Guest post by a concerned filmmaker & FIW staff

In one jarring scene of Promising Young Woman (2020), a young man gently lays an apparently drunk woman on a bed and begins unbuttoning her dress. “Shhh… you’re okay, you’re safe,” he whispers – a grotesque reassurance even as he pulls down her underwear without consent. Suddenly, she sits bolt upright, stone-cold sober: “I said: what are you doing?” she demands, fixing him with an icy stare. The predator freezes, terrified at being caught. This moment of tables-turning shock encapsulates a striking new archetype in today’s critically acclaimed cinema: men as predatory or pathetic figures, and women as their righteous reckoners or survivors. From indie festival darlings to Hollywood blockbusters, a growing roster of films is casting masculinity in a harsh light – depicting men as abusive, weak, absent, or broken, while positioning women as victims-turned-avengers or the moral centers of the story. And of course, the world is nothing if not ‘Black & White.’ Why wrestle with the messy complexity of gender dynamics when you can flatten it into the simplest cliché imaginable?

Abusive, Weak, or Absent: The New Male Stereotype on Screen

Recent award-winning and festival-circuit films have not been subtle about the state of their men. In Eliza Hittman’s drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), the men orbiting 17-year-old Autumn are ALL, with no exception, either useless or predatory. At her supermarket job, the sleazy manager dismisses Autumn’s illness and leers “It’s really just a few more hours… You can do it. Besides, I’d get lonely if you left” – a line dripping with inappropriate undertone. Later, as the girls turn in their registers, he even kisses Autumn’s hand through a money slot in a furtive act of harassment. Far worse has happened to Autumn behind the scenes: during a counseling session, she’s asked if her partner ever “made [her] have sex when [she] didn’t want to.” Autumn cannot even speak – the script notes “Autumn’s flood gates open. She breaks down” in tears. Pressed further – Has anyone forced you into a sexual act? – she finally chokes out, “Yeah,” confirming that a boy in her life raped her. The men in Autumn’s world, all of them, are either absent when needed or the source of trauma, whereas the moral agency lies entirely with Autumn and her female cousin who supportively accompanies her on a secret trip to get an abortion.

Film after film paints its male characters in a similarly dismal hue. Emerald Fennell’s acid-tinged thriller Promising Young Woman (2020) takes direct aim at “nice guys” who are anything but. Its parade of men are rapists or enablers: from the group of college bros who assaulted the heroine’s friend, to the former friend (now a doctor) who laughed it off, to the seemingly sweet new boyfriend who is ultimately revealed to have been complicit. The film’s biting opening illustrates this dynamic in miniature: Cassie, pretending to be obliterated by alcohol, is “rescued” by a man who coos assurances while attempting to take advantage of her incapacitation. Cassie suddenly drops her ruse, eyes clear and voice firm, scaring the hell out of him as she forces him to recognize his predatory behavior. In Promising Young Woman, men’s misdeeds are the central evil, and the avenging angel is a woman driven to drastic ends to expose them. Even basically decent men are portrayed as cowardly or culpable. “The message is that every man is guilty – if not of rape, then of complicity or willful ignorance – and it’s the women who bear the pain and seek justice,” writes one reviewer in summary of the film’s provocations.

In this new cinematic landscape, even when men aren’t outright villains, they are depicted as feckless, foolish, or fragile. Take last year’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall (2023). The drama centers on a wife accused of killing her husband, Samuel, under murky circumstances. As the trial unspools, a damning portrait of the late husband emerges: Samuel was a frustrated writer suffering professional envy and depression, prone to paranoid behavior. He had been secretly recording his wife Sandra’s every word for months and grew “jealous” of her literary success. In a climactic court scene, the prosecution plays an audio recording of the couple’s final argument, in which Samuel’s composure collapses and an “explosion of violence” is heard. It’s suggested that he physically attacked Sandra (she was left with bruises), leading to the fall that killed him. The subtext is clear: Samuel is depicted as emotionally broken and volatile, a man who literally couldn’t handle being eclipsed by his wife. Sandra, by contrast, is portrayed as complex but ultimately more sympathetic – an intellectual and mother who maintains poise under pressure, effectively the moral center as the court (and audience) weigh her fate.

Anatomy of a Fall isn’t clever; it’s entry-level bait-and-switch. The script stacks obvious “she did it” breadcrumbs, loaded anecdotes, conveniently incriminating fragments, a neatly arranged trail of marital rot, and then smirks, “Gotcha! Misogyny!” as if the audience’s suspicion were proof of their bias rather than the direct result of the film’s own engineering. That’s not depth; it’s a cheap card trick where the magician palms the queen and then lectures you for noticing the deck.

The courtroom scaffolding promises rigor but mostly recycles surface-level ambiguity: pose a question, gesture at complexity, refuse resolution, call it profound. We’re never invited into genuine psychological opacity, just toggled between “look how guilty this looks” and “shame on you for thinking that.” The movie confuses withholding with nuance and moralizing with insight. It’s ambiguity for beginners, the kind that flatters the viewer for passing a test with only one answer: you’re problematic for believing the clues the film planted. Palme d’Or material? More like freshman workshop week: a draft that’s proud of its conceit, allergic to consequence, and convinced that wagging a finger at the audience equals complexity. If the standard is “structure that manipulates, then scolds,” congratulations, mission accomplished. If the standard is real ambiguity, genuine moral texture, and characters who exist beyond the needs of a thesis, this is a pass. Anatomy of a Fall indeed – that of European deep complex and nuanced cinema.

Even ostensibly lighthearted films reinforce the theme. Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster Barbie (2023) garnered attention for its candy-colored feminist subtext. In the film’s satirical reversal, Barbieland is a matriarchy where Barbies run everything and Kens are decorative sidekicks. But when Ken (played by Ryan Gosling) discovers the concept of “patriarchy,” he promptly leads an over-the-top male takeover that plunges Barbieland into a goofy dystopia of horse-inspired macho posturing. The depiction of Ken and his brethren is pointedly comical: vain, simple-minded, and easily manipulated by their own fragile egos. To defeat the Kens, the Barbies execute a clever plan – “We’ll distract them by pretending to be helpless and confused. Kens can’t resist a damsel in distress” one Barbie explains. The Barbies feign cluelessness to flatter the men, who immediately fall for it. In one scene, a brainwashed Ken leans over a Barbie to mansplain the difference between stock market CDs and music CDs: “Oh sweetheart, you are just so cute when you’re confused… CD stands for Certificate of Deposit,” he lectures while she bats her eyelashes in feigned awe. The ruse works perfectly – the duped Kens relinquish their grip on power without the women ever needing to use force. Barbie’s gleeful message is that when men do have power, they don’t know what to do with it besides impose absurd chauvinism – and savvy women can easily outsmart them. The film pointedly makes its heroine the moral and emotional anchor, while the men learn a lesson in humility.

And then there is Yorgos Lanthimos’s surreal feminist fable Poor Things (2023), which flips the Victorian Frankenstein trope to sly effect. The protagonist, Bella (Emma Stone), is a resurrected woman finding her independence in a world of leering or controlling men. Her “creator,” Dr. Baxter, is a grotesque but kind man who nonetheless literally keeps Bella under lock and key “for her own good.” When a slick male lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn, encounters Bella, he is so intrigued by this uninhibited woman that he spirits her away on a tour of debauchery across Europe. Duncan styles himself a liberator – upon meeting her, he dramatically declares, “You are a prisoner and I aim to free you… There is something in you, some hungry being, hungry for experience, freedom, touch”. But his version of “freedom” is to indulge in hedonistic sex and thrill-seeking on his terms. In one scene, after Bella enthusiastically beds him, Duncan can’t resist boasting about his sexual prowess. “At the risk of being immodest, you have just been thrice fucked by the very best,” he brags to her with smug self-satisfaction. Eventually, Duncan’s self-centered antics (including gambling away Bella’s money) prove him to be a shallow cad. Poor Things casts its men as either paternalistic “protectors” or libertine exploiters – and skewers both. Bella ultimately asserts her autonomy, rejecting the cages both kinds of men offer. The film’s feminist lens makes its sympathy clear: the men are foolish and corrupt; the woman is the one discovering authentic moral agency.

Sean Baker’s Anora turns a stripper’s Cinderella story into a demolition of male authority. Ani (Mikey Madison) marries Vanya, a pampered rich kid who proposes mostly to spite his parents. He is feckless, spineless, and quickly disappears once his oligarch family intervenes. In his place arrive thugs led by Toros, who bind Ani, sneer “this is the property of the Zakharovs,” and threaten to erase her pregnancy. Ani’s desperate scream of “RAPE!” forces the men to gag her with a scarf – a disturbing metaphor for silencing women in the #MeToo era.

Ani remains the only figure of moral clarity, publicly scorning Vanya for marrying her only to defy his mother. Even at the end, as she is forced into annulment, she reclaims dignity by naming the violence done to her. Every man in Anora is either abusive, cowardly, or complicit, while Ani alone has integrity. Unsurprisingly, critics rewarded this excoriation of masculinity with the Palme d’Or and Oscars – proof that vilifying men remains a reliable ticket to festival glory.

Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness gleefully dismantles masculinity from start to finish. Carl, a fragile male model, bickers over dinner bills and is later reduced to Abigail’s boy-toy in exchange for food. On the luxury yacht, rich men – from the drunken Marxist captain to the fertilizer tycoon – are grotesques, vomiting through storms or ranting drunken politics over the PA.

The final act on a deserted island flips power completely: Abigail, once the ship’s toilet-cleaner, declares herself “Captain,” doling out food while billionaires and influencers – especially the men – meekly comply. Carl prostitutes himself for pretzels, embodying male emasculation as comedy. The film won the Palme d’Or and Oscar nominations precisely because it revels in humiliating men and celebrating female dominance, a perfect fit for post-#MeToo festival tastes.

Across these examples – Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Promising Young Woman, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, Poor Things, Anora and Triangle of Sadness – a common pattern emerges. Men, in these stories, are overwhelmingly sources of harm or hindrances to women. They are rapists, abusers, overgrown boys or insecure wrecks. Women, by contrast, are victims who find strength, or caretakers who clean up the mess, or avengers delivering comeuppance. This trend is especially pronounced in prestige cinema and festival favorites, the very films that garner Oscars, Palmes d’Or, and critical acclaim. It’s as if Hollywood and the art-film circuit, in the wake of #MeToo, have collectively decided that the time of the heroic or even just complex, sympathetic male protagonist is over. Instead, filmmakers are holding up a mirror to the ugliness of “toxic masculinity” – and often making sure that mirror shatters on screen.

Contextualizing real-world statistics against the exaggerated portrayals of men in contemporary cinema

The gap between cinematic narrative and social reality is staggering. In the films surveyed above, male characters are overwhelmingly cast as predators, abusers, or enablers of violence, as though every man is complicit in misogyny. Yet hard data tells a very different story. Globally, only a small fraction of men are ever accused of sexual harassment, whether formally or informally. In the United States, for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received around 7,600 sexual harassment charges in 2018, the first full year of #MeToo, representing less than 0.01% of the U.S. male population. Even when looking at a four-year span (2018–2021), the total number of men formally accused through EEOC charges remains well under 0.1% of American men.

Workplace HR complaints are more common than lawsuits but still affect only a small minority of men, research suggests perhaps 1–2% of employed men over several years will face such an allegation. Anonymous surveys cast a wider net: about 4% of men in a 2017 survey admitted to behavior they considered harassment. Even if we take the higher estimates, this still means the overwhelming majority of men, upwards of 90–95% worldwide, are never accused of harassment at all.

Now place those percentages beside the reality of male victimhood. Around 60–70% of the homeless in the U.S. are men, a silent crisis rarely dramatized in prestige cinema. Men also account for about 78% of homicide victims, and globally, men die by suicide at roughly three to four times the rate of women. They also make up the vast majority of workplace deaths, overdose fatalities, and combat casualties. In other words, men are not only disproportionately the accused in cultural narratives, but also disproportionately the victims in real life.

Now let’s look at relationships and Intimate partner violence – A large U.S. study of young adults found that about 24% of relationships had some violence; about half of those were reciprocal (both partners violent). But here is the real shocker – when Intimate partner violence was one-sided, women were the perpetrator in more than 70% of those cases – since this data goes against everything you’ve heard your entire life, here is the source, because we know you’re not going to believe us.

Contrast these statistics with the cinematic landscape. In Promising Young Woman, every man Cassie encounters is either a rapist, an accomplice, or a coward. In Never Rarely Sometimes Always, every male figure is absent, lecherous, or abusive. In Anora, Ani is surrounded entirely by exploitative or spineless men. Even comedies like Barbie and satires like Triangle of Sadness revel in reducing men to clowns, predators, or parasites. The cumulative effect is a vision of society where male toxicity is universal and male innocence nonexistent.

This disjunction matters. When films repeatedly suggest that men as a class are dangerous, complicit, or broken, they risk cementing a cultural script that far outstrips reality. Yes, harassment and abuse are serious problems, but they are perpetrated by a minority of men, often repeat offenders. Cinema, however, portrays them as the majority if not the entirety. Meanwhile, the real vulnerabilities of men, homelessness, suicide, homicide, are erased from the screen. The result is a distortion: audiences are invited to see “the problem” not as a subset of bad actors, but as masculinity itself.

In real life, not on screen, it’s actually safer to be a woman than a man

Bottom line (absolute numbers) – When you tally deaths and serious injuries, homicide, suicide, fatal work injuries, and ED-treated violence, men are harmed and killed in greater numbers overall. Women do suffer more sexual and partner/family violence, usually from a partner, ex partner, or family member, with only about 20-30% of sexual violence is done by strangers. Taking the full ledger into account, it’s clear that, on balance, it is much much safer to be a woman than a man, and they live, on average, five years longer too. In other words, these so-called “brave realist social dramas” are anything but. In truth, according to the hard facts, they’re closer to science fiction, fit to be shelved alongside Ad Astra, Inception, and Blade Runner. Turns out sci-fi movies can win Palme d’Ors after all.

All sources for this section at the end of this article.

Post-#MeToo Revenge and the Ideological Shift in Hollywood

These portrayals are no accident of individual storytelling but part of a broader ideological shift in Hollywood after the #MeToo movement. In late 2017, the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo reckoning exposed the prevalence of sexual misconduct by powerful men, not just in entertainment but across society. The response from the creative community was swift and continues to reverberate: more films centering women’s perspectives, more brutal examinations of gender power imbalance, and unmistakably less patience for glorifying or excusing bad men. In fact, Hollywood has arguably turned cinema into a vehicle for advocacy, determined to dramatize the wages of male sin.

“Hollywood is now becoming its own loudest voice in helping to call out what a bad thing this is,” observes Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, referring to sexual harassment and abuse. By embedding #MeToo’s lessons into scripts and characters, filmmakers have essentially institutionalized the cultural reckoning within popular narratives. “The #MeToo movement was at the front lines… Then it becomes institutionalized by these films and TV shows which people will continue to watch years later,” Thompson notes, pointing out that fiction can serve as a long-lasting record of the era’s lessons. In other words, long after the news headlines of predatory bosses fade, movies like The Assistant or Promising Young Woman will remain to remind future viewers of the period when society finally said “enough” to men’s abuse of power.

Many creators are openly intentional about this mission. Kitty Green, writer-director of The Assistant (2019), based her film’s grim portrayal of a Weinstein-like boss on real testimonies and has said she wanted male viewers to feel a tad uncomfortable. “A lot of men come out feeling very uncomfortable,” Green noted of audience reactions, adding, “I think a little bit of discomfort is what we need right now if we want things to change.” Emerald Fennell, who wrote and directed Promising Young Woman, has similarly explained that her film is a pointed response to decades of endemic sexism. She deliberately filled it with situations drawn from real life: “There’s nothing in it that isn’t extremely commonplace,” Fennell said, emphasizing that the predatory behaviors depicted are all too familiar and widespread. That commonality is precisely the point – her film suggests the problem is all around us, in every nice guy at the bar.

The surge of female-led vengeance tales and social satires is so notable that even mainstream media began to notice a new subgenre. “In a post-#MeToo world: How better to find escapist fun than by ruthlessly dispatching awful men at the multiplex?” quipped the Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday, commenting on the wave of films inviting audiences to revel in women getting payback against brutish men. From stylish rape-revenge thrillers like Promising Young Woman to action flicks with female assassins mowing down male abusers, vengeance is presented as cathartic justice. These movies have a clear emotional aim: deliver satisfaction (or at least grim vindication) by punishing or overcoming the on-screen avatars of so called “toxic masculinity”. Hornaday noted that as gratifying as this can be, it has also become formulaic: a “dubious cycle of abusive men and the women savagely getting their own back” – to the point where it’s feeling “monotonous” and even “like its own form of toxicity.” In short, flipping the gender script – making women the heroes and men the villains – may redress an age-old imbalance, but if every story is framed as Women Good, Men Bad, even some feminists worry it creates a new kind of caricature.

Still, it’s clear that for now, Hollywood (and the independent film world) sees itself as having a moral mandate. The entertainment industry was, after all, ground zero for #MeToo; now it is using the tools of storytelling to reinforce the movement’s message. As one Reuters report put it, post-Weinstein, “Hollywood is… helping to call out” bad male behavior and embed these cautionary tales into the culture. We are essentially watching a form of cultural revenge play out on screen – a backlash against generations of male-dominated narratives. If the old Hollywood exalted the suave leading man, the new Hollywood often subjects him to a trial by fire (sometimes literally). No misdeed by a male character goes unpunished by the final reel; no female character’s suffering goes unavenged. In a sense, cinema itself has become a battleground in the gender wars, with filmmakers as the activists and each film a case study in the wages of “toxic masculinity.”

“Toxic Masculinity”: From Pop Psychology to Hollywood Gospel

Central to this ideological shift is the rise of the concept of “toxic masculinity.” Coined in academic and therapeutic circles decades ago, the term entered the popular lexicon in the 2010s and has since become a catch-all in media and Hollywood for the stereotypical behaviors of men that are deemed destructive – aggression, sexual entitlement, emotional repression, violence, you name it. Feminists have adopted “toxic masculinity” as shorthand to characterize the misogynist, abusive or emotionally stunted behaviors common in men. In public discourse (and often in these films), “toxic masculinity” doesn’t refer to individual bad actors so much as it indicts an entire system of social conditioning. It’s the idea that traditional norms of manhood – the old “boys don’t cry,” “might makes right,” “sow your wild oats” mentality – create a poison that spreads through men’s psyches and, by extension, hurts women and society.

Hollywood’s new narratives have embraced this concept with zeal. In film after film, the worst male characters are practically case studies in toxic masculinity: domineering, violent, unable to empathize – and ultimately pathetic. The Barbie movie outright name-checks “patriarchy” as Ken’s newfound religion, lampooning its absurdity. Promising Young Woman all but uses the phrase toxic masculinity in its premise (the lead character feigns helpless drunkenness precisely to expose men’s ingrained predatory responses). And behind the scenes, this viewpoint has been validated by mainstream institutions. In 2018, the influential American Psychological Association (APA) released its first-ever guidelines for therapists working with boys and men, and it pointedly declared that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful.” The APA warned that socializing boys to be stoic, competitive and aggressive leads to a host of problems– from mental illness to violence. In effect, the APA distilled “toxic masculinity” into an official stance: the time-honored traits of manhood (strength, stoicism, dominance) were recast as risk factors or pathologies to be curbed.

Critics have noted that this concept, once fringe, is now virtually orthodoxy in liberal media and entertainment. The term “toxic masculinity” itself might not be spoken within these films’ dialogue, but its ethos undergirds them. In press junkets and interviews, creatives frequently talk about examining or deconstructing toxic masculinity through their work. For many, it’s seen as a necessary re-education of the audience. But others argue it has become a blunt instrument, pathologizing all things male. “For conservatives, the concept of toxic masculinity knocks down the virtues and ways of life they hold dear: strength, honor, duty, and bravery,” one observer writes, noting how this rhetoric essentially recasts positive male attributes as negatives. Indeed, when every traditionally masculine trait is viewed with suspicion, culture edges toward implying that masculinity itself is a disease.

Nowhere was this cultural clash more evident than in the reaction to a certain shaving razor commercial in 2019. Gillette’s now-famous advertisement, launched in the heat of #MeToo, directly invoked the phrase “toxic masculinity” and urged men to be better – to intervene against harassment, to shed the old “boys will be boys” excuses. The ad showed scenes of bullying, catcalling, and boardroom sexism, asking pointedly: “Is this the best a man can get?”, a twist on the company’s classic slogan. The backlash was immediate and ferocious. Many men (and some women) blasted the ad as an unfair generalization that “implied most men were sexual harassers or violent thugs” and was merely virtue-signaling corporate pandering. Prominent conservative actor James Woods accused Gillette of “jumping on the ‘men are horrible’ campaign”. On YouTube, the commercial’s dislikes quickly far outnumbered likes. The Gillette saga is instructive: it revealed how polarized the concept of toxic masculinity had become. To one side, it was a long-overdue call for accountability; to the other, it felt like an all-out attack on male identity.

Hollywood’s current crop of films decidedly take the former stance – they presume toxic masculinity is real and pernicious, and they set out to critique or lampoon it. The result, intentionally or not, is that a lot of traditional male behavior now shows up on screen coded as “toxic.” Stoic, emotionally distant father figure? Likely he’ll be portrayed as failing his family (The Banshees of Inisherin and The Whale in recent years both depict lonely, taciturn men whose inability to communicate leads to personal tragedy). A man who loves flirting or womanizing? He’s probably going to be either a clown (the Kens in Barbie) or a villain (the charming date-rapists of Promising Young Woman). Even righteous anger or physical courage in a man – traits that for decades were the backbone of hero archetypes – are now often shown as double-edged or outright dangerous. This isn’t to say there are no positive male characters anymore; but in the films drawing the most buzz, those characters tend to be supporting players or deliberately non-traditional men (for example, Ken in Barbie only earns sympathy once he breaks down in tears and admits his insecurities – essentially when he relinquishes the performative “alpha male” mask).

It’s a remarkable cultural pivot. We’ve gone from James Bond seducing women and saving the day with nary a thought to his macho antics, to a landscape where a character like Bond is presented as a problematic relic or subverted as an object of critique. In essence, masculinity itself has been put on trial in our movies. And the verdict from the creative class, more often than not, is guilty as charged

Gender Politics and the Culture War on Masculinity

This cinematic trend doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it mirrors and feeds into a wider sociopolitical context. In American culture especially, gender has become intensely politicized terrain in recent years, with masculinity often in the crosshairs. The “war on men” that some commentators decry is in large part a reaction to the kind of messaging Hollywood is now amplifying, messaging that aligns closely with progressive, feminist-informed politics. Indeed, the U.S. Democratic Party’s messaging and left-leaning media in the Trump and post-Trump years have frequently portrayed traditional masculinity as something suspect or needing reform. Meanwhile, conservatives have seized on this to rally men to their side, arguing that the left is demonizing half the population.

The numbers suggest a growing gender divide in political affiliation. Young men have been veering rightward, while young women have trended even more to the left, creating a stark polarization. As of 2020, fewer than 4% of U.S. marriages were between one Republican and one Democrat – Americans are increasingly even choosing romantic partners along political lines. This hints at a deeper cultural split: many young women identify with feminism and social liberalism, whereas a lot of young men, feeling attacked or alienated by that rhetoric, are gravitating to more conservative or contrarian spaces. In an era when “the personal is political,” as the saying goes, one’s stance on masculinity has practically become a litmus test. Progressives often spotlight “toxic masculinity” as a societal ill – a problem to be addressed through education, corporate initiatives, and yes, representation in media. (For example, President Biden’s administration convened a Gender Policy Council, and while its focus is largely on women’s equality, it implicitly calls for reshaping male behavior too, such as engaging men to prevent gender-based violence.) Liberal cultural outlets like The New York Times and The Atlantic have run a slew of pieces on the “problem with men” in modern dating, education, and work – implying that men need to change or face being left behind. One viral NYT essay in 2025 described a “noticeable absence of men” in public life and dating, asking plaintively, “Men, where have you gone?”. Another introduced readers to the term “heterofatalism,” the bleak notion that straight relationships are doomed by men’s inadequacies, as single women vent about the dearth of “good men” willing to commit or even date earnestly. This media drumbeat paints a picture of masculinity in crisis – but crucially, it often frames it as a crisis men themselves have caused by not adapting to modern norms. In reality, many men, feeling unfairly blamed for crimes they did not commit, have chosen to ‘check out’ of dating in a society they increasingly perceive as hostile toward them.

On the other side of the aisle, conservative politicians and pundits have leaned into defending traditional masculinity, accusing the left and Hollywood of collectively waging a “war on men.” They see the constant critiques – in ads, op-eds, Oscar-winning films – as an unfair generalization at best, and at worst, an attempt to erase what they view as healthy masculine virtues. The outrage over the Gillette ad was one flashpoint. Another is the popularity of figures like psychologist Jordan Peterson and populist senators like Josh Hawley who openly talk about a “masculinity crisis” – albeit their concern is that men are being emasculated by a feminist, liberal culture. Hawley, for instance, gave a speech in late 2021 arguing that America’s men are in decline because of “the left’s attempt to deconstruct males” and has urged a return to traditional male virtues of strength and providership. Right-wing media often mocks or lambastes Hollywood productions that it perceives as emasculating men or unduly elevating women at men’s expense (the discourse around the Barbie movie on social media was a prime example, with some conservative commentators calling it “anti-man propaganda” for its satirical jabs at the patriarchy).

This tug-of-war rhetoric filters into the entertainment itself. It’s not a coincidence that Barbie included cheeky nods to real-world gender battles – the film knew it would be divisive and leaned into it humorously (e.g. having Ken literally discover patriarchy by name). Likewise, Promising Young Woman prompted heated debates between those who saw it as an empowering feminist fantasia and those (some male, some female) who felt it portrayed all men as monsters. The cultural backlash against masculinity that our film title references is very much part of a broader culture war, one in which the Democratic-leaning camp tends to view the elevation of women and critique of men as progress, and the Republican-leaning camp sees it as demonization and folly. After #MeToo, many Democratic politicians proudly aligned themselves with the “Believe Women” mantra and put forward policies to combat “toxic masculinity” in contexts like campus sexual assault and military training. Republicans, in turn, often scoff at the term “toxic masculinity” – some have even introduced resolutions to celebrate “National Masculinity Day” to honor positive male role models, implicitly pushing back on the notion that masculinity is inherently problematic.

The result of this political and cultural climate is that young men today receive mixed messages at best. Popular culture (movies, shows, ads) may tell them that their gender is suspect and they need to reform (be more sensitive, less aggressive, relinquish power). At the same time, countervailing voices tell them they are victims of a feminist agenda, and they should hold fast to traditional manhood or risk losing themselves. It’s no wonder that many men feel bewildered or embattled. They’re hearing both, “Step aside, you’ve had your turn,” and “Stand up, don’t let them beat you down.” And nowhere is this schizophrenic messaging more evident than in the realm of entertainment and media.

Lonely, Single, and Left Behind: The Real-World Consequences for Men

Amid this cultural crossfire, men are living through a quiet crisis. By numerous statistical measures, men in Western societies are struggling – in education, in relationships, in mental health – and the timing coincides with (though is not solely caused by) the post-#MeToo cultural climate. The portrayal of men as broken in films like Anatomy of a Fall or the hapless Kens of Barbie has uncomfortable echoes in real-world trends among males. Consider some of the data:

• Young men are increasingly single and socially disconnected. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that a whopping 63% of U.S. men under 30 report being single, nearly double the share of women in the same age group (34%). In generations past, young men were more likely to have a steady partner than young women (in part due to earlier marriage norms); now the script, pun intended, has flipped. Even more striking, most single young men aren’t even looking for relationships or dates. Between 2019 and 2022 – precisely as cultural messages about men’s toxicity grew louder – the percentage of single men under 30 who say they are actively seeking a romantic partner plummeted from 61% to 50%. In essence, half of young single men have just opted out of dating entirely. Social scientists tie this to a mix of factors: economic woes, porn and video game escapism, fear of rejection or #MeToo-style allegations, and an overarching sense of alienation. By contrast, single women’s interest in dating did not decline nearly as much in that period.
• Marriage and family formation have sharply declined for men. In the late 1970s, less than 10% of American men reached age 40 without ever being married. By 2021, that figure had tripled to 28%. Marriage rates are falling across the board, but again men seem to be pulling back more. Many men, especially working-class men, express uncertainty about their economic viability as husbands or disillusionment with the institution of marriage. The rise of voices disparaging men as inherently problematic might play a psychological role: some men question whether they’re wanted or valued in a committed partnership beyond their paycheck. We also see declining birth rates and fewer men becoming fathers, correlating with the marriage drop. It’s as if a large chunk of a generation of men is bowing out of the traditional adult milestones – some by choice, others by feeling unwelcome or unworthy.
• While loneliness affects both sexes, certain measures show men falling behind in social connection. An oft-cited statistic: In 1990, only 3% of men in the U.S. said they had no close friends. By 2021, 15% of men – five times as many – reported having no close friendships. This suggests modern life has become more isolating for everyone, but men have had a harder time maintaining support networks. Men also report fewer people they can confide in about personal problems compared to women. A Gallup poll found a quarter of young men (ages 15–34) say they feel lonely “a lot”, higher than the rate for young women (18%) in that survey.
• Educationally and economically, men are lagging. Women now earn about 70% of university degrees, leaving a growing cohort of undereducated young men. To a large extent this is the result of affirmative actions which was instituted in the 1970s, when the numbers have been reversed. But of course, today, nobody is calling to pause these advantages that women receive, not to mention on reversing them. Boys have higher dropout rates and lower college enrollment, and this education gap then feeds the dating gap (college-educated women often don’t want to “date down” educationally, leaving non-college men with fewer partner options – a dynamic some of those frustrated NYT essays allude to). On the job front, men have seen declines in labor force participation. A smaller proportion of “prime age” men (ages 25–54) are working today than in previous generations, in part due to the loss of manufacturing jobs and other traditionally male-dominated industries, but also because they know that they face unfair “reversed” discrimination and DEI policies.
• Mental health and suicide disparities are alarming. Men worldwide (and in the U.S.) die by suicide at roughly four times the rate of women. They also comprise the vast majority of overdose deaths and are disproportionately victims of alcohol-related illness – suggesting self-medicating behaviors. Part of this is long-standing (men have always had higher suicide rates, likely tied to methods used and societal pressures). But the concern is that as men’s social and economic prospects diminish, and as they internalize society’s messages about men being “problems,” their mental wellbeing may further erode. The APA warned that socializing boys to suppress emotions leads to damage, and indeed one could argue we are seeing it: a generation of young men who feel lost, angry, or without purpose. Some retreat into nihilism or resentful online subcultures (e.g. “incel” forums or anti-feminist Reddit channels), which only reinforces their alienation. Others simply check out of ambition and relationships, opting for a quiet life of minimal responsibilities – a trend documented in Japan (“hikikomori” hermits) and increasingly noted in Western countries too. The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, by a young man who could easily be described as someone suffering from all of the above, is a case in point.
  

How much of this male malaise can be blamed on the “cultural backlash against masculinity” is up for debate. Certainly, economic and technological forces are huge factors. But it’s hard to ignore the feedback loop between cultural narratives and individual self-concept. If young men constantly encounter stories where men are brutish or superfluous, might it shape how they see themselves? When every role model in media seems to either be a flawed antihero who must be humbled or a doofus in need of correction, some men may just disengage rather than fight a tide that portrays them as the problem. The data on dating, for instance, suggests a resignation: many young men are not even trying to form relationships, possibly out of fear of rejection or of doing the “wrong” thing. (Notably, after #MeToo, surveys found a percentage of men – and women – felt less comfortable with casual flirting at work or approaching strangers, worried that behavior could be misinterpreted. One often cited effect of #MeToo was that men became reluctant to approach women in public for fear of crossing a line, being called “a creep”, or ending up as a TikTok video viewed and tens of millions of times.

This might be a net positive for women’s comfort, but it also could contribute to a chilling effect on men’s social initiation. Meanwhile, some of the more dire consequences hit not only men but society at large. For example, the loneliness and aimlessness of men can have political fallout – disaffected young men are often drawn to extremist ideologies or demagogic leaders who promise to restore their pride. There’s evidence of this in the rise of online misogynist movements, but also in broader politics: the gender gap in voting is at historic highs, with men more likely to support populist or right-wing candidates who explicitly push back on liberal social trends. This can further polarize and fragment communities. And on a very personal level, the struggles of men cascade onto the women and children around them: a generation of women faces a shortage of economically stable and emotionally available male partners, and millions of children are growing up with minimal or no involvement from their fathers (since unmarried, disengaged men often end up detached from family life).

In short, the “war on men” is not just a metaphor playing out in think-pieces and movies – it has flesh-and-blood consequences we can measure. Marriage rates down, male college attendance down, mental distress up, life satisfaction down. Whether one believes these outcomes are largely self-inflicted (men failing to adapt to a changing world) or exacerbated by a culture that gives young men few positive scripts to aspire to, the end result is the same: a lot of men are not thriving. They are, to borrow the title of a recent book by economist Nicholas Eberstadt, “men without work,” and perhaps without love or solidarity, too.

Recently even CNN has dedicated a whole hour to the subject with Rahm Emanuel, a member of the Democratic Party, who represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms from 2003 to 2009 and was also White House chief of staff from 2009 to 2010 under President Barack Obama. He also served as Mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019. In the interview, Rahm raised the following points:

a Plea for Balance

The current narrative, wherein masculinity is so often equated with toxicity or inadequacy, poses the question: what vision of masculinity are we offering for the future? If boys and young men are told everything associated with traditional manhood is bad, do we risk creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of disengagement and resentment? Conversely, if we ignore the very real issues of sexism and abuse that #MeToo has highlighted, we risk sliding backwards into silence and complicity. The challenge – for filmmakers, for society – is to find a balance: to continue calling out and rejecting the genuinely toxic behaviors of a very small minority of men without tipping into a blanket vilification of men as a class.

For now, the films on our screens act less like a mirror than a hammer – striking at masculinity as though it were the root of society’s problems. They portray men primarily as aggressors and women as survivors, rarely pausing to acknowledge that men themselves are also hurting. The real-world data is stark: men make up the majority of the homeless, the majority of suicides, and nearly 90% of murder victims. Yet in culture and media, these realities are muted, while the narrative of male guilt is amplified.

A healthier cultural conversation would separate bad behavior from manhood itself. It would recognize that condemning violence or abuse is necessary, but that vilifying masculinity as a whole is destructive and misleading. The current zeitgeist leans too heavily on accusation and too little on compassion.

In the meantime, the “war on men” in cinema reflects a broader hostility in society – a warning that traditional manhood is no longer celebrated, but caricatured. The challenge ahead is not to polarize further by painting one gender as oppressor and the other as victim, but to redefine relationships between the genders in a way that values both men and women.

Reactions to THE article

The popular YouTube channel Film Threat covered this article, and we’d like to highlight some of the more disheartening comments from its viewers.

The Film Threat cover of this article:

Sources:

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020
https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/gsh/2023/GSH23_ExSum.pdf
https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/gsh/2023/Global_study_on_homicide_2023_web.pdf
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240110069
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2910480/Serious-Violence-in-England-and-Wales_Violence-Research-Groups-24th-Annual-Report_2024.pdf
https://ourworldindata.org/why-do-women-live-longer-than-men
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/data-and-analysis/world-drug-report-2024.html
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/natureofsexualassaultbyrapeorpenetrationenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2020

The post Cinema’s Formula for Awards & Festivals: The Humiliation and Vilification of Men first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

When Variety published “Disney’s Boy Trouble: Studio Seeks Original IP to Win Back Gen-Z Men” this week, it read like an inadvertent confession. After years of messaging that male audiences were passé, that “male and pale is stale” and “the future is female”, Disney now finds itself desperately courting the very demographic it spent a decade marginalizing.

The article, by Matt Donnelly, reveals Disney leadership “pressing Hollywood creatives in recent months” for projects specifically targeting young men, while offering the comfortable explanation that Gen-Z males are simply a “lonely, gaming-obsessed group hampered by COVID-19 lockdowns.” It’s a telling deflection that studiously avoids the more obvious cause of male audience abandonment.

YouTube commentator The Critical Drinker wasted no time dismantling this narrative in his response video, delivering a characteristically blunt assessment: “You might utterly despise men and everything they represent. But when it comes to that increasingly uncomfortable meeting with the accountants every few months, well, it turns out that you kind of need them.”

His provocative analysis exposes a fundamental market reality that Hollywood has been reluctant to acknowledge: systematic audience alienation has measurable financial consequences.

The Pattern: Deconstruction as Creative Strategy

As we has documented in our previous gender-related investigations, the entertainment industry’s approach to male characters over the past decade represents a systematic pattern rather than isolated creative choices. The Critical Drinker’s inventory of “cultural assassinations” provides a stark illustration:

Luke Skywalker transformed from heroic mentor to “suicidal hermit” in The Last Jedi, a creative decision that triggered years of fan backlash and required repeated public explanations from director Rian Johnson. Even Mark Hamill has since shared alternative backstories he wished had informed Luke’s arc.

Thor repositioned as comic relief (“Fat Thor”) in Endgame, trivializing trauma for laughs in a way that sparked mainstream criticism about the normalization of body shaming, even from outlets typically supportive of Marvel’s creative choices.

Indiana Jones portrayed as a diminished, aging figure in Dial of Destiny, completing what many fans saw as the systematic de-mythologizing of cinema’s most beloved adventurer.

None of these choices is inherently wrong – heroes can and should face failure and growth. But the systematic nature of these deconstructions suggests institutional policy rather than organic storytelling evolution.

The Double Standard Test -Sex and the City Gender Swap

The Critical Drinker’s most piercing observation comes through a thought experiment that exposes Hollywood’s asymmetrical approach to gender representation. Imagine, he suggests, rebooting Sex and the City where half the female characters are gender-swapped, the glamour of Manhattan social life is replaced with muscle cars and gun ranges, and every episode includes lectures about “the challenges of modern life for men.”

The universal recognition that such a reboot would be ridiculed reveals the double standard at play. Studios treat male-focused storytelling as something that must be corrected or diluted, while female-focused content is allowed, rightfully, to remain true to its core audience.

This isn’t about opposing women’s stories or diverse representation. It’s about recognizing that segmented audiences are how successful entertainment works, as proven by both Top Gun: Maverick and Barbie, films that succeeded precisely because they embraced rather than apologized for their core demographics.

Industry-Wide Institutional Bias

Disney’s predicament reflects broader patterns Film Industry Watch has been tracking across the industry. Our previous investigations have documented similar systematic approaches to gender representation: our reporting on Israel’s Jerusalem Film Festival revealed an institutional climate where male filmmakers alleged systematic exclusion from programming and funding opportunities.

Similarly, our analysis of Israel’s Ophir Awards highlighted unusual demographic disparities, 11 female nominees to one male in key categories, that fueled perceptions of ideological considerations overriding merit-based selection.

These aren’t isolated incidents but manifestations of what we’ve identified as the systematic corruption of fairness in cultural institutions. When ideological signaling drives creative and curatorial decisions, audience trust inevitably erodes, and eventually, so do box office receipts.

The “Girl Boss” Problem and Universal Audience Rejection

The Critical Drinker’s analysis of the “girl boss” archetype reveals another dimension of Hollywood’s systematic miscalculation. These characters, invincible, untested, narratively frictionless, failed to resonate with any demographic, including the women they were ostensibly designed to attract.

The problem wasn’t strong female characters but checkbox character design. As we’ve documented in our previous analysis of thematic mandates in filmmaking, audiences can identify when characters exist to serve messaging rather than story. The resulting rejection spans gender lines because good storytelling transcends demographic categories.

Market Reality Meets Ideological Programming

The Variety article’s acknowledgment that Disney is actively soliciting “original IP” to court Gen-Z men represents more than creative repositioning, it’s an admission that ideological programming has market limits. When audience abandonment becomes measurable, studios face an uncomfortable choice between ideological consistency and commercial viability.

The article’s attempt to blame external factors, COVID lockdowns, social isolation, gaming culture, while ignoring content choices reveals the industry’s reluctance to acknowledge its own role in audience alienation. This mirrors patterns we’ve observed in other cultural institutions that prefer to attribute criticism to external factors rather than examine internal practices.

Three Rules for Audience Recovery

Based on both The Critical Drinker’s analysis and Film Industry Watch’s broader investigation of industry practices, effective audience recovery requires straightforward acknowledgments:

Allow demographic preferences without apology. Top Gun: Maverick succeeded by delivering on its promises to its core audience. Barbie worked because it embraced rather than diluted its perspective. Segmentation isn’t discrimination, it’s how entertainment markets function. Stop systematically diminishing legacy heroes. Writing compelling female characters doesn’t require demolishing male archetypes. The pattern of Luke, Thor and Indiana Jones represents institutional policy, not creative coincidence.

Restore aspirational masculinity as a legitimate archetype. The Critical Drinker’s call for “masculine heroes” doesn’t mean returning to one-dimensional stereotypes, but rather characters who are “smart, capable, assertive, confident, complex, and maybe even a bit dangerous”, the classic mentor/warrior/rogue spectrum that made multiple generations fall in love with cinema.

Merit Over Mandates

We supports authentic stories featuring all demographics and recognizes the importance of expanding opportunities for historically underrepresented voices. However, we maintain that genuine diversity emerges from creative freedom rather than institutional mandates. The systematic exclusion of certain perspectives, whether male experiences, traditional values, or politically neutral storytelling, represents the same corruption of fairness we’ve documented in festival programming and funding decisions. When institutions prioritize demographic representation over narrative excellence, they serve no audience well.

It is impossible to quantify how many compelling stories about male experiences, fatherhood, or traditional masculine virtues were never developed because they didn’t align with institutional preferences. The same creative constraints that exclude authentic male perspectives also limit the full spectrum of human experience that cinema exists to explore.

The Audience Speaks

The reaction to The Critical Drinker’s video underscores how deep the alienation runs. Top-voted comments describe the shift in blunt economic terms: “buy a steakhouse, turn it vegan, and then get mad at the customer for not liking it.” Others highlight how creators openly bragged about provoking male fans (“The She-Hulk writers bragged about deliberately making content to piss off male fans”), or note the simple calculus of disengagement (“They told me that franchises didn’t want my money anymore, I just did what I was told”).

Several comments echoed the broader trend beyond Disney: “Disney wanted to lecture, they lost. Gillette wanted to lecture, they lost. Bud Light wanted to lecture, they lost.” The recurring theme is not resistance to female characters or social change, but frustration with being lectured, ridiculed, or deliberately excluded. As one commenter summarized: “We were told to go away and did so. Good luck getting us back.”

This direct feedback reinforces the Drinker’s central claim: audience abandonment was not caused by external factors like gaming or lockdowns, but by a cultural strategy that treated customers as adversaries.

The Accounting Reckoning

Disney’s scramble to “win back Gen-Z men” isn’t mysterious, it’s mathematics catching up to messaging. When studios spend years reframing male audiences as a pathology and male heroes as punchlines, disengagement becomes the rational response.

The Critical Drinker’s core observation remains undeniable: “When you decide to treat half your audience as the enemy, that’s exactly what you turn them into.” Disney’s current predicament represents the inevitable outcome of systematic audience alienation in service of ideological signaling, with absolutely no merit or quality writing.

The question facing not just Disney but the broader entertainment industry is whether this expensive lesson will produce genuine course correction or merely cosmetic adjustments. Market forces suggest that audience preferences will ultimately prevail over institutional mandates, but the industry’s response to its own accounting crisis will determine whether that correction comes through internal reform or external market pressure.

As The Critical Drinker concludes, “men as a demographic are not all that difficult to please. Treat them with a bit of respect, give them the things that they enjoy, and you’ll be surprised how quickly they come around.” The same principle applies to all audiences: authentic storytelling that respects rather than lectures viewers will find its market regardless of demographic calculations. The entertainment industry’s path forward depends on whether it can rediscover the principle that built these valuable franchises in the first place: serving audiences rather than instructing them.

The post Gender Wars – The Vanishing Male Audience, Hollywood’s Self-Inflicted “Boy Trouble” first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

Film Industry Watch received the following email, with certain details redacted to protect the filmmaker’s identity:

“Thanks for the information. If you are genuinely interested in hearing favoritism, censorship, or institutional bias in my own film community that I have witnessed here you go.

I’m a XXX grad residing in Turkey with multiple awards. My feature film screened at XXX etc. This year I applied to the Turkish National Film Fund with a bunch of other talented women who have had international recognition, 13 male directors and 0 female directors won the grant. 

When one of my friends faced the head of cinema in the ministry at the Cannes film festival he told her that she’s too pretty to direct, she should act instead.

I get that you are going through something and raise awareness but the rest of the world is still struggling with misogyny. I don’t know you or anyone working in Israel’s Ophir Awards. I assume my story is of no to little interest to you, so as yours to me. Please select your recipients wisely and try to be more emphatic towards your colleagues who have been without a doubt oppressed for longer by wider masses.

Best,

XXXXX”

Dear filmmaker – your story is very much of interest to us and we thank you for sharing it with us.

We are deeply appalled that in 2025, discrimination of any kind still persists. Let us be clear: all forms of discrimination, whether based on gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, are completely unacceptable. This includes discrimination against women, men, black or white individuals, LGBTQ+ communities, Muslims, Jews, or anyone else.

In many parts of the world, discrimination against women remains widespread and must be actively challenged. We believe that no one should face prejudice or injustice simply for who they are. If you have experienced discrimination, regardless of your gender, race, or background, we urge you to reach out to us. You may do so anonymously or openly. Together, we must stand against all forms of injustice.

The world is in a constant state of flex. In many countries misogyny and discrimination against women is very much alive and kicking and it should be challenged forcefully. Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Iran, are some of the worst offenders. In Iran, women suffer compulsory hijab laws, strict gender segregation, and harsh punishments for protesting. Women can’t attend major sporting events, face restrictions in travel without male permission, and are under constant surveillance. The 2022–2023 Mahsa Amini protests spotlighted widespread gender repression. In Saudi Arabia, although recent reforms allowed women to drive and obtain passports, male guardianship laws still limit autonomy. Gender segregation persists, and women need male permission for marriage and certain legal procedures.

In the West, after centuries of oppression, women finally enjoy legal equality, with Switzerland giving women the right to vote as late as 1971. 54 years later, women in the U.S. have steadily surpassed men in both educational achievement and, increasingly, economic standing. As of 2021, women made up 53.1% of adults aged 25 and over holding at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 46.9% of men (Census.gov). Among younger adults (ages 25–34), the gap is even sharper: 47% of women hold bachelor’s degrees versus 37% of men (Wikipedia, Pew Research Center). This educational advantage translates into workforce dominance: by early 2024, women accounted for the majority of college-educated labor‐force members. When all measurable variables such as job title, education, experience, location, and industry are accounted for (often called the “controlled” or “adjusted” wage gap), the gender pay gap shrinks dramatically but does not vanish. In 2025, women earn on average about 99 cents for every dollar paid to men, that is, the adjusted wage gap globally is approximately 1% (SOURCE)

The oppression of women in the East, the vilification of men in the West

Despite the significant progress made in the West, recent years have seen a new narrative that insists women remain structurally oppressed, and that white men, in particular, must be held accountable for the historical privileges of their ancestors. Paradoxically, many of the voices promoting this view come from highly educated, economically privileged women who already enjoy full legal equality and social power.

Rather than addressing genuine gender inequality where it still exists – such as in Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and Somalia – this narrative appropriates the suffering of women in those regions to justify the pursuit of additional power, resources, and status in Western societies. In doing so, it conflates vastly different realities, and risks undermining the credibility of women’s rights discourse by framing modern Western men as oppressors in a context where legal and institutional gender parity has long been achieved.

The U.S., the EU, and many other nations maintain trade and diplomatic ties with countries like Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, states that have made little progress on women’s rights. Meanwhile, Hamas, a group known for executing LGBTQ individuals by stoning, is at times treated as a political ally. And yet, in much of the cultural discourse, the supposed enemy remains: the white Western man.

Let’s be clear: in the modern West, today, not 50 years ago, not 200 years ago, not 500 years ago – today – privilege is economic. A wealthy, non-white lesbian woman living in Los Angeles enjoys far greater opportunities and access to resources than a poor white man living in the Appalachian Mountains. You’re free to disagree, but the facts will prove you wrong.

“being a Straight White Jewish Male in the doc world is a pretty lonely place to be”

Here is an additional comment that was recently posted on the site:

“I can tell you that being a Straight White Jewish Male in the doc world is a pretty lonely place to be. There are no grants at all for my demographic. There are no film festival categories. There are no “Support groups”. I understand there was a time when the pendulum was pinned in the Male preference position but that have swung all the way to the other side where White straight male filmmakers are vilified. It’s been over a decade where women, BiPC, LGBTQIA+ have been the majority of the Grant winners, Festival winner and accepteee. I don’t have a problem with that as it really sucked for women in our industry for a very long time. But there has to be a balance and right now there isn’t. And NO ONE is talking about this for fear of being canceled. I have seen films not even remotely the quality of my work on PBS, The Independent Lens, Sundance Channel and Sundance Lab, etc. all by women, BIPOC, LGBTQ. Again not complaining but come on. Some of those films were down right awful. Not because they were made by an underrepresented group[, because they were bad. Poor storytelling poor filmmaking. Just because you can make a film doesn’t mean you should. There are grants out there for first time filmmakers (of which i don’t qualify) every ethnic group under the sun (except Jewish) so i don’t qualify. All my films have been self funded because I can not get a grant. I am not bitter. I have just accepted that this is the way it is and i don’t see it changing anytime soon because in our current climate in the land of the free and the home of the brave speaking truth to power (any power. who ever is in charge) is a career ender.”

Both filmmakers, the female Turkish director and the male Jewish documentary maker, face the exact same form of oppression. They are both oppressed by a system built not on merit, but on discrimination, favoritism, corruption, and cronyism. Talent and integrity are sidelined in favor of connections and conformity of narratives, be it 1000s of years old misogyny, or however years old Misandry, which is the hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against men. Both forms of discrimination are IDENTICAL. They are exercised in an attempt to maintain and/or expand control over resources, power and status by corrupt political elites.

Israel’s 11 female nominees – Merit or Discrimination?

Thanks to deep ties in the Israeli film industry we’ve been able to write a number of articles about the local scene. One of these articles details how Katriel Schory, long-time legendry and first CEO of the Israeli Film Fund who had been running it from its inception for more than twenty years, allegedly approved a production grant of 1,000,000 NIS for The Last Cinema Show in Bucharest, a film connected to his wife Naomi Schory and her business partner Lodi Boken, just before the end of his tenure. We’ve published several articles about the Israeli film funds – The Rabinovich fund, Gesher, and the “Israeli film fund” , detailing a culture of revolving doors and alleged nepotism that stretch for decades.

After Katriel Schory was succeeded, first by Lisa Shiloach-Uzrad, then by Noa Regev (former head of the Jerusalem Film Festival), and Dana Blankstein Cohen was appointed as head of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, all women, there was a sudden and significant rise in the number of female filmmakers being funded, selected, and awarded across the Israeli film ecosystem. Let’s take a closer look at part of an email we received regarding our article covering the 10th edition of the Jerusalem Film Lab, held in 2020, an event where statistical analysis revealed a 99.984% probability that gender-based bias influenced its proceedings, including the selection of the winning projects:

…. I’ve taken part of the lab in a certain capacity and can confirm that your facts are correct. There were 8 female participants and 4 male. There were indeed three “Masterclasses” (though really they were just 90 minute Zoom chats, this lab too place during covid) with established filmmakers and all three were women. There were seven jury members, six women and one man, who was the head (or artistic director?) of Tribeca, a festival known for being quite woke. All four awards went to projects led by women, and I can confirm your impression: it felt like the entire event was engineered in a way that didn’t give the men a fair chance. I say this for two reasons:

1. During the event, after one of the male participants finished his pitch, which was for a project that was backed by major international producers, the jury didn’t ask him the usual two questions like they did with all the female participants. Instead they asked just one question which was about the film’s title basically accusing him of making up a name (which wasn’t true). Later when the filmmaker spoke about the research he had done for the script the head of the jury cut him off and said, “we don’t have any proof of that” (the director doing research) which was both rude and very strange.

2. The lab was headed by a local producer who is known to be an activist. As an example for what I mean by that – during the George Floyd riots in the US this producer posted on Facebook something to the effect of “all women should unite and stand against male violence” implying something like that all men are violent or that only men are capable of violence, or something like that. I believe that after some backlash that post was deleted.

Israeli filmmakers are between a rock and a hard place. We want to support our female colleagues but what’s happening seems extreme. If they wanted to give all four awards to women they could have just announced it before or during the event and not let these poor guys prepare pitches, shoot scenes, and go through the motions. I’m pretty sure that the male filmmakers would have been fine with it. But why put up such a show? To humiliate?

In a system long plagued by nepotism and cronyism, adding gender-based favoritism is just a small step further down in an already corrupt path. This is not far fetched.

The lab, the Ophir Awards, where 11 out of 12 nominations went to women, and the recent Jerusalem Film Festival, where the Israeli feature program included only one film by a male director (and two by female / male co-directors) and five women, are three separate events that appear to share a common throughline: systemic discrimination against men, by an industry now led by activists determined to “correct” a past injustice by creating a new one. These women were fully capable of reforming the corrupt system they inherited and creating a benevolent meritocracy- one where both women and men have an equal chance to share their stories. But… why would they? Where’s the personal gain – or the “fun” – in playing fair?

Women are not immune to prejudice or Hate

“With literally zero respect, go fuck yourself. For how many years were women not represented at all. Silenced. Women have finally been given a chance to to speak up and yeah we got stories. many years worth. You claim it’s not on merit because men are simply not handed it on a silver platter any more you have to actually fucking work for it. Welcome to the smallest taste of what has been dealt out and still currently happening. You want more men in the finalist list? Step the fuck up! Fuck you.”

This has nothing to do with “working for it.” In fact, it is the other way around. These selections in Turkey and Israel were made on the basis of gender. An arbitrary characteristic people are born with. If you believe that today’s male filmmakers, who have done nothing wrong, should “pay” or be punished for the privileges of their great-grandfathers, then something is deeply wrong with your way of thinking, and you are no different than the heads of the Turkish film industry who think that women should stay in the kitchen. Despite prevailing narratives, as the above quote shows, women can be bigots, racists, corrupt, violent – or simply wrong – too. We know, we know: that’s not something often said out loud, but it happens to be true.

Corruption, misogyny, bigotry, misandry, nepotism, and favoritism are all wrong, regardless of who commits them or who they target, no matter what some may believe. As we predicted nearly two years ago, such policies are harmful and lead to the marginalization of large segments of society driving many toward right-wing politics and further deepening the political divide.

If you feel you’ve been the victim of any form of wrongdoing in the film industry, we encourage you to reach out, anonymously or not.

The post Gender Discrimination – Oppressed Voices from Turkey, US & Israel first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

An update to this post – Oppressed Voices from Turkey, the US and Israel – is published here.

Earlier this month we published a detailed exposé on the gender imbalance and institutional corruption permeating Israel’s publicly funded cinema ecosystem. We showed how the Ophir Awards, the nation’s most prestigious film prize, had reached an extreme point of political manipulation – 11 women and just 1 man (not Jewish) nominated in writing and directing categories. It’s the kind of engineered imbalance that, if reversed, would provoke protests and formal inquiries. In Israel, it’s being marketed as progress. Israeli men, apparently, are good for one thing only – kill and be killed in wars.

Now, new information confirms that the discrimination is not an isolated incident – it has taken over Israel’s flagship festival, the 2025 Jerusalem Film Festival, currently taking place this week. The Israeli Narrative Feature Competition, long considered the highest national stage for fiction filmmaking, is now a tightly controlled showcase of identity politics, cronyism, and gatekeeping.

The Numbers Speak for Themselves

The 2025 Haggiag Award Competition features eight films, of which seven are directed or co-directed by women. Among the ten individual directors, only 1 is a male director, and 2 are co-directors with women. The screenwriting credits are skewed in the same way. Here is the breakdown:

Source: Times of Israel, 13 July 2025 (Haggiag Competition announcement)

Israel’s Film Industry – Merit or Discrimination?

Thanks to deep ties in the Israeli film industry we’ve been able to write a number of articles about the local scene. One of these articles details how Katriel Schory, long-time legendry and first CEO of the Israeli Film Fund who had been running it from its inception for more than twenty years, allegedly approved a production grant of 1,000,000 NIS for The Last Cinema Show in Bucharest, a film connected to his wife Naomi Schory and her business partner Lodi Boken, just before the end of his tenure. We’ve published several articles about the Israeli film funds – The Rabinovich fund, Gesher, and the “Israeli film fund” , detailing a culture of revolving doors and alleged nepotism that stretch for decades.

After Katriel Schory was succeeded, first by Lisa Shiloach-Uzrad, then by Noa Regev (former head of the Jerusalem Film Festival), and Dana Blankstein Cohen was appointed as head of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, all women, there was a sudden and significant rise in the number of female filmmakers being funded, selected, and awarded across the Israeli film ecosystem. Let’s take a closer look at part of an email we received regarding our article covering the 10th edition of the Jerusalem Film Lab, held in 2020, an event where statistical analysis revealed a 99.984% probability that gender-based bias influenced its proceedings, including the selection of the winning projects:

…. I’ve taken part of the lab in a certain capacity and can confirm that your facts are correct. There were 8 female participants and 4 male. There were indeed three “Masterclasses” (though really they were just 90 minute Zoom chats, this lab too place during covid) with established filmmakers and all three were women. There were seven jury members, six women and one man, who was the head (or artistic director?) of Tribeca, a festival known for being quite woke. All four awards went to projects led by women, and I can confirm your impression: it felt like the entire event was engineered in a way that didn’t give the men a fair chance. I say this for two reasons:

1. During the event, after one of the male participants finished his pitch, which was for a project that was backed by major international producers, the jury didn’t ask him the usual two questions like they did with all the female participants. Instead they asked just one question which was about the film’s title basically accusing him of making up a name (which wasn’t true). Later when the filmmaker spoke about the research he had done for the script the head of the jury cut him off and said, “we don’t have any proof of that” (the director doing research) which was both rude and very strange.

2. The lab was headed by a local producer who is known to be an activist. As an example for what I mean by that – during the George Floyd riots in the US this producer posted on Facebook something to the effect of “all women should unite and stand against male violence” implying something like that all men are violent or that only men are capable of violence, or something like that. I believe that after some backlash that post was deleted.

Israeli filmmakers are between a rock and a hard place. We want to support our female colleagues but what’s happening seems extreme. If they wanted to give all four awards to women they could have just announced it before or during the event and not let these poor guys prepare pitches, shoot scenes, and go through the motions. I’m pretty sure that the male filmmakers would have been fine with it. But why put up such a show? To humiliate?

This is not gender equality. It’s ideological overreach – an 87.5% female directorial slate following decades of male majority may sound like poetic justice to some, but to serious observers, it’s a sign that Israel has replaced corruption and some merit with corruption and gender metrics.

The Israeli Film Industry Is Not Just Biased – It’s Closed

This is not only about one festival lineup. This is about the system that produced it. The 2025 competition exposes the full extent of cronyism, insider domination, and ideological gatekeeping that now define the Israeli film scene.

Festival Gatekeepers Competing in Their Own Arena

Eti Tsicko, director of Nandauri, is listed as a member of the Jerusalem Film Festival’s International Programming Committee. In other words, she helped curate the very slate in which her film is now competing for Israel’s top prize. This kind of conflict of interest would be unthinkable in most democratic institutions, yet in Israel’s elite cultural circles, it goes unchecked and unchallenged. While Israel’s cultural elites – dominated by radical left-wing voices – are quick to denounce corruption in the right-wing government, they are themselves guilty of the very same abuses: cronyism, favoritism, and systemic discrimination.

Sam Spiegel: The Closed Loop

Five of the seven women directors are alumni of Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel Film School or its International Film Lab:

• Michal Brezis
• Or Sinai
• Sharon Engelhart
• Veronica N. Tetelbaum
• Zohar Shahar (via Bezalel but linked to the Lab network)

The Sam Spiegel Lab holds its final project pitch session inside the Jerusalem Film Festival—just before the selection committees finalize the competition lineup. This gives its graduates insider visibility and privileged access that others simply cannot match.

What results is an echo chamber of mentors, funders, alumni and committee members rewarding each other in a tight, impenetrable loop—leaving little room for anyone outside the network, especially male newcomers.

Netalie Braun: Power Beyond the Screen

Among the most prominent names this year is Netalie Braun, whose film Oxygen is in competition. Braun is no outsider—she is deeply embedded in the Israeli cultural elite:

• She has taught film at Tel Aviv University, one of the two dominant film schools in the country.
• She has served as a juror at multiple Israeli and international festivals over the past decade.
• She has received repeated funding from public institutions for prior documentary work.
• Her father, as she noted in an interview, was a recipient of Israel’s highest military honor, giving her significant cultural capital from the outset.

While none of this is inherently wrong, it paints a picture of an industry where gatekeepers are also competitors, and where established insiders – especially women – benefit from a system they now openly control and manipulate in their favour.

For Israel’s male filmmakers – especially emerging talents – the message is clear: you will not be judged by your work, but by who you are. If you are not a woman, preferably with a minority background or institutional connection, your odds of selection are slim. This is not speculation. It’s borne out in the data:

Had these ratios been reversed, the outcry would be deafening.

A Hostile Environment for New Talent

Israel’s new generation of male filmmakers now faces a cultural landscape where:

• Selection committees are staffed by competitors,
• Film labs funnel their alumni directly into festivals,
• Funders favor identity politics over vision, and
• Criticism of this bias is labelled misogyny or bigotry.

This creates a climate of fear, resignation, and disengagement. Talented men are either discouraged from applying at all or feel forced to attach a female co-director simply to be considered. International festivals are increasingly seen as the only hope for fair assessment.

How can any healthy cultural ecosystem survive when half the population is told they’re unwelcome unless they play the identity game?

This Is Not Inclusion — It’s Discrimination & Corruption

Let’s be very clear: This is not about opposing female filmmakers. It’s about defending artistic freedom, transparency, and fairness.
Discrimination – whether against men or women – is wrong. And in Israel today, the institutional pendulum has swung so far left that it has abandoned the values it once claimed to fight for.

We urge Israeli cultural leaders, international partners, and the press to take a stand. Three immediate reforms should be implemented:

1. No festival selectors should be eligible for competition.
2. Blind first-round selection (no names, no gender) must become standard.
3. Gender caps should apply in both directions: no more than 60% of either sex.

Until then, the Jerusalem Film Festival, and the Israeli film industry as a whole, will remain not a celebration of cinema, but a case study in how identity politics, institutional cronyism, and unchecked favoritism can destroy the very meritocracy on which art depends.

Taken together, the features, shorts, and Ophir nominations form an undeniable through‑line: the Israeli film establishment has replaced open competition with an ideological quota system, reinforced by closed‑loop school networks and blatant conflicts of interest.

We thank the brave Israeli filmmakers who have spoken out and shared this crucial information. Israel is often said to “lead the world” – and sadly, it now leads in this disturbing new category: institutionalized discrimination against men. If you have additional information about Israel or similar trends in other countries, we encourage you to contact us.

A follow up article is published here:

Related video – Attacking men for simply Existing

The post Jerusalem Film Festival, a Celebration of Discrimination: How Israel’s Film Industry Is Punishing Its Men first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

Israeli Cabinet Moves To Dismantle Public Broadcaster’s Newsroom, Deepening Battle Over Press Freedom

A related post – An Oppressed Voice from Turkey – is published here.

While dozens of Israeli soldiers are killed each month in a war that appears to lead nowhere – prolonged primarily for political reasons, namely Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s survival – and while hundreds of innocent Palestinians die each week and 20 living Israeli hostages remain rotting underground, the Israeli government continues to pursue unrelated political agendas.

Just a few days ago, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation advanced a private bill proposed by Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan that would slash the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation’s (Kan) budget by 40 percent, shut down its entire TV news division, and privatize the flagship Reshet Bet current-affairs radio station. The coalition has already signaled its support in a preliminary vote, virtually guaranteeing swift approval when the Knesset reconvenes.

The draft law goes further than previous attempts: Kan’s Channel 11 would be barred from airing any news or current-affairs content, the Arabic-language channel would be closed and replaced by just six daily hours of Arabic programming, and all seats on the broadcaster’s governing council would become political appointments. Supporters say Kan should focus on “Israeli heritage and culture.” Media unions call the plan a “death sentence” for the only newsroom in Israel that is neither commercially owned nor dependent on government advertising. We’ve already reported about the Right’s Wing government political takeover here.

Meanwhile, if you’re a male filmmaker who wasn’t sent to war, expect to be discriminated against & IGNORED

Meanwhile, if you’re an Israeli male filmmaker fortunate enough not to have been sent to war, or worse, die or be kidnapped, don’t expect funding or recognition for your work. As we’ve previously reported, while the right-wing government continues to break its own corruption records, Israel’s cultural institutions – controlled by left wing radicals – are engaging in blatant discrimination against male filmmakers, the same men sent to die in a senseless war. For several years, the Sam Spiegel Lab has reportedly been manipulated to systematically discriminate men. And now, thanks to contributions from our readers, we’ve learned that at the most recent Israeli “Academy Awards” (the Ophir Awards), 11 of the 12 major nominations – the Best Director and Best Screenwriter awards – went to women. The only male nominee among them was a Bedouin filmmaker (you could not make this up). Was it because all Israeli male filmmakers busy at war, too busy to write and direct? Or was something else at play here? Lets look at the numbers:

Latest Ophir Awards (35th ceremony, held 16 September 2024)
Categories: Best Director & Best Original Screenplay

Key points

• There are 11 individual nominees across the two categories (five directors, six screenwriters).
• Only one nominee is male – Yosef Abu Mediam, a Bedouin filmmaker – while the remaining ten nominees are female.
• Some filmmakers (Tom Nesher, Maya Kenig, Mia Dreyfus) are nominated in both categories, so the total number of distinct people is eight, but the total nominations listed above is eleven.

How strong is the evidence of gender bias / discrimination?

Assuming male and female filmmakers are equally talented:

P(≥ 11 women)  =  P(X=11)+P(X=12)  =  (1211)(0.5)11(0.5)1+(1212)(0.5)12  =  (12+1)×1212  =  134096  ≈  0.00317P(\text{≥ 11 women}) \;=\;P(X=11)+P(X=12) \;=\;\binom{12}{11}(0.5)^{11}(0.5)^{1} +\binom{12}{12}(0.5)^{12} \;=\;(12+1)\times\frac{1}{2^{12}} \;=\;\frac{13}{4096} \;\approx\;0.00317P(≥ 11 women)=P(X=11)+P(X=12)=(1112​)(0.5)11(0.5)1+(1212​)(0.5)12=(12+1)×2121​=409613​≈0.00317

• Probability: ≈ 0.317 % (about 1 chance in 315).

Under the simplest fairness model (50 % female probability per nomination), the chance of landing 11 women out of 12 is about 0.3%.

Such a low probability is typically read as strong statistical evidence that pure luck is unlikely to explain the pattern – i.e., some combination of gender bias, applicant-pool imbalance, or systematic factors is very probably at work. Clearly Israeli men are good for one thing only – being sacrificed as cannon fodder on the front.

And while we’re on the subject of discrimination, we recently reported that several Israeli film festivals rejected a Holocaust-themed film solely because its crew list lacked “Jewish-sounding names” – according to a report submitted by the film’s producer.

Israel’s 11 female nominees – Merit or Discrimination?

Thanks to deep ties in the Israeli film industry we’ve been able to write a number of articles about the local scene. One of these articles details how Katriel Schory, long-time legendry and first CEO of the Israeli Film Fund who had been running it from its inception for more than twenty years, allegedly approved a production grant of 1,000,000 NIS for The Last Cinema Show in Bucharest, a film connected to his wife Naomi Schory and her business partner Lodi Boken, just before the end of his tenure. We’ve published several articles about the Israeli film funds – The Rabinovich fund, Gesher, and the “Israeli film fund” , detailing a culture of revolving doors and alleged nepotism that stretch for decades.

After Katriel Schory was succeeded, first by Lisa Shiloach-Uzrad, then by Noa Regev (former head of the Jerusalem Film Festival), and Dana Blankstein Cohen was appointed as head of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, all women, there was a sudden and significant rise in the number of female filmmakers being funded, selected, and awarded across the Israeli film ecosystem. Let’s take a closer look at part of an email we received regarding our article covering the 10th edition of the Jerusalem Film Lab, held in 2020, an event where statistical analysis revealed a 99.984% probability that gender-based bias influenced its proceedings, including the selection of the winning projects:

…. I’ve taken part of the lab in a certain capacity and can confirm that your facts are correct. There were 8 female participants and 4 male. There were indeed three “Masterclasses” (though really they were just 90 minute Zoom chats, this lab too place during covid) with established filmmakers and all three were women. There were seven jury members, six women and one man, who was the head (or artistic director?) of Tribeca, a festival known for being quite woke. All four awards went to projects led by women, and I can confirm your impression: it felt like the entire event was engineered in a way that didn’t give the men a fair chance. I say this for two reasons:

1. During the event, after one of the male participants finished his pitch, which was for a project that was backed by major international producers, the jury didn’t ask him the usual two questions like they did with all the female participants. Instead they asked just one question which was about the film’s title basically accusing him of making up a name (which wasn’t true). Later when the filmmaker spoke about the research he had done for the script the head of the jury cut him off and said, “we don’t have any proof of that” (the director doing research) which was both rude and very strange.

2. The lab was headed by a local producer who is known to be an activist. As an example for what I mean by that – during the George Floyd riots in the US this producer posted on Facebook something to the effect of “all women should unite and stand against male violence” implying something like that all men are violent or that only men are capable of violence, or something like that. I believe that after some backlash that post was deleted.

Israeli filmmakers are between a rock and a hard place. We want to support our female colleagues but what’s happening seems extreme. If they wanted to give all four awards to women they could have just announced it before or during the event and not let these poor guys prepare pitches, shoot scenes, and go through the motions. I’m pretty sure that the male filmmakers would have been fine with it. But why put up such a show? To humiliate?

Abortions Banned, Butt Plug Lessons In School Begin – a race to the Bottom (buttocks?)

Whether consciously or not, this blatant discrimination against men is a backlash from the radical-left ideologues who dominate Israel’s cultural institutions against the extreme policies of the country’s right-wing government. A similar race to the bottom is unfolding in the United States, where Democrats and Republicans keep outdoing one another’s excesses – from revoking women’s abortion rights on one side, to obliging eight-year-olds to attend drag shows and learn about Butt Plugs in school, on the other. In essence, the world is now run by deranged radicals from both sides of the political spectrum and it is only by speaking out against both that there is any chance for a change.

Tom Nesher, daughter of Avi Nesher, and the corruption of Israeli Cinema

As if war, a fascist-leaning government, a potential genocide, and radical gender discrimination weren’t enough, the latest list of female-dominated nominations at the Ophir Awards reveals yet another troubling aspect of the Israeli film industry: rampant corruption and blatant nepotism. Tom Nesher – unsurprisingly a product of the same Sam Spiegel Lab where 8 of the 12 participants, all 3 masterclass teachers, 6 of the 7 jury members, and ALL WINNERS were women (the probability of all four events happening under the assumption of a gender-neutral selection process, is just 0.0117%, meaning a 99.9883% chance for gender bias) – is the daughter of veteran filmmaker Avi Nesher. Despite being regarded by some as lacking in talent, according to Israeli film industry insiders, Avi Nesher has enjoyed carte blanche access to the Rabinowitz Film Fund, which we’ve also previously reported on extensively. This fund – one of two major public film funds in Israel that have been controlled by the same individuals for over two decades – is widely considered by industry insiders to be deeply corrupt. It is also the fund poised to benefit most from the recent public funding reforms that we’ve also covered. The reforms, which include revised criteria for film fund allocations, favor commercially-oriented films over artistic and niche productions. Documentaries, short films, student projects, and independent art-house films – long the hallmark of Israeli cinema – face severe funding cuts.

War, Censorship, and Cultural Capture – Israel’s Crises Exposes Breakdown Across Society

Decades ago, Israel was truly a remarkable country in every sense – driven by a spirit of resilience, innovation, and unity. It stood out as a beacon of democracy in a turbulent region, built by people who turned deserts into thriving cities, pioneered advances in agriculture, science, and technology, and fostered a vibrant cultural and intellectual life despite immense challenges. Those day are over.

In a campaign of calculated destruction second only in its moral depravity to Putin’s war on Ukraine, the right-wing coalition presses on, systematically dismantles press freedom through budget cuts and political appointments to public broadcasting, while the cultural radical left establishment appears equally captured by ideological extremism that prioritizes insane gender quotas and discrimination against men, over merit, on top of a heavy dose of nepotism and corruption.  

This institutional breakdown – where media independence dies under government pressure while artistic excellence becomes secondary to demographic engineering – represents a failure of Israeli society to maintain the democratic norms and meritocratic principles that once distinguished it in the region. 

As soldiers fall on distant battlefields and hostages remain in captivity, the energy devoted to these cultural and media wars exposes a political class more invested in controlling narratives than life itself. The tragedy is that both sides of this cultural battle are winning – at the expense of the democratic society they claim to defend, the lives of Israeli soldiers, regional security, and the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinian children.

An unrelated excerpt from today’s Israeli newspaper, reporting on heavy machinery operations in the Gaza Strip:

On social media, there are quite a few videos showing the activities of those involved in demolishing buildings in the Gaza Strip. “The owner of the equipment I operated was paid 5,000–5,500 shekels per day,” says Gadi (a pseudonym), who operated heavy machinery in Gaza for a year. “At first, I did it for the money. Later, for revenge. The work there is hard and very unpleasant. The army doesn’t operate with any sense. It just wants to destroy as much as possible and doesn’t care about anything. I worked for a salary. I don’t have the money to buy a machine that costs a million and a half shekels. I was taking home a salary of 30,000 shekels a month, I got a company car, and they rented me an apartment in Ashkelon.”

Israel, RIP.

A follow-up to this article is published here:

Related VIDEOS:

New Rule: Guilt By Civilization | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

The post 11 Female Nominees, One Male: Inside Israel’s Ophir Awards, Chaos & Derangement first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

In an era when diversity initiatives are hailed as a saving grace for the entertainment industry, independent filmmaker Cinema Timshel contends he has been pushed to the margins. Timshel, a documentarian based in Minneapolis, believes an emerging ideology he calls “identitarian social justice” is erecting new barriers, even as it aims to eliminate old ones. His story, particularly the years-long struggle to gain festival traction for his documentary No One Left to Offend: The Rise and Fall of the Church of Euthanasia, underscores the complexity of identity-based policies and the disputes they spark.

Below is a closer look at the trials Timshel encountered while trying to screen his film, along with his broader claim that such difficulties are no coincidence. In his view, he is a casualty of policies and cultural attitudes that use racial and gender criteria to decide who gets a seat at the table, an issue we’ve touched upon both a year ago, and recently.

Being a Straight White Able-Bodied Male as a Major Disadvantage

Timshel is the first to acknowledge that the very idea of a white man being discriminated against in Hollywood raises eyebrows. Legendary directors – Spielberg, Scorsese, Nolan, and the Coen Brothers, to name a few – are still household names. And with that lineup dominating screens, skeptics wonder how Timshel can argue white men face any systemic roadblocks at all.

His answer is straightforward: “Everybody has to start somewhere.” While powerhouse talents can ride industry clout or brand-name success, Timshel says emerging white male filmmakers get a drastically different reception in an indie market he calls “rigged.” A wide range of arts nonprofits, film festival boards, and public grants, in his view, have codified “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) mandates in ways that exclude or sideline creators like him.

Their sin? Being born male, white and able bodied.

Despite finishing a previous documentary in 2014 and laboring for years on his latest project, Timshel says he has been rejected by every major film lab, grant, and festival to which he has applied in the past decade. While rejections are hardly rare in the competitive festival world, he insists the deck is stacked against him. He describes combing through festival lineups and funding announcements, only to find a conspicuous lack of white male directors compared to the portion who actually submit work.

Timshel points to one curious exchange that occurred while submitting No One Left to Offend to Sundance in 2022. To his surprise a longtime programmer reached out midway through deliberations, praising his film as “fascinating” and “wild,” and wondering if it should be entered as an episodic series rather than a traditional feature. Yet after that brief flurry of enthusiasm, No One Left to Offend was rejected – along with Timshel’s subsequent attempts to follow up.

He doesn’t claim outright proof of conspiracy; festivals have myriad reasons for turning down films. Yet Timshel describes the subsequent silence from that Sundance programmer, and thirty additional rejections from other festivals, as emblematic of an unspoken policy: programmers might like or even admire a project but fear wading into controversy that risks offending the ethos of identitarian social justice.

On paper, Timshel’s documentary covers raw, even outrageous, ground, enough to make any mainstream gatekeeper hesitate. No One Left to Offend chronicles the 1990s exploits of the Church of Euthanasia, a crew of performance artists and MIT engineers led by the cross-dressing provocateur Chris Korda. The group championed abortion rights and environmental awareness by staging intentionally inflammatory spectacles: carrying signs like “Eat a Queer Fetus for Jesus,” lampooning corporate greenwashing at Earth Day events, and even setting up a giant puppet that mimicked male ejaculation—just to mock a sperm bank.

Their slogans included “Save the Planet, Kill Yourself,” reflecting the group’s bizarre brand of performance-art activism. They provoked anti-abortion activists, confronted conservative Catholics, and boasted about sowing media confusion as a form of cultural sabotage. Timshel’s film, which runs more than two and a half hours, captures this spectacle in warts-and-all detail, offering neither condemnation nor apology.

Korda’s views add another layer of tension in a cultural environment sensitive to trans portrayal. Timshel’s footage shows Korda questioning medical transitions, calling them expensive and confining. Yet Korda also identifies as transgender and cross-dresses. This complicated stance—more personal rebellion than typical trans narrative—might not fit neatly into the identity-first frameworks common in certain film circles.And then there’s Nina Paley, an animator who appeared alongside the Church of Euthanasia on The Jerry Springer Show. Paley has been labeled a “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) by her critics, spurring canceled screenings of her work and a permanent tarnish in many festival environments. Timshel keeps her in the final cut, though he wonders if her presence in the film has made it institutionally radioactive.

The Larger Landscape of Identitarian Social Justice

Early in his career, Timshel was involved in left-wing activism, including the Occupy Wall Street movement. At first, he relished what he saw as a populist wave concerned with class struggle and corporate power. But he recalls that over time, many activist circles devolved into bitter “oppression olympics,” where allegations of racism or sexism would lead to swift excommunications. According to Timshel, once that culture took hold, new rules on speech and identity grew so rigid that deeper issues of class, poverty, or free expression were drowned out.

He now sees that pattern replicated in institutional film. The new era, Timshel says, is dominated by the language of DEI—“diversity, equity, and inclusion”—but often operates like a pseudo-religion, zealously policing dissent. Organizations from The Ford Foundation to local nonprofits regularly tout achievements such as supporting “QTIBIPOC” creators (an umbrella acronym for Queer, Trans, Indigenous, Black, and People of Color). Timshel argues these well-meaning programs effectively erect a fresh set of identity-based quotas.

Timshel points to sensational stories like the uproar over Meg Smaker’s Jihad Rehab—a film labeled Islamophobic and hammered by critics who had never seen it. Though Jihad Rehab eventually premiered at Sundance, subsequent festivals withdrew. Smaker’s ordeal, Timshel believes, underscores the underlying fear: if your film is even rumored to “punch down” at a marginalized identity, it becomes a liability.

By contrast, Timshel says his own predicament has been more hushed but no less devastating. His sense is that festival programmers who appreciate his work still won’t risk an outcry. No One Left to Offend, featuring a trans protagonist with unorthodox opinions on gender, simply isn’t “the representation that trans people need right now,” as Timshel imagines the hypothetical critique.

Is it DEI or Discrimination?

In Timshel’s telling, the dilemma revolves around who determines “merit.” He concedes that Hollywood’s past shut out too many marginalized filmmakers and can be slow to respond. But he sees current practices as overcorrection—or worse, fresh prejudice disguised as progress.

He cites numbers from Sundance: in recent years, the percentage of female directors programmed in certain categories has often outstripped the percentage of female submissions. He also references press releases from arts nonprofits that highlight successful fellows by race, gender, and sexual orientation but rarely mention how many white men even made it past first-round eliminations.

Timshel wonders whether listing his own fractional Indigenous ancestry or calling himself “nonbinary” would have opened doors. Or if he’d relinquished directing credit and showcased a female co-creator, might the film have passed muster? Such hypothetical scenarios trouble him, suggesting a system that rewards the correct “checkboxes” above artistic excellence or curiosity.

A Storm in the Industry

Timshel’s frustrations highlight a broader reality for filmmakers of every background: the traditional pipelines for independent film—festivals, distributors, philanthropic grants—are narrowing. The streaming revolution has turned once-lucrative distribution deals into pennies per view. Younger audiences now favor social media over cinematic experiences. Meanwhile, philanthropic capital is guided by mission statements that Timshel says increasingly bow to the strictest version of social-justice orthodoxy.

That confluence, in his view, is choking out experimental or boundary-pushing work, especially if made by individuals who don’t align with the day’s favored identities or messaging. And while Timshel acknowledges that creators who aren’t white and male historically faced these headwinds, he sees the current approach as compounding the industry’s distress. In Timshel’s view, the cinematic establishment is letting old inequalities define decision making while punishing a new generation for crimes they never committed and benefits they never received.

Timshel foresees a bleak outcome: a splintered film culture where permissible “wokeness” is the ticket to mainstream festival approval. The danger, he warns, is that it may spark an equal and opposite backlash. He points towards the way white nationalism can thrive on feelings of betrayal, noting that marginal extremist groups can weaponize the resentments that DEI policies produce. Even more pressing to him is the death of robust artistic freedom—particularly in indie documentary, a genre that should probe complicated truths and uncomfortable stories.

Victimized by the “Flipped Script”

Critics of Timshel might ask if he’s just bitter about rejections or is blaming identity politics for a film that simply didn’t fit festival needs. But his record—and the personal praise from at least one top-tier programmer—suggests he might well be a casualty of an unwritten rule: “Don’t run material that could trigger controversy from the social justice left.”

He frames himself as a victim of an ideology that not only discriminates by race and gender but stifles common sense. Questions like “Should a documentary about a complicated trans figure get banned because it’s not the ‘right’ kind of trans story?” seem far from progressive in Timshel’s eyes—yet they reflect the closed-door climate he describes.

He is adamant that female and minority filmmakers deserve equitable access and expanded opportunity, but he believes that must not entail reverse discrimination. Referencing Martin Luther King Jr. and David Graeber, Timshel urges the film world to abandon gender and race based blame for past sins and focus on universal fairness and expanded opportunity for all. “It shouldn’t be about pushing anyone out,” he says, “the point is about making space for everyone without punishing entire categories of artists.”

Refusing to rely on festivals, Timshel plans to release his documentary online, possibly in segments behind a modest paywall. Although the marketing power of a big festival slot can’t be replicated through DIY distribution, he hopes that word of mouth will help him reach viewers who want something far from ordinary.

The Church of Euthanasia story, with all its ragged boundaries, might well intrigue fans of provocative documentaries. The film explores freedom of expression, the limits of transgression, and the line between activism and trolling. Some may condemn the group’s stunts, others may relish the countercultural punch. Still other may find themselves reflecting upon where the group went too far. Timshel is willing to let the audience decide—something he says is a hallmark of honest filmmaking.

In the midst of these battles, Timshel admits he isn’t holding his breath for any sweeping policy changes among large foundations. He does, however, hold out hope that enough creators, programmers, and viewers will tire of a system that appears to manage optics and kill art. He envisions a renewed spirit of class-based solidarity among all independent artists. Rather than fracturing into identity camps or appeasing corporate sponsors with safe messaging, Timshel calls for widespread open conversation—free from intimidation or fear of the label “bigot.”

He’s still reaching out to distribution contacts, curious whether there is a sympathetic champion waiting in the wings. For now, Timshel channels what he sees as a kind of semi-exile into future scripts and personal essays, convinced that in time, someone will see the irony of using so-called “inclusive” programs to turn him into an outsider.

Cinema Timshel may never pass the typical litmus tests that arts nonprofits favor in this era of identity-based gatekeeping. And his experience shows that simply being creative, persistent, and open to other viewpoints isn’t always enough. In telling his story, Timshel forces us to ask whether the industry’s newfound guardrails, though well intentioned, inadvertently cast out the very voices that once made independent film so freewheeling and vital.

He has yet to abandon faith in the transformative power of movies or in public curiosity for unusual stories. Rather, he issues a caution: true inclusivity can only flourish when institutions stop using reductive demographic categories to decide what merits an audience. What began as an effort to correct historical inequities, Timshel argues, has mutated into a lopsided system that punishes him for an identity he never chose.

Against the odds – and whether or not No One Left to Offend finds a conventional festival run – Timshel remains committed to forging his own path. If nothing else, his predicament raises a provocative question: in the name of progress, are we closing the door on sincere, if controversial, art?

For now, Timshel stands by his film, waiting for that moment when audiences are again ready to greet the messy, provocative side of documentary art with the curiosity it deserves. Until then, he remains one of many independent creators struggling to be heard, a casualty of a flipped script that, in the name of expanding representation, seems to have left common sense and true equality behind.

Disney executive admits anti-white hiring policy in secret footage

In a related incident, secret footage has surfaced showing a Disney executive admitting to discriminatory hiring practices under the guise of DEI policies. Michael Giordano, senior vice president of The Walt Disney Company, alleged that white males are often overlooked for positions within the company. Speaking candidly in the footage, Giordano stated, “Nobody else is going to tell you this but they’re not considering any white males for the job.”

Giordano also claimed that Disney employs strategic language to sidestep potential legal issues. In one instance, he alleged that a mixed-race candidate was rejected because he was “not visibly black enough” to meet the company’s desired image. “They want a certain percentage of the diversity here, a certain percentage there,” he explained, further questioning his own future prospects at Disney.

The footage, widely circulated on social media, has reignited debates about the fairness and legality of DEI policies in corporate hiring practices.

As we’ve warned almost a year ago, the backlash for making identity politics the “new left’s” core ideology, has now left us with an authoritarian President. Even before taking power, Trump is talking about annexing Canada, the Panama Canal and Greenland. As it turns out, alienating half of the population with progressive orthodoxy along with its censoriousness, thought-policing, and gaslighting has now been met with a devastating result. Who would have thought?

Timshel’s original post can be accessed here:

https://cinematimshel.substack.com/p/ideologically-out-of-line-and-insufficiently

Other resources:

For further thoughts we strongly recommend Sam’s Harris recent talk from his podcast Making Sense – The Reckoning (Episode #391):

The post When Liberals are Caught in the DEI Crossfire: On Identitarian Social Justice, Sundance & Donald Trump first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

ACE Producers:

Torino Film Lab staff page:

Cannes’ Residency Fall 2023:

The Israeli Film Fund social media banner:

Has gender politics in the film industry, mirroring society as a whole, has gone too far in correcting historical injustices, and is de facto engaged in illegal discrimination on the basis of gender, race and other physical characteristics? We’ve already touched on the subject here.

Historically, traditional liberalism pursued a society indifferent to race and color, focusing on individual merit and abilities.

People were encouraged to do their best, whoever they were, in a promise that society will treat them as equals, legally and otherwise. We were educated and told to be blind to people’s gender and race.

In the West, this has been the case since about 1970s, and for over 50 years. (Developing countries, and lower social and economic communities in the West, are completely excluded from this discussion.)

While traditional liberalism encouraged people to look at others as equal human beings rather than a mathematical sum of their gender + race + sexual orientation + nationality and other attributes they were born with, in 2020’s we have reverted to a place where people and their opportunities have been reduced to their identity, similar to the situation in Europe in the 1930’s:

For the past five years, white, straight, male writers and directors with experience and successful track records have been sidelined. We’ve essentially been told that because of our race and gender, we need not apply.

This may not be obvious at first glance. There sure seemed to be a lot of white dudes at the Golden Globes, right? Well, this doesn’t impact the top 2% of writers, showrunners, and directors since they’re in the rarified air where they get work no matter what.

And the saddest part of all this is that most of the people who would fill that room are some of the most liberal people I know—people who have gone out of their way to foster new and unique voices.

Anonymous letter – A VETERAN SCREENWRITER’S PLOT TWIST ON HOLLYWOOD’S DEI CULTURAL SHIFT – filmthreat.com

It’s crucial to distinguish ‘equality of opportunity’ from ‘equality of outcome.’ The latter suggests enforcing uniform outcomes through reverse discrimination with disregard to merit or personal abilities. This approach, which imposes “top-down” equality, masks the underlying issues of society, in education, the distribution of economic resources, etc, rather than addressing them directly.

This process is done with an extreme invasion to personal information and privacy, when people everywhere are now forced to expose data that they otherwise might not want to make public.

By focusing on superficial equality of outcome, it treats the symptoms rather than the root causes and promotes further division, discrimination and as a side effect, degrading of artistic output.

Some critics have labeled it as the ‘exclusion of POT’, that is, the exclusion of People of Talent, to the detriment of the industry, audiences, and society as a whole.

This phenomenon, socially violent and extreme, wide spread in society as whole, has unfortunately but expectedly, is now met with a backlash from the extreme Right of the political spectrum, with a huge increase in the support of extreme rightwing politicians everywhere, undermining and putting at risk the very existence of liberal democracies in the West, with Trump likely to win* the next US presidential elections, along with other autocrats and fascists all over the world.

[*Update November 2024 – this article was written almost a year before the US elections.]

Film Industry Watch advocates for unequivocal equality of opportunity in both the film industry and society broadly. We believe every individual deserves equal treatment, irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. We support nurturing equal opportunities from the outset, emphasizing enhanced education and financial assistance for underprivileged sectors and communities.

The images on the page were taken from: https://www.torinofilmlab.it/teams and other public sources.

Related posts:

The post Gender Politics – Has the Industry Gone Too Far? first appeared on Film Industry Watch.

Recent reports have brought to light concerns regarding gender bias at The Jerusalem Film Lab’s 10th lab event, held in 2020. (Another case from 2024 is reported here) Statistical analysis indicates a probability of 99.984% for gender-based bias influencing the proceedings of the event, including the selection of winning projects at the event. The details of this calculation are presented below. During this period, the film lab was lead by Aurit Zamir, an Israeli producer.

Event Overview: In this event, 12 feature film projects were selected for a year-long workshop. To assess alleged gender bias, we assume that there are an equal number of male and female filmmakers with comparable talent levels. Below are the relevant details concerning the event:

Project Selection:

• Of the twelve selected projects:
  • 8 were led by Women.
  • 4 were led by Men.

Over the 12 months period, three guests were invited to speak at the event:

• Eliza Hittman (Female)
• Joan Tewkesbury (Female)
• Alma Har’el (Female)

At the end of the event, seven jury members were invited to select the award winners:

• Frédéric Boyer (Male)
• Maya Amsellem (Female)
• Sandrine Brauer (Female)
• Ifat Irani (Female)
• Dea Kulumbegashvili (Female)
• Aranka Matits (Female)
• Ziv Naveh (Female)

Four Award Winners were selected:

• Netalie Braun (Female)
• Marianna Brennand Fortes (Female)
• Myrsini Aristidou (Female)
• Odeya Rosnak (Female)
  
  The total probability of all four events happening under the assumption of a gender-neutral selection process, is just 0.0117%, meaning a 99.9883% chance for gender bias. The exact calculation is presented below.

Interestingly, in a 2019 Facebook post (one year before the event) Aurit Zamir expressed interest in the gender distribution within the film industry, specifically exploring potential biases. The post indicated a preoccupation with gender in industry roles. However, as it can be seen above, during the Film Lab’s 10th event in 2020, instead of making decisions based on merit, as it would be expected, there have been a significant and unnatural inclination towards a certain gender in the selection of participants, speakers, jury members, and award winners.

Film Industry Watch advocates for unequivocal equality of opportunity in both the film sector and society broadly. We believe every individual deserves equal treatment, irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. It’s crucial to distinguish ‘equality of opportunity’ from ‘equality of outcome.’ The latter suggests enforcing uniform outcomes through reverse discrimination. Instead, we support nurturing equal opportunities from the outset, emphasizing enhanced education and financial assistance for underprivileged communities.

Historically, traditional liberalism pursued a society indifferent to race and color, focusing on individual merit and abilities. However, the contemporary narrative often emphasizes identity—race, gender, and other inherent attributes—over merit. This approach, which imposes “top-down” equality, masks the underlying issues of society rather than address them directly. By focusing on superficial equality of outcome, it treats the symptoms rather than the root causes and promotes further division and discrimination. It’s essential to tackle society’s foundational problems to achieve genuine, lasting equality.

For this lab, it would have been more transparent and respectful for the organizers to openly state their intention to support the women in the group by dedicating the awards to them. This would have allowed the men to make an informed decision about their participation, rather than obliging them to engage in what might feel like a predetermined and unfair process. Such upfront communication could prevent the waste of time and the perception of bias, ensuring a more honest and respectful environment for all participants.

We urge organizations championing equality through a “top-down” approach and focusing on ‘equality of outcome’ to be transparent about their objectives and methodologies. It’s important that they clearly communicate their intentions beforehand, enabling potential participants to make a well-informed decision about whether to engage with their programs. This proactive transparency is crucial for maintaining trust and respect among all involved.

Gender Bias Calculation:

To calculate the gender bias in this event, we need to consider the distribution of opportunities (project selections, speaker invitations, jury positions, and award selection) between men and women. Since we’re assuming that there are an equal number of male and female filmmakers and equal talent levels, any significant deviation from a 50/50 distribution might indicate a bias. The calculation was done twice, by two different mathematicians, to ensure that the method used, and results, are correct:

Gender-biasDownload

Second calculation by a different mathematician, to ensure accuracy.

JFL
Download

Our organization is dedicated to unveiling the true decision-making processes and power dynamics within the film industry. The chart below provides a comprehensive summary of these elements. Our goal is to democratize access and provide talented, emerging young filmmakers with the opportunities they rightfully deserve to succeed in the industry.

About Aurit Zamir:

Aurit Zamir is an Israeli film‐producer, screenwriter and educator known for her work through production company Gum Films and her role as director of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jerusalem) beginning in January 2020. She is a graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School and also works as a mentor and script editor in film education.

Related posts:

https://filmindustrywatch.org/israels-jff-the-festival-of-discrimination-how-israels-film-industry-is-punishing-its-men/

https://filmindustrywatch.org/inside-israels-chaos-war-without-end-media-crackdowns-and-a-corrupt-broken-film-industry/

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The post CASE STUDY: Statistically Significant Gender Bias at The Jerusalem Film Lab first appeared on Film Industry Watch.