Equal-Opportunity Fanservice?

Considered posting this in the thread on sex and society, but decided it merited its own thread. From this review:

What do you think? Does equal-opportunity fanservice mean less sexism?

edited 5th Aug '11 9:19:18 AM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

By equal-opportunity fanservice you mean that both men and women will be sexualized instead of just women?

I wouldn't like any of the characters in a movie/game/show/etc. to be sexualized, because I just don't like it that way. But yes, equal-opportunity would be way better and way less sexist than the standard of having only woman sexualized.

I'll think of one later

Who cares? The movie is obviously made for guys.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of raunchy comedy. I prefer slapstick myself.

Fight smart, not fair.

Who even gets to say what counts as equal-opportunity? What counts as such and such "level" of fanservice depends on what you assume males find attractive in females and on what you assume females find attractive in males, let alone on how affected you think each gender is by fanservice. The default assumption is males are more affected than females are, and on some level I agree... don't you think if females were as affected, some company could cash in a lot by catering to female viewers who were "more interested than society expected," like how Pixar cashed in on adults who liked children's movies to a further extent than society expected?

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

No? Why should a show/movie aimed for men also have to appeal to women? It's not for them. It's not sexist, it's entertainment. If you have a problem, don't watch it. I think this movie, the Change-Up, sounds stupid, but I mean, I know people would like to see it. They're not sexist bastards for not wanting to see a man's bare chest and would rather see a woman's.

It's like saying that if a man only sleeps with women, he's sexist because he doesn't want to sleep with men, too.

edited 5th Aug '11 10:28:56 AM by HeavyDDR

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

I don't think the same movies necessarily have to have fanservice for both men and women, but it would be nice if there fanservicey movies oriented at women that aren't "romantic comedy" or Twilight were more common.

But are there equivalent films for women? In similar quantity?

edited 5th Aug '11 10:38:37 AM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

... which still leaves the question as to why such things are rare. If women preferred fanservice over romantic comedies, (in which case they don't generally seem to say so) then don't you think a business that figured that out would be ahead of the pack, if only for having a new customer base to cash in on?

Meh, I'm going to be without Internet this weekend starting in a few minutes so don't be surprised if I'm not back until Monday.

edited 5th Aug '11 11:17:10 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

The market wouldn't automagically pick up on all possible sources of profit even if it was full of entirely rational actors.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

It seems rather difficult to sort out where 'women just don't want fanservice' from 'the industry tells women they don't want fanservice so they don't want it.'

But I don't think it's really a big deal either way. Fullmetal Alchemist is jammed full of muscular manly abs and I wasn't especially insulted by it any more than I'm inherently insulted by the assumptions embedded in male-targeted fanservice in the first place.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

True Blood... sure it's got a couple of tits flopping around, but the guys are the ones who get exploited. I think Ryan Kwanten has it in his contract to get naked at least once every episode.

Alcide and Eric aren't exactly subtle either.

Then there was that scene with Bill and Sam.

As for movies... Thor is a good example. Or how about Captain America, that had Chris evans running around in a very tight white shirt.

It's that women are prudes thing. Anyway I don't know how much my personal taste overlaps with other women's taste in movies.

I would like it if there were more movies like Thor and Captain America, but the main characters take off their shirts only once. That's not a whole lot of bare-chest viewing time.

Haven't seen True Blood, actually.

edited 5th Aug '11 11:39:55 AM by melloncollie

Thor might only go shirtless once... but it really worked.

Don't forget about gay men (though Hollywood tends to . . .)

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Depends on whether by "sexism", you mean something that's inherently bad. The bottom line for me is that I don't consider equal-opportunity fanservice better than unequal fanservice. I don't consider it bad in any sort of moral sense for works of entertainment to pander to the tastes of a particular target audience, and I don't think they have an obligation to appeal to a broader audience or to promote an egalitarian viewpoint. Whether or not the term "sexism" applies is unimportant to me.

That moron has never heard of the concept of a "target audience".

Anyhow, what the fuck is a prig?

An old fashioned British word.

As for target audience, you are forgetting that 1. Despite women making up more than half of the movie-going audience, the majority of films are targeted at men. and 2. Even things that are supposedly targeted at both genders generally have a whole lot more fanservice for the men.

Objectifying men isn't going to "fix" sexism - listening to what women want out of the media and providing it more often (so that we close in on media parity) will.

edited 5th Aug '11 1:36:53 PM by Drakyndra

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Objectifying Robert Pattinson worked for Twilight.

I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.

It's a dude Freaky Friday. I'm not sure what took so long.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

If someone has an agenda to push, they should bloody well push it themselves, rather than try to weasel it in to the works of others.

I agree that the fanservice exploitation is unequal. I'm not sure that 'less fanservice of women' or 'more fanservice of men' is the issue, though.

And the argument 'obviously women don't want to see male fanservice, because if they did it would be more common' doesn't make much sense to me. You can use it for just about any sexism in fiction - clearly women don't want to see strong female leads, right, because if they did the industry would make them.

The industry might just be too hesitant to try anything new, even if it might gain them more money. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and all.

edited 5th Aug '11 11:39:38 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

A prig is a snob, in this context.

But anyway, this is a symptom of a Hollywood that makes absolutely no secret of the fact that it sees male as a default and panders primarily to male viewers even in works aimed at a more general audience. It doesn't necessarily reflect demand. It is, as Loni said, a hesitance to try anything different. They're wary of taking risks.

edited 6th Aug '11 4:13:21 AM by BobbyG

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HBO has gotten pretty good at the equal-opportunity fanservice thing lately. The Game of thrones miniseries has lots of hot, mostly-naked men and women of varying types and races. I can't think of anyone who could watch that show and not find someone they thought was sexy. There's even a range of body types to choose from.

True Blood plays with this, but there's still a lot more naked women than the other thing.

If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~

All of this leads to the question of whether or not the public is sexist, based on the evidence of their entertainment preferences.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."