Woke Movies

[—Participant]

_Robert_ wrote:

You may be the only one in the theater, Autumn.

Probably not. Not to be cynical, but the increasing ‘wokeness’ in film is unlikely done out of strict altruism from your average producer. There have been quite a few commercial and box office successes so far.

Contrary to Hollywood’s thinking, the vast majority of women are attracted to tall, dark and handsome and most men still want sexy, beautiful women. A humorless, romantically void, 100 lb stick (yet somehow physically strong) woman who is kicking the hell out of 200 lb bad guys is just never gonna be popular. Hero to no one.

What the actual fuck are you talking about? There is more to cinema than the fuckability of the leads, and having fuckable leads often hasn’t produced great cinema. What is it that’s really sticking in your craw here? Movie quality, or that there hasn’t been enough pandering to the shit you grew up with despite the plethora of MCU, Fast and Furious, Bond films still pretty much pushing the aesthetic you just mentioned?

Also, the ‘somehow physically strong’ parenthetical makes zero fucking sense. Have you ever seen an action movie? Shit like Die Hard is not sensible or realistic. Vertical Limit would have seen Stallone die multiple times over. It strains suspension of disbelief multiple times over, yet we’ve been sold this sort of narrative of the super soldier anyway.

[DavisModerator]

I’d be extremely interested to see evidence that the overwhelming majority of women are interested in tall dark haired men. Please back this up.

I’d also like to see evidence that men are turned off by strong women who could kick some douchebags ass. Please provide evidence for that.

Evidence please (and keep in mind, you didn’t claim this was a vague general preference). When I actually ASK my friends what they like in their partners, the answers vary considerably.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Davis wrote:

I’d be extremely interested to see evidence that the overwhelming majority of women are interested in tall dark haired men. Please back this up.

Yes, this sounds like a Men’s Rights Activists myth, that justifies their binary win/lose view of the world.  I think it’s more like horses for courses.

[DavisModerator]

Indeed Simon, considering like, a third of Scottish men are ginger/blonde, does that mean that most of their girlfriends settled for them?

[_Robert_Participant]

Yeah, women really go for short, chubby, redheaded guys. Get real, we all know women swoon over certain types. Yeah, OK you can be a dirty blonde if you look like Robert Redford or Brad Pitt. And if you are Tom Cruise, you’re gonna be standing on egg crates for a while. My best bud is 5’6″, but not a bad looking guy. I am 5′ 10″. When we went to a club, I would talk to 20 women and always get some numbers or a date or more. He never got one number. Married the first woman who would talk to him and that was a disaster.

Who is gonna get the positive tinder swipes, someone like Cary Grant or a dude like “Fluffy”? It’s gonna be 10,000 to 1 and the one who swiped right on fluffy did so by accident.

We all know this. You are also kidding yourself if you think action heroes can be physically unattractive. There is no avoiding biological attractiveness cues, such as facial symmetry and a strong body as much as you try to rationalize that away.

So yeah, I should admire the rich, white “woke” movie moguls as they feel so much better after posting their tweets from their walled-off mansions or when they drive their Jag 20 miles out of their way to the private airport just to avoid the bad hoods? Ricky Gervais really gave it to them at their own award show. That was priceless.

 

 

[DavisModerator]

Sorry Robert, listing a set of cliche undesirable traits does not prove that the overwhelming majority of women go for tall dark haired men. Evidence please, not stereotypes or your narrow experience. Evidence.

[_Robert_Participant]

There are oodles of studies on this and even the so-called “short-man syndrome” as a cultural meme is just one result. Some woman will flat out tell a guy; you are too short or I wanna wear heels, but most don’t like to admit it. Their actions say it all. Where have you been, Davis?

Women, on average, tend to be more attracted to men who have a relatively narrow waist, a V-shaped torso, and broad shoulders. Women also tend to be more attracted to men who are taller than they are, and display a high degree of facial symmetry, as well as relatively masculine facial dimorphism.

[1] Glassenberg AN, Feinberg DR, Jones BC, Little AC, Debruine LM (December 2010). “Sex-dimorphic face shape preference in heterosexual and homosexual men and women”. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 39 (6): 1289–96. doi:10.1007/s10508-009-9559-6. PMID 19830539. S2CID 25066289.
[2]Perrett DI, Lee KJ, Penton-Voak I, Rowland D, Yoshikawa S, Burt DM, Henzi SP, Castles DL, Akamatsu S (August 1998). “Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness”. Nature. 394 (6696): 884–87. Bibcode:1998Natur.394..884P. doi:10.1038/29772. PMID 9732869. S2CID 204999982.]

A weak chin is another issue for guys seeking women. Good luck if you don’t get the implant, but geez, get a good surgeon. The French Bogdanoff twins were “heartthrobs” until they over did it and became a freak show. Both were anti-vax, got COVID and died.

I feel men are more honest about their preferences and more realistic about the attractiveness of their potential mates, while women get huge ego boosts from all the online attention from guys with little chance. Put on a mini dress, shake your ass a bit and a month later they have 10 Million views from the sad bottom 80% of males and then a check in the mail.

PS: I just wanted to add that back when I was on the dating sites, being under 6 foot tall was too short for more than half of the female profiles I looked at. That seems to be the gold standard requirement. So after being frustrated, I lied, got more than twice the hits and wore cowboy boots so these 5’2″ girls didn’t know the difference. So stupid. And half the women were way over their reported weight as well.

[—Participant]

What men and women find aesthetically pleasing is only so relevant to cinema. It’s also undoubtedly shaped by cultural bias. When we talk about viable acting careers, many leading men have been short, albeit with handsome faces. Granted, in the days of Tom Cruise a lot of effort was made to have them appear taller, but when we look at someone like Tom Holland, he really doesn’t look that big on screen because he’s not in real life.

But even those who don’t have the looks we’d expect of a sexiest man of the year—Seymour Philip Hoffman, Danny DeVito, Joe Pesci, Ron Perlman, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro (etc.)—have had highly successful acting careers (and this is leaving off all the comedians whose looks don’t or didn’t fit the mold). With leading ladies, we see fewer exceptions of women breaking into Hollywood who didn’t start out with modelesque looks, and aging out of the industry is much harsher, but I’m not sure why anyone would want to reinforce that bullshit for the sake of quality cinema especially when we know it has negative impacts.

So again, if you want to lament about movie quality, what the fuck do looks matter for cinema on the whole? There is no shortage of film highlighting culturally normative beauty standards if all you need is to add to your spank bank or self-insert fantasies. That’s not likely to happen anytime soon even in ‘woke’ films. So really, what are you on about?

[UnseenParticipant]

As to what women find attractive in men, first, let’s recognize that tall, dark, and handsome is a colloquial expression referring to physical traits generally. Taken literally, it would mean women dream about meeting LeBron James. But that’s absurd.

I think if one looks across a number of studies, some common traits emerge, but few women base their whole response on just one and she may devalue one trait she finds generally attractive based on the heavier weight she gives another.

And of course some women may value traits other women don’t. Every woman, like every man, is an individual.

Looking across several studies, these traits emerged. Remember to bear in mind the caveats above.

Most women prefer a man who is taller and older than her.

Most women like men who makes them laugh.

Most women like men who are kind and mindful.

Most women find dog-ownership attractive (not cats? hmm).

Most women want a man with a bit of demonstrable wealth like an expensive car, clothes, or watch; a nice condo or apartment or even a house; a man who can afford to travel, etc.

My conclusion: a lot of these things boil down to what makes a man a good parent and/or provider in addition to being a good husband.

[UnseenParticipant]

Autumn, I don’t think I’m alone in wondering what you find attractive in men or even if you are attracted to men. I mean, other than complete and total congruity with your rather highly politicized way of looking at the world. I can’t imagine you’d get along with anyone who didn’t share it almost 100%

[UnseenParticipant]

Davis wrote:

Sorry Robert, listing a set of cliche undesirable traits does not prove that the overwhelming majority of women go for tall dark haired men. Evidence please, not stereotypes or your narrow experience. Evidence.

Come on. You seem to think there’s contrary evidence to what Robert is saying. You might provide it to enhance the discussion.

Oh, are we talking again?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I’m no expert, but I believe that while women may find the “tall dark and handsome” stereotype physically attractive, – what makes one person settle down with another is highly idiosyncratic.  Who knows why people fall in love?  It’s different in every case.  At the same time, one is less likely to fall in love with some people (who don’t have their shit together) compared with others (who can look after themselves and others).

My point is, it’s about more than looks.  Looks can only get you so far.

[_Robert_Participant]

As if the leading movie stars are not above average in attractiveness.  If the “Basic Instinct” flick is gonna have some very ordinary woman you might see at Walmart crossing her legs in a skirt, people would be like, “huh, that’s gross”. I don’t want my fantasy/action/romantic leads to be average (or below average) looking. That’s why we have “character” actors. Even dumber than that, if we are to the point where Snow White is not snow white and the 7 dwarves are not dwarves, WTF am I watching?

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

My point is, it’s about more than looks. Looks can only get you so far.

Surely. However, you must get through that first gate to play.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Surely. However, you must get through that first gate to play.

OK.  But there’s nothing wrong with women enjoying attention from men they find attractive, and not enjoying attention from men they don’t find attractive.  It’s logical.

“That first gate” is quite a low bar.

[Author]

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