Another Summer Spoiled: NY Times Critic Dargis Again Hits 'Separate and Unequal' U.S. Movies
Joyless New York Times movie critic Manohla Dargis took to the Sunday Arts & Leisure page to spoil yet another summer movie season by ranting about the alleged paucity of roles for women on film: “The Living Is Easy; The Women Are Missing.”
If you’re a woman who roared, snorted or sniggered at 'Bridesmaids,' if you like watching other women on screen, you should see it again. Because that hit comedy written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo and directed by Paul Feig, turns out to be one of the few occasions this summer when you can enjoy a movie about and with women released by a major studio. From now through August, American films will again be almost all male, almost all the time (the occasional decorative gal pal notwithstanding) as this year’s boys of summer -- the Green Lantern and Captain America, Conan the Barbarian and Conan O’Brien -- invade the multiplex, seizing media-entertainment minds and your dollars.
This is an update of the argument Dargis unleashed both on May 1 of this year and in the summer of 2008, when she slammed that year's crop of summer movies for the sin of featuring men as leads: “Iron Man, Batman, Big Angry Green Man -- to judge from the new popcorn season it seems as if Hollywood has realized that the best way to deal with its female troubles is to not have any, women, that is.”
It’s three years later, and only the titles have changed for Dargis:
Mind you there are a few high-profile girls and women here and there, including the title character of 'Bad Teacher,' with Cameron Diaz as the romance- and etiquette-challenged teacher who at one point washes a car in slow motion while wearing a midriff and hot pants. Evidently nothing says new motion picture entertainment better than a female movie star in Daisy Dukes bending over and sudsing a car as if she were in a 2005 Jessica Simpson music video.
Dargis singled out the new “Hangover” movie for its lack of female characters (she does realize the movie is about a bachelor party gone awry, right?).
Gleaning wisdom from box-office statistics is a risky game, subject to all manner of qualifications, and of course it’s completely vulgar for a critic to pay attention to such things. Yet it seems worth pointing out that as 'Hangover Part II' was holding on to its No. 2 slot, 'Bridesmaids' was keeping a grip on fifth position, having pulled in more than $100 million by its third week. Is there a lesson here for those big-studio executives who even now are reading the latest iteration of the three-men-and-a-monkey story (but no women) and believe that the current state of American cinema -- separate and unequal -- will continue to fly? Only time and those summer movies idling while they wait for their green light will tell.
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Comments
Yes, MEN have ruined the motion picture industry!
Submitted by NJRightWinger12 on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:08pm.
How did it manage to last almost 120 years being run by-gasp-MEN! Apparently, this broad isnt happy unless shes watching a Lifetime-bashing men of the week movie, or a Women in Jeopardy chickflick, while eating a tub of Ben N Jerrys-of course-Ice cream, and sitting-alone-on her couch with her 5 cats!
Hmmm
Submitted by HelenS on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:12pm.
Seems I'm not alone in the universe after all. I, for one, HATE movies about and for women. They're usually irritating and boring.
Bring on the next Bourne, I say!
Me - "The libs/dems of today are the Quislings of former years - the cowards who would vote a fraud into office in exchange for handouts from the devil."
So that means MANohla must have loved Atlas Shrugged?
Submitted by SickofLibs on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:18pm.
.
It always reminds me
Submitted by Bob K on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:37pm.
of a cartoon I saw years ago by John Callahan. Guy at a "feminist bookstore" and a female employee telling him "There is NO humor section here!" LOL.
Bob,
Submitted by Chris Norman on Wed, 06/15/2011 - 12:26am.
LOL - that says it all.
Women with Room Temp. IQs are not allowed.
Submitted by Avitar on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:42pm.
Clearly room temperature IQs eliminates most of the actresses in Hollywood from starting in major motion pictures. I am being unkind since there are many actresses who could play interesting characters I am not sure that Hollywood would want to make those movies.
Most of these women have had to make their living around the edges in science fiction and comedy. Certainly Amanda Tapping could do any part that George Clone can do. Christiana Johnson, third rock from the sun could handle most of the action hero parts if she wants them. It is actresses like Meryl Streep and Janeane Garofalo who are too limited to advance a summer story.
Sometimes the proven actress just does not want to do another successful movie. After Terminator 2 I understand that there were offers piling up outside her door but she did not want to do action.
Did the Times reporter
Submitted by Marsh on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:46pm.
bother to blame all the Obama loving liberals in Hollywood for this predicament?
Let's have...
Submitted by almostacowboy on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:52pm.
...one chick-flick for every guy-flick.
Each movie shall have at least one:
gay (lesbian/transgender)
Latino - one from the Americas, one European
Eskimo - one Inuit, one Yupik
Amer-indian - one N. American, one S. American
Black - American, African, Australian Aborigine
Indo-European
Turkic
Semitic
Basque
Finno-Ugric
Caucasian
Mongolic
Karvelian
Do ya think Dargis would be happy then? Nah, me neither.
According to Dargis....
Submitted by notinstl on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:50pm.
...they should be making movies that people don't want to see.....a typical liberal approach.
Liberals always have to
Submitted by Radical1979 on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 3:54pm.
Liberals always have to classify people and things. How many are about African Americans, how many are about women, etc. How about, how many of those movies are actually GOOD movies and draw and audience?
Gone are the days...
Submitted by HelenS on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 4:17pm.
Gone are the days (unless they never were) when movies were made to entertain. Seems they all have to have a message, an agenda, some sort of convention-defying twist now. Break new ground, find a unique and unconventional way to offend.
I love the just-plain-fun-and-entertaining types. If they can be found.
Me - "The libs/dems of today are the Quislings of former years - the cowards who would vote a fraud into office in exchange for handouts from the devil."
My wife will not go to a "chick flick" (her words!).
Submitted by drsamherman on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 4:34pm.
She prefers action/adventure, comedy and scifi. My daughters had to beg and blackmail her to see "Sex and the City", and she was so disgusted she yelled at them for two weeks about it.
I knew I had the woman of my dreams when she told me her favorite actors were John Wayne and Steve McQueen. I nearly proposed on the spot.
Best movie I've seen lately....
Submitted by Blonde on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 4:46pm.
Was "Unthinkable".
Starring Samuel Jackson and Carrie-Ann Moss. It went straight to video, which in and of itself is fascinating
Basically...American turned Jihadist Terrorist, has nuclear bombs secreted around the US. Gets captured (this is planned on his part). Bring in CIA special interrogator (Jackson), with, of course, the Holderesque FBI agent (Moss).
How far will they go to prevent the destruction of three American cities? (Note to the squeamish, certain reviewers dismiss it as "torture porn", and I could have done without that....but that is kind of the point, isn't it?).
That's as far as I'll go, as I wouldn't want to add any spoiler alerts. At first, I thought it was going to be the typical liberal pap movie.
But the end just kind of had me going ???. Watched it three or four days ago, and it still has me thinking.
Recommend.
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Perhaps, Dargis doth protest
Submitted by jdhawk on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 6:06pm.
Perhaps, Dargis doth protest too much . . .
Here was last year's contenders and winners for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress:
Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”
Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”
Some of the above were not only well received by critics and the public alike, but were powerful women's roles.
Meanwhile Dargis' constant bitching neither helps her paper nor the movie industry.
Note, for the price of a couple of Sunday papers you can buy a share of the NYT. Having lost 25% of it value so far this year, it faces massive short falls in its pension fund for employees. This coupled with ever dropping readership, the NYT will be in bankruptcy in a couple of years. But, if Dargis has anything to say about it, we will have superwoman, charteuse lantern, captainette america, etc. And, like the NYT, the movie industry will be moving into receivership.
Though I don't really agree with her...
Submitted by BosTarus on Tue, 06/14/2011 - 7:51pm.
I think you and others are missing the point a bit... she's not begging for more chick flicks, she wants more movies like "Bridesmaids" during the summer movie season which is when the big entertainment films are released.
And she's not disregarding the Oscar nominees... because none of those films were summer films.
I, personally, think she's wrong because this is the summer of Bridesmaids and Bad Teacher... 2 major comedies with broad appeal that are centered on female characters. If anything, she should be thrilled. I'm sure she'll find a reason to be upset when Wonder Woman eventually comes out too.