Are women just bored of the rings?

[Chain Lightning]

Never forget, it is cool to dislike what is popular, and it is doubly cool to dislike something that was first popular among geeks. Triply cool to be the first to say you don't like it. (But saying "I don't like it either " is a few steps shy of cool, so those people have to be extra harsh and psuedo-intellectual in their dislike to make up for it)

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes that is the thought behind some of these reviews. But also, sometimes because they simply don't 'get it' or they just don't have the tastes for such things. Either way, well said Aaron.

I'll add to the list of real life women accounts. My mother never has read fantasy novels and rarely reads fiction. Just a Grisham book or two. Anyways, she got totally hooked on LotR since "Fellowship". She wanted to know how the trilogy ended. I refused to spoil it for her. So she borrowed my books to read how it ended. Unfortunately, with English being her second language, she didn't have the endurance to read Tolkien all the way. So she just settled on waiting for each movie to come out. My mother is in her mid-sixties. There's an example of LotR even appealing to an older conservative generation.

Then, a friend at work told me how his sister is now into the films. She has always been described to me as one of those women who grew up beautiful and popular. Cheerleader in highschool, sorority queen type, aspiring young actress in her twenties, etc, etc. Never into her geeky older brother's D&D or fantasy book reading. But now.....into LotR.

That reviewer was basically saying how LotR is a guy-flick for guys like how some movies ( I guess like "Beaches" and "Steel Magnolias") is chick-flicks for girls. (although I enjoyed "Beaches"...so it can't all be for girls eh?)

I disagree. If you had to make broad stereo-types as what are guy-flicks....LotR isn't one of them. Why is it that certain reviewers think just because there's not many women in the film, that it's meant for men? They seem to based it on quantity not quality. How can anyone argue the quality of the women in LotR?

If you want total guy-flicks, I think they are more along the lines of "Braveheart" and "Black Hawk Down". IMHO.

Not the LotR trilogy.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Psst. That was irony in my post.

sorry, it wasn't. Or at least it didn't work as irony. It worked very well as being condescending, and I suppose a steretched point could be made that the similarilty to the orriginal writes tome made it ironic... but not that great. The "psst - tell me how I'm supposed to read you" is also condescending. It seems to be a trend.

There are a lot of great ways to agrue your point, trying to tell me that I don't understand you isn't one of them...

Though it's worked great for defending the LOTR against critisism around here...

Kahuna burger

 

[Kahuna Burger]

And just out of curiosity, why do people keep calling this a review? It isn't one and doesn't pretend to be. Its a column style peice about a movie. I've seen dozens of them about different movies, and they are really easy to tell apart from reviews, good or bad.

I suppose by calling it a review, you can say it fails as a review and give it some extra insults, but then I could pretend that LOTR is a documentary about renisance fairs and insult it on that basis... wouldn't say anything about the film.

Its a column. Calling it a bad review doesn't insult it.

Kahuna

 

[Banshee16]

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/movies/21JAME.html

Hmm...well, my girlfriend loves the movies, and she's not a geek in the slightest. A number of the women in my office are raving about the movies, and have been waiting and waiting for them to come out. And they're not geeks either. I mean, they were talking about it all thursday, as two in particular hadn't read the books, and they were debating how the third movie was going to end. It was a little amusing to listen to.

But definitely not men only. I'd question the author of that article.

The "hit music" radio station in my town though, had a female reviewer come on, and start griping about how long a movie it was and that if they were going to have "hotties" like Liv Tyler and Viggo Mortensen in the film, they could have at least managed to fit in some "pillow time".

I think it's a mind set, and not gender, that might determine whether someone likes the movies.

Banshee

 

[Elf Witch]

This is why I don't read reviews never have never will. I make up my own mind about what I like and don't like.

The group that I went to see it with had four woman and two men and we woman loved it as a matter of fact I have already been back to see it with a female friend.

I think that cutting down something as popular as LOTR is kind of snobbish way to show how smart you think you are. (if you truly don't like the film that's one thing give me a reason why you didn't like it) I noticed that in this thread someone had to bring up Titantic which is one of my favorite films and a lot of people loved it as well but I do remember it was the in movie to cut down.

 

[Banshee16]

I'll add to the list of real life women accounts. My mother never has read fantasy novels and rarely reads fiction. Just a Grisham book or two. Anyways, she got totally hooked on LotR since "Fellowship". She wanted to know how the trilogy ended. I refused to spoil it for her. So she borrowed my books to read how it ended. Unfortunately, with English being her second language, she didn't have the endurance to read Tolkien all the way. So she just settled on waiting for each movie to come out. My mother is in her mid-sixties. There's an example of LotR even appealing to an older conservative generation.

Then, a friend at work told me how his sister is now into the films. She has always been described to me as one of those women who grew up beautiful and popular. Cheerleader in highschool, sorority queen type, aspiring young actress in her twenties, etc, etc. Never into her geeky older brother's D&D or fantasy book reading. But now.....into LotR.

My mother never read the books, and never liked fantasy either.....but she has seen the first two movies. It's taken a bit, because she had trouble figuring out what was going on, but she's admitted that she's gotten into them, and they're cool movies.

My sister "got it" as well. She's very athletic, super-popular, bright, etc. And she's loving them. And they convinced her to read the books.

For that matter, I know more guys that have seen the movies, and didn't like them, than girls that have seen them and didn't like them...

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

This is why I don't read reviews never have never will. I make up my own mind about what I like and don't like.

The group that I went to see it with had four woman and two men and we woman loved it as a matter of fact I have already been back to see it with a female friend.

I think that cutting down something as popular as LOTR is kind of snobbish way to show how smart you think you are. (if you truly don't like the film that's one thing give me a reason why you didn't like it) I noticed that in this thread someone had to bring up Titantic which is one of my favorite films and a lot of people loved it as well but I do remember it was the in movie to cut down.

You could have a point. There's a certain perception of this being "revenge of the nerds".....and some people are probably somewhat threatened by the idea. Hence they make broad stereotypes..

Banshee

 

[Umbran]

There are a lot of great ways to agrue your point, trying to tell me that I don't understand you isn't one of them...

Um, Kahuna Burger, it also seems to be a tred for you to read things as condescending. This is an informal message board, where her tone isn't uncommon at all. From where I sit, her phrasing seemed more a friendly note than looking down at you.

Even in more formal discussion, a statement to the effect that "My message did not get across previously, this is what I meant" is entirely reasonable- and that what she did, in less formal language. It isn't a way to argue the point, so much as a way to clarify previous statements.

 

[Look_a_Unicorn]

Read the article, laughed at it...

Then became genuinely curious- most females I know are either geeky, intellectual, literary or a combination of the above. Thus realised that those I associate with probably aren't the best at exhibiting the trends of the "general populace"- they all love it for whatever reason.

So I began reading the thread to try to see if there did seem to be any that the female populace thought that LoTR = Yawn.

Then I realised that the populace of ENWorld, by and large, would fit into the above categorisation of "geeky, intellectual, literary or a combination of the above" (which is one of the reasons I love this place!)

SO. My question is, given that most geeky/int./lit. type females, will, for one reason or another, be a fan of the LoTR movies- what about the females who aren't one of the above? Does anyone on EnWorld have female friends with completely dissimilar interests, who might better reflect your more "standard" populace?

Though I'm guessing they'll still like it, if only because they can perv on Viggo & Orlando .

 

[Piratecat]

Because of the movie trilogy, my 14-year-old granddaughter asked for the book trilogy for Christmas. Even if it was only due to a sudden infatuation with Orlando Bloom, I can't help but see this as a good thing.

Johnathan

For cryin' out...

I always picture you as being about 24, an eternally young genius who will always turn out "Ecology of the Flumph" articles whenever needed to satisy my personal Dragon-reading needs. And you have a 14 year old granddaughter?

All I can say is, I hope she was named after a D&D monster.