Personally I think going in with the intention of gender swapping the male roles for the sake of gender swapping alone is a terrible premise. And the thought of watching The Sound of Music but with a male version of Maria is just weird. Or a male in the lead of Alien.

Granted, there are a lot of movies where the entire direction of the story, while not dependent on the person's gender, they aren't conducive to the opposite. Using my own example, Maria was a nun who became a governess, who became a step-mother. The swapped version would have to be a priest who became a (I don't know if there's a name for a male version?) live-in childcare provider, who became a step father. While not impossible, or even that wild to think about, it's not typical.

Is it just one of those "it's good to have representation" things? Like I personally know someone who thought black people couldn't be royalty because until they saw princess and the frog, there wasn't exactly a lot of diversity in Disney's princess catalogue (with apologies to Mulan and Pocahontas) so clearly there is something to be said about representation in media.

I am definitely over thinking it, but I really don't get why anyone wants, or thinks audiences want, gender swapped stories from 20/40/60+ years ago.

Thank you for coming to my TEDx Talk. Sorry you can't get the last 3 minutes back.

[–] snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works 3 points 22 hours ago

Fun fact, the alien script was written without specified genders in any of the roles so it could have just as easily had a male lead or anything really.

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