What Maketh a Movie Misogynist?
Published by Lisa Kansas May 14th, 2008 in Feminism, MoviesMe! (Sorry, the pull of alliteration was too powerful to resist.)
No, seriously. I am feeling alone, humorless and strident. Often the fate of the feminist yeti, that oft-sighted, hairy-legged, man-hating creature of legend (tragic sigh).
I have now read lots and lots of reviews of Iron Man, and many of them appear to fall into one of two categories: (1) Not a sexist movie and (2) Not any more sexist than your average summer action movie. I still don’t agree, with either! but I thought I’d broaden my scope and comment on why I think that is in more general terms.
First, to narrow down what separates a sexist movie from a movie that is just accurately reflecting the sexist aspects of our culture:
Q1: Is an action movie that has a male lead rather than a female lead sexist?
A1: No. There are roughly equal numbers of men and women in the world, and the lead role in action movies is often portrayed by a cop, a pilot, a soldier, a government agent, a superhero–in all cases except the superhero (cause we don’t actually have any running around to the best of my knowledge) in the real world, those people much more commonly are men. In the case of the fictional superhero literary personae, most of them are male as well, especially the farther back in time you go.
Q2: Is an action movie that has a female co-lead who is not physically heroic sexist?
A2: No. Most co-lead female characters who are not physically heroic are doctors, scientists, journalists, actresses, businesswomen, waitresses, hairdressers–in real life, people in these professions often are not also superior athletes and/or have martial arts or weapons training.
Q3: Is an action movie in which some female characters are portrayed as dumb materialistic sluts or sniveling cowards sexist?
A3: No. There are sufficient numbers of women out there who are dumb, materialistic and have sex with a lot of different men, and who are afraid of their own shadow and comfortable with openly displaying it.
Q4: Is an action movie where the female co-lead must ever be rescued by the male co-lead sexist?
A4: No. People rescue each other all the time (in varying degrees of course) and as far as I know there’s no gender test you have to pass first to be the rescuer or the rescuee. I personally have sort of been rescued by men before, even.
Q5: Is an action movie where a female character has sex and/or a relationship and/or wants to have sex and/or a relationship with the male lead who treats her anywhere from indifferently to disrespectfully to abusively, sexist?
A5: No. Unfortunately this happens often enough in real life.
Q6: Is an action movie that treats all the secondary female characters in it as completely one-dimensional, sexist?
A6: No, since all the male secondary characters are usually also completely one-dimensional.
Q7: Is an action movie that takes place in a historical setting and has no female characters at all other than a few non-speaking or barely speaking parts sexist?
A7: Not if there really weren’t any women around during that time frame performing events significant to the plot, no (for example, a movie taking place on an 18th century British naval vessel).
Well, then, if all THOSE don’t make a movie particularly sexist, more so than just the culture it’s reflecting, then what DOES..?
1. Where the majority of female characters are portrayed as physically inept and the majority of male characters are portrayed as physically adept.
2. Where the majority of female characters are portrayed as dumb materialistic sluts or sniveling cowards.
3. Where the majority of actions taken by a female co-lead result in her botching them, having to be rescued from them or couldn’t have been completed without the complete and utter guidance of the male co-lead.
4. Where the sex and/or relationship and/or desire for either from a female character with the male lead who treats her indifferently, disrespectfully or abusively is portrayed favorably or humorously.
5. Where all the secondary female characters are completely one-dimensional but some secondary male characters are not.
6. When an action movie takes place in modern America in a city, town or rural countryside and there are either no female characters or a few non-speaking or barely speaking parts.
Let’s see…let’s rate Iron Man!
1. Nope. Pepper Potts was a complete klutz, but Tony Stark wasn’t portrayed as all that physically adept either.
2. BINGO!
3. BINGO!
4. BINGO!
5. Nope. Everyone except Tony Stark was pretty one-dimensional; the person with the next most character development was Pepper Potts.
6. Nope.
So we have 3 out of 6…that’s pretty high. The X-Men movies, for example, would score 0/6; the Fantastic Four movies would score 1/6; the Spiderman movies would score 1/6.
The feminist yeti rests her case!
I suppose there’s no point in asking if it passes the “Mo Movie Measure”…
I love the Bechdel test. But a movie failing it doesn’t actually mean the movie’s any more misogynist that our culture in general–depends. lol, no, Iron Man mos’ definitely does not pass the Bechdel test though!
I think you made a case that it’s sexist, but not misogynist. In fact, I’d say the movie comes out firmly against misogyny, because the way he uses and discards women is only second to his indifference to the harm his business does in terms of establishing pre-kidnapping Tony as an asshole.
I think we do expect sci-fi and fantasy to renounce sexism by providing unrealistically strong and empowered women, because that’s the point—it’s a fantasy—and movies like this that just replicate the real world where men are important and women are support staff disappoint.
Pepper Potts could have been badass with just the smallest of character adjustments, so it is frustrating to me that she was so lame.
Stark says that she’s the most capable person he knows, so if they had just gone with that the whole way though we’d have been much better off. But no, instead they have her handle every important task with lots of hand wringing and little grace. As soon as the heat was on she buckled and suddenly couldn’t be the amazing taskmaster we were told that she was in her introduction. I guess she’s only good at playing Tony Stark’s mommy surrogate and can’t do anything that actually matters.
How I wanted to admire someone with such a fun name…
I can’t agree…darn, I wish I could!
But I can’t, because:
Portraying the majority of women as dumb, materialistic sluts and/or sniveling cowards is not only *sexist,* as it relies entirely upon cultural female stereotyping, but ALSO *misogynist,* as it more than implies how despicable women are–portraying women as, say, bad at math is sexist but not necessarily misogynistic, as being good at math is not considered morally admirable or a sign of the kind of character one should aspire to. Portraying women as shallow and cowardly is not only sexist but also misogynist, as shallowness and cowardliness are regarded as contemptible by our cultures.
The movie made a point of demonstrating that Tony Stark’s misogyny did not make any kind of shift whatsoever in keeping with his moral shifts on all other grounds, and the failure of this shift was portrayed as quite amusing. For instance, after his big revelation about how his indifference towards others in terms of arms manufacturing was wrong, he was still shown, in a way clearly meant to be funny, dismissing a beautiful young woman who approached him outside a party with a hopeful smile and a “Hi, Tony, remember me..?” And at the end of the movie, he *still* can’t be bothered to remember the female reporter’s name and his responses to her are quite bored and dismissive, and this is also clearly portrayed as funny and even charming.
When fantasy or sci-fi portray MORE women as dumb materialistic sluts and/or sniveling cowards than is actually true in general, this is not accurately reflecting reality, nor is a failure to do so by portraying only a TYPICAL number of them that way cannot be characterized as “unrealistically portraying strong and empowered women.” The women in this movie are not a realistic cross-section of women in general and I’m awfully sorry that anybody thinks they are.
I still respectfully disagree, on a number of levels. I think we interpret the film differently and it leads us to different conclusions on your scale, though I’m not entirely sure your scale wholly captures the essence of film sexism/misogyny.
Okay, so let’s start with the easy one - point #3, the “botch and rescue” claim. Arguably, the most significant action Pepper Potts takes the entire movie is to blow the arc reactor and kill Stane. Despite having no scientific b/g and getting only marginal instructions from Tony (who is losing), she successfully blows the reactor and saves the day. That’s huge, and no botch there. Additionally, she *successfully* steals the files right under Stane’s nose, completing corporate espionage right in the face of a man who’s built his career on crap like that. Yeah, he spots it after she leaves, but she gets out of it not by screeching for help and having a Superman fly in, but by being clever enough to play the government agent and pretend they’re going to have a meeting — her cunning saves her own day, no dudes required. The gubment fellow is just a tool of her own handiwork. Potts gets the job done, no botching.
Now, let’s go back up to #2, the “dumb materialistic slut/sniveling cowards” claim. Pepper isn’t dumb, and I think my arguments against #3 bear that out. Is she materialistic? Well, she got a nice dress, but she also straight-up refused Stark’s advances at the end of the film, and if she really just wanted money, she could have been his girlfriend and gotten lots of gifts. Didn’t happen, she flatly said no. And I’m sorry, but she showed a lot of guts saving Tony at the end and even in exploring Stane’s lab with the agents. Tougher than I would’ve been. Now, the soldier character is indefensible in her giggly “sexism is funny” bits, but the character isn’t a coward. Probably not dumb or materialistic either. Now, the problem character of the reporter is a challenge. She’s certainly *petty* and plays up the horrid “spurned woman = bitch” stereotype to the nines. Yuck. But she’s also the one who, even after being dumped, yells at Tony not for his bad behavior, but for selling weapons to the bad guys. She’s still connected enough to get the photo work done, and instead of using them to get hush money or buy her way back into his bed, she simply calls him a liar and a killer. In many ways, the photo scene represents the second major turning point for Stark as he realizes his own company is against him, and she has a lot to do with that. That their major fight is over the photos and not the sex makes her marginally less awful overall (marginally!) but she’s not dumb, she doesn’t seem materialistic, and she was brave enough to walk up to a man that rich and that powerful and call him a lying killer. So I am not down with point #2, either.
#4 is the Fight Club Dilemma. Does showing something in a movie, especially if it draws laughs (like some of the violence in Fight Club) mean the film endorses it, or in the words of point #4, show it “favorably?” I say if Iron Man was endorsing Stark’s assholery, it would’ve had Pepper sign up to be his girlfriend at the end. Instead, he’s reminded first and foremost that he’s an asshole to women. And I thought the bit with the reporter’s name was not played as funny, but a reminder that Stark Sucks With Women. Now, the female soldier laughing at the sexism is bad, that shot alone nearly damns the film on this point. But even if it violates #4, that’s still only 1/6.
And how could Spider-Man’s Mary Jane not irk you ten times more than Potts. She fails at pretty much everything except having pokey nipples in the rain — not smart, has to be saved constantly, is liked primarily because she’s pretty, and never really does anything but get in the way. She certainly never helps. Blech.
All hail X-Men on the feminism front — definitely the model. But while Iron Man is nothing to *celebrate* like that, I think it’s signals are mixed enough to — at worst — merit a “meh, should’ve been better in some spots” as opposed to claims of misogyny. [We can debate your scale another time!]
Edit to add that I think the examination of this movie has been a blast, and some of our most enjoyable threads of late.
I wrote this thing on 300 back when it came out and I was just posting stuff on the forums. And on my gods was the response ever this catastrophic avalanche of total blindness to racism and misogyny.
In short, I hear you.
I respectfully disagree re: #3. I don’t think Pepper “botches” the “majority” of actions she takes. I’m lazy, so I’ll just point to what punkass marc said.
Hugging Violet.
Thank you for the moral support…and now I’m scared to see 300…
To Marc, Amanda n June: Probably my scale *doesn’t* accurately capture movie misogyny, I just whipped it up on the spur of the moment! I’m enjoying our in-depth analyses too, I’m just afraid they’re gonna go on forEVER so I’m thinking I may let this sleeping dog lie. Obviously we had a very different impression of Pepper…I am wondering now if my engineer/soldier background gives me a different expectation of women than is the norm. P’raps it does. I may be too hard to impress.
violet,
wow, i have to say that comparing iron man and 300 is sort of like comparing a normal network sitcom to fox news. both have problems, but, y’know, scale.
also, i take issue with the categorization of blindness in relation to what has been a pretty productive discussion on this movie. i am clearly acknowledging the faults i agree with, and making counterpoints to the ones i don’t, but i’m not ignoring any of them them, or dismissing them outright, and others have done the same. respectful disagreement is not the same thing as blindness. implying that those with a different opinion who engage fairly, calmly, and in-depth (whether or not you agree) are blind doesn’t seem right to me and seems to be a growing problem in the sphere. i suppose it’s part of why i haven’t had much of an urge to interact out here lately. /grump
Sometimes I think the enthusiasm for the theory of the blindness of privilege ignores the fact that the most ardent defenders of various privileges usually are quite aware they have them—anti-feminists come to mind.
Portraying the majority of women as dumb, materialistic sluts and/or sniveling cowards is not only *sexist,* as it relies entirely upon cultural female stereotyping, but ALSO *misogynist,*
Well, it would be, but I don’t recall a single instance of materialism or sexuality being held against a woman’s character in the movie. Pepper’s self-assurance is what makes her character so appealing, I’d say. I fully expected to cringe throughout because she’s in a servant role, but she’s exquisitely professional. I mean, she has that nice dress, but the movie makes it clear that she deserves it. The misogynist portrayal of female materialism is one where materialism is a bad thing. The famous feminist Ellen Willis wrote a really interesting defense of a woman’s right to find pleasure in material goods without being bashed for it, and Pepper’s interest in nice clothes fits right into the paradigm laid out by Willis, and against the liberal male cheap trick of bashing women for materialism. Incidentally, it’s funny how conservatives and liberals both have sexist reactions to the show “Sex and the City”—conservatives are angry the women grant themselves the male-reserved pleasure of sex, but liberals seem to be angry that women grant themselves the male-reserved pleasure of material goods.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think her character was modeled on the original servant extraordinaire, Jeeves from the PG Wodehouse stories. If you know the stories, you know what I mean. One of the running jokes in the stories is that Jeeves is a taste nazi, and forever destroying Bertie’s ridiculous impulse purchases and replacing them with things that are very tasteful and impeccable. It’s a part of the butler character….damn, I should just write a post.
Oh Fine, I’ll jump back into the fray. Later when I’m not at work anymore!
PS–I don’t think Violet was accusing anybody of blindness in particular! so much as empathizing with my feeling of something seeming so clear and obvious to me, but apparently not only NOT clear-and-obvious to others, but the exact opposite of what THEY’re perceiving.
LKS, maybe so, but that was definitely the impression I got, and that feeling of something being obvious to some but disputed by others still doesn’t automatically qualify as blindness on the part of the others, you know? I guess I’m just eternally frustrated by the idea that if liberals don’t agree on a specific critique, that the ones who oppose the critique, even if offering considered reasons and being open to changing their mind, are quickly labeled as blind. It’s an attack on the psychology of the person instead of a response to their counter-critique and makes the discussion personal instead of keeping it on-topic.
If I’m wrong, show me how. I’m perfectly willing to change my mind. But calling me blind isn’t an argument. Maybe that’s not what violet was doing, but she seemed to be comparing her 300 experience to this thread, and I don’t think that’s fair.
Okay, I am not at work anymore. (thank God! It’s FRIDAY for cryin’ out loud!)
Marc first (how sexist of me–actually it’s cause he’s got the first post up chronologically that I haven’t yet responded to in detail, ha!): Agreed that the climax of Pepper’s role in the movie was when she blew up the arc reactor. However, she got quite detailed instructions from Tony, as she did for every single other non-girly task she was required to perform throughout the movie–but I don’t point this out cause I think it’s sexist (like I know how to blow up an arc reactor, and I’m an engineer!). The botching came in when she choked up and shrieked “I CAN’T! YOU’LL DIE!” Was it possible to make a stupider remark at that moment? Was it not screamingly crystal clear that if she DIDN’T it wasn’t like he was gonna LIVE? Her freezing up at that moment when Stark MOST needed her to be her supposedly cool, calm, smart self (she is in fact none of those things outside the mindless world of the domestic assistant, as this movie repeatedly shows) would certainly have resulted in his demise if Stane had devoted five less seconds to his climactic villain monologue. Pepper saves him, all right, but clearly against her will–Rhodes would have done a far more efficient job on blowing that reactor, can you deny it? Can you really imagine him gasping and shrieking at Tony and fumbling with the controls, Pepper-style..? Well, no, cause…he’s not a GURL!
She only gets away with the file stealing–and she manages to slowly inch and fumble her way through the computer part of that as well, very obviously–because it takes Stane a few seconds to grasp that Pepper-the-pussy actually was sitting there doing something underhanded! What saves her is that the government guy has been following her around and she doesn’t “pretend” they were going to have a meeting–the last time she spoke to him she AGREED TO HAVE a meeting with him! I’m afraid that “lucking out” doesn’t qualify as being particularly “cunning” nor is it really the most impressive way to “get the job done.”
As far as “dumb materialistic slut/sniveling coward” goes, I never made the claim anywhere that I was referring to Pepper when I made that statement. In my very original review, I specifically tagged all the female secondary characters as being portrayed that way, and in this expanded review I specified the majority of women were portrayed that way. Basically, in Iron Man, “majority of women” = “every woman except Pepper Potts.” (The female soldier wasn’t portrayed as either one either, to be fair. She was there as the statement that the only efficient brave tough woman is one that looks and acts exactly like a man, which is why she joined in the laughter at the funniness of women in the military, cause she’s not like a Gurl!)
Does showing something in a movie that is intended by the creators to draw laughs, mean that the movie is endorsing that that particular concept should be and is legitimately funny? Yeah. Sorry. And I am really surprised that you didn’t see that Pepper was leaving the door wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open for a relationship between her and Stark to develop. He’s simply not interested enough in her sexually to be persistent and that’s why it stopped right there. He likes her, you know, and he doesn’t fuck women he likes, ew! Pepper’s not a “woman” (ie, pussy with legs to be ogled, groped, fucked and forgotten about as quickly as possible), she’s a PERSON! I say, if the movie was going to show that his misogyny really had changed, they’d have shown him actually desiring her simultaneously with and as intensely as he likes her. But no, he still doesn’t perceive any woman but Pepper as a real, live human being, and becoming a good man really has nothing to do with stopping being a misogynist, cause those are so NOT mutually exclusive! In this movie, anyway.
Now Amanda!
(should I cross-post on Pandagon?)
I’m sorry, but Stark was clearly in his forties and not the most smoking hot guy anybody’s ever seen–he’s okay, but if he were, say, a UPS truck driver, would all those beautiful, YOUNG women be flipping into his bed as they’re shown doing in the movie..? Of course not. The only possible reason he could be such an object of instant leg-spreading by these “10’s” in their 20’s is if they are…not too bright! since he doesn’t ever make any pretense of treating any of them like human beings, therefore only an idiot would think she’d be treated with any respect… OR blown away by his money and power…OR will basically screw anything. Dumb, materialistic sluts.
Pepper was never self-assured with Tony outside of the strict confines of her admin assistanthood. When he asked her to help with his heart, she stammered and fumbled and nearly killed him; when he showed up at the party she stammered and gasped and mumbled about “forgetting to wear her deodorant.” I very much agree that Pepper is not shown to be materialistic at all; my boss gives me a present on my birthday and it’s commensurate with my pay and his income. Pepper’s dress was commensurate with her situation as well. Ooh, “Sex and the City” is off topic a bit but I can’t resist saying a little here–I watched a few episodes three or four years ago (or was it five? maybe) cause I used to periodically hang out with a girl gang and they all just loved it. I thought it was lame, I admit, though my feelings about it were mild and they did not at all spring either from me thinking there was anything wrong with any of the women’s material philosophies or sexualities. I thought their emotional neediness towards men was pathetic. (The only character I could stand at all was, of course, Samantha–I never did see her doing that, thank goodness!)
I never thought the movie was sexist because Pepper was (basically) a “gentleman’s gentleman;” I thought it was sexist because it had her step out of that role and then proceed to act like a blithering, screamy GURL. If the movie had just left her as a calm, efficient domestic a la Albert, I’d've had far fewer problems with it.
Hmm, interesting responses, to be sure!
1) The “I can’t, you’ll die! Moment
We disagree completely over this being unique to Pepper because she’s a woman. First, it’s a standard movie cliche that Whoever Saves The Hero needs to be worried they’re going to do some horrible damage (kill the person, blow up the planet, whatever). This is always invoked, and even though it’s the lamest dramatic device ever, I have no doubt that any character in that situation would’ve been forced to do it. And Rhodes is *constantly* overprotective about Stark, so if he were there, I have no doubt he would’ve shrieked something like “No way, man! I’m not gonna have your blood on my hands!” Or whatever. If I need to comb movie annals to find scenes where two guys follow this same pattern, I suppose I will, but hopefully we can agree that it’s a cliche used regardless of gender. And while the lame “let’s raise the drama” moment flops, I do admit that if I were gonna blow some reactor with someone I cared about directly above it, i would probably express my reservations at least once.
2) File Stealing
So, yeah, Stane’s a sexist, and I think that only adds to the arguments that Pepper’s worth more credit than you’re giving her. You also sell short her smooth move to hide the download with the screen saver (Stane is obviously concerned enough to come look at the screen), then cover the device, then do sleight of hand to remove it, then get the hell out of there. All strong moves. And yeah, she had a meeting with the guy, but did she 1) blow her top and wail that Stane was after her? No. 2) Just run away like the typical damsel in distress? No. 3) keep her cool even though she was about to be kidnapped/killed, see an opening offered by the dull-yet-persistent gov’t tool, and use it? Yes.
The point in this scene is crucial to my argument — in nearly every other supers film (excepting X-Men), Lois or Mary Jane or whomever would’ve immediately been apprehended here. Do you agree? That’s exactly what it sets us up to think is gonna happen, too — BUT the movie flips that on its had and instead shows Pepper get away by being smart enough to exploit the gov’t agent’s appearance to get away. That play against type and cliche shows both her strength and the movie’s intentions.
3) Majority of Women = dumb/sniveling/materialistic/coward
I’m not sure I follow your argument. We agree Pepper doesn’t fall into that category (I will once again point out how so many hero flick women do), and we agree that the soldier doesn’t appear to be anything (except possibly dumb if you want to be uncharitable). The reporter? I argued already that while she fits a *different* lame stereotype than you point out (the Spurned Woman), she actually cares more than anything about stopping Stark from selling weapons to 3rd world countries, as evidenced by her moral outrage in the photo scene. She’s clearly not dumb, and she’s no coward if she can confront him like that, and she’s not materialistic or she would have asked for hush money or something. She’s lame, but not for these reasons. At this point, I would like to know which women you *do* think fit this. I feel the majority do not for the above reasons.
4) The open door for a future relationship
Yeah, it’s there. And what is it there waiting on? Stark to be less of a sexist self-absorbed asshole. If it happens, they’ll probably hook up, and if it doesn’t, she’ll probably end up with Happy Hogan as she does in the comics. And Stark’s desire for Pepper is pretty clear — remember the kiss? And his open desire to have her be a g/f at the end? He’s still a sexist asshole, though, and so he expresses it poorly. And that’s also why Pepper turns him down.
5) The “laughs = endorsement” theory
This comes down to Laughs With or Laughs At. We are supposed to be laughing at Stark for being such an asshole. This happens in comedic moments in film all the time — a character says or does something stupid or insulting or unbelievably rude, and we laugh at it. My favorite example is Trading Places. Dan Ackroyd’s scenes and Tony Stark’s scenes have some amazing parallels, actually.
Hey– haven’t seen Iron Man, so can’t speak to its levels of sexism (nor to its levels of military glorification, of which I’ve also read conflicting accounts, and which also interests me). Just wanted to poke my head in and say that I agree with how Marc took things regarding Violet’s 300 reference.
At first I was actually going to write off a quick note in favor of the other side, saying essentially what Lisa did– that Violent wasn’t actually referring to the discussing here, so much as bringing up a thematically similar event. But then I went back and reread Violet’s “In short, I hear you” and I realized that, although she wasn’t *explicitly* accusing anybody here of anything, she certainly seems to be clearly implying that the situations are analogous (though possibly different in degree). And so, when she calls the “300″ commenters blind, it therefore applies by analogy here.
I recognize that this has the danger of becoming a really lame discussion– “but when X said this, Y said this, and so Z ought to have said this, blah blah blah”– but… Marc’s point, that lazy rhetorical shortcuts are making Blogland a tedious place to be, is certainly a worthy one. So I guess he’s justified in calling it out when he sees it, especially when it’s at his own expense.
sorry-but i disagree with the x-men rating-it should get a 1/6 because dispite there being strong female characters in it-they’re all shunted to the back in favour of the male characters who’s trials and tribulations are for some reason more deep and important than the womens. i was appauled at the treatment of storm-although not a fan of the franchise she was pretty much wallpaper in all 3 films.
I hear you LK and I agree.
When I brought up simply the idea that the movie had some racism and sexism issues I was told I had to prove my wild assertions, asked to discuss it b/c they wanted to tell me how wrong I am and then told I was making it all up when I refused to offer “proof”.
Hi, I’ll join the conversation if it’s still going on.
I’m not the most sensitive woman I know regarding gender issues, but I didn’t feel at all that the movie was misogynistic. The main character surely was, but not in a way that we were supposed to support (although I did cringe at the Vegas Air scene).
Pepper’s “clumsiness” in the heart scene reflected her lack of familiarity with what she was supposed to do. Yes, she could have been an engineer, but then she wouldn’t have been his assistant, right? So she was asked to do something beyond her area of expertise, and she did it, albeit not brilliantly. She was more successful than Tony was in his first test flight (which we all saw coming but I still thought was pretty funny BTW).
It may be that this movie was too sexist, I’m not sure. I recently saw the original Indiana Jones movies, and that to me is the epitome of misogyny in an action movie. I loved that Pepper refused to be called his girlfriend, even if he obviously cares for him.
Wow, I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought this movie was even more sexist than most (though I admit Pepper could have been a much worse character, I think–her rejection of Stark at the end even though he’s supposedly a good guy now was pretty satisfying).
I haven’t read the Iron Man comics, so the only reason I didn’t walk out in the first ten minutes was because my friend informed me that Stark’s character arc is basically asshole -> not asshole; I thought he was being portrayed as a snarky, brash but cool guy: his sexist actions made everyone in the theater laugh (and not in a laughing-at-him way, or the uncomfortable laugh you get when you watch The Office and Michael makes a racist comment) rather than cringe. Not to mention the whole double standard is basically spelled out with Pepper’s “trash” comment to the reporter. And the whole “dance with me” “no” “dance with me” “no” *drags her to the dance floor* thing bothered me. Blech.
(X-Men for the win~)
Doesn’t the Spider-Man franchise get at least 2/6? The two young female roles get passed around from guy to guy (if they’re not sluts, they’re certainly trophies), and everything Mary Jane gets botched (she can’t even act!) or requires rescuing.
Re: Violet
I remember that post and subsequent discussion of it on rpg.net well. If it makes you feel any better, you certainly wern’t the only one that felt that way. The movie made me uneasy and a little sad. Anyhow, you definitely called it re: sexism and racism.
Here are my 3 problems with Iron Man.
1.)”Not any more sexist than your average summer action movie.” Even if this was true, Summer blockbusters and Hollywood movies, in general, are quite misogynist.
2.) Yes, Tony’s misogyny may have been used to magnify that Stark was an asshole, but he was portrayed as a likable, charismatic asshole.
3.) When Stark has a one-night stand with a reporter, Stark’s assistant, Pepper Pots, snidely remarks to the reporter that Pots’ job sometimes requires “taking out the trash,” the “trash” being the woman who slept with Stark. Stark is a stud (see #2) and the woman is “trash.”–nice.
Thank you! for writing this. I hated this movie but no one else had as much of a problem with it. To me, what made it not just sexist, but mysoginist, was the contempt with which all the female characters were treated (save the female soldier, but then she seemed to have contempt for other women…). Also the fact that Tony Stark was a complete asshole, but if that had been the only problem at least I wouldn’t have walked out of the theater feeling like I needed a shower.
How about a category that focuses on what happens in the background–or even all the little, naturalized actions? I’m thinking here of Spider Man, especially the second one where women serve food and men hand women dirty dishes as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world to assume women would take care of men’s dirty dishes. These assumed, naturalized stereotypes are really pernicious because they go unexamined and unquestioned and they also largely determine the main action and who gets to be a hero and who gets to be a sniveling nitwit: women spend all their time making coffee, serving it to men, and then clearing away the dishes while the men talk heroics. No wonder the biggest decision a woman makes in these films is which jerk to devote her life to trying to change!
But… but… Tony Stark. Sweaty. Hammering away. Mmmm.
But okay, still no excuse for that useless journalist character. Here’s hoping Madame Masque shows up in the sequel and kicks ass.
I disagree with your assessment on Spiderman. Mary Jane was the worst, sniveling, annoying co-lead ever. She bounced from man to man, got herself in trouble idiotically and pointless having to be rescued (at least Lois Lane got herself in trouble trying to do her job as a journalist), etc. etc. I would give Spiderman a 5/6: Mary Jane was portrayed as a sniveling coward, physically inept, she botched her handling of spiderman making him evil, Peter treats her paternally like he has to protect her and hide the truth from her rather than his equal, she is very one-dimensional…
Hi all. I’m only about halfway through this thread, but I have to make one salvo on the topic of “all women are portrayed as dumb sluts for sleeping with Tony.” A couple takes here:
1. Tony is shown as being really good at schmoozing people and getting his way, regardless of gender throughout the movie.
- He gets a pissed off and relkuctant Rhodes to drink sake and loosen up on the plane, right after another of Tony’s lame, friendship destrying fuck-ups.
- He he stages a kick ass PR session with the generals when he shows the Jericho off, complete with travelling scifi bar.
- He wins over the whole Humvee of troops (yes including the womena soldier) even though this is exactly the kind of mission that would make hardened troops pissed off (”I have to escort around some rich achoholic schmuck through Afganistan, for real?”) and then actively distracts them from their mission. The troops whoi are supposed to be looking out for trouble are instead taking goofy “I met Tony Stark” pictures.
- When he holds the quick press conference he tells a huge crowd of reporters to sit on the floor Cumbaya-style they all instantly comply.
2. Fame, not money the great equalizer
I think most of the wide-eyed reaction and compliance he gets is actually from his fame and his charismatic personality. The VF reporter wasn’t getting a pile of cash from him or anything and she’s a reporter for VANITY FAIR. She can get perks pretty much at will from fancy stores and restaurants just by mentioning that. She slept with him because he’s supposed to be a disarming, charming party boy who insinuates himself by being REALLY famous and REALLY fun.
Pre-Afgan Tony is a totally narcissistic sleaze, but he still hasn’t got a trophy wife or any of the trappings of someone willing to trade money for sex. He has flings. I don’t think that makes the women who sleep with him morons. I think he charms them, and or they do it for the story value. I think you could say exactly the same thing about the men who do things for him or go way beyond their professional boundaries for him. He smooth talked them. They can tell their buddies they went partying with Tony Stark.
I guess I would argue that the movie doesn’t depict the women as dumb sluts. I think it depicts everyone as charmed by Tony to a greater or lesser extent. Like the woman soldier, I thinklike everyone in the Humvee, she was starstruck. I can totally see her later on thinking “wait, he said what now?” Just like the guys in the Humvee proably said to themselves, I can’t believe I stopped looking out for trouble to take a picture of that guy.”
And I agree with Marc about how the VF reporter didn’t give him any free passes because they slept together, she kept right on target with her critique of his war-mongering ways.
So essentially I’m saying women (and men) were both charmed and starstruck, not dumb and slutty.
Also, what Maria said about Pepper being competent, but not an engineer.
Re X-Men–I didn’t really see that Storm was more marginalized than Cyclops was…
Re Indiana Jones–omg, I saw that when I was really little, the first one, and I didn’t even know what sexism WAS and I totally hated it because of that.
I think I have to concede re the Spiderman movies–for one thing, I only saw 2 1/2 of them–I saw parts of the third one on a plane to Finland–and for the other, I haven’t seen the first two in a really, really long time so I can’t defend them with the specificity that I use with “Iron Man.” Actually this thread is inspiring me to re-watch them, I am totally gonna do that this weekend. Beware, though, this may spawn Yet Another Post.
I also agree that Tony was portrayed as charming EVERYONE regardless of gender (and also except for Stane). However, he wasn’t shown using for something quite personal and then contemptuously forgetting everyone regardless of gender–only women.
Re the female reporter–he didn’t make the faintest effort to be charming towards her. He used a tired and sorry collection of lines that every woman gets in any bar and/or contemptuous dismissal of everything she had to say–there is absolutely no reason at all she would ever have wanted to sleep with him, beautiful, young, rich and hobnobbing with celebrities as she did and was, unless she was also dumb as a stump and/or was willing to sleep with anyone rich and famous (probably why she had that job in the first place, along with the whole who-you-know dynamic). And the scene where she goes, “I believed you and it was all crap!” (paraphrased, can’t remember her exact words) and shows him the picture of his weapons–believed him based on WHAT EXACTLY?? Only a dumbass would’ve believed his about-face based on that one press conference he gave and given her personal experience with him.
Loved the movie, but two little bits that rubbed me the wrong way:
-The female soldier didn’t even get out of the car. IIRC, she fell immediately and was down for the count.
-Pepper’s glee at ‘taking out the trash.’ And yet… Tony himself, who’s bringing home this so-called ‘trash,’ is just too irresistible.
Like to add something that stood out to me: the FBI agent (or whomever he was) implied that he might put on an Iron Man suit next movie, rather than Pepper, despite her being more of a central character than him.
Nogard, that detail is kind of entrenched in the Iron Man backstory. They made Pepper tolerable, even likable (hey, that reporter deserved a bitchy comment), but I’m not sure putting her in the suit is the way to go.
Was I the only one who was pleased when Tony gave her those insane instructions on how to blow up the building using that generator, and she knew exactly what the fuck he was talking about? And was completely prepared to do it?
Re: the reaction of the audience at Tony’s sexist antics. That to me is yet more evidence of sexism in society - not necessarily in the movie. But I won’t go out of my way to say this movie is squeaky clean. My impression is that it’s not, but it’s far from the worst. And mainly, that I was not distracted by the treatment of women in the movie.
I don’t recall the “taking out the trash” scene perfectly, but I don’t think the reporter was too heartbroken. She seemed to me to be using him as much as he was using her [to be honest, I would understand it if a young woman took her chance to sleep with, say, one of the founders of Google (assume they’re single), or Steve Jobs (again, assume he’s single)]. Pepper’s “taking out the trash” seemed to me to be a reply to the reporter’s pretty patronizing comment on her still working for Stark. Maybe the tension itself is misogynistic - catfighting and whatnot. I agree that it was definitely unnecessary.
Tony could only be shown using women “for something personal”, but he did forget the SHIELD agent and his appointment with him. He seemed to me to disregard pretty much everyone but Obadiah, Pepper, and Rhodes.
Also, Tony’s company was in the doldrums and he was being forced to step down. This seems to be pretty convincing evidence of an about face. So while I find the “I believed you” part a bit melodramatic, I don’t think it suggests she’s stupid.
Totally looking forward to the Yet Another Post on Spiderman. I found this blog through Feministing and it’s gone directly to my RSS reader.
One of the odd things about Iron Man is that Tony Stark is supposed to be a rather unpleasant character with occasional flashes of goodness. He is a sexist pig; he’s also callous and militaristic, a self-promoting fame-seeker, and incredibly egotistical (”Well, I have to stop selling weapons, but it’s OK if I have giant weapons personally and use them myself, because I will decide rightly who lives and who dies!”)
It makes it hard to tell whether the movie is misogynistic when the “hero” is mysogynistic, but also isn’t really a hero.
Pepper’s pretty solidly written except that she’s got the super-cliched attachment to her boss. Unfortunately that is straight from the original comics, which could have done a lot better.
Frankly, this is a movie which tries to have it both ways. It attracts people who like Tony’s nasty character, while pointing out to the more sophisticated audience that he is a nasty piece of work. I think they get away with it, but I have mixed feelings about it. It’s sort of like Xena — strong female characters, but they’re also half-naked all the time….
Actually, I can’t agree with your initial set of criteria for “is it sexist?”. If you applied the criteria to one movie in isolation (as you have done) you would certainly reach the conclusion that the movie isn’t sexist. What your criteria fails to take into account is systemic sexism in superhero movies, the tropes that are repeated again and again and again. Do superhero movies as a whole have 52% women leads?