Introducing Jane
Friday, February 12, 2016 at 9:30PM In case you've missed it, LA based producer Ross Putman has been tweeting out the funny-if-they-weren't-so-awful introductions for female characters in the scripts he's been receiving. It's a dismal glimpse into the reality of female representation in cinema, featuring a strong emphasis on how attractive the character is and plenty of 'cool girl' types who are attractive but don't know it.
JANE, 28, athletic but sexy. A natural beauty. Most days she wears jeans, and she makes them look good.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
JANE (late 20s) sits hunched over a microscope. She’s attractive, but too much of a professional to care about her appearance.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
A gorgeous woman, JANE, 23, is a little tipsy, dancing naked on her big bed, as adorable as she is sexy. *BONUS PTS FOR BEING THE 1ST LINE
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
Whilst these scripts are likely never seeing the light of day (fingers crossed), it's an unavoidable truth that for every Therese Belevit there are ten Michael Bay Hot Girl who runs 2 metres behind the gawky hero.
To compare, let's look after the jump at how some of this year's iconic female characters have been introduced in their films after the jump...
Most of these introductions avoid cliches, and paint a concise, effective portrait. However some have moments that are shockingly similar to those being ridiculed above...
Daisy from The Hateful 8, by Quentin Tarantino:
This once pretty WHITE LADY (maybe before the trip, maybe years ago) wears a once pretty dress, and a once sexy smirk under a man's heavy winter coat. Her face is a collection of cuts, bruises, and scrapes. As if during this trip with The Walrus Mustache Man she took a few punches and falls.
Carol from Carol, by Phyllis Nagy:
THERESE settles back down, bored. A CUSTOMER looks expectantly to THERESE; THERESEpretends she doesn’t see the CUSTOMER and ducks down to her handbag to retrieve her book. She looks up above the desk to see where the CUSTOMER went and instead spies a glance of another woman - a woman whose green silk scarf tied loosely around her neck and head catches THERESE’S attention. This WOMAN appears to be the only customer surrounded by no one else. This is CAROL AIRD.
Sacha from Spotlight, by Thomas McCarthy and Josh Singer:
SACHA PFEIFFER, 28, wholesome, no bullshit
Eilis from Brooklyn, by Nick Hornby:
One of the front doors opens, and out slips EILIS - early twenties, open-faced pretty without knowing it. She closes the door quietly behind her and walks quickly up the street.
Ma/Joy from Room, by Emma Donoghue:
We wake groggily with JACK (five), blinking up at MA (26). She's standing in a worn t-shirt and underwear beside a lamp, switching it on and off at apparently random intervals. She cranes up at the recessed skylight, Room's only window.
Gerda fron Danish Girl, by Lucinda Coxon:
We pull out to see GERDA WEGENER’S brown eyes shift from deep scrutiny of the painting to polite social focus as she takes in an excited OLDER WOMAN.
Ava from Ex Machina, by Alex Garland (understandably the most detailed description):
INT. HOUSE/OBSERVATION ROOM - DAY 20 - what appears to be a neon coloured jellyfish. Tendrils like axons, hanging in a black-blue liquid space. REVEAL - - the jellyfish is contained in a glass orb. Which is held in an exposed cavity at the back of machined skull-shape... ... which is part of a robot girl. Her name is AVA. She’s an extraordinary piece of engineering. Proportioned as a slender female in her twenties, her limbs and torso are a mixture of metal and plastic and carbon fibre. The carbon fibre is charcoal colour. The plastic is cream. The metal has the yellow-warmth of nickel. The shapes of her body approximate the form of muscle. There are biceps, and breasts. Her hands have five delicate digits. Her body-structure is covered in a delicate skin. The skin is a mesh, in the pattern of a honeycomb. Like a spiderweb, it is almost invisible unless side-lit. The one part of her that is not obviously an inorganic construct is her face - which is that of a strikingly beautiful girl. Created in a defined oval, from the top of the forehead to just below her chin. Indistinguishable from a real girl in its appearance and in the way it moves - except for one thing. There is a very slight, almost imperceptible blankness in her eyes.
And maybe how some other characters have been introduced...
Poe Dameron from Star Wars: The Force Awakens:
Appearing in the dusk light, POE DAMERON takes in the horizon with a smoldering gaze that would blow the hair off a wookie. His jaw line is sharper than a lightsaber, and there's just something about him that would make a stormtrooper abandon his life's work just for chance to get under that jacket.
Judy the Bear from The Revenant
JUDY THE BEAR's curvaceous silhouette stands out against the stiff trees surrounding her, she's had kids but you wouldn't know by looking at her. She bristles with matriarchal fury.
Abby's Front Door from Carol:
Unassuming, but beautiful despite it's age ABBY'S FRONT DOOR stands with opportune confidence. Similarly can't help Harge with that.
Reader Comments (14)
Wow, this is sad and fascinating. Screenwriting is sort of an invisible art, but it says so much about Hollywood culture, and culture in general!
Love this! So interesting. Expected it from Tarantino but surprised by Hornby. His ladies are usually fab. Also love that Sacha's description is also apt to how she is introduced. Lol
"a little tipsy, dancing naked on her big bed, as adorable as she is sexy" ... lmfao.
Men are equally as stupid and ignorant as they are gross. Like, do they honestly have no idea how fucking ridiculous that is? It has STRAIGHT MALE FANTASY (aka NOT REAL!!!) written all over it. lol
Thought of this tonight when I saw a logline for a new sitcom pilot where one of the characters was described as "an unapologetic lesbian".
I love that someone took some time to expose this. When the most recent Blacklist of screenplays were posted online I flipped through them to see how many had major lead roles. Out of 50 screenplays ONLY 6 have a female who is the main protagonist. Descriptions such as the ones posted are the norm, and the roles are almost always supporting, or even smaller.
Another reason why we need more female screenwriters desperately.
Unfortunately, as with most things in the entertainment industry, the blame can't be laid just at this first port-of-call (aka the screenwriters). When you're writing a script, you're desperate for it to be read and know you have (if you're lucky) one chance at making an impression and convincing the reader to pass it on up the chain. And aspiring (and professional) screenwriters are told that producers and executives will stop reading almost immediately unless they're told that their main characters are handsome or sexy, especially if it's a script without obvious mass-appeal. These script-readers, writers are told, need to be informed that these characters who are locked in a basement dungeon; or are going on a slow, delicate journey from Ireland to America; or are in a newspaper office looking into paedophile clergy; are at least attractive.
Now, whether potential script readers are really that shallow may not be known. But that's what scriptwriters are told, so of course in the grand scheme of things, the description of a female character is one little battle it doesn't seem worth fighting.
"Wholesome, no bullshit".
Not many details to McAdams to work on. Is that the reason McAdams reads that blank?
I remember reading about someone in a screenwriting program and it did sound like the teachers rewarded male protagonists and sexist cliches.
when I read this, I couldn't help but think about Amy from Gone Girl, and her monologue about men and their perceptions of women, cool girls in particular. Amy may have been psychotic but she was on to something. The proof is literally in black and white on paper.
Of course we don't know who wrote the "Jane" screenplay intros, but it's interesting that among the Oscar nominated screenplays, it's the ones written by women that don't focus on the girl's looks.
The "Jane" tweets are funny and terrible but this isn't a hill I want to die on. Let's take Nick Horny to task for suggesting the lead in a romance he's writing should be pretty? I appreciate depth and intricacy but it matches my love of beauty and fantasy. Hollywood (at its best) sells all of those things to us at once—see several of this year's best films.
That's why I loved hearing Sandy Powell say she doesn't start imagining characters until she has a FACE to work with. That at once seems diplomatic and artistically advantageous. She's not costuming "generic pretty girl" (mindless patriarchy) AND she's not treating looks and beauty as if they're irrelevant to characterizations (PC totalitarianism).
In this—as with many controversies swirling around Hollywood—there's middle ground to be found. And you'll find that the smartest, best, most capable filmmakers (like Jonathan Demme haaaaay) are masters because they've been finding it all along.
cal roth: Yeah. I mean, I know that sexualization is overly common and shouldn't be the primary mode of anything, but that's gross in the opposite direction.
On a scale of 1-10, I'd give them, top to bottom: 5/10, 2/10, 10/10, 6/10, 3/10, 2/10, 1/10. (Yes, it mentions that her face is beautiful, but every other detail creates a hyper-detailed "you should still find her ugly" impression. So, no, based only on this, I'd hesitate to call Alex Garland "the problem.")
Lolz at Abby's door!
@ Hayden W. - You're a treasure. ♡♡
@ cal - I agree that characrerization is super vague, but I believe that the subdued nature of her performance probably stems more from the direction and a desire to have a true cohesive ensemble, without any acting flights of fancy (Ruffalo's weird ticks are apparently the way the real guy he protrays actually behaved). Tom McCarthy was both director and writer, of course, so maybe I am splitting hairs.