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Again, I applaud Pinar Toprak on this assignment, and I honestly believe she can knock it out of the park. I have more hope of her being *allowed* to knock it out of the park after seeing Beck and Gorannson and Mothersbaugh recently given greater leeway to avoid the RC/MV sound. Their scores are a big step ahead for the MCU, so I don't think we're exactly in the same situation when Patrick Doyle was made to ape that sound at times.
I guess my greatest annoyance is how Hollywood is collectively going to pat themselves on the back for this brave casting or something, and act like they're making such GREAT strides against sexism...while really just revealing their own, "liberal" form of sexism...it smacks a bit of privilege, just like giving Black Panther to a black director. I'm reminded of certain characters in Get Out, a bit.  But again, it's better IMO than members of minorities not being given the opportunities at all...and eventually they'll hopefully be given assignments purely for their talent.
I know that certain folks really went to bat for Shirley Walker getting the Batman TAS gig despite being a woman, and then getting to score the theatrical film after that was by no means a sure thing either, I suspect. THOSE are the people who should really be applauded (along with Shirley), and after she showed what she could do on a Batman film (and Memoirs of an Invisible Man before it), she should have been getting offers left and right to score good, serious films in Hollywood. But no, she mostly continued to get jobs with the same good people who gave her opportunities before...Willard was a particularly impressive assignment I guess, but mostly she was stuck scoring dreck like Turbulence. So this chance for Hollywood to show their enlightenment and rise above their sexism passed, and we Shirley Walker fans will always resent the fact that she wasn't given more/better opportunities before she left us.
I wish Ms Toprak the best in this assignment. I hope she knocks it out of the park and I will try to avoid holding her up to the same yardstick as Walker or Schwartz because that’s like expecting any modern composer, male or female, to possess that level of craftsmanship
This sounds wise. Holding her up to the yardstick of other recent MCU scores sounds more fair.
Yavar
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@ Joan and Mastadge - I get you’re point and don't necessarily disagree. But how many “men” are composing film scores? It’s all going to a select few. Giacchino, Zimmer, Tyler Bates, Ramin Djawadi. How about opportunities for minority men and women? The issue is a bit more convoluted.
Though technically Caucasian, since Ramin Djawadi is of middle eastern descent (he's half Persian, like me) I'd say he *does* qualify as a member of a minority, and a significant one at that because of the bigotry that has recently been inflamed towards that minority group. (Also I must give a shoutout to Jamshied Sharifi, another half Persian who "got there first" in film scoring land). I can say I've encountered a lot of prejudice because of my unusual name and my tan skin, and I'm sure that even in "enlightened" Hollywood, Ramin and Jamshied encountered their share of the same.
Yavar
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Posted: |
Jun 15, 2018 - 11:32 AM
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By: |
riotengine
(Member)
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Feminists/SJW's say the sex doesn't matter, then they are hired based on sex. You can't have it both ways. Look, good for her, I don't know this composers work and hope she churns out a great score. But it's funny how people cant see the cynicism.
Solium, may the directors, Boden and Flack, hired her because they heard some of her previous scores and liked them and also HIRED her because she was female. Maybe both. It is called leveling the playing field. You have to start somewhere in order to create equal opportunities.
The point also being, the number of female composers is staggeringly, comparatively small. If she's good enough, and the producers must think so, why not give her a shot.
Some men get their panties in a bunch at the very thought of this. 
Greg Espinoza
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Posted: |
Jun 15, 2018 - 12:15 PM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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I see your point, Tango, and you are a favorite of mine as is Solium. I would ask how certain composers get to be the "best" for assignments?. I think they have to be given a chance at composing for big movies. Someone at some time had to take Goldsmith and Williams away from television composing and offer them a Hollywood movie. It was a risk, but it paid off.
I hope Toprak does a good job; however, should she write a poor score that does not fit with the two directors' visions, then she should face rejection just like Bernstein, Goldsmith, Barry and others faced. Fair is fair.
@ Joan and Mastadge - I get you’re point and don't necessarily disagree. But how many “men” are composing film scores? It’s all going to a select few. Giacchino, Zimmer, Tyler Bates, Ramin Djawadi. How about opportunities for minority men and women? The issue is a bit more convoluted.
You make a good point. I'd add Tyler to your list. If you look at all the movies out right now, I'd say over 95 percent are scored by men, so I don't think male composers are at risk. Yes, it would be great to see more opportunities for minority men and women who have composing skills.
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Nepotism is more of a factor of who gets hired than all other 'isms' combined.
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Posted: |
Jun 15, 2018 - 1:11 PM
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By: |
Wedge
(Member)
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I don't like to wade into this sort of charged discussion, but since Shirley Walker's example seems to have been invoked (and I apologize if I'm misinterpreting anyone here) as some sort of Platonic ideal to which we ought to return...
Gender may not have been a factor in the opportunities Walker received. It was certainly a factor in uncountable opportunities she was denied, going back to her college days. This is how the system often works. You aren't always told you didn't get the position because you're a woman. You just don't get the position. Sure, sometimes it's a fair outcome in which gender bias plays no decisive role. And many other times it is not. There's no way to measure these things with perfect specificity. Additionally, and importantly, gender disparity is bound up with the lack of female visibility and representation in the pool of job candidates, which, even when not the direct product of gender-based exclusion in today's industry, is the vicious (and self-perpetuating) legacy of past discrimination. As others here have pointed out, the bottom line is that when the OVERWHELMING majority of the work in an industry goes to members of one sex, all across the board, even in a culture as "enlightened" as ours purports to be ... well, something more than dumb chance is going on. Are things better today than they were 40 years ago? Or even 10 years ago? Sure. When you've been starved, a crust of bread is better than nothing, and a full slice is better than a crust. But are we where we ought to be? Not even close.
Look, no one here is saying that a woman ought to be hired if she isn't qualified to do the job. The idea is that if you're a studio or director shopping around for a composer, and you've got a pool of candidates, male and female, whose work you consider to be on an even playing field, then it's not a bad thing to want your choice to redress, in some small way, the incredible inequality baked into the industry. I understand that it's going to sting if you're a man who is passed over and this was the deciding factor as opposed to a random coin flip. But if you believe that authentic parity in gender representation is a social, cultural and creative good worth pursuing, it's simply not realistic to expect that high-minded "gender blindness" is a feasible way to achieve it. We don't live in a utopia, and we aren't going to get there through the purity of our philosophy.
Regarding Shirley Walker ... I don't claim to know precisely what she'd say about this industry-wide soul-searching and public debate that has been lately occurring. What I DO know is that she had a track record of privileging the under-privileged and creating opportunities for those who had few. She did this even when she knew it would mean upsetting more established individuals who -- understandably, in a very competitive field -- were jealous of those opportunities. (I'll also take a moment to note that it's probably not a coincidence that so many of Walker's close colleagues and proteges are affiliated with the Alliance for Women Film Composers, which is doing excellent and vital advocacy work.)
As for Pinar Toprak, I'm not familiar enough with her work to guess what her CAPTAIN MARVEL score might sound like. That said ... so far as I am aware, of the dozens upon dozens of superhero films from major studios to receive widespread theatrical release (not counting direct-to-video films that got only limited theatrical exhibition) precisely one, to date, has been solely scored by a woman. That was Shirley Walker on BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM in 1993. Assuming Toprak makes it through all the production hurdles on CAPTAIN MARVEL, she will be number two. TWO. That's worth celebrating. But it's also shocking that it's taken us this long to get to two. Two, in FORTY YEARS of modern superhero cinema. That's what burying our heads in the sand gets us. This is a conversation that needs to happen.
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As someone who dated a female composer of color and got to see it first hand — they do. But a self-sustaining ecosystem is in place that gives outsized preference to certain people in the
profession.
This is what is known as anecdotal.
These are isolated incidents. There are over 4,000 members of the Flat Earth Society. If you say there's a problem with people believing the Earth is flat simply because you met one member, it doesn't not mean there is a far-reaching conspiratorial-style problem.
Wedge,
Didn't Volume 1 from LLLR of "Batman: The Animated Series" say something to the affect she was hired (or maybe this was an interview) after being seen conducting for Elfman? In other words, it wasn't so much a battle to champion her to get the job, but rather they were looking for Elfman, couldn't get/couldn't afford him, saw the next bet thing.
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Wedge, words cannot express how much I love your post. Thank you for clearly expressing so many ideas I felt, so much better than I could have.
Yavar
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Posted: |
Jun 15, 2018 - 2:28 PM
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By: |
Wedge
(Member)
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As an addendum, I realize that the parameters of the debate as I have framed them contain many parallels to long-standing social issues in the United States. I'm leery of unpacking that too much, because there's a fine line between frank discussion about the state of the film music industry and going down the rabbit hole of open political debate, which is against board policy. While I personally espouse a more proactive approach to correcting for systematic generational disparities within this industry, I freely acknowledge that such an approach comes with a certain amount of backlash. Unwarranted and disproportionate backlash, according to my way of looking at things, but it's going to happen whether I find it logical or not.
Now ... the fact that such controversy exists around this issue isn't an excuse not to grapple with it. If all we have to offer is mild platitudes, objectionable to no one, we assure the status quo. But as we grapple, I think it's worth seeking parallel ways to advance the agenda of equality that are, perhaps, a little less polarizing. To that end, I think it's worth emphasizing VISIBILITY and REPRESENTATION at the very start of the process. We may or may not agree that it is defensible to take gender into account when making the final selection of a woman from a pool of equally qualified candidates. But I hope we can agree that there ought to be a conscious effort made to ensure that women have access to and are INCLUDED in that pool in a meaningful way that goes beyond tokenism. And yes, that may mean actively seeking out qualified women for consideration and supporting efforts to promote their voices. It means acknowledging that the excuse, "Well, we listened to 98 demos from male composers and only 2 from female composers, but that's only because there are just so darn MANY men and so few women submitting demos!" is inadequate to address the scope of the problem. We ought to demand better.
As individual fans, our platform is limited. But there are things we can do to promote the representation of women in this industry, beyond cheering on composers like Toprak when they get a break. One way would be to learn more about the Alliance for Women Film Composers and their mission, if you haven't already done so. They are active on Facebook and Twitter, and their website is http://www.theawfc.com
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Isolated incidents that extended past her to 2 dozen of her non white male composer friends.
Takes one hell of a leap of logic to call racism and sexism “anecdotal” and “isolated.”
I'm not sure why you are having trouble with basic words such as "isolated" and "anecdotal", so I'll speak on a simpler level for you:
Isolated as opposed to wide spread. If something if wide spread, we wouldn't need some person on the internet to assure us it's real, it would more than speak for itself and have the research and data to be backed up.
Something is anecdotal if you or anyone else is just relaying stories and personal examples.
Any more simplified and I would be speaking to you as if you were watching Big Bird.
Dictionary definitions in context of use:
Isolated:
single; exceptional.
Anecdotal:
(of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.
To think that the proper usage of these words negates racism of sexism, is frankly idiotic. Are you better than that?
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Also — Wedge, that was perfectly written. Thank you.
It's almost like John is a professional writer, or something! 
Yavar
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This is the first MCU I couldn't care less about. Captain Marvel for me was Mar-Vell, always will be.
Haven't heard of the composer, looking forward to listening!
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No, I don’t quite got it yet. Keep going please.
Or instead of intelligent well-thought-out conversation, you could take the low road and encourage angry debate and fiery garbage gifs.
That'll solve the issues on both angles!
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