Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
This whole thing started with a mission: support female led films on opening weekend whenever possible.* If you want to read more about why, you can read that post here.
July is one of those months you really HOPE happens in the summer blockbuster season when women will get BOTH a big hit (here’s hope for Ghostbusters) and a serious drama (the smartly titled, Equity). But for a special bonus, we are also getting wider distribution in the US for a foreign winner in Our Little Sister.
JULY 1:
The BFG (Written by Melissa Mathison and Starring Ruby Barnhill)
Ten-year-old Sophie is in for the adventure of a lifetime when she meets the Big Friendly Giant. Naturally scared at first, the young girl soon realizes that the 24-foot behemoth is actually quite gentle and charming. As their friendship grows, Sophie’s presence attracts the unwanted attention of Bloodbottler, Fleshlumpeater and other giants. After traveling to London, Sophie and the BFG must convince Queen Victoria to help them get rid of all the bad giants once and for all.
Our Kind of Traitor (Directed by Susanna White)
A money launderer for Russian gangsters asks a couple vacationing in Marrakech, Morocco, to deliver incriminating evidence to an MI6 agent.
JULY 8:
Our Little Sister (Written by Akimi Yoshida and Starring Haruka Ayase and Masami Nagasawa)
After the death of their estranged father, three siblings (Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho) invite their half sister (Suzu Hirose) to live with them.
JULY 15:
Ghostbusters (Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones)
Paranormal researcher Abby Yates and physicist Erin Gilbert are trying to prove that ghosts exist in modern society. When strange apparitions start to appear in Manhattan, they turn to brilliant engineer Jillian Holtzmann for help.
JULY 22:
Absolutely Fabulous (Directed by Mandie Fletcher, Written by Jennifer Saunders, and Starring Joanna Lumley and Jane Horrocks)
Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz and glamor, living the high life they are accustomed to; shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London’s trendiest hot-spots. Blamed for a major incident at an uber fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm and are relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi.
Into the Forest (Directed by Patricia Rozema and Starring Ellen Page)
In the near future two young women living in a remote forest discover the world is on the brink of an apocalypse.
JULY 29:
Equity (Directed by Meera Menon, Written by Amy Fox and Starring Anna Gunn and Alysia Reiner)
An investment banker tries to work her way up the Wall Street ladder while a prosecutor keeps an eye out for corrupt practices. Senior investment banker Naomi Bishop is threatened by a financial scandal and must untangle a web of corruption.
Tallulah (Directed and Written by Sian Heder and Starring Ellen Page)
A dissatisfied Beverly Hills housewife tired of caring for her toddler hires a stranger to baby-sit.
Bad Moms (Starring Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell)
When three overworked and under-appreciated moms are pushed beyond their limits, they ditch their conventional responsibilities for a jolt of long overdue freedom, fun, and comedic self-indulgence.
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One additional note before I go: I am not able to tell you if these movies are objectively good or feminist friendly, as I have not seen all of them. The point of this list is to give you a place to start. The truth is that we don’t have a lot to choose from, but part of the battle is giving you the information. Information is power. However, shared knowledge is also key. So if you see one of these films or have seen an early screening, please let us know if you recommend it or not in the comments.
I’m tired of constantly pointing out sexism in the entertainment + media + production industry. At cocktail parties. In pitch meetings. In conversations with my team, my family, my friends and my mentors. It’s a seemingly endless well of awful that never runs dry. So much so, that a year ago, I straight up decided that I was only going to focus on the positive ways we can change the industry.
But today I’m going to have to step away from my previously valiant effort to talk about something that is so pervasive, and yet, so silent that it’s difficult to talk about. It’s about how we teach little boys and little girls to experience and process stories about the opposite gender. Specifically, it’s about how that phenomena negatively impacts how we view entertainment later in life and contributes to a silently socialized sexism that is almost impossible to call out.
Well, guess what: I’m calling it out.
Or at least I’m going to attempt to. In March of this year, the new Ghostbusters trailer was released to mixed reviews - for all of a minute. And then, the reviews turned ugly. So much so, that the trailer is now the most disliked movie trailer of all time, according to YouTube. What does that look like in real numbers? 841,930 Dislikes. If genuine fans of the original franchise were so hard up on repping the OG, then I guess I could see why they would feel the need to put down the reboot in the form of an internet thumbs down. But we all know that this is not where that story is going.
Since the trailer’s release, the film, the actors and director Paul Feig have been the targets of unprecedented negativity unlike any reboot has ever seen. I am going to call it bullying, because frankly, that’s what it is. I’m not going to give it the time of day by sharing some of the comments here, but if you want to, just look at the comments on ANY news story about Ghostbusters. If you’re not depressed after five minutes, you have a special talent. CBS News laid it out pretty simply:
“So what makes this trailer so much more objectionable than others, like the critically panned “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” (16,495 dislikes) or last year’s “Fantastic Four” reboot (7,391 down-votes)?”
Keep in mind, we know just how bad the movies above are already. The negative reaction to Ghostbusters is based entirely on a 2 minute trailer which reveals very little about the actual plot of the movie. Who has ever said: “I loved the trailer, but hated the movie!” No one. Ever. In the history of time. As a result, it’s hard not to immediately assume that the negative reaction to the trailer and the film is based entirely on the gender of the people in it. And if you want to disagree, you can feel free to go check out all the comments on the video itself on YouTube. Again, I refuse to give those kinds of comments space on this blog, but they basically amount to a violent hatred of women having a role in the Ghostbusters franchise and how utterly unfunny the women in the film will be.
If you think that the reaction to Ghostbusters is a solitary one that is isolated to this individual reboot, I invite you to look at a similar phenomena recently uncovered by the data blog, FiveThirtyEight. It turns out that when men and women rate television shows on IMDB, women generally rate male-led programming the same way men do. But men? Well, men seem to apply a “lady-centric” de-merit to any television show that primarily features women. If Ghostbusters exists on the troll end of the spectrum, then the findings about television show ratings on IMDB may serve as a median. Specifically:
“Women gave their top 100 shows, on average, a 7.8 rating, about the same score they gave the top 100 male-dominated programs, 8.0. …Men gave their top 100 an average score of 8.2 but gave the top 100 female-skewed shows a mere 6.9 average ratings. Shows with more than 10,000 ratings are inherently popular and yet men thought the programs in that group that skew female were below average.”
Does this apply to all men? No. #NOTALLMEN. Amen. But, when looking at data in aggregate of larger cultural phenomena around the preferences of male and female consumers, it’s important to note that outliers are not the story. And while the screaming trolls on YouTube might also be another kind of outlier, the nature of anonymous points-based reviewing that doesn’t require prosaic use of the comments section to share sexist slurs, reveals how the male community at large generally views programming that primarily casts the opposite sex. It doesn’t mean they are misogynist. It doesn’t mean they are sexist. It doesn’t mean they are bad people. What it means is that at some point, they are taught that shows about women are somehow not capable of being analyzed and reviewed in the same objective way. And that somehow, the factor that determines “how good” a show is, is in part, determined by the sex of the stars.
What FiveThirtyEight’s analysis doesn’t reveal is whether or not these men and women actually watched the shows in question. However, I think there’s one subset of data that they didn’t really dive deeply into that really highlights just how actively a certain subset of male internet users will go to ensure that the qualitative rating of entertainment featuring women is exceptionally lower than that of their male-starring programming. Looking at shows with more than 10,000 user reviews on IMDB, there are only 2 shows that women rated a full point lower than men. One of them is Beavis and Butt-Head. The other is Star Wars: Clone Wars. However, the list of shows that men rated a full single point lower than women rated them? 50. FIFTY FREAKING SHOWS.
Amongst these shows is Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which I have to point out featured a younger Paul Feig as science teacher Mr. Pool. But you probably won’t be surprised to find nearly every single Shonda Rhimes show on the list, either.
If you’ve stuck with me this long, congratulations. I’m finally going to make my larger point. Thank you. Thank you for being patient.
This behavior, this seemingly latent “female deduction” that happens to our entertainment does not happen in a vacuum. For years, our media has been asking the obnoxious question of: Can women be funny? I contend that what we are actually dealing with on a cultural level is much more negative. The real question is: Are women ALLOWED to be funny in our entertainment? And that doesn’t just happen. That is socialized in us from a very young age.
So, where does this come from? Bold statement time: Children’s freaking books.
A few years ago, J.K. Rowling made news when she revealed that her publisher had asked to her change her name to the more male sounding “J.K” for the Harry Potter series for fear that little boys wouldn’t pick up a book written by a woman. And while that story is a perfect illustration of just how subliminal this kind of subtle sexism has been in publishing, I contend that little boys are taught from a very early age that stories about women are rare and not for them. This is not necessarily explicitly said. Rather, this is implicitly indicated by the sheer volume and exposure to the kinds of stories that are told. Little girls? Well, there are no options. So nearly every story is for them. And the data backs this up. Unsurprisingly, this goes ALL the way back to your picture books.
As the Wall Street Journal reports:
“A 2011 Florida State University study found that just 7.5 percent of nearly 6,000 picture books published between 1900 and 2000 depict female animal protagonists. … No more than 33 percent of children’s books in any given year featured an adult woman or female animal, but adult men and male animals appeared in 100 percent of the books.”
When only 7% of children’s picture books feature female characters, female characters become abnormal. If something is abnormal, it isn’t widely accepted. And if that precedent begins before you can even read or write, you are bound to start to have some unconscious bias. In fact, research finds that this bias sets in by the time boys are in the fourth grade:
“Two studies, one from 1978 and one from 1988, did find that boys expressed a preference for male characters, but the youngest age group studied was the fourth grade, at which point it is impossible to separate nature from nurture.”
Let me reiterate that this is not all men. I know plenty of men who love shows and movies starring women. But this is a ground up problem. This starts from before the moment a child is born when books are wrapped and packaged and delivered to waiting parents eager to raise smart and well-balanced kids.
How can we possibly expect Hollywood to change if we teach little boys from the time they learn their very first words that female characters are not the norm? How can we expect a Ghostbusters reboot to receive the same warm reception as a Jurassic Park remake in a culture that celebrates male heroism and applies sex-based penalties to media starring women? And how can we expect female storytellers to receive opportunities from the powers that be when the socialized belief amongst 50% of the population is that women’s stories are unpopular before they’ve even seen it?
We can’t.
We must be better. And it starts with little boys.
The Lady Geek of this Week is Jamie Frevele, Associate Editor of The Mary Sue (to which our very own Liz contributes!). Look for her soon on Boing Boing!
Frevele was kind enough to answer some questions. You lady geeks will love reading her answers. She’s witty, humble, and very funny. Read on! And don’t forget to follow Frevele on Twitter: @jamielikesthis.
Q: What has led you to your passion?
A: My 30s! I had all my current passions in my 20s, teens, and childhood, but for me (and many others), the age of 30 felt like a deadline. For what, I don’t know – achieving fame and fortune? Getting married and having a family? But I pushed aside a lot of my passions to try to achieve something that I thought I should be doing. By the time I got a little older, I realized better what I really wanted to do rather than what I thought I needed to do. And I also just stopped caring. And that left a lot of room for enjoying myself and all the things that I’ve always really loved that I had once thought might be a waste of time. Like cartoons. I always loved cartoons, then went through this “phase” where I thought I was too old or too cool for them, because I was going to be a journalist/Oscar winner/talking head and no one will take me seriously. Obviously, that’s completely ridiculous. It took a long time to just like what I like and accept that it was okay, but now I can tell people that it’s not worth giving up on your passions to force yourself into a different mold. Wave your freak/geek flag high, kids.
Also: glorious dumb luck.
Q: What inspires you in the world?
A: It sounds obvious, but humor inspires me. If you can get someone to laugh, you have done what is nearly impossible these days: you have earned their attention and focus, and then their approval, after you’ve surprised them. No one is surprised by anything anymore, and when you can get people to laugh at something – like really laugh – you have given them a free moment of meditation. All they’re doing is laughing. Not checking their phones, not watching something else. Just laughing. And sometimes, the most obvious things will make us laugh – because, people, we cannot just stop and smell the roses anymore. We have to stop, smell, take a picture on Instagram, tweet it, and then see if anyone responded for the next seven hours. Also: get off my lawn.
Q: First time you realized you were “geeky?”
A: Oh, early on. Though it was more like, “I know I’m not like these other straight-laced squares.” Because of the whole “Oh, she’s too little to understand all these adult themes and dirty jokes” thing, I was introduced to a lot of rather insane stuff when I was really young. Like Unico, The Last Unicorn, Yellow Submarine, etc. Weird cartoons. Very weird. But l dug them, and by the time I was in grade school, I was writing fan fiction, which no one else I knew did. I filled notebooks with stories that no one was allowed to read, through high school. As a little kid, I played with my brother’s action figures, loved Ghostbusters and TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), combined He-Man and She-Ra with ThunderCats, stuff like that. I made it a goal one summer to watch the live-action TMNT movies every single day, from the day school let out until it started again. That’s…not normal. But it’s not dangerous, and all that fan fiction I wrote eventually turned into original stuff. Or parodies. I was also into horror and gore from a very early age, and also things being scientifically/medically accurate.
Q: What would you tell you 13-year-old self?
A: I could seriously write a book to my 13-year-old self. I feel like I’m totally still that girl, I just figured out how eyeliner works. I would tell myself that 1. It’s okay to not have a boyfriend. In fact, it’s better. Believe me. I’ve been to Disney World alone, and it’s the bomb. 2. All the stuff you were crazy about as a kid is going to serve you incredibly well, so don’t be embarrassed about it. Two words: Robot Chicken. 3. Being popular means absolutely nothing. Being an asshole is a waste of time. Be a friend. A good one. 4. You have it so easy because you’re not on Facebook. 5. I’m sorry, Jamie, but contacts will not instantly improve your social life. And you need to stop wearing leggings immediately. It’s 1993, and they are done. Yes, you will wear bell-bottom jeans, and you will also wear leggings again. You will swear you’ll never wear either, but you will wear both. You totally will. Don’t argue with me – it’s going to happen. I was there. 6. Your boobs will not show up until you’re 19.
Q: “I admit it—I’ve never seen/read/experienced: ____”
A: Star Wars! I mean, I have watched about 80 percent of the six movies exactly one time, but I barely know anything about it. I have nothing against it, it just never stayed in my radar enough for me to watch it. I’m also not into comic books, even though I appreciate them so, so much and have a lot of admiration for that method of storytelling. It can be really, really gorgeous, impactful [is that even a word?] work. And the characters – I love Marvel. So much. But I honestly don’t know why I never got into comic books. Too much time spent with my face in a notebook, writing fan fiction, I guess?
Do you know someone worthy of Lady Geek of the Week? Send her name and her website (or blog or Twitter account) to [email protected].
(Photo credit: Zack DeZon)
Post by Emma Bauer, who works as BGC’s official intern. Clearly, she’s got great taste. She is a PR enthusiast, history scholar, tea drinker, fashion devotee, and of course, aspires to Be Geek Chic. On twitter: @emmalynnbauer
