Undoubtedly, Excellency, your companion is Mad.

dee-lirious:

marielikestodraw:

theavengersruinedmylife:

napoleonesque:

startrekaday:

theblueboxonbakerstreet:

THIS SCENE WAS LITERALLY THE TEXTBOOK DEFINITION 

#you know it’s bad when you’re less progressive than a show from the 60’s

The hashtag by theblueboxonbakerstreet: NAILED IT.

The fact that everyone is drawing attention to it is what’s making it gratuitous. Tumblr people take every single instance that’s even remotely “socially unjust” and completely warps it into something it’s not. 

That and, it’s very clear, that all the people who complain about instances like this obviously don’t know how to cinematic business works. They assume that every single decision going into the movie is in the director’s hands, when ultimately, it’s the production company that has the final say what has to be in the movie. The movie industry is exactly that: an industry. Production company corporate heads are no different than ones to say, an oil company. They want money. They see what will generate the most viewers for a movie (such as sexual promiscuity) and demand it in a movie. The movie industry is an industry. Don’t blame a director for having a corporate hag breathing down their neck threatening to pull the plug at any moment.

Remember two weeks ago when Benedict Cumberbatch said that a shirtless scene with him in it was cut, and everyone bitched because they wanted to see it? How in any way shape or form is this any different? People got genuinely MAD that they couldn’t see Benedict Cumberbatch shirtless, and yet everyone is up in arms because Alice Eve got to be? If women truly are supposed to be equal to men, then there shouldn’t be any discrepancy between who’s allowed to be shirtless and who’s not.

Also, Alice Eve commented in an interview saying that she was excited to show off her body in the film. She said that she worked extremely hard for it, and was pleased to have people be able to see it.

Stop turning minuscule details that don’t even serve the main point of a project into things that they are not. By focusing on the seemingly “socially unjust” aspects of a picture, it proves that you are not grasping the true point of the film, and are in fact creating sexism and racism and any other isms by applying them to situations where they are truly not present.

THANK YOU JESUS YES THANK YOU SOCIAL BLOGGERS JUST STOP

Are you fucking kidding me, is the above comment about how “it’s GOOD that she did this” an absolute joke of epic proportions?? Equality? I just can’t. Please, someone more eloquent than me, debunk this. Or talk about how the women in the movie were so poorly written in every way.
I have lost the ability to can with how to write it myself.

This is gratuitous because, as the definition implies, there is no reason relating to plot, character development, or thematic significance for this scene to be included. In a narrative sense, this shot of Alice Eve/Carol Marcus contributed literally nothing. In a creative/productive sense, it was included to invite the male gaze, reinforce the objectification of women’s bodies (as a continuation of Star Trek 2009, where the only two named female characters were also featured in their underwear), and, as was said, “generate the most viewers for the movie.”

If Alice Eve is, indeed, excited to “show off her body,” then good for her; but unfortunately this isn’t really about her as an actress, because this is not a singular, isolated incident of objectifying the female body. On a textual level, it’s great that Carol is confident in her body (although, canonically, she asked Jim not to turn around and he did anyway). However, on a meta-textual level, the treatment of Carol’s body as a commodity intended for the male gaze contributes to an extremely pervasive culture which tells us that women’s bodies are not their own; they are for the pleasure of the (straight, male) viewer, without consideration for the comfort or even willingness of the female participant. If you don’t see how this is an issue, I really can’t help you; go look up the statistics surrounding women and their representation in media.

You mentioned: “then there shouldn’t be any discrepancy between who’s allowed to be shirtless and who’s not,” and I totally agree; there shouldn’t. But unfortunately, there is. There is a lot of discrepancy between the connotations between male bodies and female bodies; specifically that men are: strong, powerful, assertive, dominant, etc. while women are: submissive, seductive, passive, even weak. There’s a very marked difference between the acceptability of a shirtless woman and a shirtless man. We live in a society in which it is obscene for a mother to breastfeed in public, and yet we are simultaneously constantly bombarded by images of airbrushed, photoshopped women in nothing but a bra and a thong. We practice the act of both stifling and fetishizing the sexuality of women, regardless of their consent in the matter.

So yes, Benedict Cumberbatch shirtless in that movie would also be considered gratuitous. And yes, there are fans who were disappointed that it wasn’t included and that’s okay, because the problem is not that we don’t want to see hot, naked people. The problem arises when so many of the shirtless women who are side characters for the sake of appealing to a male audience, when those female characters are not developed or explored or (sometimes) even named, and are present solely for the purpose of being a naked body to ogle. Men characters who are shown without clothing are usually also fully-formed characters whose only action isn’t getting naked. Usually they get to have a history, fears, strengths, weaknesses, and save the day or learn a lesson. Even if the shirtless Cumberbatch scene had been included, you can’t tell me that you could compare Khan and Carol as characters who are equally important to the narrative and fully-dimensioned. 

A side-note: I don’t appreciate your generalization that somehow people who criticize something “obviously don’t know how to cinematic business works.” Despite the rhetoric of blaming JJ and the writers, you’re not the singular genius who knows that movies are made by more than one to five people. Obviously the studio, the production company, and many many other creative and executive opinions came together to produce the final product—the fact that that many people contributed to this movie and it still reflects sexism/racism means that these are really pervasive, universally-internalized issues. 

You know who’s “not grasping the true point of the film”? It’s you, if you think that scenes like this are “no big deal,” and that “social justice bloggers” are being unfair and just want to pick on a movie that you enjoy for the purpose of ruining your enjoyment. It’s entirely possible to enjoy a thing and still recognize and analyze it critically. 

STAR TREK IS LITERALLY ABOUT “-ISMs.”Gene Roddenberry, in the sixties, filled a cast with racially and culturally diverse actors, explored difficult philosophical and moral ideas, and envisioned a future in which all people regardless of their background could come together in unity as a species to be inclusive and welcoming and understanding. 

Again, if you can’t understand this, I can’t help you.

(Source: 67-lbs)

jamfisher:

sometimes i’m unintentionally a bad friend, but i try really hard not to be it’s just not working that well all the time