Transformers: Dark of the Moon

It's kind of rare that a film turns out to be less misogynistic and shitty than I expect it to. Oddly enough for a media franchise whose primary purpose is to sell bits of plastic to explosion-hungry little boys, Transformers: Dark of the Moon actually passes the bechdel test.

That's right; despite the fact that the action sequences play like they were written by eight-year-olds (and then Optimus Prime fought the decepticon with his AXE! and they FOUGHT and FOUGHT! and all the cars were FLYING IN THE AIR), somebody on the writing team has actually realised that there is more than one woman in the whole world, ever. And that sometimes two of those women TALK! To each other!! HOLY SHIT GUYS!

Sure, blink and you'll miss it, but it's a whole lot more than we get in some productions.

There is a lot I could say about this film. I could list the plot holes. I could talk about the fact that it's a fun experience if you ignore the bits that look like an Army recruitment video. I could express disappointment in the passivity of the hero's girlfriend, or talk about how the female CIA chief, whilst a refreshingly strong female character in her own right, is only a feminist character in the most basic and insubstantial way. I could spend an entire blog post talking about how Carly Spencer needs to eat a fucking sandwich now, right now, because she is quite obviously starving to death whilst trying to run in high heels.

Instead I'll say this: Anyone who thinks women have perfect equality need only to look at the film industry to be proved wrong. The most controversial part of this movie, with all its violence and sexual undertones and bad language (aren't transformers a kid's toy?), was a scene where two women talk to each other about something other than a man. For five seconds.

It's still a man's world, no matter how far we've come.