One boss down, two to go

Title: Horrible Bosses
Genre: Comedy | Crime
Starring: Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis

 Review:

From using the score sheet, Horrible Bosses scored a D with a total of three points. I did not choose this movie expecting it to score too high on the representation test. I chose it simply because I enjoy it and was curious as to see what it would end up being. For this reasoning, its poor score of a D was not a huge surprise to me. It does however make you think about how little diversity was put into play within this film. I definitely think it lacks a vast amount of diversity and does not fairly display minorities.

There is a scene toward the beginning of the film in which one of the guys’ old friends from high school is not doing well in the work force. In order to make money, he is offering to perform homosexual duties to men in exchange for cash. He claims he is not gay, but is definitely performing gay acts. I was not sure whether or not to check the box for having a homosexual speaker or not, because he claims he’s not gay.

It does feature women or should I say woman in a diverse body type. Meaning that it features a woman speaker who is not the stereotypical perfect body, beautiful woman. This lady is played as Margie who works for Nick in Pellit’s company. Not only is she not the ideal model of a woman, but she is also not the “stay at home” housewife. She has a job (not a great one) and makes her own money. She is only seen in the movie a couple of times and the main moment is in the beginning right after Mr. Pellit passes away and his son takes over. She is considered being fired because of her size, but Nick defends her in saying that she is pregnant. I guess you could look at this in a stereotypical way, but I don’t believe it is meant to be taken in that context. Another reasoning for the box checked about women in different roles would be the role Jennifer Aniston plays. She is a boss in this film of Dale (one of the four stars) that contains incredible sexual desires toward Dale. I find this interesting as I feel this is usually the other way around. I feel as if it is usually the man who is the boss and who is using his attractive secretary in sexual ways. Therefore, this is definitely a new representation of women.

I checked the box for “does the film avoid glorifying violent men?” I checked this because of the reason that the plot of the movie is about group of four funny, good, honest men attempting to kill their bosses which are seen to be evil, selfish, greedy people. The way I see it, the movie looks to push the viewer away from these evil bosses and put the viewer on the side of the four stars of the show (the protagonists). All of these bosses represent the stereotypical male boss who wants more money than he can handle and more power than is ever necessary.

The film definitely includes men in non-stereotypical roles. This is shown by Dale, who is a dental hygienist and not an actual doctor. It’s interesting because the actual doctor is a woman. He also states that he grew up wanting to be a husband and nothing more. That is the stereotypical response for a woman a couple of decades ago. It is interesting to see this male position take place in this show and I feel it was definitely included more for a comedic addition rather than something to be taken seriously. This is mostly due to the fact that the entire show is a comedy.

The second disability box is close to being checked. In the beginning of the show at Pellit Company, Nick is forced to fire Hank, a crippled employee of the firm. Because he was fired simply because of the fact that he was disabled removes the opportunity to check this box as his disability is limiting him from work.

What this movie lacks in diversity it makes up for in comedy. It is one of the funniest shows of the past decade and I can watch it over and over without getting exhausted of it. However, the lacking of diversity could show to be an issue and is something I think they should have considered further. None of the main characters are of any minority and they do not do a great job of including them throughout the film. The poor scoring of this film is once again not surprising. I would say that the scoring system seems to be fair. It is however, a bit strict and is very specific on boxes that could potentially be checked.

"Pulp Fiction" Made a B on the Rep Test so... Who Cares?

Pulp Fiction (Drama)(1994)

"Pulp Fiction Trailer":

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Review

     Pulp Fiction is not just a movie I love because of it's unbelievable story and acting, but the star-filled, and successful, movie is also a crusher of the idea of the "Representative Test". This test, if you will, is a checklist used to see how "culturally aware" a movie is. I'm sure the movies that make a C or below are hated upon by the probably left-winged extremists, but should they be? Pulp Fiction, is, by no means, a movie focusing on trying to be filled with all types of people, nor is it a film focusing on straying away from stereotypes, yet it does feature a very diverse cast. Director and screenplay writer Quentin Tarantino is actually the type of writer who embraces the stereotypes of certain people or groups. The movie is full of mostly white and male characters, yet it is still able to be argued that the movie can score a B (nine points) on the Representative Test. Pulp Fiction finds the flaws that lay inside the core of the Representative Test, presenting the system as broken.

     Now that I have your attention, let's relax and go over this systematically and objectively. According to Lunsford and Ruszkiewicz's Everything's an Argument vol. 5, "In analyzing most arguments, you'll have to decide wether an argument makes a plausible claim and offers good reasons for you to believe it". The Representative Test claims it is a, "media literacy tool meant to spark learning and conversation around representation in film, and to encourage more overall diversity on screen and behind-the-scenes in Hollywood". This is all wonderful, and an honestly "good" intention, but there are two questions that bug me. Does this test really matter? Does the general public really care? Pulp Fiction is not exactly the kind of movie that has a single "protagonist". The movie follows the stories of four separate pairs of people who all cross paths in the end. It follows Vincent (a white man, gangster) and Jules (a black man, gangster), Butch (a white man, boxer) and Fabienne (a french woman, Butch's wife), Ringo (a white man, crook) and Yolanda (a white woman, crook), and Marcellus (a black man, ringleader) and Mia (a white woman, Marcellus' wife). The movie, which is roughly two-and-a-half hours long, gives dedicated time to each of these characters, thus leading to no single "protagonist". On top of this, each of the characters are extremely flawed and are not necessarily "good" people. All of these characters cross paths at different points, creating a very elaborate and detailed story.

     The problem I have with the Representative test is that it seems to heavily imply that most movies are full of stereotypes, mainly against all woman. It asks a plethora of questions involving female leads, with male questions pertaining to violence and stereotypes. When it comes to Race, Ethnicity, and Culture, it only has one question! This is followed by just two questions about LGBT and Disabled People. How many questions are there are about Women? Seven! Moving onto Pulp Fiction, I will explain all of my checked off answers.

• Is the protagonist a woman? - Well, technically, one of the main characters is a woman, Mia, but there are also many other important female characters in the film.
• Does the film represent women as more than "objects for the male gaze"? - Most of the female characters are married and the only part that is really about sex, involves male-to-male.
• Does the film include women speaking roles with diverse types? - There is a particular scene where Butch hits Marcellus with his car and crashes. Marcellus awakens to a bunch of different women asking if he's okay. The same happens for Butch. This lasts less than a minute, but some of the women are of different body sizes. That should count, right?
• Does the film pass the Bechdel Test? - There is a scene where two rather insignificant characters, Jody and Trudi, discuss body piercings. They are both female. This means it counts.
• Does the film avoid perpetuating an extreme and unhealthy body ideal for men? - With it's multitude of characters, and with the story at hand, the body types of the men in the movie never seem to matter. Most of the action is done with guns and words, not fists.
• Does the film include one or more men of color, in speaking roles, who are NOT reduced to racial stereotypes? - The two main black characters, Jules are Marcellus, are both gangsters. However, Vincent, a white man, is also a gangster. Ringo, another white man, plays a crook and robber. This erases the "black people would be gangsters" stereotypes because white people are involved in these activities as well.
• Does the film include men in non-stereotypical roles? - There is a scene where a white man, Jimmy (played by Quentin Tarantino actually), complains about Jules and Vincent visiting him because his wife will be back from work soon. This implies that he is a stay-at-home husband, which is against the norm.
• Does the film include one or more LGBT characters who are NOT reduced to stereotypes? - There is a scene, one fourth hilarious and the rest awkward, where two homosexual men, ahem - excuse me here, rape Marcellus and keep Butch hostage. This is definitely against the stereotypes of gay men.

     As we can see, it is rather easy to manipulate this system to work. Personally, I find it very important that men, women, all ethnicities, people of the LGBT community, and disabled people, all deserve equal and complete respect in the real world. However, when it comes to movies, it needs to be realized that movies are stories created for entertainment. While people like me love to see deep movies with intriguing characters (like Pulp Fiction), it is important to understand that the majority of people enjoy rather simple movies with simple characters.

     According to Everything's an Argument vol. 5, "We don't need to be reminded that visual images have clout". The poster for Pulp Fiction features Mia laying on a bed smoking a cigarette. People who do not know the movie could easily say, "Oh wow. This movie has a female as a lead". While this is true in some sense, as we discussed, there are multiple leads in this film. Overall, what I am saying is that the Representative Test is not the best way to go about getting Hollywood to be more active in recruiting more diverse actors and stories. The stories and characters of Hollywood are all written to be played by certain roles. There are movies that have all white people and there are movies that have all black people. Every single movie has it's own group of people who enjoy them. Pulp Fiction, while scoring a high B with nine points, is also a movie with loads of violence, racism, bad language, and more. However, there are interracial couples, characters of different ethnicities, and leads of both men and women. Pulp Fiction is a solid representation of the lack of understanding the importance of story in the Representative Test. For these reasons, it deserves three director cuts, and a A+ in creating an elaborate and intriguing story.

Run Burgundy is back!

Run Burgundy is back!

For the final blog I have decided to Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. I’m pretty sure many of you guys have already at least watched the first Anchorman. This sequel pretty much follows the same story line with the addition of some different characters. In Anchorman 2, Ron Burgundy (Will Farrell) is leaving in New York with his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) and son. After some time working at the news station, Veronica is promoted and the promotion makes her the first female full time news anchor, while Ron is fired for his poor performance as anchor. Desperate with this decision from their boss, he decided that would be better to leave his wife and go back to San Diego. Right after, Ron gets a proposal from one of the producers of GNN to be apart of the first 24-hour new network, Ron accepts the offer and goes in a quest to gather his old friends; Brian Fantana, Champ Kind and Brick Tamland. The sequel is also direct by Adam Mckay and Will Farrell.

As you can see the movie received a grade of 4, which is equivalent to a C. Since it is a comedy I think this movie represents and does a very good job in stereotyping most of the people and identities that are showed in the movie. Even though I think the first movie was way better and funnier Anchorman 2 also makes you give some good laughs. Lets brake down the movie according to the representation test and detail more each section.

Women

For the sequel I would say that we have a strong presence of women and one of the main character being a black woman; Linda Jackson, however, we can see a lot of racial and stereotypical comments towards her in the beginning. I could have Linda and Veronica as protagonists but unfortunately I don't think they play a rule to could lead them to be awarded as protagonists since many of the movie is more focused on Ron and his crew ascension.

However, in some scenes the women are being portrayed as inferior and not being good enough, we can notice this in the first scene when Veronica is promoted and when Linda Jackson is mad at Ron for reporting something that is not considered news, Champ Kind says; “Ron, just do what men have been doing for a thousand of years and punch the woman, punch her, punch the woman!” this once again show the stereotype towards women being inferior to men and that is perfectly normal to beat women since men have being doing it forever. Nevertheless, the movie even though the movie does not show diverse body types of women, I don’t think it reinforces that women should be from a certain way, since it presents some women that could be considered misfit.

Men

I think as expected I think we can see a strong presence of men on this movie. Most of the main characters are men and the story is pretty much around them, from their fall to their ascension. However, we can see that men are presented in many different ways and from perfect looking good men to idiotic misfit and not so conventional type of men.

Race, Ethnicity and Culture

In this section I think is where the movie emphasizes a lot it genre and making a lot of jokes for the different races and cultures. Therefore, I don’t think it would have a check mark in avoiding celebrating racial, ethnic and cultural stereotypes. We can see the many scenes and jokes where toward race and cultural differences. One of the scenes is mocking the Australian accent, you can see below.

Also, we can see all the possible stereotypes towards black people in the dinner scene. Actually, I think that was one of the most funniest and best scenes of the movie even though Ron is just being Ron and making the most inconvenient comments and accent in a dinner like that, Linda tried to cut him off many times but it just didn't work.

These are not the only scenes that we can notice this pattern, however, since it is a comedy I guess we don’t have to take it very seriously, but it definitely shows what many people think and how certain races and cultures are portrayed.

LGBT People

In this matter I don’t think this movie even touches on it. At least I didn’t notice a joke about it. That’s why it couldn’t have any marks or points for it.

People with Disabilities

In this movie we don’t have a protagonist that has any kind of disability, however, we can see that in some point Ron becomes blind because Jack Lime. Nevertheless, while he is blind we can see how blind people a portrayed in this movie. As you can see we can interpreter that blind people are pretty much incapable of doing anything, which is not true. In some point it gives us the sensation that blind people are dumb or incapable of performing any kind of demanding task. However, as the movie goes Ron as blind with the help of his wife was able to do things better, which could mean that even blind people don’t have the necessary skills they can learn or improve in order to do well. You can see one of the scenes below.

To conclude, since the movie didn’t score so well in the Representation Test I would like to give it a two directors cut. Even though the first one seemed to be better, the sequel is not too bad, is definitely worth watching. At the end of the day is just a comedy and everything is done in a funny way, the jokes are always attacking or mucking a certain race or culture and many of the scene stereotyping in a way that this group is seen, even though might not be the case in some times.