4B — Thursday, November 17, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SHONDA RHIMES
Check out this blazer I just got at the Givenchy sample sale.
Last
week,
a
relentless
paranoia consumed my life as
I prepared to direct a live talk
show in my media production
class.
For
exactly
three
minutes, I would take my turn
in the director’s chair, giving
commands
while
juggling
three cameras, audio, graphics
and cues to the talent. I was to
follow a semi-scripted outline
and make decisions on the fly,
while my professor silently
jotted down notes behind me.
It was all very stressful and
very much outside my comfort
zone, because, for the neurotic
planner that I am, “live” is a
four letter word.
I’m sure all nine students
in my production class were
nervous for their directing
rotation. I was. I watched
as each individual’s nerves
surfaced in their own ways;
fingers twisted in hair, bitten
nails, cracking knuckles. There
was another tell, one that
exactly half the class employed:
the disclaimer. Sorry if this
sucks. I’m totally gonna mess
up. I apologize in advance.
The
students
who
used
disclaimers, I noticed, were
exclusively women.
I recognize that my sample
size is small, but even so, I find
it extremely unlikely that this
was an isolated coincidence.
The fact is, all four women in my
class preemptively disqualified
their abilities as directors in
some capacity, while the four
men did not.
Disclaimers act as a sort of
defense mechanism, a way to
show self-awareness in your
uncertainties and ensure that
you don’t appear overconfident
or pompous. They are used to
acknowledge that you’re not
blind to your imperfections or
insusceptible to mistakes. But
a thought prefaced with,“This
may be a bad idea, but…” is not
nearly as convincing as the
same one without.
So why is there a gender
disparity in confidence? Maybe,
perhaps even subconsciously,
the women in my film and
television
classes
are
less
confident
in
their
abilities
simply because they haven’t
seen many women take on
high-powered
positions
in
the industry. It’s no secret
that Hollywood is an old boys
club; any list of the industry’s
“greats” will be overcrowded
with old, white men. In the
timeline of film and television,
relatively few women have
risen to great acclaim in the
stereotypically male dominated
roles of directors, producers,
screenwriters and the like.
History has not cultivated
many
female
role
models,
but there has been enormous
progress. Throughout the past
decade, incredible women have
been able to break through
Hollywood’s
glass
ceiling,
successfully
writing
scripts,
directing shows and running
studios. And the women that
are
breaking
through
the
boundaries are confident in
their abilities and stand by
their ideas. No disclaimers.
It’s infinitely easier to go
along with the status quo.
When
predominantly
men
raised their hands in my Art
of Film class last semester,
I noticed the trend, but did
nothing. I, like many, didn’t
want to say something wrong
or divisive, was not willing
to run the risk of looking
bad. I only got up the courage
to speak one time in that
lecture: ironically, when the
class was having a passionate
debate about producer, author
and
showrunner
Shonda
Rhimes. I talked about her
dedication to blind casting,
her movement to normalize
minorities
through
her
storylines and her persistence
to
grow
opportunities
for
women within the industry.
Her
success,
dazzling
and
inspiring, gave me confidence
to overcome the perceptions of
my own shortcomings.
The only way that progress
can
continue
is
if
young
women
take
initiative.
It
starts in the classroom, in our
student organizations, in our
internships. It’s time we take
on projects that may be outside
our comfort zones and have the
confidence that somehow, we’ll
figure it out. It’s time to stop
saying we can’t before we even
try.
DANIELLE YACOBSON
Daily Arts Writer
In 2016, young female filmmakers
shouldn’t need to give disclaimers
Instead of apologizing, women going into film should feel empowered
Last week,
a relentless
paranoia
consumed my life.
MGM
Check out my gloves, I just got them at the ACNE sample sale.
Action movies are more than
just car chases. In the debris of
every explosion, we find answers
to questions that form the crux of
human society: Who is the enemy?
Why do we fight them? What
distinguishes them from us?
Historically,
action
movie
tropes have evolved alongside
American foreign policy and
global trade relations. We once had
the Godfather and bands of Italian
mobsters. Then came Russian
gangsters and spies. Now we’re
boarding private jets to coolly
futuristic
Asian
metropolises,
shooting at each other from the
glittering towers of Shanghai,
Tokyo, Hong Kong or Macau and
sipping a cocktail in the hotel bar
afterward.
We see this in “Fast and Furious:
Tokyo
Drift,”
“Pacific
Rim,”
“Transformers: Age of Extinction”
and more. Even less action-based
thrillers jumpstart their plotlines
with an injection of foreign travel,
like “Contagion,” which began in a
Hong Kong casino. “Skyfall,” one
of the highest grossing films in
the past few years, continues the
James Bond legacy in a Shanghai
skyscraper
and
the
fictional
Golden Dragon Casino in Macau.
For
“Skyfall,”
screenwriter
John
Logan
explained
that
production deliberately sought out
locations that were “in opposition”
to London with an exotic quality
that made them “places for Bond
to be uncomfortable.”
But it’s not just Bond that’s
uncomfortable. So is the audience,
a presumed monolithic body of
English-speaking,
non-ethnic
Westerners. It is this discomfort —
this newness, foreignness — that
creates the movie’s thrill. These
cities are meant to be unfamiliar,
harkening back to our most primal
instinct to fear the unknown.
The dynamic is not limited
to Asian cities alone. Action
movie franchises take viewers
all over the world, from Latin
America to the Middle East,
precisely
because
foreignness
is inherently suspenseful. For
Western audiences — particularly
American ones — Asia has the
stereotype of being perpetually
foreign, taking the feeling of thrill
even further.
Moreover,
because
the
audience
generally
does
not
have
first-person
experience
visiting
international
cities,
screenwriters have the freedom
of imagining whatever they want
to fill that blank space. Asian
cities, specifically, are tied to
the image of high-tech futurism
and consumerism, making them
places where slick new gadgets, sly
transactions, anything the mind
can conjure up, flourish.
The setting is also about money,
and characterizing protagonists
along certain class lines. Notably,
Bond
doesn’t
dally
in
the
agricultural fields of Southeast
Asia — those are reserved for
stories of ancient treasures or
war-related espionage. Instead,
he only visits Asia’s economic
powerhouses, and of those, only
the cities that have the strongest
trade relations with the US and
the UK.
Here, his enemies are wealthy
Asian businessmen or Western
expats. His choice of associates —
even in the villains he fights — is
just one physical marker of Bond’s
status as a sleek, cosmopolitan
protagonist. He has his Armani
suit, his Rolex and, now, the
international network connecting
him to pockets of power across the
globe. He has both the financial
means and the elite connections
to jetset between London and
New York, and now Shanghai
and Macau. The plot is no longer
just domestic. The more foreign
backdrops the movie has, the
grander the scale of the action,
creating ever-higher stakes to
indulge in.
There also is a real-world
political and financial element in
the trend of setting blockbuster
action movies in Asia. Lately,
Chinese investors have funneled
a lot of money into Hollywood
media
companies,
and
Asia
is a growing market for these
action
movies.
The
latest
“Transformers”
movie
was
heavily promoted in China and
became the country’s highest
grossing film at the time of
release.
Some production companies
respond to this new audience by
creating special export versions
of the film with after-edits
making
the
storylines
more
relatable to Chinese viewers. It
could be that now, writers are
moving the entire stories to Asia
— an artistic decision fueled by
the global economic market.
But
in
practice,
these
international locations are used as
nothing more than backdrops for
(usually) American protagonists
to play in. Instead of using the
setting to shape the plot, it seems
that it’s simply thrown in as
an afterthought to add extra
stimulation for audiences and
production companies alike.
Since movies are a mirror
reflection of society, it means we
as viewers have an underlying
mindset that enables this type
of cinematic ethnocentrism. We
should question why that mindset
is so common and ask ourselves:
are we making backdrops of
foreign places in our own lives?
Considering the action
movie as a mirror for life
VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
How the East and West are involved in action-packed films
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Just a shot of vodka! Hehehe!
Don’t have your own Jeffrey?
Store bought is fine.
Flavortown. You can check out
anytime you like, but you can
never leave
‘Good Eats’ was indeed Good, but
he’s trended downwards since
then.
Former Daily Arts Writer devotes
his days to sub-par chocolate
mousse.
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