Genius shmenius
Glosswitch at the New Statesman takes issue with the way “genius” male movie-makers get a pass for obvious misogyny in their movies because Genius. Are they even Genius? she asks.
One of the many ways in which abusive men get away with terrible things is because we’re supposed to respect their genius (and assume that misogyny is somehow a necessary part of it). Right now we’re calling time on the misogyny, but why can’t we call time on the perception of genius too?
…
Men who don’t like women – and there are an awful lot of them – frequently make art that a male-dominated establishment considers to be amazing, but which a high proportion of women consider to be crap. You didn’t know this? That’s because up till now we haven’t said.
Why haven’t we said? Partly because of the hipster aura around guys like Tarentino.
Just as the “best” postmodern theory tends to be appallingly written in order to fool us that the difficulty is in the ideas, the nihilism and misogyny of the “best” male directors is so glaringly obvious we end up assuming we’ve missed the hidden message (so we use “hyper-reality” as a posh way of describing unimaginative exaggeration). The real creativity isn’t in Manhattan or Inglourious Basterds; it’s in the imaginative contortions critics have gone through to make these films seem more than the sum of their parts.
[jumps up waving hand] I’ve considered Manhattan misogynist all along – misogynist, and bad, and self-admiring.
There’s nothing unsophisticated in recognising that an industry mired in sexism will produce art that is tainted by sexist beliefs. There’s nothing childish or bourgeois about calling time on representations of the human condition which fail to accommodate half the human race. For too long genius has been defined as male, far removed from such petty concerns as granting consideration to the female gaze. This isn’t just unfair; it’s dull.
Time to say good-bye to hipster misogyny.
While at a play this weekend, I found myself wondering something I have wondered frequently: Why is it that men dressed as women is considered hilarious and campy, while women dressed as men can be taken seriously and not laughed at or mocked?
Besides the obvious answers about men being default, and sissy, and all that, one thing struck me in this performance that I think says a lot: The men playing women were playing it to the hilt. They were dressed ridiculously, they simpered, they had foolish wigs, they posed “coquettishly” in a very exaggerated manner. The women playing men just…played men. They put on the outfit, they did the part, they didn’t butch it up, they didn’t exaggerate stereotypical male characteristics. They just played the role.
This, I think, is another aspect of that whole misogynistic thing that happens in the entertainment world. I have long found it uncomfortable when men played women and now I realize why – because they play us like some sort of alien being who is strange and unfamiliar, and very, very silly. When women play men, I can enjoy the show (if it is good in other ways) because they do not go out of their way to make themselves “macho” or do anything to exaggerate characteristics – unless the script calls for that because a character is a woman playing a man and doing it badly.
So much of entertainment is centered around the male as the norm, the female as the outlier. The male as the doer, the female as the receiver. The male as the leader, the female as the follower. And the most exaggerated, June Cleaver-esque distortions of woman’s reality.
I have a plan, and I hope I can stick to it. If you know anyone who is a creative type, or you yourself are a creative type, please join me. Maybe we can create a website, or something, that could send this around the world (I’m sorry, I have no idea how to send this around the world; I don’t do Facebook, and I have no idea how to get the message out). I plan to write something feminist – play, poem, short story, or essay – for every single day of Woman’s History Month. Every day. An entire work (which is why I do not say novel – I can write a 10-minute play in one day, but I have never yet managed to write a novel in one day).
I think women need to assert themselves in the entertainment world – maybe even take it over. The men have been in control too long.
If anyone wants to get this plan moving beyond my own little corner in my own little room on the second story of my own little house in my own little state, feel free to promote the idea, boost it, steal it, whatever – just, if you steal it, allow me to participate. That is all I ask.
[…] a comment by iknklast on Genius […]
We don’t buy it when alt-right assholes claim that their racism is a fundamental part of, or should be excused because of, their “genius” (although we tend not to buy the genius part either), so there’s no reason why we should give sexists any more leniency than we would them.
I’ve just been playing Mario Odyssey, I’ve just gotten the Switch and given the reviews it was the obvious game to get.
I know, Princess Peach getting kidnapped is the staple plot and all, with Bowser wanting to marry her – but it just keeps running through my head that that sort of shit happens. A few cows for Peach’s parents and the Mushroom Kingdom could be the Eastern Cape.
Isn’t it kind of weird that one of the central driving tropes to a well beloved video game series mostly geared towards children is, well, sexual slavery? Once you strip out the cutesy-ness of it all, it kind of makes Bowser one of the darkest villains in gaming.
And yet I don’t feel that comfortable saying this because this is one of those series that is beloved, so laying this sort of criticism ends up in a long flame war about how I should lighten up or stop being such an SJW, or should die that sort of thing.
But still, I can’t quite get over it, and it does hit my enjoyment of the game somewhat. I mean it is still a great game, probably the best 3D platformer on the market, but does the genius of so much of the game design really cancel out how creepy it is?
Manhattan is more disturbing than his marriage.