On Movie Previews

[gategrrl]

While I waited impatiently for Star Trek to begin, of course I had to sit through a slew of previews for upcoming movies.

I am NOT planning on watching the new Tarantino movie about a bunch of recruits in WW2 who are going to be sent into Germany or France to murder German soldiers by scalping and torturing them. I think the premise of this movie is way past it's expiry date. Yech. Not interested.

ETA: the Tarantino movie (not even sure what it's title is!) A bunch of white European guys offing each other. With ONE woman shown in the mix.

GI Joe actually looked kinda cool. So did the new Transformers movie. Tons of cool SPFX and CGI. Whoa! Makes the fangrrl inside me all warm and happy.

ETA: GI JOE--shows a Bad Woman, and a GI Joe Woman...but mostly the guys including one or two POC dudes in super suits, I think--why isn't the GI Joe woman in one, too?   Transformers: there's a girl in there, flashing herself in the preview in cut off shorts, just short of a beaver shot. Just to, you know, make sure the testerone surges correctly in the teen set. Otherwise, no other females in sight. Of course.

Up looks cute-and I can't believe Pixar/Disney commandeered that look-alike of Kirk Douglas for the bad guy in the movie. I guess it's one way to have the man live again...I wonder if they asked the Douglas estate for permission?

ETA: Oh yeah. A curmudgeonly old white guy, a little chubby white boy, a white older man villian (who looks like Kirk Douglas) and a Golden Retriever who can talk through his collar. No women. No other people. At least in the previews. At least in Monsters Inc, there were some female characters, and everyone was a Monster (except the little girl).  I don't doubt it'll be funny. But it's sure going to be blandy all White Guy, from what I can see. Couldn't they have at least patterned the old curmudgeon after, I don't know...Samuel Jackson would have been perfect, but he's been taken by the Star Wars machine.

And those are all the previews I can remember off-hand. I just can't quite believe that I think I'm going to drag my son to see the Transformers movie, much in the same way my mother dragged me to see one of the muppet movies back in the day. Of course, I was about 13 at the time, and Little Guy is a tall 8 year old. Heh.

ETA: All I can hope for is that I still have the ability to ignore a lot of the sexism in these action movies or at least the previews and either hope for the best (naw) or just do what  I've always done: projected myself onto the guy who's having the adventure I can identify with.

Comments

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

From what I've read, the little boy in Up is actually Asian. But otherwise it's gonna be just another buddy movie.

Also, there were rumours of a female Transformer, complete with feet that appeared to have heels and a purple colour scheme. And what looked like boobs. I remember ranting about why Transformers even needed to have these gender signifiers, and the response I got was "these things are made for kids!! They wouldn't understand non-gendered robots!! Of COURSE they have to do some things to the design to show it's a GIRL! Just be happy there's even a girl transformer omg you feminists are so hard to please wtf!!!!111oneone"

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

The little boy is Asian? I totally didn't get any clues about that--but then, I can be dopey about signifiers: I totally did not "get" that Teyla, for example, of Atlantis was coded as POC woman--not until someone on my flist brought it up. Duh, me.

That female Transformer rumor--sounds *just like* the car makers in the fifties who thought that all they needed to do to market their cars to women was to paint the damned cars pink and purple with similar interiors. They didn't change any of the scaling of the interior (still made for the average taller male). Totally stupid. It didn't go over well, from what I remember hearing.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I didn't get any of those clues either. I read it on angry asian man's blog. But the little boy appears to be voiced by a young Asian. On one hand, it's nice that he's not stereotypically Asian. On the other, I think the fact that we need to be told he's Asian (or voiced by an Asian VA) means that the character lacks visual development.