While choosing a movie for this month I only had three criteria I wanted the film to meet: pass the Bechdel test, don't rape the women in the film, and ideally feature a Woman of Color. That doesn't seem like shooting for the moon, but it turns out it might be. It never seems like I'm ignoring epic amounts of bullshit to enjoy the movies I watch, but it's starting to seem like I'm ignoring more bullshit than I could have possibly imagined.
We burned through stacks of movies over last few months that seemed promising as picks, classics we loved or films that have been recommended by friends or the internet: and that epic quest resulted in maybe two films we could screen at some point. We thought about screening Coffy, because I LOVE Pam Grier, but there's quite a bit of misogyny in that film that barely gets addressed by the end. (Also, most of the badass women in Coffy have their clothes ripped off at some point, and I don't think it actually passes the Bechdel test.) We watched countless movies from our "to watch" pile that heavily featured lady characters, and most of those movies also featured scenes where said awesome lady characters were raped. For a second I even abandoned the idea of playing something that met any of my criteria in favor of screening a movie that I love love love that features mostly men, but then that exact movie got booked at the Trylon. (To be screened on my actual birthday even.) I was ready to give up and just play Rouge One, but you know what? Thinking back on my viewings of it, I'm not even sure that Rouge One passes the Bechdel test.
And that got me really thinking: if a movie I love as much as Rouge One could have me questioning in retrospect if it even passes the most laughably low-bar of tests for judging if a movie treats it's lady characters well, what am I missing in everything else? So here's my birthday wish to you: when watching films, watch with people who aren't you in mind. If you're white: watch for how People of Color are portrayed (if there are any at all). If you're a dude: watch for how many women there are (and how much you know about those characters aside from what directly relates to the men in the movie). If you're straight: watch for how the LGBTQA people are portrayed. If you're cis gender: watch for how Trangender people are treated (or more likely are joked about). Ask yourself "if they were consistently portraying people like me that way, how would I feel?" Check in about how those portrayals fit into our society at large, and read perspectives written from different people about how they're being represented in media. And listen, I'm not telling you to outright hate everything that treats people who aren't white cis men poorly. (I mean seriously, if we did that, how on earth would we enjoy much of anything at this point?) However, enjoying things that are problematic while discussing the problems they contain makes us grow as an audience and a society, and that's what I'm ultimately looking for in my time on Earth: positive growth.
So back to my pick for this month: Tim finally realized there's an obvious pick I had not considered for even one second before, and it's exactly what we're playing this month. It's newer than any movie we've ever played before (as was the case with my birthday pick last year), it's one that I truly love, it actually meets all my criteria, and exceeds them in ways that I would love to talk about at length with anyone after the screening. This month I went from being frustrated to the point of wanting to give up all together, to being more excited for a screening than I've been in almost exactly a year, happy birthday to me!
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