WEBVTT 00:00:00.422 --> 00:00:02.952 You know, my favorite part of being a dad 00:00:02.952 --> 00:00:06.211 is the movies I get to watch. 00:00:06.211 --> 00:00:08.092 I love sharing my favorite movies with my kids, 00:00:08.092 --> 00:00:10.688 and when my daughter was four, 00:00:10.688 --> 00:00:13.578 we got to watch "The Wizard of Oz" together. 00:00:13.578 --> 00:00:16.977 It totally dominated her imagination for months. 00:00:16.977 --> 00:00:20.195 Her favorite character was Glinda, of course. 00:00:20.195 --> 00:00:22.255 It gave her a great excuse to wear a sparkly dress 00:00:22.255 --> 00:00:23.909 and carry a wand. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:23.909 --> 00:00:26.318 But you watch that movie enough times, 00:00:26.318 --> 00:00:27.751 and you start to realize how unusual it is. 00:00:27.751 --> 00:00:30.603 Now we live today, and are raising our children, 00:00:30.603 --> 00:00:36.953 in a kind of children's-fantasy-spectacular-industrial complex. 00:00:36.953 --> 00:00:38.698 But "The Wizard of Oz" stood alone. 00:00:38.698 --> 00:00:40.885 It did not start that trend. 00:00:40.885 --> 00:00:44.307 Forty years later was when the trend really caught on, 00:00:44.307 --> 00:00:46.656 with, interestingly, another movie 00:00:46.656 --> 00:00:48.791 that featured a metal guy 00:00:48.791 --> 00:00:50.175 and a furry guy 00:00:50.175 --> 00:00:55.386 rescuing a girl by dressing up as the enemy's guards. 00:00:55.386 --> 00:00:57.827 Do you know what I'm talking about? (Laughter) 00:00:57.827 --> 00:00:59.302 Yeah. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:59.302 --> 00:01:03.025 Now, there's a big difference between these two movies, 00:01:03.025 --> 00:01:05.062 a couple of really big differences between "The Wizard of Oz" 00:01:05.062 --> 00:01:05.995 and all the movies we watch today. 00:01:05.995 --> 00:01:09.300 One is there's very little violence in "The Wizard of Oz." 00:01:09.300 --> 00:01:14.545 The monkeys are rather aggressive, as are the apple trees. 00:01:14.545 --> 00:01:18.152 But I think if "The Wizard of Oz" were made today, 00:01:18.152 --> 00:01:22.578 the wizard would say, "Dorothy, you are the savior of Oz 00:01:22.578 --> 00:01:24.340 that the prophecy foretold. 00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:26.414 Use your magic slippers to defeat 00:01:26.414 --> 00:01:30.027 the computer-generated armies of the Wicked Witch." 00:01:30.027 --> 00:01:31.679 But that's not how it happens. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:31.679 --> 00:01:34.081 Another thing that's really unique about "The Wizard of Oz" 00:01:34.081 --> 00:01:37.384 to me is that all of the most heroic 00:01:37.384 --> 00:01:40.714 and wise and even villainous characters 00:01:40.714 --> 00:01:44.226 are female. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:44.226 --> 00:01:46.340 Now I started to notice this 00:01:46.340 --> 00:01:49.485 when I actually showed "Star Wars" to my daughter, 00:01:49.485 --> 00:01:52.021 which was years later, and the situation was different. 00:01:52.021 --> 00:01:55.160 At that point I also had a son. 00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:56.887 He was only three at the time. 00:01:56.887 --> 00:02:01.033 He was not invited to the screening. He was too young for that. 00:02:01.033 --> 00:02:02.354 But he was the second child, 00:02:02.354 --> 00:02:06.127 and the level of supervision had plummeted. (Laughter) 00:02:06.127 --> 00:02:09.741 So he wandered in, 00:02:09.741 --> 00:02:13.770 and it imprinted on him 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:19.412 like a mommy duck does to its duckling, 00:02:19.412 --> 00:02:23.191 and I don't think he understands what's going on, 00:02:23.191 --> 00:02:26.718 but he is sure soaking in it. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:26.718 --> 00:02:28.087 And I wonder what he's soaking in. 00:02:28.087 --> 00:02:30.565 Is he picking up on the themes of courage 00:02:30.565 --> 00:02:32.682 and perseverance and loyalty? 00:02:32.682 --> 00:02:35.662 Is he picking up on the fact that Luke 00:02:35.662 --> 00:02:40.556 joins an army to overthrow the government? 00:02:40.556 --> 00:02:42.212 Is he picking up on the fact that 00:02:42.212 --> 00:02:45.315 there are only boys in the universe 00:02:45.315 --> 00:02:48.504 except for Aunt Beru, and of course this princess, 00:02:48.504 --> 00:02:52.954 who's really cool, but who kind of waits around through most of the movie 00:02:52.954 --> 00:02:56.183 so that she can award the hero with a medal and a wink 00:02:56.183 --> 00:02:58.736 to thank him for saving the universe, which he does 00:02:58.736 --> 00:03:01.962 by the magic that he was born with? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:01.962 --> 00:03:04.928 Compare this to 1939 with "The Wizard of Oz." 00:03:04.928 --> 00:03:07.557 How does Dorothy win her movie? 00:03:07.557 --> 00:03:10.507 By making friends with everybody 00:03:10.507 --> 00:03:12.284 and being a leader. 00:03:12.284 --> 00:03:15.590 That's kind of the world I'd rather raise my kids in -- 00:03:15.590 --> 00:03:19.480 Oz, right? -- and not the world of dudes fighting, 00:03:19.480 --> 00:03:21.383 which is where we kind of have to be. 00:03:21.383 --> 00:03:25.163 Why is there so much Force -- capital F, Force -- 00:03:25.163 --> 00:03:26.850 in the movies we have for our kids, 00:03:26.850 --> 00:03:29.295 and so little yellow brick road? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:29.295 --> 00:03:32.712 There is a lot of great writing about the impact 00:03:32.712 --> 00:03:36.959 that the boy-violent movie has on girls, 00:03:36.959 --> 00:03:39.577 and you should do that reading. It's very good. 00:03:39.577 --> 00:03:44.451 I haven't read as much on how boys are picking up on this vibe. 00:03:44.451 --> 00:03:47.001 I know from my own experience that 00:03:47.001 --> 00:03:52.626 Princess Leia did not provide the adequate context 00:03:52.626 --> 00:03:56.755 that I could have used in navigating the adult world 00:03:56.755 --> 00:04:01.356 that is co-ed. (Laughter) 00:04:01.356 --> 00:04:04.546 I think there was a first-kiss moment 00:04:04.546 --> 00:04:07.877 when I really expected the credits to start rolling 00:04:07.877 --> 00:04:10.680 because that's the end of the movie, right? 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:12.977 I finished my quest, I got the girl. 00:04:12.977 --> 00:04:16.108 Why are you still standing there? 00:04:16.108 --> 00:04:17.553 I don't know what I'm supposed to do. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:17.553 --> 00:04:20.741 The movies are very, very focused on defeating the villain 00:04:20.741 --> 00:04:23.329 and getting your reward, and there's not a lot of room 00:04:23.329 --> 00:04:26.220 for other relationships and other journeys. 00:04:26.220 --> 00:04:28.459 It's almost as though if you're a boy, 00:04:28.459 --> 00:04:30.540 you are a dopey animal, 00:04:30.540 --> 00:04:35.014 and if you are a girl, you should bring your warrior costume. 00:04:35.014 --> 00:04:37.202 There are plenty of exceptions, 00:04:37.202 --> 00:04:42.499 and I will defend the Disney princesses in front of any you. 00:04:42.499 --> 00:04:45.551 But they do send a message to boys, 00:04:45.551 --> 00:04:48.057 that they are not, the boys are not really the target audience. 00:04:48.057 --> 00:04:50.499 They are doing a phenomenal job of teaching girls 00:04:50.499 --> 00:04:53.871 how to defend against the patriarchy, 00:04:53.871 --> 00:04:55.836 but they are not necessarily showing boys 00:04:55.836 --> 00:04:58.670 how they're supposed to defend against the patriarchy. 00:04:58.670 --> 00:05:00.810 There's no models for them. 00:05:00.810 --> 00:05:04.083 And we also have some terrific women 00:05:04.083 --> 00:05:06.220 who are writing new stories for our kids, 00:05:06.220 --> 00:05:10.962 and as three-dimensional and delightful as Hermione and Katniss are, 00:05:10.962 --> 00:05:13.088 these are still war movies. 00:05:13.088 --> 00:05:17.196 And, of course, the most successful studio of all time 00:05:17.196 --> 00:05:21.326 continues to crank out classic after classic, 00:05:21.326 --> 00:05:24.070 every single one of them about 00:05:24.070 --> 00:05:27.840 the journey of a boy, or a man, 00:05:27.840 --> 00:05:31.484 or two men who are friends, or a man and his son, 00:05:31.484 --> 00:05:35.079 or two men who are raising a little girl. 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:38.819 Until, as many of you are thinking, this year, 00:05:38.819 --> 00:05:40.545 when they finally came out with "Brave." 00:05:40.545 --> 00:05:44.552 I recommend it to all of you. It's on demand now. 00:05:44.552 --> 00:05:48.446 Do you remember what the critics said when "Brave" came out? 00:05:48.446 --> 00:05:52.854 "Aw, I can't believe Pixar made a princess movie." 00:05:52.854 --> 00:05:54.975 It's very good. Don't let that stop you. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:54.975 --> 00:05:58.867 Now, almost none of these movies pass the Bechdel Test. 00:05:58.867 --> 00:06:00.053 I don't know if you've heard of this. 00:06:00.053 --> 00:06:02.875 It has not yet caught on and caught fire, 00:06:02.875 --> 00:06:04.956 but maybe today we will start a movement. 00:06:04.956 --> 00:06:07.738 Alison Bechdel is a comic book artist, 00:06:07.738 --> 00:06:12.844 and back in the mid-'80s, she recorded this conversation 00:06:12.844 --> 00:06:16.418 she'd had with a friend about assessing the movies that they saw. 00:06:16.418 --> 00:06:19.404 And it's very simple. There's just three questions you should ask: NOTE Paragraph 00:06:19.404 --> 00:06:21.914 Is there more than one character in the movie 00:06:21.914 --> 00:06:25.515 that is female who has lines? 00:06:25.515 --> 00:06:28.095 So try to meet that bar. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:28.095 --> 00:06:33.755 And do these women talk to each other at any point in the movie? NOTE Paragraph 00:06:33.755 --> 00:06:37.208 And is their conversation about something other than 00:06:37.208 --> 00:06:40.524 the guy that they both like? (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:06:40.524 --> 00:06:44.856 Right? Thank you. (Applause) 00:06:44.856 --> 00:06:46.681 Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:46.681 --> 00:06:54.284 Two women who exist and talk to each other about stuff. 00:06:54.284 --> 00:06:59.414 It does happen. I've seen it, 00:06:59.414 --> 00:07:02.362 and yet I very rarely see it in the movies 00:07:02.362 --> 00:07:03.529 that we know and love. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:03.529 --> 00:07:05.689 In fact, this week I went to see 00:07:05.689 --> 00:07:09.303 a very high-quality movie, "Argo." 00:07:09.303 --> 00:07:12.962 Right? Oscar buzz, doing great at the box office, 00:07:12.962 --> 00:07:17.246 a consensus idea of what a quality Hollywood film is. 00:07:17.246 --> 00:07:19.930 It pretty much flunks the Bechdel test. 00:07:19.930 --> 00:07:23.737 And I don't think it should, because a lot of the movie, 00:07:23.737 --> 00:07:25.318 I don't know if you've seen it, but a lot of the movie 00:07:25.318 --> 00:07:28.776 takes place in this embassy where men and women 00:07:28.776 --> 00:07:31.453 are hiding out during the hostage crisis. 00:07:31.453 --> 00:07:33.342 We've got quite a few scenes of the men 00:07:33.342 --> 00:07:37.503 having deep, angst-ridden conversations in this hideout, 00:07:37.503 --> 00:07:41.519 and the great moment for one of the actresses is 00:07:41.519 --> 00:07:46.641 to peek through the door and say, "Are you coming to bed, honey?" 00:07:46.641 --> 00:07:48.642 That's Hollywood for you. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:48.642 --> 00:07:51.087 So let's look at the numbers. 00:07:51.087 --> 00:07:54.649 2011, of the 100 most popular movies, 00:07:54.649 --> 00:07:58.894 how many of them do you think actually have female protagonists? 00:07:58.894 --> 00:08:02.188 Eleven. It's not bad. 00:08:02.188 --> 00:08:05.883 It's not as many percent as the number of women 00:08:05.883 --> 00:08:09.009 we've just elected to Congress, so that's good. 00:08:09.009 --> 00:08:12.013 But there is a number that is greater than this 00:08:12.013 --> 00:08:14.670 that's going to bring this room down. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:14.670 --> 00:08:18.332 Last year, The New York Times published a study 00:08:18.332 --> 00:08:19.991 that the government had done. 00:08:19.991 --> 00:08:21.379 Here's what it said. 00:08:21.379 --> 00:08:25.595 One out of five women in America 00:08:25.595 --> 00:08:31.848 say that they have been sexually assaulted some time in their life. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:31.848 --> 00:08:35.632 Now, I don't think that's the fault of popular entertainment. 00:08:35.632 --> 00:08:39.915 I don't think kids' movies have anything to do with that. 00:08:39.915 --> 00:08:41.693 I don't even think that 00:08:41.693 --> 00:08:45.248 music videos or pornography are really directly related to that, 00:08:45.248 --> 00:08:48.013 but something is going wrong, 00:08:48.013 --> 00:08:51.064 and when I hear that statistic, 00:08:51.064 --> 00:08:53.569 one of the things I think of is 00:08:53.569 --> 00:08:57.694 that's a lot of sexual assailants. 00:08:57.694 --> 00:09:01.054 Who are these guys? What are they learning? 00:09:01.054 --> 00:09:02.770 What are they failing to learn? 00:09:02.770 --> 00:09:04.920 Are they absorbing the story that 00:09:04.920 --> 00:09:09.447 a male hero's job is to defeat the villain with violence 00:09:09.447 --> 00:09:11.980 and then collect the reward, which is a woman 00:09:11.980 --> 00:09:17.028 who has no friends and doesn't speak? 00:09:17.028 --> 00:09:22.233 Are we soaking up that story? NOTE Paragraph 00:09:22.233 --> 00:09:24.579 You know, 00:09:24.579 --> 00:09:27.346 as a parent with the privilege 00:09:27.346 --> 00:09:29.990 of raising a daughter 00:09:29.990 --> 00:09:32.859 like all of you who are doing the same thing, 00:09:32.859 --> 00:09:36.639 we find this world and this statistic very alarming 00:09:36.639 --> 00:09:37.776 and we want to prepare them. 00:09:37.776 --> 00:09:42.062 We have tools at our disposal like "girl power," 00:09:42.062 --> 00:09:44.796 and we hope that that will help, 00:09:44.796 --> 00:09:48.405 but I gotta wonder, is girl power going to protect them 00:09:48.405 --> 00:09:51.003 if, at the same time, actively or passively, 00:09:51.003 --> 00:09:55.956 we are training our sons to maintain their boy power? 00:09:55.956 --> 00:09:59.354 I mean, I think the Netflix queue 00:09:59.354 --> 00:10:02.610 is one way that we can do something very important, 00:10:02.610 --> 00:10:05.665 and I'm talking mainly to the dads here. 00:10:05.665 --> 00:10:08.515 I think we have got to show our sons 00:10:08.515 --> 00:10:10.371 a new definition of manhood. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:10.371 --> 00:10:14.891 The definition of manhood is already turning upside down. 00:10:14.891 --> 00:10:17.022 You've read about how the new economy 00:10:17.022 --> 00:10:20.423 is changing the roles of caregiver and wage earner. 00:10:20.423 --> 00:10:22.077 They're throwing it up in the air. 00:10:22.077 --> 00:10:24.695 So our sons are going to have to find some way 00:10:24.695 --> 00:10:27.670 of adapting to this, some new relationship with each other, 00:10:27.670 --> 00:10:31.517 and I think we really have to show them, and model for them, 00:10:31.517 --> 00:10:35.218 how a real man 00:10:35.218 --> 00:10:38.987 is someone who trusts his sisters 00:10:38.987 --> 00:10:42.160 and respects them, and wants to be on their team, 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:45.783 and stands up against the real bad guys, 00:10:45.783 --> 00:10:49.639 who are the men who want to abuse the women. 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:52.690 And I think our job in the Netflix queue 00:10:52.690 --> 00:10:56.459 is to look out for those movies that pass the Bechdel Test, 00:10:56.459 --> 00:11:00.740 if we can find them, and to seek out the heroines 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:02.326 who are there, 00:11:02.326 --> 00:11:06.115 who show real courage, who bring people together, 00:11:06.115 --> 00:11:09.703 and to nudge our sons to identify with those heroines 00:11:09.703 --> 00:11:13.188 and to say, "I want to be on their team," 00:11:13.188 --> 00:11:17.770 because they're going to be on their team. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:17.770 --> 00:11:21.464 When I asked my daughter who her favorite character was in "Star Wars," 00:11:21.464 --> 00:11:23.493 do you know what she said? 00:11:23.493 --> 00:11:25.996 Obi-Wan. 00:11:25.996 --> 00:11:29.893 Obi-Wan Kenobi and Glinda. 00:11:29.893 --> 00:11:33.360 What do these two have in common? 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:35.284 Maybe it's not just the sparkly dress. 00:11:35.284 --> 00:11:38.911 I think these people are experts. 00:11:38.911 --> 00:11:40.437 I think these are the two people in the movie 00:11:40.437 --> 00:11:42.005 who know more than anybody else, 00:11:42.005 --> 00:11:45.332 and they love sharing their knowledge with other people 00:11:45.332 --> 00:11:48.436 to help them reach their potential. 00:11:48.436 --> 00:11:50.444 Now, they are leaders. 00:11:50.444 --> 00:11:52.662 I like that kind of quest for my daughter, 00:11:52.662 --> 00:11:54.849 and I like that kind of quest for my son. 00:11:54.849 --> 00:11:56.760 I want more quests like that. 00:11:56.760 --> 00:11:59.360 I want fewer quests where my son is told, 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:01.571 "Go out and fight it alone," 00:12:01.571 --> 00:12:06.776 and more quests where he sees that it's his job to join a team, 00:12:06.776 --> 00:12:10.876 maybe a team led by women, 00:12:10.876 --> 00:12:16.496 to help other people become better 00:12:16.496 --> 00:12:18.888 and be better people, 00:12:18.888 --> 00:12:21.170 like the Wizard of Oz. 00:12:21.170 --> 00:12:34.479 Thank you.