SUCKER PUNCH: the obligatory haphazard reaction post
Sucker Punch is not the movie for everyone. It's probably not the movie for most people on my flist, and that's totally okay. I don't think anyone can deny that it's triggery (for some people- oddly enough, not at all for me) or that the highly stylized fight scenes are for everyone.
For me it was amazing.
[ETA: Um, wow, this is long. It didn't seem that long when I was muttering to myself. Sorry, y'all. TL,DR: I found this movie surprisingly non-exploitative and pro-feminist, and also there are explosions!]
I should note here that I'm somewhat biased, because from the first lines, the film hinged on one of my favorite tropes- the same trope that makes reality TV fascinating to me and makes me cranky whenever I see a one-dimensional character anywhere. The idea that we don't control our reality, but we DO control our own narrative, is one of my pet fascinations, and it's also the movie's core. But more on that in a bit.
I feel like I need to see this ten million more times to have any type of coherent response, but I loved it. The characters were broadly sketched, but they were sympathetic and managed to avoid feeling too stock for me. I admit I had a hard time remembering names (I was basically identifying them as Rocket, Amber, Baby Doll, "the one who looks kind of like Katie Heigl in Roswell," and "Vanessa?") and couldn't tell a lot of the slimy men apart. But that was kind of the point, wasn't it?
The movie actually went LESS exploitative than I had expected, going by the previews and the reviews I'd read so far. I expected the film's gaze to be objectifying, simultaneously condemning and engaging in the same practices. It wasn't. The text explicitly calls out anyone finding the mental institution scenes in any way attractive. The outfits in the fight scenes are pretty revealing, yes, but I don't really see why this is too much. I don't see where the line would be drawn that this crosses and 90% of other movies don't. These women were made into sex objects by others (in the institution and then in the brothel), and how others see you influences how you see yourself. The difference here was that, even though the fight outfits were MORE revealing than the dance ones, no one was objectifying them in the fight scenes. They were just trying to kill them.
Throughout the movie, we saw amazingly choreographed fighting a lot, but even though we knew they were rehearsing some type of routine, we never actually saw anyone dance at the club. We saw Sweet Pea demand they stop, we saw some of them stretching, and we saw Baby Doll get ready to dance and coming down from dancing- but every dance was actually the fighting. They may have been doing one thing with her in the "real" world, but her head was in a whole different place, and some of the things that happened happened in both locations, but some didn't. In other words, I would argue that the audience was essentially dissociating WITH Baby Doll, perceiving her reality. Like the men in the movie, I couldn't look away from her- but in the same way I can't look away from any action hero. They demand attention. They have a sword.
In each successive reality, Baby Doll has more agency. In her home and in the institution, we never even hear her speak- in fact, the only female voices we hear in that 'verse are Dr. Gorski and two patients in a fight. In the brothel reality, she has a voice, and she rescues Rocket from the rapist, but the men still objectify her, and she's still powerless under the gaze. We see her freezing up when they watch, but we don't see her really MOVE. When she's in the fight reality, though, she's completely graceful, as are the others. They're beautiful in their movements, and at least within the context of the movie they aren't eroticized at all for that. In the fightverse, she is in control of her voice and her body. In the brothelverse, she can use her voice and body, but they're under the restrictions placed on her by men. In the institution, she has to be dragged basically everywhere she goes, or else she follows docilely at the pace set by men- she isn't even choosing her walk.
The big question being debated- on my flist at least- is whether this entire movie was actually Sweetpea's story. And even though the last scene is Sweetpea on the train, because Babydoll said that it was her story and encouraged her to get free (with the institution!text specifically said happened there as well as in the brothelverse), I think it was still Babydoll's.
Specifically, I think that when she was lobotomized, and she was in "paradise"- her paradise was knowing that the other girl got away. The help she envisioned was making sure that someone was safe- someone whose sister was sexually assaulted and then murdered, someone who had been in the institution, but someone who had a stronger voice than she did (who was eventually able to speak in the instiutionverse, even!), and- more importantly- had someone to go back to. Baby Doll's mother was dead, her sister was dead at her hand, her stepfather was assaulting her- what did she have left? It was specifically pointed out multiple times that Sweet Pea had no problems with her family, but she left to protect her sister. Sweet Pea is who Baby Doll wanted to be.
You know the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ (movie, not book), where Dorothy wakes up and "you were there, and you, and you"? That was how I interpreted most people's presence in the brothelverse. We don't see any of Baby Doll's five days in the mental hospital before she gets lobotomized. It seems very likely to me that Rocket, Amber, and Blondie were other girls who were there, who were chosen as actors in the reality that Baby Doll was choosing to (or forced to) live out- very possibly during her therapy with Dr. Gorski in the theater, where they performed their histories and relived them.
Then, of course, there's the theater the movie STARTS with, the one that Baby Doll's bedroom is inside. Where they're performing the story of the patriarchy. THE ENTIRE MOVIE IS INSIDE ANOTHER 'VERSE. Which may or may not be the 'verse of us watching.
Whatever, dude, if Inception can be "whoa"-worthy, so can this.
As a side note, I've seen criticism of the voice of wisdom being a dude in this. And, well, that didn't actually bother me. Because THAT IS CULTURE. Especially when this movie seems to be taking place, but even today, we're taught that women have experience and knowledge in some areas, and men in others, and women's is NOT in fighting a giant war with explosions and dragons. Stereotypes get internalized, and when no one was fighting for them, it makes entire sense to me that their general in a war would be a dude.
(Although I'm still pissed at him for making them kill the dragon. IT WAS JUST A BABY. IT WOULDN'T HAVE HURT YOU. >:( I wanted the girls to adopt it and ride away on its back and then start a commune where no one got hurt and they just snuggled. With the dragon. I bet it would learn to fetch.)
I should note, incidentally, that I'm bad at reading action sequences- I never know what's going on- but one thing really stuck with me, besides the smooth movement and shiny weapons and also fire. It seemed to me that after an entire movie of being protected by Sweet Pea and Baby Doll, Rocket's final deaths (both when she sent her sister and Baby Doll away at the bomb in the fightverse and when the cook stabbed her) happened when she was protecting everyone. I really liked that- it was her mini-arc within the story. I'm not sure what Blondie's or Amber's storyline is, but I was so pleased to see non-major characters with actual narrative arcs. Because everyone has a story, and they control the narrative.
Incidentally, MINOR DETAIL THAT STRUCK ME: we never hear any of the girls cursing. In fact, we don't really hear them using damaging language at all. That all comes from men.
The one thing about this movie that really bothered me is, I think, the opposite of some people's criticisms: I felt like it was too clean. The movie did a gorgeous job of capturing the feeling of complete captivity, where there's no way out and no way to breathe. And they got out of the claustrophobia with lots of awesome action movie fights, which normally entertain me (and like I said, shiny weapons! fire! smooth movements! ALL AWESOME), but I wanted blood and messiness. I wanted that catharsis of really fighting to escape, and this didn't get deep enough for me. Gorgeous choreography, completely right for the way the rest of the film was done, but for me as an audience member, I wanted it to be less exact.
I think it's mostly that perfectly in control people break down is one of my big narrative buttons. This came damn close, but never quite hit it. For me, part of the movie's success would have been dissolving the perfect surface. There are many layers of perfect surface that get pushed away, but I wanted things to shatter, and I wanted to get to the nougat-y feminist center.
I'll forgive it, though, because there was an awesome soundtrack, zombie Nazis, and a FREAKING BABY DRAGON.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that Jamie Chung (who played Amber) was in the Real World. I mean, she was in the Real World once it started sucking, but still. As this is an actual movie which is not actual porn, I think this bumps her to basically the third most famous Real World alum, right after Judd Winick (comics) and Sean Duffy (congressman). Sorry, Trishelle, but you just got bumped down a place.
Cross-posted at http://fox1013.dreamwidth.org/48727.html. Comment wherever you feel more comfortable.
For me it was amazing.
[ETA: Um, wow, this is long. It didn't seem that long when I was muttering to myself. Sorry, y'all. TL,DR: I found this movie surprisingly non-exploitative and pro-feminist, and also there are explosions!]
I should note here that I'm somewhat biased, because from the first lines, the film hinged on one of my favorite tropes- the same trope that makes reality TV fascinating to me and makes me cranky whenever I see a one-dimensional character anywhere. The idea that we don't control our reality, but we DO control our own narrative, is one of my pet fascinations, and it's also the movie's core. But more on that in a bit.
I feel like I need to see this ten million more times to have any type of coherent response, but I loved it. The characters were broadly sketched, but they were sympathetic and managed to avoid feeling too stock for me. I admit I had a hard time remembering names (I was basically identifying them as Rocket, Amber, Baby Doll, "the one who looks kind of like Katie Heigl in Roswell," and "Vanessa?") and couldn't tell a lot of the slimy men apart. But that was kind of the point, wasn't it?
The movie actually went LESS exploitative than I had expected, going by the previews and the reviews I'd read so far. I expected the film's gaze to be objectifying, simultaneously condemning and engaging in the same practices. It wasn't. The text explicitly calls out anyone finding the mental institution scenes in any way attractive. The outfits in the fight scenes are pretty revealing, yes, but I don't really see why this is too much. I don't see where the line would be drawn that this crosses and 90% of other movies don't. These women were made into sex objects by others (in the institution and then in the brothel), and how others see you influences how you see yourself. The difference here was that, even though the fight outfits were MORE revealing than the dance ones, no one was objectifying them in the fight scenes. They were just trying to kill them.
Throughout the movie, we saw amazingly choreographed fighting a lot, but even though we knew they were rehearsing some type of routine, we never actually saw anyone dance at the club. We saw Sweet Pea demand they stop, we saw some of them stretching, and we saw Baby Doll get ready to dance and coming down from dancing- but every dance was actually the fighting. They may have been doing one thing with her in the "real" world, but her head was in a whole different place, and some of the things that happened happened in both locations, but some didn't. In other words, I would argue that the audience was essentially dissociating WITH Baby Doll, perceiving her reality. Like the men in the movie, I couldn't look away from her- but in the same way I can't look away from any action hero. They demand attention. They have a sword.
In each successive reality, Baby Doll has more agency. In her home and in the institution, we never even hear her speak- in fact, the only female voices we hear in that 'verse are Dr. Gorski and two patients in a fight. In the brothel reality, she has a voice, and she rescues Rocket from the rapist, but the men still objectify her, and she's still powerless under the gaze. We see her freezing up when they watch, but we don't see her really MOVE. When she's in the fight reality, though, she's completely graceful, as are the others. They're beautiful in their movements, and at least within the context of the movie they aren't eroticized at all for that. In the fightverse, she is in control of her voice and her body. In the brothelverse, she can use her voice and body, but they're under the restrictions placed on her by men. In the institution, she has to be dragged basically everywhere she goes, or else she follows docilely at the pace set by men- she isn't even choosing her walk.
The big question being debated- on my flist at least- is whether this entire movie was actually Sweetpea's story. And even though the last scene is Sweetpea on the train, because Babydoll said that it was her story and encouraged her to get free (with the institution!text specifically said happened there as well as in the brothelverse), I think it was still Babydoll's.
Specifically, I think that when she was lobotomized, and she was in "paradise"- her paradise was knowing that the other girl got away. The help she envisioned was making sure that someone was safe- someone whose sister was sexually assaulted and then murdered, someone who had been in the institution, but someone who had a stronger voice than she did (who was eventually able to speak in the instiutionverse, even!), and- more importantly- had someone to go back to. Baby Doll's mother was dead, her sister was dead at her hand, her stepfather was assaulting her- what did she have left? It was specifically pointed out multiple times that Sweet Pea had no problems with her family, but she left to protect her sister. Sweet Pea is who Baby Doll wanted to be.
You know the end of THE WIZARD OF OZ (movie, not book), where Dorothy wakes up and "you were there, and you, and you"? That was how I interpreted most people's presence in the brothelverse. We don't see any of Baby Doll's five days in the mental hospital before she gets lobotomized. It seems very likely to me that Rocket, Amber, and Blondie were other girls who were there, who were chosen as actors in the reality that Baby Doll was choosing to (or forced to) live out- very possibly during her therapy with Dr. Gorski in the theater, where they performed their histories and relived them.
Then, of course, there's the theater the movie STARTS with, the one that Baby Doll's bedroom is inside. Where they're performing the story of the patriarchy. THE ENTIRE MOVIE IS INSIDE ANOTHER 'VERSE. Which may or may not be the 'verse of us watching.
Whatever, dude, if Inception can be "whoa"-worthy, so can this.
As a side note, I've seen criticism of the voice of wisdom being a dude in this. And, well, that didn't actually bother me. Because THAT IS CULTURE. Especially when this movie seems to be taking place, but even today, we're taught that women have experience and knowledge in some areas, and men in others, and women's is NOT in fighting a giant war with explosions and dragons. Stereotypes get internalized, and when no one was fighting for them, it makes entire sense to me that their general in a war would be a dude.
(Although I'm still pissed at him for making them kill the dragon. IT WAS JUST A BABY. IT WOULDN'T HAVE HURT YOU. >:( I wanted the girls to adopt it and ride away on its back and then start a commune where no one got hurt and they just snuggled. With the dragon. I bet it would learn to fetch.)
I should note, incidentally, that I'm bad at reading action sequences- I never know what's going on- but one thing really stuck with me, besides the smooth movement and shiny weapons and also fire. It seemed to me that after an entire movie of being protected by Sweet Pea and Baby Doll, Rocket's final deaths (both when she sent her sister and Baby Doll away at the bomb in the fightverse and when the cook stabbed her) happened when she was protecting everyone. I really liked that- it was her mini-arc within the story. I'm not sure what Blondie's or Amber's storyline is, but I was so pleased to see non-major characters with actual narrative arcs. Because everyone has a story, and they control the narrative.
Incidentally, MINOR DETAIL THAT STRUCK ME: we never hear any of the girls cursing. In fact, we don't really hear them using damaging language at all. That all comes from men.
The one thing about this movie that really bothered me is, I think, the opposite of some people's criticisms: I felt like it was too clean. The movie did a gorgeous job of capturing the feeling of complete captivity, where there's no way out and no way to breathe. And they got out of the claustrophobia with lots of awesome action movie fights, which normally entertain me (and like I said, shiny weapons! fire! smooth movements! ALL AWESOME), but I wanted blood and messiness. I wanted that catharsis of really fighting to escape, and this didn't get deep enough for me. Gorgeous choreography, completely right for the way the rest of the film was done, but for me as an audience member, I wanted it to be less exact.
I think it's mostly that perfectly in control people break down is one of my big narrative buttons. This came damn close, but never quite hit it. For me, part of the movie's success would have been dissolving the perfect surface. There are many layers of perfect surface that get pushed away, but I wanted things to shatter, and I wanted to get to the nougat-y feminist center.
I'll forgive it, though, because there was an awesome soundtrack, zombie Nazis, and a FREAKING BABY DRAGON.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that Jamie Chung (who played Amber) was in the Real World. I mean, she was in the Real World once it started sucking, but still. As this is an actual movie which is not actual porn, I think this bumps her to basically the third most famous Real World alum, right after Judd Winick (comics) and Sean Duffy (congressman). Sorry, Trishelle, but you just got bumped down a place.
Cross-posted at http://fox1013.dreamwidth.org/48727.html. Comment wherever you feel more comfortable.