Young Writers Society

Are you a boy or a girl?

I am a female person.

How old are you?

23.

What is your favorite movie? (And if you can’t decide: top 5?)

1. Julie & Julia
2. Rent
3. Cloud Atlas
4. The Road to El Dorado
5. Tarzan

Hard to get down to five favorite movies, especially as my favorite frequently shifts, but for now I'll go with these.

Are there 2 or more female characters?

1. Yes, most of the characters are female.
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. No, although the only female in the movie is pretty darn awesome.
5. Yes, but only one is human. She is a lot more bamf than people give her credit for, though. She is leading an expedition to study gorillas in a time when women were supposed to know dancing, drawing, and needlework. That's pretty darn awesome.

Do they talk to each other?

1. Yes, quite a lot.
2. Ditto
3. To my memory, no, but they live in different eras.
4. N/A
5. Yes, but in gorilla-language and meaningful looks, and only once or twice.

Do they talk about something other then a man?

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. N/A
4. N/A
5. Er...I do not speak gorilla. Let's say no.

Is the main character a female?

1. Both the main characters are female.
2. It's an ensemble cast, so the whole group, both male and female, are main characters.
3. MCs shift as the movie switches to different eras--females are the MCs in two eras of six.
4. No
5. No

If you’re a girl: Do you see more films with an empowered female character or an empowered male character? Why?

I suppose in part it depends on what you mean by "empowered"--for one thing, a character who is empowered right from the beginning, or a character who becomes empowered by the end of the movie? Main characters tend to follow the second trend, while secondary characters are more likely to be empowered from their introduction. And then it depends on whether or not you think a woman, specifically, can be empowered while also being a wife or mother. I'm of the opinion she can--probably drawing from the experience of my own mother, who has three children and a husband of twenty-five years, went to law school in her forties, and is now working as a lawyer at a nonprofit in Virginia and isn't afraid to go out and kick butt to do the things that need to be done.

So my definition of empowered is probably looser than some (i.e. those who think women can only be empowered by taking on traditionally masculine roles such as CEOs), but even so I would still say that empowered men dominate the field. And empowered white female characters are more prevalent than women of color--in Julie & Julia, there is exactly one speaking woman of color, who is a more minor role than most of the women in the movie. So from one perspective, you could say that this movie is a good, empowering movie...but once you think about women of color, it fails on that level. Rent is better on that, even though there are fewer female characters.

Of course, Julie & Julia is based on a true story, but all the same.

(I mean, I understand you were just asking about gender, but you can't really talk about gender equality/inequality without counting the extra inequality added by being a person of color.)

Anything else you’d like to add about gender inequality in film?

Trans* and nonbinary genders are almost entirely ignored. Rent includes a trans*man, but most movies leave genders other than male and female completely out.