IFC is running a mini-series called Indie Sex, looking at the treatment of sex in various films. In an episode running tonight, the focus is sex in teen films.
One of the talking heads-I'm sorry I didn't catch the name, but it was a woman-brought up Fast Times In Ridgemont High. Specifically, the scene in which Jennifer Jason Leigh loses her virginity in a baseball dugout.
She praises director Amy Heckerling for visualizing the scene from the girls point of view. Specifically for things like the shots of the grafitti that Leigh's character, Stacy, sees on the walls and roof of the dugout.
Going on to smugly add that, if a man had directed this scene, it would have been all about how the guy was gonna "get some."
Well, all right...unless you've read the book upon which Fast Times at Ridgemont High was based, which I have. And remember that Stacy's noticing the grafitti was in the book, which I do.
And who wrote the book (and for that matter, although I'm sure it doesn't, the screenplay)?
Cameron Crowe.
Yeah, no man could ever see things from the girls POV, could they?
4 comments:
The reason why I never watch those types of shows anymore is because those people always say uninformed things like that. The producers also don't do their research and realize that facts are wrong. Any VH-1 list show of The Greatest ____ in Rock always finds me yelling at the screen because they've gotten their main point wrong.
Of -course- no man could see things from a girl's POV. They're all ignorant beasts who don't know what they're talking about~!
Yes, it's true. I know every man on earth. It seems impossible, but hey- I'm a woman. I can do anything, right? Just like men can't do anything.
It annoys me endlessly when people say stuff that they know next to nothing about.
If you're going to open your mouth, please, try to be informed.
This reminds me of something...and while the connection may not be apparent at first, it's another aspect of the same phenomenon.
There was this bridge that collapsed a few days ago (you will have heard) causing some loss of life and a great deal of hardship and concern for the people in the city where it happened. It's still being covered at great length on all the news channels and nightly broadcasts, both local and nationwide. As it happens, I live in a place with a great many bridges, and the dominant theme of the local coverage of this bad event has been "could it happen here?" and "what if it happened here?" and "what are authorities doing to make sure it doesn't happen here?" Because a standard tactic of news broadcasting these days is to to frame stories in terms of "how does this affect you?" and inviting the viewer to imagine him or herself in the place of the poor unfortunates to whom the bad thing actually happened.
Then it struck me: the newspeople probably think this is encouraging empathy, asking their local viewers to stand in the shoes of the motorists in Minneapolis and their families. But it isn't empathy. It's the opposite of empathy. It's narcissism. It's saying "this event matters if you can imagine it happening to you, and your feelings about it should be how you would feel if you were the victim."
True empathy is the ability to recognize someone unlike yourself, experiencing something you could never experience yourself, and still feel this person who is NOT me is still a person and has feelings that are as real as mine. A person with real empathy can say "I may never lose a family member or loved one in the collapse of a bridge, but the feelings of those who just did are no less real." Just as a man with real empathy could think "I was never and could never have been a teenage girl losing her virginity, but her experience at that moment is unique and individual and not merely a vicarious projection of my own experiences."
People who possess empathy are capable of admitting its existence in other people. But narcissistic people don't even recognize the quality of empathy exists and can't imagine someone else demonstrating it.
I always liked something Peter David said: Experiences are unique, but feelings are universal.
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