I'm bored with feminist sci-fi now.

[DrZoidberg]

I love science fiction. There's no limit to how much I can see the same basic story be retold. I'm also very pro-feminism. I miss it.

Alien/Aliens is kickass. Stepford wives was awesome. Sarah Connor in the Terminator movies grew to be a beast. A great feminist arc. Uhura in Star Trek being on the bridge and both her race and gender is just ignored = genius. Cherry 2000 clever.

What these have in common is that they are old films/shows. All the new films hailed as "feminist" seems to just use the feminst image as a figleaf. It was cool that Gravity was a solo film and picked a woman in it. But I think that's about it. The rest of them doesn't explore shit. It just puts a woman in the lead, but otherwise just reinforces old gender stereotypes.

Wonder woman. Avathar. The hunger games. Mad Max Fury Road. Star Wars the Force awakens. Why are these seen as feminst? What makes them feminist other than that there's a woman in the lead? A young, hot woman, who mostly gets by on traits we already associate with being a woman. At least Xena looked like she could beat a guy in a fist fight. Shrek seems to be a bastion of feminism by comparisson.

Feminsm in sci-fi seems to, of late, have been reduced to a sales pitch. A superficial label to slap on top of an otherwise traditional sexist movie.

The gay themes are doing better. But that's understandable, since sci fi, arguably, is fundamentally mostly about being gay. That's where most of it came from and is still exploring. That includes lesbian themes. But the CIS feminist angle seems dead today.

I miss the angry feminism of the 1970'ies. Being angry and exaggerating to make a point makes good story telling. This bland bullshit of late sucks. Valery Solanas come back. The world needs you.

Thoughts? Am I wrong? Am I being a boomer?

 

[Patooka]

If you miss the movies of the 70's, maybe rewatch them? Incidentally, my biggest gripe with The Force Awakens was that I already saw it as a kid, not that it promoted some Sargon-esque SJW conspiracy agenda.

But if you want the perspective some some totally sane really smart white guys who are totally mentally stable, type "feminist sci-fi" in youtube's search function. You'll be inundated with a plethora of insightful video essays on the topic.

 

[thebeave]

I hope you're joking about Valerie Solanas. She's not someone to be admired:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas

After graduating with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, Solanas relocated to Berkeley, California, where she began writing her most notable work, the SCUM Manifesto, which urged women to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."[1][2]

On June 3, 1968, she went to The Factory, where she found Warhol. She shot at Warhol three times, the first two shots missing and the third wounding Warhol. She also shot art critic Mario Amaya and attempted to shoot Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, point blank, but the gun jammed. Solanas then turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and pleaded guilty to "reckless assault with intent to harm," serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital. After her release, she continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto. She died in 1988 of pneumonia in San Francisco.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If you miss the movies of the 70's, maybe rewatch them? Incidentally, my biggest gripe with The Force Awakens was that I already saw it as a kid, not that it promoted some Sargon-esque SJW conspiracy agenda.

I have seen them all. Not only the feminst ones. All of them. There aren't that many. Most are sexist to cringey levels.

Incidentally, my biggest gripe with The Force Awakens was that I already saw it as a kid, not that it promoted some Sargon-esque SJW conspiracy agenda.

That's pretty much my point. It's just lazy writing. Fanservice. Waving SJW symbols in front of the audience, and hope they don't notice that it's just more of the same old sexist nonsense.

But if you want the perspective some some totally sane really smart white guys who are totally mentally stable, type "feminist sci-fi" in youtube's search function. You'll be inundated with a plethora of insightful video essays on the topic.

There's no shortage of great podcasts on the topic. But I want to see the films. Not just more people whining about it.

The impression I'm getting now is Hollywood cynically throwing weak feminst looking bones to the public, and the public unquestioningly eating it up. Weak pretend feminism is arguably anti-feminism. Because it dilutes the thoughts.

Too many people are saying "yeah, but isn't it great that it's a woman [insert traditionally manly role]". I'm sorry, but I need more for my edginess bone to be tickled.

BTW, I'm not on a SJW agenda. I'm not angry and offended that films aren't feminst enough. I love sexist films as well... that just go all out with their male chauvinism. What I love is films that have something to say and are willing to push that message to the limit. Whatever it is. I even like being offended. Yes, Saló, I'm looking at you. I'm for whatever is thought provoking.

There's just so much talk about female representation in movies now and how feminism in the movies is supposed to be strong of late. I just can't see it. I think it's lame.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I hope you're joking about Valerie Solanas. She's not someone to be admired:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Solanas

After graduating with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, Solanas relocated to Berkeley, California, where she began writing her most notable work, the SCUM Manifesto, which urged women to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."[1][2]

On June 3, 1968, she went to The Factory, where she found Warhol. She shot at Warhol three times, the first two shots missing and the third wounding Warhol. She also shot art critic Mario Amaya and attempted to shoot Warhol's manager, Fred Hughes, point blank, but the gun jammed. Solanas then turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and pleaded guilty to "reckless assault with intent to harm," serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital. After her release, she continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto. She died in 1988 of pneumonia in San Francisco.

I don't need to admire an artist to enjoy their work. I think Valerie Solanas is great. Her SCUM manifest is awesome. I highly recommend it. No, I don't agree with her. But it is healthy to have read it. It's good to get ones values challenged. I also read Mein Kampf. For the same reasons.

At least she had some balls (lol pun). That's more than I can say for the feminists making movies today.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yeah, I think Ginsburg was right, no one complains about a Supreme Court with 9 men, but if it were 9 women, that'd be unfair problem.

And as to feminists making movies? There are very few female Directors, almost no female Producers, maybe one or two female Executive Producers. Yes, Sarah Polley is making films, but you don't know those​ exist.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah, I think Ginsburg was right, no one complains about a Supreme Court with 9 men, but if it were 9 women, that'd be unfair problem.

And as to feminists making movies? There are very few female Directors, almost no female Producers, maybe one or two female Executive Producers. Yes, Sarah Polley is making films, but you don't know those​ exist.

Meh. It's cheaper than ever to make movies. It's also a bigger and more lucrative market than ever before. As well as a more niched market than ever. It should be easier than it's ever been before to make whatever movie you want.

What has Sarah Polley done that's worth watching?

BTW, I forgot Handmaid's tale. That one is awesome. That's a point for feminism.

edit: FYI. The fact that it's a woman director directing something doesn't make it feminist.

 

[Patooka]

Fucking hell, I need to seriously work on my sarcasm.

 

[jonatha]

Wondering if you are only interested in films, or if print is also in the running. In which case what about John Varley (although of course that too is quite old; I haven't read much SF this millennium)...

 

[Jayjay]

In the 70s and 80s, it was enough to have a female lead in an action movie for it to be "feminist". The bar is just higher now. If Alien or the Terminator were made today, we wouldn't think of them as particularly woke. Remember Ripley's tiny underpants?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Seconded. Female leads do nothing to address the underlying issues. The attempts almost always feel forced and to me worse than doing nothing. Gravity got it right, though.

 

[Toni]

In the 70s and 80s, it was enough to have a female lead in an action movie for it to be "feminist". The bar is just higher now. If Alien or the Terminator were made today, we wouldn't think of them as particularly woke. Remember Ripley's tiny underpants?

Please: people today still think of those as 'feminist.' Big films with a strong female lead are still relatively rare and they need to have some label on it to assign blame if it doesn't rake in hundreds of millions of $.

 

[Toni]

I don't see why 'female leads...feel forced' anymore than do male leads. Well, wait, maybe I take that back on the off chance that we see something the same way. Personally, I'm tired of films starring women where the women ....act like men. I don't have a problem with women being cast as leads in an action film or in a role that was originally written for a male actor (Salt/Angelina Jolie). I'd like to see a lot more films starring women acting as...women, exploring female issues, from a female POV. That said, I loved Alien and Aliens (afterwhich the franchise took an ever steepening dive) and one of the biggest reasons I loved the films was Sigourney Weaver who gave stellar performances in both films. I also liked Charlize Theron in Fury Road but she was the best thing I could say for the film, actually. I mean, Tom Hardy still managed to look awfully pretty after being strapped to the front of that car for....hours it seemed. Probably days in movie time. It wasn't interesting enough to notice much, except to smirk at how careful they were to make sure he still looked pretty while Charlize Theron was stunning covered in blood and grime.

I don't see Gravity as a feminist film although I thought it was visually stunning and an extremely moving film if one overlooks the bad science.

I don't see any of the films mentioned here as 'feminist' and certainly Hunger Games is not sci fi but rather YA dystopian.

A female lead character does not make a film 'feminist.'

There are more films now with female characters now and not all of them center around domestic life. So progress, I guess.

The real issue to me is just how little good sci fi there is and just how few good films with strong female leads there are.

I hear there's another remake of Dune on the way. I wonder just how big a dud this one will be....Loved the book. So far, I have not liked a single film version.

Edited to add: Less splashy but very good and with female leads: Arrival and Contact.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Wondering if you are only interested in films, or if print is also in the running. In which case what about John Varley (although of course that too is quite old; I haven't read much SF this millennium)...

I read a lot. So I'm on top of this already. There's no shortage of great sci-fi books written from all manner of perspectives. Even insects

 

[DrZoidberg]

In the 70s and 80s, it was enough to have a female lead in an action movie for it to be "feminist". The bar is just higher now. If Alien or the Terminator were made today, we wouldn't think of them as particularly woke. Remember Ripley's tiny underpants?

I think that's a missunderstanding of what feminism is. This thing about women having a problem with the sexualisation and objectification of women is just something that some feminists say. If you look at the stuff made by feminists themselves it's often sexualising and objectificating like crazy. For whatever reason women seem to love to admire the beautiful body of other women. That's extremly clear if you take a peak at feminst produced pornography.

There was a myth in the 90'ies that women weren't watching porn as much as men because it was too much focus on the sex and not enough on story. So a couple of entrepid feminist filmmakers tried making porn with good actors and everything was sensual with great stories. It didn't really take off though. Enter the Internet and digital cameras. Making porn became cheap. Enter google search and Pornhub making their statistics freely available. Feminst porn companies popped up. Feminst porn is incredibly brutal and violent. As well as sexually objectifying. What made women start watching porn as much as men was degrading and violent porn being made available. For whatever reason women like their porn edgy and weird as fuck. Hentai porn is predominantly a women's genre. It's basically children being raped by tentacles en masse. Psychopathic boyfriends manipulating their women into sexual slavery etc. They weren't the little cute sensitive flowers everybody (including other women) thought they were in the 90'ies.

That was a long winded of saying that I think most feminists are fine with Ripley's underwear.

Feminist films and pornography just means that it's material made by and for women. Films where they don't need to compromise or give a shit about what any man thinks. It's stuff where they don't need to relate to the male world at all. That's why I like it. Good fiction is about perspective taking. Seeing the world through another's eyes. That's why I think feminist films being made is important. And why I want to see it.

 

[DrZoidberg]

In the 70s and 80s, it was enough to have a female lead in an action movie for it to be "feminist". The bar is just higher now. If Alien or the Terminator were made today, we wouldn't think of them as particularly woke. Remember Ripley's tiny underpants?

Please: people today still think of those as 'feminist.' Big films with a strong female lead are still relatively rare and they need to have some label on it to assign blame if it doesn't rake in hundreds of millions of $.

A film doesn't need to rake in millions. It can be made for a niche market. We got loads of those in the 90'ies. Because there popped up small indipendent cinemas all over. But now when people watch on-line there's suddenly, no threshold at all. So where are the movies?

 

[Toni]

In the 70s and 80s, it was enough to have a female lead in an action movie for it to be "feminist". The bar is just higher now. If Alien or the Terminator were made today, we wouldn't think of them as particularly woke. Remember Ripley's tiny underpants?

Please: people today still think of those as 'feminist.' Big films with a strong female lead are still relatively rare and they need to have some label on it to assign blame if it doesn't rake in hundreds of millions of $.

A film doesn't need to rake in millions. It can be made for a niche market. We got loads of those in the 90'ies. Because there popped up small indipendent cinemas all over. But now when people watch on-line there's suddenly, no threshold at all. So where are the movies?

Maybe that's true where you live. Maybe --maybe---it will become true here depending on how long the pandemic lingers and how many theaters are permanently shuttered. But these days films in the US DO need to rake in tens and in usual times hundreds of millions of dollars. Studios expect that. Sure, there are small films and we carefully express our appreciation of these---and don't go to theaters to see them.

I think the pandemic will change the sorts of films that are being made and the expectations of box office receipts. A HUGE example is the live action Mulan, something I've looked forward to for a long time. But lots of potential viewers such as myself and my husband are absolutely balking at the $30/view fee on top of a subscription to Disney. Speaking of which: This new model of paying for platforms is maxing out and I predict will fall apart post pandemic. My husband and I are relatively comfortable with a secure income and discretionary income--making us better off than many/most Americans, particularly those with young families. Our opinion seems to be fuck it. I'm not shelling out more money for more subscriptions to see that one or two things I might want to see. Fuck, I've still got a lot of DVDs and a DVD player and hundreds of books. I'd love to see new content but I am at the point of feeling really ripped off. So while the movie/entertainment industry might be waiting for my generation, who remembers free content on television, to die off, they need to consider that the generations that follow are too burdened by student debt, high cost of housing, low wages, etc.

 

[DrZoidberg]

A film doesn't need to rake in millions. It can be made for a niche market. We got loads of those in the 90'ies. Because there popped up small indipendent cinemas all over. But now when people watch on-line there's suddenly, no threshold at all. So where are the movies?

Maybe that's true where you live. Maybe --maybe---it will become true here depending on how long the pandemic lingers and how many theaters are permanently shuttered. But these days films in the US DO need to rake in tens and in usual times hundreds of millions of dollars. Studios expect that. Sure, there are small films and we carefully express our appreciation of these---and don't go to theaters to see them.

I think the pandemic will change the sorts of films that are being made and the expectations of box office receipts. A HUGE example is the live action Mulan, something I've looked forward to for a long time. But lots of potential viewers such as myself and my husband are absolutely balking at the $30/view fee on top of a subscription to Disney. Speaking of which: This new model of paying for platforms is maxing out and I predict will fall apart post pandemic. My husband and I are relatively comfortable with a secure income and discretionary income--making us better off than many/most Americans, particularly those with young families. Our opinion seems to be fuck it. I'm not shelling out more money for more subscriptions to see that one or two things I might want to see. Fuck, I've still got a lot of DVDs and a DVD player and hundreds of books. I'd love to see new content but I am at the point of feeling really ripped off. So while the movie/entertainment industry might be waiting for my generation, who remembers free content on television, to die off, they need to consider that the generations that follow are too burdened by student debt, high cost of housing, low wages, etc.

It's not just true where I live. It's a technological question. You can get the equipment for making a movie for $5000 tops. You can rent most of the stuff. It's true anywhere. And with Internet no filmmaker is dependent on the goodwill of a distributer. They can just sell the film straight to the consumer.

Here's a sitcom a Swedish comedian has made. You won't understand the language. But you will be able to see the production values. This is a zero budget production. All his equipment is stuff is borrowed from friends. Everybody involved is working for free. He is one of Sweden's most famous comedians. So he's connected. But even so, anybody with a normal job who shares a dream of making a film can do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqmC5PPlB_M

Here's the Pirkenning. It's a Star Trek fanpic. It's in Finnish. One of the world's tineist markets. Also, zero budget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHAPXlVq5lk

Here's the director talking about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moiavL6UHU4

Yes, it's the same guy who later went on to make the higher budget movie, Iron Sky, Samuli Torssonen. It's edgy humour about racism. So edgy, no way it could that have been made in Hollywood. It needed to have been made out in the frozen wastes of Finland.

Or Kung Fury. The famous ad director David Sandberg who returned to his tiny backwater home town and decided to make a movie there, funded with Kickstarter. He failed to reach his finacing goal. But enough to make an absolutely epic short movie. But most importantly, he initially had no money at all when he started on this project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg&t=35s

You need no money to make great movies today.

There's the film Horns. The director of this b-movie just asked Daniel Radcliffe if he'd like to play a part in his no-budget movie. Daniel said yes. Lucky him. Still cost barely anything to make.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_(film)

No, you don't need any money to make a film today.

Here's an American b-TV amateur channel. They have a competition each year and the best stuff makes it onto the channel.
http://www.channel101.com/

What I suspect the problem is, is money. There's more money in the industry than ever before. It's easier to get a big budget movie, than ever before. So if you have, even a minimum of talent, you'll get propelled into the big leagues fast. And that's what kills the intelligent movies. As soon as a film has to have mass market appeal, anything which requires any amount of thought is dead in the water.

In the 1970'ies directors often did every second film as a comercial film and every second film as a passion project. Using the comercial money to make the passion project. But today just making a comercial film, does not guarantee money. Today even a comercial film entails financial risk. So that way of making the film a director wants to make is closed today. It seems like directors today are either all comercial or all alternative. I don't know why it has developed in this direction. But it has the result that the talented people aren't making edgy stuff anymore. It's increasingly just a bland soup of boring. Which is a theory which might explain why all the feminist films of late are so neutred.

 

[Toni]

A film doesn't need to rake in millions. It can be made for a niche market. We got loads of those in the 90'ies. Because there popped up small indipendent cinemas all over. But now when people watch on-line there's suddenly, no threshold at all. So where are the movies?

Maybe that's true where you live. Maybe --maybe---it will become true here depending on how long the pandemic lingers and how many theaters are permanently shuttered. But these days films in the US DO need to rake in tens and in usual times hundreds of millions of dollars. Studios expect that. Sure, there are small films and we carefully express our appreciation of these---and don't go to theaters to see them.

I think the pandemic will change the sorts of films that are being made and the expectations of box office receipts. A HUGE example is the live action Mulan, something I've looked forward to for a long time. But lots of potential viewers such as myself and my husband are absolutely balking at the $30/view fee on top of a subscription to Disney. Speaking of which: This new model of paying for platforms is maxing out and I predict will fall apart post pandemic. My husband and I are relatively comfortable with a secure income and discretionary income--making us better off than many/most Americans, particularly those with young families. Our opinion seems to be fuck it. I'm not shelling out more money for more subscriptions to see that one or two things I might want to see. Fuck, I've still got a lot of DVDs and a DVD player and hundreds of books. I'd love to see new content but I am at the point of feeling really ripped off. So while the movie/entertainment industry might be waiting for my generation, who remembers free content on television, to die off, they need to consider that the generations that follow are too burdened by student debt, high cost of housing, low wages, etc.

It's not just true where I live. It's a technological question. You can get the equipment for making a movie for $5000 tops. You can rent most of the stuff. It's true anywhere. And with Internet no filmmaker is dependent on the goodwill of a distributer. They can just sell the film straight to the consumer.

Here's a sitcom a Swedish comedian has made. You won't understand the language. But you will be able to see the production values. This is a zero budget production. All his equipment is stuff is borrowed from friends. Everybody involved is working for free. He is one of Sweden's most famous comedians. So he's connected. But even so, anybody with a normal job who shares a dream of making a film can do this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqmC5PPlB_M

Here's the Pirkenning. It's a Star Trek fanpic. It's in Finnish. One of the world's tineist markets. Also, zero budget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHAPXlVq5lk

Here's the director talking about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moiavL6UHU4

Yes, it's the same guy who later went on to make the higher budget movie, Iron Sky, Samuli Torssonen. It's edgy humour about racism. So edgy, no way it could that have been made in Hollywood. It needed to have been made out in the frozen wastes of Finland.

Or Kung Fury. The famous ad director David Sandberg who returned to his tiny backwater home town and decided to make a movie there, funded with Kickstarter. He failed to reach his finacing goal. But enough to make an absolutely epic short movie. But most importantly, he initially had no money at all when he started on this project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS5P_LAqiVg&t=35s

You need no money to make great movies today.

There's the film Horns. The director of this b-movie just asked Daniel Radcliffe if he'd like to play a part in his no-budget movie. Daniel said yes. Lucky him. Still cost barely anything to make.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_(film)

No, you don't need any money to make a film today.

Here's an American b-TV amateur channel. They have a competition each year and the best stuff makes it onto the channel.
http://www.channel101.com/

What I suspect the problem is, is money. There's more money in the industry than ever before. It's easier to get a big budget movie, than ever before. So if you have, even a minimum of talent, you'll get propelled into the big leagues fast. And that's what kills the intelligent movies. As soon as a film has to have mass market appeal, anything which requires any amount of thought is dead in the water.

In the 1970'ies directors often did every second film as a comercial film and every second film as a passion project. Using the comercial money to make the passion project. But today just making a comercial film, does not guarantee money. Today even a comercial film entails financial risk. So that way of making the film a director wants to make is closed today. It seems like directors today are either all comercial or all alternative. I don't know why it has developed in this direction. But it has the result that the talented people aren't making edgy stuff anymore. It's increasingly just a bland soup of boring. Which is a theory which might explain why all the feminist films of late are so neutred.

You're talking about getting films made DURING A PANDEMIC which will never have much of an audience. None of the films you mentioned today will ever play in my town. Ever.

You pointed out that commercial movies do not always make money. This is absolutely true. This is also the reason that so many films are franchises and reboots and reboots of franchises. Hollywood does not want to sink millions of dollars into making if it will not earn them the money invested and a healthy return.

Yeah, I'm talking Hollywood here. Not someone running around with their iphone or personal camera.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You're talking about getting films made DURING A PANDEMIC which will never have much of an audience. None of the films you mentioned today will ever play in my town. Ever.

That's not an argument. Cinema is dead. In 2018 over half of consumers of films preferred to watch it on TV. Only 13% preferred going to the cinema.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/264399/preferred-place-of-movie-consumption-in-the-us/

Today, going to the cinema is something for nostalgic old people or people pretending to be fancy. It already has a similar status as that of theatre or opera.

All you need to watch movies is access to the Internet. So all you need if you want to sell a movie you have made is access to an on-line media platform. Bussiness for that during Corona is booming. You can even monetise films on Youtube if you like. It's not a lot of money. But if it's a hobby project, who cares?

I'll contrast this with the huge numbers of films produced the last 20 years by the LARP community. Youtube is flooded with them, of varying quality.

Here's a film based on an obscure Swedish role playing game released in the 1980'ies basically made for the director and his closest friends. Note the high production values.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX1bcDumZBw

It was released for the Internet and was a passion project.

What I'm saying is that if you have something to say, there's no stopping you, or whatever radical (or not so radical) feminsts have to say on the matter.

You pointed out that commercial movies do not always make money. This is absolutely true. This is also the reason that so many films are franchises and reboots and reboots of franchises. Hollywood does not want to sink millions of dollars into making if it will not earn them the money invested and a healthy return.

But I don't only watch Hollywood movies. Come to think of it, most of what I watch isn't Hollywood movies. I prefer alternative movies. I highly doubt I'm all that unique. As made evident by the large alternative movie scene.

There's loads of stuff being produced out there. Loads. My question is simply where the feminist films are. They seem to be just missing.

FYI, there's loads of feminst pornography produced. I won't link to any since I'm at work now. My point is just that there's clearly capable feminist film makers out there. But where's the non-pornographic feminst sci-fi films. It's a great theme. I'm sure there's plenty more to say on it. Feminists on forums and blogs are a vocal bunch. So where's the movies?

Yeah, I'm talking Hollywood here. Not someone running around with their iphone or personal camera.

I'm also not talking about people running around with an iPhone. I'm only talking about high production values using professional equipment. No, that doesn't have to be all that expensive. The above film I linked to above was made on top class professional equipment. That they got to borrow from the Swedish government for free.

The Swedish government is always falling over themselves to support the feminist cause. If the above film managed to borrow top class professional equipment for free from the Swedish governement then any feminist director will be able to. That's not the hurdle to get this done.