[This blog post started months ago and finished today is brought to you by the department of I'm Sorry I Haven't Written Forever I Work And Have Two Puppies And Get Writers Block Very Easily. I'm back on the writing about movies bandwagon now--yay Oscars season! :) Really, though, what was up with movies this year? Was every studio too preoccupied with the election to make good stuff? Doesn't matter. It's awards season now and they'll all be putting their best foot forward. In the meantime...guess it's up to us amateurs to start writing the movies we want to see. And now without further ado, another one of Avery's Official Unwarranted Rants Against Society.]
I am pro-choice.
I don't just mean in terms of abortion. I mean that I believe in freedom of choice. You're a billionaire? Cool, do whatever you want with your money, whether that be giving it away to the poor and underprivileged or blowing it all on a swimming pool that looks like a cave. You're a gay Christian? Feel free to get married if that's what you want, or stay celibate the rest of your life based on the painful belief that being gay is sinful--it's not my call. You're an Academy member? Vote for Will Smith or Michael Fassbender, I don't care, I know who I would've nominated, but that's not the point.
I've always been a fan of the Wiccan principle, "And it harm none, do as ye will." Translation: as long as you aren't hurting people, you do you. Or, as my own Savior liked to say, "Do to others as you'd have others do to you." Hell, even the basic rules of Satanism promote enjoying yourself, as long as it's not at the expense of others. Okay, you see where I'm going with this. Hey, what can I say, I'm a full-blooded American, I love freedom...as long as that freedom doesn't hurt the innocent, I'm all for it.
Now, we are a country founded on freedom. Including--and you probably can see where I'm going with this already--that tricky bastard known as free speech. Freedom of the press. Freedom in art? Is that a thing? Because lately, based on the reviews of some of my favorite films, I'm really not sure that exists anymore. Or if it ever did.
For a country founded on the principles of freedom, we sure do seem to like censoring ourselves. I mean, when the film industry was only--what--ten years old?--we had the Hollywood Production Code, which, I shit you not, forbade screenwriters from using the words "pregnant," "virgin," and in the wrong context, "sex." Now we've got the ratings system, which I'll argue isn't a whole lot better, but at least we can put whatever we want in the film now as long as we properly categorize it...right?
Well, okay, hold on there. You can put "whatever you want" in the movie, sure. But you don't want to. Not really. Not when the slightest infraction can get your movie labeled racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise "problematic."
The point that I knew we were gone was when Meghan Trainor's song "All About That Bass" was slammed for "skinny-shaming." Which was funny because every week you hear people screaming about how body image is just so awful in our country (okay, I'll give them that one) and calling out videos like "Blurred Lines" as sexist because they feature naked women and saying songs like "That's What Makes You Beautiful" promote low self-esteem as being somehow desirable (???)...and then when we get a song that seems tailor made for those protesters, they still find something to complain about.
Last year, the Academy awarded, among others, a Muslim woman of color, a gay man, two Chileans, and a female editor (!!!) a handful of coveted Oscars. Not to mention, Alejandro Inarritu did what only two other directors before him have managed to do: win Best Director two years in a row. All this while Chris Rock--a very popular, well-liked black man--stood onstage and told everyone how hard it was for him to find work...while he was, um, working. Not just working, but hosting one of the biggest, most coveted gigs in Hollywood. Because there were no black actors nominated, the Academy was slammed as racist. Never mind all of the non-white, non-straight, and/or non-male techies, directors, and short film crew nominated (but hey, who cares about them, right?) or, even more importantly, all the wins by those people. I guess if they aren't black men, they don't count, because I found very few articles howling about, for instance, Benicio Del Toro or Arthur Redcloud being excluded--and none that mentioned Mya Taylor, Kitana Rodriguez or Zoe Saldana. The message was received loud and clear: it's not diversity we want, it's affirmative action.
It gets even more ridiculous. The protests about a lack of black men in the Oscars are at least warranted (how, precisely, did they arrive at the conclusion that Will Smith wasn't worth nominating?), but calling James Gunn sexist because the casting call for GOTG2 (which he wouldn't likely have had anything to do with anyway) included a request for tall, thin women to play a specific type of alien is...well, there's no other way to say it: it's ridiculous.
What frightens me most about the PC culture is that there's no forgiveness and no flexibility. One misstep, and you're forever known as "problematic." There is a Tumblr blog, I shit you not, that is entirely dedicated to all of the allegedly sexist, racist, "ageist" or "ableist" things that celebrities have done. While some of these are legitimate, others are so bad they're laughable--but on this site they are still taken seriously. Others are taken far out of context, for instance P!nk's frequently-misinterpreted video for "Please Don't Leave Me," a song that is clearly written from the perspective of an abuser and has a fitting video to go along with it--but is denounced on Your Fave Is Problematic (that's the actual name, I swear to God I'm not making this up) because, for what reason I don't understand, they think the video is implying that men "can't be abused." Can someone explain how they drastically missed the point of that video, because as per usual, P!nk is the opposite of subtle and it's almost impossible to not see that she is saying, quite loudly and clearly, that men can be abused--and it's sick when it happens.
So, let's bring that to a filmmaking context. The rules are clear: if you're making an action film or TV show, you'd damn well better make sure nothing bad happens to your non-white characters--and God forbid any of them play antagonists--or you're racist. If you're making a movie that features a badass woman, she'd better not feel the need to have children or you're sexist. You are literally expected to be perfect in your portrayal of non-white or female characters or you are officially and irrevocably a Tool of the Patriarchy. There is no room for baby steps in social justice. It's not good enough for Agents of Shield to have one of the most diverse casts of any superhero franchise. Since some of them die, and some of them are bad, they are all Officially Problematic. Never mind that the leading cast is half female and two-thirds of those women are not white--it doesn't count because bi-racial Chloe Bennet "passes as white" (side note: in what universe??). It's not good enough for the star of Jurassic World to be a badass woman who lures a T-Rex out of its cage and leads it to battle with a giant f--ing hybrid dinosaur. She wants babies and wears heels, therefore she is a Sexist Stereotype and is Officially Problematic.
I'm not saying that we can't critique our media. I'm not saying we don't need more diversity, because God knows we do. But when you sit there with a clicker and mark points based on how many non-white characters there are (and deduct points if they're not heroes) or how many women there are, two things happen. First of all, you miss the point of the movie as a whole--and that in and of itself is damn disrespectful, considering how much time and effort went into that movie, yes, even if part of that effort came, God forbid, from white men. Second of all, you go against your own point. We want diversity, not affirmative action. The goal is to get to a point where it's the norm to have diverse casts, not a discussion point that gets picked apart until there's nothing left but sound bites.
So celebrate when you get that diversity you're craving. Don't turn your nose up at it and say "ugh, that's not enough." As a plus-sized teenager, you know what made me super-happy? Sookie St. James, Melissa McCarthy's character on Gilmore Girls. Her weight was not the focus of her character; it was rarely even mentioned, let alone made a central part of her development. She got her love life together long before her skinny, hot, perfect best friend. She had a husband and three babies. She had total control of her love life and total agency over her career, and she did it all while not being a size 2. I didn't care that her character wasn't perfect. I didn't care that she was a control freak or that she was clumsy or that she was funny, all of which are traits commonly relegated to non-conventionally-attractive women in the media. I didn't care about it one iota, because I was so enamored with the idea of seeing a plus-size female character whose story arcs were not measured by her appearance or her weight.
So next time you decide to take to the internet screaming about how unfair it is that Michael B. Jordan wasn't nominated for an Academy Award, consider this: every victory, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction. But if you complain every time one of those victories isn't to your satisfaction ("I don't care how badass she is, she wants children! She's not feminist enough!"), you know what might happen? Sooner or later, studios will stop trying, because they rightfully think that nothing they do will measure up. So think positive reinforcement. Celebrate when Native American actors are cast to play Native American characters. Celebrate when plus-size women get to play the love interest. Celebrate when Natasha Romanoff admits that, yes, she does want a baby, even though she knows she doesn't need one. Celebrate the small victories. Celebrate the big ones. But don't punish those who don't measure up to your ideal.
Please, please, please don't punish the ones who don't measure up, because you know what happens when we all cry sexism over every little thing? You know what happens when we accuse everyone who commits a "microaggression" of intentional racism? We distract ourselves, and others, from the real bigots out there. And as artists, as writers and filmmakers and actors and photographers and critics, we need to draw attention to the real injustice in the world--not hide it under elaborately-staged protests over a lack of perfect Strong Female Characters or Strong Non-White Characters.
