"See how machine learning is helping us tackle gender bias in movies."

[otto-san]

I don't get why people think we're "brainwashed" into gender stereotypes. There are definitely some things that men/women are expected of that suck but for the most part almost every guy I know likes stereotypical "guy stuff" and the same with women. I hang out with my friends and we play Halo, rock some Pantera, and make bonfires; when my sister invites her friends over they paint their nails, talk about boys, and watch rom-coms. And we weren't "brainwashed" for sure: I played barbies with my sister when I was a kid and she played my hot wheels video games. We enjoy what we enjoy but it's mostly what people think of as "gender-specific" stuff. Maybe it's just us idk

that's just how gender socialization works. it's not really 'brainwashing' per se, it's just a part of how people grow into their cultures.

[Ad Bot]

[Tactical Nuke]

To some extent, I agree with this sentiment. I think the way to fix gender inequality in fiction (and stuffty mary sues as well) would be to get more female writers on TV shows and movies. They will naturally be able to write more realistic female characters, and the characters won't be 'forced to be female'.

that creates the exact same problem

the creative team behind the new Ghostbusters movie, aside from Paul Feig, was almost entirely women
they boasted about it too



they came up with one of the stufftiest reboots of all time and bar none the stufftiest movie of 2016

if you hire writers based on gender you're not going to get the best, you have to put skill and talent first at all times

case in point, some of the strongest female characters of all time, characters who were actually amazing independent of their gender, were created exclusively by men
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Ripley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoko_Kusanagi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Leia

[Insert Name Here²]

hiring people or casting roles thinking gender first instead of skill, in of itself, is loveist

[Nonnel]

I agree hamfisting female characters into stuff is cringy, a la Ghostbusters, but I don't think Star Wars applies. How was she more of a Mary Sue than Luke?

[Master Matthew²]

I agree hamfisting female characters into stuff is cringy, a la Ghostbusters, but I don't think Star Wars applies. How was she more of a Mary Sue than Luke?

No, but Star wars is just perpetually forgeted, And It's clearly cursed.
George Lucas forgeted up the Prequels,
Disney is forgetin' up the sequels, and there was only one out so far.

But hey, at least the original stories are okay.

[Red Spy]

Disney is forgetin' up the sequels, and there was only one out so far.

Rouge One was like one of the best movies of last year what the forget are you talking about

[Alteration]

I agree hamfisting female characters into stuff is cringy, a la Ghostbusters, but I don't think Star Wars applies. How was she more of a Mary Sue than Luke?

>generic abandonment issues backstory
>learns force without teacher, just "naturally gifted"
>lives/lived in poverty on remote desert planet, similar to already existing main character
>able to fend off professionally-trained (by Luke and Snoke) sith in both force-wielding and combat
>probably gonna be a dark/gray (edgy) jedi in the next movie
>white attractive girl

Etc

[SeventhSandwich]

that creates the exact same problem

the creative team behind the new Ghostbusters movie, aside from Paul Feig, was almost entirely women

That's too far of an extreme though. I'm talking about a roughly proportionate crew that has more than a small minority of women.

For what it's worth though, no team could have written the Ghostbusters movie to be good, regardless of how the gender breakdown worked. They took a classic and decided to reboot it, which was already a fatal idea. There was no situation in which it could have been received well.

[ultimamax]

Thank god Rogue One gave us a good female lead in a SW movie.

I would argue the lead from Rogue One (so unmemorable I don't know her name) was very flat / with weak motivation

This video sort of puts it better than I can

the first point is interesting because I think that a possible explanation is that movies that are marketed to women contain more women, but men are less likely to see those movies, so they won't sell as well.

Compare The Avengers to Bridesmaids. Of the two movies, the Avengers is the most likely movie for men to watch. The protagonists of Bridesmaids are all female, but IMO it isn't as compelling to men, so they won't watch it. It isn't necessarily that men are avoiding movies starring women, but rather, that many of them just aren't interesting.

I can tell you that personally, I'd have more fun shooting myself in the foot with a shotgun than watching a Melissa McCarthy movie. I don't hate women in starring roles, but I just don't find movies directed to women as compelling. I want metal, explosions, and mindless entertainment when I go to see a summer blockbuster. Not cheesy rom-com bullstuff.

There's nothing inherent to a cool action movie like The Avengers that requires all the characters to be male. The question then becomes "why are movies that are predominantly women so narrow in scope?" It's a complicated issue that has a lot to do with society and women I feel like.

[PhantOS]

This could actually be really profitable. if you use machine learning to get the statistics of male female roles, their actors, how they acted and an array of other oscar winning qualities you can essentially come up with an oscar-winning algorithm

say the top 10 films in history have a 3.2:1 male to female ratio and the worst films have a 1:3 male female ratio. then you can gather that movies with more male roles statistically do better. boom, now you just figured out a hidden trend that can help your movie profit over others

-----

take good will hunting for example. mostly male roles. all protagonists are male. movie includes matt damon, about a student, etc. take all those together and make another mostly male movie with matt damon in it and you might just get another money making blockbuster

[Alteration]

I would argue the lead from Rogue One (so unmemorable I don't know her name) was very flat / with weak motivation

Personally I thought she had a very Han Solo "reluctant hero" vibe. She starts apathetic to the plight of the rebels but becomes more sympathetic over the course of the movie. The only thing is that she had to develop that personality quickly because she's in one movie, VS Han Solo getting 3 full movies to flesh out a natural character development. But to each his own.
Either way, I'd still rather have a character that has weak motivation than a character that's entire personality is "I'm a girl/black man/etc" (not that Rey is that, she's just a Mary Sue).

[ReddBoi]

[DrenDran]

They say a lot about how there's a disparity and how women don't want to go into science but they never prove causation.

[McZealot]

I'm not sure what's wrong with this. They created a pretty cool bot that checks movies for gender roles based on facial recognition. Yea, the film industry is loveist--and making graphs about male/female breakdown is fine. However, it's not totally fair to say every case of a male-dominated film is loveist. 'Crime' is male dominated because most serious criminals are males. Historical films or films set in the past are male dominated because we didn't really attempt to treat women equally until the 70s-80s. (Feminism started prior to this of course, but wasn't really accepted by the masses.)

Also Master Mathew is a loving handicap. Rey and Jyn aren't any Mary Sues--they're literally generic fantasy protagonists. If they were male characters you wouldn't bat an eye. Luke is way worse than either of them.

[DrenDran]

I'm not sure what's wrong with this. They created a pretty cool bot that checks movies for gender roles based on facial recognition. Yea, the film industry is loveist--and making graphs about male/female breakdown is fine. However, it's not totally fair to say every case of a male-dominated film is loveist. 'Crime' is male dominated because most serious criminals are males. Historical films or films set in the past are male dominated because we didn't really attempt to treat women equally until the 70s-80s.

I mean horror fantasy sci-fi and comedy are all basically 50% female speaking time as well. 

Also Master Mathew is a loving handicap. Rey and Jyn aren't any Mary Sues--they're literally generic fantasy protagonists. If they were male characters you wouldn't bat an eye. Luke is way worse than either of them.

It's still the case you have to be far more careful giving a women actual human flaws lest you be seen as loveist.