Oh, Binro

...the fuck?

Way to shit out a Mary Sue article.

Dammit Caminante, you are getting harder and harder to give benefit of the doubt to.

If you watched this and saw rabid women hating from broken people, I think you might be the one who's broken.

I'm pissed that Hillary lost too, but damn.

Maybe I didn't watch far enough. If they started with bad arguments and then refuted their own bad arguments later, um, good I guess.

Now if you want to shit all over RLM saying they lost it for slobbering over Guardians of the Galaxy 2, I'm all for it.

I took their arguments to mean that it's not exactly the first or only female role model in cinema... which is the specific "claim" (or in this case, marketing wank) they're addressing.

It's very insulting to generations of women who have been busting their asses trying to make that happen, doubly so when it's just marketing hype for a movie targeted at chinese kids.

I wouldn't word it as harshly as Bort did, but I'm also surprised by how derailed RLM gets when representation is obviously meant to be part of a movie's value, as in Wonder Woman, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Suicide Squad, whatever.

In one of their reviews (new Star Wars movie, maybe?), Mike went out of his way to lament all this inclusiveness bullshit as a shallow marketing ploy, and to claim that kids don't really care if the heroes look like them or not. That really stood out to me. I mean, what was he basing it on? As far as I know, it can be damaging to kids' self-esteem to have no positive representations of their gender/race/culture in the media, and it can be equally strengthening to have them. It's no more complicated than that it helps kids to be proud of who they are. It's kind of—disingenuous, maybe?—to claim otherwise without offering any evidence, or really even having a coherent argument. It seems that, for RLM, if it wasn't important to them as kids then it must not be important to anyone. And no matter how apolitical you want to remain, that's a limited view.

Just on an anecdotal level, my wife has said many times how badly she wanted more non-hypersexualized female heroes in movies when she was a little girl in the '80s. So, I don't have trouble believing it matters.

I still watch and enjoy RLM a lot, but their dismissal of representation has happened often enough that it's become like a weird trend. If I was a cynic, I'd say they were courting some of the scummier internet audiences, but I don't think that's true. I just don't see what they're out to prove.

Yeah I got the same vibe Monkey got. Targeted-anything is subject to intelligent criticism, including feminism. But the argument's not even so much that it's a bad thing, it's just saying that we've seen it in politics, literature, and even superheroes before Wonder Woman, including Michelle Pfeiffer if you wanna include the goddamn Catwoman. It's the same argument for Superman: nobody says he's the best role model, just the strongest and most cooperative, if that's your thing. If you like lone wolfing, go with Batman or Raven. I think that's all they were trying to say, because while this looks entertaining I'm sure it's far from a groundbreaking work of feminist filmmaking.

Bort has a soft spot for feminism formulated by corporations.

Would it help if you knew I view this stuff in the same vein as evangelical Christian crap? You mock how transparent of a sales pitch it is, then you mock their response that all critics must be against basic goodness and morality (which they claim a monopoly on).

The movie might be great who knows. This marketing angle is terrible though.

^ Basically where I'm at, yeah.

"Bort has a soft spot for feminism formulated by corporations."

Bort has not seen the movie and has no particular motivation to see it, but notices when people are mad that Gal Gadot isn't in the kitchen baking pies for Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth.

15th has a soft head and really needs to stop fraternizing with the corporations he feels are so evil. Divest yourself of all poison fruits of corporations, 15th, or else you are a traitor to The Cause.

I live in the woods and sustain myself off of roots and berries.

The funny thing (to me) is that you haven't seen the movie, didn't watch the review in its entirety and you're off on a screed about sexism.

The entertainment industry and "evil corporations," your words, not mine, sell whatever they think people are buying at the moment. Right now it's social activism. Pretty clever on film industry's part. But, it's about as endearing as the tobacco industry's "torches of freedom" march.

"The funny thing (to me) is that you haven't seen the movie, didn't watch the review in its entirety and you're off on a screed about sexism."

Because the complaints themselves are revealing. "What sort of person would want to see A WOMAN, of all things, as a lead character? Why, the very notion is PREPOSTEROUS!"

Or my favorite, "surely no girl or woman wants to see a female lead, which is why the people who did this movie were wrong and should have put a man in the lead".

"The entertainment industry and "evil corporations," your words, not mine"

You're the one who framed "formulated by corporations" as itself a problem.

"sell whatever they think people are buying at the moment. Right now it's social activism. Pretty clever on film industry's part. But, it's about as endearing as the tobacco industry's "torches of freedom" march."

And you're doing it again right there: you dismiss representation of women in films as of equal value to tobacco marketing. Everything corporate America does is evil, as far as you're concerned. Which is why I think that, if you're sincere about your principles, you really should divest yourself of everything produced by corporate America. Maybe you don't have to live on roots and berries, but you could see whether the Amish are hiring.

(The other possibility is that you're casting too wide a net, and probably should acknowledge that corporate America serves a wide variety of public / consumer interests, some benign, some harmful. But if you were to that then you'd deprive yourself of a cartoonish villain to rail against, and then where would you be?)

And with regard to this movie, or movies in general, you can look at the people who act, write, and direct to see if they have anything approaching a vision or a message they want to communicate. Granted, they're employees of corporations so therefore they are soulless husks, but once in a while the monkeys make the right combinations of keystrokes and ideas inadvertently form. No they're not likely to be tremendously profound, but they can elevate a movie beyond the explosion of colors and motion that our evil corporate overlords would be satisfied with giving us, cackling with delight at the degradation they visit upon mankind.

>>you dismiss representation of women in films as of equal value to tobacco marketing.

No, I'm dismissing the marketing angle, fervent support and fervent backlash. It's all dumb as fuck and contrived.

I'm not a down with corporations mannnnnnnnnn kind of guy, btw.

Okay, but you can't really blame women for wanting a good action / superhero movie with a woman in charge. It's something men take for granted, that they get action movies with men in charge and saving the day; why shouldn't women get some movies of their own too?

Yeah there are people taking the enthusiasm over this movie a little too far and reading meaning into it that just ain't there; but then again I also remember the Heath Ledger Batman movie and how there was a lot of talk about the civil rights issues it raised. And there isn't a Superman movie that people don't read Jesus metaphors into.

I find the pushback against this movie telling.

The regressive left isn't a real thing. It's just a term SQWs use to smear non-bigots.

Like they said, it's dumb for anyone over the age of 6 to look to comic book superheroes for a role model. This is totally addressed when it's men; they're called manchildren.

Since this movie is PG-13....

"Like they said, it's dumb for anyone over the age of 6 to look to comic book superheroes for a role model."

Probably so. That doesn't mean a person can't see something worthwhile in fictional characters who try to do some good in their fictional worlds.

So can you give some examples of inspirational / aspirational characters you consider acceptable for adults?

You find pushback against stupid marketing tactics that co-opt real societal issues for profit, without any regard to the issues themselves, and then also a frighteningly large number of people just buying into it... telling?

This is nothing.
This is a stupid ploy for some studio exec to put gold inlay on another deck of his $150M yacht.
The people "solving" this "problem" are the same people who caused it in the first place, and it wasn't about an agenda besides money then, either.
This isn't about feminism, or social justice, or healthy role models.
This is a thing stupid people care about.
Stupid.
People.

"You find pushback against stupid marketing tactics that co-opt real societal issues for profit, without any regard to the issues themselves, and then also a frighteningly large number of people just buying into it... telling?"

No, I find it telling that people are getting mad that there's a movie with a woman protagonist and then making like they're really mad about something else.

Good luck with that voting thing.

Bort, man children worship superheroes. Man adults worship wrestlers.

Anyone who claims superhero movies are only for kids is being deliberately out of touch, probably to avoid critiques of the genre. Reminds me of Jon Stewart's "I'm just a comedy show!" defence.

As a pop culture entertainment product, of course it's not just for little kids (again, PG-13).

As something to look up to for guidance? Absolutely it's pathetic. Anyone who thinks Gal Godot is the new Rosa Parks is just as dumb and sad as the beardo writing a manifesto validating his exploding tittie anime as deep philosophical commentary.

People like it when they get better representation. Their sudden flare-up of cynicism is obnoxious because it's so incomplete - it felt like it could have been a springboard for a more interesting discussion, but no.

"Anyone who thinks Gal Godot is the new Rosa Parks is"

... a creation of your imagination. Nobody is saying that Wonder Woman is the same as a real-life civil rights activist.

Yes, Wonder Woman was oriignally WWII. Presumably they went with WWI to stand out from the Captain America movie.

I'd say the Allies had at least a little claim to moral superiority in WWI, at least at the beginning. It's the settlements after the war where the shine really comes off the Allies' halos.

What if Captain America...was Thor O_O

-DC exec

There were a ton of patriotic heroes. Even the Archie Comics people came out with a patriotic shield-wielding hero -- known as "The Shield" -- and Captain America was a ripoff of him.

http://absorbascon.blogspot.com/2008/08/shield-prepare.html

http://absorbascon.blogspot.com/2008/10/shield-who-he-is-and-h ow-he-came-to-be.html

http://absorbascon.blogspot.com/2014/09/lets-catch-up-with-shi eld.html

The Shield was a wacky fish out of water story about an adventuring warrior god venturing out of their pantheon to get involved in the affairs of Earth mortals?

The Shield didn't wield a shield, brah. His powers were much closer to those of Superman.

You're right, the Shield didn't use a shield, but his costume had a shield look to it, and Cap's original shield looked suspiciously similar:

http://screenrant.com/unknown-facts-captain-america-shield/

Facinating

No, no I don't have to love that. In fact it's better to go through life enjoying things outside of how SO SALTY DELICIOUS TEARS it makes others.

In fact she was getting literally red in the face mad talking about how much was wrong with it.

The movie or the review?

The movie. I haven't talked to her in detail about it, I haven't seen the movie, and I've been burned out on RLM for a while and haven't watched one of their videos in months so I don't have an opinion of my own but I know she was not buying this movies "empowerment" marketing a bit in the context of how it has changed the character relative to its historic roots. She's the only person I know who has said anything about it one way or the other.

And again, I haven't seen it, I don't know, based on Hollywood's track record of handling real, serious social issues since the 90s I expect pure marketing cynicism that glosses over any actual substantive critique (and you absolutely can have substantive critique in popular, mainstream cinema) until I learn otherwise.

Because the prime directive in making any of these movies is SELL.