Lord of the Flies with girls.

[ElizabethofYork]

So basically like most literature until fairly recent times, still probably in predominance...

You think "most" literature explores issues about masculinity?

 

[Agent Sparrow]

You think "most" literature explores issues about masculinity?

Well most literature has been written by men, about men, so yeah, as default most literature is about masculinity.

 

[Sirena]

You think "most" literature explores issues about masculinity?

Like most television and films, currently.....

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

People were talking about the Ghostbusters remake and idiots got upset by the idea.

You should have seen the fuss over the casting of Dr. Who among the local fanboy group here. It amazed me that people could entertain the idea of an alien with amazing powers, traveling in both space and time, but couldn't accept a female doctor as a possibility.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The only thing that upset me about Ghostbusters is it was a shit remake of a funny film.

And that was due mostly to the writing.

 

[bemused]

And that was due mostly to the writing.

If you remake a classic it needs to be solid, I can't believe that team thought the script was on par with the original. True Grit was a remake done well, so was The Magnificent Seven if we stick the cowboy film genre. Ghostbusters was Karate Kid bad.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

It was specifically written about boys. Golding was exploring wider issues about masculinity.

Humanity I would say. I don't think masculinity necessarily comes into it. I see the same team dynamics in girls .

 

[Gromit]

Humanity I would say. I don't think masculinity necessarily comes into it. I see the same team dynamics in girls .

Women are seven times more likely than men to pick poison as a weapon.

I wonder if this will feature in the plot as a key difference in how things escalate.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Women are seven times more likely than men to pick poison as a weapon.

I wonder if this will feature in the plot as a key difference in how things escalate.

Maybe, but it's harder to know how to make a deadly poison on an island than it is a spear.

 

[kabbes]

My point is, when does a story change so much that it cannot realistically claim to be based on the original?

Asimov wrote a series of short stories about how robots would be useful tools of the future and could be constrained from ever damaging humanity by including three "laws of robotics" that prevented harm. His stories were about the interplay and potential self-contradiction of those three laws, which generally resulted in inadvertent peril as a result of the robots being unable to fulfil their function as a consequence. He called his anthology "I, Robot".

Hollywood took "I, Robot" and decided it would be a cool name for a film about robots killing people.

 

[Gromit]

Maybe, but it's harder to know how to make a deadly poison on an island than it is a spear.

Oh it will be the old poison berries or poison mushrooms trick. Either someone will know beforehand or it will first be discovered by an accidental poisoning before the deliberate act.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Well most literature has been written by men, about men, so yeah, as default most literature is about masculinity.

So you've exhausted all the books that have either been written by women or about women?

 

[Orang Utan]

you are a total fucking melt, johnny

 

[Johnny Vodka]

you are a total fucking melt, johnny

I'm not down with the hip language OU.

 

[Orang Utan]

I'm not down with the hip language OU.

I'm sure you got the gist

 

[Johnny Vodka]

I'm sure you got the gist

I'm sure it's probably not nice, but coming from you, it might be a compliment sort of thing...

 

[Agent Sparrow]

So you've exhausted all the books that have either been written by women or about women?

Not at all, most of my favourite authors are women and my book shelf/kindle list probably has more female representation than most. But that doesn't take away the massive literary skew towards men writing about men (or badly written women).

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Not at all, most of my favourite authors are women and my book shelf/kindle list probably has more female representation than most. But that doesn't take away the massive literary skew towards men writing about men (or badly written women).

Men can write about men if they want to. Whether a character is badly written is a matter of personal opinion. If we're talking about literature, who decides what constitutes literature? Are women more likely to be published in areas not considered literature? Do women put forward as many books as men do? Etc. I'm just a bit weary of the 'there's not enough representation of x' in culture style arguments, when there are more books, shows, games, music releases, films, etc available on more platforms than there have ever been, more than anyone could ever review or meaningfully analyse.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

To be completely honest I really don't think I can be fucked giving feminist 101 on here anymore, particularly with someone who in their 14 years here appears to have progressed their thinking as much as a pitch drop experiment.

 

[Orang Utan]

there's really no point as he never listens (much like so many male writers who dominate literature and can't write for shit about women)

 

[Johnny Vodka]

there's really no point as he never listens (much like so many male writers who dominate literature and can't write for shit about women)

Please give us your own critique and examples, not just one(s) you've accepted second hand. Which male writers who dominate literature can't write for shit about women and why?

 

[Orang Utan]

Please give us your own critique and examples, not just one(s) you've accepted second hand. Which male writers who dominate literature can't write for shit about women and why?

Being a man, I'm not the best person to ask.
But: Martin Amis, Isaac Asimov, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Coe are ones that spring immediately to mind, just cos I just looked at my bookshelf. Men generally can't write shit about women cos they're conditioned to think that their voices are most important and that they are wise and know everything there is to know about everything, including women. Women, on the other hand, tend to have been traditionally conditioned to be quiet and just listen, and this is why they are so often better at writing about men than men themselves, especially if you read 19th century women writers like Eliot and the Brontes

 

[Orang Utan]

But really, this is a shit stance, asking other people to do all the work for you, without offering a reasoned and thoughtful position of your own, but merely a reactionary one. this is why people don't want to engage with you and tell you to fuck off.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Being a man, I'm not the best person to ask.
But: Martin Amis, Isaac Asimov, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Coe are ones that spring immediately to mind, just cos I just looked at my bookshelf. Men generally can't write shit about women cos they're conditioned to think that their voices are most important and that they are wise and know everything there is to know about everything, including women. Women, on the other hand, tend to have been traditionally conditioned to be quiet and just listen, and this is why they are so often better at writing about men than men themselves, especially if you read 19th century women writers like Eliot and the Brontes

Sorry, OU, but this is 100% opinion.. for a start, some books aren't so much about characters as ideas and don't require realistic characters, whatever a realistic character might look like to any particular reader. (You have these books on your shelf - you must find some value in them.) In what way do you believe these female writers are better at writing about men than men themselves? Do you think, say, Cormac McCarthy or Ian McEwan (looking at my bookshelf) couldn't write a male character as well as a woman? How are you judging this? Which sorts of men are these female authors better at writing about? It's such a huge area to which critics bring so much personal baggage and opinion that there's never going to be a definitive take. I do believe that you latch on to what you feel is 'right on' rather than thinking for yourself... my position here is that it's almost impossible to know or get a handle on (even for someone who could devote 100% of their time to first hand reading), in which case it's inappropriate to throw around grand statements.

Consider for a moment perhaps the most widely considered un-feminist female character in recent popular writing? Which gender was this person written by and which gender mainly consumed the books?

 

[Orang Utan]

why are you asking ME this? why don't you find out for yourself?

 

[Johnny Vodka]

why are you asking ME this? why don't you find out for yourself?

You're the one making statements*, in which case you should back them up. I don't have the time to fully 'know', but that doesn't mean I'm going to absorb someone else's opinion as my own.

*Sorry, getting behind others' statements.

 

[DotCommunist]

It's such a huge area to which critics bring so much personal baggage and opinion that there's never going to be a definitive take

there is no such thing as a review that doesn't come with peoples lived experience and knowledge. On anything. You're one of those who claims to objectivity in all things, political decisions, readings of texts. In every case those who claim to be outside observers are largely ignorant of their own conceptual biases. Its the supreme arrogance of liberalism writ large 'now let me observe this from a godlike perspective of not being a human being'. An honest review, one with insights worth hearing, are necessarily talking about more than a fucking synopsis.

 

[Orang Utan]

it's not my job to educate you. the best i can offer is to listen to what people are telling you, especially women, not me. their experiences will inform you better than i can

 

[Johnny Vodka]

there is no such thing as a review that doesn't come with peoples lived experience and knowledge. On anything. You're one of those who claims to objectivity in all things, political decisions, readings of texts. In every case those who claim to be outside observers are largely ignorant of their own conceptual biases. Its the supreme arrogance of liberalism writ large 'now let me observe this from a godlike perspective of not being a human being'. An honest review, one with insights worth hearing, are necessarily talking about more than a fucking synopsis.

This is fair enough, but as soon as you write a statement like 'women are better at writing men than men are' or 'men are better at writing women than women are', you'd better be able to back it up.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

it's not my job to educate you. the best i can offer is to listen to what people are telling you, especially women, not me. their experiences will inform you better than i can

Ah, so just listen and absorb. Don't ask questions.