Is Sucker Punch just a male fantasy or something more?

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 4/8/11 at 1:03pm

There seem to be about three main camps online when it comes to takes on this movie: people who think that it's just another action movie where the female characters are defined by how hot they look kicking ass, those who argue that it's actually a deconstruction of geek culture's attitude toward women and the myriad of ways that women are objectified in pop culture, and those who believe that second take is correct, but that Zack Snyder fails in the execution of what he set out to do. I haven't seen the movie yet, but all of the discussion about it has me sort of interested to see it.



"As mentioned earlier, the content of those images—fetish wardrobe, military gunporn, sci-fi and fantasy clichés—aren't organic to Baby Doll's character. They're not organic to any of the film's characters; they're being imposed from the outside, and they're the implied and assumed desires of the film's target audience. When the audience in the brothel sits and watches a sexy dance, the audience in the movie theater sits and watches a frenetic, fetishized action sequence. Like the nested sets that appear on the stage of the asylum/brothel, Emily Browning is Baby Doll is Sucker Punch, working to perform for the pleasure of the audience and to mesmerize that audience with an illusion—and when that illusion breaks, it inspires alienation and even revulsion in an audience that begins to question what it sees.

It's one of the first things that Sweet Pea announces: "Don't you get the point of this? It's to turn people on. I get the sexy little schoolgirl. I even get the helpless mental patient; that can be hot. But what is this? Lobotomized vegetable? How about something a little more commercial, for God's sake?" Because of all the stylistic and narrative roadblocks thrown up between the audience and the characters, it's nearly impossible to identify with them as "real" people. This leaves only one significant way to identify with anything in the film: the act of watching a spectacle.

This is how Sucker Punch implicates the audience that watches it; in the film, the people who are doing the same thing that we're doing are a parade of predatory men and powerless women. The satire resides here, in that the reviews that claim these images represent false empowerment are merely repeating what the film is already saying."

Sucker Punch and the Fetishized Image

Updated On: 4/8/11 at 01:03 PM

[strummergirl]

Posted: 4/8/11 at 11:36pm

I saw it. I hated it to the point I would rather see Snyder's previous low moment of the Silk Spectre and Nite Owl sex scene with Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah in Watchmen playing on a loop than watch it again.

I would not give Zack Snyder that much credit ever. I just feel like he believed he could have it both ways except it is a lot easier to have girls look like a sex object than really see into Baby Doll's mind or figure out why she sees things that look like a vomitorium of ideas from a survey at Comic-Con. What cliches? They are just objects that are just there with no purpose except to waste time. The only cliche was the whole set-up which had its simplicity capped with way too many shiny trinkets to really even care. Showgirls has a much better case as a social satire, and that is not a compliment to either film.

I do not think Snyder was making a statement when he does not let us see Baby Doll dance when instead he makes us watcher her fight random stuff until she stops dancing. He probably had no time for choreographers much less reading up on psychology textbooks to explain Baby Doll than show his strengths as a visual artiste.

The film is a lot less entertaining (and thoughtful) than all of this internet attention it garnered. Even the fight scenes are redundant to pointless and the film's ugly color palate really takes away from the good CGI. Why Jon Hamm, Carla Gugino, Jena Malone, and Abbey Cornish wasted their time on this dreck only makes me wonder if any of them got a handsome paycheck at least.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 4/9/11 at 4:03am

I enjoyed it tremendously... but I can see why people hated it and have no problem with them hating it... I'm a sucker (pun intended.. haha) for these types of movies

[BwayTday]

Posted: 4/9/11 at 4:51am

I haven't seen it, and I have no interest to. I saw the trailer in the theater and I was thinking it looked interesting and then it turned into a lot of "what the hell?" moments. Somewhere between the main character dropping into a volcano/magma/something and it being called "Sucker Punch". I guess it's just not my kind of movie.