When researchers from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and data analytics firm Movio explored the connection between who appears in a movie and who shows up for its theatrical run, they found a correlation between the representation of different demographic cohorts and their share of the audience. In other words, we want to see characters we can relate to. But sometimes, instead of giving people a voice, filmmakers reduce them to stereotypes.
Last week, a person who goes online by the nickname Embarrassed-Toe-1920 made a post on the subreddit r/TwoXChromosomes, asking everyone to list movies that made them feel as if the writers’ room didn’t have a single woman during production.
“This weekend I watched Just Go With It with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, and I was DISGUSTED by the storyline,” the Redditor said in their post. “Rich 50-something plastic surgeon with few redeemable qualities dates [a] 25-year-old and then realizes he’s in love with his middle-aged assistant and leaves [the] 25-year-old for [the] assistant. That’s literally the whole movie.”
Embarrassed-Toe-1920 added that the movie felt like a man’s fantasy and a woman’s nightmare and invited others to list titles that had a similar vibe.
#1
This reminds me of the woman who wrote about male only writing rooms, she cited an episode of a crime drama where the inspector declared that the k*ller must have redressed the female victim because her “bra and panties don’t match”. And her underwear was really expensive, at least $20 for her bra alone!
Image credits: ProfuseMongoose
#2
Another Adam Sandler movie – Blended. Overall kind of a cute but dumb movie. But there’s this one scene where leading lady is helping him pick out tampons for his daughter and basically explains he needs to get small ones because of her small v*gina. They extend it further by having the checkout lady make an awkward comment about the days when she could use those.
When cringe meets misinformation…
Image credits: salydra
#3
I love many movies that Ryan Gosling is in, but in The Notebook (2004), the character threatening s***ide (or at least a broken neck and bones) if Rachel McAdams won’t date him has got to be one of the more disgusting coercive interactions in a mainstream movie that only a bunch of men in the writers room (and a male novelist) could think of as “romantic”. Truly messed up stuff.
Image credits: Status_Shine6978
#4
The episode of Ted Lasso in Amsterdam, where Rebecca falls into a canal, goes into the houseboat of the man who helped her out, showers there, and ends up sleeping there. The whole time I was thinking “what MAN wrote this?!” In what universe would an adult woman go into the home of a complete stranger and feel comfortable enough to shower, let alone spend the night?!
Image credits: Weasley9
#5
Just watched an old episode of the original Star Trek where a woman somehow switched bodies with Captain Kirk against his will as a way to take over his command/life. The way the crew was convinced that the apparent Captain Kirk wasn’t himself was summed up by Scotty: “I’ve never before seen the Captain red-faced with hysteria.” God damn.
Image credits: Dense-Consequence-70
#6
My ex and I rewatched the first National Treasure movie last year and it was…rough. The treatment of Diane Kruger’s character was downright criminal.
She plays an archivist working in the f*****g National Archives, a bona fide professional in her field, but once she gets wrapped up in the (from her perspective, INSANE) hunt for the Declaration of Independence she’s treated like a child. I can’t count the number of times the two male leads share a look and shake their head in response to DK’s character asking questions. They just oozed “aww isn’t she cute, she’s trying so hard to keep up” energy. The infantilization was crazy.
Image credits: F0R3V3R
#7
Basically every single James Bond movie ever.
Image credits: UnicornOnTheJayneCob
#8
It still baffles me how many women were involved in the making of What Women Want. It should be called What Men Think Women Want. It is so so so so stupid.
Image credits: lovepeacefakepiano
#9
Supernatural
The sheer amount of times that the woman costars died instead of their male ones was enough that people started memeing it. And then the people in charge got all mad when we started shipping them with the other male characters. They’ve got no one to blame, but their own s****y writing.
Image credits: MsMcClane
#10
Wonder Woman 2017. Wonder Woman is a super hero in her own right but it took the death of her man to unleash her full potential and defeat evil. The movie literally defined her powers as it related to a man in her life. I almost walked out.
Image credits: nofkingpeepshow
#11
Not the worst offender by far, but on a recent rewatch I was kinda shocked at how patronizing and at times outright misogynistic the Indiana Jones movies are. I never clocked that when I watched them as a child. But Jesus, I had to do a double take when it was implied that he slept with his love interest in the past when she was underage and his student. Like, I am sorry WTF did you just say?
Image credits: Key-Pace2960
#12
Ready Player One was a major one for me – I mean, the book alone already gives me the ick but the whole “All my problems are fixed because I’m finally loved even though I’m soooo ugly!!” s**t from the protagonist’s love interest was especially ridiculous in the movie, considering that they gave her a tiny, faded red mark, which you couldn’t even SEE in most scenes because of the lightning.
Image credits: tired_garbage
#13
Just watched Daddy’s Home (Will Ferrel and Mark Wahlberg) with my parents. As someone who’s just coming out of an emotionally abusive relationship with a narcissist, I was floored by the amount of gaslighting played for comedy on display in that movie.
Both of those men were treating the wife character as an object to be won. It’s was pretty gross. If I was watching it on my own I would have turned it off 10 mins in.
Image credits: Illogicat5764
#14
I watched the first few minutes of American Pie: Girls Rules and turned it off because it was so blatantly written by men and i was not about to subject myself to an hour and a half of a stupid movie written by stupid men about ***adolescent female sexuality***. like, just f**k no. i didn’t even bother with googling the writers, it was THAT obvious. a critic also said the same thing.
Image credits: AnneMarieAndCharlie
#15
This might be an unpopular opinion, but it’s how I feel about Scott Pilgrim. I won’t deny that it’s a really well-made movie overall. However, I’ve always struggled with *why* Ramona Flowers suddenly becomes so interested in Scott Pilgrim. What does she see in him? That aspect of the story felt a little too rooted in the male gaze for me.
Image credits: Vapor2077
#16
Poor Things, for so many reasons.
Equal_Tumbleweed_556:
THANK YOU! That movie felt like a 3 hour sequence of triggers and rage bait. And the gaslighting in the reviews! “You don’t understand, it’s actually a very feminist movie ?” Miss me with that bs. Unlike the protagonist, I have a functioning adult brain of my own, thank you very much. Sorry for the rant, I’m just so glad I’m not alone with this! All the best to you
Image credits: littlecannibalmuffin
#17
Love Actually.
#18
Pretty much every, manic-pixie-girl, who’s a huge extrovert, lives an amazing action-packed life, inexplicably falls in love with the quiet, introverted guy who does nothing to show any value and she makes it her personal mission to bring him out of his shell. They’re not always the manic-pixie aesthetic, but the concept is the same.
#19
Passengers, and if you can’t tell that Chris Pratt is absolutely evil in that movie, you’re definitely not safe to be around. And tbh, I’ve heard the “he picked the wrong girl obviously ” argument, and it also reeks of predatory male privilege.
Image credits: Primary-Purpose1903
#20
I can’t imagine any Adam Sandler movies holding up especially well tbh .
Image credits: eoz
#21
Anything with 90% of men being the protagonist and the overly-objectified women who are only there as love interests.
Image credits: Puzzleheaded_Fig6314
#22
Dude, Where’s My Car?
Watched that when I was younger, remember little about it. Rewatched it last year and God, it was terrible.
#23
Catch and Release, starring Jennifer Garner and Timothy Oliphant, which is also a Kevin Smith film. It came out after he’d done really fun and interesting work with Clerks, Dogma, etc.
The premise is that Jennifer Garner’s fiancé dies right before they’re going to marry, and she discovers she knew nothing about him (he had a kid with another woman who she found out about at the funeral or something… it’s been a while). I’m pretty sure she moves in with his friends. Anyway, Timothy Oliphant is visiting as an old friend of the fiancé and he knew all of the secrets, and he’s aggressively dickish to her and a bit of a player. Lots of drama, TO is the love interest despite there being no way that makes sense.
What made it clear that this wasn’t written by a woman is that JG has absolutely no support of her own. She doesn’t couch surf with her own friends or move into her childhood bedroom. She’s supposedly all twisted up in grief and anger but doesn’t vent to a single girlfriend. Even though TO is the guy she gets involved with, I’m pretty sure at least one of the other guys also thinks he’s in love with her… despite the fact that her fiancé JUST died and they were HIS friends. JG is super likable in general, but her character is more like a sketch than a full human being, and yet she’s also the main character. It’s just disappointing.
That said, I also remember thinking the film was absolutely beautiful. Like the settings, the way it was shot, gorgeous. Just completely empty of how a real woman would be or what she would do.
#24
I haven’t seen the whole thing but just the premise of The Switch and knowing they end up together anyway is revolting to me. I had to stop watching it.
Him switching the semen to his own in the cup she’s gonna use for insemination must be some form of a*sault if not r*pe adjacent. And obviously the movie wants it to be this romantic thing that it was his son all along when it’s actually horrifying that he overrode her choice and made her have his child instead. (I don’t care that the character is drunk as he replaced the semen. When she finds out and loves it instead of running for the hills is disgusting.).
#25
Chef.
I always loved how John Favro droned on about “Staging” in REAL kitchens because he wanted the movie to be sooooo authentic, and then he shoehorned in the fact that both Scarlet Johansson and Sophia Vergara’s characters’ just found him so irresistibly sexy that they couldn’t control themselves.
You know, for the authentic realism, because every drop dead gorgeous woman I know is just dying to find a man who looks like a 50 year old John Favro, but has no money or fame.
#26
The Godfather comes pretty quickly to mind
Once upon a time in America, too.
#27
Idk if this counts because it’s a series but The English on Prime. Did no one actually study how women lived in England in the 1800’s? Why is a woman of the peerage (sp?) wandering around the Wild West of America all by her lonesome? Where are her servants? Even when they cut scene to where she’s in her family home in London, there’s like one guy tending the whole manor. There’s a stranger (an evil man with low status who went on a rampage in the West) that comes to their house and then they talk IN HER ROOM(which never would have happened).
I was left thinking that they never actually thought about this, AT ALL. No woman of their right mind would have been by themselves unless they grew up in that environment and knew how to protect themselves. And the indigenous man just lets her go on her way knowing she barely knows how to shoot a gun but , “oh by the way she’s great with a bow so that works better” ?.
#28
I feel like this is basically every movie until “Clueless.”
My boyfriend likes a lot of movies from the 70s and he’s always watched them through a “filmmaker’s eye” and never watched them with a woman. When we watch them together I always end up telling him how problematic the film is afterwards. I’m a bummer. But, it’s not my fault – I didn’t write this trash!
#29
Ghostbusters, specifically the manipulative creep that is Peter Venkman. Literally his entire character is that he is a sex pest that manipulates women into sleeping with him , from his first scene trying to hook up with a student through his entire romantic subplot that is just him using the fears of a distraught client to get into her pants.
#30
Clockwork Orange, I spit on your grave, or any movie with horrible sa scenes.
#31
Lemme add another pet peeve of mine. Strong women characters. When the strong woman character is written and she behaves like a man: fights like a man, is a tomboy, has interests in science or building things. These are things that men value and view as strong. These are female characters written by men imagining that what makes a strong woman is a woman who acts like a man. They are not what makes a strong woman.
ETA the strong woman who doesn’t communicate or suffers in silence. Again…a man attempting to write a strong woman character and making them behave like a man.
#32
Not a movie, but the S1 Supernatural episode [Home]
There is NO way in hell a woman would open up the house to a male stranger (much less TWO) who knocked on the door and asked to come in just because they “used to live there”, and ESPECIALLY not when she has a young child with her at home too. WtaF.
#33
I just watched the Jennifer Lawrence movie where she is a 30 something year old who takes up a families offer to date their 18 (19? But between high school and college son) and try to seduce him for sex so she can get a car. Like wtf. If the roles had been reversed and it was a 30 year old man being set up kidnapping an 18 year old virgin in their van this movie… idk. Just yuck. Felt like a movie where producers/directors/writers just wanted to find a way to show J Law naked.
#34
Dumb and Dumber is so creepy that I can say that Lloyd Christmas is an incel. His character lies, manipulates, and steals in order to stalk a woman he barely knows across thousands of miles. He fantasizes multiple times about m*rdering other men because he’s super insecure and possessive of Mary Swanson. After encouraging the main villain to shoot his best friend out of jealousy, he finally learns that Mary has a husband. He then fantasizes about grabbing a cop’s gun and shooting the husband several times as Mary screams, and this is completely played straight. Then he snaps out of his violent fantasy and slinks away (because he’s threatened by other men).
Like, *holy s**t* this movie is awful. But they f*****g love it on r/movies and have downvoted me every time I’ve brought this up.
EDIT: I forgot, he is also nearly r*ped in a gas station bathroom by another man, and this is played for laughs. The movie is really bad.
#35
Anything written by Quentin Tarantino – he’s created some kick-a*s female characters but he’s also created some 1-dimensional ones that sound exactly like him – and he *always* manages to get a prolonged shot of their feet in there.
#36
Not the worst on this list, but Bladerunner 2049. The women they bothered to have on screen were literally disposable objects.
(The original wasn’t much better.).
#37
I have a tv show. Though I enjoyed it until like most fans season 8, I’m going to say Game Of Thrones t. v. adaptation. Which they made even more sexist and vulgar than the book. The books G. R. R. M. had history as a reason and the books are very good. The show much was added, changed, and gratuitous. The ending says it all.
#38
Naruto. There’s a pervert who creeps on girls at the waterfall played for laughs. Including the main character (male) morphing into a naked girl using shape change powers as the only way to make the mentor pay attention. Also just terrible writing of the female characters (and that’s from fans who ignore the other part).
#39
Indecent Proposal. Hated, hated, hated the movie. Woman goes with the old rich guy. ?.
#40
As much as I enjoy M.A.S.H. I still find myself thinking about how it was played as a funny prank to set an officer up to sexually a*sault Margaret Houlihan.
#41
Sucker Punch. I genuinely don’t care if people like the vibes of it now, it is such an obvious male fantasy that it made me sick watching it when I was younger. Ironic love of it or not, they were not intentionally going for camp.
#42
Time Traveler’s Wife- Eric Bana appears in front of a child version of Rachel McAdams’ character multiple times (in the nude btw) and tells her about how she’s going to end up married to him in the future. At least she does call him out on the manipulation when she’s an adult, but it’s still icky. The book the movie was based on was written by a woman, so maybe it plays out differently in the book.
#43
How I met your mother.
#44
Knocked up. I always thought it was a horror film with a laugh track. Only men would find the plot humorous – having your life’s plans ruined by a one night stand with a loser. Abortion – abortion was an option. But that writers room clearly didn’t consider completely f*****g up a woman’s life as anything more serious than a funny plotline.
#45
Knocked Up. Let’s break down the numerous reasons why I think Judd Apatow did not consult with a single woman before writing a movie about something that deeply affects women:
The main character is a hot, mid-twenties woman who just landed her dream job. Other than thinking her nieces are cute, we get no information about how she feels about parenting. She never says she longs to be a mother. She seems extremely focused on her new career in the entertainment industry.
Suddenly she’s impregnated by Seth Rogan after a one night stand. She seems to *loathe* this man. Like cannot stand him for longer than a couple minutes. And his character is written to be so gross and obnoxious, it makes sense no woman would want to be around him. But of course, since this movie about pregnancy centers on a man, he goes from annoying and disgusting to “not” and that’s the major arc of the movie. He’s also *horrible* to her as a partner and expectant father, which is simply glossed over.
Everyone in this woman’s life tells her not to have this baby. Her mom and sister are very stressed out for her, her mom even urges her to have an abortion. Other than sit there with a stupid look on her face, the pleas of her family have no effect on her. She also has to hide the pregnancy from all her friends AND everyone at work, lest she be fired (wow Judd, could have written an entire movie on this premise alone. Too bad the movie about pregnancy was just a vehicle for Seth Rogan jokes.)
The movie could have introduced the female lead as a devout Catholic, which would have explained why she was not only against abortion, but also wasn’t using birth control. She could have been 15-20 years older and always wanted a child but was too wrapped up in her career. We could have opened the movie with her leaving her husband or long term partner after they reach an impasse about having children or not. S**t, the story could have taken place in a state with restrictive abortion laws instead of California. But no. We get absolutely no reasoning for why this woman would make such an extreme and life changing decision.
#46
Pretty much every Judd Apatow movie.
Which k*lls me, because I find them genuinely funny a lot of the time, and they have some funny women in them. But women are either sexy dreamgirls, or mean mommies. They don’t get the joke and they stop men from having fun. In Knocked Up, Katherine Heigl is supposed to be like an E! Tv reporter, and yet she doesn’t get a Back to the Future reference?
#47
Any movie with a sex scene, really. Where they have simultaneous PIV orgasms.
#48
Not a movie but some disney episodes make me turn my head. The Proud Family (one of my fav shows) has episodes I can’t event stomach. One in particular is “There’s something about renee”
The rundown essentially is Trudy (wife/mom) who works full time as a veterinarian, is the sole breadwinner AND takes care of the household is extremely tired. Her husband Oscar literally never helps with household work. She has a vet convention coming up and decides to hire a nanny (on her dime) to make sure the house isnt a s**t show while she’s away. Well, she gets nervous and returns early only to find that the new nanny has essentially replaced her role as a mom. All the kids and her husband like the nanny better and they pretty much forgets she exists. In the end, she has the nanny fired and comes back home to a messy house, all the family being demanding, but she’s happy again because her role as overworked mom has been restored. Literally nothing changes. Oscar still isn’t helping with the kids and the house is a disaster since no one cleans it but her. But she’s just so overjoyed and complete being the sole breadwinner at a stressful job AND taking care of the household solo when she returns.
#49
“There’s Something About Mary” Just watched it this morning and that exact thought kept popping up
everytime a joke was made.
Image credits: LukaJoestar
#50
Not a movie but Peaky Blinders.
#51
I think this more often than not when watching ANY movies or TV shows nowadays. Seriously. It’s getting harder to watch anything that’s not Shondaland (and last season of Bridgerton was disappointing) or otherwise written, produced and directed by women.
#52
Hot tub Time Machine, but it’s not like I was expecting interesting plot or social commentary… it was still just soo bad.
The whole plot of “if only i could go back to high school and do it all over again, I wouldn’t be a loser” (it’s not being useless, it’s the world that worked against you!)
The married dudes story is the worst, he traumatized his future wife by calling and yelling at her in the past. Gets back to the future and he’s married, she didn’t cheat, and she took his name. They even reference the call when she was a child. Like he owns her life.
#53
Pretty much any stoner comedy. I very much enjoy turning off my brain and watching Grandma’s Boy but the only female character is such a Cool Girl.
#54
Anything and everything based on the trope where the scrub at best but often more s****y guy gets the dream girl with minimal to no effort or character development.
#55
50 first dates.
#56
I just rewatched The Holiday yesterday and there’s a scene where Cameron Diaz’s character proclaimed that she thinks foreplay is significantly overrated. So definitely that.
#57
I watched Old School with my partner a while ago (rolling my eyes the entire time), and when it got to the scene where the women were actively interested in lessons on how to give BJs, I just lost my s**t. Like ANY woman would be interested in that – it was clearly some male fantasy b******t.
#58
Not a movie, but a series – The first few seasons of Lost.
I tried to do a rewatch recently and I couldn’t get through it. So many sexist and racist stereotypes.
#59
Not a movie, but the Try Guys have a new segment where they do scavenger hunts in a big city with a budget of $500, a list of activities for certain number of points, and a time limit. The teams are two pairs of dudes. They go to places on the list without looking up if these places are actually open or not, and end up wasting a bunch of time. Why not sit down with the list for a 30 minute planning period to check business hours and talk strategy??
#60
Not a movie but HOLY SCHMIKES the first few seasons of Walking Dead grossed me out. Not the zombies or the gore, that was boring but whatever. The screaming obnoxious sexism was something else.