Chin up! Keep on trucking! Think positive! Let your light shine! Don't
give up! Just do it! Keep believing! Get'em Tiger! Courage! Patience!
That's the spirit, right?!
Feels more like 'Fuck you!' today, more like Self-preservation! Keep your sanity! Don't lash out! Fucking breathe!
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Mid-2011 recap
Change agents - check
Possible auditions to apply for: 5
Auditions applied for: 5
Auditions: 3
Jobs: 1 (without audition)
Time spent on professional development: 1%
Time spent on child-rearing, housework and non-creative paid work: 99%
Going stir-crazy: check
WTF.
Possible auditions to apply for: 5
Auditions applied for: 5
Auditions: 3
Jobs: 1 (without audition)
Time spent on professional development: 1%
Time spent on child-rearing, housework and non-creative paid work: 99%
Going stir-crazy: check
WTF.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Crisis of faith
Lately, I have been thinking a lot
about how women are portrayed on stage and on screen. To say that the
portrayal of women leaves a lot to be desired is a big understatement.
More often than not women are
the exception among a cast of many men. Yes, there are films with a lot
of female characters but name me one and I will name you twenty that
fall into the one-Smurfette-among-a-nation-of-Smurfs
category. In fact, if anthropologists from another world were to watch
what we put on screen, big and small, and on stage they would assume
that planet earth's human population is made up of roughly 10% women and
90% men. Anyone suggesting that women are quantitatively extremely
under-represented on stage and screen is seriously delusional, and so
are the people who believe it's economically sound to leave the
interests of 50% of the world's population and the enormous market they
represent largely untapped. I have said it before, go apply the Bechdel test (at least two women, who talk to each other, about something besides a man)!
You're gonna tell me now that things are changing.
At the box office we've had smash hits with big female casts in Sex in the City 1&2, Mama Mia and most recently Bridesmaids. The stigma of 'women's entertainment' being entirely unprofitable might be slowly rubbing off but just because you put more women in films doesn't really mean we have achieved anything at all.
At the box office we've had smash hits with big female casts in Sex in the City 1&2, Mama Mia and most recently Bridesmaids. The stigma of 'women's entertainment' being entirely unprofitable might be slowly rubbing off but just because you put more women in films doesn't really mean we have achieved anything at all.
That's because also more often
than not, female characters are extremely stereotyped and/or lack any
resemblance of fully-realised characters. We are 'the whore', 'the
virgin', 'the teacher', 'the carer'. Female characters are sickeningly
often (mis-)constructed around their sexuality. In those many many cases
the only character trait is that of either being 'pure' or of being a
'sexual deviant/demon'. The only thing the creators of these characters
have to say about women is that our sexuality is something dangerous we
use to get what we want. Usually, what these evil demon seductresses
'want' isn't even something that is explained to the viewer but simply
exists to 'screw over' the male protagonist, so he can overcome and
ultimately stand victorious. Because of this ancient trope of female
sexuality as something dangerous the other archetype of female
characters is that of 'the virgin'. These virtuous characters are the
teachers, guides, healers and mothers that are inherently good because
they are entirely a-sexual and therefore 'safe'. These 'virgins'
character traits are reduced to the 'female' traits of caring and
nurturing, and exist for the singular purpose of guiding the male
protagonist through his physical and/or inner journey.
Obviously there are quite a few
other stereotypes that are used to portray female characters ('the needy
girlfriend/mother', 'the tomboy/she-man', 'the bimbo'...) and they are
used pervasively whether the character is minor, supporting or a lead.
And just because a film or tv show passes
the Bechdel test doesn't mean it's female characters are written as
true whole human beings. Most female characters are written as
stereotypes that are more often than not negative and therefore painting
a picture of femaleness as something bad, annoying, dangerous, less
worthy and/or as something that merely exists to assist and nurture.
Are there stereotypes for male
characters? Of course there are and aplenty! But if you add the
overwhelming amount of badly written stereotyped female characters to
the fact that female characters make up a minuscule amount of
characters on stage and screen, you get just how bad the picture is for
women in visual story-telling. And since TV and film at least are
everywhere, so are their negative messages about women and about what
constitutes 'femaleness'.
We grow up with these messages
and many of us eventually start to believe them. We certainly have come
to see the under- and misrepresentation of women in film, tv and on
stage as the norm. Most of us don't question the status quo. We're just
not that bothered. After all we don't go to the movies to question and
bother, we go to be entertained. We switch on the TV to switch off. We
go to the theatre for the magic and the big moments.
We are extremely well
conditioned to be entertained almost no matter what crap we are fed. I
am absolutely guilty of not thinking when I watch a story unfold on
screen or on stage. I watch with my heart and my guts and my senses. My
intellect takes the back seat. That's the one thing I love most about
visual story-telling, that I can just let it take me on a journey, that I
don't have to steer.
Then came the year that I hardly
went to the movies at all; not because I was a student and constantly
broke but because I was sick to the death of having the choice only
between romantic comedies and films with (almost) all male cast.
Yet, I didn't really start
questioning what is going on with women on screen and on stage until
after I realised that I wanted to be an actress. As an actress, it comes
with the job description to notice the gendered availability of roles
and obviously that's always ticked me off. I want to work after all!
But over the last few months I
also started thinking about the quality of those few female characters.
The more I thought about it, the more I spiralled into an utter crisis
of faith. One of the reasons I am an actress is because I am so utterly
intrigued by living other lives, being other people, other women.
But what the hell do I want to
be an actress for if the only women I get to play are nothing but awful
stereotypes and plot devises?! So, here I am, at a cross-roads.
I can reject the whole industry
and not be an actress, which I fleetingly considered a few times. But
that would only make me feel like I have even less of a voice and I
would be going back to a place of repressing my desires and passions,
and that's just not a place I want to go back to.
Or I can do my damnedest to
encourage writers to write more true and whole female characters and to
really think about what they say about half the world's population when
they take to their pens And I can care for those characters that I
will hopefully get to play, as stereotyped as they may be and as much as
they may lack any resemblance of true and whole human beings. I can
create their back-stories and I can create a futures. I can create their
belief systems, their hopes and aspirations, their positive traits and
their flaws. To break them of their boxes and make them real whole
women, that's gonna be my responsibility - even if they will only get
to live in my head.
And I can write about women in film here and maybe get you think about women in film a little more than you would otherwise.
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