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by tomlock 3724 days ago
Without your ellipses it doesn't come across as a literal statement:

"The prevailing theme: white men dominate movie roles."

That is not equivalent to "White men dominate movie roles." The prevailing theme of the shit Hollywood is getting is that white men dominate movie roles. How can you look at yourself as a reliable source when you need to chop up quotes so needlessly?

Interestingly, even given your massacring of quotes, you seem totally willing to conduct thought experiments, and use the results (lol) of your thought experiments to accuse articles of being useless. Without quantification, in the words of the article "it’s all rhetoric and no data, which gets us nowhere in terms of having an informed discussion."

Unfortunately, you seem absolutely convinced that the burden lies on me to provide proof, that meets your standards, for claims you make from thought experiments, that aren't addressed or even mentioned in the article.

As I said very early on, I encourage you to do some quantifiable analysis.

1 comments

Huh, you blame me for not providing data, but you don't want to provide data yourself?

I don't understand your comment on my quotes of the article. They clearly set out to show in what ways white men dominate movie roles. My quote didn't distort that statement at all - I only chopped it up to make the quote shorter.

You still haven't answered what you consider to be the use of the article? What are we even talking about?

What data ("quantifiable analysis") do you want me to provide? I don't understand you.

Thought experiments aren't useless, and data isn't automatically useful. You seem to be blinded by the presentation of the article (has charts and data, seems legit). It's like trusting a person because they dress like a physician - understandable human flaw, but misguided.

I'm not dismissing a quantified claim without evidence, so why would I provide data?

Interestingly, after the phrase you quoted out of context, they don't mention race again. Also they clearly aimed to discuss the claims made against Hollywood in a quantified manner. You are clearly just assuming that they had an agenda.

Could you provide any quantifiable analysis for your claim: "What matters is that all demographics get to see the films they like. It doesn't hurt one demographic if another demographic has more films made for."

Unfortunately you seem blinded by a high opinion of your own opinions. I trust the article more than I trust your armchair assumptions.

It's pure logic: if people have enough films to watch, how would it hurt them if there exist other movies they don't watch? What kind of data would you like to see to quantify that?

Let's take data from the article. Does it hurt you that the movie "3 women" exists, which according to the article has over 90% female lines? (I assume you are male)

Does it hurt you that the movie "Agnes of God" exists, which according to the article has over 90% female lines?

And so on - you never said what your problem is...

Does it hurt you that there exists aisles and aisles of nail polish for women in most drug stores, and only few nail polish aisles for men? Do you need me to quantify that? What would be the benefit of demanding an equal number of nail polish aisles for men and women?

And if you say "you trust the article", what exactly do you mean? I don't dispute their numbers (which doesn't necessarily mean I believe them, but as a working assumption, let's assume their analysis is correct). I dispute that they have uncovered a relevant problem. How would you quantify relevance here? What makes the paper relevant to you? What consequences should be drawn (if it is relevant, it means there should be a reaction to it)?

As for agendas, believe whatever you want.

Could you provide data that clearly indicates that the imbalance in film representations of women causes no harm?

My position has always been that you've assumed this article is useless without providing any evidence. I trust the article's claims more than your armchair pontification about whether it is useful or not. I have very little doubt that you'll continue to believe that magazine ratios are in favor of women without any evidence, with or without a quantified study on the subject. If that study came out in favor of men's magazines, it sounds like you'd accuse the authors of an agenda, as well.

Fortunately, more logical people have probably read this useful article and realized their assumptions about the representation of women in film were flawed.

You still didn't say what you consider useful about the article. The article also doesn't explain why imbalance in film representations is bad, it just assumes it. But because it has some numbers and charts, you seem to believe it proves everything you want to believe.

And your quote about the number of logical people reading the article comes across as really silly, after you have asked for evidence so many times. Have you quantified the number of "logical people" who found it useful vs the number of "logical people" who found it useless? Do you have evidence that the people you consider logical and who found the article useful are really logical?

You going on about the magazines just proves that you don't understand my point. I think it is enough now - you could just reread my previous comments if you are still interested...

The irony is delicious when you demand data to back up the negative assumptions I make about your motives and mental faculties. I’d provide more evidence, but it is expensive. I don't have a gender studies grant or anything to pay for it.