Ferrinus posted:

So the thing is, it doesn't actually matter who's being pandered to, "pandering" is a useful shorthand. I'm not sure whether the forces that work to ensure that disproportionately large swathes of media pointlessly sexualize their female characters think that they're raking in the heterosexual man/homosexual woman dollar or whether they themselves are literally just two guys who control all movies and just love babes or what. Obviously there are plenty who were successfully pandered to/titillated/whatever phrase you want to use (several of them testified here in this thread), but what percentage they make up of Earth's population is totally immaterial.

quote:

Context isn't the same thing as details. If this were the sexy fun The Enterprise Crew Goes To The Beach movie, you wouldn't see me complaining about the mere fact of the existence of shots of Carol Marcus in a bikini.

Like I said, you could put any number of speech bubbles over that shot of her from the trailer, and whether the dialogue and attitude afforded to her were flirty, or cold, or outraged, or whatever, you'd have the same basic problem that STID looked down at its wristwatch and was like "Holy moly, I almost forgot that I had a female character over here! Hang on, I'll throw something together-"

jivjov posted:

You're arguing that context isn't important. That's utterly absurd. Context turns what could have been shameless exploitation of a female character into strong character development for not only her but another character as well.

Lord Krangdar posted:

Who here was titillated by that briefest of shots in the film? Why are you now conflating being pandered to and being titillated? If a dude watched a film and found a female character's accent sexy you might say he was titillated by that detail, but that doesn't mean the detail was included to pander to him or that the film pointlessly sexualized the actor or her character.

quote:

I know context isn't the same thing as details, that's why I said "context and details".

Why is it that seeing a brief shot of a woman in a bra is inherently sexual in a bad, juvenile way but seeing a brief shot of a woman in a bikini is not? Why is it that the context doesn't matter here if it comes in the form of dialogue or the character's attitude but it would matter if it was a change in setting?

I have no idea what you mean by that last bit, can you explain the basic problem in a clearer way? Preferably one that doesn't involve a wacky anthropomorphization of the film (like I get that can be a useful way of speaking sometimes, but here its just obscuring your point).

Cingulate posted:

So a screenshot of the scene has been posted an average of once per page since the discussion started (or at least p. 145)!

Edit ... which seems to have translated in this thread going up 1 point in the ratings!

Ferrinus posted:

See? See? Apparently it's super important who was or wasn't literally turned on by that set of frames and it's now time to set out a comprehensive census. I knew this would happen.

quote:

I never said context didn't matter. In fact, I provided an example of an alternate context in which that scene would've been completely unremarkable. What I'm saying is that the details of that scene - the character's specific attitude about and response to being ogled by Kirk + the camera - isn't relevant to the complaint being made.

Lord Krangdar posted:

You seem inordinately aghast that someone might ask you to actually back up your claims and explain your positions. If you didn't want to talk about those individuals you didn't have to bring them up. Looks like you want to vaguely reference these people who were supposedly aroused or titillated or pandered to but never actually explain who they are and how you know, let alone why its a problem.

I didn't ask for a "comprehensive census", and this thing you do where you retreat into absurdly exaggerating the arguments of other posters is not cute or whatever. In fact, its getting very old.


So you keep saying. I'm not even sure what the exact complaint being made is anymore, given your reluctance to pin down the details.

Helsing posted:

The fact people can actually argue that Alice Eve stripping to her underwear was some great example of female empowerment or character development is hilarious.

Helsing posted:

If they wanted to establish her as a strong character there would have been a million other ways to do it.

jivjov posted:

And hey, guess what, they did. She got herself transferred on board the Enterprise under a fake name, she defused the torpedo with the cryo tube in it, she stood up to the head of Starfleet who also happened to be her father. Showing her mid-clothes-change doesn't magically invalidate all the other character development she got. It was another facet.

jivjov posted:

Just because you're too distracted being titillated to pick up on character moments doesn't mean that everyone who watched the film is as well.

EDIT: While I'm at it, let's look at this gem too:

quote:

And hey, guess what, they did. She got herself transferred on board the Enterprise under a fake name, she defused the torpedo with the cryo tube in it, she stood up to the head of Starfleet who also happened to be her father. Showing her mid-clothes-change doesn't magically invalidate all the other character development she got. It was another facet.

Helsing posted:

I'm incredulous that you actually think the motive behind that scene was anything other than titillating the audience. It was a very silly summer blockerbuster movie. The buxom young blonde woman shows off her breasts because that's something that a male dominated audience is going to appreciate.


That isn't character development, that's cliched action schlock. You're trying to give this movie a way deeper reading than it deserves. The characters all just mechanically act out the roles that are necessary to carry forward the action. There's a small amount of mild characterization regarding father issues and male bonding tossed in for flavour but that's it.

DFu4ever posted:

Out of curiosity, did this ridiculous discussion occur in the Iron Man 3 thread, because I clearly remember Pepper running around in her bra for the last portion of that movie and it had just as much justification as this scene did.

DFu4ever posted:

Out of curiosity, did this ridiculous discussion occur in the Iron Man 3 thread, because I clearly remember Pepper running around in her bra for the last portion of that movie and it had just as much justification as this scene did. Why the lack of bitching in that case? Why no fervent demand for justification that in turn ignores every bit of reasoning given?

I would like all of you that are up in arms about bras and panties to scrutinize every single TV show and movie you watch just as critically as you have ol' Into Darkness. Then, when you've hit a proper level of outrage, go find the thread for whatever it is that you are watching either here in CD or in TVIV and assist in turning that thread into the same cesspool of discussion that this thread has been turned into.

Oh, and...

Snak posted:

Because star trek fans are more likely to have white knight complexes than comicbook fans? While Trek has always been progressive in a sort of "two steps forward, one step back" kind of way, treatment of women's bodies in comic books has been almost universally exploitative.

misguided rage posted:

Also because the focus in those scenes wasn't solely on Pepper's cleavage. If anyone thinks the discussion here is about women in film never being allowed to be less than fully dressed they're probably an idiot.

DFu4ever posted:

DFu4ever posted:

You saw her for literally two seconds.

DFu4ever posted:

Ferrinus posted:

I think Supercar phrased the actual complaint best and I'm just going to paraphrase him: that scene's a continuation of a trend running through media generally in which women are incessantly evaluated in terms of their sexuality. Carol Marcus in her underwear confidently rejected Kirk's juvenile advances, great! But she still turned up in her underwear to clarify for us in the audience as to how she looked in her underwear and whether or not she wanted to bang someone, as has like every important female character in this series of movies who wasn't someone's mom. You don't have to watch Star Trek Into Darkness to see a scantily-clad babe - but if you watch it, you get a scantily-clad babe as a bonus, even though it's a jarring interruption in what was otherwise a sci fi action thriller!

quote:

This has been made clear for multiple pages. I don't want to get into multiple-pages line by line war in which you point out that Alice Eve shot from below is worth only 76% of the porno points that Alice Eve shot from head on would be indexed against contemporary lingerie advertisements.

jivjov posted:

Just because you're too distracted being titillated to pick up on character moments doesn't mean that everyone who watched the film is as well.

EDIT: While I'm at it, let's look at this gem too:


And hey, guess what, they did. She got herself transferred on board the Enterprise under a fake name, she defused the torpedo with the cryo tube in it, she stood up to the head of Starfleet who also happened to be her father. Showing her mid-clothes-change doesn't magically invalidate all the other character development she got. It was another facet.

jivjov posted:

You can't fit every single combination of character traits interacting with every possible circumstance in a single movie. We're a little short on the infinite time that would require.

And how do you know that a male character that has a moment in which he makes it clear that he has no interest in having sex with a female character and also has plot interactions with his mother would be seen as a joke? Maybe you'd see a character like that as a joke, but since that hypothetical character wasn't in this particular movie, you can hardly speak for every single person and unilaterally declare that such a character is unequivocally a joke.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

I'd say that what makes this image special, what evidently angers so many, is not that the character was a strong, capable woman who is degraded by being shown in her underwear. That happens all the time, without complaint.

Instead, I'm going to perform a reversal: the issue is that the visible underwear degrades Starfleet decorum. She doesn't cover her shame when the captain turns around. She continues to perform her duties while unclothed, moving purposefully, as if nothing is wrong. But something is wrong! You can see a breast! The appearance of the breast is an affront to Starfleet (the racist and colonialist institution), and is unconscionable.

Note again the purposeful stride and the symbolism of the one hand gripping the material while the other points towards the infinite. It's imagery of knowledge and enlightenment, but her breasts aren't hidden and she experiences no shame. And she denies Kirk knowledge (in the biblical sense now). This is what makes the image fascinating and, evidently, discomfiting.

Space Hamlet posted:

Sadly her twitter is inactive or we could get this whole nerd debate settled lickety split


I don't get it, do I need to prove that my opinion is a consensus before you'll consider and address the points I made instead of the possibility of people seeing things my way (people do)

jivjov posted:

You're asking us to consider a hypothetical counter example instead of examining the actual scene we have from this movie. What good does it do to stand here and say "oh if the genders were reversed the character would be seen as a joke"? How do you know that?

Space Hamlet posted:

Because I see this character a joke due to the reasons which were the rest of my post

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

What irks is that Marcus/Eve doesn't seem to know she's being exploited. Why is she so confident? Doesn't she know that men control her? Doesn't she understand that her vocal resistance to being exploited is an merely a vestigial annoyed face attached to a breast? Doesn't she know her place, as victim?

Supercar Gautier posted: