The Big Picture: You Are Wrong About Sucker Punch, Part One

[Sniperyeti]

I pretty much agreed with everything in the review, except for the message behind the Asylum reality (if we're moving upwards in steps from the 'dance reality'). What I got from that was not statements of abuse and violation - for god's sake the second level is a brothel we already have that - but a criticism of the view that these sort of films are about 'female empowerment'.

I'm not sure how clearer a metaphor we can get - a bunch of girls imprisoned and abused by an all-male staff placing themselves in fantasies specifically appealing to that particular set of trashy male desires. That's not a criticism of the men, we already have that. That's a poke at all the girls who go 'oh this was a chick flick about yada yada' and buy into the same stereotype simply from the other end.

It's a shame about the acting and shallowness of the plot devices. I did get the feeling that the film was deliberately trying to be a bit like a 'suspiciously stained anime comic' with some shock value thrown in, but it certainly looks like it alienated the vast majority of its audience. It didn't manage to achieve that Tarantino style self-mockery that people would more easily recognise, probably because it was too busy having a laugh.

 

[sleeky01]

I liked this movie overall, but my biggest problem with it was the ending.

Spoiler

Babydoll stays behind so her friend can escape, and that's fine; heroic sacrifices and all. But then she ends up getting lobotomized and presumably spends the rest of her life as a vegetable. That's horrible! I would have been okay with it if she had simply been killed, but this... This is a fate worse than death. I'm not really criticizing the movie on a storytelling level for this ending, but I just can't stand it when a story ends this way. I feel the same way about George Orwell's 1984,

Spoiler

where the protagonist and his girlfriend are brainwashed and indoctrinated into the system.

I thought the book was good, but I hated how it ended.

So One flew over the cuckoo's nest didn't work for you either?

 

[moviedork]

I feel like I 'get' this film mostly because I have been in abusive relationships with men and have used my imagination (and games) as a form of escapism. This film could have been taken from inside my head... I have real life parallels for both the step father and the doctor/brothel owner guy, unfortunately.

You are so right about this Bob, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

This film made me cry, I'm not sure how many people it had that effect on.

So you fantasize about dressing up like a whore and having a stripper name? I feel bad for ya.

 

[StrayDataPoint]

I feel like I 'get' this film mostly because I have been in abusive relationships with men and have used my imagination (and games) as a form of escapism. This film could have been taken from inside my head... I have real life parallels for both the step father and the doctor/brothel owner guy, unfortunately.

You are so right about this Bob, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

This film made me cry, I'm not sure how many people it had that effect on.

So you fantasize about dressing up like a whore and having a stripper name? I feel bad for ya.

@moviedork:
Say, are you familiar with the concept of "decent human beings"? It's like this exquisite club, for ppl who don't hear a story of abuse and triggering and then go on to belittle the victim for their coping mechanisms. Another prerequisite would be not to use gendered slurs, and not to shame women about "whoriness". You will probably never make it into the club, but hey, at least now you know it's out there.

@Moonlight Butterfly
It sucks that you went trough that. I totally hear you on escapism and empowering fantasies.

But I think moviebob is actually right, and the movie was leaning towards "no, it isn't really empowering", in this particular case of male-gaze-serving fantasies. (i still stand by my opinion: the message was not subtle, it was cowardly hidden)

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

SNIP

Not really but I know what it's like to be trapped in a shitty situation with aggressive men and using video games and escapism to take yourself out of that.

 

[Disthron]

I completely agree that calling Sucker Punch misogynist is basically saying, "Women can never wear skimpy outfits or be protrayed as being victimized," so it's not misgynist.

I disagree with everything else you said. Remember that film "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau? After it premiered and absolutely tanked, he came out and said it was a black comedic farce intended to suck to make you laugh. I simply don't grant that. I have no room in my head or my moviegoing experience for a director to come out after, or even before, the fact and say, "You're watching it wrongly." If the film itself can't prove to me that that is "what it's about" then the film failed and not my inquisitive moviegoing brain. Seriously, just how does a striptease parallel to shooting Nazi zombies? Furthermore, why am I supposed to believe it's a good plot device that a pubescent dancer is so great at sexy dancing that it literally stuns the men who see it? Then you've got the pretty aritrary death of two of the main five female characters, which has nothing to with subtext and is just a lazy way to whittle down the protagonists because this is the kind of story where only one person is allowed to survive. Besides, what does it mean for a person to lambast sleazy moviegoing audiences while delivering to them a sleazy movie? that's like a vegan serving hamburgers to his guests and then retreat back to the kitchen to scorn them. No thanks to that kind of self-unaware pretention.

It's not just that Sucker Punch doesn't get to say, "No, we're LAMBASTING that stupid stuff instead of glorifying it," it's that it doesn't serve up a good movie on any basis. The plot is like something out of an 8-bit video game, the characters are as deep as their monikers, and the events do pretty much nothing to make you care about anyone except by saying, "Hey, they're in a crappy asylum and people are abusing and killing them. Be invested." Sucker Punch just didn't work, on any level.

But yeah, it's not misogynist.

I have to agree with mrblakemiller, It seems like you are really stretching here, almost into conspiracy theory territory. I think you're giving this movie way more credit than it deserves. I think the film makers just had some disparate ideas that they thought were cool, but couldn't make a hole movie out of. So they wrote a flimsy plot that they could hang there fantasy sequences on.

 

[Frontastic]

Watching it reminded me of 'Funny Games' and it fails for similar reasons as that film. I love the idea of this film and while hiding an art-house film in a blockbuster has worked before, it really didn't here. And I think Snyder is why. His entire career is based on a visual style that pretty much embodies the objectification that this film's story is trying rally against. The message gets lost in the battle scenes which go on for too long and end up just being straight objectification. Without those sequences (which I'm willing to put money on were Snyder's only real contribution to the screenplay) it would be a much more interesting, more ideologically coherent film.

In saying that, I quite like Snyder's style and indeed the film but only in terms of it being a stupid, pandering action-fest. In that sense, it's enjoyable. But it shouldn't be and just like 'Funny Games' it ends up being a film that's enjoyable for being the very thing it's trying to criticise.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

it has justa bout everything i like in it,fantasy,animestylish fight seqounces and a good story. but i would make an adjustment to the end.

 

[faefrost]

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.

On a minor side note. Looking back at Robocop... and realizing it takes place in Detroit... then looking at Detroit today...Wow! I think we are outside the realm of uncomfortably plausible and well into that of disturbingly prophetic.

 

[copycatalyst]

Bob makes some interesting points, but I feel they are undercut by the distinct feeling that Zac Snyder loves every minute of the gratuitous, fetishized, fishnets-for-the-sake-of-fishnets as much as he loves his battle-for-the-sake-of-battle. And -given who we're talking about here- every minute of this action takes roughly five minutes to play out. If Snyder is chastising the audience, he must doubly chastise himself.

But the main thing that made it boring to me is something I think Bob himself put well in his review of District 9: Action scenes are more exciting when you care about the people involved and know what they are fighting for. In SuckerPunch what they were fighting for was trivial (is it so hard to steal a knife when you work in the kitchen?) and I just didn't care about the poster girls or their plight.

I will grant that the film does have more going on than many will give it credit for though. Still looking forward to finding out what Bob has to say in Part 2.

 

[Ashoten]

For the sake of argument I will concede the points you made about this movie being satire and making fun of the audience for just wanting to see young girls in small outfits. This Sucker Punch seem even more pretentious art BS then I first thought. Probably why I couldn't stomic more then 20 min of the film. Besides the fact that watching women be abused is unpleasant I also got that they were trying to throw the fantasy element of it in my face.

But is this kind of movie a broader example of sending mixed signals? I am asking seriously here cause it seems like there is no correct response. Women fought to have the right to dress however they want. I am also under the impression that most women who work as cheerleaders/strippers/at Hooters enjoy their job and feel empowered by it. If a women is told in response to being raped "Don't dress like a whore" then society criticize the insensitive prick who said it. I guess what I am asking is why do men need to be made to feel guilty for looking at women that want to be looked at?

 

[upgray3dd]

My main problem with sucker punch was the character's. They are all REALLY thin and interchangable. There was Babydoll, the girl doctor, that other girl, her sister, and the one that wasn't the sister. I couldn't go into significantly more detail than that about any of them for the first hour of the movie. After that hour I counted them up and realized that there was actually ANOTHER girl who I hadn't really noticed because there was no way to tell her apart from the others. At that moment, I mentally checked out.


The action scenes were fine, and the bad guys were all great, but without interesting good guys you are kind of distanced from the whole thing.

 

[Torrasque]

Judging by the 430 comments, I am a wee bit late to the discussion, so its pointless to try and delve in now.

I really enjoyed Sucker Punch. For the same reasons that Moviebob says I should enjoy Sucker Punch? Not all of them, I've only watched it twice and haven't taken the time to analyze it like I have other movies. Did I enjoy it because of the skimpy outfits and "sexualization" of the characters? Not intentionally, but I can't help it if mini skirts on a cute girl look awesome.

If anything, I just need to watch this movie another 3 or 4 times to get all the nuances I missed the first couple times.

 

[newwiseman]

I got the movie and I still didn't like it. Stunning visuals, Steampunk Samurai giants, and scathing metaphor be damned.

Babydoll should had pulled the trigger and ended the movie in the first ten minutes, if the same thing had happened to her after that point I would have thought the film was decent.

edit* I'll add the zeppelins said Liedland (German direct translation song land, or more appropriate Music World), quite literally where she was.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Hmmph.
So the pandering vibes I got from just the movies trailers, turned out to be the forefront of a metaphor in a movie that supposedly condemns said geek/nerd pandering in genre films.

At least I was half-right about my reasons for not wanting to see Sucker Punch; it looked like it was another one of those directly-pandering sorts of action films (like Underworld, or most of Milla Jovovich's career).

Given the audience's reception of the film, and the title, I'm not that surprised it turned out to being a metaphorical critique on the role of women in action films relative to their audience, and the fact that said criticism went right over the audience's heads.

I'm against pandering in general, since it detracts greatly from actual characterization. Its presence in film is distracting, and it eliminates a lot of potential design space for characters.
Not necessarily "likeable" characters, (villains and bastards have their place in film). but relate-able.

(a reason that goes a bit further than the token "because it's not right to portray women that way" argument, which is fine in itself. I already roll my eyes in disgust when a character whose defining characteristic can be summed up as "a pair of tits" is brought into the film solely to pander to the audience.)

Going any deeper into the topic requires dipping into feminism, and since I possess the Y Chromosome, I am automatically disqualified for discussing such under the "Feminist Clause" under the Raging Internet Forum Act of 2002.

 

[Yokai]

Wow. Well said. I "got" the movie the first time I saw it, but I missed the depth at which the metaphors ran, and I felt like it was calling me an asshole for enjoying the film at all. Now I see the reasoning behind it--that's actually remarkably clever.

It's definitely pretty inscrutable though. I don't know what to think about art that does require incredible perception to be able to fully understand--it may be a brilliant message, but still comes across as elitist to basically exclude everyone who isn't carefully analyzing every inch of the film. Regardless, I'm interested in what Bob has to say next week.

 

[Quellan Thyde]

The only issue I've ever had with Sucker Punch is that it's not a very good movie. Wide ranging-discussions about theme and intent don't change that fact.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

If a visual medium needs someone to explain it outside of that medium then it did a piss poor job. And this video is proof of that.

 

[BoredRolePlayer]

When I think a strong women I think of the manga Ninja Girls (for example), yeah it's has fan service and all that jazz but it's nice to know they are the ones who for the most part can handle themselves and have help and save the male lead. Main female lead is in a skimpy outfit but she kicks more ass then anyone else and is wanted for her skills. The male lead helps her and she helps him. And it doesn't go "Men are evil" it more like they need each other to complete their goal. Hell the main villain is more like what Sucker Punch is mocking, ready to have his women die when no longer needed.

I also think Winrey is a damn good female lead in FullMetal Alchemist. It shows how much without her Edward would never EVER last as long as he did. She isn't in skimpy outfits, she carries her own weight, and puts her self in danger to help the guy she loves making sure he gets his job done.

These females are not what I think when I think strong women, hell Terasa in Stigmata of Quezar is a stronger female lead. Yeah the male lead sucks her tits for energy but she at least dresses decently and can fight. The sucker punch women just steal for stupid men thinking with their penis, they are not a threat except for the pimp who runs the brothel.