The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

I'll trade this ability: http://go-girl.com/

For the ability to get laid whenever I want. Then we'd be equal.

Thing is though - it's just not true about any girl/woman being able to get laid whenever she wants. Nice idea in theory - doesn't work in practice.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well it would be true if you weren't so damn picky about trivial matters like hygiene.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Thing is though - it's just not true about any girl/woman being able to get laid whenever she wants. Nice idea in theory - doesn't work in practice.

I believe you are arguing the exception, Dana.

[DanaC]

In theory, ok - woman walks into a bar and says in a loud voice: does anybody fancy a fuck? She'd probably have a few takers - depending on the bar and the clientele. Man does the same and he probably wouldn't have any takers. But then again - I'm pretty sure if all a guy wants is sex and it doesn't matter what she looks like, how old she is, how not-psycho she may or may not be, I'm pretty sure most can find someone to shag. You could rfn if you were wholly indiscriminate. As could I. Anything more than that and I really don't think it's any easier.

[xoxoxoBruce]

From a Flavorwire interview with Roger Corman, the king of B movies, with 600 low budget films to his credit.

One of your first films for New World Pictures, which you co-founded in 1970 after AIP, was Student Nurses, directed by Stephanie Rothman. You gave a lot of well-known directors their start in the industry, but you gave a lot of women directors their start in the industry when no one else would. Can you talk a little bit about your decision-making with that?

People have praised me for going out of my way to hire women and being at the forefront of the feminist movement in Hollywood. It wasn’t exactly that way. It wasn’t that I was looking to hire women. I was looking to hire the best person available for the job. And it made no difference to me whether they were men or women. So, very often, the best person was a woman. I would hire that person, simply on the basis of ability. When you figure that the population is roughly 50% women — I’m making this number up, but you know what I mean — roughly half the time you’re going to be hiring a lot of women.

Do you consider yourself a feminist?

I have two daughters. I support them, and I think in general I would be a bit of a feminist. But, I still only hire on the basis of ability.

The Slumber Party Massacre has two women behind it. The film was directed by Amy Holden Jones and written by Rita Mae Brown, who was an activist in the feminist movement. There’s so much subversive feminist commentary in this film, it’s fantastic. It’s great to see some exploitation directed at men and male bodies. I know it was written as a parody of sorts, but I’ve read that you filmed it straight. Can you talk about this?

It started off simply as horror film. Rita Mae Brown wrote the script. Amy Holden Jones directed it, but worked with Rita and me — although it was primarily their work. They put together a picture that satisfied what the requirements were. And we did have nudity in that picture. But, they also put some personal thoughts of their own in it, and they put a little bit of humor in it as well. Rita is an excellent writer. And Amy has gone on to have a very, very good career. These were two very talented women working on a subject that in other hands could have been a cheap exploitation film. It is still an exploitation film, but it has a quality that enabled it to stand alone. They understood they were making an exploitation film, but they also knew they had a great deal of freedom.

You are known for some degree of sex and female exploitation in your movies, but your handling of female sexuality in your films has always been pretty straightforward. As my editor and I once agreed, everyone has their fair share of sleazy moments.

Laughs.

You also offer us some social commentary in films like Student Nurses where women enjoy sex, and they’re liberated, but there’s also an abortion subplot. I know your wife Julie has worked closely with you behind the scenes. Has she been a source of advice about your depiction of women or women’s subjects?

These pictures started before Julie was working with me. But I remember with the scripts for a number of them, for quite a while, I would explain to the writer what I wanted. And I would get back — always in treatment form, I believe in treatments before going to the screenplay — the girls set up the way I wanted. They would have a problem to be solved. But in these scripts, their boyfriends would solve the problem. And I remember how many times I would say to the writer, ’No, they must solve the problem themselves.’ It killed the whole idea if their boyfriends come in and solve it. That was something that seemed, to me, self-evident, but I remember many times having that same discussion.

Sounds to me like he's doing it right.

[DanaC]

Very interesting interview, bruce.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Can I get an amen?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Kevin Bacon campaigns for equality in Hollywood.

[DanaC]

I'm definitely in favour of more male nudity...





;p


C'mon dwellar hotties, show us whatcha got!






[eta] I really like Kevin Bacon. He seems a sorted bloke.

[Clodfobble]

The new Netflix show Sense8 has already had full-frontal male nudity multiple times, yet no vagina shots so far. Takes balls to do something like that.

[footfootfoot]

ha ha ha

and ouch

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

ha ha ha

and ouch

Oh foot! You zip up too fast?

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Sundae

Oh foot! You zip up too fast?

ha ha ha

And ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.

[DanaC]

Great move by Target, removing the gendered signage from toys and bedding; predictably negative response from Fox and Friends who will apparently now be confused about what to buy as gifts for children because they won't know what is a girl's toy and what is a boy's toy. Which, frankly, makes the argument for me as to why they never needed labelling in the first place. What is the difference between a girl's toy and a boy's toy? The girl's toy is being played with by a girl. The boy's toy is being played with by a boy. Either they are not fundamentally different, in which case it doesn't actually matter which is which - or they are fundamentally different, in which case why would adults need signs to tell them which is which?

Though - in their defence, aside from the opening line about possibly being confused by it, the actual report was fairly balanced.

I particularly like the way the studio peeps completely disregarded the thousands of people who've complained to Target by labelling them 'the non-people who are upset by this'.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Which, frankly, makes the argument for me as to why they never needed labelling in the first place.

But, but, what if a confused grandma buys a girl a gun!

Nobody thunk it, nobody knew
No one imagined the great girl guru
Girls are one

She hid in the forest, read books with great zeal
She loved Che Guevera, a revolutionary squeal
Girl Tse Tongue

She spoke about justice, but nobody stirred
She felt like an outcast, alone like a nerd
Girl doldrums

She moaned we must fight, escape or we'll die
Girls gathered around, cause her heels were so high
Bad Girl pun

But then she was captured, stuffed into a crate
Loaded onto a truck, where she rode to her fate
Girls are bummed

She was a scrawny girl, who looked rather woozy
No one suspected she was packing an Uzi
Girls with guns

They came with a needle to stick in her thigh
She kicked for the groin, she pissed in their eye
Girl flaps hung

Knocked over a tractor and ran for the door
Six gallons of gas flowed out on the floor
Run girls run!

She picked up a bullhorn and jumped up on the hay
We are free roving ladies, we run free today

They crashed the gate in a great stampede
Tipped over a milk truck, torched all the feed
Girls have fun

Sixty police cars were piled in a heap
Covered in girl poop, covered up deep
Much girl dung

Black smoke rising, darkening the day
Twelve burning men's clubs, going away

The President said "enough is enough
These uppity women, its time to get tough"
Girl dung flung

The newspapers gloated, folks sighed with relief
Tomorrow at noon, they'd all be a faint queef
Girls with runs

The girls were surrounded, they waited and prayed
They moaned their last moans
They chewed nails away
Girls out gunned

The order was given, turn girls into shoppers
Enforced by the might of ten thousand coppers
But on the horizon surrounding the crowd
Came the deafening roar of mothers in choppers

Girls with guns.