Greta Gerwig, Representation, and the Universal Girl
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- Опубликовано: 27 июн 2022
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SOURCES:
Simone de Beauviour, “Introduction” in The Second Sex, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (1949).
Hannah Black “The Identity Artist and the Identity Critic” Artforum (2016).
Zeba Blay, “Interview: 'Girlhood' Director Celine Sciamma on Race, Gender & the Universality of the Story” Indie Wire (2015).
Silvia Bovenschen, “Is There a Feminine Aesthetic?” New German Critique, no.10 (1977).
Monica Castillo, “Why ‘Real Women Have Curves’ Never Got Its ‘Lady Bird’ Moment” The New York Times (2018).
Mary Ann Doane , “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator” Screen, Volume 23 (1982).
Julie Drew Cultural Composition: Stuart Hall on Ethnicity and the Discursive Turn Jac, (1988).
Caitlin Flanagan, “Little Women’s Real Feminist Problem,” The Atlantic (2020).
Kaitlyn Greenidge, “The Bearable Whiteness of ‘Little Women’” The New York Times (2020).
Heven Haile, “Coming of Age So White: Lady Bird and Real Women Have Curves as Tributes to Messy Young Women” Medium (2021).
Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation” Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media No. 36 (1989).
Stuart Hall, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora” in Undoing Place? Routledge (1997).
bell hooks, “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators” Black Looks: Race and Representation (1992).
David Kaufman, “The success of “Lady Bird” shows white stories can work half as hard for twice the acclaim,” Quartz (2017).
Anika Kaul, “Greta Gerwig and White Feminism in Film,” Varsity (2021).
Christian Metz, The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema, Indiana University Press (1982).
Geetha Ramanathan, Feminist Auteurs: Reading Women's Films, Wallflower Press (2006).
Brandon Taylor, “a little life is not your father” Substackd (May 25 2022).
Awra Tewolde-Berhan, “Girlhood - A Review: Fatally Flawed Examination of a Young Black Girl’s Life” What’s On Africa (2015).
Patricia White, “Ambidextrous Authorship: Greta Gerwig and the Politics of Women’s Genres” LA Review of Books (2020). 
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the relationship between a girl and her mother is such a rich concept. there's so much there and i'm grateful directors like greta gerwig are exploring it. that being said, as a black woman, there are facets of the mother/daughter relationship i know to exist that i don't see on screen. i love greta's films and i hope the mother/daughter relationship gets to play on-screen from more bipoc lenses in the future.
I feel the exact same way as a black trans woman myself.
Excellent point! 👌🏾
would love to hear some examples of mother/daughter dynamics you’ve experienced that don’t get screen recognition, @ anyone! I’m passionate about the psychology of family dynamics and this topic is right up my relatively sheltered alley lol
“Pariah”
@@TheFreshTrumpet i definitely can’t speak for everyone, of course, but in my experience you’re very much so expected to be a pillar of strength for everyone else around you. don’t make trouble, don’t do this, don’t do that, “grow up”, “quit thinking you’re so grown.”
i feel like it probably differs a lot considering if you have siblings and whether or not you’re older or younger than them. (quite often women of color express how some of their own childhoods were stripped away because they have to basically be a second, mini-mom to their siblings.) but only-children have their own set of pressures, too. (and honestly socioeconomic status also plays a HUGE role in mother-daughter relationships imo.)
for me personally, growing up with a single mom made it worse. i feel like i was always treated like a small adult. i always knew (and still know) every single one of my mother’s problems. it’s always struck me as being SO unfair. i don’t want to have to bear the weight of my own struggles AND my mother’s. and yet, i do. it’s almost parasitic at times. but i’m all she has and she’s all i have, and she struggled so much to raise me, so there’s guilt there, too.
for me, there’s a lot of self-pressure to break the cycles of pain and poverty i’ve seen her go through.
i feel like a lot of these stories showcase young white girls getting to be.. free? or finding freedom? being able to “abandon” their family in order to look out for their own needs? and i think a lot of us women of color don’t necessarily get to “run away.” (even though just going to college or something similar obviously isn’t running away.) i’ve literally never been able to relate to the concept of brushing off my family in order to “find myself.” it’s never seemed like an option.
anyway, i hope that helped! 😅
As a POC woman (I'm South Asian and was born and raised in Bangladesh) I'd much rather have a POC filmmaker create a complex story about us than a white woman. POC families have very complicated dynamics and there's no way a white person would be able to capture it without it coming across as disingenuous. Personally I've only ever heard this diversity problem in Greta Gerwig, Sofia Coppola or Sally Rooney's stories from white people because most POC know that it seems absurd to ask these white women to write about things that they have very little knowledge or experience about. Instead of blaming these women for creating such "white stories", why not blame the industry for giving little opportunity to BIPOC filmmakers, especially women BIPOC filmmakers? Could they write and create stories with more diversity? Yes. Greta's doing it in Barbie already but it seems a bit too much asking her to capture an authentic POC family dynamic.
I should also mention that despite being South Asian I was still able to relate to Ladybird and Amy March. I've also heavily related to multiple Sally Rooney characters.
How is a POC family dynamic different from a white family dynamic?
THIS
True the only issue with Sofia Coppola is she takes real life references where WOC are at centered of it and she either erasures or sidelined them entirely as she did with lost in translation, the bling ring and the beligued however to Sofia’s credit she seems to respond well to this error in her filmmaking with her recent film on the rocks
YESSS! I’m Southeast Asian (Chinese race) and related SO hard to Lady Bird and Normal People. My favourite film and (probably) my favourite book. There is a universality to these works as it doesn’t focus on the “whiteness” of the characters but rather their age/coming of age, socioeconomic status, and complex relationships. I agree so much with what you said about highlighting more BIPOC filmmakers if we want accurately depicted BIPOC characters and dynamics.
Another favourite film of mine is The Farewell, and I related SO SO hard to it. Lulu Wang did such a fantastic job with it.
POC and white are not monolithic cultures. That's so US-centric idea.
I’ve always found the ‘poc can’t relate to this story bc it’s white’ argument sort of insulting. Sure, I am a black woman, but I like to think my empathy is developed enough to relate to people who don’t look exactly the same as me, or have the exact same lived experience.
Of course, when you do get something that actually depicts specific things you’ve experienced with accuracy then it feels extra good. But a well written character can be relatable regardless of those things, and it feels overly simplistic to disregard that out of hand.
Hm, I always thought that line was more along the lines of “it’s white so it’s flat and not as rich as my poc world” (as Toni Morrison would say.) Did you know that Greta’s LadyBird stole themes and ideas from a Black play, Fences, from a relationship between a Black son and father? Literally, she stole a line but watered it down. The one where the daughter goes “do you like me”
@@BrendaGarcia-ty2ml how does one “steal” a theme
i love this statement bc I can agree too I'm an asian poc who can enjoy these types of films despite not being related to me. there are always some aspects that I can relate despite these stories being white and it's kinda upsetting that there are more vile directors who never gets these type of heat meanwhile there aren't even that many women directors since in the late years and I just feel like we as a society are always looking to criticize women who are successful. let's focus the hate to those directors who are actually predators.
Well said!
Exactly!!!!!
I'm a black african woman and i relate deeply with Greta's stories about sisterhood and mother-daughter relationships. Even if there are A LOT of differences between the me and the protagonists, the heart is the same. I feel like a lot of people are so hung up on the details that they miss the heart that can speak to millions. I am not used to seeing such interesting, dynamic and raw potrayals of those female relationships in movies.
Tbh I'm at this point in my life where i don't even care much for "perfect" representation? A lot of the black female characters i see in media are girls i don't relate to or particularly like for one reason or another. A lot of the time, i relate to the details about their lives but the heart doesn't speak to me at all. Especially in shows and movies where the obsession with identity and "perfect" representation bleeds through the screen. Like.... not everything about being a black woman has to do with intersections of pain and trauma you know??? Sometimes our relationships with our mothers and sisters are just like everybody else's, because ... you know... we are human? And as such, you will always have far more similarities with us than differences, regardless of who you are. I find the way some imply that the racial lense is always necessary for a story to have value for black women is so condescending at times, especially when the story is not written by a black woman at all. I'd love to hear a black woman telling her story, but if you're not black, i'm already less interested in what you have to say about us. I don't really care about seeing myself through the eyes of non-black people once again, I deal with that way too much already.
I much rather prefer when people just focus on telling a good story instead of talking about concepts they know a lot less about. It's not a crime to not know as much about black women as we know about ourselves. 9/10 times when white people try hard to write blackness into their stories it ends up sounding clumsy or like a PSA about how pathetic the lives of BIPOC are and my response is always either "you're being way too dramatic" or " you just stated the obvious?". And I especially hate when white people, especially white women/feminists, overdo "white people are the problem. We are all so racist. see how *I* understand racism? bc most of us don't at all and we are oh so bad bc we are white". Seriously one of the worst, most self-absorbed, condescending, waiting-for-praise, bs attitude y'all put out in the world and i can guarantee you that we would all be happier if you just shut up instead.
Sometimes staying in your lane is good.
Edit : Also your last point about the problem being commerce and not art was spot on. That's why i find the complaints about white people making "white" movies so misguided and unhelpful. The problem isn't that those movies aren't universal, the problem is that they are expected to be. We wouldn't care if BIPOC got the same opportunities and that's what we should thriving for. Also, and most importantly, this is not a zero sum game! You don't need to tear down one woman to elevate another. With this kind of stupid games we all lose. We need more movies about girlhood and womanhood in general. All of them offer a valuable perspective, they all deserve room to exist.
girl you better preach!
louder !!!
every point you make is so fantastic
This comment is amazing, thank you!
You literally said it all... I find the criticisms on Sofia and Greta to add more POC women (and you know they mean black because we are always dragged into it) so disingenuous and unwarranted... Like please, as a black African woman NO THANKS! I know it'll just be a disaster so stick to what you know! I'd rather not have to sit through yet another clumsy, 1-dimentional, paper thin black character forced into a story to make white audiences feel good about themselves when there are countless black female creatives out there actively looking for an opportunity to tell THEIR OWN stories. Just, ew... STOP 🤢.
As a white man, I connect pretty heavily with Lady Bird. I see it as a story of someone who strongly believes she's received the short end of the stick (and does have some real reasons to think that), and is forced over time to gradually face her privilege and recognize how many of her problems are brought about by her own doing. Literally every character in the movie (except maybe the rich girl) has bigger problems than Lady Bird.
Her father is dealing with severe depression, her brother's girlfriend was abandoned by her family, Lucas Hedges is afraid his family won't accept him, Chalamet's father is dying, the drama teacher is suffering from legit grief, etc. Lady Bird spends so much time talking to Beanie Feldman about how poor she is, and then we see Beanie lives in a tiny bland apartment with her single mother. Lady Bird's own mother hints at having had a legitimately abusive childhood as well, and is also the one actually dealing with the money issues that Lady Bird wants to just ignore. Then there's that scene when she wakes up in the hospital because she drank too much (and wasn't even OD'ing, the other dude just freaked) and wakes up next to a kid who literally lost an eye.
It's true, she's not always likable... but why do protagonists need to be completely likable all the time? I like when you describe it as learning to "accept mediocrity," because that's really what it is. She isn't special. She needs to accept that, and realize it's okay to not be special.
I've seen this movie like five times. I love it. I don't really think of it as attempting to be about "all women," but about lower-middle-class white privilege.
I’m a black French woman and I can’t stress how much every black person I know and especially black women HATED the movie « Girlhood ». The movie feels absolutely inauthentic, it screams of white bourgeoisie having fun shooting black skin because it’s aesthetic. Once again they didn’t even try to hire a black co-writer especially a woman to try to navigate and understand those experiences. It feels like an animal documentary filmmaker being fascinated and commenting on the behavior of a strange species.
The French press couldn’t get enough of that movie and kept comparing the main actress to a « wild lion » or saying that her movements were « feline like ». This honestly made me want to vomit and cemented the fact that this movie was nothing but a voyeuristic and opportunistic attempt for rich white people to peek into the lives of working class black girls.
Sciamma is a fantastic filmmaker but this movie was truly not it. She’s the best when she masters subjects she knows like coming of age and queer experience.
This is exactly why I feel uneasy with the possibility that Gerwig may respond to the criticisms by writing BIPOC characters into her films. “Write what you know” is a basic tried and true principle for a reason.
agreed i remember me and my best friend going to see it when it came out, we were 13 and we watched the trailer over and over, we were so excited for girlhood and we were so disappointed when actually watching it.
It was unnecessarily violent and cliché, and although the scenes of the girls having fun were quite sweet, the story got out of hand so quickly and to this day i still have a hard time understanding the ending.
The saddest part is that although all sciamma movies have this air of melancholy, they all remain quite realistic. I don't recall any of her films being this cruel towards their protagonist. It truly felt like a white fantasy of what being a black girl in a parisian suburb would be like.
I do feel like this is a problem with most french movies trying to depict an arab or black experience. Too often they fall into clichés of poverty and oppression.
Interesting. I'm a middle-aged white American guy and I liked that film quite a bit, though I don't remember it well enough to get into specifics now. But I don't hang out enough with people of color - especially women - and have never been to France and only know it through film and (just a bit of) literature. So the reality of the film is something I can't comment on.
Curious what your take is on Claire Denis, also white but raised in then-colonial West Africa, whose films have dealt much with this subject, and with black people in France today. I would hope that her work would have more truth to it, but perhaps not.
Anyway it's exciting to me that there are starting to be more minority voices in French cinema of late - Mati Diop's first feature was pretty interesting and I know there's a lot more out there that looks worthwhile.
In the entertainment industry French white people love to exploit the life of the working class minorities, it's always some white rich person behind it, those kind of movies try so hard to not be racist but end up being racist and uncomfortable to watch
@@beermarshal2070 The only two Claire Denis films i’ve seen are Chocolat and Beau travail which are set in cameroun and djibouti. Had no idea she made films about parisian suburbs, except for US go home which centers on white girls if im not mistaken. Perhaps you could recommend some ?
This is a wonderfully articulated essay on SUCH a challenging subject. An all-time hall-of-famer, imo
It is! Broey never misses but she has outdone herself here..
I'm latina, but I really related to the way that Ladybird was always trying to push boundaries to get her own space from her mother, even if the way she did it usually wasn't good or well thought out. I also had a complicated relationship with my strict mom, and in my teen years I definitely pulled a lot of stupid stunts to push those boundaries she had placed on me.
Soy mexicana, y Ladybird es una película muy especial para mí:-)
Hay un chico que le hizo una pequeña reseña, donde menciona que "en Ladybird la representación de la adolescencia es universal", y yo no podría estar más de acuerdo
I love the question posed at 16:58, “if we expect our protagonists to represent all of the ideals of our society, to be morally pure, then are we really consuming art?” Excellent points and conclusion
Did any of the critics actually say that tho? Did they demand a "universal girl"? It seems like a total strawman she created.
@@dannyapeshit idk if youre kidding or not but just because "the critics" didn't outright say it doesnt mean that its not true
@@mansisajan2592 I think the critics were being honest about how they felt. The movie didn't speak to them, it also didn't speak to me either. And that's fine, not everyone could like another rehash of awkward white girl number 102 all the time. Because they didn't feel represented by it doesn't mean they are making these impossible demands.
@@dannyapeshit i understand what you mean, but when broey said "we" in that quote, she's not just talking about critics. she's talking about viewers, and therefore the larger social/cultural perception of a character like ladybird. about the first question in your original comment - i find that there are many casual viewers who criticize a character for not representing "all the ideals of our society", rather than thinking about the fact that characters are nuanced and not immune to things like racism, sexism, etc
@@mansisajan2592 Just to clarify when I said "critics" I meant casual viewers, writers etc. I meant people who criticized the movie. If you remember professional critics actually adored the movie, no surprise since the overwhelming majority of them are white middle to upper class background. Also critics have to abide by a set of standards to criticize a movie; was it entertaining, was it pretty to look at etc. While the non professional critic can look at the movie and make purely personal opinion about it, not judging it for it meeting standards professional critics look for. I think the casual viewer has this right and ability to judge a movie based on how redundant a look or representation is in a movie. I firmly believe the "larger social/cultural perception" can in fact demand something different and simply say "this doesn't represent me" or "I want a new burger. This burger is not that great, I've had it before, people are overrating it." I believe the white consumer enjoys the white representation thoroughly much more than a non white consumer, therefore they actually connect with an uber white experience narrative like Ladybird, no matter how overdone and redundant it is. While some of us, aren't going to pretend quirkiness, problems with mom and teenage "idiosyncrasy" is something new or profound or constitutes a greatness.
I’ve tried to explore this concept too, the fact that movies by/about marginalized groups are often held to a much higher standard because we look to them to represent every facet of those experiences. It’s like we’ve found a roundabout way to *still* make it harder for POC/queer artists to want to share their storytelling. Like you said, instead of criticizing them for what they didn’t do or couldn’t possibly accomplish (not that they can’t be criticized at all, but often the expectations are unrealistic), we should enjoy/critique them for what they are and support more stories like them so that more experiences can be represented. Maybe then these films won't have the monumental pressure to represent entire groups. -Terrence.
OMG yes this! It means that anything a POC or queer artist ... or even a cisgendered heterosexual woman artist ... we hold them all to standards of perfection that we give the white male artist total passes on. It is a defacto form of censorship. You don't just have to excel in your art form, you don't just have to tell a gripping story, you have to tell one that is not only positive representation, but that impossibly represents all aspects of an experience positively. And we enthusiastically tear each other down for failing to reach this enormously perfect standard. I hear that in Deschanel's almost apologetic tone as she discusses two films that she likes and that also reflects her own lived experience ... because it cannot reflect the lived experience of all of us. And no, it can't. And that's fine. I don't think we need Greta Gerwig or Sofia Coppolla not to explore their natural lane ... I think we need room for more creators who are not white and male.
Why do you think this issue -- freighting works with ideological responsibilities beyond the scope determined by the works themselves -- occurs at all? To put it like that makes it sound like an obvious error, a misguided approach on the part of those who do it.
yeah i saw this with criticism with Crazy Rich Asians. I’ve never read the book but apparently it was more a commentary on like class and family dynamics whereas the movie was kinda just a romcom with a hint of pressure due or different cultures and family dynamics (?)
Now I understand the struggle when a book-movie adaptation doesn’t fulfil the contents of the book or changes a lot, I painfully experienced such in 2022, but the director literally said they didn’t want it to be this grand movie doing big social commentary. That it simply can’t do everything. So other than the usual adapation gripes, I don’t get it. We really do hold media by marginalized groups to a higher standard because… why?????
Is it the simple ticket to be taken seriously or something? We can’t just have a cheesy slightly shitty popcorn action flick? A romcom with low stakes? A simple little high school drama that could be solved with one conversation but ofc that convo never happens bc they’re teenagers? Bc I love my high stakes movies with a big message and stuff, EEAAO is one of my all time favourites, but I mean why do we want everything to be like that? Drives me crazy bc sometimes I just want that popcorn flick with ppl like me. That’s it.
Yes I do say the word "oeuvre" with an aggressively Anglo accent on multiple occasions. Apologies in advance 😈
As a racialized woman, there are definitely aspects of white womanhood that alienate me. But this insistence that I cannot recognize aspects of myself in white characters who are fully fleshed out and three dimensional is somewhat troubling. My race is one aspect of my identity. I am a woman, I am Asian, I struggle with mental illness. But I am also outgoing, bull-headed, neurotic, kind, etc. Unfortunately society forces me to hyper-identity with my social identities. However in these moments where I connect with a character it reaffirms my humanity and makes me feel seen, regardless of how similar we are. Am I merely a checkbox of identities best matched with works that contain the highest percentage of social markers in common. Or am I person?
Since Lady Bird came out it has been my favorite movie, because I just relate deeply to it. So when I saw people criticizing it for being "too white" or that was impossible to relate to as woc. I was shocked, maybe it´s cuz as a Latin American woman I am used to not relating entirely to American/English tv and media because I know nobody (not even chilean directors) is gonna represent my own personal reality. I understand the point that people have on the movie, but I think there are some topics that simply every girl can relate to. Not feeling good enough for family and/or friends, not being wealthy enough for your social environment, being a quirky and annoying teenage girl. idk I might be wrong, but all of my female friends loved lady bird for the exact same reasons. And none of us are white teens named Christine living in Sacramento California in 2003.
Same here. I relate more to Lady Bird than Real Women Have Curves even tho I'm latina, because I don't have America Ferrera's body structure and also (and more important) I'm not a latina living in the USA, so thankfully I haven't face that kind of problems with racism. I don't know if it makes any sense jajajaj (I'm chilean too).
same! i'm mexican and whenever there's a character who is poor in american media (like lady bird), it's funny how their houses are nowhere near what you'd consider poor here, and the schools are always very nice, there is no crime like we know it here, etc. but i can connect with the emotional truth of their struggles, even if those struggles would look very different here. at the same time, there's a lot of the "latina experience" or "mexican experience" that i do not relate to, at all, and when i see those things being claimed as universal within those groups, i feel even more distanced from them. but whenever i see a daughter and a mother like lady bird and her mom, that will always hit home.
We need more stories of girls, women, people of colour and queer people until they aren't as scrutinised as movies about straight, white men
Conversely we also need to scrutinize the hell out of every white male movie.
@@notthis9586 That’s what she said but yes.
@@notthis9586 You two want Revenge not Justice.
@@CamberGreber Right on! Someday they too will know the pain of having people online write mediocre art criticism about their work... then, as they weep tears of blood and beg their tiny patriarchal god for release, we will know the score of thousands of years of oppression has been settled and revenge finally had! Movie criticism truly can do anything... XD
We need more stories that don't shoehorn in race and gender. Just natural stories about people, instead of constant messaging, propaganda and virtue-signalling.
it is interesting how these criticisms are rarely thrown at white male "auteur" directors. few make a fuss about their overwhelmingly white films. women however, must be criticized more heavily. as many other comments point out, i do not actively seek stories that meet a quota of diversity; the film "moonlight" resonated hard with me and made me cry, despite the film being about a black man and i, the viewer, being a white woman. our experiences are so different yet in many ways similar and human. to water a story down to "but did we educate everyone about societal problems?" is so facile to me.
I agree, I don't see many criticizing Martin Scorsese for his only white based movies. He tells italian-american crime stories and that's that (it's not a bad thing but no one complains about the lack of racism commentary on the films). It's passed as thats his style and nothing more.
I think he got more backlash for the "marvel movies are theme park movies" commentary.
That's just my perception.
@@Tina-lj5kf A lot of people critize him for that, same for Wes Anderson and PTA
BUT it certainly isn't the same, the way people complain about Greta is like she's a failure of feminism and she shouldn't make films anymore.
You do realise your point boils down to “oh why criticise ww of the thing people don’t criticise wm for?” Yes I do agree ww since they’re women are going to be criticised far more heavily but instead of arguing we should criticise these men just as much, you seem to be implying that ww should be treated like these wm (which is basically what white feminism practically is) … lovely
there are definitely a lot of people criticising white male movies for being too white you might just not have noticed because you’re not in the communities that are complaining
poc have been talking about the lack of representation for decades. it's ok to like greta gerwig and other white women, it's not ok to lie about this to defend them. "but what about men?!!?" what about them, racism is still racism.
“the universal girl is a child of the market”
incredible video. thoroughly agree with your points and i’m obsessed with how you articulate yourself.
it doesn't make sense that the term "women films' even exists since there is no male equivalent. it's pure misogyny to expect any female director or writer to encompass every female experience and the critique should be at the lack of diverse creators. greta gerwig tells stories about white women because that's who she is and while she could diversify her casts, she should not be the main person telling the stories of poc. they're not her stories. people of all genders and ethnic backgrounds should have the opportunity to tell their own stories. no one gets mad at david fincher for only writing stories involving white dudes because the male experience is considered singular or universal the way society pretends being a woman is.
underrated comment, especially the first 2 lines
Spot on completely agreed
also, as a black woman, i resent the idea that women don't have any unifying experiences and that as a black woman i couldn't POSSIBLY ever relate to the stories of a white woman.
its funny how the black experience is seen as totally unifying, and very few scholars talk about how our media is so often focused on the black male experience.
I was thinking just this! If Gerwig HAD included heavily POC perspectives in her films, suddenly the criticism would have been, "how dare you assume you know the experiences of POC." Ultimately, Gerwig is telling her story (at least in the case of LB), and just because her story is from the perspective of a middle class white girl doesn't make that story unimportant.
EDIT: That being said, I do think there is cause for criticism that Gerwig's LW missed out on many textual opportunities to discuss race. The costume design is an absolute mess, for one.
She's also made two movies. One was autobiographical and the other was a period piece. It's not weird that both of these movies have white protagonists
being irish i have really connected to the characters and settings of the sally rooney adaptations & it feels like the first time our country has been accurately represented on a worldwide scale. i think it’s fair for rooney to “write what she knows” and i would rather hear stories from true poc voices rather than someone non-poc making assumptions and writing on their behalf. i think the adaptations were a good opportunity to cast diversely - however i wish they had kept bobbi irish and black, as irish pocs are an even further under represented group in media, and there is a misconception (even here) that ireland is “mostly white”.
agreed, im from dublin and felt really connected to normal people and its adaption
I'm not Irish, but Normal People really struck something in me. There was a lot of relatability for me in Marianne, Connell and their relationship as a whole.
also from dublin & i second this! sally rooney is able to write about what it is like to live in ireland right now with the juxtaposition between its beauty and its crises
Ireland is mostly white. That's not a misconception.
@@starkiller007I live in Dublin its diverse city, Sally Rooney's Dublin came across as kinda white washed to me
Thank you for this! The flattening of women’s art to just ‘how many boxes of representation does it tick’ is incredibly frustrating when the same never happens to objectively less nuanced ‘male’ films
I think this whole discussion goes hand in hand with increased sense of individuality.
People want to be represented wholly, as an individual almost. The reality is, that you can see yourself in various types of characters. Obviously it's a lot easier if the actor looks and acts like yourself, but it doesn't have to be that way. I relate to so many male characters because they face similar struggles as I do or did. Sometimes representation isn't the point of art. It's rather important that the spectrum of art shows representation. Not every story is representative and not every author can tell a story that way. Sometimes a movie just wants to be about a sad white girl and nothing else. What we need is other movies about sad bipoc girls
I agree, I feel like representation can limit you to a box (?) where you will enjoy everything only if it resembles you
in my opinion the beauty of art is living and experiencing new feelings, new ideas, new point of views
@@lolinui1708 exactly. I'm an immigrant child and i grew to live with both countries culture and i identify with both, exactly because nobody forced me to be either, nobody tried to solidify one of the two.
It's important to talk about issues like racism or any other issues a minority group faces, but if you go too far it becomes a us vs them mentality where you are constantly reminded of the differences.
It's important to be empathetic and be able to put yourself into the shoes of others. If you can't do it with art, how will you ever be able to understand real people. We aren't all that different.
Greta isn't just a talented actress, she's an excellent director as well. "Ladybird" was an authentic depiction of a girl's coming of age, and she breathed new life into an oft told story with "Little Women." I'm excited to see her future projects!
and a great writer.
Her little women sucked
I wish there were more coming of age movies for Black women that did not present us and our families as downtrodden or dysfunctional because that is not the reality for all of us. I don’t expect white directors like Greta to do it, but I hope Black writers and directors are given the opportunity to shine.
There kinda has to be space in the progressive canon for “white feminist” movies. Recognizing that the success of a white feminist film does not necessarily indicate some global triumph for “white feminism” as a politic.
We seem to be assuming these days that all art is working as propaganda. This infantilizes audiences (who probably can think for themselves), and flattens art beyond recognition. If your only means of speaking about art is through a somewhat puritanical argumentation, you probably don’t like art very much at all 🤷♀️
I also think some of it is like, inverse-CinemaSins literal mindedness. Where instead of flattening the movie to issues that are ultimately inconsequential, it takes issues that can and should be examined but flattens them to "Fuck you I'm right, stop talking about this movie I'm annoyed is popular in film discourse right now".
YES thank you lol
I do agree we need to trust movie going audience more, but all art is propaganda. There is no avoiding it
I think that is the problem there is always space for “white feminists” films.
miss juneteenth is as much a universal story about mother/daughter relationship as ladybird. One got thrusted to out of this world height & the other is left in the shadows. (I enjoyed ladybird)
I don’t knock Gerwig cuz it an’t her fault.(I think she has the potential to do better) end of the day she tells good stories & is great filmmaker. Who makes relatable movie even if some relate more then others.
Industry executive are more to blame then creators cuz they just keep promoting & uplifting the same type of movies.
@@a_real_one2000 the grift of the film industry & the commerce around it are exactly what needs to be interrogated. So many makers are terrified to become visible because , backwardsly, they receive all the blowback for what is largely out of their control. Though often well meaning, I think our cultural critics are creating a landscape that is hostile to living artists altogether.
I also don’t believe that all art is propagandistic. It’s definitely “political” in the same way a human being is a political subject / object. But propaganda is always about conversion. art is not
@@shakugan73 I understand that; movie goers/some critics are a bit harsh & can chill out a bit.
Critique is par for the course especially since there are more diverse people with platforms. creator are going to deal with more criticism.
The key is find the good faith criticism & do what you can to address or not address the given point.
There are lvls but people have to remember that your can be critical to media & still enjoy that form of media.
Propaganda is bias info it can be overt or subconscious.
Old western movies was fun popcorn action flick it also was propaganda.
the thing for me that people seem to be missing is that ANYONE can actually see themselves in ANY piece of media if they try hard enough to. but if you're a poc, queer, female or any other identity not usually represented, it just takes active EFFORT to "translate" the experiences on screen to your own. (there's a quote from the movie The Celluloid Closet that talks about this too) The point of representation, I guess, is to make it so that ppl who are the "default" (cishet, white, male, etc) are now the ones who have to do the translating, as well as people who aren't that. it's just a push for equality I guess-now not all the work falls on the poc, women, etc when consuming media
Turning Red's a perfect example of taking the mother-daughter relationship and really utilizing it
But it did not touch apon 9/11
@@kostajovanovic3711 why would it have?
@@kostajovanovic3711 It's a children's film based in Toronto, Canada. There's no reason they should have
None of you are familiar with the joke?
@@quillpen815 ruclips.net/video/xECUrlnXCqk/видео.html
Wake up honey, new Broey vid just dropped
The whole topic of representation in Lady Bird, especially when contrast with Moonlight is really interesting to me because I kinda feel represented by both films for different reasons 😶.
@Rachel Forshee yeah like people were getting mad over there not being poc main characters in lady bird but I'm like tf? you do know what ladyvurd was inspired by right? its based off gerwigs childhood/teenage years and those people in the film were portraying people inspired from her real life. ladybird is kind of her (not exactly but still) and the mother is gerwigs mother. the boyfriends were boyfriends from her real life and experiences in Sacramento so ofc they arent going to be the same as say a black woman growing up in the hood. and little women , I dont even have to explain why there really cant be any poc in the main cast bc duh- the march sisters are clearly white in the book and so are the other main characters and jo march is based off of louisa (the author) who was white. I'm a poc myself and im all for representation- but not when it dilutes form the real story. it wouldnt make sense if one of the sisters was a poc or smth bc that would cause a whole set of problems to address like "why arent they slaves in that time period"?
instead of getting mad at gerwig for capturing her experience growing up in ladybird and being faithful to the book in little women, get mad at the film industry for not including more poc films and experiences.
my problem with gerwig's version of little women isn't that there aren't any peripheral BIPOC characters on screen, the story is essentially about white womanhood, but she took out the parts of the story where the characters are living through the challenges of trying to be anti-racist during the civil war. this is why people were talking about the inaccuracy of the costumes, this is why people had issues with the nods that were inserted to modern sensibilities around race, this is why centering the narrative of the march's poverty around personal shame or comfort felt disingenuous. little women was already an intersectional story. marginalized people are part of the material narrative. gerwig either didn't know enough about the era to make creative choices that supported those elements or she didn't care to.
the marches are poor because their father tried to integrate black and white students at his school and no one wanted to do business with him anymore. that doesn't just mean less income, it means less credit on harder terms at the general store, at the bank, at the tailor's and milliners. they've estranged themselves from privileged white society. meg only has her own handiwork to wear to the moffats party because even if her family could afford silks and tailoring, silks made at the local mill are made with child labor and her family is boycotting. when she lets herself be made up and shown off, she's letting herself have a taste of the ease of exploitation and she and marmee explore that in dialogue. if you like the 1994 version, you know that. but there is nothing in the gerwig version's costumes to suggest that the marches are poor for the 1860's. everything is made of cotton. the conversations around fabric concern expense and the burden of wanting what you can't have instead of the fact that it represented blood trade. still does. no one around them is wearing mourning during one of the first wars involving rapid fire repeat weapons. you wouldn't have to explore those things in text if you use worldbuilding to tell the story.
it's hard to talk about, for example, quotes like "i feel like i'm allowed to do stuff i don't like" regarding her decision to omit bonnets without coming off as pedantic, and that is why, specifically, greta's whiteness affects how many people are willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. who wants to talk about this shit to begin with? they didn't in the time period! that's where the creative freedom argument breaks down for me. white women have been *not talking* about this for many, many iterations of the story now. i don't personally find that creative.
Dude that plot line about the father integrating a black family isn’t in the book, it’s only in the 1994 adaptation of the film which tried to shoehorn a lot of modern politics. The book doesn’t mention black people at all, not even once.
@@lenah9027 both the newer and 1994 Little Women brought in aspects of Alcott’s personal life. Alcott’s father did help a black family integrate, allowing a little black girl to attend school, which ended up causing the school to be closed down. The Alcott’s were pro integration, which did cause them to be outcast, they were pretty radical for the time period, and held many “modern” views, were vegetarian etc. These are not modern politics, they have existed for centuries, people just chose to forget that. You should read more about the Alcott’s very interesting family.
@@user-by4et1qp5t yea they were an interesting family, and Alcott herself would put on plays to collect for antislavery charities, which is why I was surprised rereading the book that black people aren’t mentioned at all. But I think people claim the 1994 version is super accurate to the book when like half the lines aren’t in there and it’s almost entirely based on modern feminist and anti racist sensibilities.
@@lenah9027 i used to read the books with my mom as a kid, maybe i'm mixing up the real life alcotts with the storyline. bronson alcott, louisa may's father, was the first white teacher in boston to admit a black student into his class. his portait of john brown is still in his study at orchard house. they were radical integrationists which was a fringe position at the time. if i am mixing them up, it still wasnt an insertion of modern politics in the 1994 version, it was what the alcotts actually believed in the 1860's. i feel like my point still stands that marginalized people are present in the material culture of the narrative and that gerwig's version didn't understand how to carry that off.
@@user-by4et1qp5t lol should have looked at the other replies before i repeated what you wrote, thank u
while i think criticisms like gerwigs white feminism are valid i don’t think we should make a habit of asking white directors, white creators of any kind to be the mouthpiece for any marginalized story. we should instead lift up/amplify bipod creatives so they can tell their own story, so they can have as much cultural relevance. i also think that won’t work because the world doesn’t seem to care any marginalized people and their stories unless yt people are the ones narrating which is kind of scary. idk if you’ve mentioned this tho cause i just started the video😂
Creators can't lift others up. That's like asking a person treading water to hold something heavy. Only the people who facilitate the business of show ie studio execs, producers and publishers are in positions of power to say what gets distributed and what does not.
I say this and knowing it's actually quite hard to do especially when you're emotionally invested in something but I stop looking for good or perfect representation. Especially outside of people who don't share my same racial background or even class background. I try and be a little more empathetic and you know see the things that are similar or that invoke a warm feeling in me rather than go to the negative right off the bat. People tend to write what they know and people know themselves the best (usually). So they tend to write themselves or they write people that they know or people usually inhabit the same space as. Those people are usual similar to them whether in terms of socioeconomic status or race or other things like that even ideological leanings. At least in America things are still pretty segregated and for many outside out media the first time that they come into contact with others is college.
This!!!
I wish more people could understand what you are explaining. I also wish that segregation stops i.e. by wealth redistribution and economic equality so more people can be able to tell their stories.
As a neurodivergent mexican, "white" from a "mixed raced" working class family with migrant family in the US I also don't find many roles in movies that are similar to me or my experiences but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy movies where "I don't see myself", I don't watch movies to seek representation and I feel often moved and related to aspects of the characters for sharing some human experiences.
I'm a girl from India, and saw little women with my sister and related a lot to it. In fact I think that it probably spoke more to my experience than a white girl because to some extent society is still like that here, but to an american audience it is historical fiction.
Ladybird was not a movie that I connected with in anyway and seeing everyone fawn over it being so relatable really alienated me. It was a specific experience that other people can relate to facets of, but for me, there was nothing substantial to attach to when this is the type of movie that I think requires attachment 🤷♀
I think LadyBird is a movie which definitely resonates more if you can relate to it. I definitely couldn’t (not white, not American, not like ladybird in personality etc.) and so it was more of an interesting character study and exercise of empathy. I can appreciate its technicality and characters and that so many others connect to it and the specific story it tells without needing to have to relate it because I think that’s the beauty of film and storytelling. To witness other experiences and to see, hey that’s really different or hey, this aspect is actually really similar
I’m so glad someone else is talking about how similar Ladybird is to Real Women Have Curves!! I know they’re not identical but I remember watching the latter and being like why isn’t anyone talking about this lol
I loved this video. It articulated a lot of thinks I've been turning over in my head for a while.
I also worry that what started as important, necessary critiques of white women's complacency in systemic racism is being appropriated into thinly veiled anti-feminist backlash. In the last year or so (maybe a bit longer), I've seen critiques of white women go from legitimate and necessary conversations about white feminism, and white women's capacities for racism, homophobia, classism etc., to seemingly blanket derisions of anything made by white women (Like Gerwig's films of Rooney's novels). Like you point out, these stories are overwhelmingly white, and there's room for critique of that (and of their commercial success and popularity). But I worry about how much of this flattening is less a genuine critique of white feminism/white women's racism, and how much of it is an anti-feminist backlash disguising itself in "woke" language.
I increasingly see people call something a white woman book or movie as a pejorative, or see people make fun of white women (see: Bo Burnham's White Woman's Instagram), or say victims like Amber Heard are weaponizing white women tears against their white, rich, and famous abuser. These "critiques" or jokes are feeling less like a legitimate inditement of white women's complacency in racist and classist hegemony, and more like anti-feminist jokes that only get away with it because of the clarification of "white women."
This comment put to words something I've had rolling around in my head for awhile but couldn't quite pin down, especially when you mention Amber Heard. I don't know if you've seen the video about it by Princess Weekes (called "True Crime the Theater of Safety"), but she changed the way I look at the case.
completely agree you articulated everything ive been thinking/feeling so well!!
I agree with your point except that I do think that “white woman’s instagram” is more than a joke about white woman complacency because of the bridge where the aspect ratio of the screen changes widening and, reflecting how there’s more to her than what she puts within the borders of her instagram story, and the persona sings about missing her mother. I believe the takeaway was more on how there’s more than what meets the eye and that just because someone has a generic ‘white woman instagram’, that doesn’t make them less of a person. I do agree that taken at surface level though, it does just come off as an anti feminist joke
You lost me when you said "Victims like Amber Heard"
@@disconsolate3235 I agree - I don't really have an issue with the song, it's just an easy example to point to of "man makes a joke about something a woman likes, but qualifies that it's a white woman." I agree with your analysis of the song overall, and do think it's more to it than the surface level take, but I use it just as an easy example most late Millennials/Gen Z will get right away.
On the subject of the impossibility of making a movie that represents all women, I'm reminded of when I was teaching Swedish to a group of recent immigrants. For this one class, a woman from Stockholm was visiting our small town to talk about sexual education with the women in my class. All but two of the women in my class were Syrian and the last two were from Eritrea. During the very first part of the talk, the students were put in small groups where they were given cards depicting young, teenage, adult and old men and women. Then they were told to chose cards depicting a family with two husbands - to which everyone picked two pictures of grown men - they had all been living here for at leas ta year and all knew that homosexuality was legal here and no-one seemed particularly bothered by this. But when asked to depict a family with two wives, every singe woman picked a man with two wives. During the discussion afterwards, most of the women simply said that they pretty much only thought of homosexuality as a male thing.
And just to make it clear that this weren't just women from super traditional families who were uneasy discussing any "immoral" subjects - later on these same women were asked to chose among 25 different cards that represented different subjects that were important for a good relationship (easy to talk to your partner, having common goals, financial stability etc.) and then choose which 5 of these cards were the most important. Now, the oldest woman of them all, and Eritrean, simply refused to leave out the card that just said "sex". In fact she wanted it at the top of the list, which at first caused many of the younger Syrian girls to become quite embarrassed, many of them nervously glancing at me (the only male in the room), making me suspect that discussing enjoyment of sex was something strictly reserved for talks between women in their culture. But after a while, when neither me or the other Swede (the sex ed teacher) in the classroom seemed scandalized at all, the conversation became giggly and a lot of the other groups at least considered including sex as an important part of a relationship.
And to be clear, all I'm describing here is how this seemed to function to me, I was just their teacher for a couple of days per week, I'm very much aware that these women come from a different culture that I only understand a tiny bit of. I have no illusions about being an expert in anything.
Interesting experience, thank you for sharing!
I sometimes feel like people use the white feminism discussion to cloak their misogyny in a layer of social justice. I say this as a female filmmaker of colour - I am very aware of the issues of white feminism, and that Gerwig's work is very white. But, at the same time, Gerwig is still one of the very few female filmmakers that Hollywood has allowed to be both a critical and commercial darling, and she is still making films that are feminine in a way that is complex and new. I wonder how many of her detractors actually care about women of colour and aren't just trying to bring a woman down by pretending to care about woc.
The reason why LadyBird had worldwide commerical succes is beacuse it was distributed by a fairly big studio (atleast when compared to the distributor of Real Curve)
I feel like movies/books are best when it’s specific. “Write what you know.” I expect White writer/directors to create based on their experiences. Now that gets sticky when you write set in big cities as so many shows are set (NYC/Boston) and it’s glaringly White but maybe that’s in service of the story, maybe the characters live in insulated White worlds. The real issue is that BIPOC don’t get the same space to write their own stories. So this means the White writers are expected to fill the gap and represent BIPOC ppl. Projects are almost immediately rated based on a diversity quota. This can often feel disingenuous and like tokenism. The most valid critique is that White storytellers are often praised/platformed for doing the same thing that a BIPOC did years before to no acclaim. But the solution isn’t to force White writers to stick in POC characters to satisfy a quota but for critics/audiences/investors/awards/producers to give BIPOC media the same energy that they do to the supposedly “universal” White stories.
This is very true. Often times when we demand so much of "representation" especially from white creators who knew nothing of the experiences of black or the POCs, our identity just ended up as misrepresented. Look at how much misrepresented Muslims in netflix shows. Truly horrifying that it gets to the point that I wished we muslims would not be represented at all.
UGH the memories of weeping next to my mother in the theater during the credits of Lady Bird! We watched the film with no context beforehand, it hit us like a train
Maybe a better question is “why aren’t there more female directors of color?” Artists generally create from experience. I don’t think it’s fair to Gerwig, or Sofia Coppola, to expect them to bear the responsibility for diversity in their art. Instead demand to hear the genuine, inspired voices of those who are underrepresented.
Even without being a woman, I still related very much to this film. While it definitely is a female film in the sense that the main character is a woman, so of course that affects the dynamics in her life, the film is also about a high school student and the relationship between a child and their mother and a lot of that resonated with me.
There's also something about being a man, but being brazilian, not canadian or from the states or some other place like it and being black that, for me, changes the way I interact with media in general, but it's usually reduced to the male gaze, and while I can't say that that doesn't affect my reading of what I watch, I don't feel like it's an accurate representation of my experience or the male experience in general.
@Hæccaeity i wasn't sure how to say it, woman film, made by a woman, made for women, about women, so I said it like she said it, a female film in the sense that it's distributed has that, whatever that means specifically.
You just can't win, it's either criticism for stepping outside of your POV or criticism for not stepping out of it enough. The beauty of art is its diversity in the same way that humanity is beautifully diverse. It is not the fault of the artist if people are not seeking art outside of what is being fed to them. If what is being fed to us is not, on a whole, representative of humanity, like you said...that problem is systemic.
Thats the whole problem though- people are less likely to have other avenues or options to consume more "diverse" art since it is often less funded, marketed and distributed. There are points on both sides of this issue that become flattened when you just chalk it up to a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type if attitude
@@Fatimah-qt8xj But that is in no way the fault of the creator simply writing their experiences/POV into a story. Why should the creator of Ladybird be blamed for the fact that it's more succesful than other POC stories? Or be blamed for the fact that producers will jump more easily on a white feminist film than a colored one?
Like op said, and like Broey said, this is what it means for a problem to be systemic.
@@CDexie exactly like i swear if a white filmaker vntured into telling their story about pocs, it would be deemed as cultural appropriation or smth or not giving poc filmmakers a chance to tell a poc story. but if the white filmmaker tells a story about white people bc its their own experience, people get mad for it not having enough representation??? like why not get mad at the industry for not including more pocs instead of the filmmaker simply trying to tell a story?
As an aspiring author I find this growing insistence that all stories must be somewhat semi-autobiographical in nature to be deeply depressing. I've always wanted to write diverse casts, I don't want to be limited to just writing about my demographics. One of my WIPs, the one I'm most passionate about is told from a different POV than me and I constantly waver with whether I should continue pursuing it or not. It's hard to know what the right approach is anymore, I don't want to segregate my casts and stories but the last thing I wanna do is get in the way of other writers living their dreams. Right now, my approach is I plan to collaborate as much as possible with the communities represented. Run it by lots of sensitivity readers and beta readers of those backgrounds. Hopefully that's enough, for now.
I’m once again so impressed by how you tackle a complex topic with such a carefully considered approach, addressing all the nuances and various facets of arguments.
Your channel is the gift that keeps on giving!
I simply didn’t relate to Ladybird not because I’m not white. I just don’t have that sort of relationship with my mother. It’s not perfect but it wasn’t that. And I didn’t see anything special about the story. I do like Greta Gerwig. I had a love hate relationship with Frances Ha that over the years has progressed to love. I too love and related to Frances. I think it’s interesting that you mentioned Sally Rooney. I just finished reading all her books and was kind of baffled by their praise. I think that’s the thing for me. I don’t dislike these kind of movies made by white feminist and find I do connect with the themes or ideas and humor or even just the aesthete of some of their work.But I do think the praise for some of their work is blown out of proportion. Not in comparison to other films made for or by people of color just in general. And you make it good point that the criticism should place blame with marketing. In a similar I feel this way about a lot of things. And I disagree with you about Baumbach being impervious to the same criticism. I’ve noticed that even filmbros that like his work perceive him as the guy who writes upper middle class white dysfunction stories. And I’d argue that Gerwig is more exempt from this criticism because she is a woman in a male dominated field. She is in a sense a minority. Her works touch on feminists concepts without being explicitly radical or subversive. She utilizes great female talent in both Ladybird and Little Women. I am happy that many people of all demographics feel seen or heard with her work. As I type this out I am realizing the significance. I just wonder why folks are so dormant when it comes to discussing similar pictures. It’s truly strange to me.
Great video as always. You, Princess Weekes, and Eyebrow are probably my favorite film essayists rn, and one of the few channels I actually have alerts on for.
I can’t believe how often your essays speak my language and / or articulate thoughts and conversations and debates I’ve already had with family and loved ones, but in a more eloquent, nuanced, and thorough way than I ever could! Thank you for your work! ❤️
you are so good at what you do! have literally binged your essays recently and it has given me such a framework and the language to take with me forward in my film pursuits :) u rock
i think the responsibility of representation should be placed more heavily on the spotlight (funding, viewership, political climate) than on what it happens to fall on (the art facing praise and subsequent scrutiny). the Pariahs are out there, its not the fault of the Ladybirds that they dont get enough attention
I knew Greta when we were late preteen/early teen age, we ran in similar circles in theatre and dance in our hometown, and she went to high school with a few of my good friends, we had done 2 productions together where we worked directly with each other. We lost touch after I finished high school, I was a few years ahead of her. I didn't realize she got into film until I randomly watched Francis Ha when it was in theaters and I was like "why does this person look so familiar" (she would have no idea who I was if she had ever seen me again), her actual mom played her mom in the film and that's how I recognized who she was, because of her mom. I wouldn't say her mom was a true stage mom, but super close to it. My mom had experiences with her mom, my mom doesn't like to talk ill of people but did say Greta's mom was a bit "difficult to work with", my mom is a theatre costumer so she dealt with theatre parents in a different capacity than most. I could't tell you what the relationship Greta had with her mom back then, but I did get the impression that it was a little strained and that Greta was annoyed of her, maybe a little scared too, but of course I never saw the full picture so I can't make any legitimate judgements
Yes, Sacramento is extremely diverse, when we were growing up it was said Sacramento had the highest ethnic diversity per capita in the country. But here's the thing........ The circles Greta grew up in were predominantly white, she didn't go to Sac High (like the character of her brother in Lady Bird), I did though because they actually had a pretty prestigious ballet program at the time, but white kids were definitely the minority there. But at Saint Francis, the all girls private catholic high school that Greta went to, for the most part was too expensive for most kids in the neighborhood it was in (In East Sac not far from the "fab 40s") to go to, unless you were catholic and could get a church scholarship but even that was rare, so Saint Francis was quite a bit white, as was the all boys catholic school in Sac, Jesuit, which was in a rich area, there was also another girls high school at the time called Loretto (which is now closed) was practically all white kids too. She might not have considered herself as rich as the people she went to school with, but compared to myself, she was still from a neighborhood that was quite a bit more well off than mine. And then there's her doing theatre and dance.... that takes up a lot of money, my mom nearly went into debt and had to borrow money from people for me to be able to do it, but because it costs so much money, you tend to be around a lot of rich people again, and again, at the time, late 90s early 2000s, in Sac, was mostly white people. I'm almost definitely sure things have changed since then, but again, at the time, this was her world, which was pretty white
Also, I completely agree with the criticism of Lady Bird, and compared to Real Women have Curves, the latter is a much much better film. But Lady Bird was seriously nostalgic for me and I did cry at the end, it wasn't my experience of Sacramento at all, I grew up in the seedy underbelly of it though heavily exposed to Greta's world just because I did ballet till I was 18. I think I cried and got nostalgic because I was living abroad when I saw it and it made me realize I was probably gonna stay abroad for the rest of my life (I ended up marrying someone not from the US and for their career it was better if we settled in their home country) and I got severely homesick after watching it. But I had been dying to get out most of my life, and I did, for good, I was mourning my birth home in a way. But as a film, yeah, maybe it is a bit overrated
Ive always had a complicated relationship with my mom but I never knew to put it into words nor did I think of it much; it usually just manifested into confused and frustrating feelings I would have once in a while or during an argument. As a person that tries to get closer to people by attempting to understand them, I tried doing so with my mother, but the more I tried the thicker the wall seemed to be. I had adopted a sort of idealistic attitude towards my mom, I was a bit of what we might call a "tomboy", while she felt like the pinnacle of feminine prestige and beauty, I wasnt jealous in some sense, but I was always too insecure to delve into this area to the point that I might have grown up showing her resentment and pretentiousness towards her interests. My therapist once told me to watch Ladybird, and after I had told him that i've seen the movie over a dozen times, he related Christine and her mother's relationship to mine. I went back home and I asked my mom if she'd finally watch it with me, to which she surprisingly agreed. Although I've seen it so many times I could recite entire paragraphs, it was a different experience then with her watching it with me. I tried to control myself by not staring at her face to watch her reaction during some scenes, but I kept on side-eyeing back and forth. To my embarrassment, some conversations, arguments, and situations were almost identical to ours, and I felt a bit of shame watching them. I saw so much of these characters in her and I to the point it almost got uncomfortable. The movie ended and I looked back to the end of the couch to check if she was sobbing the way I was.
She was not. In her words "That's it? why did nothing happen in this movie?", I spent around 15 mins trying to explain its relevance without hinting its parallels to our relationship, but she wasnt convinced, she thought it was boring and that it was overhyped. I was disappointed and a bit hurt afterwards, but I realized that what I wanted out of it was for us to just acknowledge our relationship and thought this would finally give us the chance. But the older I got the more I realized that her reaction is probably exactly was Ladybird's mom would have had, and it really is just their personality, a lot more practical and rationally-driven. And although I say that as a characteristic trait, to be able to understand your mother is one of the most complex experiences one can go through in relationships, you want try so badly, yet there is so much to unpack and so much ego and insecurity to cover, so much vulnerability and dread, all that and you never know if they are ready to do it too.
When I think about the nuanced discussion of feminism in female-demographic media, Barbie is a class A example for me (which coincidentally is Greta Gerwig's and Margot Robbie's next project, both of whom are feminist icons but also only tell white stories). I frankly never liked Barbie as a kid. I watched some of the movies and I had a few dolls but they never resonated with me. I tend to be more critical of Barbie and how it glamourizes thinness, whiteness and materialism (I know the doll diversified its roster now but I think those issues are still pervasive).
On the other hand, one of my best friends loves Barbie. She's also a poc and doesn't have the same body type as the doll but she admires how it depicts a hyper feminine character that isn't vapid or shallow but independent and smart. I recognize people who like Barbie are just as feminist as those who don't. What's upsetting is that nuanced conversations can't seem to be had about it because one side is "ignoring the problems" and the other is "making them up". White feminism is considerably exclusive but portraying feminism itself shouldn't be an "all or nothing" risk for creators. We can acknowledge what they did right and what they can do better without chalking up their work as purely good or bad.
true but if you dont mind me saying even though I'm late to this video.. gerwig did only direct 2 films. like literally she just started this a few years ago. 1. lady bird is inspired by her own experience growing up in Sacramento so ofc the experiences in it arent going to be the same as like a black woman growing p the hood. and that's ok. yes there does need to be more poc stories and I am a poc myself, but not all stories have to represent poc. why? bc that's not the filmmakers damn experience in life. ladybird is abt gerwigs personal life. personally as a poc, i related to both her films bc it goes deeper than just "white woman". her films are layers, its rideicuouls for some poc to be like "i cant relate because geriwg is white" like what? there are other aspects to relate to.
I feel like there are so many filmmakers out there who have been in this industry directing for liteal decades featuring white stories and yet they NEVER get talked about like gerwig with her two films. like why arent we having this conversation with the whole film industry more? and instead of people getting mad at gerwig for telling her experience, why not change the film industry instead to include more poc experiences instead of criticing someone like gerwig for her own experience?
anyways, this is my opinion, whyd think? ( i wasnt directoly talking to you, i just kind of blurted out my thougts)
Excellent video as always! Your essays always bring a empathetic nuance that feels refreshing in the sea of Internet media discourse. I always come away from your videos feeling likes I’ve learned something new. Excellent stuff!
Greta needs to co-write a project with a writer of color. She has cultivated sway in the film industry and she can use it to improve her work and boost voices who might not get the same chances she's had.
Great video! This reminds of a metaphor used in labour organizing, where you work not to limit the ceiling, but raise the floor, i.e. raise the base rates of pay, benefits, etc rather than limit their maximum. It feels like for Gerwig's work, people are saying "Why haven't you raised the ceiling in x, y and, z way?" while the majority of the industry refuses to even raise the floor and receives no scrutiny for it.
Maria Full of Grace, another Latina- Led teenage movie
which although it got an Oscar nomination for Best Actress hasn’t really echoed through pop culture as other White coming of age stories such as Lady Bird and Juno
This is so true. I think it’s because Maria Full of Grace touches on many topics of a low income Colombian girl rather than a movie with a typical indie soundtrack and “quirky” white American middle class girl like Lady Bird. In my opinion, Maria Full of Grace hits much harder because of the tone and dire need the protagonist feels. The whole “ be the main character” thing is easier to envision and want in Lady Bird because she lives a relatively fun life compared to Maria who is making life or death decisions
i love Ladybird and Turning Red, they are so relatable. My moms approval was something i needed when i was growing up.
6:06 Oeuvre - The works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively “The complete oeuvre of Mozart” (also @ 6:46 / 31:39 / 37:54)
14:26 Idiosyncrasy - A mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual (also @ 33:45 / 43:40)
14:30 Myriad - A countless or extremely great number
30:00 Facet - one side of something many-sided, especially of a cut gem.
38:24 Scopic regime - An ensemble of practices and discourses that establish truth claims, typicality, and credibility of visual acts and objects and politically correct modes of seeing
I love the way your mind works. this was a perfect encapsulation of my thoughts on the representation of women in movies about girlhood and added so many insights to my own perspective
As usual Brooey, I love hearing your opinions even when they don’t match my own. You always give me a new perspective. Can’t wait for the next one!
This has been such an interesting video. I didn’t like lady bird and I didn’t realize why until watching this. I hated that this was the life I desperately wanted to have and probably would have if my dad hadn’t stole everything dime my family and ran away leaving my family penniless and homeless. I went from upper middle class to extreme poverty within a matter of weeks at 12 which dramatically changed the course of my life. My mom had to work three jobs and couldn’t keep up with what I was doing and I was desperate for love and attention so I ended up with all the wrong people and was vulnerable to predators. The coming of age movie that I personally relate to most is Thirteen. People like to say it’s unrealistic and overly dramatic but not to me. That felt way more real to me than lady bird. I thought lady bird didn’t feel deep because the characters didn’t experience any traumatic events and I didn’t understand how anyone could feel any emotion watching it. Now I’m realizing that oh not everyone has the kind of experiences growing up that I did. Just because it didn’t resonate with me doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, it’s just not for me but I’m glad other people enjoy it.
I lost my mother a few years ago and the only thing I can tell you is to listen to when she talks about you because when one loses their mother, they lose everything they remembered about you (and that is most of your life).
No more conversations with her, no more motherly gentleness, a lot of lost personal history and no more praise from a person whose praise you always yearned for.
truthfully there's too much blame on filmmakers and not enough on audience. i've consciously chosen to watch more "diverse" films in the last decade, from ones that are diverse within my country to films from other countries. i don't just consider race, i consider other physical appearances, disability, age, class, gender, sexuality, genre, etc. i've seen real women have curves, moonlight, ladybird, and girlhood. i liked all them except girlhood. personally, i did relate to ladybird the most, even as a mixed white/black woman raised by a single mom in a low-income family in the midwest. i don't like or expect or even want white women to extend themselves into the bingo slots of representation. others call their stories ignorant, but i like the ability to ignore some factors to focus on someone else's story. this is why i can enjoy period dramas. i don't care if the white cast only has white problems. i can still be interested in them emotionally or find it entertaining. i think people have formed a habit of not even feeling genuinely offended or hurt, but still reacting from a place of "this isn't right because someone told me it isn't". i have no problem being excluded from fiction, when i know i also don't include everyone in my day-to-day life. i make peace with not feeling "represented", not because of my race/gender intersectionality is ignored, but because i don't expect most movies to ever reflect my personality or interests or character which i find more personal than demographics so i watch movies for the fractals i know can appear, than grading on perfection
i have never once seen a character in media that i could actually relate to. and while that is sad and invalidating in a way i can still appreciate other peoples stories and relate to certain parts of them.
Omg one of my favourite video-essayists quoting an article written by a girl from my year at uni is not something I expected! Really well thought-out video as always x
Ooo which quote was it?
You make some great points here, and I hope they're picked up and talked about more among other video essayists, text essayists, commentators... It IS hard to discuss things in a nuanced way these days, and you do it beautifully. I share your hope that we are treated to more stories featuring different kinds of people and points of view. And I have several I'm excited to go find and enjoy now.
I really enjoyed this video essay as it's a topic that I also find challenging to think about. When it comes to topics like these where there's kind-of a lot riding on the discussion, it feels like I always want to have a definitive answer on what we should do or what should be done. It's a really complex topic and I enjoyed that your video looked at it from all angles and nuances. I've found that your videos have allowed me to open up my mind to the idea that we don't always have to have a definitive answer. Sometimes things are more complex and require critical thought, no matter how much I wish there was just a simple answer to what should be done.
Broey knocks it out of the park again. Differentiating our angst being with commerce and not necessarily the art is such a great point that should be shouted from rooftops 🔥
Such a great video about such a complicated subject. The final though about demanding MORE stories instead of tearing down existing pieces is something I'll be carrying with me. As some one interested in writing stories, I've often waffled between wanting to provide more representation while also feeling it's inappropriate to speak to experiences I could never truly understand. Collaboration is a great way to overcome that challenge, and a good example would be the Jules-centric episode of Euphoria that Hunter Schafer co-wrote. By giving Hunter space to contribute her own experiences, thoughts, and ideas, the episode has a specificity that is deeply personal but also far more dimensional and authentic.
i’m so happy there is a greta video out. she’s literally one of the biggest inspirations in my life
This video really made further reflect on how I interact with topics like diversity and representation in film. I'm neurodivergent, and always trying to make sense of my experiences and the world through art. In turn, I want to reflect that back in my work, in some small, complex, nuanced way. Your conclusions about the "universal girl", and musings about embracing the specificity of experiences really spoke to me. A really fantastically challenging video!
thank you for this ! I love how your videos are always well researched and well put, and how you always always argue in good faith. thanks
Representation is so... complicated. I don't think any work out there is going to be ideal representation for *everyone.* As part of a marginalized community myself, things I think of as being pretty bland or bad representation others in the community might praise, and moments where I can go "YES, THIS" and fully relate others might find really lacking. Maybe we have different tastes or expectations, or are looking to see different experiences represented, or have managed (or managed to avoid) varying degrees of assimilation. These days I'll settle for anything that isn't explicitly negative.
Eight Grade is an interesting example. Bo Burnham is a cis straight man born in 1990. The protagonist of the movie is a girl born around 2006, half his age & a different generation. Yet, if you know a lot about him, you can see that the movie is in many ways about his own experiences.
I think that's a great example about how writers/ directors are actually able to tell stories outside of their own. Obviously you'd still need to have much nuance in the storytelling and maybe even do some research, but it's not an impossible feat.
so like… why are they mad at the white thin women for writing abt other white thin women? i feel like the problem is with the studios, they’re the ones who bring these films to the public.
As a bipoc idk I think it’s totally fine for a artist to create works of art that reflect their lived experience.
I think you did an excellent job explaining my issues with a lot of the conversations about diversity in films. We definitely need more diversity in film makers. More stories need to be told so the presentation of all minorities in society don’t fall on one person or one group. Great video 💜
I sobbed throughout the entirety of Lady Bird. It hit SO hard.
Beautiful & eloquent video essay! Thank you!
I've never really understood criticizing specific artists for making media that's more based on their experience as a white person rather than the system that decides that this media will be successful. Like I love diverse stories but I don't really want to watch someone awkwardly stumble their way through portraying an experience that they don't really understand. Sure the person can collaborate with someone from that minority group but there's only so far that can go if they want to make their own story versus someone else's.
Also I think it's weird how a lot of marginalized people will get really up in arms if a piece of media about their group doesn't fit with how they want to see themselves even when it's made by someone of that group. I'm a gay lady and while sometimes I see queer stuff that I absolutely love other times I see something and just don't really vibe with it. Like I watched Booksmarts and while some stuff worked overall it was just not my cup of tea but I'm not going to go off about how it's bad representation just because I didn't like it. I also absolutely adore yuri as a genre and have read some stories in it that I connected with more than any western stuff I've seen whereas other lesbians will say it's mostly bad and just sexualizing lesbians for a straight male audience. Granted I would argue that it's a very surface-level understanding of the genre that isn't entirely accurate but I wouldn't blame some lesbians for not connecting with stories they've read in the genre. In conclusion watch/read Adachi and Shimamura that is the most relatable shit I've seen in my life even though the author is supposedly a straight man.
This really makes me think. _Moonlight_ is one of the best movies ever made, but although I am a gay man and can very much identify with Tyrone in a very deep way because of that, and because movies are made to create empathy, the very "all encompassing" representation of the movie: a poor, abused, gay black man, also makes it extremely specific, and therefore, I don't really identify that much with him. I don't want movies to be "less" like _Moonlight_ so that _I_ will identify _more_ with them, but I somehow dislike the idea that _Moonlight_ is good _because_ it has so much representation; the specificity of the story works to make the story more than the sum of it's representative features, it's a movie about that particular context, as experienced by this particular character, and that intersects and interacts with the "representations" it has, but it's not the representations that make the movie, it's the movie that makes the representation just in general, but also, makes it good. If I identified more with _Moonlight_ it would probably be because the setting and the character would be closer to myself, but that's neither the movie it is, the movie it should be nor the movie I want. I DO want more movies focused on LGBT+ people, but I also like them to be movies that brush on that topic from the perspective of art: there is an artistic voice creating something of value, where queerness plays a significant role. I want more of them, but I don't want perfect ones. Or I should say, I don't want ones with "perfect representation." The perfect representation will come from the aggregation of all of the very varied, very specific queer stories out there.
Because the other building blocks of Tyrone's identity, other than his homosexuality, are more marginalized than my own, it seems like the movie has "better" representation, but it also makes it less similar to my own experience. I understand there is more of a need for stories that represent those marginalized characteristics, which makes the existence of _Moonlight_ more "urgent," I guess, than a hypothetical equivalent movie I could identify with more, but it doesn't get us closer to "solving" the issue of representation, of any type; that will come, as I said before, from the aggregate of a lot of very varied and specific stories that include, among many other things, elements of that wanted representation.
Thank you for your hard work! And thank you to the others who helped create!
Critique is important, (duh), but through out my entire adult life I've witnessed way too often people who regard themselves as intellectuals diving as quickly as possible on contrarian, low hanging fruit in observing a work, and immediately coughing up complaints about all the things it is not. Frequently it is done as a grandiose thesis statement on the entire state of cinema or music or art. We need representation and redress of complicated social issues, in my opinion that is what good art does and I'm glad social consciousness is growing, (though we clearly have a long way to go), but I think the critics are over looking that the common peoples patience is starting to run out over the lack of charity being shown towards those who are clearly trying. This speaks to a larger political topic regarding optics, ally-ship, and about a work never being good enough should it fail to discuss every social ill. Its a tough, unenviable line to walk, but I'm noticing more and more of my progressive friends roll their eyes at blogs/think pieces or social media accounts with these takes. More well intentioned people are starting to use terms formerly reserved for right-wing phrasing like "preformative" or "virtue signalling" when describing critics who go down Zizek-ian rabbit holes to let you know why you should feel bad for liking this recent film which didn't adequately address D whilst focusing on A,B, and C. If you were to make a film, what would you feel competent and passionate enough to talk about? What would you feel a responsibility to talk about? What would be responsible for you to avoid? What you chose to focus on IS your story. Is what you leave out always a reflection of your privilege and an indictment of your values? Defaulting to that belief will not bode well for criticism.
Little Women was the last movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic. I took my mom, my aunt and my sister to see it, they enjoyed it. And even if we aren't white, I think we all found some way to relate to the character's story, like my sister herself self doubting on her art, or my mom's relationship with her three younger sisters.
My point is that we had no problem relating to "white people narratives" because we have always had to. Most media and art we consume in Peru comes from the US and UK, and it has always been like this. And the criticism against Gerwig, I just don't get what do those critics want. It really doesn't sits well with me because it sounds like we, non-white audiences, cannot enjoy something like Frances Ha because it's full of white people. As if we were to react like those white dude bros angry because the new Star Wars had a female and a black lead.
Don't get me wrong, it's great to feel represented, to see one of us making it in Hollywood or getting a standing ovation at the Berlinale; but it's stupid to call out a work because it didn''t represent anyone enough. And when they try to, it may be done wrong, very superficially and just get an eye roll from us.
Algorithmic punch
(I really enjoyed ladybird when I saw it, but was unaware of the discussion around it/the director. I appreciate the candor and detail you taught me about this topic with, thanks)
an unfortunate reality of being a feminist and lover of cinema, all the great creative women people talk about (sofia, greta etc) have issues with race. it’s obvious and super sad but ofc you said it better than i hehe 🫶🏽
I mean maybe because I'm Asian but I'm fine with Sofia Coppola not having any Asian leads because her experiences just don't align with mine and I'd rather see her put out what she can understand. I grew up as a conventionally attractive person and with that came the racism in form of compliments. Men telling me that I'm "exotic" or "rare" was super common. One time, while I was still a minor, a grown man said to me "you're as womanly as a woman should be and I wish more American women were like you" as if I wasn't one. All the stereotypes of submissiveness and timidness applied to Asian women is just something Sofia Coppola or Greta won't understand. I see the way Latinas are represented on screen, it's racist to say the least and I don't want my people to see the same for us. Also, I grew up watching Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese and thai media and I never felt underrepresented. I know a lot of Asians, even third generation ones, who're very much in touch with their Asian roots. As far as directors go, we have Mira Nair, Domee Shi, Mindy etc. I see your comment, I just wanted to put my perspective out there as well xo
The video is not saying this at all, it's saying the exact opposite. Did you watch before commenting?
The only thing i don't like in both Gerwig's and Coopola movies is them casting the same lead actresses. I mean it's your movie do what you want, but i also feel like it to some extent limits them from hiring potentially more diverse cast.
What an insightful video essay! Thank you, you were able to articulate some complex thoughts I've been having.
"or do we acknowledge the specificity of experience on this earth", there - and other places, I started clapping in my room. Kick ass videos Broey!!!
This essay was wonderfully done!!!! thank you for the video🫶
idk how you do it, but you always seem to touch on topics that have been in my mind for a while. i’ve seen so many tiktoks of women (the majority of which are white women which is… weird) shitting on Sally Rooney’s works because they’re not diverse enough or whatever and it makes me so upset because i love those books, even if i understand the criticism
ok now we need a barbie breakdown pleaseeeeeeeee
I wasnt all in for the hype but definitetly enjoyed the production design, costumes, call backs to discontinued dolls and ofcourse Ken
Did u think the story held up? or was disjointed?
How can anyone call this overrated.
It’s so authentic in depicting the struggles of a teen becoming independent and growing up. As for the claims that lady bird is selfish or self centred- she’s literally a teenager, that again is pretty darn authentic
Good video! I especially love your point about how individual works of art shouldn't be treated as pure representations of larger, problematic trends.
Oh this was so well done. You hit every nail right on the head!!
This is such a banger of a video👏 Thank youu. Yall are inspiring
I AM SEATED
I am bowed.
I learn SO much and am SO engaged and fascinated by your videos (and they often lead me to great texts that I sometimes use in my own work) for someone who disagrees with a lot of what you said lol. I'll never think we're too hard on white women and I don't find Gerwig's work worth it at all, but I definitely have the framing you present in mind (Brandon Taylor's piece is so right on), but more with like, Turning Red or Happiest Season, just as examples.
Every one of your videos is INCREDIBLE
I have never looked at Greta Gerwig or any other white writer/directors to tell stories about Black ppl or Black women and girls. I do feel that there is Black movie canon that often gets ignored in conversations like this. So we have less stories and then also the stories we do have are often overlooked, not marketed, etc. I see Ladybird and think of movies Like Crooklyn and Girl on the IRT which ALSO discuss familial strife and Black girls coming of age and I'm quite sure many ppl outside of the Black community have no idea what those movies are.