Film Culture Commentary: The Ladies, the Critics, and the Ladies Who Are Critics

This seems to be the summer of our discontent, at least in terms of gender-based complaints and hand-wringing over the male, the female, and the cinema. I'm starting to get tired of this theme. Why do I keep on, then? Because I feel the need to be a dissenting female voice in the big roar of other female voices whining about as though they whine on behalf of all women. So I dissent, or at least try to point out some considerations.

It all started on this blog, you'll recall, with this (on the lack of female leads in summer flicks), and recently I linked to this (a survey of opinions from some female film critics).

Now this post at a Variety blog takes on the idea of the upcoming film"Twilight" as some kind of fault line between female filmgoers and male film critics. Here is a quote:

And the coverage that movies with femme appeal do get from male critics is not the necessarily as positive or understanding as that from female critics. Mamma, Mia! and Sex in the City would be recent examples. Why would a guy particularly engage with a romantic comedy like 27 Dresses? Professional film critics will argue that it is their job to know how to review such a movie. Let's put it this way. Some men are better able to adopt the female POV, and tap into their femme side, than others. Many men are not trained to do see things from the perspective of the opposite sex. All women are.

Frankly, I'm not entirely convinced. There's plenty of overstatement in this. And quite a bit of tarring nearly all male film critics with the same brush.

Her's another thought: maybe it's possible to look at a movie without the blinders of gender alone. Is it possible to consider a movie as an artistic whole? Suppose a male critic trashes a "female movie." Do we say, ah ha! He did this because he's a man and doesn't understand a girl movie? But what if then a woman critic trashes the same movie? Is she a "gender traitor"? OR MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, IS THAT MOVIE A BAD MOVIE?

I still want to know what the writer, and people like her, think about girls like my friends and me, the ladies who don't like "female movies." I'm practically waiting for some wild-eyed femi-zealot to call me a "gender traitor." But I have to be honest, and I have to be true to myself. I would rather watch Michael Bay blow stuff up than watch still another limp, predictable romantic comedy. (Though, if I were forced at gunpoint to pick and watch a modern rom-com, I'd pick 1997's "My Best Friend's Wedding" because it's a bit different. I'd much rather have Jane Austen, who isn't modern rom-com because her material actually has some wit and style.)

I also have a thought about the whole "not enough movies for women" idea. Just because you make such supposedly female-friendly films doesn't automatically mean that millions of female film fans will flock to those films. Just look at supposedly female-friendly TV channels like "Oxygen" or "Lifetime." I personally never watch them, and I think I'd rather watch paint dry. (Or better yet, pop in a DVD of "Battlestar Galactica"...)

Oh, sometimes I do watch a gender-targeted channel, though. And it's the guy-centered "Spike TV" because it has lots of reruns of shows I enjoy, such as "CSI" and Star Trek," along with action movies and -- recently -- plenty of James Bond films.

Final random thought: are "guy movies" really so lacking in female appeal? Is it true , as the writer opines, "That's one reason why today's movies are so geared toward men, while women starve for material aimed at them. Women are accustomed to going along and accepting slim pickings in pictures by and about men"?

That's right : women are just poor dumb movie sheep! Women are just resigned to their sorry fate at the cinema! But isn't this just a little too sweeping a statement?

Is it so incomprehensible that, for instance, the spectacle of a male heroic lead can be attractive to the ladies as well to the men? I'm reminded of an interview with Lena Headey when she was promoting her film "300." The interviewer asked her why women should go see this action film (I saw it and loved it, by the way, and own the DVD). Lena looked right into the camera and said with a grin, "Ladies -- 300 naked guys." With fabulous physiques. (And no, that wasn't why I went to see the film.)

Well, OK, playful lasciviousness aside, is it so odd that a girl might watch and even enjoy "300" or another "guy movie"? (For example, this or this.) And "300" also has a strong female role, Lena Headey as the formidable Spartan queen -- a wife and mother who can also kick butt in her own right. She's worth a hundred neurotic rom-com starlets who fret about phone calls and clothes.

I'm going to go right on cheerfully going to the cinema to see the films that I personally want to see -- and if they happen to be "guy movies," then let the femi-zealots howl because I'll do what I please as an independent girl. I'm probably going to see "The Dark Knight" again, I'm definitely going to see the third Mummy film (with Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, and -- "cool woman alert! my heroine!" -- Michelle Yeoh), and I can't wait for "Tropic Thunder" to bring the summer movie season to a roaring conclusion with some high-energy action-comedy.