The Spirit has all kinds of shit wrong with it. According to these movie posters, Samuel L. Jackson apparently plays a gun-wielding, trench coat wearing badass, who most definitely takes an active role, probably killing people who made the unfortunate mistake of trying to face his power. On the other hand Eva Mendes plays … um … a woman, who … um … has a long neck and um … pretty lips … and um … she has been a very, very bad girl.
For a while, I thought Sin City and The Spirit were the same movie. Same marketing. Same brooding male action hero with a gun, risking his life in the rain for god’s sake. Same beautiful and, don’t forget, merciless woman who will obviously take people down with her tongue and her manipulative vagina. In the rain.
Yes, I realize these posters aren’t from the same film. But I believe they’re relevant to each other, in that these actors both star in these movies, and receive top billing. Also, the posters feature them both holding some seriously gigantic guns, and something tragic with America is probably occurring … flags, Las Vegas, extinction, “public enemies,” evil, etc. Yet we get Depp in a full suit, complete with trench coat, black leather gloves, and a hat, while Jovovich barely made it off the stripper pole in time to grab a couple of guns and destroy some shit. And watch out, she might be coming to do bad things to you, boys, hehe! (But what the hell is Depp looking at?)
Star Trek, revised taglines:
Man: I’m going to murder the fuck out of you.
Woman: I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.
What’s with the men on these posters looking away (Depp, this guy, Law, Owen) while most of the women stare head-on? I’ll tell you: the male gaze, baby! These women are straight-up going to do you. Men have more important things on their minds, like taking action, looking for action, or looking right at you in that “I’m about to kill some bitches” kind of way (which, yes, is problematic in its own right). But in fairness, even though the G.I. Joe poster objectifies the woman by depicting her entire backside, the poster with the man isn’t much better. Check out his chest! I’ll admit it; this poster sorta makes me want to do him.
Frank Miller’s sexual politics (Sin City, The Spirit) are FUBAR. The stories are so drenched in a masculine fantasy world that the women are more like aliens than they are people. It’s beyond adolescent; it’s pathological.
It’s true. Men are serious, women are salacious. Men’s mouths are closed, women’s open, or lips slightly parted. This holds up in most advertising as well.
BB
i saw part of RE:E the other night on cable. all i could think was “she’s running around the desert killing zombies in that outfit?
great post, by the way. loved it.
While I mostly agree with these — I would totally reverse the Star Trek ones. Possibly that comes from the basic assumption that reboot!Kirk (I don’t necessarily believe this about real!Kirk) is always planning to fuck the shit out of you. Uhura, meanwhile, just looks kind of contemptuous to me.
The Sin City and The Spirit ones just make me die a little inside, though.
…i kind of liked Sin City