Analyzing the Women of Oz
Our first assessment:
Women over 40 must always play Witches.
Sorry, Rachel Weisz.
It doesn’t matter if you have no freaking idea what you’re going to watch. When we were in the theater — where my mother asked “Wait? What movie are we watching???” — and she saw and recognized Rachel Weisz as the “eldest” member of the starring cast, we all knew she was trouble.
Michelle Pfeiffer on Stardust (2007) and Anjelica Huston on Witches (1990).
Though, at 37 years old, Charlize Theron is breaking witch barriers by being all regal as the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Huntsman, making us all root for her winning instead of The Fairest of the All, Anjelica Huston broke Ugly Witch barriers with Witches, which was released when Huston was 39.
Second assessment:
Brunettes are trouble.
Brunette AND Green. Mila Kunis smells like trouble.
My mother grew up watching old western movies where the good guys would dress in white or ride a white horse, while the bad guys of the film would be wearing black or riding a black horse. Of course, that was if she was lucky enough not to run into a film where minorities were the bad guys. They didn’t need to be color-coded because the color of their skin was their code.
Did you hear about the producer of the movie saying that he was interested in this story because when he worked at Disney, he felt there weren’t enough children’s stories centered on male characters?
@Diandra Rodriguez, OH REALLY? No, I didn’t. And I thought John Carter was centered on a male character just like Prince of Persia was, and though Persia did make money, John Carter was a bomb.
You got any link?
@amy, it came from a Huffington Post interview, which is linked to with commentary here; http://racebending.tumblr.com/post/44985034389/too-many-ladies
@Diandra Rodriguez, I find it interesting that men complain there are no strong male leads. I wonder do they think Oz is a strong male lead? He’s a con artist who cheats on women, and his “cheating” is the trigger for Theodora. By the end, do men think Oz becomes a worthy lead? He’s basically a sham. The image of what the people of Oz needed him to be?
@amy, While I haven’t seen this movie yet, I think his comment might have been sparked by the heavier marketing presence of the Disney “princesses.” Yet I have a theory that these female characters might have higher visibility because 1) they’re easier to group together than the Disney male heroes, 2) they’re squished into the “princess” trope that girls are encouraged to follow, and 3) girls may buy some of the general and “boy” toys but are also looking for any lead or secondary characters similar to them and, since more movies tend to have male leads, the girls will return again and again to the “princesses” and spend more on a narrower range of characters.
@Diandra Rodriguez, makes sense. My niece was watching BackStreet Boy’s Everybody, and instead of picking one of them as in “I’m dracula” or “I’m the mummy,” she chose the girl vampire.
I enjoyed Oz, but these things really stuck out – not only here, but a majority of movies. A part of me wanted Raimi to whack Glinda and make HER the evil witch haha, but that would go against cannon and fans would be up in arms. I think the sexism people perceive comes with how dated material is. Girls do have something to complain about The Snow Queen, though.
Could we make similar assessments on other movie witches or other fantasy tales? For example, the last two Snow Whites?
@ghost, well. Kinda did? In Mirror Mirror, Julia Robert IS over 40, though the mood of the film is really campy and it’s all kind of historical. In Huntsman, Theron did come off better than Snow White, but that might be our bias against Kirsten. I still think Theron’s character was much better developed in it than Snow White herself.
Hansel & Gretel does show a witch Famke that’s over 40, and she also has dark hair. And Pfeiffer is a blond over 40 on Stardust.
If you can name me other movies, we could try and figure it out. In all of the above mentioned examples, we can’t be sure of what the grade of putting out is. We do know Theron does kinda lure men and kills them there… xD