Because of my time and crowd in college, I’ve very thankfully come to have a sharper-than-the-“norm” radar for gender matters (read: not the sharpest by any stretch of the imagination, but I do care), and it affects the way I approach my industry of aspiration, entertainment. I think its high time I use this space to log some of the reading material I come across on the issue: 

The success of Marvel Studios has allowed it to operate by its own rules, so perhaps it’s not surprising that its top executives neither knew nor cared that dropping Patty Jenkins as director of its Thor sequel would shock Hollywood. But perhaps the studio didn’t count on shocking Natalie Portman, who is said to be deeply upset by the decision.

While the parties spun the Dec. 6 parting as an amicable split over creative differences, sources say Jenkins was fired without warning from a job that would have made her the first woman to direct a superhero tentpole. The news was out before anyone had told Portman, who had strongly urged Marvel to hire the director of 2003’sMonster (a film that won Charlize Theron her Oscar). According to sources, Portman had begun to question whether she wanted to continue acting at all right now — possibly for several years — because she wants to spend time with her baby boy, who was born in June. Portman was said to be re-engaged in Thor 2 because of Jenkins’ involvement and especially proud that she would have played a role in opening the door for a woman to direct such a film. The Oscar winner is contractually obligated to stay with the project and Marvel is now said to be working overtime to smooth over the situation by including her in discussions about whom to hire as a replacement.

Meanwhile, insiders are telling widely divergent stories about why Marvel dropped Jenkins. A source with firsthand knowledge of the production says Marvel became concerned that Jenkins was not moving decisively enough and feared the film might miss its November 2013 release date. Exactly how Jenkins should have acted more decisively is unclear since no script was in place. Marvel had commissioned one from Don Payne before Jenkins came onto the project in October, but the studio now wants a rewrite.

Still, the source says the company felt she showed “a lack of overall clarity in her choices,” which led to concern that the process would be “difficult.”

But an insider in Jenkins’ camp says the lack of clarity might be on Marvel’s part. This person says Jenkins was so explicit about her vision for the film that she didn’t expect to be hired in the first place. The source speculates that Marvel executives might have been won over initially by Portman’s enthusiasm for Jenkins but then, “when they started to interview writers for the rewrite … may have decided they really weren’t comfortable.”

Marvel had certain things they needed to achieve, says another source. There were constraints on what she could do creatively. 

These sources say Jenkins respects Marvel’s imperatives and still wants to work with the company. She also doesn’t want this to be seen as gender-related, though that might be inevitable. A recent Annenberg study showed women directed only 3.6 percent of the top-grossing movies of 2009.

The directors Marvel is now considering to replace Jenkins — Game of Thrones vets Daniel Minahan and Alan Taylor — are both men.

If you had any doubt about whether people in advertising can create positive social change, No seems to be the film to watch. 

Bernal: I knew about, obviously, Pinochet. I mean, I grew up with a lot of Latin American exiles in Mexico, but I didn’t get a sense, a real sense of the pain, and the deep pain that a dictatorship cost until I arrived to Chile.

Larraín: It’s unique because if you have for the very first time, after fifteen years of dictatorship, you have a little moment on TV when you can express for first time what do you think, and convince people, in order to convince people to vote for the ‘No’ option, the very first thing that you would do is to go, “Pinochet is a bad person, he killed this, he did this.” And then one guy, a couple of guys would come in—and that’s what Gael represents—and they said, “no, no, no, no—that’s not the way. If we do that, they will win because we will spread fear. We have to say, “Man, let’s, you know, the storm is over. Now, it’s the spring coming, the joy is coming.” Let’s spread a positive message.” And they were so smart and brilliant and unique. But these people that were coming from advertising, that were used to sell spaghettis, or pop sodas, or whatever, they changed the history of a country.

The Social Network portrayed jilted Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin as a victim. His character portrayed by The Amazing Spiderman‘s Andrew Garfield was trying his best to implement profitable strategies at the startup while Jesse Eisenberg‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Timberlake‘s Sean Parker partied their way to not-so-accidental success. Now, with 2% of the company heading into an IPO that could be valued near $100 million, Saverin is about to have enough money to maintain his partying ways in Singapore.

While Zuckerberg is often spotted walking his dog or driving his Acura, Saverin is a Singapore playboy, Bentley and all. Since 2009 when he moved to Singapore full time as an investor, the man portrayed as somewhat shy and clearly business-oriented has been best known for running up tens of thousands of dollars in bar tabs at clubs. His entry into the city-state had been seen as an avenue to jumpstart the tech startup goals that have been floundering for a decade.

“Eduardo doesn’t invest in much. He doesn’t invest in Singapore companies,” grouses John Fearon, CEO of Singapore start-ups dropmysite.com and dropmyemail.com. “He doesn’t set up his stall and say, ‘come to me’ for investment.”

The other component of his notoriety in the area is a  penchant for skipping out on speaking obligations at the last minute. He was scheduled to judge startup pitches at Echelon 2011 but sent a text message hours before he was supposed to be on stage. It’s not the only report of cancellations at the 11th hour.

He has been relatively aloof with the media over the years which may be one of the reasons he went to tabloid-unfriendly Singapore in the first place.

And I was so charmed by Garfield in The Social Network. (Full disclosure, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher are formidable.) Posing the question, once again, on the influence of films on the perception of real-life people and events. TSN also didn’t mention that Parker’s more recent claim to fame is his aggressive philanthropy tactics. 

Who’s the real (empty) party boy?

And is everything really “good guys vs. bad guys” anyway?

And so, ironically, we come back to the last lines of TSN:

You’re not an asshole, Mark. You’re just trying so hard to be.

End of story. Maybe. Not really.