--- In [email protected], "TurquoiseB" wrote: > > --- In [email protected], s3raphita wrote: > > > > Re "The Bechdel Test. To pass a film must: > > 1. Have at least two women -- with names -- in it > > 2. Who talk to each other > > 3. About something besides a man": > > > > . . . > > The Disney "20,000 Leagues under the Sea" was an all-male, > > claustrophobic classic - the first "steampunk" movie. The 1997 > > TV movie version introduced a woman. Now the problem with > > introducing a woman is that it changes the dynamic of the > > set-up. A central aspect then becomes: "OK, who's going to > > end up bedding the girl?". That distraction then diffuses > > the tension of the major plot theme. > > That strikes me as a rather sexist statement in itself. Are you actually > saying that the only purpose a woman could serve on a submarine is to be > fucked by the male crew members?
BTW, I commented as I did because the way you phrased what you wrote above was rather telling. You characterized a failure of creative imagination and unrecognized sexism on the part of the writers and creators of the 1997 movie as if it were inevitable. Adding a woman to the cast of a submarine movie, you inferred, is almost by definition a "distraction" because she inevitably would become a sex object for the men on board. Horseshit. Think about "Alien." Or even its sequel "Aliens." There was not a moment when anyone in the creative crew (writers, directors, actors) thought, "Wow...who is going to get to fuck Ripley?" As a result, no one in any of the audiences ever thought it, either. Ripley was one of the strongest female characters ever put on a movie screen, and both men and women reacted to her *as* strong, not as a "distraction" or something merely added to a primarily male cast as a fuck puppet.
