Filmmakers continue to bravely insist on making the majority of their films male-centric

‘It’s just not realistic to have too many women on the screen’

By Rebecca Peterson, Humour Editor

A press conference was called in Hollywood yesterday, as male producers have finally answered to allegations of sexism and unequal representation in a large majority of mainstream cinema.

“We’re here today to say we hear you,” said John White, an executive producer and common strawman of the Other Press’s Humour Section. “We hear that some of you want more ladies in film. We get that. Women are great! If you’ve seen any movies I’ve produced, you’d know I think women are great. In fact, we use women in our movies a lot! I really don’t get what the fuss is about.”

It was pointed out to White that the issue isn’t necessarily about seeing women, but actually hearing them say lines.

“Alright, we’re getting into semantics here,” said White. “I’m hearing you want—what, female characters? Not just skinny, attractive, young white women tossed into the plot for the sole purpose of being available for sex with the hero of the story? Isn’t that what every woman wants, though? To have no other purpose in life than to provide sexual gratification for a man?”

“I feel like my esteemed colleague is digging himself into a bit of a hole, here,” said producer Tim Blanc, as White was being pelted with at least a dozen pieces of old fruit, giving him an approximate 12 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “What we’re trying to say is that in film, we go for realism. At the end of the day, it’s just not realistic to have too many women on the screen. Like, how many female characters and female-led storylines do you want? Half? In what world is that realistic? I mean, if half of the world’s population was made up of women, that would be one thing, but it’s not, is it?”

Blanc was promptly informed that yes, half the population is made up of women. This came as a shock to all the men speaking at the press conference, and everyone was forced to take a short recess as they processed this information.

“Okay, so, we might have been fucking up a little,” White said when he returned to the microphone about half an hour later. “In our defence we genuinely thought the ratio was something like, o1 woman for every 10 men? But it’s not, so um… yeah, okay, maybe we should have more women in our films. Shit.”

The discussion then moved to the matter of people of colour in films, and the producers at the podium appeared to relax again.

“Alright, this is an easy one,” said Blanc. “Again, people, it’s about realism. If more of the world’s population was made up of non-white people, then we’d totally make more movies about them. But it’s not, right? It’s like, 1 non-white person for every 100 white people… right? Someone nod their head or something if I’m right. Why is no one nodding their head?”

The press conference concluded with the producers closing on a final statement: “We clearly don’t know as much about global demographics as we thought we did, and will in future do our best to rectify past errors. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience.”