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Google Tests A Software That Judges Hollywood's Portrayal of Women
Slashdot reader theodp writes: Aside from it being hosted in a town without a movie theater, the 2016 Bentonville Film Festival was also unusual in that it required all entrants to submit "film scripts and downloadable versions of the film" for judgment by "the team at Google and USC", apparently part of a larger Google-funded research project with USC Engineering "to develop a computer science tool that could quickly and efficiently assess how women are represented in films"...
Fest reports noted that representatives of Google and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy appeared in a "Reel vs. Real Diversity" panel presentation at the fest, where the importance of diversity and science to President Obama were discussed, and the lack of qualified people to fill 500,000 U.S. tech jobs was blamed in part on how STEM careers have been presented in film and television... In a 2015 report on a Google-sponsored USC Viterbi School of Engineering MacGyver-themed event to promote women in engineering, USC reported that President Obama was kept briefed on efforts to challenge media's stereotypical portrayals of women. As for its own track record, Google recently updated its Diversity page, boasting that "21% of new hires in 2015 were women in tech, compared to 19% of our current population"....
Fest reports noted that representatives of Google and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy appeared in a "Reel vs. Real Diversity" panel presentation at the fest, where the importance of diversity and science to President Obama were discussed, and the lack of qualified people to fill 500,000 U.S. tech jobs was blamed in part on how STEM careers have been presented in film and television... In a 2015 report on a Google-sponsored USC Viterbi School of Engineering MacGyver-themed event to promote women in engineering, USC reported that President Obama was kept briefed on efforts to challenge media's stereotypical portrayals of women. As for its own track record, Google recently updated its Diversity page, boasting that "21% of new hires in 2015 were women in tech, compared to 19% of our current population"....
Why do people think things like the Bechdel test are worth more than a fart in the breeze/
1. You have no interest in seeking equal input from men and women.
2. It's clearly not compatible with your aims anyhow.
3. Just admit it rather than pretending otherwise.
Google's a fucking ad-broking company. What human would want to work for that, man or woman?
It's time some women stopped bitching about not being in the same positions as men, and started asking whether men's positions are something they want to be in.
(Of course, many women already ask the latter, which is why some fields are overwhelmingly male.)
So, if the test is successful, does it become "a hardware"?
>> USC reported that President Obama was kept briefed on efforts to challenge media's stereotypical portrayals
:)
Aha - so THAT'S what he was doing when the terrorists overran Benghazi...
The only acceptable algorithm the program could give would be:
10 PRINT "THIS SCRIPT PORTRAYS WOMEN POORLY."
20 GOTO 10
I'm certain the results of this experiment will be 100% fair and unbiased in any way, and everyone will agree with the results and come to a greater understanding.
See subject.
More beautiful than average, and more extreme in one trait or another.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I am thinking of that recent Twitter AI that turned into a bigot in less than a day because -- lo and behold -- GIGO. If the output must be that all films must look like the demographic national survey rather than how people tend to cluster, you could end up with no end of weird conclusions and data skews. For example, a film with a minority person in a wheel chair in a leadership role may skew the data more than a gay man. Moreover, let us say for instance, the first film is crap and the second one is good, but because he's beaten up as the film's about gay bashing, then might the latter score worse because he's a portrayed as a victim?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Hollywood portrays women as twig bodied super-agents who can for some reason lift more weight the more anorexic they are.
Of course, if Hollywood started screening the thousands of fit and athletically built girls with some muscles for potential actresses to star as proper super-heroines in capeshit movies; that would be fat shaming in addition to misogyny. Because seeing fit girls is for some reason triggering to feminists and landwhalenists.
Who talks like that?! Do they test this a software on some a hardware?
Seriously? Trying to say X is a good portrayal of anything seems like a completely subjective thing to me and further practical impossible on any single element. Any portrayal can potentially be bad if it is overused, while at the same time any portrayal can potentially be fine so long as it is used in appropriate balance, but you can't determine either of things looking at an individual production. Likewise the standard for what exactly is a good or bad thing are basically totally subjective, especially in fiction. A complete cold bloodied murderer can be an excellent character, while a total altruist and general humanitarian can be a terrible character.
How many softwares do you have?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And maybe at that point we can ask if we could find a better use of our time than endless jobs, shopping, commuting, television...
Jobs are generally miserable, but the biggest misery is (1) you are judged on appearances (2) while doing work that is most of the time not essential or not really a positive contribution in any sense.
It's like something Solzhenitsyn would come up with. The prisoners count beans and file TPS reports, and if they do not, they get half the ration of borscht for the day.
Alternative Right.
We are living in Idiocracy.
Alternative Right.
Of course, let's have history-changing, gender-leveling gender-pandering required in every movie, just like in "Halt and Catch Fire". We CAN propagandize our way toward filling those 500,000 tech jobs. We just have to lie about reality strongly enough and long enough to change it to suit us.
E Proelio Veritas.
is if you can tell if the boobs are fake or not! I mean, you KNOW they are, but can they pass or not?!
Have gnu, will travel.
My rule is if a series gets close to Star Trek: TNG on the Dechdel Test, it is doing good enough.
http://www.themarysue.com/star-trek-bechdel-test/
44.9% probably of passage, for an hour of TV programming.
TNG is a good, semi intellectual show, with a moderate amount of diversity, but doesn't push things too far, from a time when society wasn't so polarized.
If only the organizers Bentonville Film Festival knew that their white knighting will still not get them laid by the fat smelly single moms or any other female.
Google does what they want, they are a company and pursue what they perceive as their interests (the sick bastards), but government involvement is disturbing as it simply points, yet again..., to an entity that is so far beyond any conceivable mandate that we are dealing with a pure instrument of power, and we better hope the wrong people don't get at the levers (...)
Because here is the rub: Hollywood depiction of women is, in the aggregate, whatever the fuck the movie watching wants it be, generally, so the notion that the government need understand this, with a mind to reason about how to govern it, is nothing short of the government taking it on itself to affect the governed so as to bring them in line with what they who pull the levers of power hold as the good and true.
The republic is over. The branch of Government which most closely tracks the will of the people (Congress) is declining in power, and we are a couple of supreme court justices away from an unchecked progressive tyranny.
They're as cracked as Social Engineering along with the lefty cooks who thought it's a good idea.
All this talk about the Bechdel test reminds me of the Galbrush Paradox, a related mess that was codified during GamerGate. During a discussion of noted con artist Anita Sarkeesian -- who has managed to run TWO wildly successful Kickstarter scams stealing close to half a million dollars from rubes -- and her completely unobtainable standards for female characters:
And when applied to film, this is why the Bechdel test fails. Because writing female characters is an identity politics minefield, and trying to give them any character development other than talking about the characters you ARE allowed to take risks with or write as less than perfect gets you in trouble with idiots writing for The Mary Sue or Jezebel, who then rile up a lynch mob at you.
A story earlier today mentioned "facial recognitiation" -- probably because some folks are insisting "orientated" is acceptable instead of "oriented." Now we have "a software" and "a firmware" and "several informations" ... and presumably you can food yourself (if "gift" is a verb, when it should be "give") while driving on "the Interstate Highway 10 limited access highway" (instead of simply saying you were on I-10). Sigh.
Men suffer from movie stereotypes too!
Thereby allowing no room for nuance Of story or context. When will they learn that algorithms are only useful in certain scenarios? They waste so much time and money, revenge of the nerds, my eye.
Technology to analyze and transform gender disparities in media
Problem
Women are outnumbered by men three to one in the U.S. media and five to one in careers behind the camera. Additionally, women are six times more likely to be depicted in sexually suggestive clothing or partially nude in family films. Over the long term, these negative images can contribute to poor academic performance, body image issues, and less promising life choices.
Soo...
Woman showing skin in movie is presupposed as negative. Female skin is skin of evil.
Skin of evil "contributes" to bad grades, "body image issues" and will fuck up lives of people who see it.
Basically... women are witches who should be wearing burkas so as not to ruin people's lives, cause bad grades or mental issues with "body image".
It's the only way to be sure.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Come on, editors, really? Shall I say to my friends, "Today I saw an interesting news on slashdot."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Really? How would you calibrate such a thing? And how would you ensure such calibration wasn't biased itself?
The Penguin Producer
Russia has INVADED and IS OCCUPYING a neighboring country (one they laughingly signed a note to protect, no less).
China is essentially playing Age of Empires 2 in the South China sea, grabbing territory by building watchtowers and not giving a fuck about what anyone thinks.
The EU is disintegrating as people start to realize manually bolting countries together doesn't actually make them act like a single country.
Our economy is a sham based on completely phony numbers, contrived to enrich a tiny cadre of elites that drift in and out of power (always making more money with each step) like minglers at a garden party.
Our media is essentially a giant cumrag, soaked and dripping with the lowest-common-denominator vulgarity and venality.
We have one candidate for president that is a COMPLETE ASS and a know nothing buffoon who's like a cartoon character of himself, while the other candidate is corrupt to the very soul of her being, if she HAD a soul.
And what we're worrying about is whether films fairly represent women?
Where the fuck are the Visigoths to come climbing over OUR walls? Seriously, it's about time. If Rome was like this near the end, they probably welcomed it.
-Styopa
Subject line says it all.
Error: NSE - No Signature Error
It would be very interesting to find a way to quantify bias in media. I don't know if its possible, but it sounds hard. OTOH, self-driving cars sounded hard as well and they seem to be becoming a reality.
Last time I posted a req for a high level RF engineer, I got ~100 applications from men and 2 from women. If only for selfish reasons I'd like more women learning the skills that I need.
I've been working in a high tech field for a quarter century now and I do see a problem the way women are treated in many places. The problems are not universal, and there is a lot of variety, but it exists. It difficult to separate cause and effect but more information would be helpful.
As if men aren't protrayed like stereotypes.. All genders and ethnic/religious groups are portrayed like stereotypes in movies..
I was looking for something a few weeks ago and landed on Google books with a few pages of 'feminist literature' examining women in film, notably Charlie's angels (2000), Charlie's angels: Full throttle (2003), GI Jane (1997), Striptease (1996), Lara craft: Tomb raider (2001), Kill Bill (2003): Demi Moore was ripe material because she had such different characters but I thought GI Jane was a bad example because the woman in a man's 'world' was still protected by men, plus the sexuality of Moore's other characters were examined too briefly. Lara Craft was examined in the context of of playfulness and pushing a real actor into such a well-defined character. Kill Bill got 3 paragraphs explaining that it was really a study in Masochism. I thought, that's not a sexuality issue. Lastly, Charlie's angels was criticized for being playful and sexual. I thought, so is Austen Powers (1997); where's the examination of playfulness and sexuality for that character. In short, I thought the pages introduced a lot of irrelevant material and provided shallow generalizations of the female characters.
I doubt this assessment will be different. Why not assess the last 90 years of cinema? The role of women in movies has waxed and waned, so a longitudinal study would reveal persisting sexist tropes and characters. Because they can't tell those directors and screenwriters to edit their stories for a politically correct ending. For example, when I saw The net (1995), I thought they've just shoved a woman into a man's character. With Jurassic park (1993), they moved the computer nerd from the little boy to the teenage girl; I have issues with both of those characters being Linux experts.
There are plenty of can-do women in the movies: The terminator (1984), Thelma & Louise (1991), or Erin Brokovitch (2000) and Gravity (2013), even Stepmom (1998) and He's just not that into you (2009) have their moments. This is very much a case of picking the answer they want to hear.
It's simple as that: If movies with women in lead roles attract audiences, they will be made. If not, well, then not.
A few might have heard about the Ghostbusters reboot. Well? How did it fare? Erh... yeah. It did mostly recover its production cost. Did it recover its total cost including advertising? Probably not. Will it ever? It looks doubtful.
In the end, what counts is the bottom line. Michael Bay makes horrible movies. Scripts that fit on a legal page, and since film isn't being developed anymore, you can't even make that joke about character development in his movies anymore. They are, by and large, crap. But they sell. Flashy effects and gimmicks is what the audience wants and that's what the audience gets, and his movies are one success after the next.
Like it, hate it, in the end, what matters is just the bottom line. Not the message, not the lasting value, not how much you wish to "empower" or "liberate" anyone or anything, people don't give a shit about this. They want to be entertained when they go into a movie.
And movie studios don't give a shit about your message or agenda either. They want your movie to make money.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
def IsThisMovieSexist(movie):
return True
Won't be accurate for all movies, but gets the answer right with a high degree of probability.
John_Chalisque
More handsome than average, and more extreme in one trait or another.
John_Chalisque
Maybe we should work on decentralizing our entertainment industry instead of worrying about how we can control it.
The central problem with projects like this is the result is already determined. They've already decided that movies are horribly sexist before the first line of code was written. Think about it. What if, after detailed analysis, it was determined that there is no problem, that women and men are treated roughly equal? What happens then? It can't happen, it wouldn't be acceptable. The funding would dry up, and they would be shutdown. It would be like the NRA releasing a study saying guns are bad. And good luck getting funding in the future, if you can't produce results that affirm what we "know to be true" then clearly you are a terrible researcher.
When you have circa 90 minutes to tell a story, you pretty much have to resort to stereotypes or else spend all your limited time on exposition.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
So you agree your test is complete and utter bullshit , but your obsessive compulsive, SJW need to label films means you will still use it.
Get The Fuck Out.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Hollywood is fantasy land. Period. Full stop.
Nothing that comes out of there is realistic. We watch because we want to be transported away from what is real, every day, and boring.
Not even documentaries tell the whole story. Those are carefully edited to fit the narrative the creator wants to tell and eliminates any inconvenient facts that might tarnish the premise.
Wow, if Google can write software to be a judgmental scold about gender roles, it's going to put even more women's studies majors out of work.
Can we stop fostering this BS that there aren't enough qualified people to work all the STEM jobs in the country? The majority of people with STEM degrees don't work in the field because it pays like crap or the have already been replaced with H1Bs.
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-130.html
Even the government admits it.
So cool a flash, I thought you would enjoy it!
Seriously. It's a service, program or app, not a software.
I want a president who is hated by the press, and will therefore be kept accountable by the systems of checks and balances our government should be exercising. At this point, their particular views on *anything* mean little to me, if our system colludes with them to avoid any sort of accountability. I would literally pick the most vile child murderer currently on death row for president, before allowing someone aided and abetted by the press to get away with rampant corruption and felonious handling of classified material.
Trump 2016.
I wonder if this software is written using C+= ( https://github.com/ErisBlastar/cplusequality )
A gay guy who isn't gay?
So does that mean he's the top?
They don't say "female skin is evil".
It's me making fun of their "logic and reasoning".
Do also note that said "negative imagery" of women showing skin is from "FAMILY FILMS" - not porn or even action movies where one might see some "sex sells" scenes.
They are complaining about beach scenes and short skirts and sleeves. Unless they are watching some other kind of "family films".
Which is just half a step away from women covering their hair cause its smell clouds the minds of men - and cause a woman whose smell you can sense on the air is a harlot and a prostitute.
Thus, a hijab, niqab, chador and a burka. To protect men from raping women (belonging to other men) by accident, thinking them to be common whores.
Hey! It's the desert. It gets hot. People's minds go crazy. SOMETHING had to be done about it.
Or if you don't like Islamic insanity, there's plenty of puritan Christian insanity as well.
Just look up St. Mary frescoes (not the modern ones, which show hair) - she's wearing a hijab.
Nuns are closer to a niqab but stop just short of covering the entire face.
Except this is all coming from "Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media" and not some religious sect.
And DO NOTE how that entire bit is an "additional" point.
Women are underrepresented in media - oh and by the way there's too much naked skin in family pictures.
It's like that site about overpopulation being a myth (Which is true).
Oh... BTW, have you tried "natural family planing"? It's this totally the bestest thing ever.
Unlike the evils of "plan b", contraception that will give you AIDS and Obamacare. Think about it.
What a surprise from a group proudly describing themselves and their found as "pro-life".
I'm not saying that it is necessarily "foot in the door" or "door in the face" push for puritan values.
It could be simply that they are overeager to push their message that they are tripping over themselves and coming off as puritan nuts.
Just like the way they are bragging that "The Institute has amassed the largest body of research on gender prevalence in entertainment, which spans more than 20 years". Few paragraphs down, it's "over 25 years".
The institute was founded by Davis in 2006.
Or how they brag about influencing SONY so they "added more females in the crowd scenes and gave the non-lead females a line or two" - in Hotel Transylvania.
Cause nothing says equality like more female monsters. There AND in Monster University. With a "line or two".
Not to mention the Geena Davis' Transylvanian connotations.
Or how they've helped "fix" the inequality in The Little Prince.
Cause nothing says equality like shoehorning female characters into a classic story - and making them into no-fun, gray-colored fun-haters who must be re-educated to learn how to have fun and to love.
By a man.
They may be good-natured, but their approach sure is flawed.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
At best, you're half-parroting stuff without any basis to back it up.
You jump from claims and statements to what YOU "wouldn't think" is a problem - then in that same breath you say that it IS a problem for puritans.
So what did you just prove as wrong by that "example"? Nothing.
You didn't disprove the "negative images" THEY talk about.
You didn't even disprove that such imagery can be problematic for some - in fact you claim that it IS problematic.
As for make-female actors and males not being sexualized or how "for men as looks are less important"... Sure-sure.
Do you even watch movies or TV? How about seeing regular humans?
Actors, MALE OR FEMALE, are ALWAYS of above average beauty. Hell... even "ugly" men are "sexy".
http://www.worldoffemale.com/1...
And that's just grabbing a random link from Google.
Pick any "ugly" male actor other than MAYBE Danny DeVito (cause he really scored a trifecta of short, fat and balding) and you'll find an article whose writer is trying to figure out how come he's so sexy despite being "ugly".
Hell, even Peter Dinklage is a sex symbol.
Being attractive is a part of that profession's job description.
It's the ONLY profession (apart maybe for modelling) where people ALWAYS wear makeup to work.
It's just that the "sexy dresses" for men are cut to emphasize different parts of the body. Namely broad chests and shoulders - and height.
Why do you think that of all clothing garments which have become unisex over the ages - ties never took off with women?
Cause long vertical lines make an object seem longer - i.e. taller in the chest region. Bigger. And that's not "ladylike". Longer legs are fine... but a female should not be wide or buff.
Do pay attention to Robert Downey Jr.'s and Tom Cruise's shoes next time you see them. They are walking on phonebooks.
Just because you are blind to the ideal of a young, tall, thin, muscular and pretty (but not TOO pretty) man it doesn't mean that it is not there.
Hell... it's not even considered nudity as long as the man has SOMETHING covering his penis.
Not that's anything wrong with that - but that's the male version of a thin young blond with big tits and a sizable ass.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens