Gender, villainy, and life through a lens
OR "things black_eyedgirl has seen recently, and what she thought".
We (the brothers, Dad, and me), went to see The Dark Knight today. Brother2 was really looking forward to it. I was quite excited, but I preferred Superman Returns to Batman Begins, so it was a surprise to me that I liked this so much. (Though it's a dark movie and pushes the boundaries of 12A). On the way home, Brother2 and I pondered the fact that we can't really put ourselves in the place of 'the average moviegoer'. We both assumed that Harvey Dent's identity was common knowledge as part of the canon, but this was apparently not the case. Of course, then I started thinking about 'the average moviegoer' and how there's really no such thing. We all bring something into the cinema with us and we all interrogate the text from our own perspective ;) My perspective is one of a bisexual female, so mostly I notice the girls and I notice the queer. If there happens to be Irish people I'll notice that, but otherwise it often takes smarter people to point me at the race issues. I'm a liberal who fears authoritarian tendencies and also believes that the minimum a central government should offer is free and adequate health-care and education. So I notice right-wing bias, less so the left.
But I also tend to squee before I criticise when it's the stuff I love, so without recent metafandom posts there's a reasonable chance I wouldn't be pondering these movies/shows at all.
I would really, really like a decent Wonder Woman movie. I have high hopes the new animated one will be good. I like heroines, I like girls and women in all their glory, kicking ass and raising kids, sometimes all at once.
But I still liked The Dark Knight, and Dr Horrible. And Wall-E, though it pains me that Pixar have never made a female led film. Also that I hadn't really noticed. I still think Eve is a good female character, and it doesn't bother me if anyone wants to examine the film through a queer lens. It's a love story between two robots, and a love letter to space and to the world, and one of the best films I've seen in ages.
The Dark Knight is also one of the best films I've seen in a while, but you're going to have a job convincing me that it has a strong female character. Rachel gets to scream and die, and in the meantime she's the catalyst for Batman and Harvey to act. There's an extent to which that doesn't differ too much from what Penny does. But it felt different to me, and I'm not sure whether it was for sensible reasons or not. There is the possibility that it's just because one was Joss, and one wasn't. Or because I wasn't warned for Dr Horrible, but avoiding the Dark Knight spoiler was impossible. Except I think it's maybe because there was room for Rachel to be more, and she wasn't allowed to be. Dr Horrible had 45mins, and the only character who really gets fleshed out is Billy. I loved Penny, and felt her death pretty strongly, but I think the nature of Dr Horrible meant that we got hints of her more than anything stronger. Whereas in The Dark Knight there are two movies worth of space for character development. Space that was put to excellent use for the male characters. Bruce/Batman, Harvey Dent, the Joker and Jim Gordon all exist fully formed. They have real reasons for acting as they do, outside their romantic relationships or the need to move the lead character somewhere else. I can think of things to say about all of them - not necessarily good things - but information about their motivations. And in contrast most of Rachel seems tied up in the fact that the Joker used her to move Harvey and Batman where he wanted them. It just seems insufficient. But feel free to argue.
Heath Ledger's Joker kind of reminded me of Dr Horrible actually. In a compare-contrast kind of way. The Joker burns the money because he's not in it for that, which is like Dr Horrible's thing with the gold: 'It's not about making money, it's about taking money'. Joker is a force of chaos and he 'wants to watch the world burn'. Billy, of course, says he wants a new order: 'anarchy, that I run'. It's just that the Joker actually means it, as much as he means anything he says. He's insane, and Billy's not. If Joss is writing the descent into villainy, it's not the descent into a villain like the Joker. Billy's closer to Two-Face - when he finally snaps and takes violence seriously, it's because of loss, not just a desire to stab/burn/explode things. Billy talks like the Joker but he's much too careful and much less random to have him as a serious model. There are other points to be made here but mostly I'm babbling. I wrote this post in my head in the car home and it's 5 hours later now!
I should observe at this point that I did really like The Dark Knight. I like Bale's Batman (and his Bruce) very much. There's a moment where he's standing on a roof listening to radio noise that reminded me of Brandon Routh's Superman hanging above the earth listening for cries for help, and it made me wish for a good Superman/Batman movie. Heath Ledger's Joker draws every eye to him. It's a crying shame that Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is going to be overlooked because of that. And Gary Oldman is phenomenal as James Gordon.
This is what puzzles me. I think there is some part of my brain that thinks good female characters is one tick-mark on a checklist, not a base level. It's a plus-point, like sharp dialogue, or shiny cinematography. When I think maybe it should be on the same list as coherent plot and 'in some way believable characterisation'. *sighs* I'm such a bad feminist.
OTOH:
Wherein I will write at least one het and at least one femslash this time around. Poke me if it gets to the weekend and I haven't! Yell if there's anything in particular you'd like to see me write :)
We (the brothers, Dad, and me), went to see The Dark Knight today. Brother2 was really looking forward to it. I was quite excited, but I preferred Superman Returns to Batman Begins, so it was a surprise to me that I liked this so much. (Though it's a dark movie and pushes the boundaries of 12A). On the way home, Brother2 and I pondered the fact that we can't really put ourselves in the place of 'the average moviegoer'. We both assumed that Harvey Dent's identity was common knowledge as part of the canon, but this was apparently not the case. Of course, then I started thinking about 'the average moviegoer' and how there's really no such thing. We all bring something into the cinema with us and we all interrogate the text from our own perspective ;) My perspective is one of a bisexual female, so mostly I notice the girls and I notice the queer. If there happens to be Irish people I'll notice that, but otherwise it often takes smarter people to point me at the race issues. I'm a liberal who fears authoritarian tendencies and also believes that the minimum a central government should offer is free and adequate health-care and education. So I notice right-wing bias, less so the left.
But I also tend to squee before I criticise when it's the stuff I love, so without recent metafandom posts there's a reasonable chance I wouldn't be pondering these movies/shows at all.
I would really, really like a decent Wonder Woman movie. I have high hopes the new animated one will be good. I like heroines, I like girls and women in all their glory, kicking ass and raising kids, sometimes all at once.
But I still liked The Dark Knight, and Dr Horrible. And Wall-E, though it pains me that Pixar have never made a female led film. Also that I hadn't really noticed. I still think Eve is a good female character, and it doesn't bother me if anyone wants to examine the film through a queer lens. It's a love story between two robots, and a love letter to space and to the world, and one of the best films I've seen in ages.
The Dark Knight is also one of the best films I've seen in a while, but you're going to have a job convincing me that it has a strong female character. Rachel gets to scream and die, and in the meantime she's the catalyst for Batman and Harvey to act. There's an extent to which that doesn't differ too much from what Penny does. But it felt different to me, and I'm not sure whether it was for sensible reasons or not. There is the possibility that it's just because one was Joss, and one wasn't. Or because I wasn't warned for Dr Horrible, but avoiding the Dark Knight spoiler was impossible. Except I think it's maybe because there was room for Rachel to be more, and she wasn't allowed to be. Dr Horrible had 45mins, and the only character who really gets fleshed out is Billy. I loved Penny, and felt her death pretty strongly, but I think the nature of Dr Horrible meant that we got hints of her more than anything stronger. Whereas in The Dark Knight there are two movies worth of space for character development. Space that was put to excellent use for the male characters. Bruce/Batman, Harvey Dent, the Joker and Jim Gordon all exist fully formed. They have real reasons for acting as they do, outside their romantic relationships or the need to move the lead character somewhere else. I can think of things to say about all of them - not necessarily good things - but information about their motivations. And in contrast most of Rachel seems tied up in the fact that the Joker used her to move Harvey and Batman where he wanted them. It just seems insufficient. But feel free to argue.
Heath Ledger's Joker kind of reminded me of Dr Horrible actually. In a compare-contrast kind of way. The Joker burns the money because he's not in it for that, which is like Dr Horrible's thing with the gold: 'It's not about making money, it's about taking money'. Joker is a force of chaos and he 'wants to watch the world burn'. Billy, of course, says he wants a new order: 'anarchy, that I run'. It's just that the Joker actually means it, as much as he means anything he says. He's insane, and Billy's not. If Joss is writing the descent into villainy, it's not the descent into a villain like the Joker. Billy's closer to Two-Face - when he finally snaps and takes violence seriously, it's because of loss, not just a desire to stab/burn/explode things. Billy talks like the Joker but he's much too careful and much less random to have him as a serious model. There are other points to be made here but mostly I'm babbling. I wrote this post in my head in the car home and it's 5 hours later now!
I should observe at this point that I did really like The Dark Knight. I like Bale's Batman (and his Bruce) very much. There's a moment where he's standing on a roof listening to radio noise that reminded me of Brandon Routh's Superman hanging above the earth listening for cries for help, and it made me wish for a good Superman/Batman movie. Heath Ledger's Joker draws every eye to him. It's a crying shame that Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent is going to be overlooked because of that. And Gary Oldman is phenomenal as James Gordon.
This is what puzzles me. I think there is some part of my brain that thinks good female characters is one tick-mark on a checklist, not a base level. It's a plus-point, like sharp dialogue, or shiny cinematography. When I think maybe it should be on the same list as coherent plot and 'in some way believable characterisation'. *sighs* I'm such a bad feminist.
OTOH:
Wherein I will write at least one het and at least one femslash this time around. Poke me if it gets to the weekend and I haven't! Yell if there's anything in particular you'd like to see me write :)