Bigotry thoughts

[andrewducker]

Active prejudice: When people of one type are caricatured and made to look bad.
Passive prejudice: When there are no good examples of one type of person depicted, and all of the protagonists/role models are of the/an other type.

Most people can spot active bigotry, a lot of people seem to have a blind spot for the latter.

(Inspired by discussion here on whether Dark Knight was sexist or not.)

Comments

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Add this to the list of things to talk about :)

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Reading the comments, I agree with Lee. Plenty of characters have been lazily portrayed, both male and female, where those characters weren't really that central to the plot. The four main characters in the film (Batman, Joker, Two-Face and Rachael Dawes) were all fleshed out magnificently. Now, yes, 75% of the main characters (and Alfred, I suppose) are male, but that's true to the comics which were released aeons ago and have not really introduced many strong female villains for Batman to fight (and certainly none that would have worked well in this film).

[andrewducker]

But considering that they happily change other things from the comics, would you be averse to them mixing up genders?

Personally, I'd have been fine with a female Commissioner Gordon. Or a black one. I'd _love_ to see the fan reaction to that :->

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Are you suggesting that all films shoud be checked for a strict set of criteria to ensure they don't include anything that could be construed as sexist/racist etc. in any way, shape or form.

[andrewducker]

No.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

How do you move from "it's legit to criticise a film for passive sexism" to "we should legislate for equality in films"? There's a difference between thinking something is crap and thinking it should be banned.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Firstly, I never mentioned legislation or banning anything, so I'm not sure how you canme to that conclusion.

Secondly, since the film is being criticised for something in a negative way, one can assume the critic would prefer it to be improved in some way, or for future films to be improved in some way. Given the OP's previously expressed strong views on sexism, it doesn't seem like an unreasonable question.

[pisica.livejournal.com]

'Here is one of the most extreme conclusions I could draw from your post and follow-up comment, neither of which make any statements about this film should do, much less what ALL films should do. Is this what you really mean?' Yes, it's an unreasonable question.

And yes, by going to that extreme, you imply mandatory legislation.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Of course I don't want them to change the genders of established characters - it would change the motivation of the character enough that the character would be too different from the original. If you want to introduce characters of a different gender to the ones with which you've been provided, it would seem to be to be a far better choice to introduce new characters instead. I am all for equality in film, but to suggest that changing the gender of an established character wouldn't change the character significantly seems shortsighted to me...

And I'd worked out that you weren't talking specifically about Batman!

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure how Commissioner Gordon's motiviation would have been changed if she was a woman. Can you elucidate?

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Well, look, for instance, at the change of M from a man to a woman - that changed the dynamic of the relationship between M and Bond. This wasn't actually changing the character, per se, because it was a new character in the role of M, who happened to be female. This may seem like an odd example to bring up, given my argument, but my point is, if you want strong female characters, it can work really well, but why does it have to be a male character turned into a woman? Why not just create a new, strong female character? I'm not sure what advantage making Commissioner Gordon into a woman would hold, other than to please the feminists (which, personally, I don't think should be the main thrust behind good storytelling).

I also think that the scene in which Gordon comforts the young Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins would have been pivotal in a different way, which would have changed the relationship between Gordon and Batman later on in the film. Obviously, the reason that Gordon gets a visit from Batman is because Gordon was kind to him as a kid - I think that Batman would have been more reluctant to put someone who could be thought of as a mother figure in harm's way in the same way as he did Gordon. Whether the tendency (or even whether there is a tendency) to see your father as strong and your mother as caring as a child is sexist is a whole other debate. Also, the change would mean that Batman had had a mother figure at a young age, which I feel would probably change Batman very significantly (and probably mean you might as well just do a film that isn't based on Batman and has strong female characters in it).

But even if you don't feel that the dynamic of the relationships or the feel of the characters would change, I still don't understand why the female character would have to be called Commissioner Gordon.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Inventing new characters is all well and good, but after a while you get to a point where you can't fit in any more characters and have them be interesting and well-rounded. Especially in comic book movies, where a lot of the roles are archetypes anyway... how is sticking in a completely new character going to add to the story and not be extraneous, or just there for the sake of having a 'strong ______ character'? Replacing roles or changing the gender/race/what have you of an existing character seems like an interesting way to explore these changes without having to vastly alter the storyline of a film to fit in new character and themes that then need to be explored.

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I don't see why Gordon should be a woman instead of a man: the character was male in everything associated with the Batman 'universe', why change it just to achieve sexual equality? And I'm a woman, so I don't think that it's sexist for me to say this. It's established...and as so, it really does work.

I also think that the scene in which Gordon comforts the young Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins would have been pivotal in a different way, which would have changed the relationship between Gordon and Batman later on in the film.

Totally - I rewatched Batman Begins last night, and if Gordon had been female, that scene would have totally altered the dynamic between the characters, to the extent that Gordon's kindness to the young Bruce would have been totally perceived by the audience as very maternal. And whilst there is supposed to be an affection between Batman and Gordon, I really don't think that affection on that level would work at all.

[terminalmalaise.livejournal.com]

Look at comics in general--the industry has basically survived on retelling the same stories over and over again, often with significant differences (and a convoluted way of explaining all of it).

Looking at the various television and movie adaptions, it's also impossible to argue that there aren't significant differences between Christian Bale, Michael Keaton and Adam West's Batmans (not to mention those others we won't talk about).

They're all very different from the original. And which original are we even talking about? Bob Kane's? Frank Miller's? Tim Burton's?

Retelling stories is an old, old tradition. Might as well be upset at Chrétien de Troyes for introducing that upstart French knight Lancelot into the established Arthurian legend! Everyone knows Gawain was the best knight in court!

It's just odd that many people feel that a character's gender is such an untouchable quality.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

"Might as well be upset at Chrétien de Troyes for introducing that upstart French knight Lancelot into the established Arthurian legend! Everyone knows Gawain was the best knight in court!"

No, because I argue in this comments section that there's no problem with introducing new female characters. My argument isn't that the comics should be told in a specific way with no artistic license, and my argument isn't against the introduction of new characters.

[andrewducker]

Oh - and I'm not, in this case, arguing that Batman is, or isn't sexist. It's more of a general point.

[pizza.maircrosoft.com (from livejournal.com)]

intrigued by this the other day - Bechdel test for movies: http://morganmuffle.livejournal.com/737523.html

[chuma.livejournal.com]

I would have been happy to see Harley Quinn in the film?

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Me too! (Not that I've seen the film yet, but.) Who would you cast?

[chuma.livejournal.com]

Fairuza Balk springs to mind

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

Having just read the wikipedia article on her, me too! me too! (I've never really read any batman comics ALTHOUGH I REALLY WANT TO.)

[d-c-m.livejournal.com]

Yes, I enjoyed the two new Batman movies. And yes they are sexist. However Dark Knight is less sexist than the first. The Dark Knight at least has women in the background taking on roles of cops and participants in the canvas of Gotham life whereas in Begins, well, there was Katie Holmes.

I would like to see for comics to really give there female characters more to do than reflect the hero.

Still enjoyed it.

[meico.livejournal.com]

Interesting point and very true in my experience...

As a side note, I found your choice of the words "bigotry" and "sexism" odd though- like you are talking about two totally different things and not just two variations of the same thing. Your definition of "passive sexism" could be applied to any "passive ___ism"... Instead, I would have used the word "predjudice" for both (i.e. "active predjudice" and "passive predjudice").

Other than that I find your definitions excellent and they will probably be very helpful to me when describing the difference to people in the future.

[andrewducker]

Thank you - and I agree that prejudice is a better word than bigotry. I'm off to change the post now!