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Great stuff Roger.

Is there a way to view previous shows of Poliwood? I’d sure like to see them. I can’t seem to find them off the PajamasTV site. Just the current one.

One quibble. It is not just that old ideology of the 1960’s that has changed, the world has changed enormously with respect to demographics. As Chetwynd alluded to, outside the top tier universities, women outnumber men by around 60-40. More women than men get Masters degrees. White female illegitamacy rates are around 41%, only slight behind that of Hispanic rates, according the August press release of the Census Bureau (you have to add up categories to get this, however, they wish to hide it).

The pill, the condom, and anonymous urban living along with vastly improved earning power of women, have changed fundamentally how men and women react and interact with each other. Films are still struggling with how to portray this.

Look at 1988’s “Crossing Delancey,” with Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. The woman pursues Mr. Wrong (Jerone Krabbe), the famous and powerful author, and neglects Mr. Right (Riegert) because he’s blue collar and lacks status even though he makes good money and has a successful kosher business.

Young women mature early and find their male peers, most of them, physically behind and not masculine enough. They prefer the older, more developed physically, boys in their peer group. In College, they have to compromise because they are facing too much competition, but in their twenties they are pursued by men in their peer group (twenties), men in their thirties, and even early forties. The latter groups having more money, power, and self-confidence as a rule. This leads not to slackerdom by men in their twenties but opting out of a losing game. Focusing on making money and creating social dominance. Tired of losing to either bad boys or wealthy law partners and the like. Then women in their thirties complain that men treat them poorly (well, of course) and don’t value them as much (naturally) as when they were younger. Nowhere is love mentioned, merely status transactions in designer-consumer sex.

Unfortunately our society gives far too much power to young women, who become disposable once their beauty fades and they rack up partner after partner. Too little to young men when they need it and far too much to older men when they don’t, and should be raising families not hell in bars with the ladies.

Take for example the icky, nasty “Twilight” movie and book series. A bad-boy, controlling, dominating and socially isolating boyfriend transforms a girl with a future into a literal dead end.

Part of what’s broken is so much choice. Women have never had this much choice, ever in history, and overwhelmed by choice both sexes choose the most superficial. For women, who have all the choice when it really matters, the choice goes to social and physical dominance, and nothing else.

It’s almost as if I blogged about it …

Sorry for the long rant Roger, but I think Hollywood is not all to blame here — these social changes are deep and profound and still not really shown on screen yet. TV, for what it’s worth, is filled with “strong women” who demonstrate compassion in the feminine manner along with strength, see for example Yvonne Strawhowski in “Chuck” or Sarah Shahi in “Life.” The latter’s performance in a classic Hollywood push-pull relationship with the fantastic Donal Logue is a must-see and a reason to watch alone, forget Damien Lewis. Logue after Shahi’s character has indicated revulsion in his romantic interests “You know that’s funny. That’s EXACTLY what all three of my ex wives said at first.”

As for strong, traditional male role models, it’s hard to beat Damien Lewis in “Life,” Gary Sinise in “CSI:NY,” William Peterson in “CSI,” Simon Baker in “the Mentalist,” Mark Harmon in “NCIS,” Dennis Haysbert in “the Unit,” Rob Morrow in “NUMB3RS,” Rufus Sewell in “Eleventh Hour,” Kiefer Sutherland in “24,” and Hugh Laurie in “House.” Much of Television is over-feminized junk, but weirdly there exists all these very masculine shows with very masculine lead characters. With either leading a team (the CSI model) or rebel bucking the system (24 model) as the “mission” of the male lead. And that’s just broadcast TV — Cable has shows like “Burn Notice” and the Stargate franchise. You’ll note a bunch of movie actors here: Sinise, Sutherland, Sewell, Baker, Peterson, were all at one point Hollywood leading men in movies. They exist on TV because there is no place for them in films.

Forgot to add, “Without a Trace” and Anthony LaPaglia. Another film leading man who transfered to TV because that’s where the work went. You could probably add “Criminal Minds” Joe Mantegna (”Things Change”) to that list as well.

Film does not have room for traditional leading men catching bad guys, solving crimes, fixing medical mysteries, leading a team, bucking the system, and all the stuff that Bogart, Tracy, Stewart, John Wayne, and others used to do. But TV thankfully still does.

[Maguire's whiny emo-Spider-Man turned a lot of fans off, even if he and Raimi liked it. Meanwhile Downey's enormously fun Iron Man performance was masterful and one of the few masculine presences in film in years.]

The comments are almost as good as the video. I am raising three girls and two sons (the latter are 43 and almost 40). The daughters range from 42 to 18. I am watching the colleges change as my children come along. My 18-year-old is having a hard time. Her first English assignment was to write an essay on a short story. The plot ? Boy goes to girl’s house; she cooks him dinner; they f**k; he goes home. That’s it. Her instructor is a female grad student. I asked her if she thinks the instructor is a lesbian.

I don’t go to movies anymore with rare exceptions. One time, a year ago or so, I ran the DVD of Thomas Crown Affair (original version) when most of the kids were at the house for something. They could not believe how good it was ! They had all seen the remake.

I say “raising” because it seems that way sometimes. When I was 43, I was living a very different life. I left home at 18 and never went back to live again.

I also think that boys are seeing that college is less valuable than it once was. The financial crisis may change this but I think they can do better with trades and small businesses now. I see college graduates who make 14 dollars an hour being contemptuous of people their age who make 90,000 a year (Sarah Palin comes to mind).

Good work.

[...] PJTV’s Friday evening “Pollywood” segment, Pajamas Media CEO Roger L. Simon debates the changing role of gender in Hollywood with fellow [...]