MovieChat Forums > The Big Short (2015) Discussion > So, no women exist in this universe?

So, no women exist in this universe?


Except for strippers, of course.

Why the hell can't they even attempt to answer the calls of many frustrated audience members to diversify roles in Hollywood? Nope, I guess no minorities or women work in finance.

How about adding women like Meredith Whitney? Michael Lewis describes her in the prologue to The Big Short:

Whitney was an obscure analyst of financial firms for an obscure financial firm, Oppenheimer and Co., who, on October 31, 2007, ceased to be obscure. On that day she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what inside the stock market, but it was pretty clear that, on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash. By the end of the trading day, a woman whom basically no one had ever heard of, and who could have been dismissed as a nobody, had shaved 8 percent off the shares of Citigroup and $390 billion off the value of the U.S. stock market. Four days later, Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince resigned. Two weeks later, Citigroup slashed its dividend. From that moment, Meredith Whitney became E.F. Hutton: When she spoke, people listened.


But, nope, let's go with four men and the stripper.

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I was thinking the same thing. Honestly showing zero women would have been better than showing a bunch of white guys and then strippers. I get it's "based" on a true story, but I don't believe there were only men involved in all these character's lives . . . other than strippers.

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Exactly. And even if it's "based" on a true story every film takes liberties with the truth and if they're going to do that then they might as well add some women and minorities in there.

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They have Marisa Tomei and Melissa Leo in this as well but i have feeling they are the wifes or girlfriends

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So, this is a movie about some very bad people. People we're encouraged to hate. People we're expected to blame for all that's gone wrong in this world. And you insist they'd be played by women and minorities? What's that supposed to tell us about you?

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Excellent point.

Bet it goes over the OP's head, though.

*Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance*

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Beyond that, maybe it's not merely incidental that the crisis was brought on by people in privileged positions, ie mostly rich white men.


Basta, basta, basta.

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No racial or gender bias there.

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I meant only to indicate that it was privileged people who were running financial institutions. In the U.S., most of those are wealthy white men. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with white men, but because that's the current arrangement. In that respect, the film represented reality.



Basta, basta, basta.

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^Excellent post. Dead on.

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Meredith Whitney played a TINY role in the book. She was not significant enough to merit a role.

They should not be forcing women and minorities in for the sake of doing so. If they were there, so be it. But forcing them in is not the way to go about things. You will have to get over the fact that there simply were not significant women in this story. Give me a logical reason why they should force them in? Doing so just to placate a bunch of overly sensitive women and men is wrong. They should tell the story as accurately as possible, not change it because the facts upset some people.

Now, if you want to complain, complain about 21:Bringing Down the House. That was the movie based on Ben Mezrich's book about the MIT blackjack kids who took Vegas for a ton of money. The kids in the film were all white, even though the characters in the book (and the characters in real life) were mostly Asian. Mezrich changed Jeff Ma to Kevin Lewis, but that was just because the real life guy (Ma) wanted to have his identity as protected as possible. He later changed his mind. That movie should not have changed the Asian characters, so you would be within reason to complain about that. But to complain that they did not force women and minorities into this film? That is not reasonable at all.

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Only intelligent reply I've read yet!

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strippers are women too ! As a man who has been married to 2 strippers in the past I can honestly say they make good wives. Both of mine were good around the house , kept it clean and didn't drink too much. I can honestly recommend them to anyone looking for a decent wife, my only problem with them was they sleep in late due to their late night shifts and dancing all night makes them tired.

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I can't tell if this is serious or a joke

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Doesn't matter. It's a great post.

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[deleted]

I hear they will make your entire house smell like Brasso though -- that's a deal killer for me.

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that would make a great slice of life movie. Your (ex-)wives talking to each other about stripping would fully satisfy the Bechdel test too and guess what under the Bechdel test rules they wouldn't be allowed to b**tch about you either. Win-win.

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In finance (and in most careers), men unfortunately have more privilege than women do. The business world is mostly populated by white men and this film intentionally showed that. The men in the film basically use said privilege (and their wealth) to get ahead.

"Freeze your brain, suck on that straw, get lost in the pain." - Official Corn Nut

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and what's that got to do with strippers having a heart to heart on camera?

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I think that going forward, we'll see a pretty balanced male/female ratio, as finance and accounting is a very hot field for women (no pun intended), and probably make of over half of the entry level hires. I think that a lot top talent men are not going into tech fields.

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Wow, I'm .. flabbergasted.. and I'm sure your reply was much appreciated by the OP, who actually wanted to seriously address the issue of female objectification and the lack of representation of real women in Hollywood movies.. Instead you speak of your two ex-wife strippers.. You talk of them like products that didn't work out because their batteries run out too fast.. Unreal

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Not at all. They didn't work out because they were I couldn't trust them . I caught both of them sleeping with customers and had to get rid of them. The next wife I get is going to be degree qualified and will be background checked thoroughly.
Strippers are fun but there is no real need to marry them , most of them are happy to be housed and taken out like regular women on occasion.

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Kathy Tao? The woman at the first bank Burry was buying CDSs at? Georgia at S&P? All women who are not strippers.
Than there is also Baum's wife. The ex-girlfriend who worked at SEC.
I am probably forgetting a few.

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I agree that diversifying movies is a good thing but this is based off of a true story. Therefore they aren't going to throw in some women or minoroties to spice it up. That would just be ruining the authenticity. Also there are about 4 women in this film that have decent roles. One of which is a black female who plays Steve Carells boss...

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It's based on a true story. This is the dumbest complaint I've read in a long time. Are you one of those sjw?

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You clearly don't understand what "based on a true story means." Many of these characters are not even based on actual people so there were a lot of ways they could incorporate women and minorities into the production. I'm only saying this because I'm tired of seeing movies which don't even portray the world that we live in correctly. The whole world is not filled with a bunch of white men--why is it such a "dumb complaint" when I would just like an accurate depiction of society?

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why bother taking the time to incorporate the very people who will slow production down with the diva-like behavior and catty-ness?



***

Go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

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You obviously didn't read the book. Every character was a real person.

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"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." - I Forget Who Said This

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Actually, they are all based on real people. They just changed the name of a few most likely for legal reasons I assume.

And if you have read the book you would notice that the main characters are men. I do not understand your logic that they should have added women to the main cast of characters. To have done that would have been untrue. This film is based on a book that is a true story. Should we not expect our films based on non fiction books to follow the truth? Now if this was a fictional like lets say a novel I would be for adding other characters to the story.

Also I do believe there were at least two women in the film that had jobs in finance. The Goldman Sachs lady who Burry shorted mortgages with in the beginning and Baum's (Eisman, in real life) boss at Morgan Stanley.

I believe such offerings stay within the bounds of truth.

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As I said in one of my other posts, she has no right to complain. She obviously has not read the book, or needs to reread it if she has. She mentions the Meredith Whitney character, which is completely illogical, as Meredith Whitney does not have much of a role in the book.

SHOULD Meredith Whitney have had more of a role in the book? That might be a valid argument. She did accurately predict some things, I will give her that. She has not been successful since predicting the meltdown, information anyone who wants to find can, google her, but she definitely got the crash right.

Regardless, saying she should have been forced in to the movie just to include a woman is silly. And behavior like that does nothing to advance the cause of equal rights, as it is actually quite patronizing.

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Actually I hate to say it, but the whole world of finance is largely dominated by a bunch of white men. Them just the facts.

There were two roles for women as to roles in finance in the film, the gal at S&P (Leo) and Baum's kind of boss at MS (surprisingly played by a black woman). Were the real people women? Who knows, but they were parts that were side roles where it didn't matter if genders were changed to the accuracy of the story. I wouldn't be surprised if those people IRL were men and were changed for the story so they could at least have one or two women onscreen. But who were the main players - Baum and his team - the two entrepreneurs and the old school banking guy - Burry and his team - Vennett - these guys took most all of the screen time there was little room left and yes they all were men IRL and based on real people. Believe me if Baum's #2 was a woman IRL they would have cast a woman.

As to based on a true story, well yeah any movie based on a true story usually makes some changes for the audience you kind of have to. But this was based on real people, actually very specific real people, and they were portraying with as much accuracy as they could what went down between these particular players. If they changed the genders to be more diverse well they wouldn't be showing the financial sector with any accuracy because it isn't very diverse. I know a gal who went to Wall Street and left, it being largely men and highly sexist and is probably one of the more hostile industries towards women as a general rule in part because it is so male dominated, and largely white males at that. As a woman on Wall Street sexual harassment is par for the course as is in most male dominated industries.

The choices of mostly white men was a deliberate choice - you don't think they didn't notice there really weren't many women in the film lol? When they have those speeches and scenes at the conference and mostly every extra is a white man? This choice was obviously purposeful to show what the world of finance looks like, and sadly it is a place where women/minorities in high places are few and far between.

It seems kind of ridiculous to criticize a movie for showing reality and not changing reality for the screen to make a corner of the world that isn't diverse appear more diverse. What would whitewashing the lack of diversity on Wall Street serve but to make it look better which this film clearly was not trying to do. If you want to get your panties in a wad question why the financial sector on Wall Street especially isn't a diverse representation of the American public, many have made these criticisms and there are reasons behind it that should be challenged. But blaming a movie for not whitewashing Wall Street into some diverse place, well that is as others said a really "dumb complaint."

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[deleted]

You clearly don't understand what "based on a true story means." Many of these characters are not even based on actual people so there were a lot of ways they could incorporate women and minorities into the production.


These were real people. Real white people. Real white men people.

why is it such a "dumb complaint" when I would just like an accurate depiction of society?


It's a dumb complaint b/c those were real people. Wanting to change the race or gender of a real person in a movie really is a dumb complaint.

I would rather have an accurate portrayal of the events they are portraying. Which includes the characters' gender and race not being changed b/c of dumb people having dumb complaints.

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Karen Gillan has third billing. The trailer was probably just trying to show off its biggest stars

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I agree. Where are the midgets, trannies, gays, blacks and Asians? A movie isn't accurate or good if it doesn't embrace diversity

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As I mentioned above: I'm only saying this because I'm tired of seeing movies which don't even portray the world that we live in correctly. The whole world is not filled with a bunch of white men--why is it such a "dumb complaint" when I would just like an accurate depiction of society?

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You do realize that the world of high finance depicted in this movie is mostly filled with "a bunch of white men"? That's the reality. This is indeed a dumb complaint.

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I work in finance in New York and that is 100% false, hence the complaint.

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I work in finance in New York

No, you don't.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: Rebecca Ferguson in Rogue Nation

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No, you don't.

But, I do. And roughly 25% of the senior leaders at my bank are female. Which is not a lot but, if you're good at math, not 0%.

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While the entry level hires for the financial industry is experience of floor of women, keep in mind that the women at the very high top of the food chain levels are pretty rare. And, most of the guys in this movie were very high level. The exceptions were the two amateurs out of their parents basement, and I think that it would have lost something if they weren't nerdy young white guys.

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Well, there wasn't 0% of women in this movie, so it's all good.

If you love Jesus Lizard and are 100% proud of it, copy this and make it your signature!

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@ Pertwillaby - LOL! Bravo! Thanks for puncturing the OP's pose.

One wonders how she'd rewrite the facts to cram women into the plot. Not to enhance the story, mind you; just to meet her affirmative action recasting reality standards. She obviously gets her rocks off complaining more than by doing something positive.

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Lewis' Law all over this board :)

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Are you referring to Michael Lewis, the author of the NON-FICTION book The Big Short? Are you suggestion he twist the truth and change the gender of some of the male characters in the story?

As other posters have pointed out, you don't acknowledge the female character who had the power to close down Baum's operation. Why is that?

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Wait.

Woah.

I'm sorry. You're right! THERE'S ONE FEMALE IN WALL STREET IN THIS FILM?! WOW! MY TINY FEMALE BRAIN CAN'T EVEN COMPREHEND THE ENORMITY OF THERE BEING ONE FEMALE SO I MUST HAVE MISSED ITS SIGNIFICANCE!

This is crazy! I mean, I'm wrong all the time, of course, because I have a vagina but this is the most wrong I've ever been. My vagina now bows down to all the dicks on this board.

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[deleted]

I think that rrb has it right. The actual real-life characters in the true life story all happened to be male. Say what you want, but it wasn't like they penned a story that was inherently sexist. Imagine how angry the real life inspirations would have been if they would that man a female.

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You don't you are a janitor at prison. Stop lying.

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The world of finance IS dominated by white men, so they are showing an accurate description of that sector of society. So yes, it is a dumb complaint. If someone makes a movie about a sociology department and makes it all straight men you will have a point. As it is, you really do not.

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Think of it this way, at least not a lot of women were involved in the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. It's the men who screwed the pooch.

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I'm all for diversity but thank God, people still make movies without giving a s__t about dumb SJW complaints.

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That's so unfair not portraying any minorities or women in all and every single institution of Wall Street .I'm going to report this to PC Principal.It's about time to tackle this problem once and for all.

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