Quote ="Mintball"You add further entirely valid points – you're spot on about the Harry Potter films, for instance.
As the article points out, war films would mostly fail, if only because there's damned few that would have that all-female 'conversation', but that doesn't mean that all war films that don't do that don't have strong representations of women.'"
Period pieces would be another genre that will largely fail, particularly old novel adaptations.
Quote ="Mintball"It also touches, I think, on how cinema audiences have changed, post [iStar Wars[/i, to being particularly young male – and are apparently changing again, to include more mixed, older audiences – hence the rise in the number of films about older people.'"
Although a film's target audience is still not necessarily an indicator of a positive portrayal of/attitude towards them. Look at the Twilight series (although I must confess to only seeing the first 2 in full). They are mainly aimed at teenage girls, but I can't think of a worse character in film (other than murderers, etc) for girls to have as a role model than Bella Swan. She is selfish, manipulative, and seems to promote the idea that life is only worth living if she has a boyfriend. Yet the films sail through the Bechdel test with flying colours. I would personally be far more concerned if my daughter was to grow up idolising a character like that than Princess Leia.
Quote ="Mintball"Historically, in terms of Hollywood, there were a lot more big female stars who would open a film – who didn't necessarily conform to ideas of idealised beauty (Katy Hepburn, for instance) and who played very strong characters and well into old age.
And it's interesting to examine why we seem to have lost that in mainstream cinema.'"
I think in general there seems to be a 'lost years' period for actresses. At around 40-45 work seems to dry up a bit (at least in terms of quality parts), before returning around 55-60, when they are then cast as mothers and grandmothers of lead characters, but seldom lead actresses themselves any more. This is a hideous inequality, made most clear in the multitude of examples of male leads of 50ish playing opposite leading ladies 20 or so years younger. This is not new though, it goes back to the era you mention, look at Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart. So I'm not sure whether it's something that has been lost, or something that was never really there in decent numbers but the exceptions to the rule are memorable. For Katharine Hepburn then, see Meryl Streep now. (Obviously I'm open to being corrected about the amount of actresses from the past, I may well just have not seen enough from past eras.)
Quote ="Mintball"But I also dislike the idea – the suggestion – that we consider such things when choosing to watch a film. And the implication that such films, if they fail the test, have a negative impact on society.'"
I thoroughly agree.
Quote ="Mintball"You mention racism, and I think that's an interesting one, where, with people such as Morgan Freeman and Will Smith, we are seeing black actors being cast in roles for who they are and not on the basis of a perceived idea of the race of the character.'"
It's great that this is improving. That Morgan Freeman could be cast as a ginger-haired Irishman and be the best thing in an excellent film is truly remarkable, and definite progress.
It's disappointing that there are still stories of race influencing casting decisions, however. You mention Will Smith, and there's a good example. After he was cast as the lead in Hitch, he said it was then decided that the Eva Mendes character (at that point uncast) should be Latina, as a black-black couple could affect international ticket sales, whilst a black-white couple could affect ticket sales in America. So it was good that Smith was initially cast simply because he best fit the personality they were after, but then such a shame that it apparently had a knock-on effect because of perceived/feared attitudes.
