StanleyWheeler

Bond and Thor - because girl power

Every time word of a movie remake with a gender swapped lead appears, the articles praising it sprout like noxious weeds. The latest word concerns the upcoming entries in the Bond and Thor franchises.

This article explains that gender swap remakes have fared poorly in the past.

Some claim the continuing cavalcade of lame gender swap remakes is a sign of progress. Others say it's an indication that women aren't capable of carrying their own original movies and can only climb aboard franchises already made successful with male stars. See this article. Of course they're both wrong. It's only a sign of progress if "progress" is defined as failure to learn and insistence upon a false narrative. It's like claiming that communism just hasn't been implemented correctly yet, and it's going to succeed beyond our wildest dreams if we just get the right people in charge (meaning those who want to be in charge this time). As for the other claim, I believe women are perfectly capable of carrying a movie. This article even claims that movies starring women make more money than movies starring men. There is some fine print to read about what "starring women" means in the context of the study--because it doesn't mean what you think it means. I'm not going to argue with how the study defined "starring women" but it may be like "teen pregnancy" which drops off significantly after age 25 because the studies decided that "teen pregnancy" would be defined as pregnancy up to age 25. So without arguing, I'll agree that a female star can successfully carry a movie or a franchise with original stories. Of course, it all depends on the story, the script, the acting, and the directing.

Notwithstanding the fact that female stars can carry a movie or franchise, I'm of the opinion that most of us tend to get attached to the characters (and actors) in stories and roles that we love. We don't want to see them significantly altered. Although J.J. Abrams may have made many errors with his Star Trek reboots, he didn't try to makeover (bad pun intended) Kirk and Spock as women, or Uhura as a man. Anyone who wants to see through a glass darkly how badly that could've turned out need only watch a few episodes of Voyager--but I digress. Box office bucks don't seem to be the reason for such switcheroos because those movies are not box office successes. Is it possible that the reason is simply an expensive attempt to destroy something whose success is based upon (obviously and always toxic) masculinity? Or is it simply a political maneuver to raise awareness, to elevate the "woke" quotient? While it may well be the latter, it seems that the former may be the actual result. The wreckage leaves a pretty clear trail: Last Jedi, Ghostbusters, Ocean's 8, whatever that thing was/is with Rebel Wilson and Ann Hathaway, Overboard, etc. Replace the male leads with females and destroy the subject. (I'm aware that Last Jedi doesn't really fit this category. Rey was great, in my opinion, but the feminist/SJW freight train that drove through the middle of LJ left no survivors of interest for me in that franchise--so I admit including LJ in this list is sloppy on my part, but I'm entitled to rant outside the lines).

Also of interest is the fact that the gender swap tends to run in but a single direction. Until we see a Wonder Woman remake with a male lead...and I have no interest in seeing that either. Leave Wonder Woman as she is. I see no reason we can't enjoy The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. (Those of you under 40 may have to google those). She does not have to replace him to be successful and it's moronic to think that she does, or that she can effectively do so, and vice versa.

As for Bond and Thor... I suppose it could have been worse, they could have tried to give Bond a man-bun.

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As for my work in progress, Power to Hurt (which no one will want to read after taking offense at the little rant above), I should finish the actual writing this week. That means 5K words or less should wrap it up. It's currently at 86K words and 90K is the new target for completion, but it may go as high as 95K.