Star Wars new casting mistake

The new Star Wars filmmakers announced their casting yesterday and it’s perhaps no surprise, with J.J. Abrams at the helm, that there is just one female actress and six males. Why does Hollywood not want 100% of the population’s money? Why do they just want 48% – the males? It just doesn’t make any business sense.

We girls loved the original Star Wars film back in the 1970’s – but now we are in 2014. Have a few more women in this movie and then it opens out with media coverage to women’s media, publications, blogs, girl fans. Women blogs are the biggest in the world, bigger than men. That’s twice the publicity, twice the ticket sales. It’s just bad business sense – again. So the only reasons I can think of for their decision is plain old fashioned sexism or Star Wars is a gay movie. Which is it?

Why alienate 52% of the population? Why not make a film that sells tickets to everyone? Why is Harry Potter such a big franchise? Girls love the female lead. I loved Star Wars because I could dream of being a Princess in outer space. Time and time again, Hollywood producers shut out half the population. Oh sure, the new Star Wars will do well. It would do twice as well if young girls could watch it too.

This is plain old fashioned sexism. What other reason could there be to not want to market to an additional 52% of the population?

I feel let down again by Hollywood. I have to pinch myself every time this happens. Am I really living in the 21st century or is it thirty years ago when I was first getting into contemporary films and feeling starved of female protagonists? What’s changed?

Don’t bother to argue with me if you’re a white male and you can’t see what the fuss is all about. Lucky for you to be born at the top of the pyramid. May I remind you that women are not a minority. Why treat us this way in Hollywood? Don’t you think that little girls and grown up women want to see ourselves having an adventure in space, just like the boys? We are not sex objects, or just the girlfriend, the wife, mother or whore.

Girls just wanna have fun.

Better rewrite that script!

Ginger Liu

Twitter and sexism

I’m sorry. But I love men. But you can’t tell me as a woman that it’s okay to put up with rape threats online. You have no fucking clue what it is like to be a woman. We can’t go out at alone at night. I was attacked last year and the year before in the real world – followed to my home – and I’m in my 40’s. Stop saying that being threatened online is okay. You have no fucking clue what it is like to be a woman. No clue. It is not acceptable to be threatened with rape and death on social media.

Sexism on Social Media

I remember when i was a manager at publishing company in London and the fullfillment guys downstairs had boobs calendars on the walls in their production office and they sent me an email where a woman was being fucked by a bottle of champagne. I complained and nothing was done. When I grew up my dad told me i could do anything. When I got to the age of working I realized that it would be a struggle because some men, many men treated me like shit simply because I was female. When I was younger it really upset me. I was young and as a young women I wanted to be liked. It’s very upsetting to be treated such a way because you are female. Of course I also later met some amazing men, bosses, male workers who I loved and loved and was one of the “boys.” Those men I love. To the other men – let’s not let them get away with it because there’s laws about racism and now people are taking notice of homophobia and still women struggle. The one thing I don’t get is why young boys/men on forums are using rape language? I see it all the time. Why do they talk this way? I thought that being a young guy you’d want to fight other men but where does rape of women come in to it? Where do they get this stuff from? Fuck free speech. Stop “rape” on social media.

Sexism on Twitter

But why are boys and men (who are naturally misoginists and not real lovely and amazing boys and men) allowed to threaten women with rape? Why? Death. Rape. Posting addresses of women to rape. Why are they getting away with this? This is not free speech. This is hate speech and violence which is illegal in the “real” world. This must stop. And the social media bullshit about free speech and letting hate speech go on is nonsense because it is not men on the whole who get this abuse. And I’m sick of the posts from misogninists – (I won’t ever call them men from now on because they are not, they are misoginisists) who still go on about how much they hate women, feminism, etc. Why do you hate us so much? You accuse feminists of hating men. By definition we don’t hate men. Why do you hate us so much? You are missing out on great friendships, mothers, sisters, daughters. You hate us so much, why? This is 2013 in the west. And I have to pinch myself that I’m not a teenager in the 80’s and being upset by how I’ve been treated by some men at work and at play. But of Hollywood can’t get into the 21st century when it comes to women then how can you expect these misgoninists who are masturbating at home in front of a Hollywood film or a magazine that treats women as tits and ass, wife, girlfriend, prostitute, lover, mother?

Twitter rape threats to women

My 19 year old niece thinks that because I am a feminist I hate men. No, I hate misogynists. I love men. I hate bigots. Why does she think this way? because the male media has told her that feminists are men hating and lesbians and men hating lesbians. Bottom line is – Twitter and Facebook – if it was men getting these threats, if it was men who were treated as second class citizens and sex objects for centuries, if it was men who only really got legal rights in the 20th century, then all these rape threats and death threats would be stopped. There is no free speech. If there was – well go and try and threaten the president, the USA and use bombs and kill in your text and see how far you get. Social media should never be above the law.

Hollywood Bachelorette: I’m single and forty. You got a problem with that?!

Okay, I admit it; I’m single and forty.  So what? Marriage had never been an issue for me because from the age of fifteen I knew I never wanted to be married. As I grew older I still never gave marriage a second thought and I happily went about my business, enjoying life, work, and relationships. So why do others treat me like a freak?

I moved to the USA and wherever I worked I was asked if I was married. Now I live in Hollywood. I’m a stay-at-home writer and I listen to the radio and Dr. Laura spout out the importance of stay-at-home mothers, no sex before marriage, and to be weary of anyone over forty who have never been married. Marriage has come up in my own dating experiences too where more than once I’ve stared into the shocked eyes of my dating opponent as they uttered: “What, you’ve never been married?!”

You know what? So what if I’ve never married. What’s wrong with being a free spirited bachelorette? Women love bachelors, it’s even a selling point for celebrities such as George Clooney. But for me and other women like me who have never wanted to be part of this institution, the older and ever single we get, the more suspicious our dates become.

Still, it doesn’t top the experience I had in San Francisco when my date brought up the subject of children. I’ve always wanted children but recently lost my chance because of fibroids. When I conveyed this information to my date at the time, the look of horror spread all over the face like a disease and then my date proclaimed that I was “only half a woman.” You want my Top Ten list of shitty dates; well that’s a close second. I’m saving the juice of my number one for another time.

I remain fiercely independent and that’s okay. I’m okay and I’m happy. I have no issues with being single and forty. Maybe it’s you who have the problem. And next time I’m out on a date and one of you schmucks can’t control your look of horror, I’m walking away.

 Ginger Liu

 

 

Hilary Clinton: I won’t be happy until there’s a democrat woman in the White House

Many women I’ve spoken to felt cheated after Hilary Clinton was defeated. After another man pipped her to the post, I find it difficult to show the same elation I would have felt if Mrs. Clinton was in office. I think Obama is a breath of fresh air and brings a lot of youth and excitement to this country and I hope that he can change the world but he’s still just a man. A man in a man’s world. How different the world might be if a woman was at the helm of it’s most powerful country.

Vivian Gornick makes this point in the LA Times today:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gornick9-2008nov09,0,4592196.story?track=ntothtml

Women are still judged by their appearance and not their intellect and Clinton suffered a lot under the media.

I look forward to  a woman in the White House. We are the majority after all.