Althouse: "Underwritten Female Character: The Movie."

July 4, 2016

"Underwritten Female Character: The Movie."

44 comments:

Etienne said...: I like the dogs look at the end when he sees the dumb bitch peeing on his tree.; 7/4/16, 8:51 AM
Jaq said...: Nice. And as an added bonus, every one of them is hot. The ukulele smash at the end was a perfect cherry on top.; 7/4/16, 8:51 AM
Jaq said...: Did I say they were smoking hot?; 7/4/16, 8:52 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: Very well done. Technically, it's even better than the generic Oscar-winning movie trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbhrz1-4hN4; 7/4/16, 8:56 AM
Etienne said...: I mean crapping on his tree, I missed the toilet paper hand-off...; 7/4/16, 8:58 AM
Jaq said...: Let's have the one now for the overwritten female characters, the ones in the Rom Coms who always get in the end, not just what they want, but what they deserve! Dammit!; 7/4/16, 9:03 AM
William said...: It is a sobering thought that lo, these many years after the revolution female movie stars have not yet reached parity with their male counterparts. Hollywood's unfair treatment of female movie stars makes a mockery of all the values that our forefathers fought for.; 7/4/16, 9:06 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Girl with the Pony Tail on the Treadmill:

Some date. We went and saw an action movie.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Like I needed to spend another two hours watching shit getting blown up.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

After the movie my date kept going on about how Hot the lead actress was.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Of COURSE she was Hot. It's Hollywood: her only job is to be Hot.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

It's not like she actually had to ACT or anything.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

She got kidnapped by the bad guys, who tied her up.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Of course they did.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

And she was supposed to be scared I think, but the camera just seemed to be focused on her tits.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

LOTS of sweat on her tits. They probably had a guy on the set whose whole job was to put just the right sweat on her tits.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

So my date now can't stop talking about Impossible Hot Hollywood Girl.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Then he laughs and says "I bet she bleaches her anus."

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Dude.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I mean, really? You're saying that to ME? Am I now supposed to say "Yeah, I do that, too?"

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

Like you'll EVER find out.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

The lead Actor was kinda Hot, though.

(pony-tail swish, pony-tail swish)

I am Laslo.; 7/4/16, 9:15 AM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: No one cares about underwritten male characters.; 7/4/16, 9:17 AM
cubanbob said...: Looks cute. Something I could see with the wife. Perhaps it maybe developed.
Speaking of underwritten and or barely written characters what about a sympathetic treatment of late middle aged, balding and not very in-shape men who are not powerful executives or billionaires? You know, the ordinary schlub?; 7/4/16, 9:26 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Let's have the one now for the overwritten female characters, the ones in the Rom Coms who always get in the end, not just what they want, but what they deserve!"

Are those characters overwritten? I don't watch those movies, but your summary makes them sound like predictable stereotypes. Are they in fact fully dimensional human beings or just females with typical characteristics wanting the typical things? Why would the fact of a happy ending create depth? It sounds like more shallowness.; 7/4/16, 9:28 AM
Matt Sablan said...: If we want Hollywood to stop making movies with poorly developed characters, we need to stop paying to see movies with poorly developed characters.; 7/4/16, 9:33 AM
Michael K said...: "Hollywood's unfair treatment of female movie stars"

Yes, let's go back to the 1940s when female star were doing great roles like "Rebecca" and "Melanie" and "Mildred Pierce." Those were the great days for women actresses. How about "All About Eve" ?

Not one sex scene, too.; 7/4/16, 9:34 AM
buwaya said...: That does seem like it would make a fine movie.
More imagination in it than most.; 7/4/16, 9:38 AM
Jaq said...: Are they in fact fully dimensional human beings or just females with typical characteristics wanting the typical things?

I guess I was more reacting to the sneering at the men in the little movie, as if women's wants and desires weren't as easily lampooned.; 7/4/16, 9:38 AM
Jaq said...: Actually, I didn't really even get what the men thing was about. Except that women don't like men they perceive as weak, but then ironically are good looking.; 7/4/16, 9:46 AM
effinayright said...: Cultural shut-in that I am, I had to google the term "underwritten", and came across a blurb for the fake trailer above. Here's part:

"It's sassy comic relief meets eye candy, in a sketch that brings together the all-stars of insulting roles for women. These are the characters who either exist solely to prop up more important characters, deliver exposition, or fulfill diversity quotas..."

If the roles are so "insulting", why do female actrons take them?; 7/4/16, 9:53 AM
Thuglawlibrarian said...: Hollywood, that hotbed of conservatism.; 7/4/16, 10:02 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: I propose a RomCom about two paraplegics, who meet cute by running their wheelchairs into each other on a sidewalk to get out of the way of a blind man.

It is a case of opposites attract: she was an adventurous skier who had an unfortunate skiing accident, while he was a bookworm who tripped down library steps with his arms full of books.

Despite their differences, they have something deep in common: it is Them against the World. Lots of summery shots of them wheeling together down boutique streets, side by side. Charming conversations, interspersed with wheelchair gags.

Then, through a Miracle of Science, she is cured, and able to walk again. Unfortunately, he is still in his wheelchair. He is happy to be at home and read books, but the world of Adventure calls to her again.

Will they find that their Love only worked with their shared disability? Is it unfair of him to expect her to stay with him? Is it unfair of her to return to the Life she Loved?

Also: there is the attractive male Physical Therapy Tech who helps her regain her Strength, who pushes her to keep going, keep going, keep going. "Yes! One day we will ski together!"

A Love Triangle, obviously.

And an ominous warning: the Doctors tell her she must take Life cautiously, that her spine is in a precarious state and could be easily broken again. But she was Born to Ski!

With the encouragement of the Therapist she decides You Have to Live Life Fully, and they go skiing. Romantic tension is palpable. And -- of course -- she skis into a tree and breaks her back again.

Does the Therapist still desire her, now that she is disable in a wheelchair again? Does the Guilt of his encouragement drive him away? Will her Disable Bookworm accept her back? Does she want to go back to him, or is that just a form of defeated acceptance of her fate?

Hollywood: I'm here. Call me.

I am Laslo.; 7/4/16, 10:08 AM
Simon Kenton said...: Laslo, boy, goddammit, when you're good they ain' nobody better.; 7/4/16, 10:18 AM
Birches said...: Matthew Sablan nails it.; 7/4/16, 10:19 AM
rhhardin said...: Stereotypes actually work, you know.; 7/4/16, 10:25 AM
campy said...: If the roles are so "insulting", why do female actrons take them?

Brainwashed by The Patriarchy.; 7/4/16, 10:25 AM
Ann Althouse said...: @Laslo You made me think of page 203 in David Rakoff's "Half Empty":

"In the movie The Other Side of the Mountain, a marvelous tearjerker biopic from my childhood, the skier Jill Kinmont severs her spinal cord on the slopes and spends the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Early on in her rehabilitation, she is visited in the hospital by her boyfriend, an impossibly handsome and fit skier. Showing off, Jill demonstrates her progress by jamming her fist into a bowl of potato chips, eventually lifting her hand to reveal one lone shard grasped tentatively between the knuckles of two crabbed fingers. “It’s the hardest trick,” she tells him. He is, naturally, aghast at the limited mobility and the bleakness of her life, and never visits again. (Beau Bridges will eventually step in as the amorous hero before he himself goes down in a plane something like two days before their wedding. See it. You’ll cry from beginning to end, especially if you’re ten and gay.)"; 7/4/16, 10:29 AM
buwaya said...: Hollywood should call you, Laslo, but wont.
This seems lke a script that would have been made in the 40s-50s. Either as a silly comedy or a tearjerker.; 7/4/16, 10:33 AM
Etienne said...: ...especially if you’re ten and gay

I was 10 and gay once. Only 'gay' meant something else then.; 7/4/16, 10:34 AM
buwaya said...: Althouse got there first.; 7/4/16, 10:34 AM
mikee said...: I, for one, want to see the movie length version of It's Not About The Nail.
Because it took my wife 20 years to make me understand I should ignore the nail, and focus on her feelings about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg; 7/4/16, 12:09 PM
Anne in Rockwall, TX said...: coupe, she could have been peeing. women use toilet paper after either function.

Annie C, who used to be Texas Annie but someone else has that moniker on Google as well and is a flying nut case. I gave up trying to figure it out.; 7/4/16, 2:00 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: "If the roles are so "insulting", why do female actrons take them?"

Actors gotta eat. Just like anybody else.; 7/4/16, 3:19 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: "I propose a RomCom about two paraplegics..."

Recently halfway there.

"Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane. Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that. What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of color. And neither of them knows they're going to change each other for all time."

He's also rich, of course. You can't have a romcom where things work out if the guy isn't rich.; 7/4/16, 3:32 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: "You can't have a romcom where things work out if the guy isn't rich."

If he's poor, you have to drown him or similar, like in The Titanic.; 7/4/16, 3:33 PM
Jaq said...: Jesus Laszlo that was funny.

BTW, are men insulted by stock characters who are male?; 7/4/16, 3:51 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: One of the reasons that you end up with underwritten female characters is that many money people think you won't sell enough tickets if you don't add in a romantic element. So there have to be scenes with a guy's wife or girlfriend that the story doesn't need.

(And they may be right that you won't sell enough tickets. I don't know.); 7/4/16, 4:06 PM
eddie willers said...: Those were the great days for women actresses. How about "All About Eve" ?

I was going to say something about Marilyn Monroe being the Underwritten Female Character in that movie, but there is nothing underwritten in All About Eve.

De Witt (George Sanders): Do you see that man? That's Max Fabian, the producer. Now go and do yourself some good.

Miss Casswell (Marilyn Monroe): Why do they always look like unhappy rabbits?

De Witt: Because that's what they are. Now go and make him happy.; 7/4/16, 4:53 PM
Christopher said...: Huh, when I first saw the title I read that as being the insurance term.; 7/4/16, 5:59 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Love the responses, but: in my proposed scenario BOTH are paraplegics.

Anyone can go half-way there.

The point was they were two paraplegics with different views on life, despite the physical debilitating commonality.

It wasn't Russell Crowe and a paraplegic.

It wasn't Angelia Jolie and a paraplegic.

It wasn't Peter Dinklage and a paraplegic.

Although that would be even better.

I am Laslo.; 7/4/16, 6:59 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Althouse was reminded of a story with ONE paraplegic.

Is it so weird to picture TWO paraplegics?

TWO paraplegics who are not defined by their disability but by their character?

That they are different despite their disabilities' commonalities?

Do we need one able-bodied handsome person for us to buy in?

Do we need an able-bodied character to love them so that we can believe they can be loved?

Does sharing the same disability make love any easier?

THAT was what I was poking at.

I bet ten-year-old gay children might get it, too.

I am Laslo.; 7/4/16, 7:14 PM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/4/16, 7:49 PM
Jaq said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/4/16, 7:50 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: http://www.thighswideshut.org/2016/06/tearjerking-you-off/; 7/4/16, 9:12 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: Movies are written with (hopefully) a couple fleshed out characters and a bunch of cardboard cutout I-know-someone-like-that characters. It's a shorthand writers need because nobody wants to watch a six hour movie. Except for Swedes.

And men are just as "underwritten" as women. Of course, when you're a feminist and everything in the world is about meeeeeeeeeee that's harder to discern.; 7/5/16, 4:50 AM
damikesc said...: If I were a Hollywood writer, I'd write for ONLY white males. You can do more with the character and not having activists bitch that you're making a group look bad.; 7/5/16, 7:01 AM
Wince said...: I wonder if that dog is a method actor?

Brilliant!; 7/5/16, 9:34 AM