But Lola's life was about to change...

July 3, 2016 3:54 PM

Nuclear Family presents: Underwritten Female Character: the Movie.
posted by frumiousb (35 comments total)

Still MIA:

Post-menopausal woman
Normal BMI woman
Disabled woman

baby steps, I guess.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:22 PM on July 3, 2016 [9 favorites]

(For real though, I'd love a shop called Records & Dresses. I'd open a shop called Records & Dresses. Literally two of my favorite things, but I'm old, mopey/angry and not pixie-ish, or dream girly).
posted by thivaia at 5:02 PM on July 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

why can't i watch this movie
posted by beerperson at 5:18 PM on July 3, 2016

Huh. Neat.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 5:19 PM on July 3, 2016

please, someone make this movie
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 5:42 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Would watch.

Normal BMI woman

Shanna Malcolm is a step in the right direction, but is overloaded by the sassy black woman meme. Jenny Yang is not exactly anorexic.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 5:50 PM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

"I'm broken, can you fix me?"

Yes I would watch this movie. But only if there is a scene where Broken Sad Boys get told off and shoved out. And Sassy Black Friend refuses to help her thin white friends. And so on.

(Nerdy Girl refuses a makeover! I need a movie where that happens!!!)
posted by emjaybee at 5:51 PM on July 3, 2016 [11 favorites]

This is awesome. thivaia you should visit my neighbourhood record store, Joel sells 2nd hand vinyl in one half, his partner Linda has a dressmaking workshop in the other half, it's pretty great.
posted by threecheesetrees at 6:53 PM on July 3, 2016 [5 favorites]

But only if there is a scene where Broken Sad Boys get told off and shoved out.

I am imagining them being shoved out of a helicopter
posted by beerperson at 6:55 PM on July 3, 2016 [12 favorites]

only if there is a scene where Broken Sad Boys get told off and shoved out

...and maybe start observing people, getting therapy, or reading something constructive and figuring things out for themselves. Maybe they [constructive activity]. [plant a garden or start to make their own clothes or something...what do happy boys do?]
posted by amtho at 7:07 PM on July 3, 2016

Maybe they [constructive activity]. [plant a garden or start to make their own clothes or something...what do happy boys do?]

I too was worried that a movie about underwritten female characters would shortchange the men.
posted by jeather at 7:34 PM on July 3, 2016 [33 favorites]

I want this movie so hard it hurts.
posted by Deoridhe at 8:28 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Still MIA:

Post-menopausal woman
Normal BMI woman
Disabled woman

Those are in the sequels.

Also:

Sporty woman who's just like one of the guys.
Non-Christian woman.
The lesbian.
posted by numaner at 9:01 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Where is the Kickstarter for this?
posted by amtho at 9:31 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

I would so fund that kickstarter.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 9:38 PM on July 3, 2016

Various KINDS of lesbians and queer ladies, even. Ladies with disabilities. Older ladies who are at Burgess Meredith levels of cranky. And so on. The list of Types of Women You Seldom See in Movies is a long one.
posted by emjaybee at 11:22 PM on July 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

punk/goth/industrial/weird women who are an actual character and aren't just there to scare the men and make them run away laughing
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:27 AM on July 4, 2016

Loved the ukulele a sledgehammer.
posted by rongorongo at 12:59 AM on July 4, 2016

Wives who have their own wacky hjinx that make their sensible husbands roll their eyes at their adolescent adventuring.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 2:01 AM on July 4, 2016 [18 favorites]

I like the white guy in the comments complaining that the content isn't made for him.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:28 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

lesbians and queer ladies come in various KINDS now?!?!?




(sarcasm)
posted by Dressed to Kill at 8:41 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm even different varieties of lesbian depending on the time of day!
posted by Miss Scarlet with the Candlestick in the Lounge at 9:36 AM on July 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

Would support, would watch all. How about intelligent female character who is not just waiting to take her glasses off and be hot to be of value? Also, I would like to apply for the not hot curmudgeon who isn't cutesy.
posted by LuckyMonkey21 at 10:24 AM on July 4, 2016

I'm in the middle of reading an essay about Nan Goldin and this passage seems relevant:

There’s an unspoken rule in photography, not to mention in art in general, that women are not supposed to be, technically speaking, voyeurs—they’re supposed to be what voyeurs look at. “Woman has been symbolized almost out of existence,” Katherine Anne Porter wrote, in 1950. “To man, the myth maker, her true nature appears unfathomable, a dubious mystery at best. . . . Therefore she was the earth, the moon, the sea, the planet Venus, certain stars, wells, lakes, mines, caves.” Goldin didn’t photograph the so-called natural world. She photographed life business as show business, a world in which difference began on the surface. You could be a woman if you dressed like one. Or you could dress like some idea of yourself, a tarted-up badass woman, say, who struggles to break free from social decorum by doing all the things she’s not supposed to do: crying in public, showing her ectopic-pregnancy scars, pissing and maybe missing the toilet, coming apart, and then pasting herself back together again.
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 11:24 AM on July 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

crying in public, showing her ectopic-pregnancy scars, pissing and maybe missing the toilet, coming apart, and then pasting herself back together again

Am I being watched?
posted by jeoc at 11:33 AM on July 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wives who have their own wacky hjinx that make their sensible husbands roll their eyes at their adolescent adventuring.

This actually describes a decent portion of the seriously underrated show "The Middle."
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 11:43 AM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Missing: Post-menopausal woman


Oh god, no! If this picks up steam and we turn into people, my invisibility cloak will be rendered ineffective. It's been so nice and quiet!

Points for the busted ukulele, though.
posted by JulesER at 12:56 PM on July 4, 2016 [6 favorites]

(I apologize for the straight-person flailing of "kinds of lesbians" I was reacting to "the lesbian" with offense that there's only ONE presuming all these other kinds of women are straight and in doing so put my foot directly into my mouth and boy this shoe leather is chewy, ya'll).
posted by emjaybee at 1:03 PM on July 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

emjaybee, as a lesbian of a few kinds, I took no offense!

This film needs to be made. It can premiere at Crone Island's own cinema.
posted by Miss Scarlet with the Candlestick in the Lounge at 2:26 PM on July 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

the 4 dudes in the coffee shop were my fav -- no wait! The barista saying his mom has just died, "Can you fix me?" *puppy eyes* Masterful. I need a full length 90+ minute version of this. I'm sure Anna Kendrick would love to star in it.
posted by pjsky at 4:33 PM on July 4, 2016

The invisible Asian lady idea was brilliant. This really does need a full-length movie.
posted by smirkette at 5:19 AM on July 5, 2016

It would be interesting to frame and write things like there was a five or six woman group, but have some of them only show up after the POV character wakes up.
posted by Deoridhe at 11:40 AM on July 5, 2016

As a recently recovering Manic Pixie Dream Girl, I laughed triumphantly at the ukulele smash. Can we have a character who is a musician with painfully excellent taste in music and killer chops, who's been excluded from all-male bands since junior high? Clearly all these characters need to have a band together, if for no other reason than that Buckaroo Banzai had no awesome female characters.
posted by gusandrews at 12:05 PM on July 5, 2016

Took me a while to figure out there was no underwriter, and that I was reading that wrong.
posted by bongo_x at 6:26 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

gusandrews, I think you'd really like the movie We Are The Best! Fanfare discussion here.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:25 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]