This was quite a journey!

July 15, 2014 8:51 AM

Guys, instead of thinking, “Hey, not everything has to be politicized,” try thinking, “I wonder what it would be like for me if the situation were reversed, and how I’d feel if in the vast majority of the entertainment I consumed, the male characters were few and far between and then mostly used as talking props & plot devices. I wonder if I’d get kinda tired of that and occasionally I’d say something, even a little joke, just to ease the annoyance a little.” -- Paul F. Tompkins

(previously, more previously, son of previously, previouslier, previousliest)

posted by Kitteh (10 comments total)

Metafilter: Failed the Bechdel Test, even if you count lady apes.

I've started to seek out books that have women protagonists, because just the effort to do that indicates to me an author that is trying a little harder than everybody else. A girl can be just as much a bad, cliche character...but for the most part it doesn't seem to work out that way in the books I'm finding lately.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:55 AM on July 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

Failed the Bechdel Test, even if you count lady apes.

There were many things wrong with that movie; the totally unthinking sexism just added some shit to the pot.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:02 AM on July 15, 2014

I can't tell if Grady is an actual person or a Twitter persona, what with the self-published Ayn Rand fanfic and the complaints about "Hollywood libs" and, of course, the dismissal of women. He's so many caricatures rolled into one!
posted by zombieflanders at 9:03 AM on July 15, 2014

Hey, that was pretty great and had a nice, unexpected ending.

I really enjoyed the new Apes movie (Michael Giacchino's score is fantastic and lovingly reminiscent of Goldmisth's 1968 score) but was troubled by the overt "dudeness" of it all.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:05 AM on July 15, 2014

entropicamericana : Scroll down for the followup.
posted by Dr-Baa at 9:06 AM on July 15, 2014

Paul F. Tompkins is a treasure. Here he is shown slapping a puppet beaver representing the mayor of Toronto.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:07 AM on July 15, 2014 [2 favorites]

Tompkins seems to be saying that Grady was a persona, in the end, right?
posted by Navelgazer at 9:07 AM on July 15, 2014

That fact that he comes from the Philadelphia area would have put me in the tank for Paul F. Tompkins anyway, but I love him so much. I was a little disappointed that Grady still seems like an asshole at the end of this, but I suppose it's a little much to hold PFT responsible for rehabilitating twitter trolls.
posted by gladly at 9:07 AM on July 15, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm not as sanguine as PFT was about this guy being "in character." Unless Caissie St. Onge was in on the "joke" from the start, Grady started it out with a really shitty and sadly typical comment, with no winking or over-the-top about it.
posted by Etrigan at 9:07 AM on July 15, 2014

Mod note: I think this is a bit too thin as a post, but for the record I've also deleted a couple comment crapping in the thread about it because flag and move on, for christ's sake.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:12 AM on July 15, 2014 [1 favorite]