Anyone else's TV pleasure ruined by feminism?

[QuentinWinters]

I was trying to watch "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix yesterday.
It wasjust full of self congratulatory men, either really amazed that their big brains had come up with a difficult ethical question, or really proud they had monetised Facebook, or namedropping the ceo of twitter.
I got so bored of men wanging on I had to turn it off.
I don't know if it was just a really bad programme or if feminism has ruined me!

I guess that's Silicon Valley though.

Currently binge-watching 'Occupied' on Netflix and relishing how Anita Rygg, exploited, shouted at for wearing loud shoes and passed over by Jesper Berg for a post in his government in exile after being told she'd be 'important', turns around and organises a government which picks her as PM.

Don't post any spoilers - I'm still watching!

Outlander! I can't watch it as it's very 'rapey'
I don't understand why women are raving over it.

OP - this has been my experience since I did a course on 'representations of women' for my Women's Studies degree in the 90s. Almost everything ruined! I now have to decide what I can ignore - a bit like 'suspending disbelief' to allow certain plot devices etc - and what is just too sexist or a case of "I got so bored of men wanging on I had to turn it off." (Beautifully put btw).

@showmethegin

YESYESYES! I think like this all the time. Was watching uni challenge last night and the every contestant was a middle class white man. Unbelievable

Every week we watch University Challenge and every week I comment aloud on the unequal numbers of men and women. It's extraordinary if a team has two women on it.

And the reason is, of course, not lack of ability or competitiveness. It's because the abuse and objectification of female contestants on social media deters women from entering. Twitter was awash with vile men putting bets on the weight of a PhD student's breasts a few series ago.

Social Dilemna was ok. It had 3 men speakers and 2 women speakers. It’s a career field where it’s usually 9 men for each 1 woman. So they did make an effort.
It wasn't just the balance of men v women. It was more the self congratulatory wanging on. I've never seen a midwife going on about how amazing she was to notice that women are better labouring on all fours (for example)
Just their smug self satisfied voices ended up going right through me. Plus the lecturing about "you are the product". Tedious.

Whoever mentioned the alienest I thought they did a very good job of keeping it in the right time. A female character is slapped by a male character for pointing out his obvious flaw and standing up for herself. While it’s meant to be shocking she never mentions it to anyone (because in the 1800’s who would have cared) but uses it to cement her resolve. But I’m not sure if it wa clear enough in this day and age where things need a glowing neon sign on them.

@CranberriesChoccyAgain

I agree but wouldn't use the word "ruined", as if to imply feminism is at fault. It's difficult to unsee the misogyny once you see it though.

Agree. Wish I could unsee it. It has totally changed my whole life and my views on everything. It has affected my friendships, my relationship and my peace of mind.

I watched the film Joker recently.

While I appreciated the acting I was so very bored about the sad back story of a mass murderer.

We're invited to sympathise with the killer and the victims are almost denigrated.

I don't give a shit why people become mass murderers and kill women. It's not interesting.

Maybe feminism has ruined you OP, interesting though as The Social Dielemma was produced by a woman and had plenty of successful women giving their insights too. Personally I didn't notice too much who was saying what, I was more interested in the information they were sharing, which IMHO pretty much everyone who uses social media, and those that don't really need to hear.

Agree. It's never a husband/ boyfriend who gets murdered to provide character motivation for the female lead.

I constantly watch these men and think, christ how did they get to such exulted positions, most professional women I know could do a better job.

@Unsuremover

Whoever mentioned the alienest I thought they did a very good job of keeping it in the right time. A female character is slapped by a male character for pointing out his obvious flaw and standing up for herself. While it’s meant to be shocking she never mentions it to anyone (because in the 1800’s who would have cared) but uses it to cement her resolve. But I’m not sure if it wa clear enough in this day and age where things need a glowing neon sign on them.

I think this is an interesting observation on historical drama in general - how do you get a modern audience into a historical drama where general cultural attitudes were so different, and the options available to women were so limited?

I find the "rape dressed up as costume drama" trope that occurs so often absolutely horrendous (Poldark was mentioned up thread) but how do you handle domestic violence, where a woman's options for escape were so limited, and her small acts of rebellion so small as perhaps to be unnoticeable to a modern audience?

Or do you simply not make programmes about this?

For me (I dabble a bit in writing) part of it comes down to whether I gain the impression that the writers put sexual violence or domestic violence in there to titillate their male viewers (some of them) and that subset of their female viewers suffering from what I think of as societal Stockholm Syndrome, or whether I think the writers are trying to tell a complex story which includes some of the darker bits of human behaviour, and look at how their characters adapt to it within a believable cultural world and set of culturally constrained options.

Enola Holmes movie on Netflix is a recent example.

Oh, I just watched this and that's exactly what I thought! I see a lot of women saying it's so wonderful, powerful female lead, but I thought it was total crap and unrealistic, even for modern times. The main character really got on my nerves.

The Social Dilemma was hard to watch, but I guess I thought it was because the characters were all empty annoying twits. I've stopped reading books with women protagonists who were empty and annoying before (like almost every Atwood book IMO), so I don't see that as a male thing really.

As for whether a story shows people with various bad attitudes I don't know. My main thing is I want to find the people in the story believable, but that doesn't preclude all kinds of bad attitudes. I think a lot of sexual content in a film is generally exploitative and mostly of women, and that I avoid. I also find some stories too upsetting, but I see that as more a personal choice than a principled one, and sometimes I just want something nice and fairly easy and not too bleak.

My biggest difficulty these days is that so many stories are using a historical setting of some kind to drop in a completely anachronistic story or message, with all the people, at least the good ones, being essentially woke 21st century people. I also find the new thing of taking male characters or films with male protagonists and just switching them to female characters pretty annoying. Though I think it's driven by the same impulse that gives us 6 million films about the same set of superheroes, no one wants to risk something really new.

Thanks Cara I wasn’t sure I made sense.

Maybe it’s derail but I spend a lot of time watching anything set in the past and thinking “he would punch you (a woman) in the face right now and literally no one would care” have all the clever word play you want but you would not could not push it that far. Same with children.

I’m sick of seeing the arranges marriage suddenly turn into love when the woman isn’t raped on her wedding day.

@IvySpivey

Outlander! I can't watch it as it's very 'rapey' I don't understand why women are raving over it.

Essentially it's a well written romance novel.

Those things sell like hotcakes.

@Unsuremover

Thanks Cara I wasn’t sure I made sense.

Maybe it’s derail but I spend a lot of time watching anything set in the past and thinking “he would punch you (a woman) in the face right now and literally no one would care” have all the clever word play you want but you would not could not push it that far. Same with children.

I’m sick of seeing the arranges marriage suddenly turn into love when the woman isn’t raped on her wedding day.

I don't know. The thing to me is that arranged marriages of various kinds have been pretty normal throughout history, people did not see them as beyond the pale in those times and places, and it wasn't (and still isn't) at all unheard of for them to turn out as loving marriages.

The idea that all such marriages were horrible and didn't work out and that all or most women in those cultures didn't believe in them, is kind of anachronistic to me. Its taking a modern western way of thinking about marriage and freedom and choice and love, and assuming it's universal. And I just find films like that so flipping unimaginative.

The romance novel version is just as uninteresting and silly, but I would really like to see something better in both cases.

@GiveMyHeadPeaceffs Game of Thrones has a lot of misogyny because it’s based off of history, it reflects how woman were treated and even still get treated in some parts of the world.

The books are worth reading though, the TV show obliterated some really strong female characters and made them utterly useless and just pretty to look at which caused a lot of upset in the fandom.

I've just finished the first season of Battlestar Galactica after years and years of hearing that it's one of the best tv series ever made but it's hugely spoilt for me by the way the Cylon character who's involved with Gaius Baltar is portrayed.

I understand that she's seen from his perspective but it feels like every fucking episode has her draped over , having sex with , coming on to , stripping off for Gaius Balter and always always wearing some ridiculous skin tight cleavage revealing dress with plenty of shots concentrating on her" t & a"...it's so tiresome.

I don't have a problem watching programmes centered on men, and I think the writing a character to be played by a male or female and then flipping it can work really well - that was after all how the character of Ripley in Alien ended up being played by Sigourney Weaver.

@goosefoot
My biggest difficulty these days is that so many stories are using a historical setting of some kind to drop in a completely anachronistic story or message, with all the people, at least the good ones, being essentially woke 21st century people. I also find the new thing of taking male characters or films with male protagonists and just switching them to female characters pretty annoying. Though I think it's driven by the same impulse that gives us 6 million films about the same set of superheroes, no one wants to risk something really new.

Exactly how I feel too. I think that it’s lip service to just make a male character female. There are strong women in history, today, and characters in literature that could be basis for good films and shows.

Yep

I used to really enjoy watching things like everyone loves Raymond and crap like that, but now they infuriate me.

We are supposed to laugh at the bumbling husband who does everything he can to get out of stuff so he can go golfing and letting his mummy do things for him. We are supposed to sympathise that Debra is a mean old had who doesn’t let Raymond do anything when actually I feel sorry for the poor woman!

Mrs Doubtfire is ruined for me too

@Unsuremover

Whoever mentioned the alienest I thought they did a very good job of keeping it in the right time. A female character is slapped by a male character for pointing out his obvious flaw and standing up for herself. While it’s meant to be shocking she never mentions it to anyone (because in the 1800’s who would have cared) but uses it to cement her resolve. But I’m not sure if it wa clear enough in this day and age where things need a glowing neon sign on them.

Yes that was me. It’s realistic about the sexism and misogyny that Miss Sara Howard faces as a woman. First as first women police constable in New York City. Then in the second season where she sets up her own detective agency. Women had it harder then and it would be a disservice to romanticise the Victorian times. But it shows too, how she manages to navigate a much more male dominated world and still be successful.

My DH, when grilled at length blush couldn't think of a woman he would idolise. Poor bloke, since neither could I...

If you want a recommendation, watch the Pieces of me documentary on Toni Morrison and swoon! Or Crip Camp on Netflix and Judy Heumann

But that aside, I cannot believe how monolithically male the culture was when I grew up in the 1980s/1990s. I've always had my 'boy shit' barometer but I still didn't get how overwhelmingly skewed it was and look back on many things that defined the cultural cannon at the time and just think they were so male - Pulp Fiction is an excellent example of this.

The thing to me is that arranged marriages of various kinds have been pretty normal throughout history, people did not see them as beyond the pale in those times and places, and it wasn't (and still isn't) at all unheard of for them to turn out as loving marriages.

The Medici series shows this fairly well I think. Marriages were arranged, neither groom or bride had a choice or option to say no. It does show over time how the couples gain respect for each other and then in some cases, do love each other. The theme is usually about humans deciding to make the best of a life sentence with each other.