This isn’t the first time that Spike has talked about this issue so I’m not sure why the media is just now picking up on it (though it’s possible it is the first time he’s specifically mentioned Tyler’s name), but I have to say everything Spike is saying is what I’ve been saying all along about this man’s “films” if that’s what you want to call them.

And yes, Ed Gordon is absolutely right. Black people have no one to blame but themselves for these types of movies constantly being put out by Hollywood. It isn’t white people showing up to the theaters giving this man record box office receipts. And I’ll say the same thing I say to feminists who complain about today’s chick flicks. If you don’t show up for the good ones, don’t complain. Where were you when Miracle at St. Anna was released? Where were you when Akeelah and the Bee came out? If no one goes to see these films, Hollywood will not put them out.

There’s so many problems with Tyler’s films I don’t even know where to begin. But this Entertainment Weekly article puts most of the issues quite eloquently.

Everyone knows how I feel about the term “chick flicks” and the deep-rooted misogyny in our culture that puts female-centered media at a huge disadvantage in mainstream television, film, and publishing.  Many female authors have had to use pseudonyms because publishers have found that otherwise men will see a woman’s name attached to the book and not give it a chance.

It doesn’t surprise me considering basically anything that comes out in theaters that isn’t about men going around killing each other or trying to get laid is considered a “chick flick”, which of course has a negative connotation.  Meanwhile women still turn up in droves to see whatever lame ass Michael Bay flick is out this month.

Yet for all the obstacles women’s films have, the ones that do quite well don’t get their fair share of credit.  Even after Juno, even after Twilight, even after Mamma Mia, even after Sex and the City, it’s still a huge uphill battle to get studios to greenlight films with female protagonists.  And as Meryl Streep explains, it’s not just the studios, but also the theater chains who decide which films to carry.

“It’s always a shock to the studio,” Streep says with real firmness, “because men run the studios and live their own fantasies through them. It’s harder for a man to jump inside a woman character’s mind and imagine, ‘This could happen to me’ than it is for a woman to imagine herself as a male character.” But surely the profits count? “They see it and they understand that there is a market and it will make them an enormous amount of money, but we all respond to instinct and it’s their inner boy that jumps up and goes: ‘Yeah, I wanna see another GI Joe’.”

“Parts are rare,” Streep says, “the amount of product is rare. It’s a large machine that markets these films, that makes theatre [cinema] owners commit their theatres half a year in advance — that’s how it works. Are they gonna buy GI Joe or are they gonna buy Mamma Mia!?”

Mamma Mia! did great business, I say. “They’re still not sure,” Streep counters. “You need a good salesman. Those films have done well, yes, that audience is there, but it doesn’t go on the first weekend [which the industry nervously observes].”

In a separate interview screenwriter/director Nora Ephron weighs in on the problem as well.

When she was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 2007, Ephron said she took up directing because “90% of the men directing movies have no interest in women in any real way, except as girlfriends or wives. They don’t really want to make movies about them, and they don’t.”

They’re both absolutely right.  With Mamma Mia and Sex and the City grossing over a billion dollars collectively worldwide, and Julie & Julia already grossing over $80 million on its way to 90 million one would really wonder why Hollywood isn’t clamoring to cash in on more women’s films.   But as has been stated before, whenever a female film does well it’s always written off as a “fluke” or the the little film that could.  But every time some mindless action film with some “hot chick” running around like a piece of meat needing to be rescued does well at the box office, it’s reason to make 20 more just like it.

A lot of attention is paid to the diversity displayed on the small screen but Entertainment Weekly has an interesting piece discussing the race and gender of the people behind the scenes in the world of television. They mention some of our most successful and celebrated television show creators and producers like J.J. Abrams, Aaron Sorkin, Joss Whedon, Aaron Spelling, David E. Kelley, and the list goes on. Forces to be reckoned with in the television industry who have had a number of successes. But where are the people of color? Where are the women?

Even the shows that are female-centric like The Closer, Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, –they’re all created by white men. EW cites Shonda Rhimes of Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice as well as Silvio Horta of Ugly Betty as some examples of non-white and non-male entities but Horta’s only success thus far has been Ugly Betty and Rhimes’ Private Practice’s long term success has yet to be seen.

But there are some up and coming women whose careers seem promising.

There are, certainly, a few up and coming female executive producers these days: Rebecca Sinclair (an alum of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls), who turned The CW’s 90210 remake around; Stephanie Savage, who’s given both The O.C. and Gossip Girl bite (even though she takes second billing to the more auteur-ish Josh Schwartz);

The L Word’s Ilene Chaiken; and Weeds’ Jenji Kohan. Tina Fey’s one of the few female voices on the Big Four — and she’s clearly one of the most unique (not to mention critically drooled-over). But none of those ladies has gotten the chance to prove she’s more than a one-hit wonder.

Tyler Perry has had much success with his multi-camera sitcom House of Payne on CBS, and as everyone knows, has had enormous success with his feature films, but again, Payne is his only television success and we still have no examples of television giants like the aforementioned who don’t have white skin or a penis.  A few more examples of creative forces of color:

Larry Wilmore won accolades (and an Emmy) for The Bernie Mac Show, but he’s now taken to more freelance work — appearing on The Daily Show, writing for/appearing on The Office, and authoring books.

And in perhaps the ultimate statement on the fate of female and minority would-be auteurs, Mara Brock Akil — who created the long-running UPN/CW sitcoms Girlfriends and The Game, some of the last vestiges of African-American-targeted programming — has joined the writing staff of ABC’s Cougar Town (created by Scrubs’ Bill Lawrence) to make the jokes on the Courteney Cox vehicle more organically female.

This information is troubling but not shocking, as the most recent report on the demographic breakdown of writers in Hollywood was quite bleak for women. According to the Hollywood Writers Report done by the Writers Guild of America, only 28% of the writers for television were female. Does that really make sense to you when more than 50% of the U.S. population is made up of women?

“You can be bi but not gay. Well, you can be gay and funny, like Ellen [DeGeneres] and Rosie [O'Donnell]. It’s really hard to be straight-up gay and serious. We’re still not over that.”

(via Jezebel)

It’s an interesting point, actually, and when I thought about it, it’s something that can be applied to all minorities who were often cast out from the mainstream media. Going as far back as blackface, when actual black performers would take part in the minstrel shows–of course not looking like themselves but dressed up as an exaggerated version of “blackness”. Then look at our most successful black actors. Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, they’re actors that white people feel comfortable enough going to see because they make them laugh. But it’s usually a brand of humor that white audiences would expect of black performers based on common stereotypes.

I’m also reminded of Knocked Up, where, while the female characters are funny, they’re funny because we’re laughing at them, not with them. We’re laughing at them being overly emotional, irrational, killjoy harpies. Whereas when Seth Rogen or Paul Rudd make a joke, we’re laughing with them–we’re rooting for them, we identify with them (or so the filmmakers seem to think).

Gay people are no exception. Pop in Revenge of the Nerds, or My Best Friend’s Wedding, Too Wong Foo and more recently I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, or turn on the TV and see Will & Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Sex and the City, and Desperate Housewives. All shows where they gay men are meant to be light, funny, and of course, fabulous. Oh wait, but there is that guy Andrew on Desperate Housewives that had some dramatic storylines earlier on in the show. Of course, he was a raging sociopath.

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If you head on over to music producer Tricky Stewart’s Twitter account, you’ll see he recently tweeted about some artists he’s currently working with. Among them are Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, and Christina Aguilera.

I admit I’m not the biggest fan of this man’s work. He’s done Jesse McCartney’s “Leavin”, Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” and Mary J. Blige’s “Just Fine”, all which I like. But conversely he’s also done Britney Spears’ “Me Against The Music”, Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, and Mariah Carey’s “Touch My Body”, all which make want to throw up my Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies.

That said, there’ve been producers that Christina’s worked with before who hadn’t impressed me with their previous work, yet turned out something impressive when it came to working with Christina. One example is Rich Harrison, who is famous for producing Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love” and Amerie’s “1 Thing”, yet managed to create one hell of a foot-stomping pseudo-gospel tune called “Makes Me Wanna Pray” on Christina’s Back to Basics album that in no way resembles any of his previous work. So it’s possible that while this guy’s catalogue isn’t making me squeal with glee, he could actually end up turning out something relatively unexpected with Christina.

Considering Tricky doesn’t seem like the kind of producer Christina would normally gravitate to, especially in lieu of the more electronic, futuristic sound she’s trying to create for her next LP, it seems as if she’s doing a repeat of her pattern with her second album Stripped. In chronicling the story of Stripped, Entertainment Weekly did a piece in which famous producer Rockwilder talked about the making of Dirrty:

Aguilera told Rockwilder she was looking for a track that would announce to the world that she’s back — but not the same as she was. ”She wanted it to be down and dirty,” Rockwilder says, ”really powerful, really wild, and crazy.’

Basically, Christina had finished the rest of the tracks for the album, and needed something fiery that would get people’s attention and announce she’s back. She did something similar with “Ain’t No Other Man”, a song with bombastic horns and explosive vocals, and an intro that would perk your head up quicker than a fire truck sneaking up on you on a back road. The point is, though Tricky Stewart is miles different from people like Linda Perry, Ladytron, and Sia (all people she’s confirmed to be collaborating with on this album), it’s possible this departure from the “theme” could indicate she very well could be done with the album.

Sia Furler, most known for her song “Breathe Me” which has been featured on the beloved series finale of Six Feet Under and the broadcast of the 2006 Victoria’s Secret fashion show, has already completed her work with Aguilera.  She told Australian publication the Herald Sun all about her experience working with Christina.

‘‘Obviously she likes Breathe Me, that’s the one everyone goes for, but she mentioned seven songs as far back as the first Zero 7 album, and songs like Destiny and Distractions, and a song called Moon from my last album that nobody ever picks as a favourite.

‘‘That won her some points, she’s a listener, she knows my random album tracks nobody gives a s— about. That’s pretty flattering.”

Though Furler was shocked the singer knew who she was, the feeling was mutual — Furler expressing her love of Aguilera’s ballad Beautiful.

And it was Sia’s way with ballads that Aguilera wanted for her own musical DNA.

‘‘That’s why I’m here, that’s my department, I’m from the ballads department,” Furler says.

‘‘We’ve written some really wonderful songs. I would put any of the songs we’ve written on one of my albums. And it’s a total collaboration. There are some artists who walk in and say ‘I want to write a song about a stiletto’, then walk out again.

‘‘You write the song and they take a third. That’s not at all what it’s been like working with Christina. Often she saves the day when we’re stuck.”

In addition to Sia,Christina has been photographed with Daniel Wu of Ladytron as early as December, and according to him, they’ve been working together in the studio as well.

“We first heard that we were one of Christina’s favorite bands last summer. We were thrilled. So we went over to Los Angeles to meet her in December where she identified the type of Ladytron songs that she liked. We were impressed because she had a real deep knowledge of our music – album tracks, not just the singles.”

At this point the album seems well on its way.  And if the choice of producers and songwriters is any indication, it’s piecing up to be just as diverse as her last two efforts.  Which depending on how you look at it, is either to her avail, or her demise.

One of my favorite bloggers Clay Cane interviewed rapper and actor Xzibit (you may remember him from MTV’s Pimp My Ride) who is promoting his new movie with Alfre Woodard called American Violet, and Clay brought up an incident that happened recently where Diddy had invited Xzibit to a gay club, and Xzibit was quoted by the media as having made homophobic statements on a radio show.

According to Xzibit, his words were taken out of context.  But more importantly, Clay asks him about homophobia in hip-hop in general, and Xzibit says the environment is a lot less homophobic that people think, that it’s “just part of the landscape”.

“It started as just common place; it was just part of the language. I think the overtones that it creates, is not what really exists. I don’t think if you are gay and you go to a hip-hop club that you’ll get beat up for being gay. That’s not what is going to happen. I think words are the way that people express themselves—just like if you say bitch on a rap record for a long time you can rally thousands of women that will say that’s incorrect. You can’t focus on one single thing or bad aspect of what happens in hip hop and try to blanket it. That’s not the root of the problem. It exists, I think it’s how you portray it, and it’s how you use it. You gotta paint with a broad brush when you talk about homophobia because it’s a lot of things that exist in hip hop that aren’t exactly right, but it’s part of the landscape.”

Strangely, I understand the point he’s trying to make.  The overtones of homophobia in hip-hop or the homophobic language that’s used doesn’t necessarily indicate intense hatred or homophobia.  Calling another straight guy a “fag” doesn’t necessarily mean that you hate gay people or want to do harm to them.

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Thursday we watched a film called Tongues Untied in my Advanced Video Production class, and given the subject matter of the film I was sort of shocked I had not only never seen it, but I’d never heard of it either.  In addition to the fact that it was extremely helpful by aiding me in determining how exactly I was going to use mostly stock footage to demonstrate how unequally we judge male and female sexuality, it was an beautiful film that addressed issues of internalized racism and self-hatred among black gay men.

It was made by Marlon Riggs, who unfortunately died of an AIDS related illness in 1994.  He’s a black poet, educator, and filmmaker that went on to make other films like Affirmation, Anthem, Color Adjustment, and Black Is…Black Ain’t (which he unfortunately didn’t finish working on before his untimely death, but was posthumously released in 1995.)  The film is not a typical documentary, in the sense that it has a purpose and it has a topic, but it doesn’t say “I am a documentary and I’m now going to tell you about something”.  It knows its message, it knows its audience, and once it starts it just goes.

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