Lessons From the Film Bro
I began making films when I was about eight years old, when my idea of fun on a Saturday consisted of filming my friends and I crossdressing because we didn’t have enough people to play all of the parts in our overly ambitious scripts. I saved up for a tiny blue Canon point-and-shoot after seeing “2001: A Space Odyssey” at my neighborhood drive-in. I was enamored by how purposeful each element of light, sound, and visual composition was to the meaning of the work. I was drawn to the wonder I felt from experiencing new realities created before me, and I wanted to make other people feel that way.
Growing up into the microcosm of society known as middle school, I quickly learned that girls weren’t as welcome in the world of film, a world that increasingly seemed further and further away from the wonders of my blue Canon. The only access to film I had at that point was the small AV Club at my middle school, which adhered to the stereotype of AV as the quintessential haven for the distrodden, but nonetheless a classic boy’s club in every sense of the phrase. To a 13-year-old girl already susceptible to self-doubt surrounded by self-righteous, premature Tarantino stans, film was in no way an option.
For a large public school in Texas, my high school had a surprisingly good film program. But I only saw guys roaming around with cameras. About halfway through the year, a girl came on the morning news. I changed my schedule for the next year. Even once I made it into the program, despite my leadership roles and achievements, I felt inferior to my male peers in such a masculine atmosphere. I was made to doubt myself and feel small, however unintentionally, in the assumption that the majority of boys in my class were more qualified.
While women and girls are making unprecedented cultural and institutional strides, outnumbering men in college, and speaking out against sexual assault, there are still real barriers of entry into historically male-dominated spaces. There are initiatives to get girls into fields like STEM, business, politics, and film, but these efforts are threatened when the people who currently occupy those spaces are resistant to female inclusion if they hold skepticism and bias toward the feminine capability in these fields.
Among the perpetrators of this subtle bias lurks a creature so dangerous yet so elusive. This creature is the Film Bro.
My issue with the Film Bro isn’t his high regard for film, it isn’t even how he pretentiously discusses shot structure during the French silent film (that you ~probably haven’t heard of~) he took his first date to at a drive-in theater on the edge of town. What bothers me most about the Film Bro is that he sees it as his secret, as a dark art only his kind — mostly of the WASP persuasion — would understand. The Film Bro has similar elements to the Bernie Bro (ask your skater friend who listens to Rex Orange County), the God-complex-ridden Reddit user, and other young lads with too much internet access and not enough nonwhite, nonmale friends. That is, this particular brand of Bro feels righteous in his appreciation for art and feels he should be celebrated as such. The Film Bro also feels qualified to comment on every movie as an expert, but seldom recuses himself from moments of frequent ignorance.
One harmful aspect of the Film Bro is reviewing art that wasn’t made for them. Think about your friend who complains about all these goddamn female protagonists or mask their discomfort with the fact that “A Wrinkle in Time” featured a black female lead through cryptic reviews about “adherence to the plot” and other arbitrary criticisms. This is a new blow that they were previously safe from when all movies were made about their kind. This isn’t to say that these kinds of films shouldn’t be honestly critiqued, it should, but my issue is when it’s done out of an inability to accept that women and POC have and can continue to reckon with the porcelain bubble that is the film industrial complex.
And then there’s the issue of safeguarding Film with a capital F from all who aren’t in The Club. Puppy guarding an entire industry is not only irritating, but it has real consequences. When we talk about the Film Bro, we have to differentiate between the different kinds. There’s the Bro who actually works in the film industry. This can be anyone from a Weinstein to a tortured-artist-closeted-misogynist whose Freudian slips are usually forgiven as a result of either his status or self-pity. Even if this person isn’t overtly sexist or racist, they can still be a Film Bro by virtue of how much space they think they deserve to take up. This brand of the Film Bro prizes their ideas overall, thinks they discovered “Citizen Kane,” and takes every opportunity to discuss the Marvel-laced trajectory of the latest directorial debut.
While many a’ Film Bros aren’t actually in the film industry, their headstrong perspective is just as harmful. These Bros litter schools with their condescending remarks and obnoxious After Effects graphics, they claim the space that young female filmmakers may hope to take up with their unwarranted, exuberant confidence and intimidation. I know because I have been in these spaces. Fortunately, the people I grew up with were a much, much milder version of the Bro. My high school film class suffered from a culture of a more lowkey strain of toxic masculinity but got better as I emerged into more leadership roles. I worked mostly on teams with guys, who were kind and collaborative and didn’t intentionally spout condescending “advice.” Not every guy in film is a Film Bro. Working with awesome guys has shown me this. Let it be a lesson to all bros out there: you don’t have to be a Film Bro! You can work with girls as equals!
But even though I had relatively pleasant experiences, I also had shitty ones. As one of three girls in my film class, I felt like a) I was representative of my gender, and therefore whatever I made had a “female” lens on it (it wasn’t a film but a female-directed script, film, whathaveyou) and b) I was automatically less qualified for leadership roles, especially the more technical ones that I was assumed to know nothing about.
The Film Bro is harmful because it makes entering historically male-dominated spaces that much harder. It’s already hard to walk into rooms where you’re the only female, and whether or not you stay in that room has a lot to do with whether or not you’re made to feel welcome. The Film Bro isn’t just another annoyingly pretentious but essentially harmful tortured artist who carries around a camera filming the popular girl and forcing his pitiful screenplay into the hands of anyone who will read it. The Film Bro isn’t who you pity, but who you fear. But as I’ve met more and more of these self-righteous fellas, I’ve come to realize just how empty they are, how little they actually have to say. What I’ve come to realize is that it’s not the technical dexterity that makes movies so watchable, it’s the stories that are told.
The lesson I’ve learned from the Film Bro is that automatic experiences of intimidation should not translate directly to self-doubt, but should be questioned at the source. Why do I assume that some bro can make better art than I can? Just because he can recite all of the sexual encounters of Woody Allen and whacks off to Kubrick or knows some niche color grading trick in Resolve, doesn’t mean he’s better than me, doesn’t mean his films will be better and doesn’t mean he deserves a certain job or pay that I don’t.
I have talked to several Duke students, namely girls, who are interested in film but are ultimately too intimidated to try it. They feel that because they have no experience or because the field has historically been male-dominated, there’s no room for them to try. Hearing this breaks my heart. I think that the essence of filmmaking starts with storytelling and that the technicalities come after. Anyone can learn to use a camera, anyone can learn the structures of script-writing, anyone can edit in Premiere (i.e. it’s not a dark art!). While a large aspect of filmmaking is the artful manipulation of one’s tools — sound, picture, theatre, etc. — it is more about the message, the impact, the story. Once these tools are mastered, they can be used to convey the rich stories that women and other marginalized groups carry with them. They give the artist so much power. Hoarding this power to those who have historically been welcome into these spaces is a form of oppression, a form of silencing.
While my ailments against the Film Bro could be seen as merely a rant against that one annoying but essentially forgettable contrarian in your postmodern lit class, I am trying to speak to a larger concern about the subtle ways women and girls are discouraged from gaining power — whether it be in an office or on set. Allowing women to take the camera into their own hands, literally, has the opportunity to completely transform the way we understand each other by way of the stories we tell and consume.
For all of their condescension and arrogance, I am grateful for the Film Bro. Being interrupted, spoken over, and generally not taken seriously has taught me how I want to treat others, whether it be on a film set or over coffee. I have learned to listen more than I speak, to empower others to tell their own stories (rather than feeling entitled to tell it yourself; re: all the movies about women made by men!), I’ve learned that good art must be made of good stories, and I’ve learned to never let the intimidation or condescension from others, who are probably more insecure than you are, stop you from pursuing your passion.
