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This is brought to you via the Green Hornet, which is getting lukewarm reviews today.
So once upon a time, when men were men and women and minorities knew their place, men (white men, of course, the others don't count) in television and movies and comics were competent and benignly indulgent of the dizziness and incompetence of their female companions and minority sidekicks. See, say, The Spirit or I Love Lucy.
These days, it seems far more likely, at least in light-hearted fare, that the women are the competent ones, while the men are overgrown man-children who need to be gently herded lest they do nothing with their lives but drink beer and make fart jokes. With the Green Hornet, we apparently have the same dynamic--Kato is the hyper competent killjoy to his employer's inanity.
So here's the question. Is it that we've made some progress, so women and minorities are allowed to be competent? (Clearly, not enough progress, as the main character's still a guy and the woman/minority still acts as an "other". Although I'd certainly rather be boringly responsible and competent than a ditz.) Or is the social mores have changed enough that the prejudice is still just as bad? Is it that in the 1950s, competence was prized and therefore only white men got it, while now perpetual adolescence is prized and therefore only white men get it?
(I realizing I'm totally generalizing here. Obviously there are movies with female heroes and so on. Although, I can't think of a movie where a woman acts as badly as the men in, say, Knocked Up or Iron Man. It seems that you can be a useless, irresponsible schlub and still be sympathetic and even heroic, but only if you're a white dude. Anyway, there are lots of exceptions, but I feel like there's enough of a trend to think about.)
So once upon a time, when men were men and women and minorities knew their place, men (white men, of course, the others don't count) in television and movies and comics were competent and benignly indulgent of the dizziness and incompetence of their female companions and minority sidekicks. See, say, The Spirit or I Love Lucy.
These days, it seems far more likely, at least in light-hearted fare, that the women are the competent ones, while the men are overgrown man-children who need to be gently herded lest they do nothing with their lives but drink beer and make fart jokes. With the Green Hornet, we apparently have the same dynamic--Kato is the hyper competent killjoy to his employer's inanity.
So here's the question. Is it that we've made some progress, so women and minorities are allowed to be competent? (Clearly, not enough progress, as the main character's still a guy and the woman/minority still acts as an "other". Although I'd certainly rather be boringly responsible and competent than a ditz.) Or is the social mores have changed enough that the prejudice is still just as bad? Is it that in the 1950s, competence was prized and therefore only white men got it, while now perpetual adolescence is prized and therefore only white men get it?
(I realizing I'm totally generalizing here. Obviously there are movies with female heroes and so on. Although, I can't think of a movie where a woman acts as badly as the men in, say, Knocked Up or Iron Man. It seems that you can be a useless, irresponsible schlub and still be sympathetic and even heroic, but only if you're a white dude. Anyway, there are lots of exceptions, but I feel like there's enough of a trend to think about.)
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 08:46 pm (UTC)From:Iron Man: Tony's irresponsibility is a problem to be overcome; his genius is his good trait.
Knocked Up: Ben's irresponsibility is the problem; the entire movie is about him growing up and becoming a responsible father.
Other major superhero movies: No one would ever call Batman or Superman a slacker. Spiderman doesn't qualify either--he takes on too much responsibility, not too little.
Other major comedies: The only admirable male character in 40 Year Old Virgin is Steve Carrell; all of his immature co-workers are a little reprehensible. In Juno, Jason Bateman's slacker husband is also reprehensible. In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Jason Segal's character has to overcome his slacking (and heartbreak) to produce his puppet Dracula musical. I suppose "I Love You, Man" kind of celebrates Jason Segal's cloud-cuckoolander character. But generally, comedies that have a point (i.e., we're leaving out "bunch of crazy stuff happens" movies like The Hangover) aren't celebrating the Dude/Bro, they're making the arrested development a problem to be overcome.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 08:59 pm (UTC)From:Uh, duh, all the ones you just mentioned? Basically, any character played by Seth Rogen. Ever. Yes, the immaturity is often the obstacle to be overcome, but it's played as their endearing trait. What draws Paul Rudd to Jason Segal in I Love You, Man, but that? What there is there to Seth Rogen's character in, again, anything? He's an obnoxious douchebag who says the right combination of words at the last second, thus somehow graduating him up from reprehensible. I don't particularly buy it. But I don't have to. I vote with my time/dollars and don't see comedies that are all about dudes being dudes together because it is so hard to be dudes when, like, there are chicks around. (Which? Be fair now, that was exactly the plot of I Love You, Man.)
Superheroes are a different stripe of movie, and one which I didn't think overlapped with the Dude/bro movie much until Rogen got cast as the lead in Green Hornet. You use Tony Stark as an example. Tony's not really a Dude/Bro person for exactly because he's driven and smart. He's not a slacker/stoner/loser/Rogen type. Yes, he's an asshole, and he's an asshole to women, even the one he likes and physically/emotionally/financially depends on. But he's not a Dude/Bro. He's an anti-hero. Very different archetypes.
Other superheroes aren't really in the scope of the original musings of the lovely lady who is hosting this debate on her LJ. She specifically pointed to lighter-hearted fare, which doesn't really describe any of the superhero movies out recently. Certainly not the ones you name-checked, although Spider-Man 3 veered so far into crack territory, perhaps it wished it had been...
no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 09:29 pm (UTC)From:And the plot of "I Love You, Man" was about the need for male friendship, not about how hard it is to be dudes when there are chicks around. Gender roles and relations are pretty much the focus of every romantic comedy; if you're going to find something sinister in that, then obviously you won't like them. The experience of the movie is utterly foreign to you; that doesn't make it sexist or wrong.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-14 09:39 pm (UTC)From:Think of it this way: would any of those women they get want them? As they are? No. As they're improved upon to be? At best, a 0.1% chance. I am not playing the "she's too hot for him" card, I'm playing the "She's too put together to possibly want that card." Unless that's also a source of humor--as in, her failing is liking guys who are no good for her. But if that's the case, she should dump his ass when she makes her emotional improvement arc. Oh, wait, that would require females in Dude/Bro comedies to have emotional arcs.
So if you want to make a comedy about an immature guy, the immaturity has to be at least a little endearing or the movie doesn't work. You might as well complain that "My Cousin Vinny" portrays rude provincial ignorance positively because Vinny's New York attitude is endearing, or that "Enchanted" portrays wacky ditziness positively because Giselle's confused wandering around New York is endearing.
That's just the point: WHY do we have to make all these movies about maturity-stunted males? The prevalence of these films is at least as bad as the films themselves. And the fact that you have so many to rattle on about is proof of how much of a glut there's been of late. Would it rankle so much if there were another pool of female-friendly films to counter it? No. But the closest we get to female-friendly films are male-led films with hot male leads. (Not complaining, mind.)
Comedies about immature guys just aren't that funny. I Love You, Man actually was better than most because it dealt with, as you said, the need for male friendship. Unfortunately, it frequently slipped into defining male friendship as the only solace from women. You know what did a better job of male friendship as a positive force? Role Models. Were women just as marginal? Yes. Did it feel sexist? No because the men did not mature at the expense of the women. (In some ways, the women seemed to benefit--they got more mature men without them having to take the hits and bumps and scrapes to smooth out the immature starting materials.)
One more point
Date: 2011-01-14 09:43 pm (UTC)From:I like Enchanted, but the fact that the ditzes split up to marry the capable people only serves to send the impression that a marriage between equals isn't possible. In way, that does portray ditziness positively because it makes it almost a prerequisite for success in a relationship. Now, it was gender-equal, though not perfectly so since the ditzy female was the heroine and the ditzy guy was the second male lead, but it did put one and one on the ditzy scale for men and women. So, there's that.