That second claim seems to me way too categorical. Of course nobody should be claiming that they know the content of a film if they haven’t watched it. But it is totally reasonable for people to express criticism of aspects of a film that they know only from trailers and reviews, of course with the caveat that they haven’t seen the film themselves.
People who have seen the film are at liberty to express a dissenting opinion based on what they saw. But that doesn’t mean they should be mocking or trying to shut down somebody else for developing or describing an impression of the film without actually watching it.
Nor is it necessarily appropriate to insinuate that the person who hasn’t watched the film must be basing their impression merely on shallow reductionism along the lines of “any film about women made by a man is bound to be sexist”, etc.
It was that what followed were sarcastic statements of what the movie was made with confidence, “confirmed”, which could not be really commented intelligently by someone who hadn’t seen the film.
You’re saying you don’t want to see the film because you have heard X or have the impression Y or just because there are movies that interest you more, is completely okay.
If it is to ask a question about comments you had heard or to find out more they are very much welcome to the discussion.
If it is just because you feel like you have to say something even though you don’t know anything, less so.
If it is to declare sight unseen what the movie is, declaring your knowledge fully but just “differently informed” as those who saw it, and to think that those who did see it who disagree with what you know the movie is are just sexist or something but clearly not of reasoned opinion, and it pisses you off that they disagree, well, maybe you are a self important narcissistic jerk.
Your Thanksgiving/Christmas/Whatever dinner SUCKS! Worst food ever. I have never met you nor have I eaten anything you prepared but someone I read about who was supposedly there says they did eat your food and they said it was awful food. So, I am saying it is awful food too and telling everyone I can about how terrible it is.
Oh, come on. Excluded middle much? Of course it is perfectly possible to believe that the commercialization of women’s sexual activity (via pornography and sex work) in a historically and persistently sexist capitalist society is damaging to women, without believing that “sex is bad” or “women who like sex are bad” or “sex is inherently defiling to women” or any such “puritanical” beliefs.
I personally might not agree with Beck’s categorical rejection of all porn and sex-work activity, but I’m not going to bolster my position by misrepresenting her views with that kind of false dichotomy.
How is that anything like Eonwe’s criticism of Poor Things? What Eonwe was saying was more analogous to something like “I heard from a couple of people who were at your Thanksgiving dinner that it seemed to be mostly highly processed pre-prepared dishes, and I strongly believe that cooking with simple sustainable local ingredients is better and more environmentally responsible, so I don’t think I’d like that dinner. Even if it was a great dinner in many other respects and a lot of it tasted delicious”.
As for the absurdity in your trying to draw an analogy between Eonwe expressing moderate criticism of a mass-market commercial movie that you liked, and some rando aggressively denouncing a dinner that I made… well, I get the impression that you might be taking this issue a bit too personally.
(And your “who was supposedly there” insinuation is also a bit weird. Are you suggesting that the reviewers from whom Eonwe drew some negative impressions of Poor Things were lying about having actually seen the film?)
@Eonwe cited two sources that gave a synopsis of the movie. Both were wrong (literally wrong). And not in a small way. Bella committed suicide jumping off a cliff? Literally the opening scene in the movie is her jumping off a bridge. And, that scene is repeated several times in the movie. Can’t really miss it.
Not to mention they said Bella was brought back to life when she wasn’t. That’s a huge mistake in how the movie is (central to the whole plot). (I talked about this earlier in this thread)
It seems to me that @Beckdawrek did a fine job of excluding the middle all on her own.
I don’t see anything about “a historically and persistently sexist capitalist society” or about “the commercialization of women’s sexual activity”. I saw “all porn is bad and degrading to all women” (really? So gay porn where two dudes fuck is degrading to women? OK.)
I’m responding to what Beck posted, not to a hypothetical and much more well thought out argument presented by you on her behalf.
Nope, that was you, when you responded as though “porn” was synonymous with “sex”.
Nope, you’re responding to a hypothetical and much more sloppy radically anti-sex argument invented by you on Beck’s behalf.
What Beck actually posted was pretty terse and unexplained, and at present none of the rest of us have any way of knowing exactly what she objects to about porn. It might be based on general radically anti-sex beliefs, or it might be due to concerns that are a whole lot more nuanced, which was my point.
If you want to know the specific reasons why Beck is so opposed to porn, why don’t you just ask her, instead of immediately foaming at the mouth over what you assume to be her caricature-level anti-sex dogmatism?
Presumably there’s a reason why @Beckdawrek is opposed to porn but not women starring in movies, and presumably that had to do with the content of porn vs regular movies, IE explicit sex. Maybe she would like to clarify.
Naw…not like that at all. It’d be fine if that is all it was.
@Eonwe invoked the “male gaze” which shifted it from “I personally am not keen on this movie” to a much grander, patriarchal movie conspiracy despite having no idea about what the movie was about (aside from some flawed bits I debunked above).
If you said that consumer reports tested it and found the meat was mostly pork and you think that people who eat halal ought to avoid this cheese steak, yes, I’d accept that review.
There are valid things you can say about a movie or a book without having seen/read it yourself. The criticism i gave above about huckleberry finn, for instance, is something you could have gleaned from third parties, and is a completely valid reason why many people might prefer to avoid that book.
“Blank slate woman-child is empowered by lots of sex, a story made mostly by men” appears to be accurate, and honestly, is enough to turn off many women.
The factual errors (jumping off a bridge vs a cliff) are weird, but barely relevant. (And “her brain was replaced with that of her fetal child” makes it worse, not better.) And some of the reviews she linked (as distinct from the summaries in IMDb and Wikipedia that she quoted) were from people who had obviously watched the movie.
Let’s go with that. That comment was part of a conversation had between people who ate my Thanksgiving dinner and preceded by others mostly saying that they just came from my Thanksgiving dinner and really enjoyed the home cooked meal made of locally sourced products I served them. And she pipes up to share that second hand information, declaring that her suspicion of what my cooking would be was confirmed by that second hand information and she was as fully informed as those who were at the meal.
She says the meal had instant mashed potatoes and there was actually home roasted sweet potatoes. But she heard something so she is fully informed! And woe to those who question her conclusion.
Why? I had exactly the opposite reaction. I mean, maybe I’m going to come out of it agreeing that it’s horribly misogynistic, but I’m not going to pre-protest that hypothetical possible reaction by withholding my few bucks of revenue. It’s not as though it has been universally condemned, and Emma Stone is a remarkable actress that I’m now fascinated to see in such a weird role.
