Questions for Jane Mills from BCS
Hello BCS Year Niners,
Does audience expectation mean that most films that challenge stereotypes
never get funded?
What a low opinion you have of audiences! But I
agree it's an important question - and good on you for asking it.
The difficulty in answering this question,
however, is that we never really ever know what films don't get funded we only
ever see those that do. I've seen
films, as I'm sure you have, that do challenge stereotypes and I've also see
films that most definitely don't.
Another issue relates not to audience expectations
exactly, but how audiences 'read' films and make sense of them. So one or
several of you might see a film and think it offers stereotypes while I or
others in your class might think it represents reality or even challenges
stereotypes.
I'm trying to think of the last film I saw which
challenged a stereotype. In the world of drama/fiction/feature films, I think Spider Man challenges the stereotypical
"macho" male. Nemo's dad challenged
the stereotypical uncaring absent father. But the Edna Mode character in The Incredibles was a bit of a
stereotypical "butch" type with horn-rimmed glasses and a deep voice (the voice,
in fact, of the male director, Brad Bird). Still, she was a very lovable
character so perhaps the filmmakers were suggesting that stereotypes aren't a
simple matter in the movies.
You often find documentaries about animals give
very stereotypical gender roles with "good mothers" (kangaroos, whales etc)
being those that apparently look after their sick babies while, in fact, the
good mother would be one that allows its weak offspring to die to ensure the
survival of the species.
There's a very interesting Australian feature film
called "Finished People" by a young Australian-Vietnamese director called Khoa
Do (he was Young Australian of the Year a couple of years ago). Its classified
MA so (assuming some of you are under 15?) you should ask an adult/parent to
watch it with you. It's very interesting in how it shows many different young
urban Australian Vietnamese people from Cabramatta in western Sydney some are
good and some aren't. Stereotyping can show a whole group of people as being all
good guys just as easily as it can show them to be all
bad.
You can find out more about this film at:
http://www.madmancinema.com.au/CatItem.php?CatNo=MMA2172.
I've seen some criticism of the grandfather, Koro,
in Whale Rider these critics
thought he was a bit of a stereotype of an old-fashioned, anti-woman
(misogynist) character. Did any of you think he was a stereotype?
[End of
part 1 see next email for Part
2]
