Girls in Action Movies / Bad SW Spaceships

No it doesn't. All it does is piss off less progressive people: "Oh, there's Hollywood pushing their agenda on us again". The Star Trek writers would have been much better off weaving in how Sulu's gayness helped define him as a person, a competent Starfleet Officer, etc.

 

I do. Try running around with a eight pound gun, even without people shooting at you. No female has ever passed the US Marines Infantry Officer Course. But going down this avenue is completely besides the point.

There is no reason why a girl cannot be an action movie lead, but what I want to see is the girl using girl power. Why must there be an expectation that girls must be just as good as boys in boy power, when they can use the more sublime and subtle qualities of girl power, like in GoT?

This is why my daughter found no connection to the leads such as Rey. Rey may as well been a boy, or transgender, or a Horta.

 

Then they shouldn't have done it. Tokenism only breeds contempt from people who disagree.

Spock's a space Jew, so Hollywood definitely would not have made him gay. They made him have Jungle Fever instead. A gay Kirk would have been awesome. Sulu is Asian, so easy for Hollywood to do this.

 

TOS pushed boundaries with good writing and good characters. The biracial kiss was not such a big deal as they make it out to be. Besides, it was involuntary with Kirk and Uhura being controlled by space aliens with Professor X powers. No one really watched the series when it was on the air in the 60s. No one cared when it happened, there was a lot more serious shit going on in the real world back then. Actually, I take my first sentence back. TOS didn't really push boundaries. What WTF does TOS have to do with the current discussion?

Also, assigning Sulu, the Asian, as the random gay guy is hardly pushing boundaries in 2016. It's opportunistic pandering to its target audience.

 

You see, that's what I mean. Kirk being a gay guy would have been awesome. He'd be going around space looking to f**k all these handsome dudes. He'd be f'ing the ship's purser and f'ing space aliens with three dicks, or three space aliens with only one dick. It could have also been used to explain his teenage angst, and how he learned to overcome his inner demons, and how a senior gay Starfleet officer, Captain Pike, helped mentor him and give him an opportunity to become awesome.

 

No, because it ultimately fails with their goals, moneymaking included. My daughter had no interest in Star Wars The Farce Awakens before, and even less now. Moviegoers want to relate to their characters, not just see someone who looks like them. The Star Wars producers were just being super lazy. I certainly don't want to see a token Asian in movies. I'd rather there be a random white guy instead, or maybe a Celtic female playing an wise "ancient one" than a random Asian.*

In contrast, GoT has a massive female following. The women characters make the men characters look like a bunch of defuses. The strength of the women characters derives from the fact that they are women, not men. The men doing the man thing typically die in GoT.

*I applaud the use of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, as opposed to hiring James Hong for that role. At least Marvel was smart enough to realize had they used an Asian, they would have just fucked it up and offended every other

 

Hollywood: Please. Just make him a white guy. It's OK. I won't be upset. In fact, I'd prefer it.

 

I think the straw that did my daughter in was the latest Ghostbusters. Keep in mind she is not allowed to watch GoT (for obvious reasons, although I did let her see Kill Bill) or Aliens, Mad Max: Road Fury, etc. After Ghostbusters, we had a discussion at the dinner table, and she was like "What the Heck? Why do they put girls in everything (Star Wars, Ghostbusters), but they all suck." In the case of Star Wars, Rey not being relate-able and being more like her brother (being a loner, dabbling with techno junk), and with Ghostbusters, the lead characters being stupid and not funny.

What's next for Hollywood? An Ocean's Eleven with women?

 

I don't think you understand what I mean by girl power. The GoT women have it. It's not about women being like men. It's about women being like women. The more subtle and sublime qualities instead of the more overt external qualities. Why must female qualities automatically be considered weaker than male qualities?

Cersei having zombie mountain rip off that random sparrow's face is an example of this. She utilizes her diplomatic skills to make the unlikeliest of friends under difficult circumstances. The fact that she can't rip off the random sparrow's face herself and has someone to do it for her is hardly weakness. Or Sansa, her perseverance under the most difficult of circumstances, being patient, being able to choose the right moment, to survive until the day she can get revenge. Most men would have caved under such circumstances or done something stupid to get themselves killed.

You could. But that would be a horrible movie and illustrate the crux of my entire point. Kill Bill is a great movie. You cannot replace Beatrix Kiddo with Keanu Reeves and accomplish the same time. Kill Bill was ultimately about motherhood after all.

What you suggested is a good test however.