Let us now praise silent women
Golly, this is stark:
On Oscar night, take a look at how much women get to speak in the top films. It's pretty shocking. (via @bbc100women) pic.twitter.com/OYS3vLGIJV
— Jojo Moyes (@jojomoyes) March 4, 2018
Only American Beauty is even close to parity.
I was watching a reading of Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen yesterday. It’s about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Bohr’s wife was also a character, but had only a tiny amount of the conversation.
Studies I’ve seen suggest this matches life, even though we have a perception that women talk a lot more than men.
Women talk a lot, sure, but that’s chatty gabbing that can be inferred rather than suffered through; men *speak*, and their every word is important to every single story. I understand why you wouldn’t have known that, iknklast, being of the female persuasion and all.
I expect all of your plays henceforth to reflect this new revelation that I,a random peepee-possessor on the Internet, have bestowed.
And American Beauty is now forever tainted for me because Kevin Spacey turned out to be a scumbag. Ugh. I used to love that movie.
The Oscars haven’t seemed relevant in a really long time. I’ve rarely liked their selection of best picture and I got so tired of seeing great performances overlooked because of Academy prejudices against certain genres of films that I just tune it all out. Knowing a movie was nominated or even won certainly doesn’t influence my choice of whether to see it or not. So what’s the point, other than a lot of insider backslapping?
The point is money. If an actor/director/producer can point to an Oscar-winning film, they can command greater respect and a higher price for their services, of course.
It’s only for backslapping (and bragging rights, which as Iknklast says can lead to commanding higher prices). At the end of the day it’s an industry insiders party to celebrate themselves, nothing more.
I like to acknowledge when they’re moving in the right direction.
This year a woman was up for Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and her movie was up for Best Picture. And Lady Bird was certainly woman-centered.
A black man was up for the same three awards.
This year’s nominees did better on the Bechdel Test than usual, too:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/do-this-years-best-picture-oscar-nominees-pass-the-bechdel-test
Also too: Neither of the winners in the Actress category are young and beautiful.
Foster and Lawrence presenting the Best Actress award (in lieu of the disgraced Casey Affleck. Traditionally BA is presented by the previous year’s Best Actor winner, but Affleck withdrew because #MeToo happened and he is a sleaze.)
McDormand’s speech. INCLUSION RIDER.
I apparently missed the point of American Beauty, as so many people thought it was deep and meaningful, but to me it was about some guy going through a mid-life crisis and wanting to have sex with his daughter’s friend.
Shocked to see it had so much dialogue equity. Also shocked to see Million Dollar Baby has so little. The main character was a woman, I thought (I never saw it).
I’m really surprised there seems to be no long term trend in the right direction.
Boy, when you look at that graph of male vs female dialogue, it would seem that women speak more lines during a Catholic Mass