“BigZilla” wrote:
“I think a lot of film makers have issues with women.”
Ain’t that tha truth! In fact, horrible as it is, I think a good weekend discussion would be “most debased view of women in an MST3K film.”
Between this movie and The Creeping Terror alone you’ve got some seriously whacked views of women. Totally inappropriate but a surprisingly common theme here.
Colossus Prime added:
As amusing as that would be as a weekend discussion thread, in my mind it starts and ends with Project Moonbase. They give us an incredibly accomplished female astronaut who is surrounded by men that constantly belittle her and treat her like a housewife/secretary.
And Adoptadog added:
I think that the attitude toward women in MSTied movies would be an interesting topic, though I must say that the worst, hands down, would have to be Hobgoblins. Project Moonbase has the excuse of merely magnifying the prevalent attitude toward women at the time…Hobgoblins has no excuse.
So what are the “most debased view of women in an MST3K film”?
Without thinking too hard, there’s a moment in “Commando Cody” where they’re getting on the rocketship and Cody says to the woman: “I still say this is no trip for a woman” and she replies “You’ll be glad to have somebody along who can cook your meals!”
What’s your pick?
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I think “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die” still has one of the sickest main characters in the show, even if he gets it in the end. On that note, there are a LOT of movies where creepy guys (and old ladies for that matter) paw women in search of the perfect body, a la “The Atomic Brain.”
But Hobgoblins may take the cake: Women are either dumb sluts who want a man to have his way with her, or they’re shrill frigid harpies who emasculate whatever poor soul enters her life.
For shorts, I always thought it was amusing that “Young Man’s Fancy” was really all about a teenage girl throwing herself at her 20-something brother’s friend.
Definitely “Horrors of Spider Island”. It starts off with a fairly traditional view of female roles (secretaries and dancers) but as soon as they crash on the island, it turns into Lord of the Flies with panties.
A man keeps a stable of wives locked in a trance, during which time his repulsive assistant molests them. Briefly awakened, they wrestle endlessly with one another, whereupon a young girl is conscripted into the harem. There’s no limit to the ways Manos is terrible, but its attitude toward women is certainly near the top of the list.
The short “A Date With Your Family”, definitely. The mom and daughter make sure to change into something more “festive” before dinner, because “the women seem to feel that they owe it to the men of the house to look their best”.
I guess it’s not really “depraved”, per se; like Adoptadog said, it reflects the typical cultural views of the time… But it still makes me cringe every time I see it.
I’m thinking that a lot of people are going to be bringing up Hobgoblins for this one, since good god is that a bad one.
I always thought that one of the things that made The Incredibly Strange etc. such a horrible movie was the fact that you could clearly tell that Ray Steckler had some issues with women. Obviously there’s the objectification of the dancers, but note that:
1) The main villain is a woman, who decides to hypnotize our main character into doing terrible things for no seemingly justifiable reason
2) All of the main character’s murder victims are women
3) In the male/female dancing duo seen at the beginning, the problematic one is the woman
I wish I could type more, but I’m kind of in a hurry today. Maybe this movie’s not as blatantly bad as, say, Hobgoblins or Manos, but there’s definitely some subtext that creeps me out.
I think there is a special place in feminist hell for Attack of the Giant Leeches. Sure there’s the usual condescending attitudes, but the fact the hot blonde is married to Bruno VeSota should put this one in the top ten.
Oh, God- how about “The Giant Spider Invasion” where the main scientist guy couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that the only female character in the movie with a brain was also a scientist? Throw in that the other two female leads were alternately slutty and drunk/slutty and you have- clearly- the worst attitude towards women in a MSTied movie.
I’ve had a couple of days to think about this (sad, really) and I’ve been able to clarify my thoughts; there ARE a great many MST eps that reveal a very depressing attitude toward women. Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Rocketship X-M (one that always makes me grit my teeth), Brain that Wouldn’t Die, Eegah, Hellcats, TISCWSLABMUZ,Whores of Spi…I mean, Horrors of Spider Island, as others have mentioned, show less-than-enlightened attitudes about women.
However, these are all the products of their times, after World War II, when women were thanked for their efforts in factories & at other jobs, then patted on their heads & sent back to the kitchens, and before Women’s Lib, before the concept of the erstwhile Equal Rights Amendment. So the attitudes toward women were often exaggeratedly sexist, as a way, I think, to reinforce women’s proper place. Even a movie at the height of the Women’s Lib movement, like Angels Revenge, pretended to be all about Women Power, but was just an excuse to have scantily clad “babes” with guns. Again, though, the concept of gender equality was still new & shiny, and hadn’t become part of the social fabric.
Hobgoblins, though, was made in the ’80s, at a time when women were no longer an oddity in the workplace, or in college, and were supposedly more than sexual objects. But, as #1 Kenotic points out, “Women are either dumb sluts who want a man to have his way with her, or they’re shrill frigid harpies who emasculate whatever poor soul enters her life.” It’s a degrading and horrible view of women, with no reason to exist.
But I do have to say that if people are now cringing over the treatment of women in any MST ep, whether the patronizing tones of Project Moonbase or Commando Cody, or the blatant objectification in Horrors of Spider Island or Hobgoblins, then that’s some positive progress.
How about the rather bizarre short “Once Upon a Honeymoon” where the woman obsesses over kitchen appliances to fulfill her life. In the Giant Spider Invasion of Savings after the initial (ha-ha) misunderstanding, Della Street actually is a (for the movie) competent character, and, unadmirable as the other two females are, there’s always Cousin Billy to distract from them.
But, yeah, I did forget how icky Manos’s treatment of women is- from beginning to end.
Manos and Hobgoblins; need I say more?!
Gotta agree with adoptadog (#8) right down the line, with a hearty “well said!” But even for its time, nothing makes my feminist-male fists clench like PROJECT MOONBASE. I was born in 1961 so I lived in that world for a long time, and even then — threatening to spank the first woman on the moon for being less than submissive? C’mon!
And let us not forget the beloved DESIGN FOR DREAMING! The world of the near future will be heaven for Nuveena; her miracle kitchen will free her to occasionally go play tennis in cute outfits — but the real salvation will come when a rich man rides up in a shiny car. Somebody give her a copy of THE CINDERELLA COMPLEX.
But yeah, I hope the guys who made HOBGOBLINS eventually achieved enlightenment and have repented for their many sins. Do we think Hal Warren suffered enough for his?
Any ’50s short, in my opinion, which is why I can’t watch them, even with mst3k treatment.
Can I vote for the This Island Earth movie? Just for one line Cal said after his sidekick saw in the catalog some kind of neutron sorter and said his wife could really use it, and Cal says something like “she’d gain 10 pounds while it did all the work for her.” The guys gave a quick, “Cal, you bitch,” but that little line annoys the heck out of me.
Horrors of spider island. The whole scene with the judging of women based on how the look is just so objectifing.
What about Monster A Go Go? Not only is there no monster but they are hard on women. Remember the scene with the woman driving alone and broken down on the side of the road. A truck driver pulls over to help and is so condescending that the Brains pick up on it and contribute the “women don’t know anything about cars” riffs.
I have to agree with a lot of the opinions expressed above, but I think I’ll throw in another title that hasn’t been mentioned above:
Horror of Party Beach. While it shares a *lot* of the same attitude towards women that similar movies of the era had, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie with that large a body count. The monsters killed maybe 20-30 people, and of those people, only 2 were men. Of the women left alive, the professor’s daughter became a “helpless” almost victim, and the less said about Eulabelle’s character, the better…
Wow, really? Not one mention of one of the worst of all, in my book:
The Home Economics Story
That short is to women what Catching Trouble is to wildlife, and just as repugnant.
“Carol, who is now Mrs. Bill Johnson, took a general economics course. Not one which would lead to professional employment, but one which fitted her for that very important career of being Mrs. Bill Johnson.”
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
@#5: Actually, though it was cut from the MST version, Jerry also kills the dancer’s partner. I’d also say that carnival barker, (Who also adds to the issues with women factor. “I could bring some steaks for you to broil for our date.” Sheesh!) but he does come back to life for some reason.
My nomination has to go to Space Mutiny, solely for the fact of those ungodly uniforms the women were made to wear. Especially Lea.
My vote’s for Angels’ Revenge.
I’m with M’Hael. “The Home Economics Story” makes me sad…then naseated…then sad all over again.
“Cooking Terms” is pretty low, too. Cream the butter, you silly woman!
As mentioned earlier, a lot of it had to do with the attitudes of the day. To give you an idea of this sort of thing, compare the original version of To Be or Not to Be starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard with the remake starring Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft. In particular, consider the scene where Lt. Sobinsky proposes to Maria/Anna that they elope. In the original, he comes across as more than a little condescending when she objects to his proposal. It also struck me that Maria Tura was a bit more blameless and was treated more harshly than Anna Bronsky.
A lot of the shorts are a bit creepy for this reason. In particular you see the notion that women get an education and seek some kind of skilled job only as a stopgap until they get married. So you get the spectacle of the dumb girl in “Is This Love?” who wants to rebel *backwards* and drop out of school to get married–because apparently school and marriage are mutually exclusive. The same attitude pops up at the end of Gamera where the head scientist admonishes his female assistant to “forget science” and marry the reporter who’s been stalking her the whole movie.
Also, inadvertently perhaps, The Violent Years teaches us that while women may turn to crime, they make for really stupid criminals.
#16: [“The Home Economics Story”] short is to women what Catching Trouble is to wildlife, and just as repugnant.
Believe it or not I think it isn’t at bad as many. Despite the sexism there’s an overall message that is actually not bad: the option is presented for women to get some kind of higher education and a professional job, even if that education and those jobs are within a limited field. It isn’t just, “Learn to be a secretary until you can find a man,” crap.
Again, most of the big offenders have already been mentioned. I’ll throw WILD WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN into the discussion – technically, the women in the film are all strong, independent heroines, but it’s still a smarmy sexploitation flick. And I’m sure theres some mysogynist metaphor in the horseshoe thing.
Also, someone else mentioned the HELLCATS, and I’ll reiterate it, simply for the scene of the two thugs harrassing their love slave while she’s in the trows of skag withdrawal.
Wow, I can understand people noticing the sexism in those old shorts and films and being embarrassed by what it represents about our society’s history, but how can people actually get angry, or upset about it? That is our history. If a fictional character saying something sexist, but totally appropriate at the time a film was made makes you mad, then thinking about the real history of our society must make you explode with rage.
I especially think that the shorts were usually guilty of nothing more than portraying 1950’s gender roles as they actually were. As sexist as they often seem I don’t think I would count any of them anywhere near the top of the list. Mostly because they don’t represent anything but what US society was like at the time, but also because the female characters in them were often just as or even more intelligent and capable than the male ones. Yes the women in “Once Upon a Honeymoon” and “Young Man’s Fancy” are obsessed with their kitchen appliances, because many women at the time had few opportunities beyond just being housewives, and those shorts were just commercials for said appliances. But the shorts makers knew that the woman they were aiming those advertisements at weren’t stupid, and so they didn’t portray them as such in the film. In fact they were portrayed as hardworking intelligent people who did a lot for their families. Sexist by today’s ideas about a woman’s role in society, but at least it’s not denigrating to their intelligence or abilities as a whole. So if those shorts top the list of “worst attitudes towards women” then so does all of or our history up until the 60’s Women’s Lib movement, and much of it since then as well.
Some of the examples people are putting forward actually portray smart, accomplished women. Yes there are often time period appropriate sexist a-hole male characters to make comments about how “women can’t be scientists” or something like that, but the film is showing a woman in the 1950’s as a scientist to begin with, so doesn’t that count for something? To me it’s much worse when you have an early 1960’s movie like Attack of The The Eye Creatures where not only are the women not shown in any position of importance in society, but they are all also portrayed as complete and total idiots who could never hope to be as smart as the male characters, or even function without a man to help them. That shows that the film makers weren’t just setting a story within the times they lived, with women in the expected societal roles, but instead were actively making it seem as if women in general are just plain dumb and inferior to men in general. Then again the men in that movie don’t fare much better…
Here’s a harder question: What movie has a GOOD attitude toward women? They were all pretty condescending. Even ones with Beverly Garland kicking ass, women are just – well, women.
I think alot of movie makers get into the biz so they have a semblance of control over things, and that usually includes some sick control over women. :mad:
Then they may give the reasoning, hey, I’m just showing how hard it is to be a woman, and how awful they have it. But I might as well enjoy making the movie and getting a cheap thrill out of it. :roll:
Imagine if a woman made a movie with men romping around in skimpy things, and had them all be stupid, and helpless and always deferred to women to solve their problems, and were always the victims of horrible, violent crimes. :idea:
Many of the MSTed movies are simply old and reflect different times.
Having said that, there are definitely a handful of films that portrayed women in a bad light. Spider Island was the first that popped into mind, and Mike and the Bots did a host segment that rightfully skewered it.
I think in 2009, we’ve gone to the other extreme where female characters are essentially male characters with breasts. And this is every bit as unbelievable in my opinion.
Anyone remember this ditty from Indestructible Man?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgGFzUS4tkg
“An hour ago, I got you fired.”
“What? What’d you do that for?!”
“I figured being my wife would take up all of your time.”
One qualifying note on THoSI, while there are embarassing stereotypes aplenty in the 1959 movie (including the women being carried ashore by Gary) Georgia is actually the strongest person holding them together on the island, more then Spiderman, even before he morphs.
And anyway, the women are way hotter then, say, those in Angels Revenge or WWW of Batwoman). :smile:
(Ducks to avoid thrown bricks)
I’d actually defend “Young Man’s Fancy.” Sure, it’s goofy as all get out and I still won’t vouch for Judy’s mental stability, but the wisecracking, easygoing relationship in the family is a nice change the bow-to-authority mentality of most shorts from back then, and you can’t deny that Judy gave as good as she got.
Wow. Twenty-eight comments in, and nobody’s mentioned “Outlaw” yet?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t disagree with anyone else’s choice. There’s a huge buffet of reprehensible attitudes towards women on display in the turkeys MST3K had to choose from. But the apex for me has to be “Outlaw”, set as it is on a world where women are by definition slaves…and that’s a good thing, because it’s secretly what all women want and it’s a chance to express their secret inner desires. And the woman who wants to be in charge? Evil. Pure evil.
(The Gor novels, on which the film was based, are even more chock-full of this kind of ick.)
Ultimately, “Outlaw” really is “an arealogical autoerotical tubular boobular joy! An exposular regional, batchical pouchular fun for girl and boy! A litisimal dorsical, hung like a horsical, caliphyligical ball!” And while that makes for a funny episode, it’s not something the film-makers should be proud of. :)
Anyone have anything against #622 Angels’ Revenge? :wink:
Worst Attitude toward women:
Leo McCabe(sp?)at the end of Girl in Gold Boots. “Even the sex and drug business has a seemy side.”
Runner-up:
“Bill Rebane, movie-maker and feminist.”
One word: HOBGOBLINS.
I usually don’t care about sexism in old movies because, after all, it was a different time. But I STILL have not been able to watch Project Moonbase all the way through. I get as far as the scene where the general threatens to SPANK the accomplished astronaut woman because she DARES to get snappy when he calls her a stupid nickname. Then I have to turn it off so I can go murder every male within a ten-mile radius. So yes, Project Moonbase wins for me.
No ones mentioned ‘King Dinosaur’ yet? Yes, the two women in it are scientists, but they get shoved around by the big lout, scream at everything and one of them tears up the only picture of a ‘dinosaur’ in a fit of PMS. Oh, and I think they did all the cooking too.
Canucklehead, “Horror of Party Beach” came to my mind, too… especially the dancing during Hank and Elaine’s date. We see what Hank (and the filmmakers) apparently think is the ideal man-woman relationship: he glares at her, while she’s so demure, passive, and sexless, she’s practically in an ambulatory coma. It’s creepy, and it gives me chills–ironically, the only thing in this monster movie to do so.
We seem to be focusing on instances of chuavinism, which is different from the cases where the filmmakers just seemed to hate women. “The Leech Woman” comes to mind, as does “The Atomic Brain”. The latter one wasn’t quite at the level of an art-school Salo ripoff, but it was pretty crumbum.
Those old movies and shorts aren’t always just reflecting the times. They’re presenting a particular view of the times.
The 50s weren’t all June and Ward Cleaver. They were also Alfred Kinsey. People of the 50s were fighting against restrictive gender stereotypes then as well, just not so overtly.
When we see repressive gender roles in films from earlier eras, we’re not just seeing an unfiltered reflection of real life any more than we see that in movies today. All moviemakers present their own particular views… as bent through the studios’ lenses.
I’m just saying don’t let those old movies off so easily. They deserve every last riffing they ever get. Let ’em fly.
Yes, Manos, Hobgoblins, Outlaw, Angels Revenge etc. all well and good. But what about a more subtle approach to hatred of women?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but there isn’t a single female main character in Gorgo (as evidenced by the host segment where crow tries to put together a pinup calendar.) Isn’t the complete omission of women from a flick equally as bad as demeaning them as sex-crazed or ice queens like in hobgoblins?
Hmmmmmm, I’m surprised to see The Creeping Terror in the main post. From what I can recall, there was only one main female character, and she was just as bland as any of the rest of the cast. (To be honest, I can’t really remember anything about anyone in that movie. They all sort of blend together in my mind with the exception of the big guy who yells, “BOB-BEE! BOB-BEE!”)
And I see someone beat me to the ending of Indestructible Man. That line is so 50s, it’s hysterical. I can’t remember if there is even a riff associated with it (I’m sure there must be one) because the movie itself is so funny at that moment.
Hobgoblins is another obvious choice. I remember watching it the first time and thinking that it wasn’t so bad at the point that Crow starts his pro-woman host segment… then we got to the ending where the conservative girl finds that the best moment of her life was when she briefly became a slut. Wow.
Another little moment is in the Undersea Kingdom when the woman proudly shouts something along the lines of: “What a discovery! By Diana Compton… Girl reporter!” Oh, one cringes…
Prince of Space isn’t exactly a feminist tract either… The females are just wives and children. (I don’t even think there’s a female secretary to be seen, is there?)
Sidehackers might make the list, although it’s hard to tell in its edited form…
I think Catalina Caper subscribes to the ZZ Top view of sexuality.
On a tangent, how different would Prince of Space been had Krankor and his planet and crew and guardian been all-female instead of all-male?
Why is Hobgoblins seen as having such a poor attitude towards women? Perhaps it has, but I think it is cited far too often for this problem. I think the movie is far too campy and awful for me to take any of it seriously in even the slightest way.
The movie has one easy woman and one frigid woman. I won’t even county Fantasia because, A) she was first earning a living BSing lonely guys on the phone and B) The second version of Fantasia was a mental construct from the guy with the red shorts. The waitress at Club Scum seemed quite capable of taking care of herself, so she doesn’t even enter this argument. In the end, Hobgoblins isn’t quite as bad as many people say it is.
drabel says:
December 5th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but there isn’t a single female main character in Gorgo (as evidenced by the host segment where crow tries to put together a pinup calendar.) Isn’t the complete omission of women from a flick equally as bad as demeaning them as sex-crazed or ice queens like in hobgoblins?”
I think it’s better than the gratuitous inclusion of women. If there’s no place for a female character in a movie then it’s okay.
Not more love (i.e. hate) for Sidehackers?
I gotta agree with that “space is no place for a woman” / “but who will cook your meals” thing from Commando Cody.
Maybe Hobgoblins has been cited in this discussion a lot because it has earned it. Whether Hobgoblins is intended as serious or camp, it does have a terrible attitude toward women. Yes, it has one easy woman and one frigid woman, the classic virgin/whore dichotomy. Yes, one of the only other two women is making a living fulfilling losers’ phone fantasies, and then appears as a mental construct of a male character. How exactly does that make it okay that she’s clad in skintight spandex, simply because the MALE has conceived of a woman in that way? The waitress at Club Scum is a caricature (well, they all are, of course), who “takes care of herself” until the damn hobgoblins get close and fulfill someone’s fantasy – either hers or the emcee’s – so that she’s rolling around on the floor in a passionate embrace; so what does that say about her underlying character here? No, sorry, the bottom line is that not one of these women is anything but her genitals – there’s not any real individuality (though I’ll grant you that the waitress comes closest to having an actual character), and that’s the thing that makes this movie so degrading. Good god, even the male characters, as awful as they are, have SOME individuality outside of how they relate to women. The women…it’s all how they are viewed by the men around them, nothing else matters.
I do appreciate that Joike & the Bots always seemed appropriately horrified at sexist stuff in movies.
Hobgoblins’ hatred of women did lead to a GREAT host segment (Crow’s bigfoot-esque documentary). And even at the end of Crow’s documentary, he points out, “in the off chance that you do meet a woman, treat her with respect and stuff.” Something about the way the Brains could joke but still show appropriate disdain for sexism — I always appreciated that.
hobgoblins is probably the worse. But werewolf is by far the newest of the movies and it didn’t have a positive attitude towards women. Think about it won’t you.
I agree with Cronkite Moonshot. Well said…
And how come no one notices how MEN are now portrayed as idiots, etc in today’s films? Well, that is for a future generation to notice, I guess.
General Hospital shorts. No, not the underware but the men were were either smugly condencending or outright hostile to women. The women were dumb blond (candystriper), nosey/gossipy (Nurse Feratu), vapid and insecure (Phil’s flame) or enabling and spineless (Jesse, Phil’s wife).
I think that Hobgoblins isn’t really the best choice here. The movie’s problem isn’t sexism, it’s misanthroposim. I think that a movie showcasing a debasing attitude towards women, in order to really count as pure sexism, should feature the male characters in a positive light, if only in the filmmakers’ point of view. Nobody in Hobgoblins is likeable, intelligent, or appealing, and the director/writer did not seem to intend any of them to be, either. The older 50’s films had sexist men, but they were obviously supposed to be likeable protagonists, embodying all sorts of masucline ideals of the time. The men of Hobgoblins are: a perverted loser, a wuss, an arrogant he-man wannabe, and a crazy old nutcase. There isn’t a single character in the film that Rick Sloane could ever have intended to be genuinely likable. Male or female, everyone is equally debased in Hobgoblins.