Saw Sin City a week ago with
It’s a very stylish movie, with some good acting, lots of action, pretty scenery, an interesting, if not intriguing plot, and a dark, totally corrupt setting. I have to admit, my brain was hung up on the rampant sexist themes throughout the movie. Well, that and the near maximally misanthropic view of humanity. The men are all violent. Even the “good” guys. All the people in positions of authority are corrupt. The only non-hooker female in the whole movie is a lesbian, and dies quickly. Even the most competent women are incapable of stopping, or even slowing down, the major good or bad guys who are, of course, male, without a male lead on their side. Two of the three protagonists bite it. (Along with a slew of bad guys). All the chicks are hot (according to my internalized social judgement engine).
Veris-uh-what-itude? If this thing weren’t so over the top absurd, it might be scary. (I think that was the intent) They play it serious, and it comes out as entertaining, and not entirely in a laugh at sort of way.
This sort of thing is probably where my rural relatives get their impressions of the metropolitan areas that scare them so much.
All in all, entertaining to watch … unless you’re sensitive to social realism in fantastic settings. =) And even then, I enjoyed it, even if I wouldn’t really recommend it.
I saw it last night. I thought it was lovely, like so many movies that play with color like that, but I felt like the movie was a good bit longer than it needed to be.
The only non-hooker female in the whole movie is a lesbian, and dies quickly.
Well, now, that’s not fair. Nancy’s not a hooker.
It’s true. There are two females that I believe are not explicitly hookers, Shellie and Nancy, the waitress and the exotic dancer. (Miho may also simply work for hookers and not be one herself, though there’s no real basis for that belief, I suppose). Forgive me if I view those roles as less than empowering.
Miho is probably the most empowered female in the movie to my mind. And she’s pretty cool in that hyperviolent sort of way. =)
I think you are TOTALLY wrong about Nancy.
No, I’m not kidding. Yes, she’s an exotic dancer. She’s also a college student in criminal justice, and “she grew up strong”.
She was abducted and terrorized at a young age, and then on top of that had people tell her her truth was not truth: that she was more of a victim than she was, that she didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t, that her life would be over if she believed what she knew to be true. She believed it anyway, refused to let them take away her truth, her reality, her sexuality (what if she’d come to believe that she had been raped? *shudder*). She loved inappropriately and didn’t care what anyone thought, and she didn’t take crap from people. Yes, she relied a lot on men for help, but they also relied on her.
Forgive me if I don’t see her as just an exotic dancer with no empowerment.
You have a perfectly valid read of the situation. But my own biases are that hooking isn’t some horrific thing. And, incidentally, that death is far worse than rape. To me, the difference between hooking and exotic dancing isn’t so dramatic, because both are perfectly acceptable service sector work. I don’t view prostitution as any more disempowering than I view secretarial labor, or any other cube farm job. Prostitutes just get alot more shit from society.
What makes me think of her as a victim is that she is treated as such by the yellow bastard. Not screaming when in great pain is a certain kind of strength. But it is undeniably a different from the sort of power exercised by the male characters.
Growing up with such a strong sense of self, of truth and fiction in that universe is remarkable. But the whole scenario reminds me a bit out of a scene from the graphic novel, Y:
You have a bunch of women at the washington monument, where they’ve set up a shrine to the departed men. 4(?) death-to-men chicks with weapons show up, start defacing shit, and there’s mere muttering against them. The last man on earth reveals himself, the 4 chicks with weapons start threatening him, and the *entire crowd* of women RUNS AWAY.
Hello, what? Last Man on Earth. These ladies were there to pay their respects to the owners of the Y chromosome; the last one left is being threatened by psychos, and they run away? Maybe I got to know a very special portion of the female better-than-half of the species, but it seems to me that at least half the ladies I know would stand up to the psychos, with force if need be.
And while the unconscious, pistolwhipped protagonist guy can’t be effectively tied up by a woman who specializes in such, our tough young lady can’t take action beyond not-screaming, and waiting for her dying rescuer, while being tortured by a twisted wreck of a human being.
I’m not saying she’s powerless, but I’m saying there’s a huge gulf between the sexes in terms of the power of the characters in the film. There are no kidnapped guys. There are no rescuing women. And only the Dwight & Miho section is roughly mutual in that regard. My take is that it’s a damsel in distress scenario with a different graphics layer on top of it. Mob bosses instead of ogres. Corrupt politicians instead of dragons. Hard boiled detective types, instead of knights in shining armor.
This: There are two females that I believe are not explicitly hookers, Shellie and Nancy, the waitress and the exotic dancer. (Miho may also simply work for hookers and not be one herself, though there’s no real basis for that belief, I suppose). Forgive me if I view those roles as less than empowering. certainly sounds like you are viewing those particular roles (hooking, waitressing, and dancing) as non-empowered by default.
I’m not disputing that there’s a sex-based power gulf in the movie, but I think I am also seeing things in it that you are not: for example, that Nancy’s assistance to both Hartigan and Marv was crucial and valuable; that even though Lucille was gunned down trying to be a rescuer, that doesn’t mean she didn’t try. (And Miho, by the by, hardly acted alone — you did notice all the other women with guns in that segment, didn’t you?)
It also seems to me that you don’t see Nancy’s resistance to Rourk Jr as meaningful, which is odd. I don’t understand it at all. I almost feel like there is a gender gulf at play here: you think only active physical rescuing and resistance counts as strength, and I think there are other strengths to be discussed.
Well, I’ll point out that Nancy isn’t the only one who faced trials of endurance. Marv’s refusal to confess to Kevin’s crimes, until threatened with harm to Wendy, and Hartigan’s time in solitary spring to mind.
Note that I said “I don’t view prostitution as any more disempowering than I view secretarial labor, or any other cube farm job.” I don’t view secretarial labor or “cube farm jobs” as terribly empowering to begin with. I’d actually say that prostitution can be more empowering for the independents, and distinctly disempowering for those with pimps.
There are no pimps for the prostitutes. The dancer is there by choice. Maybe you’re right, maybe they’re not disempowered women. But they all have jobs where they give individuals (men) something the men want in return for a fee or a tip. Compared to cops, psychos, thugs, a senator, and a priest. Further, the lack of females in any other role makes one wonder just how much of a choice it was. The waitress and her caving to her not-boyfriend may not be so conciliatory-by-nature when you consider his special status as a cop, but she’s still clearly a victim in that relationship.
In terms of killing the people in the car, miho did that one on her own. In terms of mowing down the mobsters, that was started off by Dwight, and the bomb. And it’s dependent on Dwight to take care of the bodies. Dwight who comes up with the idea to dump them in the tar pits. In a sensible scenario, I’d think they’d have sent some protection along, closer behind for such a sensitive mission.
I mean, I really felt this movie presented a strong “women as ineffectual or passive victims, men as killers” theme. Not a 100% consistent motif, but still undeniably present. And it was a turn off for me.
I’d say a secondary theme was that the good guys can take it and dish it out, while the bad guys only dish it out. But I didn’t really think of that one until your comments about Nancy and Roark.
I didn’t really think about it that way to be honest. I didn’t think much at all about the non-physical strengths, so you may be spot on, though when I did consider what you were saying, Marv’s & Hardigan’s endurance trials came to mind readily enough.
I was thinking that the movie glorified certain things (actions, powers, resistances) more than others. Whether it was the movie or something more internal is an interesting question.
In terms of the real world, I’d like to believe the bigger powers are understanding and building. Science & engineering, if you will. Nancy would definitely win on that front. But in the movie her education was a throw away line. We weren’t treated to a several minute digression into her college experiences.
The brainwashing they tried to inflict on her received similar treatment. You’re right, it is an important strength to stay sane, but it wasn’t a strength emphasized in the movie. And my criticism of the movie is that it was presenting and dwelling on the characterizations I’ve previously made. Which makes it true to the comic book (from what I hear), and a strongly and consistently themed movie, but not a great movie to my mind.
I’ve been trying to frame various responses to this, because I keep thinking that you’re wrong about what you see as anti-feminist things in the film. I still think you’re devaluing some of the particular strengths of the female characters in favor of outright asskicking, and I think you’re responding to the violence of the men in a positive way, where I see it as negative.
As I was scrabbling to say this – I still am, since I can’t make my own feelings gel in my own words – posted this, which is not exactly what I wanted to say, but it contains some of the same points.
Alas, the post in question is locked. I would be quite interested to read it, but whatchya gonna do? =)
Rar. It wasn’t locked when I posted the link; I double-checked. I guess she forgot to lock it at first & went back & did so. I’ll ask her if I can quote any of it to you.