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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

"Action movies for example are incredibly male dominated and also very popular, until the general public is OK with seeing women getting beaten, killed and abused I don't see this ever changing."

Angelina Jolie has made several action movies where she gets banged up quite a bit. (Salt was originally designed for Tom Cruise; Jolie was a big improvement.) So has Scarlett Johansson (who, as Black Widow, ought to have an origin movie but isn't getting one.) Sigourney Weaver also had some tough times in her action movies. All of those were successful films.

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Dominated - Have a commanding position over.

No one said they do not exist.

Salt is rated PG-13 Aliens while rated R is 37 years old.

I dont understand the point you are trying to make?

How many movies have you seen, where men beat up women? How many movie shave you seen, where women beat up men?

As long as society has asymmetric views on gender you will never have equality of roles in movies.

This is an almost tautological position though. Films have a gender bias because society has a gender bias because, among other things, films have a gender bias. The reality is human beings have agency to make new things, dismantle previous stereotypes, and create an equal footing. Female action stars are not a concept that puts us at an impasse for creating gender equality (in fact, I'd argue with things like the Hunger Games, some of the marvel films, etc. the trend is to begin featuring women incrementally more in action films). I still haven't seen any evidence that gender stereotypes or prevalence of women are a causal factor in profitability, but even if that were the case I think we need to ask ourselves if that's a just position to take for defensibility.

I haven't seen any evidence that gender equality in film dialog is a good thing.

Watching Game of Thrones recently, Brienne of Tarth gets really beaten up in the fight with the Hound. I do not recall having seen that level of prolonged physical action/violence on a woman in anything else before. Felt quite shocking to watch, even given the show's reputation.

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