This. Especially in such an overwhelmingly male community as CriterionForum this is a dangerous thing as it basically denies anyone who isn't female the ability to enter into any argument regarding female gender representations.Gregory wrote:I've repeatedly been a little disturbed by how frequently I've seen charges of "chivalry," "white knighting," being a "knight in shining armor," or engaging in "male-led heroics" not only whenever a male person calls something out as sexist or even raises questions related to sexism, but even at times when the discussion has nothing to do with sexism and it just happens to be a male person defending or questioning criticisms leveled at someone who is female or in a discussion involving a female character. It looks like a way of throwing aside the actual substance of the discussion in order to suggest (in many cases when it's baseless and unfair) that the other person has ulterior motives of some sort. It's just all too easy a riposte.
There's a lot of creepy gendered subtext in a lot of films and personally, I think when there is such a subtext that hurts the film's overall quality. I shouldn't be disqualified from saying this because I'm a man and to be a man and say such a thing automatically equates a sort of condescending sexism. And for the record, I'm gay, and the 'fabulous' depictions of the female in for example Almodóvar piss me off to no end.
Basically, any -ism boils down to treating people like things rather than like people - and if any film's inherent value system involves regarding any group of people as subhuman in any way it deserves to be called out on it. To recognise this isn't "white knighting" or "white guilt".
