Slashdot Mirror
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/
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.
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.
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
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.
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..
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
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.
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.
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.
My rule is if something cares about the Bechtel test it's going to be stupid and boring and I'm not watching it.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
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
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.
Except perhaps in the first season, when Troi wore her cheerleader outfit.
Actually nearly the entire first season can be skipped, and much of the second.
From an intellectual standpoint, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the first couple of seasons where Gene Roddenbury was in charge. Though admittedly the execution of many of those episodes was pretty terrible, including Troi on the bridge purely for the eye candy.
I did enjoy the one where the Enterprise D got a guest captain for a week, who pretty much told Troi to put on her goddamn uniform.
One of the things I noticed about TNG is just how inconsistent the main female characters were. They'd be a strong independent character one episode, followed by an episode where they once again fall for the love interest of the week. I got the impression that writers really didn't know what to do with them half the time.
It's not surprising that Enterprise scored so badly. Whereas Troi and Crusher did have some good episodes in TNG, it seemed that the only reason T'Pol and Hoshi existed was give the male demographic something to look at.