So, the A-Team movie...
I have wildly mixed feelings about this movie. On the one hand, it was entertaining and there were several bits that made me laugh out loud. On the other hand, there were two things that kind of put me off wanting to see it again, however much I enjoyed myself at the time.
First off, my god but action movies are full of men. (Full of white people, too.) There was really only one woman in the movie. Oh, sure there were some in the background here and there, and a secretary and a damsel in distress, but when you have seven men of importance and only one woman of importance, that's just a wee bit slanted. I realize part of that is inherent in remaking a TV show that was about four guys, and that this is hardly the only movie or story to suffer from a decided gender slant, but I'm having more and more trouble accepting that. Also, this one was just somehow that much more blatant in its, er...men-ness. I think part of it was that, with the exception of the important woman, all the women who appeared on screen were in very sexistly gender appropriate roles.*
The other problem is a little more complicated. Halfway through the movie, B.A. (the character played on TV by Mr. T and in the movie by Quinton Jackson) decides he can't kill any one anymore. Even though he specifies that he can't kill, it's treated more as a vow of total (well, personally speaking, anyway) pacifism, period, and in one scene after that, he doesn't fight back against one of the bad guys in a physical confrontation. Really, movie? Even role-playing games grasp that there are degrees of pacifism. He's willing to go along with the group's plans which are not, in sum, non-violent, but he won't fight back in a brawl? I'm not even sure what kind of pacifism that is. (Though it does put me in mind of the role playing sort. You know, where one member of the party is a pacifist, but everyone else is slaughtering orcs with reckless abandon.) Naturally, his unwillingness to fight has to be countered and he decides to not only fight but kill in the climactic battle. (In fact, he kills the same person he didn't fight back against earlier. Who is also the villain audiences are most likely to want very dead.)
As someone who struggles with really loving the adventure genre and really having a problem with the glorification of violence and the treatment of violence as the only solution to problems, this drove me absolutely nuts. We couldn't have him be unwilling to kill but willing to fight? Really? WHY NOT!? Given that one of the bad guys was a raging psycho with no loyalty to anyone who was big on killing, having the good guys decide not to be killers could have been really awesome. What a wasted opportunity. Especially when you're dealing with a group that comes up with off-the-wall creative plans. They wouldn't have to renounce violence, but it would have been really interesting if they'd decided not to kill in the final show-down.
I suppose I'm asking for way too much from a brainless popcorn movie. But couldn't the movie have just not brought up the whole pacifism thing if it was going to go the violence is awesome route anyway? I know that kind of story line was popular in '80s shows, but do we have to push the view that there is only one way to fight and that being willing to fight is inherently being willing to kill?
Can I have an equally awesome team that "specializes in the ridiculous" that has women (and more than one non-white person) in it? One that is willing to fight but doesn't set out to kill their enemies? I would love that so much.
*Another reason why the lack of women may have stuck out really badly to me right now is that I've been reading Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novels. Which are about a mixed-gender group of soldiers. Actually, most of the cheesy military space fantasy books I've read at work lately have featured mixed-gender groups of soldiers. I hope some day reality does catch up.
First off, my god but action movies are full of men. (Full of white people, too.) There was really only one woman in the movie. Oh, sure there were some in the background here and there, and a secretary and a damsel in distress, but when you have seven men of importance and only one woman of importance, that's just a wee bit slanted. I realize part of that is inherent in remaking a TV show that was about four guys, and that this is hardly the only movie or story to suffer from a decided gender slant, but I'm having more and more trouble accepting that. Also, this one was just somehow that much more blatant in its, er...men-ness. I think part of it was that, with the exception of the important woman, all the women who appeared on screen were in very sexistly gender appropriate roles.*
The other problem is a little more complicated. Halfway through the movie, B.A. (the character played on TV by Mr. T and in the movie by Quinton Jackson) decides he can't kill any one anymore. Even though he specifies that he can't kill, it's treated more as a vow of total (well, personally speaking, anyway) pacifism, period, and in one scene after that, he doesn't fight back against one of the bad guys in a physical confrontation. Really, movie? Even role-playing games grasp that there are degrees of pacifism. He's willing to go along with the group's plans which are not, in sum, non-violent, but he won't fight back in a brawl? I'm not even sure what kind of pacifism that is. (Though it does put me in mind of the role playing sort. You know, where one member of the party is a pacifist, but everyone else is slaughtering orcs with reckless abandon.) Naturally, his unwillingness to fight has to be countered and he decides to not only fight but kill in the climactic battle. (In fact, he kills the same person he didn't fight back against earlier. Who is also the villain audiences are most likely to want very dead.)
As someone who struggles with really loving the adventure genre and really having a problem with the glorification of violence and the treatment of violence as the only solution to problems, this drove me absolutely nuts. We couldn't have him be unwilling to kill but willing to fight? Really? WHY NOT!? Given that one of the bad guys was a raging psycho with no loyalty to anyone who was big on killing, having the good guys decide not to be killers could have been really awesome. What a wasted opportunity. Especially when you're dealing with a group that comes up with off-the-wall creative plans. They wouldn't have to renounce violence, but it would have been really interesting if they'd decided not to kill in the final show-down.
I suppose I'm asking for way too much from a brainless popcorn movie. But couldn't the movie have just not brought up the whole pacifism thing if it was going to go the violence is awesome route anyway? I know that kind of story line was popular in '80s shows, but do we have to push the view that there is only one way to fight and that being willing to fight is inherently being willing to kill?
Can I have an equally awesome team that "specializes in the ridiculous" that has women (and more than one non-white person) in it? One that is willing to fight but doesn't set out to kill their enemies? I would love that so much.
*Another reason why the lack of women may have stuck out really badly to me right now is that I've been reading Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novels. Which are about a mixed-gender group of soldiers. Actually, most of the cheesy military space fantasy books I've read at work lately have featured mixed-gender groups of soldiers. I hope some day reality does catch up.