#1
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
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
"The gods who nurse this universe think little of mortals' cares. They sit in crowds on exclusive clouds and laugh at our love affairs. I might have had a real romance if they'd given me a chance. I loved him, but he didn't love me. I wanted him, but he didn't want me. Then the gods had a spree and indulged in another whim. Now he loves me, but I don't love him." - Cole Porter
Updated On: 4/8/11 at 01:03 PM
