Outnumbered

As you read, remember that women make up more than half of the population. Where do you see women and where do you not?

I found an interesting article about the adapting and regendering, in essence, of female-authored stories by male filmmakers, in particular specific works of Allende, Walker, and Dinesen. The author considers what was and was not included or changed from the books to the movies. Get past the initial lingo and consider the evidence presented and you start to see a very good point. Not all storytelling comes from a single gendered viewpoint, but most movies do and it is a male one.

Next time you watch a movie made by a female director (are you even conscious of a female director?--their names are not often attached to megamovies), consider what if anything is different about the way the story is told. Who is at the center? What complexities and simplicities are ascribed to what sorts of people? What is the nature of the plot? Who wins and loses and what is "won" or "lost"?

In college I took a women's history class with Bettina Aptheker. Fascinating person, great lecturer, amazing office hours experience. Anyway, she taught from the viewpoint of cycles of history, social experiences and identities being the basis of historical record and analysis/discourse rather than war, governance, and economic systems. Finally I was able to put to words the unease I felt in many of my discussions about history with people. I've met many people who profess to loving history, but often times they end up being military or war buffs. I'm not saying this is not history, just that there is something more as well. I felt in college that too often when I said "I'm a history major" people assumed that meant I knew tons about World War I and II and the name of every President. When I became a teacher, the certification exam for social studies focused on these exact things as well, which frustrated me to say the least. My point comes to this: Not all of history is about what primarily involved men.

I am not for radical genderism of any kind. This being said, I would argue we have in many ways lived in a radical male-ist or phallocentric world for quite a while, and some think a tilt in the other direction is all that can alleviate the strife that came with phallocentric living. I feel radicalism in any form is unhealthy for the masses. Going full-tilt gynocentric does not help the masses either. Um, how about balance? Like, honoring all genders, honoring people as people, with male/female parts hormones, drives, frailties. What is so wrong with being human?!?! But I digress...

I disagree with the author of the piece which started this whole posting. She seems to villify male directors for ruining works of feminine genius. The male director's take is simply another version. Another man might give a different spin (though averages might tell us the spin would fall within a fairly narrow range, anyway...). A woman might have done similar to the man or not (dominant forces in movie making industry might determine part of this, anyway...). What matters is that there is a thoughtful version, whatever the particular gender identity.

I would argue that the fact of people looking to escape more through over-hyped, under-developed movies and television than through literature, or in either case avoiding anything not well pre-chewed, is more of a problem than there being multiple versions of a single story. There are always other views, and they are worthy. Being the most common or most popular or most familiar does not mean something is superior.

I could go on and on; I will not, not today at least. Turns out my soap box appeared benath my feet while I was talking. I now step down and give someone else a turn. Thank you for your time.