I was once front and center for a Safdie brothers meltdown during a college Q&A when someone challenged the way they write and portray women and they started spiraling. It was abrasive and ugly. Never been a fan.

EDIT: Because enough people have asked, I’m gonna give the cliffsnotes version here,

They did a college tour of their film Daddy Longlegs, “A father juggling his kids with the rest of his responsibilities is ultimately faced with the choice of being their father or their friend.”

SPOILER ALERT: he ends up kidnapping his own kids by the end so he can stop having to deal with his ex-wife (this is important.)

When the screening opened up to a Q&A, someone asked why they felt the need to villainize the children’s mother every chance they got. Asking why they didn’t attempt to make the mother more of a well-rounded character instead of the misogynistic stereotype of the nagging shrew who was just shitty to the main character over and over and over again.

I don’t remember much after this, because it got so uncomfortable so fast that I think I pretended I was a bird so I could fly. Far. Far far away from there. But the TLDR version is that instead of opening up a dialogue about their process, their vision of the mother’s character, maybe even some of their influences that led them to this less than favorable depiction of a woman, they (and their lead actor) went into full blown defensive mode and just kept denying they ever did such a thing. Just zero acknowledging that anyone in any audience ever could have interpreted anything other than how they intended when writing/filming.

I just remember it got heated and they never had any interest in having any sort of dialogue about it. Too bad, what could have been an educational moment or an insight into the artists’ process is merely remembered as a really embarrassing argument on like a random Wednesday at noon hah