[Music]
my favorite part of being a dad is the
movies I get to watch I love sharing my
favorite movies with my kids and when my
daughter was four we got to watch The
Wizard of Oz together totally dominated
her imagination for months her favorite
character was Glinda of course have a
great excuse to wear sparkly dress and
carry a wand you know you watch a movie
enough times and you start to realize
how unusual it is now we live today and
are raising our children in a kind of
children's fantasy spectacular
industrial complex but the Wizard of Oz
stood alone he did not start that trend
40 years later was when the trend really
caught on with interestingly another
movie that featured a metal guy and a
furry guy rescuing a girl by dressing up
as the enemy's guards you know what I'm
talking about
now there's a big difference between
these two movies a couple of really big
differences between the Wizard of Oz and
all the movies we watched today one is
there's very little violence in The
Wizard of Oz the monkeys are rather
aggressive as are the apple trees but I
think if the Wizard of Oz were made
today the wizard would say Dorothy you
are the savior of Oz that the prophecy
foretold use your magic slippers to
defeat the computer-generated armies of
the Wicked Witch but that's not how it
happens another thing that's really
unique about The Wizard of Oz to me is
that all of the most heroic and wise and
even villainous characters are female
now I started to notice this when I
actually showed Star Wars to my daughter
which was years later and the situation
was different at that point I also had a
son he was only three at the time he was
not invited to the screening he's too
young for that
but he was the second child and the
level of supervision had plummeted so he
wandered in and it imprinted on him like
mommy duck does to its duckling and I
don't think he understand what's going
on but he is sure soaking in it and I
wonder what he's soaking in is he
picking up on the themes of courage and
perseverance and loyalty is he picking
up on the fact that Luke joins an army
to overthrow the government is he
picking up on the fact that there are
only boys in the universe except for
aunt Beru and of course this princess
was really cool but who kind of waits
around through most of the movie so that
she can award the hero with a medal and
a wink to thank him for saving the
universe which he does by the magic that
he was born with Baird this too 1939
with The Wizard of Oz how does Dorothy
when her movie by making friends with
everybody
and being a leader like that's kind of
the world I'd rather raise my kids in Oz
right and not the world of dudes
fighting which is where we kind of have
to be why is there so much force capital
F force in the movies we have for our
kids and so a little yellow brick road I
mean there is a lot of great writing
about the impact that the boy violent
movie has on girls and you should do
that reading it's very good
I haven't read as much on how boys are
picking up on this vibe I know from my
own experience that Princess Leia did
not provide the adequate context that I
could have used in navigating the adult
world that is co-ed I think you know
there was a kind of first kiss moment
when I really expected the credits to
start rolling because that's the end of
the movie right I finished my quest I
got the girl why are you still standing
there I don't know what I'm supposed to
do the movies are very very focused on
defeating the villain and getting your
reward and there's not a lot of room for
other relationships and other journeys
it's almost as though if you're a boy
you are a dopey animal and if you were a
girl you should bring your warrior
costume I mean there are plenty of
exceptions and I I will defend the
Disney Princesses in front of any of you
but they do send a message to boys that
they are not the boys are not really the
target audience I mean they are doing a
phenomenal job of teaching girls how to
defend against the patriarchy but they
are not necessarily showing boys how
they're supposed to defend against the
patriarchy there's no models for them
and we also have some terrific women who
are writing new stories for our kids and
as three-dimensional and delightful as
Hermione and Katniss are these are still
war movies and of course the most
successful studio of all time continues
to crank out classic after classic every
single one of them
about the journey of a boy or a man or
two men who are friends or a man and his
son or two men who are raising a little
girl until as many of you are thinking
this year when they finally came out
with brave I recommend it to all of you
it's on demand now do you remember what
the critic said when brave came out
I can't believe Pixar made a princess
movie it's very good don't let that stop
you now almost none of these movies pass
the Bechdel test
I don't know if you've heard of this has
not yet caught on and caught fire but
maybe today we will start a movement
Alison Bechdel is a comic book artist
and back in the mid 80s she recorded
this conversation she'd had with a
friend about assessing the movies that
they saw and it's very simple there's
just three questions you should ask is
there more than one character in the
movie that is female who has lines so
try to meet that bar and do these women
talk to each other at any point in the
movie and is their conversation about
something other than the guy that they
both like
all right thank you to women who exist
and talk to each other about stuff it it
does happen I've seen it
and yet I very rarely see it in the
movies that we know and love in fact
this week I went to see a very high
quality movie Argo right Oscar buzz
doing great at the box office
they can sense this idea of what a
quality Hollywood film is pretty much
flunks the Bechtel test and I don't
think it should because there a lot of
the movie I don't if you've seen it but
a lot of the movie takes place in this
embassy where men and women are hiding
out during the hostage crisis we got
quite a few scenes of the men having
deep angst-ridden conversations in this
hideout and the great moment for one of
the actresses is to peek through the
door and say are you coming to bed honey
like that's Hollywood for you so let's
let's look at the numbers 2011 the
hundred most popular movies how many of
them do you think actually have female
protagonists eleven it's not bad it's
not as it's not as many percent as the
number of women we've just elected to
Congress so that's good but there is a
number that is greater than this that's
going to bring this room down in last
year in the New York Times published a
study that the government had done
here's what it said one out of five
women in America say that they have been
sexually assaulted sometime in their
life
now I don't think that's the fault of
popular entertainment I don't think kids
movies have anything to do with that I
don't even think that you know music
videos or pornography are really
directly related to that but something
is going wrong and when I hear that
statistic one of the things I think of
is
that's a lot of sexual asylums
who are these guys what are they
learning what are they failing to learn
are they absorbing the story that a male
hero's job is to defeat the villain with
violence and then collect the reward
which is a woman who has no friends and
doesn't speak are we soaking up that
story you know as a parent with the
privilege of raising a daughter like all
of you who are doing the same thing we
find this world and this statistic very
alarming and we want to prepare them we
have tools at our disposal like girl
power and we hope that that will help
but I gotta wonder is girl power gonna
protect them if at the same time
actively or passively we are training
our sons to maintain their boy power I
mean I think the Netflix queue is one
way that we can do something very
important and I'm talking mainly to the
dads here I think we have got to show
our sons a new definition of manhood now
the definition of manhood is already
turning upside down I mean you've read
about how the new economy is changing
the roles of caregiver and wage earner
they're throwing it up in the air so our
sons are gonna have to find some way of
adapting to this some new relationship
with each other and I think we really
have to show them and model for them how
a real man is someone who trusts his
sisters and respects them and wants to
be on their team and stands up against
the real bad guys who were the men who
want to abuse the women and I think our
job in the Netflix queue is to look out
for those movies that pass the Bechdel
test if we can find them and to seek out
the heroines who are there who show real
courage who bring people together
and to nudge our sons to identify with
those heroines and to say I want to be
on their team because they're gonna be
on their team when I asked my daughter
who her favorite character was in Star
Wars you know what she said obi-wan
obi-wan Kenobi and Glinda now what are
these two have in common maybe it's not
just the sparkly dress I think these
people are experts I think these are the
two people in the movie who know more
than anybody else and they love sharing
their knowledge with other people to
help them reach their potential now
they're leaders I like that kind of
quest for my daughter and I like that
kind of quest for my son I want more
quest like that I want fewer quests
where my son is told go out and fight it
alone and more quests where he sees that
it's his job to join a team maybe a team
led by women to help other people become
better and be better people like The
Wizard of Oz thank you
[Applause]