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Zack Snyder should be Sucker Punched
Apr. 9th, 2011 08:53 amI'm not some rabid militant feminist who gets her panties in a wad every time a woman is naked on screen, or every time a woman is portrayed as something less than wonder woman. The "Big Guns Big Tits" comic book world doesn't bug me.
However, I don't think you have to be an easily offended militant feminist to realize that "Sucker Punch" is a highly offensive, highly inappropriate sexist piece of tripe.
It starts with an an attempted rape or a young woman by her step father. Best part? The song "Sweet Dreams are Made of These" and the lyrics "Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused." playing over and over and over again, on a loop. All ready this is highly insensitive and inappropriate.
Then her stepfather puts her in an asylum. It's clear off the bat that the women in the asylum are being sexually taken advantage of. And our heroine, in a tight fitting short skimpy sexy asylum garb, fulfilling some kind of helpless inmate rape doll fantasy, is lead in schoolgirl pigtails to be victimized.
She then escapes into a fantasy world where she's a stripper and a prostitute.... uh.... ok. She and her friends, all with sexually derogatory names like "Babydoll" and "Sweetpea" and "Blondie" dance almost naked for clients, and are again brutally sexually abused by the pimp/owner.
They try to escape the asylum/whorehouse by escaping into yet another fantasy world, where they are powerful super heroes. If "powerful superheros" means "Putting on a sexy Catholic Schoolgirl fetish stripper outfit and waving weapons around, making sure everyone in the audience gets a look at your panties in the process."
So, not only is the victimization of women sexualized, but the even any kind of female empowerment is only something to be used for a visual sexual thrill. Whether they're victims or "empowered' they're still just sex objects.
Now, for a while I was like "Maybe this is intentional. Maybe this is a kitschy tongue-in-cheek harkback to old time sexual exploitation movies. Maybe he's doing a Russ Meyer "Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!" kind of homage. There's no way any sentient being can't see that this is in horribly bad taste. Maybe it's bad taste of bad taste's sake. I can be down with that! No such luck.
Even if it wasn't offensive, the "fantasy within a fantasy within a fantasy" thing is trite and contrived at best. The symbolic representations of elements of the real world in the fantasy worlds are barely on a High School English level, the dialogue and acting are a joke, and the spectacular visuals are just fancy window dressing in a turd.
Then I remember that Snyder also turned The Comedian's attempted rape of Sally Jupiter from a one page punch then return then attempted clothing removal to a several minute long sequence of Sally being brutally beaten. And I think, maybe Snyder is just someone who should probably need to register with the police and make the neighborhood sign a piece of paper saying they know he's there whenever he moves.
Seriously... this is messed up.
However, I don't think you have to be an easily offended militant feminist to realize that "Sucker Punch" is a highly offensive, highly inappropriate sexist piece of tripe.
It starts with an an attempted rape or a young woman by her step father. Best part? The song "Sweet Dreams are Made of These" and the lyrics "Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused." playing over and over and over again, on a loop. All ready this is highly insensitive and inappropriate.
Then her stepfather puts her in an asylum. It's clear off the bat that the women in the asylum are being sexually taken advantage of. And our heroine, in a tight fitting short skimpy sexy asylum garb, fulfilling some kind of helpless inmate rape doll fantasy, is lead in schoolgirl pigtails to be victimized.
She then escapes into a fantasy world where she's a stripper and a prostitute.... uh.... ok. She and her friends, all with sexually derogatory names like "Babydoll" and "Sweetpea" and "Blondie" dance almost naked for clients, and are again brutally sexually abused by the pimp/owner.
They try to escape the asylum/whorehouse by escaping into yet another fantasy world, where they are powerful super heroes. If "powerful superheros" means "Putting on a sexy Catholic Schoolgirl fetish stripper outfit and waving weapons around, making sure everyone in the audience gets a look at your panties in the process."
So, not only is the victimization of women sexualized, but the even any kind of female empowerment is only something to be used for a visual sexual thrill. Whether they're victims or "empowered' they're still just sex objects.
Now, for a while I was like "Maybe this is intentional. Maybe this is a kitschy tongue-in-cheek harkback to old time sexual exploitation movies. Maybe he's doing a Russ Meyer "Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!" kind of homage. There's no way any sentient being can't see that this is in horribly bad taste. Maybe it's bad taste of bad taste's sake. I can be down with that! No such luck.
Even if it wasn't offensive, the "fantasy within a fantasy within a fantasy" thing is trite and contrived at best. The symbolic representations of elements of the real world in the fantasy worlds are barely on a High School English level, the dialogue and acting are a joke, and the spectacular visuals are just fancy window dressing in a turd.
Then I remember that Snyder also turned The Comedian's attempted rape of Sally Jupiter from a one page punch then return then attempted clothing removal to a several minute long sequence of Sally being brutally beaten. And I think, maybe Snyder is just someone who should probably need to register with the police and make the neighborhood sign a piece of paper saying they know he's there whenever he moves.
Seriously... this is messed up.
