Avatar seems to be the film everyone is talking about. The Metro today said that it’s utopian ideals are making people feel depressed and George Monbiot says that its analogy to US treatment of Native Americans is profound.
Well, it certainly was more than I expected. Personally, I’m not normally a fan of animatronics or science fiction blockbusters. I was prepared for macho heroics (which there certainly was) but I was pleasantly surprised by a number of challenges to Hollywood gender clichés.
1. A female actress over 60 had a lead role that was neither the supporting wife nor mother. Sigourney Weaver plays a central character who is a scientist.
2. The military helicopter pilot – another central character – was a woman
3. The leaders of the alien race were the warrior leader and his wife the shamon. The shamon was the spiritual mother whose leadership overruled that of her warrior husband.
4. And most subversive to the Hollywood formulae was that (and don’t read this if you don’t want to know the ending!!!) in contrast to typical movie-making fashion in the final sequence the hero Jake Sulley is rescued by his female mentor and love interest.
The film turned out to be a refreshing challenge to mainstream Hollywood gender stereotypes. Let’s hope it’s just the beginning.
I agree it is certainly progress compared to the 80’s films (like Romancing the Stone and the Indiana Jones films) where the women seem to spend their time following the man asking questions and screaming at spiders! Its pretty amusing to see that now and thankfully quite rare to get such blatant fluffy roles for women. There is a bit of progress still to go though I feel. The wonderful Sigourney aside, the lead character was a doe eyed semi naked love interest (if a sharp shooting active one). Also as with life, if you try and imagine (within reason) all the roles the men played in that film instead played by women, you can see how much gender division there still is. Oceans 11? most films really. Women are usually in support. Not that women taking on the rather loathesome male roles in avatar would be progress, for them or for humankind…
[...] Husbands and wives Last weekend Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director. It’s hard to believe that in 82 years of Oscar glory, only four women directors have being nominated for an Oscar, and only one woman has actually won. But what’s even harder to believe is that much of the coverage about Kathryn Bigelow being the first woman to win, was focused on discussing that in doing so she beat her ex-husband James Cameron, director of Avatar. [...]