On IMDB, the headline actors for this movie in search results are “Brad Pitt, Robin Wright.” Thisquite literally made ma laugh aloud because Robin Wright has approximately 2 minutes of screen time during the 133 minute run of the film. In fact, there seems to even be a Facebook page about it.
Moneyball is a movie about baseball. But not even the athletics game so much as baseball as a business. It is a stellar movie, a fascinating movie, and as Brad Pitt says in the film, “It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.”
Baseball is, of course, an almost exclusively all Boys Club. Naturally, the movie is no exception.
Here are some notes I wrote while watching this movie.
- Movie until you see a woman (in the background): 12 minutes 48 seconds (a woman in the bleachers of a game)
- Movie until a woman speaks: 13 minutes 41 seconds (this is a secretary who escorts Billy into an office)
- Movie until a woman converses with another character in a significant way: 22 minutes 48 seconds
- Movie until a woman is framed in the center of a shot: 37 minutes
- Movie until we actually see Robin Wright (the female “lead”): 40 minutes and 7 seconds.
I don’t have to straight out tell you that this movie does not pass The Bechdel Test, right?
There was some space in the movie when a group of old men sat around in a grey room together talking about players they were scouting. And these words actually come out of someone’s mouth: “He’s got an ugly girlfriend. Ugly girlfriend means no confidence.” And multiple scouts nod in agreement, as though there is some universal understanding that 1. physical attractiveness is the only redeeming quality in a woman, 2. it is the only thing a man could possibly want from a woman, and 3. ugly girlfriend = bad ball player. Insulting to allparties involved.
Back when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won Best Actor and Best Actress in the same year. I remember hearing a lot of apologists claiming that the reason there weren’t more people of color nominated for Best Actor/Actress was because there weren’t a lot of roles written for people of color. As though that were an excuse. As though no one thought to ask, “Well why the hell not?”
Who is this again?
Despite living in a post-racist Hollywood (ha!), we’re still not living in a post-sexist world. Are you really telling me that in all of Billy Bean’s exploits as the General Manager of the Athletics, the only women he encountered were his secretary, others’ secretaries, his ex wife, his (adorable, talented, charming, precocious) semi-estranged daughter, and players’ wives? In fact, now that it’s all out there, there isn’t a single woman in the movie who isn’t defined by her relationship to a more prominent male character. Yikes.
So what’s the takeaway, here? I don’t even know. I’m not going to pretend that half the cast of every movie should be female, but can we at least stop pretending that women don’t really exist in these narratives?
