Gender-Based Roles

Not sure if that is in reference to my rant on the Doctor Who board, but I'll take it as a cue either way. My only grievance about messing with gender roles in fiction (and I think many other people's as well) is when they take established characters and turn them male/female respectively. As I said in the DW thread, I don't want a female Indiana Jones for example, yet I love Lara Croft, which has often been compared to Indy, and rightfully so. She's not just a gender-reversed character, though, she's her own, fully established character with her own history, narrative, villains, allies, etc. Yes, the world she's set in and the obstacles she faces are often very similar to the setting of the Indiana Jones movies, but that's where the similarities end. 

If they ever make an Indiana Jones reboot, featuring Henrietta Jones, Jr., though, I'll be screaming bloody murder!


Same goes for James Bond: Give me movies about female spies, yes please, but don't you ever dare to turn James Bond into Jane Bond! 

I agree with most of the thoughts here. If they simply take an established character and flip the gender that's not likely to work. But if the character has already had multiple iterations then a gender switch in a new iteration isn't likely a big deal. Taking the Indiana Jones example, if they wanted to do a "female version" then why not just introduce a female member of the Jones family who takes over the "role" within the family (i.e. as the swashbuckling archaeologist)? Give that character her own history and motivation and make her unique in her own way while still making her "Jones". Simply rebooting the series with Ingrid Jones or something and trying to fit Indy's backstory into her character would be silly.

I haven't watched Doctor Who (though I will some day) but from what I've read it's more of a "title" over the years and each Doctor has their own personality and quirks etc. So a female iteration there could work IMO (again, speaking as someone who doesn't really know the mythology - what sigasahab wrote is more than I knew on my own).

I wouldn't put it past Hollywood to pander to trends, but isn't it possible the motivation is simply out of wanting a new twist on something they own the rights to? How many Doctors have there been already? Someone in a production meeting suggesting they might be able to come up with some new, unique stories or even bring in new fans with a female doctor could just be as simple as that. Not everything is SJW conspiracies.

My 2 cents anyway.

I meant "Hollywood" in the colloquial sense. I haven't watched all of the iterations of Sherlock but loved the Benedict Cumberbatch version.

I do acknowledge that it's easy for me to passive about it given it's not a character/universe I'm overly attached to. And I'm sure there are cases where decisions are made out of "political correctness" or some perception/fear that they "have to". Just suggesting that sometimes it might not come from there.

As a woman, you're ironically given a bit more latitude to suggest there is an agenda. Which hurts my head a little bit LOL.

Anyway, if they wanted to they could simply come up with a different character who's female but similar rather that ret-con this gender switch bit. But I also think that's sometimes part of why people complain. If they "see" that this was something that wasn't planned from the start people sometimes tend to get more upset or question 'why?' If Sydney Newman were to be quoted saying he always thought the character could be a woman or something would that change things? Heck even the re-genesis bit was a ret-con of sorts as you point out. A clever way to use a new actor but it seems to have evolved into a way to also explore new personality traits (not sure how different Doctor #2 was). So while I can see them wanting to use the same devise to try a female Doctor I won't try to tell you that you should just accept it if it's not sitting well.

Thanks for the feedback on the Doctor. Part of the reason I haven't started yet is I know I'll want to crush all of it right away - which could take a long time.

I do think there's a bit of a self-sustaining cycle going on in the world today with the whole PC thing. Yes there are absolutely people who push for gender/race/age/sexuality/etc. "equality" in ways that aren't necessary and actually counter-productive. But there are also people that are so tired of that they end up resisting out of spite. I just find it much easier to take things as they are and not get worked up on wondering why they are that way. Heck, if something gets made purely out of some agenda to push a female lead character and it's actually good - who cares really? I mean, it's not a good way to do business but as a consumer I just want good content and I'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying about how it came about since I may never have true inside information to confirm anyway.

Okay so reading that back it sounds naive. But what I'm getting at is the idea that we very rarely *know* what's behind these decisions. There's plenty of speculation one way or the other and that speculation often feeds off itself. On person might completely make up some conspiracy (we've all seen claims on those other boards about why Hogarth is a woman now or why Heimdall is black etc. etc.) and then someone else will see only that one person's claim and go to the other extreme. All based on nothing.

I certainly hope decisions on art (films, books, TV, comics) aren't based on PC agendas or assumptions about what's "okay" and what is not etc. I'm sure it happens but the more we pay attention to those ideas the less likely it is to stop happening. I'd rather just accept at face value that the decisions are about what the creators thought would be the best story or most interesting etc. and hopefully at some point in the future that's always the case and the idea of saying "oh gee we better add a gay character" or "oops we have too many gay characters" become as antiquated as ...... well hmmm. Trying to think of something that is truly antiquated is tough as there are still examples of almost every silly stereotype or bias I can think of.

I guess I'm just tired of the debate honestly (not this thread of course, the raging debate at extreme levels). I'd rather just decide if I like a show/film/book or not than feel like I have to keep track of all the minorities and groups present to make sure it's "correct".

Yes I heard it was awful as well.

But do we know it was agenda-driven? Or could it just have been someone at Sony thinking "Hmm, another sequel wouldn't work but maybe a new twist? Melissa McCarthy is hot right now - how about we go all female for something different?"

Then it went off the rails from there.

I suppose someone might have some insider rumor that someone instead pitched a reboot of sorts with a new, male cast and the studio said "oh gosh, we need to go female or the femi-nazis will get us!", but I guess I don't see the point in even wondering what the motivation was. They had an idea that could have worked and it failed miserably. Hardly a rare occurrence in Hollywood.

To me, the difference between a feminist-agenda driven movie or show and something that just happens to have (a) female main character(s) is in how those characters and their issues are portrayed, especially in comparison to others. That's something I really hated about Agent Carter for example, but loved about Wonder Woman. Okay, so we have an awesome female as the lead, but what about the men? In WW, all the male characters were highly skilled, intelligent characters as well, and while they obviously couldn't keep up with Diana - 'cause, you know, no superpowers - they didn't slow her down or were otherwise useless.

In Agent Carter on the other hand, you seriously had to wonder how all those SSR agents ever got their positions and why the hell Peggy Carter, who didn't even have any Black Widow-like special training, got to be so much better in everyone's job than them. She was a better agent than every man, better in hand-to-hand combat, a better codebreaker, and even someone like Jack Thompson, who seemed to be actually capable, had to be knocked down a peg and branded as a coward, so Peggy could shine even brighter. 
Only Sousa ever evaded that treatment, but since he was disabled, the show had put him into the "outcast" section of the SSR from the get-go anyway.