Men Thoughts (circa Feb 9 2020)
I had originally titled this Love letter to Men, but that was…mislabeled.
I just had my first major fight with my good friend, my good GUY friend. It all started out very innocent, we were discussing the movie FORD V. FERRARI via text message. My friend really liked it. I hadn’t seen it yet. I said, “seems like there are a lot of male ideals in it” and he said, “Mmm more so about ambition and dreams and the real life stuff that gets in the way.” — and THAT is the beginning of our fight.
And coincidently, the core reason why women are not represented in Hollywood. That right there, the initial jump from a lady saying “Hmmmm seems pretty MALE” to a male saying “NOOOO not really.” I shall expand.
(Also, I’d recommend not text-fighting if you can avoid it because boy O girl did it get heated.)
Yes, from my friend’s POV, he is right and I am Crazy Woman Texting. FORD V FERRARI is a great movie about two guys who ‘represent humanity’ - fighting against world standards and trying to catch dreams. However, my pal’s key argument was that when a story is told in a beautiful and succinct way, it feels petty to try and shove more women into it just to say “we have women.” He argued - The story was told with themes relevant to humanity at large, it reflected men and women, Friend even brought up the fact that my argument against him in this long text thread synced up with some of the key struggles of the hero in Ford v FERRARI. He also, very justly, stated I can’t review it, I hadn’t seen the movie! And thus, my point on the lack of women ideals was unreasonable. OK.
My initial response back to Friend as he shared this perspective was to send him a list of who made this movie - YOU GUESSED IT, ALL MEN:
Directed by a man
Written by 3 men
Shot by a man
Produced by 9 men 1 woman
Art direction by 5 men 1 women
Production design by a man
Set decorating by a man
Costume design by a man
Edited by 13 men and 1 women
And I haven’t even gone through all the departments on the filing cabinet of IMDB yet. He agreed, it “sucks” that there aren’t a lot of women represented behind the camera. But that wasn’t his main point, he was focused on the fact that I was judging a movie I hadn’t seen simply because it didn’t have any women leads. OK.
I went and I saw the movie today. It’s about some powerful men and their cars and then some non-powerful men and their cars. Could it have had more women centric thought? Yes. Could it have had more women in it? Yes. Was it a good movie? In Hollywood terms, sure.
It was a movie that didn’t need to get made. Do we really need a billion dollar movie about white men and their cars again? HIStory is right, all history is focused on the He.
As Susan B Anthony once said, a woman’s role in history is “Anonymous".”
Our society is a world of tribes within our tribes, we tell stories through the eyes of the collective. I think I was sad and mad about this because I thought me and my Friend were of the same tribe. And what I am learning is that men don’t realize that they can’t write for women, they think they know us and get it and KNOW when certain stories don’t need women in them.
It’s the first time I’ve felt pure anger and resentment at the mental walls men have built up to keep women out. This convo with my friend.
And, there is no end yet. Well, there was an end to this fight, we both got over it, and moved on, and I resolved myself to realize all men have a journey towards accepting the way they include women into stories. SO for now, I guess, let’s make more movies about women told by women. I’m trying to help this fight and this expression within out tribe.
