Google-Supported CodeGirl Documentary Makes "Exclusive YouTube Premiere"

theodp writes: As part of our Made with Code and media perception initiatives," wrote YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki over at the Official Google Blog, "I'm excited that we're supporting award-winning documentary filmmaker Lesley Chilcott — of An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman [and Code.org] fame — on her next film, CodeGirl. Until November 5 Lesley's film will be available for free on YouTube, before its theatrical debut in the next few weeks." Microsoft is pretty jazzed about the movie too, as is Al Gore. Decidedly less excited about CodeGirl is film critic Inkoo Kang, who writes, "CodeGirl, a chronicle of this year's Technovation contest, is just as well-intentioned as its subject. It coasts for as long as it can on the feel-good fuel of watching smart, earnest girls talk about creating an app, but with virtually no tension, context, narrative or characterization driving the story, the documentary grows to feel like a parent describing their daughter's involvement in an international competition. The girls' achievements are impressive, but you definitely don't want to hear about them for nearly two hours.

Comments

Film Critic

[Anonymous Coward]

The documentary is too long. 90% of the time you see a group of girls giggling and chatting about non issues (clichees are confirmed).
Two nerdy girls solve Rubic Cube with one hand (that's the only memorizable part for me).
They speak about coding, but you don't see anyone really coding, they just have the laptop and type (could be chatting or emailing).
The coding is about mobile applications - if you expect to see a diagram how things are setup, nothing.

The documentary communicates: teenage girls can develop apps (one has to assume this as it's not really shown), even with a social agenda and not just hype something meaningless to earn money. The documentary looks at teams competing for some price to win, training to present their ideas - it's close to a meaningless reality show. Topic-wise interesting, as documentary it falls short in my eyes, all remains on the surface. All girls are treated like props, no personality of anyone is explored sufficiently, no history, too many faces, too little depth.

A (interesting) topic cannot carry a documentary alone.

This documentary is the wrong approach

[Qbertino]

I'm all for asking women to move into tech jobs - we have too little of them. But I think this documentary sends the wrong message. Girls building one-shot girlie apps isn't very flattering a proposition for women in tech.

They should've done a really good documentary on Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper and perhaps some current day programmers doing serious and exciting work.

I was at the Google Polymer Summit a few weeks ago and there were some young women there, some of them high-profile software developers - a length interview with those would give off a much better impression of what type of women in tech we all want. One of the ladies was on the chrome team working on the rendering and DOM engine - I can barely image what a hardcore coding job that is.

And yes, they did look girlie and quite cute actually. Makeup, high-heels, elaborate hair-do. No problem here. The point I'm making is that they were *coding* serious stuff. You can be into cupcakes, pink pettycoats, pigtails and hello kitty and still do that.
Heck, our male coder type digs nerf guns and is all exited about the new star wars like a nine-year old at the age of 40 - like that's anymore grown-up a pastime. ...

I could be wrong, but I do think we have to move the coding women doing the serious stuff on to the stage - that would give off a better impression.

I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a woman, I'm upset because this kind of shit is divisive.

Until all of this "social justice" bullshit really started infecting the Internet, we were all just coders. We weren't "girl coders" or "boy coders" or "shemale coders" or "heshe coders" or "dogkin coders". We were just coders. It didn't matter if you had a penis. It didn't matter if you had a vagina. It didn't matter if you had a penis that had been surgically converted into a vagina. It didn't matter if you had a vagina that had been surgically converted into a penis. After all, genitals have absolutely nothing to do with computer programming. Nothing at all!

We used to be focused on the code, and only the code. But now thanks to the "social justice" wieners, we've been unnecessarily divided into these artificial groupings based on the flesh between our legs, or our sexual preferences, or our skin color, or some other irrelevant criteria.

Let me repeat, GENITALS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH COMPUTER PROGRAMMING. NOTHING AT ALL!

By the way, I'm a woman. Unlike many of the so-called "women" of the "social justice" movement, I was actually born a woman. I want us to return to the days where the focus was on the code, and just the code. Things were much more equitable then!

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Shortguy881]

Oh, are you so wrong. I use my penis as a third hand, effectively typing faster than any girl could.

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[wcrowe]

" It doesn't even touch on issues like sexism..."

The very first moments of the film open with the statement that there are fewer female CEOs than there are male CEOs named John. The film literally starts with a divisive claim of sexism. The film is an insult to the many female coders I have known in my 30 years of experience.

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Anonymous Coward]

experience gender dysphoria due to their body not matching what their brain perceives it should be

Yes, but the salient point is that absent a birth defect or genetic mutation, the body is not what is broken. The body is fine. The issue is with the brain, and I've never seen any evidence of any "Trans" person having a brain which is physically at odds with the body. The logical conclusion is that the dysphoria is primarily psychological in nature, not physiological. A rational person would conclude that any treatment of such a condition would also be based on psychology, and that mutilating the body in an attempt to appear to be of the other gender is not a healthy course of treatment.

there's no need to use scare quotes or imply that they're not real men/women

Those are not scare quotes. Those quotes are used to indicate that the person writing the post does not agree with the contextual definition of the word the parent was using.
Despite what many in the GLBT movement would like to believe, Gender and Sex are indeed the same thing. Gender Identity is not the same thing as gender, but all of our words which describe gender are based on the biological Sex of an individual.

Maybe someday medical science will find a way to actually allow a full biological transformation. But there is no such process, and what we have today is at best a piss-poor attempt to mimic the biology of the other sex, and is almost completely cosmetic in nature.
Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner is not a Woman. He is a man, who has had surgeries and hormone therapy so that his body vaguely resembles that of a female. He chooses to identify himself as a female, and personally I have no problem with that. But I am under no obligation to contribute to his personal delusions just like I was under no requirement to call Prince "The Artist" during his "change name to a symbol" years, and just like I'm under no obligation to treat this guy as if he was really a reptile: http://www.thelizardman.com/

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[LaurenCates]

Hey, I'm a woman, and I'm feeling the same frustration.

Please don't trot out the MRA strawman* here. Or shall I go with the vernacular and say that you're mansplaining?

(*This by the way is why I have problems with gender-based identity politics characterizations: either MRAs are losers that mommy didn't love enough but are powerful enough to be the invisible hand of society that holds women back, or women are strong and capable until they're called "bossy", and then they get crushed back to non-existence.)

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Coren22]

So you may have to start asking more uncomfortable questions as to why.

Despite what the Social Justice crowd will have you think, we already know the reasons why. Women and Men are not identical! Women prefer socialization on average, Men prefer isolation on average. This leads to women preferring careers with socialization, while men are led to careers with less socialization. STEM careers for the most part are isolated jobs. Programming for the most part is sitting in front of a computer typing away, women are not drawn to this, they for the most part prefer socialization to isolation. BUT, and this is important, why does gender matter at all in any job? Are there tons of women being prevented from working in STEM, no. Just as there aren't tons of men being prevented from entering the nursing field. People choose the jobs that they want to do, trying to force people into jobs they don't want will never make them happy.

Focusing on people's sex is sexism, therefore the whole social justice movement is sexist at its heart. Normal people don't focus so strongly on other people's sex, companies hire the best person for a job, why would they not hire a woman if she fit the job? Companies aren't out to discriminate against anyone, they are out to find the best person for the job, not handicap themselves by focusing on only certain types of people.

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[s.petry]

But still they lag in Engineering and CS. I don't think it's the case that most ought not or couldn't enjoy it, but clearly they've demonstrated some preferences. So you may have to start asking more uncomfortable questions as to why.

What complete horse shit. There are no barriers to entry in any job field for women. In fact today we have women getting jobs because of the qualifier "woman".

For 40 years women have been receiving preferential treatment in Education. Women receive more funding, more scholarships, and have been receiving far more degrees than men because of Gender, yet people continue to bleat how "men are biased" because that's what people tell them. It is really not that hard to check facts. As a single and simple example here is a list of available scholarships. "Men" doing anything becomes "patriarchy" and evil so we can't.

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Sperbels]

I use my penis as a third hand

Londo Mollari? Is that you?

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[BarbaraHudson]

Yes, but the salient point is that absent a birth defect or genetic mutation, the body is not what is broken. The body is fine. The issue is with the brain, and I've never seen any evidence of any "Trans" person having a brain which is physically at odds with the body.

If you haven't seen evidence, maybe you haven't looked too hard, or have been looking in the wrong places (confirmation bias)? As just one example of how genes and the uterine environment combine to contribute to being transsexual, please consider this: 90% of the population are right-handed, but the majority of transsexuals are lefties. This is relatively old news for anyone who bothered to look, but it agrees with studies that show a difference in the ratio of the lengths of the 2nd and 4th finger (2d-4d ratio) where M2F women have ratios similar to genetic women instead of genetic men, and that one structure of the brain more closely resembles that of our target, rather than birth, sex. Both of those are caused by genes expressing themselves differently, and the 2d/4d ratio is genes expressing themselves under hormonal effects in the uterine environment. So, I hope you can see why we say we're "born that way, and with all the problems it brings, it's certainly not a choice unless you are extremely masochistic.

Given that it has its basis on genes and epigenetics, why not consider the surgeries as corrective, not mutilation?

So, not a delusion, not a psychological disease, but a variant of human biology. And as time goes on, the evidence continues to accumulate that this has been the case for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.