It's funny... when I don't like the movie, I don't want to give it thumbs up from a feminist point of view either. And I don't like this movie.
V Mako Mori Test
Although... her raison d'etre was to fix her great grandfather's sins.
V Sexy Lamp Test
Though... Theo... Maybe she could be replaced with a sexy lamp or a cardboard cutout of Catherine Zeta Jones. Not saying that she can't act, saying that her role was... uh. I mean, she didn't add anything to the story. She was there basically as a sexy, "liberated" bisexual counterpart to Nell's "modest" (what's with the birther uniform? Geesh!) innocent sheltered whatever she was supposed to be. And then she yelled a lot, probably to hide the fact that she didn't DO anything and didn't have any role to play. At least Owen Wilson's character DID things, even though that got him killed.
Frankly, Liam Neeson's character could be replaced with a lamp as well.
X The Crystal Gems Test
No. No. I mean... half of the major characters are female. It passes Bechdel test. But - Theo doesn't pass Mako Mori test nor Sexy Lamp test. I COULD be kind and say, "OK", but "it has to be a clear pass", and it isn't. Theo doesn't have a character arc. She doesn't even have a character. I love Catherine, but Theo is a crappy character.
X F-Rating
X Sphinx Test
Is there a woman center stage? Yes
Does she interact with other women? Yes
is there a woman driving the action? Er...
At first she is stuck to the house taking care of her mother and catering to her every whim. She dies.
She plans on staying living in the house. Her sister sells it and kicks her out. She doesn't know what to do. A telephone rings and she is informed about the study. She applies and is approved. Goes to the house.
Is sitting there and doing what is asked of her, by the good psychologist, by the dead children... Last 10 minutes of the movie she does things herself, taking initiative, being affirmative and decisive and powerful, and then she dies. So... no.
Is she active rather than reactive? No
Does the character avoid stereotype? Yeah... I think so.
Is she compelling and complex? Not really, no.
Is the story essential? No.
Does the story have an impact on a wide audience? No. IMDb 5 - Rotten Tomatoes 16%
X The Feldman Score
2 points.
X Furiosa Test
The only people who get infuriated with this are the people who saw the 1963 version and liked it.
V The Roxane Gay Test
The Maisy Test for sexism in kids' shows
Does she interact with other women? Yes
is there a woman driving the action? Er...
At first she is stuck to the house taking care of her mother and catering to her every whim. She dies.
She plans on staying living in the house. Her sister sells it and kicks her out. She doesn't know what to do. A telephone rings and she is informed about the study. She applies and is approved. Goes to the house.
Is sitting there and doing what is asked of her, by the good psychologist, by the dead children... Last 10 minutes of the movie she does things herself, taking initiative, being affirmative and decisive and powerful, and then she dies. So... no.
Is she active rather than reactive? No
Does the character avoid stereotype? Yeah... I think so.
Is she compelling and complex? Not really, no.
Is the story essential? No.
Does the story have an impact on a wide audience? No. IMDb 5 - Rotten Tomatoes 16%
X The Feldman Score
2 points.
X Furiosa Test
The only people who get infuriated with this are the people who saw the 1963 version and liked it.
V The Roxane Gay Test
The Maisy Test for sexism in kids' shows
V Gender Balance - Gender Representation:
V The Peirce Test
V The Villarreal Test
X The Landau Test
A movie fails if:
A primary female character ends up dead
Oops.
X The Tauriel Test
The thing is the Nell IS good at nursing and such. But that is never recognized by the other characters. We don't know what Theo does and if she's any good at it.
X The Willis Test
The movie is heavily based on the madonna/mother image. It's even further emphasized by the fact that the last part of the movie Nell runs around wearing a white nightgown. That wouldn't work well with a male character. Now, it would be amazing to have this genderswapped. I would like to see a "Jesus is dad to all the children" version of this movie :-D
traditional gender roles
Now, they were trying to make Theo dominant and assertive, and sure... what ever.
And Nell did show ingenuity in solving the problem. She did figure it all out by herself and she fixed the house. Now her sister can sell it, too. (Because, I suppose, being the great-granddaughter of the houseowners, they own that house as well. But, again, what ever.)
She achieves the goal. They eat. Although, Theo serves wine to everyone and then sits down to drink the wine herself. I don't think she ever eats.
And the women are not romantically connected to the male characters in any way. There isn't even any chemistry. There really isn't any chemistry. The dialogue is so weak.
Now, Nell is The Mother, but she also rescues Liam Neeson's character - just to then be "rescued" by him. Frankly, the whole scene is stupid and unnecessary. What was she doing up there anyway? And why did he have to take the staircase when there was another, safe way up there? (The way they used to get down from there.)
The girls talk about clothes and relationships when they are together.
We really don't know what Owen Wilson's character does for living. Theo is probably still a designer or artist of some sort. Nell probably has no job. Liam Neeson's character is a doctor and scientist.
O the MacGyver Test
I don't know about this either.
O the Raleigh Becket Test
I really can't tell. I don't think there was any male character development there at all. Maybe it was supposed to be so that because of what happened Liam Neeson's character realized the error of his ways, and Catherine Zeta Jones' character realized the shallowness of her life. Or something. Wouldn't know, don't care.
X Kuku test
"the males in the film must not be treated as disposable, or act for women's benefit" - Er... uh... no.
"fathers must not be portrayed as stupid, useless or incompetent" - er...
"the movie must not relate everything negative to males and positive to females" Eh...
V Gender Freedom:V The Villarreal Test
X The Landau Test
A movie fails if:
A primary female character ends up dead
Oops.
X The Tauriel Test
The thing is the Nell IS good at nursing and such. But that is never recognized by the other characters. We don't know what Theo does and if she's any good at it.
X The Willis Test
The movie is heavily based on the madonna/mother image. It's even further emphasized by the fact that the last part of the movie Nell runs around wearing a white nightgown. That wouldn't work well with a male character. Now, it would be amazing to have this genderswapped. I would like to see a "Jesus is dad to all the children" version of this movie :-D
traditional gender roles
Now, they were trying to make Theo dominant and assertive, and sure... what ever.
And Nell did show ingenuity in solving the problem. She did figure it all out by herself and she fixed the house. Now her sister can sell it, too. (Because, I suppose, being the great-granddaughter of the houseowners, they own that house as well. But, again, what ever.)
She achieves the goal. They eat. Although, Theo serves wine to everyone and then sits down to drink the wine herself. I don't think she ever eats.
And the women are not romantically connected to the male characters in any way. There isn't even any chemistry. There really isn't any chemistry. The dialogue is so weak.
Now, Nell is The Mother, but she also rescues Liam Neeson's character - just to then be "rescued" by him. Frankly, the whole scene is stupid and unnecessary. What was she doing up there anyway? And why did he have to take the staircase when there was another, safe way up there? (The way they used to get down from there.)
The girls talk about clothes and relationships when they are together.
We really don't know what Owen Wilson's character does for living. Theo is probably still a designer or artist of some sort. Nell probably has no job. Liam Neeson's character is a doctor and scientist.
O the MacGyver Test
I don't know about this either.
O the Raleigh Becket Test
I really can't tell. I don't think there was any male character development there at all. Maybe it was supposed to be so that because of what happened Liam Neeson's character realized the error of his ways, and Catherine Zeta Jones' character realized the shallowness of her life. Or something. Wouldn't know, don't care.
X Kuku test
"the males in the film must not be treated as disposable, or act for women's benefit" - Er... uh... no.
"fathers must not be portrayed as stupid, useless or incompetent" - er...
"the movie must not relate everything negative to males and positive to females" Eh...
V Molly Haskell:
She sacrifices herself, has about 10 minutes of independent, courageous, assertive, happy life and then she dies. She chooses children over her own life. And dead children at that... She doesn't have any friends, or life, or lovers or children of her own. She is a totally superfluous and no-one will miss her when she's gone.
Now, Theo isn't punished for being an openly sexual woman who is successful in her career. She isn't silenced, shamed, hurt, ostracized, killed for that. She doesn't lose anything - except a person she cared a lot about - whom she knew for a week or less. Was all this over in... three nights?
But - the woman uses her resources to make herself happy and fulfilled and complete her own goals. So - it's a pass.
X The Uphold Test
X The Rees Davies Test
X The White Test
I'll go this through quickly - I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything important here, but if you know I'm wrong, please, tell me.
Directed by a man, written by a man, music by a man, cinematography, editing, AD, production design,
Assistant Director and second unit directors were mostly female. Also casting. As usual.
V The Hagen Test
Crowd scenes? I suppose there was the gates of hell... and while ghosts, skeletons and demonic shapes cannot be said to have gender, they looked very masculine to me.
And "one scene roles"? Five males, three females. Now, one of the female roles was a bigger one, she had like three or four scenes, but... she's just... uh. Don't know.
Oh, and then there was Hugh Crain's wives. *sigh* So I suppose... it's about even. So - let's give it this.
V The Koeze-Dottle Test
Not really, but... uh. I'll give it this, too.
X Gender Safety:
No. Because of Theo. Female sexualisation. She wears miniskirts and deep cleavage. Struts around in lingerie. Some sexual abuse. Sexual comments and innuendos. She slaps another person. She yells at people. That's not OK.
X Social Justice and Equality:
Remember I gave the 1963 version a red X for this? Did they change anything?
Theo is still LGBQT, and no-one cares. At least this time no-one told her she's unnatural.
There are still no non-white characters, or anything but able-bodied people around.
There's social commentary. "He got rich on the backs of his workers" or something like that. But it wasn't followed in any way, or supported by any other words or actions, so - it doesn't mean anything. It was there just to... I don't know. And after all, that wasn't what made him a bad man, it was that he tortured and killed little children and somehow bound their souls in the mansion so that he could have a lot of children. Or something. I don't know. And I don't really care either. So, no. This movie doesn't really make a point of that child labor is wrong, or that it's bad to exploit your employees.
Also, "Extra points if children are encouraged by the plots and characters to critique power structures, consumerism, environmental and social exploitation".
"Prada; Milan, not New York. But they're killing me... Small price to pay for such savage kicks!"
So, no.
C The Representation Test
The protagonist is a woman, the movie passes the Bechdel test, Theo is bisexual (though... is she stereotypical bi?) and the men don't have extreme/unhealthy body ideals. I won't give it points for not perpetuating cultural, ethnic, racial stereotypes, because there is only one culture, ethnicity and race represented. And... the guys are pretty violent. Might be that they aren't hitting other people, but they are smashing cars, the house and paintings and whatnot. That's pretty aggressive, violent and reactionary in my mind, and quite a lot a stereotype. I really don't think this movie represents a diverse array of people and experiences.
X Kent test
X Aila test
X The Waithe Test
X The Ko Test
X The Villalobos Test
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