Tag: Action

‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’: An R-Rated Movie for 4-Year-Old Boys

‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ wants to remount the early campy Bond movies for the 21st century. Kind of like ‘Austin Powers’ did, but without so many jokes, because they detract from how coooooool these spy dudes are. We’re talking gadgets, one-liners, babes, convoluted action sequences, and brooding permitted only upon the death of one’s father or mentor.

Fuck Daniel Craig’s haunting pathos and Oscar-caliber cinematography. Bring on the shark lasers.

Colin Firth and Taron Egerton in 'Kingsman: The Secret Service'
Colin Firth and Taron Egerton in Kingsman: The Secret Service

This review contains spoilers, but… I really don’t think that matters.

Remember when we talked about how exciting it was to see a woman at the center of a power-fantasy id-gone-wild movie Jupiter Ascending? Kingsman: The Secret Service (which just happens to have been released only a week after Jupiter Ascending) is a PERFECT example of what we normally see from those movies. In short: White Dudes Rule.

Kingsman: The Secret Service wants to remount the early campy Bond movies for the 21st century. Kind of like Austin Powers did, but without so many jokes, because they detract from how coooooool these spy dudes are. We’re talking gadgets, one-liners, babes, convoluted action sequences, and brooding permitted only upon the death of one’s father or mentor.

Fuck Daniel Craig’s haunting pathos and Oscar-caliber cinematography. Bring on the shark lasers.

Or, as the case may be, space balloons.
Or, as the case may be, space balloons.

Trouble is, the filmmakers include a hefty dose of anglophilia in their love letter to early Bond, a fondness for the Empire Days that is inherently racist and also just really played out. (Director Matthew Vaughn, co-writer Jane Goldman, and source material authors Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons are all English or Scottish [and all white], but self-congratulatory anglophilia might be even more annoying than wannabe anglophilia. Keep Calm and Carry On Oppressing.)

Kingsman is an apolitical spy agency funded by a trust created when a bunch of aristocrats lost their heirs to World War I. There are a dozen (white, male) agents all named after the Knights of the Round Table. When one of them dies, each agent presents a candidate as a replacement, these candidates train together and face a series of potentially lethal elimination tests until there is only one. I am sure it will surprise you ZERO that the recruits are almost all white dudes, and the first person dispatched is a woman of color (leaving behind Sophie Cookson’s Roxy to play Smurfette for the rest of the movie). And that we’re meant to admire our working-class hero Eggsy (Taron Egerton) for his pluck and gumption standing up to the other candidates and their Eton educations. You break that glass ceiling, Eggsy.

"Do your best impersonation of a German aristocratic greeting"
“Do your best impersonation of a German aristocrat’s formal greeting”

And even though Eggsy is working-class, he’s still only in this position because of who his father is: a former recruit to Kingsman who threw himself on a grenade on his first mission, saving Eggsy’s sponsor and mentor Galahad (Colin Firth, having a lot of fun).  Galahad grooms Eggsy to be a proper gentleman (in one of the movie’s best gags, he alludes to the transformations in Trading Places and Pretty Woman, only to have Eggsy respond, “Oh you mean like in My Fair Lady?”), which is an integral part of his spy training because the only thing cooler than being an upper-class British person is becoming an upper-class British person, I guess. I am not lying when I say that the graduation present from the Kingsman academy is a bespoke bulletproof suit.

Samuel L. Jackson as the villainous Valentine
Samuel L. Jackson as the villainous Valentine

MEANWHILE, evil villains plot. And would you believe that the evil villains are PEOPLE OF COLOR? Whaat. No. Gasp! Shock. Truth be told, the villains are BY FAR the best part of the movie. We have Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine, an environmentalist communications mogul, if such a thing exists, and his right-hand-woman Gazelle (Sofia Boutella), who has two prosthetic bladed legs she uses as deadly weapons. I don’t fully understand the motivation behind Jackson’s lisping, peacocking approach to his character, but I always appreciate when he has the chance to play something other than Samuel L. Jackson. He made me laugh a lot. Boutella’s Gazelle is the perfect reincarnation of the mostly-silent, inexplicably loyal, undeniably badass Bond villain sidekick, and it is cool to see a disabled character be the best fighter in the room. But it sucks to see a bunch of “gentlemanly” white people battle a flashy black man and his buxom-but-deadly assistant. Again.

Sofia as Gazelle
Sofia Boutella as Gazelle

There’s a chance for some not-entirely-gross class commentary to make its way into Kingsman, but it’s wasted in favor of more extreme violence. You see, Valentine’s evil plan is basically to trigger the plot of Stephen King’s Cell: he gives away billions of sim cards, and then unleashes a signal that makes people near those sim cards go on violent rampages. He sells protective implants to the rich and powerful and provides an oasis for them to sit out this bloody culling of Earth’s population. (The rich and powerful who refuse to play Valentine’s game are locked in a dungeon. This list for some reason includes Iggy Azalea.) The implants can also be triggered to explode, giving Valentine a kill switch for every one of the world’s rich and powerful.

Eggsy with Michael Caine's Arthur, the leader of Kingsman
Eggsy with Michael Caine’s Arthur, the leader of Kingsman

Remember when I said there were going to be spoilers? Here are the spoilers. Eggsy finds out the head of Kingsman (Michael Caine) has one of the implants and is allowing the plot to move forward. When Eggsy goes on to thwart the evil plan, he triggers all the implants to explode. We watch a glorious montage of cartoonish mushroom clouds erupting from the necks of the world’s elite: from heads of state (including our president) to the socialites sipping champagne while waiting out the apocalypse in Valentine’s bunker.

Heads go boom.
Heads go boom.

If the movie ended there this would be a much more positive review. There’d be cool, meaty ideas here about Kingsman being corruptible because of its ties to aristocracy, and our working-class hero actually bringing about the revolution the villain only pretended to want by eliminating the 1 percent rather than seeking to control them. But, well, Matthew Vaughn wanted to shoot some really disgusting bloodbath scenes.

So Valentine gets his signal out for several minutes, and we cut around the world to regular people horribly murdering their loved ones and anyone else in proximity. Eggsy and co. eventually stop it, but it is clear that more of these literally poor innocent bastards ended up dead than the jerks who signed up for implants. I have a problem disassociating from mass destruction in movies, and I got really sad about how the world would be irrevocably broken by this slaughter, when the movie wanted me to be laughing about Eggsy getting “rewarded” with butt sex with a Swedish princess for “saving the world.” Yes, really.

I am, of course, overthinking it. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a very silly movie. I can barely remember the Spy Kids films, although I must have watched the first two 30 times back in my babysitting days, but I think this is pretty much Spy Kids + mild gore, sex jokes, and f-bombs. This is a movie made for your inner-4-year-old, but it’s only fully effective if your inner-4-year-old is a white boy.

Robin Hitchcock is a Pittsburgh-based writer whose blood is probably 6 percent Nyquil at this point. Take your vitamins and wash your hands, people. 

How ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Demonstrates a More Inclusive Masculinity

All of them, even those that have more traditional male expressions than the others, end up rejecting more toxic expressions of masculinity.

This guest post by Aaron Radney appears as part of our theme week on Masculinity.

To call Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) one of the best shows in recent memory isn’t a controversial statement. It’s been lauded, and rightly so, for its varied female cast, but that nuanced treatment of heroic depictions isn’t limited to the women of the show.

NICKELODEON AVATAR ANIME

It’s a generally understood in feminism that forced adherence to gender roles can hurt men as much as women with what we’d call traditional masculinity being celebrated to the detriment of other gender expressions. As a coming of age story I felt the young men in the show–Aang, Sokka, and Zuko–all demonstrated the struggle young men face journeying into manhood with Uncle Iroh providing a vision of what the end of that road might look like. All of them, even those that have more traditional male expressions than the others, end up rejecting more toxic expressions of masculinity.

As is typical with these sorts of things, spoilers of all types going forward.

aang-aang-35847710-341-416

Starting with Aang we have what I think could be the least stereotypical male lead I’ve ever seen in action fiction. Not the bumbling everyman hero, the sarcastic anti-hero or the brooding master, Aang is a guile hero with more in common with Bugs Bunny than Superman or James Bond, with a balance of competence and sensitivity. Then there’s his elemental bending. The four bending elements always seemed obviously gender coded to me with air and water being based on “soft” martial arts styles build more on evasion and redirection, and fire and earth being built on “hard” styles and as such more aggressive, direct and forceful. Far from playing these tropes straight, ATLA stands them on their head with a male hero using one of the two feminine elements. This doesn’t seem to me a fluke either as an episode late in the series, “The Ember Island Players” has Aang played in a stage performance by a woman both as a joke on typical voice casting but also in seeming acknowledgement of those aspects of his personality.

Rather than compensating for his element with extreme aggression as one might see in another show, Aang is the least aggressive member of his group. This is a kid who’d rather talk than fight, doesn’t enjoy combat when he has to do it, and prefers to evade and defend and trick rather than use brute force. Instead of a righteous chosen one or someone who identifies as a warrior, Aang’s primary expression is that of a pacifist monk and the narrative never tries to make him anything else. In fact, anytime he tries to ignore his emotions in favor of the cold reason and detachment we’d expect of someone in his role, the story actively rebuffs him for it. It’s not true to who he is.

Furthermore, many of Aang’s greatest moments come not through physical prowess but through doing what he can to help others. He even demonstrates that men can, and should, be advocates for women’s equality when he stands up to the sexist Master Pakku, who refuses to train Katara. Even going so far as to use his privilege as the Avatar to attempt to sway Pakku’s mind.

Not only does Aang have no problem training side by side with a woman, but he is later trained by that same woman when she surpasses his skills (and again has no problem being trained by another woman later in the narrative’s run). Never do we see him bothered by this or feel diminished by it. Aang’s far too secure in who he is as a person for anyone else’s success to bother him.

avatar-sokka-wallpapers-3

Sokka’s gender expression is a bit more conventional but his arc hits some of the same themes. Overtly sexist in a way he’s checked on more than once his macho streak reeks of a young boy trying too hard to be what he thinks a warrior and man of his tribe is supposed to be. His bravado in the face of the Fire Nation threat plays out like a typical wish fulfillment fantasy of a little boy desirous of glory in battle but in his first encounter with the antagonist Zuko he’s trounced almost comically. The show clearly demonstrates that direct physical prowess is not Sokka’s path.

Over time however, Sokka confronts his insecurities and matures into the team’s idea guy. He becomes a potent strategist and realizes his lack of formidable physique (he’s got a body type that, like the other young men on the show is not unreasonable for someone his age who engages in regular activity but it’s not the masculine ideal we’re used to seeing) and lack of bending skills does not preclude him from being both beneficial to the team and to others. He’s no less brave and no less noble than his friends and far from being the stoic analytic or cringing braniac we envision with a male in this role; Sokka embodies the goofy charmer. He’s the class clown who nevertheless gets straight A’s. He’s never made fun of for not conforming to what you’d expect in a show of this type.

Iroh_smiling

If Aang and Sokka demonstrate a non-traditional masculinity through growing up, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Zuko and Uncle Iroh demonstrate the idea of shaking off patriarchal constraints. Both are of the Fire Nation, which is based heavily on imperialist Japan, is highly paternalistic and builds its masculine identity on ideas of domination and honor gained by conquest. Probably the most visible expression of this is the ritual duel of Fire Nation culture known as the Agni Kai. Iroh, however, gives us a vision of a different path of the Fire Nation male and how this expression is regarded, that is to say, not all that well.

Seen as a bit of an eccentric Iroh lost the throne to his more aggressive and conniving brother. Meanwhile, we discover that Iroh is probably one of the most decent people in the entire show. Though demonstrably able to respond to violence in kind being a former general in the Fire Nation army and originally the crown prince, Iroh, much like Aang, prefers to talk and avoid trouble when he can. Like Aang many of Iroh’s most memorable moments stem not from his physicality, but his empathy. Perhaps the most famous instance is one in which he disarms a would-be mugger easily, but rather than that being the end of it, or him punishing said mugger for the attempt, he first gives him pointers on proper stance when using a knife, and then proceeds to sit with him and show him kindness, encouraging him to pursue his dream of becoming a masseur. This is not a one-off for Iroh. He is calm rather than stoic and exemplifies a maturity that seeks to empathize and assist people when and how he can.

Prince_Zuko

Iroh’s nephew Zuko on the other hand begins as an antagonist determined to capture the Avatar to reclaim his honor. His brooding, anger, and attempts at stoicism make him the most stereotypically masculine teenage boy on the show. Over time, we learn that his father banished him both for showing compassion about a group of soldiers that would have been sacrificed in a military action AND for refusing to fight his father in an Agni Kai. It’s noted that Zuko’s unwillingness to fight his own father was seen as a sign of weakness. The Fire Lord, his father, and the literal patriarch of his family and his nation, burns Zuko’s face and he carries the scar throughout the show. One could say without irony he was literally scarred by the patriarchy and we see that Zuko’s rage and bravado is at odds with the compassion and empathy he exhibits in the flashback.

For two seasons Zuko pursues the Avatar to win his father’s approval. His adherence to the Fire Nation’s belief of fire’s power coming from rage keeps him in a constant state of hostility and his pride explicitly keeps him from bending lightning, a skill that he’s told requires absolute control of his emotions and one at which his sister excels. All through this, his Uncle is by his side attempting to show him a better way and encouraging him to set aside his anger and frustration.

Iroh even teaches him a technique for lightning redirection, a move he created by studying water benders and explains to his nephew that studying other elements and other cultures can help him become stronger. The show, subtly or not, through Zuko demonstrates the expectations under which he’s been placed holding him back.

Later, while living their lives as fugitives in another nation, Zuko begins to grow emotionally. No longer constantly hunting the Avatar we see him protect a village from bullying bandits, provide joy to a young woman in a town he’s staying in by lighting the candles of a town square with his fire bending and helping his uncle in a tea shop. Zuko begins to relearn the joy found in helping others.

However, in one of the most lauded fake-outs of the show, Zuko is seduced back to the dark side at the end of season 2 and when it looks as though he’s killed the Avatar he’s welcomed back into his father’s good graces but betrays his Uncle. At this point, Zuko has everything he ever wanted and yet his shame is too great and he doesn’t’ have the emotional tools to deal with it. This realization is plain and stark when he says, “I’m angry and I don’t know why.” It’s not long after this that Zuko has a change of heart.

He storms into his father’s chamber and renounces his father and the Fire Nation’s warlike ways. He proclaims the only way his nation’s honor will be restored is if they embrace a path of love and peace and that he will be leaving to join the Avatar. His father takes this about as well as you’d expect and launches a powerful blast of lightning at his own son.

Zuko responds with the lightning redirection technique he learned in the previous season and the weight of the moment is palpable. He embraces his Uncle’s path of peace, expresses his desire to help the Avatar, and when met with full masculine coded killing force, draws on a technique derived from the principles one of the two female coded elements to protect himself and redirects the aggression, rather than meeting it head on. In that moment he affirms that his father’s power over him is gone, and quietly demonstrates for boys that which is masculine and that which is feminine can coexist and strength can come from this.

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All of this comes to a head in the show’s finale and as the primary foils I think it’s only right Aang and Zuko’s final acts parallel each other. Zuko battles his sister and Aang Zuko’s father, the Fire Lord. Previously, many of Aang’s closest friends, including Zuko, tell him that to save the world, the Fire Lord has to die. Aang is convinced there has to be a better way. He refuses to abandon the teachings of the monks who raised him. On a meta level, Aang’s killing of the Fire Lord would have done little good. Having been at war for 100 years, the world didn’t need more killing but rather a third option. In a distinct subversion of the “A real man is a killer” trope Aang eliminates the threat by removing his enemy’s bending rather than ending his life. It is in this moment that Aang can be said to become a man in the form of a fully realized Avatar. Even the domination aspect is rebuked. Aang doesn’t dominate the Fire Lord in their final battle of wills that is Energy Bending. Instead Aang’s own spirit proves indomitable. Aang succeeds because he refuses to be taken over himself and that distinction is an important one. The act that defines Aang as an adult and shows the kind of man he has become is not one of taking the life of another being, but remaining true to his own principles. The final moment we see for Aang where he ends the Fire Nation’s final act of destruction with a single waterbending move–an act of healing and putting out the fire of war.

Similarly, Zuko’s final act against his sister is not one of destruction but one of protection. He nearly sacrifices himself to protect Katara from a lightning attack by his sister. Zuko attempts to perform lightning redirection but isn’t grounded properly. This wasn’t a matter of saving the damsel but rather him recognizing he had a specific skill he could use to protect a friend. Another show would have had that be a moment of triumph for Zuko where he performed the move perfectly. Instead Zuko’s failure here becomes important because it wasn’t due to any inadequacy, but rather the complexities of the situation. To me, it felt like an acknowledgement that to be a man doesn’t mean one must be perfect.

I’m not entirely sure how much of this is intentional and how much is just the result of good storytelling, but ATLA manages to say great things about a type of masculinity you don’t always get to see. One that says there’s no singular way to be male and taken seriously. It doesn’t make the mistake of playing certain male archetypes for laughs or build its idea of what it means for these boys to grow into manhood on the domination of others, but rather stresses the need for empathy, constant personal growth and security in one’s own identity, and using our abilities to help others, rather than for abuse and subjugation.

 

Aaron Radney is an aspiring illustrator who attended Memphis College of Art and lives in St. Louis, Missouri. Though he spent far too long fighting against the impulse to let  his race and his feminism impact his work, he’s slowly beginning to more actively embrace both looks forward to doing more writing and art on both subjects. His work can be found on his website  http://aaronradney.com or on his Facebook page here.

 

 

“I Want to Name My Daughter Furiosa”: The Feminist Joys of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’

But don’t let the buzz mislead you into thinking ‘Fury Road’ is some sort of feminist watershed, a 21st century cinematic ‘Feminine Mystique’ with monster trucks. I would have enjoyed this flick even if it had typical gender politics, because I love car chases and over-the-top action sequences and the sort of high camp that yields a vehicular war party having its own flamethrower-enhanced metal guitarist. If you don’t love those things, you probably don’t want to see this movie. But if you are into that kind of action flick, this is a really good one that has the bonus of a thick layer of sweet, sweet feminist icing.

Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in 'Mad Max: Fury Road'
Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road

 

This review contains some minor spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road.

Thank you, MRAs, for calling for a boycott of “”feminist piece of propaganda” Mad Max: Fury Road.  You certainly got this feminist fired up to see it opening weekend, and I loved it just as much as you promised me I would.

But don’t let the buzz mislead you into thinking Fury Road is some sort of feminist watershed, a 21st century cinematic Feminine Mystique with monster trucks.  I would have enjoyed this flick even if it had typical gender politics, because I love car chases and over-the-top action sequences and the sort of high camp that yields a vehicular war party having its own flamethrower-enhanced metal guitarist. If you don’t love those things, you probably don’t want to see this movie. But if you are into that kind of action flick, this is a really good one that has the bonus of a thick layer of sweet, sweet feminist icing.

If you like double-neck guitar flamethrowers, you'll like 'Fury Road'
If you like double-neck guitar flamethrowers, you’ll like Fury Road

 

Even though it is his franchise and his name is right there in the title, Max (Tom Hardy) is really the sidekick to Fury Road‘s true hero, Charlize Theron’s Furiosa. Furiosa is the one with the mission and the character arc, Max is pretty much just along for her ride. He ends up feeling like a gender-flipped version of the Hot Action Chick, a Studly Action Dude of sorts. Now, Furiosa isn’t the most well-rounded character you ever did see, but there’s precious little downtime between bouts of vehicular warfare for serious character development (though Charlize does put her acting chops to work in the moments she has). But she is 100 percent glorious badass, the kind of female action star I could never get enough even if Hollywood didn’t churn out only a couple every decade.

Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa
Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa

 

And what sets Furiosa apart from her cinematic foremothers Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor is that she is surrounded by other strong women. She was raised in what appears to be a matriarchal community, and the women we meet from her home are, like her, fearsome warriors.  The plot (other than “cars explode”) of Fury Road concerns Furiosa smuggling out the “wives” (sex slaves/”prized breeders”) of evil warlord Immortan Joe. These five beautiful women (supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and perfect genetic specimen Zoë Kravitz among them) wear strategically placed strips of white fabric, and are the only people in this universe with access to soap, hot wax, and hair brushes.

The escaped wives
The escaped wives

 

In a lesser movie, the wives could be an embarrassing cliché of damsels in distress.  But in Fury Road, they are women with agency, choosing their own liberation as they experience a feminist awakening (when one considers going back, she’s reminded “we are not things”). They’re not as capable as Furiosa or the other women from her homeland, but they don’t shy away from the fight either. I was surprised to see one (several months pregnant) become a causality of war, not killed off in a particularly dramatic fashion. It’s strangely humanizing to see a pregnant woman be killed among the hoards of other victims in a movie where countless cars crash and things blow up. (However, I did not think her dead son being cut out of her dying body added anything to the film, and suspect it would trigger some people in the audience.) But that death underscored that women are people in Mad Max: Fury Road, not just plot constructs: because people can get killed in a tornado of violence, even if they’re eight months pregnant.

And ultimately, Fury Road is a parable about bringing down the patriarchy, which makes all of its orgiastic destruction a thoroughly satisfying outlet for feminist rage. I saw the movie with a mixed group of male and female friends, who all loved it, but it was the women who walked out saying things like, “I’m so pumped up I could run home right now” and “I might name my daughter Furiosa.”

Patriarchy go boom
Patriarchy go boom

 

So is Mad Max: Fury Road going to bring us equal pay, sexual liberation, a woman in the White House, and ladies’ jackets with inside pockets? Probably not. In fact, it’s probably better news for women that Pitch Perfect 2, a film by, about, and marketed to women, soundly beat Fury Road at the box office (HT to my friend @MattMarcotte to pointing this out to me).  But a teenage boy leaving the theater behind me shouted that Fury Road was the “MOST F***ING AWESOME MOVIE EVER!” He might not have realized it was about women destroying male power structures, but I can rest easy tonight knowing that he enjoyed his experience with this feminist piece of propaganda. I hope he gets to see many more.

 

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who was in an improv troupe with one of the stunt performers in this movie. DROP. (Hi, Anneli!)

‘Age of Ultron’s Black Widow Blunders

‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ succeeds in all the places you’d expect it to fail, but while Joss Whedon was tiptoeing around all the expected pitfalls of a major franchise sequel, he stumbled over a cliff when it came to the one character I would have most trusted him to get right: Scarlet Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow.

Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow in 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'
Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron

 

I liked Avengers: Age of Ultron. A lot. What follows is going to read like a very negative review. If I could selectively switch off my feminism, I could write you the most thumbs-uppiest of glowing reviews for Age of Ultron. But I cannot, and this is why my dad would say “it’s hard to be Robin.” But if you’re a regular Bitch Flicks reader, it is also probably hard to be you (that’s sort of why we exist). And you also will probably walk away from this movie with some serious reservations.

Age of Ultron succeeds in all the places you’d expect it to fail: the new characters are compelling; the amped-up battle sequences manage to be as coherent as they are thrilling; and for a movie with 17 actors listed on its poster, it somehow manages to not feel that overstuffed.  But while Joss Whedon was tiptoeing around all the expected pitfalls of a major franchise sequel, he stumbled over a cliff when it came to the one character I would have most trusted him to get right: Scarlet Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow.

Spoilers from here on out, friends.

Black Widow under the male gaze
Black Widow under the male gaze

 

When Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2 (a sequel which DID fail in all the predictable ways), her character was so fully entrenched in the male gaze it was kind of gross. We’re first introduced to her cover identity, Natalie Rushman: a submissive secretary who modeled in Japan and suggestively asks, “is that dirty enough for you” after leaning over to present her boss Tony Stark with a martini. But what’s even hotter Natalie Rushman? Natasha Romanoff pretending to be meek and accommodating while in fact being a badass superspy who can take out fifteen guys, hack computers, and save the day without mussing her flowing red curls (one of the worst wigs in the history of cinema, but that’s just a personal bugaboo of mine). This kind of sarcastic-quotation-marks “strong female character” is a dime a dozen in action movies and not someone I’d beg to see a standalone movie about.

Black Widow beating people up in a terrible wig in 'Iron Man 2'
Black Widow beating people up in a terrible wig in Iron Man 2

 

But then came The Avengers,  where Black Widow was so much more than the Fighting Fucktoy. She was still a sexy badass, but she also got to be wickedly clever, dryly funny, warm and loyal to her friends, and in what was probably the biggest revelation for a Strong Female Character: fearful of scary things. This more solid characterization carried over to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where we continued to see Natasha’s rare moments of emotional vulnerability alongside her intellectual and physical competence.

In 'Avengers' and 'Captain America 2', Black Widow was more than eye candy
In Avengers and Captain America 2, Black Widow was more than eye candy

 

Black Widow had become a character I loved. And I would have given a lot of credit for that to Joss Whedon. But then he went and did this all this to her.

These two? Seriously?
These two? Seriously?

 

AoU‘s first sin against Natasha is awkwardly shoehorning her into a romantic subplot with Bruce Banner, of all people. Maybe I’d be less disgruntled about Natasha in lurve if the pairing worked better for me? But it felt pretty out of left field, and lacking in chemistry.  Like they crossed off the crossed off the characters who already had love interests and flipped a coin to settle on Bruce.

Now, one of the benefits of being a well-rounded character should be the chance for a love interest. The rest of the core six all have their sweeties! But note how all of them had outside characters as their love interest. Usually our male Avengers have their own movie or movies to make space for that character, but Hawkeye’s previously-unseen wife was given screen time in Age of Ultron.  It is unthinkable for Natasha to have a similar surprise husband, because “doting pregnant wife” is a complete female character as far as Hollywood is concerned. A side character male love interest is much harder for Hollywood to handle, because they see “man” and think “center of the story.”

Natasha is responsible for de-Hulking Bruce with a "lullaby"
Natasha is responsible for de-Hulking Bruce with a “lullaby”

 

So Natasha had to be connected to another main character, and it happened to be Bruce, and even if that didn’t feel as random to you as it did to me, it brings about some problems. First, I wasn’t crazy about Natasha having the role of soothing Bruce out of Hulk form with their”lullaby” ritual to begin with, but adding romantic overtones makes it even more skeevy. There are unavoidable allusions to domestic violence inherent to the Hulk. Having his romantic partner hold the responsibility for talking him down from his rage state, and portraying this as part of their bond, underscores this in an unpleasant way.

Scarlet Witch induces a vision of Black Widow's past
Scarlet Witch induces a vision of Black Widow’s past

 

Worse, Natasha’s arc in Age of Ultron got completely wrapped up in her feelings for Banner, even though we finally—finally! In her fourth appearance in a Marvel movie—got to see Natasha’s backstory, her childhood training/brainwashing into superspyness by the sinister Red Room. (Granted, we see it in a dream-like flashback that’s only long enough for you to go, “Hey, is that Julie Delpy?”).

Natasha’s history gets rolled over into her romantic subplot in the most bizarre, uncomfortable—let’s just say worst—scene in the film. Bruce is giving Natasha the speech about how she could have no future with him, gesturing around to the child’s room they are in. She tearfully reveals that she can’t have children either, because she was sterilized as part of her “graduation” from the Red Room. She speculates the forced sterilization was to avoid problems, attachments, and that “It made everything easier, even killing.” And then she calls herself a monster.

WAIT WHAT?
WAIT… WHAT?

 

RECORD SCRATCH. Wait, a woman who can’t get pregnant is A MONSTER? On a level comparable to a dude who turns into an actual unstoppable force of destruction we had just seen level a city? What… I just… what? What!!!!????? The idea that anyone—*cough* Joss Whedon *cough*—would think infertility makes a woman something less than human is extremely gross, but it’s even worse to see Natasha internalize such warped misogyny and biological essentialism.

And I haven’t even mentioned the part where Black Widow gets kidnapped by the bad guy and locked in a dungeon. That really happens. For real for real. I assume this was to accommodate Scarlett Johansson’s pregnancy during filming, but there are plenty of ways to write her out of the story for a little while without making her a damsel in distress (send her on a side mission, any side mission, DON’T LOCK BLACK WIDOW IN A DUNGEON).  And thinking about how Johansson was pregnant at the time somehow manages to make that horrible sterilization confession scene even more unpleasant.

Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch in 'Age of Ultron'
Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch in Age of Ultron

 

The only good news when it comes to Black Widow in Age of Ultron is that she’s no longer saddled with being the Smurfette, as Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch provides us with a Sassette Smurf of sorts. Cobie Smulders is also back as Maria Hill, but she doesn’t have much to do. Claudia Kim plays Dr. Helen Cho, who does things that are important for the plot but gets less character development than Hawkeye’s wife, who might as well be listed in the credits as “Hawkeye’s wife.” But even though Natasha isn’t the only woman in Age of Ultron, she’s still the one nearest and dearest to the audience, and it is heartbreaking to see her utilized so poorly.

Black Widow deserves better
Black Widow deserves better

 

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who has never been pregnant. Is she, too, a monster!?

 

 

‘Taken 1, 2, and 3’: Modern Masculinity Meets Modern Fatherhood

When looked at as a trilogy, the ‘Taken’ films are all about Bryan’s relationship with his daughter as she becomes a woman and he is no longer sure how to relate to her. It’s a common real life situation writ large, and a wholly unexpected through-line for an action franchise.

Poster for Taken
Poster for Taken

Written by Elizabeth Kiy.

There are certain movies I watch whenever I visit my father. I would never chose to watch them on my own, but I enjoy them enough with him. These movies are instantly gratifying, explosions of car crashes and car chases, kidnappings and jewel thefts and mistaken identities and usually, the strong, comforting presence of his favorite movie star, Liam Neeson, the new model of masculinity.

With his soft Irish accent, his politeness and grooming, he’s a completely different animal from our old action heroes. He’s muscular but still human looking- not a steroid monster like 80s heroes like Stallone and Schwarzenegger. He can love, he can cry, but he can still seek revenge or save your life; however, like these old models, his heft still imposes. Though he kicks down doors and ends lives with violence, he’s smart, well-trained and tactical, outsmarting the villains as often as he actually comes to blows with them.

Liam Neeson is the new model for modern masculinity
Liam Neeson is the new model for modern masculinity

 

In Taken, the film that established Neeson as “The New Man,” he’s Bryan Mills, an ex-CIA operative on a mission to save his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) from sex traffickers who have kidnapped her while on vacation in France. Besides Neeson’s emergence as a one-man killing machine, it’s not a wholly original film; it’s essentially a rape revenge plot where a daughter and her virginity are entrusted to the protection of her father.

However, when looked at as a trilogy, the Taken films are all about Bryan’s relationship with his daughter as she becomes a woman and he is no longer sure how to relate to her. It’s a common real life situation writ large, and a wholly unexpected through-line for an action franchise.

The Taken films are really about Bryan’s relationship with his daughter
The Taken films are really about Bryan’s relationship with his daughter

 

He tries to figure out how to balance being sensitive and being manly. He doesn’t know how to talk to his daughter anymore; in the first film, they have a strained relationship. He attempts to get through to her by getting her a meeting with her favourite singer who he is acting as a bodyguard for, but the real way he is able to show his love is by saving her life.

When they return home, she’s ready to love him and talk to him again, becoming so close as a family that she and her mother (Famke Janssen), his ex-wife, visit him in Istanbul in the sequel.

In the third movie, their relationship is showing growing pains again. Kim’s in college and Bryan buys her a giant teddy bear for his birthday, adorably excited about the gift. You can feel his heart break when she rejects the bear because she’s too old for it. He wants her to be his little girl, looking at him with stars in her eyes again; we find out she’s pregnant and there may soon be another little girl to look up to him.

In Taken, Bryan is on a time crunch to save Kim’s virginity as well as her life. While her sexually active friend is almost immediately left to die in a makeshift junkyard brothel with no one to care about her, as a virgin, Kim is saved to be auctioned off to a cabal of wealthy international men, which gives Bryan more time to save her. When Bryan finally tracks her down and takes her home, she seems undamaged by her ordeal. By Taken 3, when Kim discovers she is pregnant, it appears that her virginity was saved for the ultimate purpose of becoming a mother.

Kim helps save her parents
Kim helps save her parents

 

As a trilogy, the Taken films chronicle Kim’s apprenticeship with her father. After being a damsel in distress rescued in the first film, she returns in Taken 2 to fight against men related to her original kidnappers, getting her revenge on them as the attempt to get revenge on Bryan. When Bryan and her mother, Lenore, are kidnapped, Kim follows Bryan’s instructions over the phone, locating him in the city and providing him with weapons at risk of her life, instead of hiding out at the American Embassy like he originally instructs her to. In Taken 3, a riff on The Fugitive, Kim helps hide her father and investigates her mother’s murder. The culmination of her training is an interrogation scene where a cop questions her about Bryan’s whereabouts and his relationship with Lenore; as she answers him, she sounds exactly like her father.

Kim’s training is displayed in her interrogation
Kim’s training is displayed in her interrogation

 

Famke Janssen, as Bryan’s ex-wife and Kim’s mother, fares less well across in the franchise. Bryan’s first indication in Taken–that something may go wrong on Kim’s trip to France–is his last minute discovery that Kim and her friend are planning to follow the band U2 on their European tour. It seems to have little to nothing to do with the actual human trafficking plot, but is used to paint Lenore as a bad mother who isn’t careful enough about her daughter’s safety. In the sequel, she waits around to be saved by the combined efforts of her husband and daughter and by Taken 3, she’s barely around, succumbing to Women in Refrigerators syndrome in the first few minutes of the film.

Famke Janssen’s role is to be only a victim and a bad mother
Famke Janssen’s role is to be only a victim and a bad mother

 

It seems that Kim’s pregnancy is intended to present her a both masculine and feminine, taking in a bit of both her mother (whose only real role was to have a daughter to be saved in the first place) and her father. Taken 3 flirted with Kim’s decision whether or not to have an abortion, though in the end, there wasn’t really a point. Of course, this big budget mainstream action film isn’t going to end with a character deciding to get an abortion, but it’s interesting that it was even presented as an option and that this new model for masculinity supported her right to chose either way.

One can only wonder if Liam Neeson will fight through Taken 4 with his new grandchild strapped to his chest in a Baby Bjorn.

 

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

‘Daredevil’ and His Damsels in Distress

The new Netflix original series ‘Daredevil,’ about Marvel’s blind defense-attorney-by-day-vigilante-by-night Matt Murdock, surprised me. It’s extremely different from the other Marvel Studios properties. First, it has the “dark, edgy” tone normally associated with Warner Bros. DC movies, particularly the Nolan Batman films. Second, it is really, REALLY violent (like, graphic decapitations violent) in a way that Marvel’s PG-13 movies cannot be. Finally, ‘Daredevil’ is almost a complete disaster when it comes to its female characters. Marvel’s track record with female characters isn’t perfect, but I’ve come to expect much better than what we get here.

Poster for Marvel's new Netflix series 'Daredevil'
Poster for Marvel’s new Netflix series Daredevil

 

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

This review contains spoilers for Daredevil and some graphic images of violence against women.

The new Netflix original series Daredevil, about Marvel’s blind defense-attorney-by-day-vigilante-by-night Matt Murdock, surprised me. It’s extremely different from the other Marvel Studios properties, the MCU films and the broadcast television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter. First, it has the “dark, edgy” tone normally associated with Warner Bros. DC movies, particularly the Nolan Batman films. Second, it is really, REALLY violent (like, graphic decapitations violent) in a way that Marvel’s PG-13 movies cannot be. Finally, Daredevil is almost a complete disaster when it comes to its female characters. Marvel’s track record with female characters isn’t perfect, but I’ve come to expect much better than what we get here.

Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page in 'Daredevil'
Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page in Daredevil

 

The first woman we meet on Daredevil is Karen Page, the most prevalent if not necessarily the most important female character from the source comics. Karen Page is a notorious example of women being treated horribly in comics, with Frank Miller writing an arc where she’s addicted to drugs and “tragically” became a porn star, and Kevin Smith later fridging her and then having himself drawn into her funeral.  She does better in this series, but that’s not saying much.

Panel from Daredevil comics where Karen is killed
Panel from Daredevil comic when Karen is killed

 

In the first episode of Daredevil, Karen is set up for murder in a complicated cover-up that’s tied into all the series’ other complicated criminal ongoings (which are hard to keep track of even when marathoning the episodes). Do-gooding lawyer noobs Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson take on her case, and protect her from all the bad guys who want to kill her, with legal jujitsu as well as the actual kind from Matt in his masked vigilante alter ego that will become Daredevil. They take her on as their assistant, so she can continue to be imperiled.

Karen in Peril
Karen in peril

 

In the comics, she’s a love interest of Matt’s, but many of the early episodes give her nothing more to do than be made goo goo eyes at by Foggy. (Nearly every female recurring character on this show is a love interest for someone.) Later, Karen is given “something to do” as she conducts her own investigation of the Kingpin alongside journalist Ben Urich. Naturally, this makes her a damsel in distress once again, but at least she’s given the opportunity to save herself.

Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple in 'Daredevil'
Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple in Daredevil

 

Next up is Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), a nurse who drags a half-dead Matt out of a dumpster and tends to his wounds. Their relationship grows because Matt loses and a lot of fights and falls out of a lot of buildings and regularly needs patching up. But it only takes a couple of episodes before she’s kidnapped, beaten up, and rescued by Matt. Who she’s falling in love with, which makes no sense (I mean, dude is fine, but he’s also seems to be pretty much wrecking her life). Claire peaces out for pretty much the rest of the season, probably because Rosario Dawson was too expensive to have in many episodes. The role is really a waste of her talents.

Claire in peril.
Claire in peril

 

The third and final female character in the main cast is Ayelet Zurer’s Vanessa, the romantic interest of the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). I can’t decide if I should call Vanessa “complicated” or just “confusing.” I really do not understand why she falls for Fisk, and grows closer to him the more she learns about his criminal lifestyle. Vanessa feels more like a construct designed to humanize Fisk than a character in her own right. And of course she also functions to give Fisk angst when she inevitably ends up in a hospital bed, because this show sure does love its damsels in distress.

Vanessa in peril
Vanessa in peril

 

The minor female characters continue the depressing trends: Elena, a friendly elderly client of Nelson & Murdock, is murdered to draw out Daredevil. Evil drug dealer Madam Gao is one of two villainous East Asian characters who just happen to be martial arts experts. And Ben Urich has a dying wife, because not only violence imperils the women our male heroes love, but also the cruel fates of sickness and natural death!

Nice old lady Elena, killed to "get to" Daredevil
Nice old lady Elena, killed to “get to” Daredevil

 

And to answer your burning question, no, there’s no Elektra. (Not even a teaser in a post-credits scene, which I was suspecting we’d get at the very least.) I guess they’re saving her for season two.

Ultimately, I still enjoyed Daredevil enough to watch the whole season in two days (it helped that I’m nursing a cold and didn’t feel up to much more than curling up in front of the TV). But I’m terribly let down by its treatment of women, and hope Netflix’s forthcoming Marvel series do much better.

 

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who actually liked the Ben Affleck Daredevil movie, so you should possibly disregard all of her opinions about everything, ever.

 

‘John Wick’: A More Palatable Revenge Flick

The revenge genre is fraught territory for feminist film fans, because it virtually always begins with violence (often sexualized violence) against women. ‘John Wick’ sidesteps this problem by replacing the victimized woman with a dog: Keanu Reeves’s title character, a mild-mannered retired assassin, gets back into the criminal underworld and goes on a brutal rampage to avenge his killed dog. What follows is an extremely well-executed but completely non-innovative revenge flick, which is nevertheless probably my favorite since ‘Kill Bill Vol 1.,’ in no small part because the revenge isn’t inspired by the victimization of a woman.

Keanu Reeves as 'John Wick'
Keanu Reeves as John Wick

 

Written by Robin Hitchcock.

The revenge genre is fraught territory for feminist film fans, because it virtually always begins with violence (often sexualized violence) against women. John Wick sidesteps this problem by replacing the victimized woman with a dog. Keanu Reeves’s title character, a mild-mannered retired assassin, gets back into the life and goes on a brutal rampage to avenge his puppy the way countless action heroes have avenged murdered wives and girlfriends. What follows is an extremely well-executed but completely non-innovative revenge flick, which is nevertheless probably my favorite since Kill Bill Vol 1., in no small part because the revenge isn’t inspired by the victimization of a woman.

Now don’t get me wrong, violence against dogs isn’t something I like seeing in a movie, it is just a refreshing change of pace from the normal female sacrifice at the top of these films. Unfortunately, there is in fact a dead woman in John Wick’s backstory, because Hollywood screenwriters seem incapable of giving their male action leads depth without some dead family. But John Wick’s wife, in a shocking twist, died of natural causes! Wick’s manly grief would have been limited to recklessly stunt driving his classic Mustang around an airfield, but Dead Wife left him an absurdly cute puppy so he would “have something to love.” And only days later, this absurdly cute puppy is brutally killed by Russian mobsters stealing his car. Cue onslaught of ultraviolent revenge!

John Wick and an aggressively cute puppy.
John Wick and an aggressively cute puppy.
It doesn’t take much of an armchair psychologist to realize that John is not just avenging his dog as his pet, but as a symbol of his wife’s enduring love. Or to speculate that he’s using this revenge mission as an outlet for his grief for his wife. So the usual issues of women in refrigerators persist if you think about it too hard. I think I’d like John Wick even more if Dead Wife had just been left out of it.
Does this mean I’m advocating for the erasure of female characters? Or the cinematic sacrifice of adorable puppies? I hope the obvious answer to those questions is no, but I’m writing this from the moral dead zone of “I sure enjoyed this movie about dozens of people being violently murdered!” so I can’t exactly seek a lane on the high road.
Adrianne Palicki as Ms. Perkins in 'John Wick'
Adrianne Palicki as Ms. Perkins in John Wick
John Wick‘s only real female character alive at the start of the film is Adrianne Palicki’s Ms. Perkins, a fellow assassin. Ms. Perkins is clearly an outsider in the complex subculture of John Wick‘s criminal underworld, perhaps inevitably as a function of her sex. She’s the only character who doesn’t buy into the legend of John Wick as the Scariest Sumbitch in all of Criminaldom, and she breaks “Hotel Rules” by going after Wick in Ian McShane’s sanctuary for wary criminals. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t work out very well for her. Fortunately, the violence Ms. Perkins suffers isn’t fetishized. And she’s presented as a worthy opponent in her big brawl with Wick. I can’t take too much beef with her not surviving to the end credits, because almost no one else does.
Other than Ms. Perkins and brief mentions of Dead Wife, John Wick is wall-to-wall dudes. Even the faceless goons John Wick guns down in droves are universally male. Cutting out most of the violence against women let me indulge in the perhaps unsavory pleasures of a well-made violent action movie. I’m reminded of one of the reasons gay male porn is appealing to many women: the absence of women also means the absence of anti-woman tropes. (John Wick certainly doesn’t avoid the comparison to gay porn by setting one of its main action pieces in a bathhouse with a bunch of hyperbuff shirtless dudes.)
Ultraviolence!
Lets hear it for ultraviolence!
And like porn, John Wick‘s abundant appeal to the lizard brain shouldn’t be examined too closely by the forebrain (lest we sound like we’re fans of puppy murder). John Wick isn’t great cinema and it is a far cry from a triumph for women, but it is an extremely enjoyable action movie that doesn’t require too much feminist compromise, and that is something of a rarity.

Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh who watches John Wick like her two-year-old niece watches The Little Mermaid.

 

 

‘Waterworld’: Where We Were with Gender 20 Years Ago

Helen represents a new kind of fantasy woman, popular in the late ’80s and ’90s – one who’s ballsy and opinionated, but can absolutely, 100 percent, still be controlled. In fact, the only reason Helen’s “safe” for mainstream audiences in 1995 is that Kevin Costner’s total dominance over her is constantly reinforced.

Written by Katherine Murray.

In 1995, Waterworld was known for being stupid, stupidly expensive, and the first in a series of bad decisions that hurt Kevin Costner’s career — its reputation hasn’t changed a lot since then. Still, if I’m honest with you, the movie didn’t bother me that much when I was 11. Watching it again this past weekend, I wasn’t exactly shocked to find my perceptions had changed, but I was interested to see where Waterworld falls in the history of popular culture – including popular notions of gender. The movie isn’t as good as you’d hope – in fact, in many ways, it’s really, really bad – but it represents an important phase in how we understood ourselves as men and women.

Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino star in Waterworld
This kid grows up to star in way better movies and shows

 

For those of you who’ve blocked it out, Waterworld is a post-apocalyptic action-adventure movie about a future where the polar icecaps have melted, and humanity lives aboard boats, rafts, and makeshift floating cities. Dirt has become a form of currency, and people preserve fresh, drinkable water at all costs. In the midst of this open sea nightmare, Kevin Costner (whose character doesn’t have a name) is a mutant drifter who lives on the margins, salvaging, trading, and doing battle with pirates, all while looking bad-ass on his boat. Jeanne Tripplehorn is Helen, a shopkeeper on one of the floating cities, who’s adopted a girl named Enola – played by a 10-year-old Tina Majorino.

Enola has a map on her back that no one can interpret, which might show the way to dry land. When a group of pirates hears about it, they attack the floating city to kidnap her, and Helen makes a deal with Kevin Costner to save all their lives. The three of them travel together for most of the movie, facing random dangers on the sea, before they finally have a big showdown with the pirates.

From a critical perspective, Waterworld is both not as bad as we remember it, and worse than we remember it – suffering most from an inconsistent tone. The pirates are like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and everything that’s not the pirates is much more serious and grim than the movie seems to think it is. Judging Waterworld by the standards of ‘90s action-adventure movies, where were pretty broad in terms of character and plot, the first act is really promising. The plot points fall like dominoes to get Kevin Costner, Helen, and Enola on the ship together – there’s genuine tension, and all three characters are interesting.

From the vantage point of 2015, it would be easy to criticize the movie for its lack of subtlety and formulaic plot, but that’s partly because cinema has changed a lot in 20 years. Waterworld was created at a time when mainstream audiences didn’t expect a lot of self-referential humour or genre-subverting plot twists. Part of the reason we have so much of that now is because we first had a long stretch of films that were simple and earnest, and collectively established the genre conventions in the first place. It’s not that Waterworld’s doing anything so great and interesting – it’s just that, in terms of plot development, it’s more in the middle of the pack for 1995.

It’s also in the middle of the pack in terms of how gender’s portrayed, and that makes it an interesting snapshot of where were just 20 years ago – both in terms of how far Waterworld is from the movies that came out before, and how far it is from the movies coming out now. From the perspective of gender analysis, the most important part of the movie is the slow-moving part in the middle, where the story’s just about three people on a boat, and how they relate to each other.

Jeanne Tripplehorn stars in Waterworld
♫ Anything you can do, she can do slightly less well ♫

 

Like many female leads of the ’90s, Helen is required to be capable, but not so capable that the man in her life can’t outdo her. She’s also required to be outspoken, as long as no one has to listen when she talks. In the movie’s first act, Helen breaks Kevin Costner out of a cage when the elders in her village try to murder him for being a mutant outsider. She and Enola see that he’s their opportunity to leave the city, and the three of them work together to open the gates and escape in his boat.

As soon as they’re on the boat, though, the story takes an ugly and confusing turn. Kevin Costner first wants to pitch Enola overboard because she’ll use up his resources and, although he lets both of them stay in the end, he’s completely fucking horrible for over half the movie, and it’s not clear how aware the movie is that that’s the case. The movie doesn’t seem to think it’s right for him to act like such an asshole, but it seems to think that this is understandable behaviour, and, sometimes, that it kind of makes him cool. Among the violent, hateful things Kevin Costner does:

  • He actually does throw Enola overboard, though we’re supposed to forgive him because he changes his mind and goes back for her
  • He cracks Helen in the head with a paddle, nearly knocking her unconscious, but her body is under a sail so we don’t have to see how brutal it is
  • He pimps Helen out to an obviously unbalanced creepball they meet on the sea, over her repeated objections – again, we’re supposed to forgive him because he changes his mind

In one of the most disturbing scenes, Helen damages the ship’s harpoon by using it to fight off pirates (and she manages to screw up fighting pirates so that Kevin Costner can look like the hero). Kevin Costner decides – and the film seems to agree with him – that he has the right to punish her for this by swinging a machete at her head and cutting off her hair. Enola speaks up to tell him he’s being an asshole, at which point he notices that she’s been using his crayons after he told her not to. We cut to shot where we see that Helen and Enola have now both lost their hair, and they sheepishly move out of Kevin Costner’s way when he walks by, and stop talking so they don’t annoy him. The movie doesn’t show us Kevin Costner swinging a machete at a terrified 10-year-old girl, and it seems to want us to think it’s funny that he’s restored order on the boat by getting the women to shut the hell up and stay out of his way.

Helen represents a new kind of fantasy woman, popular in the late ’80s and ’90s – one who’s ballsy and opinionated, but can absolutely, 100 percent, still be controlled. In fact, the only reason Helen’s “safe” for mainstream audiences in 1995 is that Kevin Costner’s total dominance over her is constantly reinforced. First, they butt heads in a series of conflicts he always easily wins, and then, once she starts to fall in love with him, they stop butting heads about anything, and she drops back to follow his lead. The message is basically that, if he can learn to be nicer to her, she can acknowledge that he’s her superior.

Helen is a step up from the days when the ideal woman was silent, empty-headed, and dependent, but she still exists mostly as an artefact of male fantasy. She’s fiery at first, because the man of 1995 could find that sexy. And, even though she stands up to the pirates, she’s ultimately submissive for the right kind of guy, because the man of 1995 found that non-threatening. What we see in Waterworld is a snapshot of American culture’s evolving idea of women, at a stage when we were trying to convince ourselves that feminism was compatible with all of the existing power structures patriarchy built, if we could just find the right way to look at it. We no longer believed that men had the right to control women, ipso facto, no matter what – but we still seemed to believe that men could earn the right to control certain women, by meeting vaguely defined obligations toward them. Because Kevin Costner ultimately protects Helen and Enola from other men, and overcomes his natural urge to murder them himself, he earns the right to be the boss in their relationship. It’s maybe half a step back from where we are now, and one step forward from when we were chattel.

Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehord, and Tina Majorino in Waterworld
Check out that rugged, badass seashell earring

 

Aside from the predictably horrible stuff about women, Waterworld is also interesting because of the snapshot it gives us of maleness. Kevin Costner’s character is antiquated by today’s standards – a type of hyper-competent manly man we don’t believe exists anymore, outside of adolescent fantasy. He’s good at everything he does, he kills people, he has a cool boat, he’s stoic, he’s wise, he gets the best of anyone who tries to screw him over – he’s such a badass that, when he goes fishing, he lets a sea monster swallow him whole so he can kill it from the inside.

He’s basically a cowboy who drinks his own piss.

At the same time, there’s a sense of vulnerability to character, because he hasn’t chosen to be an outsider. He’s an outcast because he’s a mutant, ashamed of his gills and webbed feet, forced to hide them for fear of being discovered. The movie strongly implies that the reason he’s mean isn’t just because it’s neat to be an asshole, or because he’s privy to some deep truth about the harsh realities of life – it’s partly because he’s lonely and he needs to learn how to connect with other people. In fact, the entire arc of his character development – such as it is – is that he learns to be less selfish, and becomes attached enough to Helen and Enola that he’ll risk his life and lose his boat to save them.

In the narrative of 1995, male leads still need to prove they’re capable of doing all the bad-ass things that men are supposed to be able to do. They still have to show that they don’t want to be all sissified, and caring, and interested in having conversations – they don’t want to hang around with women all the time, they don’t want to talk about their feelings, they don’t want to be all lame and interested in things like friendship when they could just swing machetes at your face – but then, somehow, somewhat against their will, they gradually start to have some vulnerable emotions and, as long as they keep blowing up the pirate ships, it’s still OK.

This doesn’t seem like a big deal by today’s standards, where male leads are often awkward, average, bumbling guys who get by with the help of their friends, but, in terms of action-adventure movie standards, having a hero who expressed self-doubt, loneliness, or insecurity was a step toward acknowledging that men have feelings, too.

The scene in Waterworld that’s maybe most instructive about how the movie sees both men and women, and the dynamics of relationships between them, is the scene just as we enter act two. Kevin Costner says he wants to toss Enola overboard, and Helen offers to have sex with him if she and Enola can stay. There’s a wide shot of the deck as she takes off her dress, and then there’s a long, silent moment where the actors communicate a lot of information through their expressions. It’s clear that Helen doesn’t want to sleep with Kevin Costner – that this is a horrible sacrifice she’s making to keep Enola safe, and it’s basically the worst day of her life. Kevin Costner is, at first, tempted by her offer, because he’s lonely, but, when he reads the disgust in her face, he backs off – maybe because he thinks she’s disgusted by his being a mutant, maybe because he doesn’t want to have sex with someone who isn’t into it, no matter what the reason – we don’t know. When she asks him later why he didn’t do it, his answer is the equally unreadable, “Because you didn’t want me.”

Waterworld is a movie that understands that women don’t actually want to have sex random dudes just because they are the heroes of the movie. It understands that, when women offer to trade sex for something, it’s usually not because they feel great about the deal. It understands that it would be wrong for Kevin Costner to accept the trade. At the same time, it’s a  movie that wants to show us Jeanne Tripplehorn’s butt when she takes off her dress, and make sure we know that Kevin Costner totally could have done it with her if he wasn’t such a stand-up guy. Just like to totally could have murdered that kid, and totally could have pimped out his lady friend, also if he wasn’t such a stand-up, awesome guy.

It’s a vision of a world where men can still have the power to do whatever they want to to women, but where they sometimes shouldn’t – where, in fact, they are princely, amazing, good guys if they don’t. It’s a world where you should try to be nice to the people in a one-down position from you, as long as they aren’t climbing up.

Also, it’s a world where any random rope can be a bungee cord, and I don’t understand that part quite as well.

 

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV on her blog.

 

 

Not Everybody Is Kung Fu Fighting

Western audiences aren’t interested in the talking points though; they just want to fast-forward to the action. They glorify the violence and exotify Chinese culture, while completely missing out the subtle, important messages of martial arts training: values like discipline, hard work, and how your training and skills aren’t used to harm others, but to better yourself.

Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo Yubari
Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo Yubari

 

This guest post by Katie Li appears as part of our theme week on Asian Womanhood in Pop Culture.

“So, do you know kung fu?”

This question is the scourge of Asian-America. The assumption that we all know martial arts is one of the handful of stereotypes that pop culture has been mainlining to the masses, leaving individuals to challenge these overly-simplified notions of Asian identity: the China Doll, the Dragon Lady, the Laundry Man, the Kung Fu Hero. We’ve been fighting against these stereotypes for decades—and Hollywood isn’t helping.

This question—like all stereotypes—is born out of unchallenged ignorance. As frustrating as it is for this assumption to be made, I understand how someone could believe that it is real. Fresh Off the Boat is the first show in 20 years to feature an Asian-American family; before that, Margaret Cho was trying to prove that she was an “All American Girl” on her sitcom that was wrought with Asian stereotypes.

In the decades between these two shows, Asian actors have been cast in some movies—but when have Asians in Hollywood held a leading role in a film other than an action movie? The only one I can think of is Harold and Kumar. We have been the perpetual sidekicks, rarely the stars. Lucy Liu, introduced to us in her role as Dragon-Lady-Gone-Lawyer in Ally McBeal hasn’t strayed far from this first impression, constantly portraying the alluring-exotic-sometimes-lethal love interest, never the hero of her own story, never someone a wider audience can identify with as they travel on an emotional journey together.

When we are the leads, we are featured in action movies, doing slick martial arts. The story doesn’t get any more complex or meaningful than getting out of a tricky situation using some kung fu. Since kung fu movies became popular in the 1970s, audiences have sat in dark theaters, absorbing these same images with nothing left to challenge these notions other than people who aren’t too weary of this microaggressor to answer, “No, I don’t know kung fu, and neither do all Asians.”

Cast of Fresh Off the Boat
Cast of Fresh Off the Boat

 

But what do you do when you actually fit those stereotypes that you must fight against?

I am an Asian-American woman of Chinese and Irish descent. I was a straight-A, piano-playing overachiever in high school. My grandfather was a laundry man and my grandmother owned a restaurant. I grew up doing kung fu.

My parents were my teachers. I didn’t get sugary cereal and cartoons on Saturday mornings–I was at their school, practicing kung fu. A common backdrop of my childhood was basically a Rocky training montage, people red-faced and sweating, doing drills to improve their skills.

The school would do street performances, impressing crowds of tourists in Fanieul Hall with fighting sets and animal-inspired techniques that they had only ever seen in movies. I watched my parents and their troupe as they flew through the air, doing butterfly and hurricane kicks, sometimes whipping weapons under their legs as they took flight. I clapped when the audience clapped, but I had also seen these routines practiced countless times before the show. Even at a young age, I understood that these skills weren’t just magically bestowed or gained in a montage. They required hard work and sacrifice.

My everyday life was a behind-the-scenes look at the kung fu movies that left everyone so impressed. Many of my parents’ students were actually super heroes—stunt doubles for movies like Mortal Combat, Batman, and Power Rangers. I watched these movies at home and understood that those characters were real people—people I knew. I understood that there was a difference between the action portrayed in films, and real stories in our lives.

The majority of my parents’ students were not in movies, they were just regular people looking for a new way to work out and feel good about themselves. They were young and old, college students and professionals of many different racial and cultural backgrounds. Kung fu wasn’t something that was just for Asians. But that’s not what the media would have us believe.

When people ask me, “Do you know kung fu?”

I can actually answer, “Yes.”

Being able to affirm someone’s stereotype isn’t a proud or happy moment. I stopped expecting people to shut up, satisfied with knowing that they met an Asian who did kung fu. Instead, I am met with more questions, microaggressors that are just as presumptuous and ignorant as assuming someone of Asian ancestry knows martial arts.

Lucy Liu as Ling Woo
Lucy Liu as Ling Woo

 

I don’t usually tell people I know kung fu, but when I do, I brace myself for the same conversation I have had with people my whole life—literally my whole life, ever since I was in preschool:

Are you a black belt?

To which I explain that not every school has a rank system, and that my parents’ school is one of those that does not. The emphasis in their training is not about forcing their students into the same rigorous, ever-advancing tests, but helping each student individually. But that’s not what people want to hear. When I tell people I’m not a black belt, they become incredulous, questioning my skills. They continue to prod, often asking:

Can you kick my butt?

This question became more sexualized as I grew up. Other women don’t usually want to know, it’s only men who ask, accompanied by a not-so-subtle smugness that suggested they wanted me to be able to physically dominate them. I got that question and that look even when I was a young teenager.

Because every Asian-looking school girl is super smart and can kick ass, right?

The honest answer: No.

I might be able to throw a punch, but hitting a pad in a kung fu class is different from fighting off Go-Go and the Crazy 88.

Western audiences aren’t interested in the talking points though; they just want to fast-forward to the action. They glorify the violence and exotify Chinese culture, while completely missing out the subtle, important messages of martial arts training: values like discipline, hard work, and how your training and skills aren’t used to harm others, but to better yourself. Kung fu isn’t about fighting an enemy. It’s about making yourself a better human being—inside and outside. By focusing on the action without compelling storylines or characters we can care about, the art of kung fu itself—like Asian action stars and layman—has been flattened to a caricature.

What 24 years of martial arts training has given me aren’t skills to show off my physical prowess, but mental endurance and confidence, a sense of empowerment to speak up when something isn’t right. In the end, those are the battles that really matter.

 

Raised by martial artists, Katie Li grew up with fascinating stories and an eclectic cast of characters. She continues this tradition in her work, writing fiction and narrative non-fiction about personal transformation and unlikely possibilities. Her work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Xenith, and Write From Wrong. Learn more at www.katieliwriter.com or follow her on Twitter @KatieLi_Writer.

The Superficial Yet Satisfying Feminism of ‘Agent Carter’

It’s not just seeing a badass chick beat the wide ties off of sexist dudes with a stapler that makes ‘Agent Carter’ so gratifying (although that’s a big part of it). I’ve been lucky enough to live my adult life in a post-‘Xena’ and ‘Buffy’ world where I can count on a fairly steady stream of ladies who can kick butt in my media. I think the heart of what makes ‘Agent Carter’ feel like a feminist triumph is that we are watching a would-be love interest as the hero of her own story

Promo image for 'Agent Carter'
Promo image for ‘Agent Carter’

Let me be perfectly clear: I loved the premiere of Marvel’s Agent Carter. I was already a huge fan of the character from the Captain America movies and her Marvel One-Shot short film, and these first two episodes of her new TV series lived up to my high expectations.

The best word I can think of to describe the show is satisfying. Watching it feels like slipping into a warm bubble bath or necking an ice-cold beer. Or doing both at the same time.  And you have a pizza.

Agent Carter at work.
Agent Carter at work.

 

It’s New York, 1946, and Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter is an agent with the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Despite her clout during the war, she’s now the sole female agent in her office and is treated as a secretary. Enter Howard Stark with a secret mission for her to clear his name while saving the world from his stolen weaponry, and Agent Carter has a lot of spying and fighting to do on top of her usual daily sassing of her sexist co-workers. She puts chauvinist jerks in their place, she kicks guys in the face, and she looks great (and I mean great) doing it: “weaponized femininity” is laid on so thick here she actually knocks a guy out with her “Sweet Dreams” spy lipstick.

I might leave my husband for this gold dress.
I might leave my husband for this gold dress.

 

But it’s not just seeing a badass chick beat the wide ties off of sexist dudes with a stapler that makes Agent Carter so gratifying (although that’s a big part of it). I’ve been lucky enough to live my adult life in a post-Xena and Buffy world where I can count on a fairly steady stream of ladies who can kick butt in my media.

But I think the heart of what makes Agent Carter feel like a feminist triumph is that we are watching a would-be love interest as the hero of her own story. As tumblr user mcpricekissed put it:

it would be so cool to have a superhero movie or a show where the story starts with a hero kicking ass but then he dies and his so called love interest takes over and finishes off his job oh wait that’s literally happening with agent carter

Peggy mourns Steve Rogers the way male action heroes morn their tragically dead wives/girlfriends/daughters. Captain America himself is this woman’s tragic backstory. Re-positioning Peggy as the central character this way is not only satisfying from a feminist perspective, it also helps overcome the also-ran status of a TV tie-in to a billion dollar film franchise.

Peggy after Captain America's "death" in 'The First Avenger'
Peggy after Captain America’s “death” in The First Avenger

 

Unfortunately, the show still felt the need to kill off a supporting female character in the pilot to add to Peggy’s guilt pile, either because we know Cap isn’t really dead, or because there is some obscure Writers Guild bylaw where the blood of a female character must be spilt in the first episode of any action series to appease the cruel and vicious gods of television.

And here’s where I get to the rub with Agent Carter. While the first word I use to describe it is satisfying, the second is indulgent.  This is feel-good feminism knocking down cartoonishly chauvinist straw men from the Bad Old Days, so we can pat ourselves on the back for how far we’ve come, and not worry about the complicated problems of the present. But just because something feminist is set in the 1940s doesn’t mean it has to embody old-fashioned feminism, with its total disregard for all the other systems of oppression that intersect with the patriarchy.

Peggy's sexist co-workers
Agent Carter‘s simple representation of the patriarchy: chauvinist co-workers

 

But just as several clever feminist commentators worried it would be, Agent Carter‘s feminism is fairly one-dimensional. There are little glimmers of commentary on class and disability, but both as they specifically relate to the post-war era. Where the show really fails is race, with its all-white cast and absurd under/mis-use of its only person of color with a speaking role in these two episodes, Andre Royo’s Harlem night club owner who is a) in cahoots with the bad guys and b) ends up dead.

To quote another tumblr user, duvallon:

love it when a show set in the late ’40s/early ’50s RELENTLESSLY addresses misogyny against white women but ignores race while using people of color as expendable villains

it’s just great

There are six more episodes of Agent Carter, and hopefully we’ll see improved representation and more thoughtful, truer feminism as the season progresses. If not, then I, as a white feminist who tries not to be a White Feminist, will face the arduous task of forcing myself to not unconditionally love Agent Carter.

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town who is now shopping for a red hat.

‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I’ and What Makes Katniss Everdeen a Compelling Heroine

While watching ‘Mockingjay Part I,’ I had an epiphany. I asked myself why Katniss Everdeen is such a compelling heroine to audiences and why other heroines modeled after her are popping up all over the place? There’s no denying that audiences (especially young women) are hungry for strong female representation on screen. We love to see Katniss use her wits and her bow to save the day, but in ‘Mockingjay Part I,’ there is very little action (Katniss uses her bow only once), and Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is still riveting. Why, do you think, that is?

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I

Written by Amanda Rodriguez.

Mild Spoilers Ahead

First off, let’s get the unpleasant part out of the way. Serious fans of The Hunger Games series will likely hate me, but we’ve all got to face the truth. The third installment in the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I should not have been made. Splitting movies into two parts is an ever-growing trend in Hollywood’s never-ending quest for more money. Over the course of the two-hour film, not enough happens to warrant its existence. There is little moving the plot forward, and the ending itself is anticlimactic as our heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) isn’t even involved in the ultimately uneventful final showdown mission to rescue the captive tributes. The vital events that do happen in Part I could have easily been condensed into the first 20 minutes of the finale of a legitimate trilogy.

Katniss in her one action scene in Mockingjay Part I

 

With that out of the way, let’s talk about what does work in Mockingjay Part I. There are a lot of women involved in the film itself, from the writer of the novels, Suzanne Collins, who adapted her books for the screen, to Nina Jacobson, the producer of the entire series, to our tenacious heroine Katniss, played by the increasingly popular, amazing performer and feminist Jennifer Lawrence.

The ever talented Julianne Moore as President Coin

 

I particularly liked that Mockingjay Part I also sets up the opposition between patriarchy and matriarchy with the introduction of Julianne Moore as President Coin of District 13. Under the patriarchal tyranny of President Snow (Donald Sutherland), the districts of Panem suffer as the people are used for their labor and their districts’ resources while fear and capital punishment are the norm. His Capitol, however, is rich, fashion-obsessed, and completely self-serving. The matriarchal President Coin, on the other hand, represents revolution with a strict focus on democracy and a socialist emphasis on the sharing of resources. District 13 is a militaristic, utilitarian underground compound that eschews fashion in favor of function (as evinced by the monotone uniforms all residents wear). Those of us who have read the books know that a lot will shift before the series concludes, but for now, this embodiment of a nontraditional representation of matriarchy in Coin is refreshing. She is decisive, smart, calm when under attack, and always thinking about the greater good of the people.

Katniss visits a hospital in District 8

While watching Mockingjay Part I, I had an epiphany. I asked myself why Katniss Everdeen is such a compelling heroine to audiences and why other heroines modeled after her are popping up all over the place? There’s no denying that audiences (especially young women) are hungry for strong female representation on screen. We love to see Katniss use her wits and her bow to save the day, but in Mockingjay Part I, there is very little action (Katniss uses her bow only once), and Jennifer Lawrence’s performance is still riveting. Why, do you think, that is?

Katniss stares in horror at President Snow's gift to her

 

Two words for you: emotional range. While there are a plethora of limitations and stereotypes by which female characters are plagued, audiences are getting tired of the limited range of emotion that male heroes are allowed to exhibit due to the strictness of masculinity within our culture. Women are increasingly allowed to showcase a greater range of emotions without it damaging their perception as a strong, good leader.

Katniss is overcome by gut-wrenching grief

 

In Mockingjay Part I, Katniss is suffering from intense PTSD. She has flashbacks, night terrors, uncontrollable bouts of crying, and dissociates from her surroundings. Throughout the film, she is an emotional wreck, as she should be after what she’s gone through, from being hunted and forced to kill for sport, to having her home of District 12 genocided as a result of her actions.

Katniss is overcome by fear in her 2nd participation in The Hunger Games

 

We watch Katniss go through an emotional roller coaster as she experiences shock, horror, terror, guilt, sadness, loss, anger, grief, and devastation. She is overcome with love for her family, Gale, and Peta, and, at her core, we are the most compelled by Katniss’ compassion and her instinctual drive to protect others. Katniss is sometimes wrong and often rash in her actions. In truth, it is her vulnerability displayed on screen like a raw wound from which we cannot look away.

Katniss weeps at the devastation of her home, District 12

 

This is the stuff of heroes. We see her experiences nearly break her time and time again, but she won’t give up. Carrying on is so hard that it nearly destroys her, but her sense of what is right is so strong that she cannot turn her back on her fellow oppressed district dwellers.

Like Katniss is the symbol of revolution as the mockingjay, she’s also the symbol of a movement that values women as nonsexualized leads with rich, complex characterization. We’re increasingly bored with the stoic male hero and instead crave the strength and vulnerability of the growing number of female sci-fi action heroines that are emerging thanks to the success of Katniss Everdeen and The Hunger Games.

Aside: The United States IS the Capitol. The storyline of The Hunger Games is so popular in the US, but we’re missing the point if we don’t confess that we are the oppressive world superpower that tyrannizes the rest of the word, exploiting the labor and resources of others so that most of us can live in relative wealth and comfort. End rant.

Bitch Flicks writer and editor Amanda Rodriguez is an environmental activist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a BA from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and an MFA in fiction writing from Queens University in Charlotte, NC. Her short story “The Woman Who Fell in Love with a Mermaid” was published in Germ Magazine. She writes all about food and drinking games on her blog Booze and Baking. Fun fact: while living in Kyoto, Japan, her house was attacked by monkeys.

All You Need is White People: Whitewashing in ‘Edge of Tomorrow’

Learning that ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is based on a Japanese work with a Japanese hero with the action set in East Asia really changed my feelings about the resulting film. I actually really enjoyed the movie despite its derivativeness and lapses in sense-making, well-chronicled by my colleague Andé Morgan here. But now it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Because I’m fine with liking an unoriginal and illogical sci-fi movie, but I’m not so cool with liking an unoriginal, illogical, and racist sci-fi movie.

Because turning Keiji Kiriya into William Cage, casting Tom Cruise, moving the action to Western Europe, and casting white people in 98% of the speaking roles are all racist acts perpetuating bullshit white supremacy in Hollywood.

Tom Cruise is White Dude in 'Edge of Tomorrow'
Tom Cruise is A White Dude in ‘Edge of Tomorrow’

 

I watched Edge of Tomorrow without knowing it was an adaptation. It seems like a movie without source material, because the plot depends on you not thinking too critically about any of the details. (How does this time loop work? Why does it also involve psychic visions? Why are these alien invaders called “mimics” when the only thing they mimic is the Sentinels from The Matrix?)

Edge of Tomorrow is in fact based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need Is Kill, which was also adapted into a manga of the same name by Ryōsuke Takeuchi and Takeshi Obata. Edge of Tomorrow is SWIMMING in source material.

Cover of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel 'All You Need Is Kill'
Cover of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need Is Kill.

 

I have read neither the novel nor the manga, but learning that Edge of Tomorrow is based on a Japanese work with a Japanese hero with the action set in East Asia really changed my feelings about the resulting film. I actually really enjoyed the movie despite its derivativeness and lapses in sense-making, well-chronicled by my colleague Andé Morgan here. But now it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Because I’m fine with liking an unoriginal and illogical sci-fi movie, but I’m not so cool with liking an unoriginal, illogical, and racist sci-fi movie.

Because turning Keiji Kiriya into William Cage, casting Tom Cruise, moving the action to Western Europe, and casting white people in 98 percent of the speaking roles are all racist acts perpetuating bullshit white supremacy in Hollywood.

Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, the most interesting character
Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, the most interesting character.

 

Sure, there are no Japanese actors as big as Tom Cruise. There are few actors, period, who are as big as Tom Cruise. That didn’t stop Edge of Tomorrow from pretty much tanking at the box office, though. And they could cast their precious white Name Actor as the female lead Rita Vrataski, who is a white American in the book and a white Brit (Emily Blunt) in the film. She’s a more interesting character anyway, and the film would probably benefit from re-centering on her. And maybe a sci-fi movie headlined by a woman and a Japanese man would have gotten more notice from audiences who dismissed Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow as generic enough to wait for home video?

And why change the setting to Europe? What makes that more interesting or dramatic a setting, other than racism? I was reminded of this summer’s Godzilla, which used “increasing whiteness of populations at risk” as its form of raising the dramatic stakes as the monsters trekked across the Pacific Ocean.

Wait... why are we in Europe?
Oh man, that is pretty racist.

 

I need Hollywood to figure out that white people’s lives are not intrinsically more valuable. And that white movies stars are often not as valuable as they’re supposed to be. “Bankability” is not a justification for whitewashing. I’d like to think the weak performance of Edge of Tomorrow might clue Hollywood in on this. Especially because Edge of Tomorrow was saved from being a total bomb by the foreign grosses from the very countries deemed not interesting enough to be the setting of the adaptation (although, notably, there was tepid reception in Japan).

In Edge of Tomorrow, every time Tom Cruise’s character dies he learns from his mistakes. But when a movie like it dies at the box office, Hollywood just shrugs and says “it probably needed more white people.”

Robin Hitchcock is an American writer living in Cape Town.