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221. Frame Rate: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Feat. Daniel O'Brien)

🕑 Added 2019-09-09 18:34:24 +0000 UTC

Comments

The Altinutt

Personally, I don't think I'd be able to like the movie as much if Scott ended up with Knives. I agree with Daniel that the story is just a big metaphor for a "growing up" relationship movie. I don't think Knives being under 18 is *too* big a deal in itself, it's just that she is at a place in her life where she gets to make mistakes and figure herself out. But the whole movie is about Scott putting aside the baggage of his late teens-early 20s and learning to stop making those mistakes. They're not just different ages, they're at different places in their lives, and that's okay.

The Big Sick is a bad example, as it is based on Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon’s actual relationship. I treat people writing and acting within their own demographics like the bechdel year: it’s not a huge problem for any one movie not to pass, but it’s a big problem when very few movies do it. It’s not a big problem for one author to have difficulty writing women, but when it’s endemic to a media, it means that the audience is only ever seeing certain groups (women, trans people) as understood through someone else’s lens, which can be alienating for the audience members who are in that group, and deceptive to those that don’t. I absolutely agree with Abe: partnering with people who are in the demographic you want to write about is a great way to write better stories and press against the larger social problems that put you in the quandary to begin with. At least you can pay a sensitivity reader to give you some feedback.