Political correctness can ruin a movie, but producers of 'Ocean’s 8' got lucky

I went to the movies last night to watch Ocean’s 8, the new blockbuster starring a slew of wonderful female actresses: Sandra Bullock, the indomitable Cate Blanchett, one of my all-time favourites, Mindy Kaling, and of course, the bodacious Rihanna.

This movie has been getting mixed reviews, from what I’m seeing online – some love it, some hate it, and some are simply convinced that it is going to be a flop.

Why? Well, it ticks certain boxes that, in a film lover’s opinion such as myself, qualify for a flop – one, it's a continuation of a popular franchise. I'm sure you've watched or at least heard of Ocean’s 11/12/13, featuring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, et al. Ocean’s 11 itself was based on a movie from the 1960s done by the Rat Pack, as they were known at the time, but the original was made long ago enough for an entire generation to forget it.

ALL-FEMALE CAST

Second box? An all-female cast. I know how this sounds, and I’m not saying that an all-female cast movie is a bad thing. I’m saying that sometimes Hollywood producers get mildly obsessed with political correctness and affirmative action that they deviate from the point of making a good movie. Yes, more women should be in movies. Yes, more women should be making, producing and directing movies. It's completely and absolutely necessary. But not at the expense of the quality of a good movie, surely, no?

With Ocean’s 8, they got relatively lucky. It's a watchable movie, the plot line is more or less straightforward and as believable as a heist movie can be (i.e. not particularly believable, but acceptable regardless) and the cast, and special appearances, make it a very enjoyable watch. But other movies have suffered from concentrating on the politics of the movie as opposed to its quality. A most recent example? A Wrinkle in Time.

A Wrinkle in Time is an adaptation of the first book in a series of many by Madeleine L'Engle. Ava DuVernay, she of 13th, Selma and Queen Sugar fame, directed it; Oprah Winfrey produced and starred in it as well. Was it a good movie?

And I say this with a heavy heart -

No. No, it wasn't. It was actually quite deplorable. Not just because it contained almost none of the magic from the book – yes, I know the movie is never as good as the book, but I expected so much more. Not just because it moved far, far away from the strong religious themes in the book - but also because the acting wasn't particularly good, the story was confusing (because they were trying so hard to change the things they didn't want from the book – as you can see, I really loved the book), the CGI was okay, I guess, the characterisations were disjointed and unexplained – let's just say I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief from about 10 minutes in.

FEMINISM AND CHOICE

And it broke my heart, because I really did want it to be a good movie, but now Hollywood has it, and will probably make the sequels, and as much respect as I have for the people behind the movie, it was just a bad choice.

A lot of people think being feminist means supporting everything that is female, female-led, or female-done. I beg to differ. I think being feminist means having the chance, access and opportunity, in this particular industry, to make art, and also allowing others the wherewithal to be honest about your art. It's about choices and freedoms, really.

If it's a bad movie/book/painting/tweet, it's a bad movie/book/painting/tweet, no matter how feminist the act of making it was. That's not the debate here. The debate here is the need to do better with the chances given, and hopefully once we even out the playing field, that discussion can continue, and deepen, and and produce movies with more of a selling point than Oprah.

Twitter: @AbigailArunga