page with 44,000 followers. The project has recently expanded to Finland, Norway and Italy.

For some, though, Sweden’s focus on gender equality has gone too far.

‘If they want different kind of movies they should produce some themselves and not just point fingers at other people,’ said Tanja Bergkvist, a physicist who writes a blog about Sweden’s ‘gender madness.’

The ‘A’ rating also has been criticized as a blunt tool that doesn’t actually reveal whether a movie is gender-balanced.

‘There are far too many films that pass the Bechdel test that don’t help at all in making society more equal or better, and lots of films that don’t pass the test but are fantastic at those things,’ said Swedish film critic Hynek Pallas.

Pallas, who moved from communist Czechoslovakia to Sweden in the 1970s, also criticized the state-funded Swedish Film Institute - the biggest financier of Swedish film - for vocally supporting the project, saying a state institution should not ‘send out signals about what one should or shouldn’t include in a movie.’

In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for The Hurt Locker. That movie - a war film about a bomb disposal team in Iraq - doesn’t pass the Bechdel test

read more

Posted by peiper     on 11/09/2013 at 08:36 AM   
Filed Under: • MOVIES • Politically Correct B.S. •  
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