Superman

[Sci]

Why would it matter WHO the hell is directing it?

Who is directing something can be very, very important. Both because a given director can have a distinct authorial voice or style, and because some stories really should not be told by people from certain communities. It would have been really inappropriate for a white guy to direct 12 Years A Slave or for a man to direct Wonder Woman.

As for Superman Returns, I agree. Brandon Routh is great in it. What I like about it is this: Richard White isn't a dick.

99% of the time, when something like this happens, the new husband is a total sleazeball whose sole function in the plot is to be shoved out of the way so Our Hero can get the girl back. Glad they didn't do that here.

On the other hand, Superman himself is kind of a dick. He disappears from the world for five years with no warning or explanation, returns expecting everything to be the same, and literally stalks his ex and her family. He's a goddamn creep in this movie.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Who is directing something can be very, very important. Both because a given director can have a distinct authorial voice or style, and because some stories really should not be told by people from certain communities. It would have been really inappropriate for a white guy to direct 12 Years A Slave or for a man to direct Wonder Woman.

I was mostly thinking about the male/female thing re: Superman, but I totally see your point.

I DO see where the choice of director can make a difference; I mean, 2001 (my favorite movie) could only have been directed by Stanley Kubrick.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I think it was this thread someone mentioned content warnings or something even Lost In Space has a warning for gore and violence on some episodes.

EDIT: Also because of this thread I watched Man Of Steel again today and really it's not that bad, in fact I think I like it more this time around then the previous time I saw it. It's the movie that follows this one I don't like. and I've seen BvS twice and haven't changed my mind.

There's two cuts of BVS. An extra 31 minutes. No big extra scene, just every thing gains cohesion. Of course the ultimate cut has been around since 2016, so it is more likely than that you are watching the ultimate cut now, and you have forgotten how half assed the theatrical cut is.

 

[UssGlenn]

It would have been really inappropriate for a white guy to direct 12 Years A Slave

I could see a legitimate argument for this

or for a man to direct Wonder Woman.

This is BS, it's a superhero movie. If a man can create the character, a man can direct the movie.

 

[Sci]

Too arbitrary/monolithic. George Cukor would have directed WW if there'd been a live-action version back in the day. Spike Lee hated the idea of GLORY having a white director, until he actually watched GLORY. He took it back.

Yeah, no, fuck that. Stories about marginalized and oppressed communities are not the dominant communities' stories to tell. Not making a special effort to ensure that those stories are told by members of the communities those stories are about, will in the vast majority of circumstances mean that the privileged will get to tell those stories because of systemic inequalities. The consequences of that are that these stories end up getting told from the POV of privileged people rather than the POV of the oppressed -- a form of objectification.

It's like the saying goes: "No decisions about us without us."

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

This is BS, it's a superhero movie. If a man can create the character, a man can direct the movie.

Somehow, the fact Wonder Woman was created by a man is conveniently buried in order to make would-be "corrective" suggestions about who should direct a film with a female lead...

 

[Guy Gardener]

I could see a legitimate argument for this



This is BS, it's a superhero movie. If a man can create the character, a man can direct the movie.

A man created Wonder Woman to please his mistress.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

There's two cuts of BVS. An extra 31 minutes. No big extra scene, just every thing gains cohesion. Of course the ultimate cut has been around since 2016, so it is more likely than that you are watching the ultimate cut now, and you have forgotten how half assed the theatrical cut is.

Nope it wasn't that version of BvS but an old DVD I had..... I will get the newer version one day when I can muster the will to do that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You're living in the past man

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Embrace the resplendant joy that is Pattinson.

 

[UssGlenn]

Stories about marginalized and oppressed communities are not the dominant communities' stories to tell.

I hate to break it to you, but Patty Jenkins isn't an Amazon.

Not that I don't understand your larger point, that was just a really bad example to pick.

 

[Sci]

I hate to break it to you, but Patty Jenkins isn't an Amazon.

Not that I don't understand your larger point, that was just a really bad example to pick.

Don't be deliberately obtuse. Wonder Woman was made in the context of the rise of extreme institutional misogyny (in the form of a presidential candidate who won even after being caught on video bragging about sexually assaulting women) and revelations about profound and widespread acts of sexual abuse against women throughout every level of society. It was a story that needed to be told by a woman for it to have any sense of artistic authenticity. And it worked -- I was a manager at a cinema that showed the film, and I cannot tell you how many more women we saw attending this film than most superhero films. There were literally groups of women in their 50s and 60s, with no children with them, who went to see the film. Many women -- including a good friend I saw the film with -- talked about how they found themselves crying during the "No Man's Land" sequence because they felt like this was the first time they'd seen a character representing themselves as the action hero. Wonder Woman was an absolute phenomenon, and it spoke to women in a deep way that it probably would not have been able if it had been produced with the authorial voice of a man.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Princess Diana is not a representative of any woman from Man's World.

She's from an island without men or male oppression.

In 1918 if she had tried to explain magic or the fact that she's a lesbian, someone would have tried to burn her as a witch.

 

[UssGlenn]

t was a story that needed to be told by a woman for it to have any sense of artistic authenticity.

it spoke to women in a deep way that it probably would not have been able if it had been produced with the authorial voice of a man.

I'm sure the author, Allen Heinberg, will be glad to know that the only reason his no man's land scene worked is that there was a woman sitting in the director chair.

 

[cooleddie74]

Princess Diana is not a representative of any woman from Man's World.

She's from an island without men or male oppression.

In 1918 if she had tried to explain magic or the fact that she's a lesbian, someone would have tried to burn her as a witch.

Well, they'd at least have arrested her for protesting for women's suffrage. And asked her to wear more clothes because, well, 1918.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In 1918 if she had tried to explain magic or the fact that she's a lesbian, someone would have tried to burn her as a witch.

Diana is not a lesbian.

That's not even a thing where she comes from, is it? I guess I always assumed that Amazons don't even have romance or sex.

 

[suarezguy]

A lot of people love the Donner film/Reeve version for it being an older one, some do like it generally but if something really like it was made I think a lot of others would expect a portrayal that was a lot more badass.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Superman is many things, but I wouldn't exactly call him "badass". He's supposed to be a nice guy. That's why Reeve clicks.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

A lot of people love the Donner film/Reeve version for it being an older one, some do like it generally but if something really like it was made I think a lot of others would expect a portrayal that was a lot more badass.

Superman has been a badass when the situation called for it, as seen in the greater comics and film adaptations, especially when threats tested his limits.

One thing he was not intended to be was / is the stammering mess that was hammered into the ground under Mort Weisinger's terrible control.

 

[cooleddie74]

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[Kai "the spy"]

Diana is not a lesbian.

That's not even a thing where she comes from, is it? I guess I always assumed that Amazons don't even have romance or sex.

It's been established for over one and a half decades now in the comics that there are indeed a lot of same-sex romantic and sexual relationships on Themyscira, in most recent comics it is actually depicted as the norm, and it's at least hinted at, even in the 2017 movie, that Diana herself has had sexual relations with other women (it might have even been stated or shown outright in the comics at some point, but if so I can't remember the specific instance). Because, really, the idea that an all-female society with a population of thousands, if not tens of thousands, would remain completely asexual is rather naive.

So, no, Diana is not a lesbian, but she is almost certainly bisexual (maybe even omnisexual, considering her world is populated with all kinds of mythological creatures and aliens).