See my reply to Kaldric - the Bechdel test is very limited on individual movies, as you can prove with hundreds of examples of both movies that failed it while having genuinely strong/deep female characters, and movies that passed it while having nothing of the kind, but I don't think it's really intended for that.
Yes, and I blew it up in the internet's face. If they are going to use it like that, I'm going to punish them for it. My impression was that it was something done for amusement at seeing how so many movies fail to have something you would assume would be a common occurrence. But people are taking a mildly amusing (there's a reason normal people know absolutely nothing else about Alison Bechdel) joke and turning it into an indictment of a frivolous and intellectually limited form of entertainment. If you want to watch women talking, go see a movie about women talking, like "The Women", which I understand is mostly talking about men.
If I understand you right you're saying that the all-boys school was much better academically also? That's odd because statistically, the general conclusion is that while girls perform significantly worse in coed schools, boys perform significantly better. At least that's what I've always read. Having been in an all-boy class inside a coed school for two years (our system is a bit different, students generally have all classes together with the same people), I can definitely confirm that the difference in atmosphere was noticeable, although I'm not sure the effect on academic performance was that big - it certainly wasn't a positive effect, though.
I thought it was. There was a lot less social bullshit or status games. I honestly thought cliques were a Hollywood invention until people told me otherwise. The atmosphere was more relaxed, there was more free discussion, and the classes were more rigorous. At least, I had to actually read the assignments and study in my English and history classes when I transfered. It was about twice as large, too.
I have to strongly disagree with "your male audience simply does not feel welcome" if two women talk about something other than male characters. For starters, I would assume that you didn't actually mean to go that far, and that the "not welcome" part applies only when the women are discussing topics that are seen as specifically female topics. Not in cases like the Guardians scene which you mentioned, with the women discussing the mission in exactly the same way men would do.
Which is basically what I was calling for in regard to female character in general.
But even with that assumption, I still disagree, and in fact find it a little offensive. Yes, men and women are different, but then isn't the whole point of a movie, or a book, or any kind of fiction (or history/biographies) that you learn about the things happening to people other than yourself, and learn how these people different from yourself look at things and handle things?
Not at all. The fewer differences the better. I am living in the culture and time and place of the apex of human technological and social development. I practice the only true religion, and am a member of the most accomplished gender in the history of the planet. Why on Earth would I be interested in how my objective inferiors would go about something?
If a man walks through the ladies room, the main reason he feels unwelcome is that he almost certainly is unwelcome.
I known, right? Bitches.
Watching women on screen having precisely the same conversation - why should he feel unwelcome or turned off? He might on the contrary find it very interesting and gain a better understanding of women, just as if he read about it in a book, fiction or otherwise (though presumably the book would teach him more).
Okay, seriously though, I was more or less thinking of Hollywood caricatures of people, so the learning thing is right out. I get what you're saying, and pretty much found a lot of the female characters in Wheel of Time, for example, interesting for that reason. Moral judgements aside, I would not, for example, say Egwene's PoV was ever unwelcome of boring. But she wasn't ABOUT being a woman, even if she was very conscious of her gender and proud of it.
And I don't think I agree with your commercial conclusion here either, that the off-putting effect on the young men, just because there's something in the movie that they can't really relate to, would be bigger than the positive effect on women who feel that this at least is an action movie that takes them a bit more seriously (talking generally, not specifically about Alien II as I haven't seen it).
You are dead to me. It's the Francisco Franco to Alien I's Moscardo.
Anyway, as far as "Aliens" goes, the other significant adult female characters are a couple of marines, one is the drop ship pilot who inspired the dialogue for the similarly-named vehicle in Star Craft, and the other is was a Latina machine gunner, played by Jeannette Goldstein, who you might know as the Irish mom from Titanic and the white trash foster mother in Terminator 2 (Cameron likes casting her almost as much as Bill Paxton). I'm not 100% sure where she should fit, because she was an over-the-top obnoxiously gung-ho trooper, who is belittling fellow marines even on their deathbeds, while getting absolutely no flack for almost killing the entire team by violating orders to refrain from firing armor-piercing rounds into a nuclear reactor. She's both the over-compensating badass woman who is unrealistically tougher than the men, AND her transgressions go unremarked, suggesting the double standard for woman doing a male job.
On the other hand, it's not like her behavior would have been out of the ordinary in a similar male character, while the panicky, over-reacting marine was a man (Paxton). As was the inept, standoffish commander with no combat experience, and any number of other stereotypes. I suspect a lot of feminist approval for "Aliens" centers largely on Goldstein's Vasquez, and the general indifference to gender among the marines. There is some banter about Vasquez's gender, but it could just as easily be due to her extreme machismo, since the others are not subjected to it, and Vasquez is just as initially skeptical of, and condescending to, Ripley as the male marines are, suggesting it is not a gender issue, but a marine/civilian disconnect.
An awful lot of the specific actions Ripley takes in the main action sequences of the film are centered around her care for and protectiveness of an orphaned child the group encounters. The Boss Villain is the Alien queen (in the sense of a hive insect queen, not monarch), and Ripley confronts her to try to save that kid, which, if the deleted scene with her daughter's death had been retained, would have had all sorts of symbolic contrast of two adversarial mothers, driven by maternal instincts for the protection and propagation of the species, and so forth.
I suspect they simply felt "Aliens" worked better as a straightforward action film, without the symbolism and sentiment.
It seems unlikely that there would be much of an effect on box office in either group, it's more a matter of how enthusiastic the people would be afterwards. And I do think there the positive effects would outweigh the negative.
IDK, there has to be some reason why the relatively young adult male demographic is pursued so ardently. Female-oriented stuff (for adults, as opposed to teenaged girls - see Titanic/Twilight) needs at least some masculine appeal to succeed, but the reverse is not necessarily true.
To take a completely different example from a completely different context, the Lord of the Rings movies had a good amount of little details that were essentially meaningless to people not familiar with the books - but it's not as if that group of viewers felt particularly alienated, while on the other hand, the big fans of the books appreciated those enormously. I would say in general, it's often a good idea to make that kind of concessions, even if it makes the majority of your audience feel like they're missing something - that on its own is unlikely to turn them off your movie, while for the minority it may mean a lot.
Actually, I think people appreciated them, because they made it more organic and holistic, like stuff that would be there in a real world, whereas most movies in made-up worlds only show you the relevant stuff. The bones thrown to source fans didn't divert the audience's attention or distract from it. To have characters who don't really have a role in the movie otherwise, discussing something other than the important characters, would, in many cases, feel out of place. Servicing women's issues, as opposed to relevant and character stuff, would also be out of place.
My point was, people will tolerate preachy stuff as long as it serves the characterization and plot, and is not inserted for its own sake. That latter seems to be what womanists are demanding in movies.
