The Big Picture: You Are Wrong About Sucker Punch, Part One
- Thread starter MovieBob
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This is the conversation I had with my girlfriend right after Sucker Punch:
GF: That movie was awful. I can't believe you made me see that.
Me: It wasn't sexist! MovieBob said it was a satire of sexism.
GF: Doesn't change the fact it was really depressing.
GF: That movie was awful. I can't believe you made me see that.
Me: It wasn't sexist! MovieBob said it was a satire of sexism.
GF: Doesn't change the fact it was really depressing.
I understand what this movie was trying to portray but it just fell flat. The characters were very bland, the only one I actually liked died first. The plot seemed to be all over the place. Some of the worlds were visually stunning and I especially enjoyed the steam-punk world war sequence but that just wasn't enough to hold the movie together. I'm not going to blame people for liking it, but I felt in many areas the film had so much more potential.
If I remember correctly, Robocop is Bob's favorite film. And that is a pretty great movie, but it's also essentially a satire; like a GTA game, it takes place in a hilariously insane yet uncomfortably plausible world. What I wonder is, considering that Bob is attuned to those kinds of things, could he be seeing them even when they aren't really there, despite his seeming awareness that Zack Snyder is no Paul Verhoeven.
When the movie came out I went to see it. I was looking for a action movie with sexy girls fighting giant Samurai. Why because I'm a guy who likes sexy girls and sic-fi action, normally I need a good story to sink my teeth in to, but I thought I could put that away for this one.
In no way could i have thought I would be let down by the story and characters, my expectations where low. Both where meaningless and empty. I did not see the social commentary that Bob is referring too but now it has started to be pointed out to me I can see it, but it dose not redeem the movie for me, maybe its because I don't agree with all that it is trying to say.
This quote sums it up for me.
If what Bob is saying is true and this is what the detector was going for, he failed. A lot of people (not all) did not see this social commentary and just found the movie hollow.
I'm interested in seeing part 2.
And just a side question, is it impossible to have a pandering male nerd fantasy AND also a deep and meaningful heroine? Can you kill two birds with one stone?
In no way could i have thought I would be let down by the story and characters, my expectations where low. Both where meaningless and empty. I did not see the social commentary that Bob is referring too but now it has started to be pointed out to me I can see it, but it dose not redeem the movie for me, maybe its because I don't agree with all that it is trying to say.
This quote sums it up for me.
If you don't point out "hay see what I'm doing hear" so we can all see it, then your point is lost and it makes the movie pointless. If he was going for social commentary it should be obvious within the movie not explained after it is out.GloatingSwine said:
If what Bob is saying is true and this is what the detector was going for, he failed. A lot of people (not all) did not see this social commentary and just found the movie hollow.
I'm interested in seeing part 2.
And just a side question, is it impossible to have a pandering male nerd fantasy AND also a deep and meaningful heroine? Can you kill two birds with one stone?
I disagree with Bob a lot of the time, including on this movie being good, but this is one of the few episodes where I actually think he has some really good points. What can I say? I'm impressed
A lot of this, actually, most of this. I'm not a movie guy and I'm even less a movie critic guy, but Bob hit the nail square on the soft head of a movie it was. I'll even admit that I didn't really 'get it' when I first saw it but more pieced it together after the fact, reminiscing with the woman on just how fragmented and hard to follow it was. When we finally realized it was a fantasy (action sequences) within a fantasy (brothel/speakeasy/whore house) within a horror (mental institution where all the female inmates are brutalized and sexually molested) movie, we looked at each other blankly and decided to move on, but we still, both of us actually, appreciated what was trying to be put across, even with the terrible segues within 'Sucker Punch' which took you away from the point trying to be made. Even still we found it more comforting and less frustrating to talk about the possibility of a movie illustrating the mating habits of shrews than to continue trying to dig to the depths that Bob did. So thanks Bob; you did all the hard work of gathering meaning from poor illustration and imagery that was more nerdo-circle-jerk than shawshank-redeemed.The Almighty Aardvark said:
I love LOVE this movie. I kinda feel like it did something sort of similar to Cabin In The Woods... which was another movie which some people loved and some hated (though i think it was more loved in general overall)
I def. very much did "get" it, but i felt it was a very enjoyable "music videoish" type movie even if you turned your brain off and neglected to "get" it so i am sort of confused as to why so many people didn't like it.
I def. very much did "get" it, but i felt it was a very enjoyable "music videoish" type movie even if you turned your brain off and neglected to "get" it so i am sort of confused as to why so many people didn't like it.
And on a side note. This idea that just because everyone does not understand the movie, then the movie is not good because it doesn't convey the message in a way that everyone can grasp... This is totally absurd. If you believe in that then you must also believe that (for example) pretty much every philosopher who ever existed is a shitty philosopher because many (if not most) people upon reading their works will not grasp what they are trying to say. In fact most meaningful works of art which present new or interesting ideas are NOT understood by most people right away, let alone everyone. To say they are not good because people "don't get it" is ridiculous.
I don't think I am going to read through all of the pages of this discussion but it seems that many of the complaints about the movie being brought up are people not appreciating the role of those elements. That may be because they didn't "get it" or it may be that they just didn't like the use of those particular elements or their execution. I am wondering though how many people in this thread have such wonderfully scripted daydreams that they don't get why the internal fantasies of half mad abuse victims are chaotic, disjointed, and only marginally sensical.
In the words of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw "Just because you're being ironic doesn't mean people aren't going to fap to it" sucker punch is misogynistic because the women portrayed in the movie lack any positive qualities and they are being exploited sexualy by the movie even if this is suppose to be ironically.All they are is just sex dolls and they never evolve past that
If a movie is suppose to be feminist just because all the men in it are horrible people then you're wrong. All it is is misandric and misogynistic at the same time
If a movie is suppose to be feminist just because all the men in it are horrible people then you're wrong. All it is is misandric and misogynistic at the same time
I turned this film off after about 40 minutes because I got what it was supposed to be but felt patronised by it's obviousness. That and the dragged out action sequences were pretty terrible. Too long, too cliched but maybe that was the point? I should have loved this film but the metaphor was carried out so badly, was just so lurid and blatent, that it just made me feel sick. Once I looked up some of the debate on this film, and read a good post from a supporter of it, who said something like "If you get what this film is supposed to be but don't like it, then you're probably not the target audience".
I suppose I should give Sucker Punch kudos for attempting to attack the culture it's aimed at. I'm fidning the way that video games especially are going, to be pretty offensive. Female characters and classes are increasingly becoming giant-breasted, deformed, distorted and ludicrous. Heavy armour classes being protected by a thong and boob-tape. Casters in bikinis.
It's all just going hideously wrong.
I suppose I should give Sucker Punch kudos for attempting to attack the culture it's aimed at. I'm fidning the way that video games especially are going, to be pretty offensive. Female characters and classes are increasingly becoming giant-breasted, deformed, distorted and ludicrous. Heavy armour classes being protected by a thong and boob-tape. Casters in bikinis.
It's all just going hideously wrong.
Dear Bob,
No. The film is an opportunistic piece of regurgitated wank failing completely and utterly to enforce whatever subtext for which it might have been striving. Snyder's lack of storytelling capabilities (not to mention sensitivities) ensure that the film is fetish window dressing and nothing more.
No. The film is an opportunistic piece of regurgitated wank failing completely and utterly to enforce whatever subtext for which it might have been striving. Snyder's lack of storytelling capabilities (not to mention sensitivities) ensure that the film is fetish window dressing and nothing more.
So far I'm unconvinced. Yeah you could talk about justifying the imagery in this movie as an anti misogynist statement all day long, but the problem I have is that it dedicates far more time pandering to the perverts than to dehumanizing them. If so many people came out of the cinema decrying its portrayal of women and the misogynists came out praising it, what changes? Apart from Warner Bros making a ton of money off of the sexualised images of these young women?
And as for the whole "a Striptease is just a strip tease" angle, what makes Sucker Punch any different? A graphic novel gives us scantily clad women engaging in "empowering" nerd fantasies. Sucker Punch demonizes perverts by... giving us scantily clad women engaging in "empowering" nerd fantasies. Aren't they just both using weak attempts at a feminist subtext to justify their capitalizing on nerd fetishes and their exploitation of the female form?
And as for the whole "a Striptease is just a strip tease" angle, what makes Sucker Punch any different? A graphic novel gives us scantily clad women engaging in "empowering" nerd fantasies. Sucker Punch demonizes perverts by... giving us scantily clad women engaging in "empowering" nerd fantasies. Aren't they just both using weak attempts at a feminist subtext to justify their capitalizing on nerd fetishes and their exploitation of the female form?
You know who thought Sucker Punch was misogynist? FeministFrequency. Yes, that same lady we were all talking about a few months ago over that "Tropes vs. Women" etc. etc. project because she got tons of hateful comments. She actually posted a review of Sucker Punch attacking Zack Snyder as a misogynist catering to nerd fantasies. So I guess she didn't get it either.
Here's the review. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYGiKDpjwfE] You'll notice in the comments section, when she's confronted about the truth - that Zack Snyder was doing a satire - she makes the excuse "well if he *was* trying to "mock the typical horny comic-book geek" then he failed miserably.", as if it mattered. It doesn't. If she's trying to convince us that he's a misogynist, it doesn't matter what he did, but what he was trying to do. And she was wrong about what he was trying to do. But rather than admit that she misinterpreted the film, she shrugged it off by saying "he failed", missing the point entirely.
I actually thought Sucker Punch succeeded pretty well in its satire. I mean, I thought the fantasy scenes were awesome, and I'm a nerd.
Here's the review. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYGiKDpjwfE] You'll notice in the comments section, when she's confronted about the truth - that Zack Snyder was doing a satire - she makes the excuse "well if he *was* trying to "mock the typical horny comic-book geek" then he failed miserably.", as if it mattered. It doesn't. If she's trying to convince us that he's a misogynist, it doesn't matter what he did, but what he was trying to do. And she was wrong about what he was trying to do. But rather than admit that she misinterpreted the film, she shrugged it off by saying "he failed", missing the point entirely.
I actually thought Sucker Punch succeeded pretty well in its satire. I mean, I thought the fantasy scenes were awesome, and I'm a nerd.
You know what I find funniest about this thread?
The fact that so many people feel the need to add "I got the film's message" to their posts. Whether they agree with Bob or not, they feel the need to let everyone know they understood it.
This is the result of endeavors like this. At least when portrayed the way Bob does it. Even the title of the video proudly states "You are Wrong!"
It puts everyone's back up because now they feel like they have to defend themselves. It's the same as saying "If you were smart, you'd agree with me." or "Only Racists think that."
I hate it because it's essentially a preemptive ad hominen attack. The author knows people are going to disagree with them, so they poison the well so when people inevitably do disagree , the original writer/speaker/whatever can say "I called it."
Bob does this a lot and it's starting to irritate me. He's a smart guy, no doubt, but lately I feel like he'd be the first person to tell you that. News flash Bob: Being smart doesn't mean that people who disagree with you are dumb.
The fact that so many people feel the need to add "I got the film's message" to their posts. Whether they agree with Bob or not, they feel the need to let everyone know they understood it.
This is the result of endeavors like this. At least when portrayed the way Bob does it. Even the title of the video proudly states "You are Wrong!"
It puts everyone's back up because now they feel like they have to defend themselves. It's the same as saying "If you were smart, you'd agree with me." or "Only Racists think that."
I hate it because it's essentially a preemptive ad hominen attack. The author knows people are going to disagree with them, so they poison the well so when people inevitably do disagree , the original writer/speaker/whatever can say "I called it."
Bob does this a lot and it's starting to irritate me. He's a smart guy, no doubt, but lately I feel like he'd be the first person to tell you that. News flash Bob: Being smart doesn't mean that people who disagree with you are dumb.