Many films ― even great ones ― have used occupations as shorthand for personalities or ‘types.’ [...]
male movie-architects are assumed to personify the perfect romantic lead: they are “creative, but not as grubby as musicians; fiscally sturdy, but not as stodgy as bankers; dreamers with briefcases; visionaries of the tangible.” [...]
Narrative tensions emerge in the perceived misfit between the image — or stereotype — of a profession and the celluloid figure who embodies it.
— placesjournal.org
This hearty round-up sifts through the stereotypes and expectations of how Hollywood portrays our on-screen architects, against the backdrop of #OscarsSoWhite and a male (overwhelming) majority. Less about professional accuracy and more about personality types, the piece focuses on how these filmic architects characterize the people within the profession, if not the profession itself.
Want more film studies?
35 Comments
I'm neither sensitive nor girly, but those four images above make me want to hurl.
Face it, there are plenty of women architects in film, their extras.
Ha.
They forgot Wesley Snipes, Jungle Fever.
No, they talked about Wesley Snipes, and the fact that the only movies to feature architects of color are directed by directors of color.
Until the Where'd You Go, Bernadette? movie is made I don't think there will ever be an accurate portrayal of an architect, of either gender, in film. Gauntlet thrown.
It's funny the author buries Jungle Fever and Inception because they don't fit the narrative.
I'm imagining the bubble of priveledge in which the author writes these essays, as if a few examples or positive male figures on film (in contrast to many negative) constitutes a grave slight to women...
Also forgot the architect from the matrix movies.
Yeah, Non Seq, we got to talking about architects in media on the podcast today and I wanted to mention The Matrix but ran out of time. I think that character by that name, and his knowledge base, influenced how a lot of people think of architects in the wider public.
Also I've said it before here but Ellen Page (who I like as an actress) as an architect in Inception was totally unconvincing. She was there to be pretty; she had no depth or complexity. If that was the character chosen to be female she should have been Indian, IMO, or Chinese - from a culture with thousands of years of aesthetic history, not another white American. Bleh.
not another white American. Bleh
OMG could you be any more racist?
no.
Oooh Donna you are SO RIGHT about Bernadette. I loved that book, although it hit uncomfortably close to home in some ways... and would make a fantastic movie in the hands of the right director!
The architect in the matrix doesn't count. He was an "architect" in the sense of how people refer to God as "the architect."
Ellen Page did a really good movie recently called Tallula. Has nothing to do with this discussion but check it out on Netflix if bored...
Okay, our resident Drumpf has popped his head up. White trash, know nothing.
Cough.... Charles Bronson... cough.... Deathwish 1, 2 and 3.... cough... moustache
IMDB description: A New York City architect becomes a one-man vigilante squad after his wife is murdered by street punks in which he randomly goes out and kills would-be muggers on the mean streets after dark
Coolest architect ever^
Perfect post-architecture discourse for the bourgeois elite
It's a perverse irony that the women leaders of the architecture establishment and universities seek to ... Research the sexism of the architecture industry.
re: Nate:
I'm going to let (all of) you ponder that question - HRC
And FRaC, there are literally hundreds of thousands of articles, books, memes, and symposia recordings on why your comment is incorrect. Here's a start for you:
What Is Reverse Racism and Why It Doesn't Actually Exist.
But nice try. Bless your heart.
manta, Bernadette is a genius but outside of that enormous disparity in talent I am *exactly like her*. I loved how uncomfortably close to home it hit; it made me be honest with myself! I've already, in my mind, cast Catherine Keener as Bernadette.
jla-x. I'm saying the use of the word "architect" for the Matrix character is representative of how the general public think of architects, or at least think of us thinking of ourselves: somewhat mystical, all-knowing, serious and restrained, unreachable....
But that the character doesn't count, as you say, in the round up of architects as characters, yes I agree with that.
Mmm I looove Catherine Keener but I feel she might be a touch too sweetly melancholic for Bernadette... Personal opinion. Now I need to back my comment up with a perfect alternate casting choice...
Think of her in Being John Malkovich. Hard ass. But yes, open to your thoughts! I've been talking about this on Twitter with Alexandra Lange, who is also a huge fan of the book.
The architect in the matrix doesn't count. He was an "architect" in the sense of how people refer to God as "the architect."
That's why its the most accurate portrayal of the stereotype so far.
What about Peter Keating?
Architects... pillocks...
Definition for Pillock
https://youtu.be/5ESF5QFHa5g
tintt do you mean Elyse Keaton?
Sample dialogue:
Mallory: How's it going, Mom?
Elyse: Well, I'm working on the McPhillips house.
M: Still? I thought you finished that. What's the problem?
E: Well, it's really a problem of balancing the spatial and the structural logistics.
I mean can we do we just sheer-wall the existing elements, or can we support the weight of a cantilevered terrace with with just poured concrete grade beams? I don't know. (sighs)
M: Architecture got you down, Mom? Here's a suggestion for a quick pick-me-up.
Go buy yourself a new dress. Something splashy; something pink. Buy me one too.
Make you feel better. Always worked for Frank Lloyd Wright!
FRAC CAN'T READ, WHAT WITH IT'S HEAD BURIED IN DRUMPETS ASS.
By Peter Keating, I mean Peter Keating.
now this guy is an architect
^yes a modern day architect. Just a businessman with no drawings to be found.
You can understand why a conman like Trump exists when the left just plays identity games
so i have nothing to contribute to the conversation either, just gonna post this, which seems about right to me.
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/victoria-coren-sexiest-jobs
5. Architect
I'm joking. It's not 1997.
Adam sander in Click.
Adam Goldberg played what I thought was a very accurate portrayal of an architecture *student* on the TV show E.R. He was homeless and mentally unstable due to his obsession with Louis Sullivan.
Then there was Anne Heche as an architecture student in a movie about abortion - if these walls could talk, I think - in which all the students ran around talking about one anothers' blueprints:
"Did you get your blueprints turned in on time?"
"I saw your blueprints, they look great!"
"You left your blueprints at my house after we had unprotected sex last night."
OMG the Anne Heche segment of the movie was directed by Cher!!!!! This thrills me!
jla-x, Adam Sandler was an architectural intern, the David Hasselhoff played the architect
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