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

Lovely Mixture

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Belated said:
You know who thought Sucker Punch was misogynist? FeministFrequency.
To me this only comes off as funny cause Bob defended Sarkeesian's Tropes vs Women project without examining any of the points against her and instead of examining the reasonable arguments, just put it to angry gamers.

I don't really care for Bob's opinions on movies. I think Sucker Punch is just stupid, overdone, forwards dumb stereotypes of the "videogame generation" and if it's trying to be ironic it's definitely not done in a way that everyone can see.
 

Krantos

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Belated said:
You know who thought Sucker Punch was misogynist? FeministFrequency.
So?

Let me direct you to the [a href="http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/guilt-by-association.html"]Guilt by association fallacy[/a]

Just because Feminist Frequency has been (arguably) wrong in the past does not mean the viewpoint is wrong just because they (she) shares it.

I'm not saying Sucker Punch is Misogynistic. I'm not saying it's not. I'm staying out of this fight. I just wanted to point out that's a bad argument.
 

Ashley Blalock

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ChrisRedfield92 said:
The opposite word of misogynist is misandrist, a word that seems so unknown that even the spell check on this thing is giving the red flag.

Anyone beginning to think the sexist tables are turning to opposite way?

By the way, all I saw when I first saw this movie was just a silly action flick with an overabundance of CG; maybe I didn't get the message because I'm not in the target audience
It did feel like the movie spent all it's time reducing men down to one of two Star Wars characters. One guy ends up as the kindly wise older Obi-Wan Kenobi while all the other men are like Jabba the Hutt. Instead of a message that says hey guys perhaps we should think about how we objectify women because they are attractive the message felt more like you should hate yourself for being born male because most men are scum.

Men in the film are either the wise man who can't protect the women but can act as a guide or men are just out to exploit the women in some way.
 

Belated

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Krantos said:
Belated said:
You know who thought Sucker Punch was misogynist? FeministFrequency.
So?

Let me direct you to the [a href="http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/guilt-by-association.html"]Guilt by association fallacy[/a]

Just because Feminist Frequency has been (arguably) wrong in the past does not mean the viewpoint is wrong just because they (she) shares it.

I'm not saying Sucker Punch is Misogynistic. I'm not saying it's not. I'm staying out of this fight. I just wanted to point out that's a bad argument.
It is a bad argument. Good thing I'm not making it.

Read the rest of my post. I'm not saying the opinion is wrong BECAUSE she holds it. I'm saying the opinion is wrong, "Oh, and by the way, this lady holds it."

Now let me redirect you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
 

Azaraxzealot

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Lilani said:
Azaraxzealot said:
If the themes or symbolism had to be explained outside of the film/book/comic/game/any form of media, then the media obviously did a piss-poor job at getting it to the audience in the first place. Which makes it a shitty movie.
I'm pretty sure Bob got it, at the very least.

I think the themes of Sucker Punch were very subversive, and apparently just a bit too subversive for the primary audience viewing the movie. But knowing the movie's true intention, doesn't that make it all the more interesting? Plenty of geeks flocked to the movie to watch the girls in Japanese schoolgirl uniforms kick some ass, making the whole thing sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Making the joke any more obvious would have undermined the purpose of setting up such an elaborate set of symbols and parallels in the first place.

So was it a bit too much for the casual moviegoer to get on the first go? Yes, but that's sort of the point. It is intended to be a trap for those seeking what's on the surface.
I didn't want to see the movie in the first place. It was actually my girlfriend who wanted to see the girls in Japanese schoolgirl uniforms kick some ass.

It doesn't even make any of the movie any more interesting to know these theories. If a piece of entertainment has to be explained outside of the entertainment without the piece being able to stand on its own then everything outside of it is just fan-theory on par with the "Angelica-created-all-the-babies-in-her-head" theory [http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Rugrats_Theory]

What I was hoping for was actually that the film would be able to convey this subversion to me without all the holier-than-thou preachy-ness. Plus, there was really no catharsis or tension throughout the film since it all took place in imaginary land. So none of the fight scenes ever had any effect on me.
 

Krantos

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Belated said:
I did read your post actually.

Aside from the single sentence at the end regarding your opinion, the rest was all about Feminist Frequency's viewpoint.

So she couldn't defend her position. Other people have made better arguments. Rather than grabbing arguments from the bottom of the barrel, you should respond to the more (arguably) valid ones. I stand by what I said earlier. It's a Guilt By association fallacy. You took someone almost universally hated on these forums, and related how she (badly) defended her opinion. It doesn't refute or address any of the arguments others have made, it simply casts doubt on them by associating them with her.
 

Belated

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Krantos said:
Belated said:
I did read your post actually.

Aside from the single sentence at the end regarding your opinion, the rest was all about Feminist Frequency's viewpoint.

So she couldn't defend her position. Other people have made better arguments. Rather than grabbing arguments from the bottom of the barrel, you should respond to the more (arguably) valid ones. I stand by what I said earlier. It's a Guilt By association fallacy. You took someone almost universally hated on these forums, and related how she (badly) defended her opinion. It doesn't refute or address any of the arguments others have made, it simply casts doubt on them by associating them with her.
You still don't get it. I'm not TRYING to refute or address the arguments others have made.

Basically, I wasn't using the FeministFrequency example to further attack the bad opinion, I was using the bad opinion to attack FeministFrequency. It's the other way around.

I think the fact that she failed to see the satire in Sucker Punch and made excuses when confronted with the truth is pretty telling. She's the kind of critic who'll make up reasons to see sexism where there isn't any.
 

Krantos

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Belated said:
Krantos said:
You still don't get it. I'm not TRYING to refute or address the arguments others have made.

Basically, I wasn't using the FeministFrequency example to further attack the bad opinion, I was using the bad opinion to attack FeministFrequency. It's the other way around.

I think the fact that she failed to see the satire in Sucker Punch and made excuses when confronted with the truth is pretty telling. She's the kind of critic who'll make up reasons to see sexism where there isn't any.
Ah, now I see. Then I apologize. That was my misunderstanding.

You were simply criticizing her (with good reason, imo) and were merely sharing it in a relevant topic. That makes more sense. Sorry I caused a fuss about it then.

Less a case of a straw man and more just jumping at shadows. Imma slink back into my corner now.
 

Belated

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Krantos said:
Belated said:
Krantos said:
You still don't get it. I'm not TRYING to refute or address the arguments others have made.

Basically, I wasn't using the FeministFrequency example to further attack the bad opinion, I was using the bad opinion to attack FeministFrequency. It's the other way around.

I think the fact that she failed to see the satire in Sucker Punch and made excuses when confronted with the truth is pretty telling. She's the kind of critic who'll make up reasons to see sexism where there isn't any.
Ah, now I see. Then I apologize. That was my misunderstanding.

You were simply criticizing her (with good reason, imo) and were merely sharing it in a relevant topic. That makes more sense. Sorry I caused a fuss about it then.

Less a case of a straw man and more just jumping at shadows. Imma slink back into my corner now.
That's not to say my hands are clean in this.

I was inappropriately hijacking this thread as a means to start my own battle that would probably be better-suited for a new thread of my own. So by all means get on my case about that. I don't mind being called-out as a subject-changer with some kind of grudge. I just don't like being called illogical.
 

Piecewise

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Starship troopers is a satire of the military....




You've never read Heinlein have you?
 

Ukomba

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So, by not going to see this movie I am fighting against the over sexualization of women in this type of genra. Never before has my lack of interest in a movie made me feel so superior. e_e
 

ElPatron

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Wakikifudge said:
Well, your reply also contained even more assumptions. Such as the one about transformers.

You're not a one dimensional person, you have personal opinions and you're not the exact same person as everyone else just because you play videogames.

Farther than stars said:
Ah, yes, but did you actually go into the game expecting it to deliver a message about the condemnation of war based on what you'd read in the press or did you pick it up because it looked like a fun shooter along the lines of, say, Call of Duty?
If I expected a fun shooter like Call of Duty my disappointment would be even greater. I knew it was an uninspired game with boring mechanics and an even worse title.

A good story might have not have completely softened the blow, but I had heard I was in for a surprise. However the execution simply annoyed me and wasn't original at all.

Therefore, I rely on the execution, not the intention. Otherwise The Room would be a masterpiece.

blalien said:
GF: Doesn't change the fact it was really depressing.
>not liking movies because they are sad

Auch. She doesn't enjoy a lot of cinema then.

Farther than stars said:
Ha, ha, you sure told him. :)
How so? Because moviebob said that the movie was targeted at gamers? Not really an argument when the other dude said he did not enjoy the sexualization of females that was criticized in the movie.
 

Schadrach

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jaymiechan said:
i DESPISE this film. Sure, there's the condemnation, but there's also a lack of positive icons that can be used to bolster the "satire" element.

My biggest problem, though? The opening scene nearly triggered me. The abusive stepdad? There's obvious cues that the daughters were abused, going to the point of sexual when the shooting occurs, and sexual abuse going to an escapist fantasy that involves being sexually objectified and feasibly abused more? That's ridiculous.

Then there is the point that the film, regardless of whatever lofty goals it might have had, revels in the very thing it is attempting to satirize. i mean, for cripes sake, you don't even find out any of the names of the women! AKA a very humanizing element, and something that could have cemented, even if held as a reveal for the end.
Personally (and I wonder if it's where Bob will go with it next week), I took the movie as an attack on escapism itself. 90% of the movie is fantasy trying to escape the circumstances the charcters are in. Like all good escapism, it contains a kernel of truth -- that which is the underlying core problem is either left intact and still the obvious core conflict but with better trappings or the capacity to be defeated or is conspicuously absent (think how no one ever dies within any of the alternate worlds in Abenobashi -- there's always something "else" that happens in it's stead). It probably didn't hurt that I watched Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi the week prior to seeing this movie the first time (an anime series using overlapping fantasies to hide uncomfortable reality using standard geeky tropes and all), but that was more the vibe I got from it.

obedai said:
My main problem with this movie is that the action scenes aren't integrated well into the movie. The movie makes its artistic statement reasonably well, but the action scenes feel completely pointless and tacked on because there is no reason for them to be there in the plot of the movie. The action scenes cut away from the characters and plot to essentially go 'whee explosions' for a few minutes so that it can make its artistic statement.
It works nicely as either dissociative episodes or escapism, though. Or to put it another way, how well do your chosen forms of escapist fantasy integrate well into real life?

Falseprophet said:
Also, the ending kind of torpedoes the whole thing:
Babydoll saves one of the other girls from imprisonment--by sacrificing all her agency, intellect, and individuality, which leaves her with this beatific smile of enlightenment. Male martyrs almost always die while in command of their actions, beliefs and self. But finally give us a female martyr, and she becomes a mindless living doll, bereft of personality.
Ugh.
Personally, I don't know if she saved the other girl, though I don't think she knows that, either. Every character either has an obvious and previously introduced analog in the previous "level" of the layered escapist fantasies, or they exist solely in Baby Doll's fantasy (in this case the majority of "trash" enemies the girls fight are the latter, and almost all the core characters are the former). The Wise Man/Bus Driver is the interesting one -- we never see him outside of what we know to be a fantasy until the very end. I'd like to posit the possibility that the bus driver isn't real and that the ending is, in essence, what's left of Baby Doll's mind escaping to a version of the world where what happened to her wasn't entirely futile -- and that this is the *reason* that the Wise Man is the bus driver, as a subtle wink that that scene wasn't real.

unacomn said:
I found Sucker Punch to be one of the most depressing things I've ever seen. It was more or less saying that regardless of how much you'd like, you can't escape your sin (
BD accidentally shooting her sister
), you can't go on, save whoever you can, but fall on your sword and maybe find solace in that.
Something like this, yes. You can't really fight reality, but you can sure as hell lie to yourself until it's not so bad, at least for a little while.
 

RedDeadFred

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ElPatron said:
Wakikifudge said:
Well, your reply also contained even more assumptions. Such as the one about transformers.

You're not a one dimensional person, you have personal opinions and you're not the exact same person as everyone else just because you play videogames.
I assumed he was referring to the average Escapist gamer because he posted it onto the Escapist. It seemed logical to me. Maybe that's not who he's referring to (and if that really is the case then I admit that I misunderstood) but from what I've seen of our community, we prefer movies with a bit more substance.

I used Transformers 2 as an example because it is almost universally agreed upon that the movie is all action and no substance.
 

yeel

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I doubt whether what you say was really the intention of the movie. The first criticism, which other can put into words so much better than me:

mrblakemiller said:
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.
But it also ignores the fact the action sequences are, at least to an extent, presented as a journey of self discovery; remember that nice fatherly priest figure which guides them through it all. If they were really lambasting it they shouldn't play it so straight.

These sequences do occur during the striptease in the first dreamlayer (the brothel) and one could draw a parallel between the audience and the brothel clients. But alternatively the action sequences could be a form of escape from harsh realities or a form of inner struggle during these sequences. But in the bigger scheme of things the brothel is a dreamlayer itself, in the real world the girls are going performing a sort of regression therapy of some kind, which actually ties in nicely with the whole journey of self discovery thing in the second dreamlayer (the action sequences).
I could dwell about the possible meanings of the movie but it would go well beyond my abilities and the point I'm trying to make. In short there just seems too be much more going on in the movie to warrant this very narrow interpretation.



On a side note your initial review seemed to give the film much more credit than just there to mock the target audience. Come to think of it, your initial review didn't give that impression at all.
 

Asehujiko

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I stand by my opinion that this movie is still only about anime tropes, now with "deep" meta commentary that just ends up insulting everybody tacked onto the list of mechs, fetish apparel, zombies, multiple levels of reality, steampunk, sci-fi, nazis Imperial Germans and katanas.

As such, I also stand by my opinion that it could be improved by reducing it to a 20 minute short film leaving only the WWI segment.
 

Two Angels

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It doesn't matter what it tried to do, what messages it was trying to put across... it was still an average film with a poor script with average acting.
 

JonnWood

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I never actually found the girls particularly appealing. I mean, yes, attractive women, interesting clothes, but it never did anything for me. I found the most appealing costume element was that garrison cap. And that's just cause I think girls in garrison caps are cute. And I already thought Emily Browning had nice lips and facial structure anyway, so nothing new there. Well, except for the fact that she looks better as a brunette.

Shame, really. This movie could've been the cinematic equivalent of Spec Ops: The Line.
 

xaszatm

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Piecewise said:
Starship troopers is a satire of the military....




You've never read Heinlein have you?
Oh, the book by Heinlein plays everything straight, no question. The MOVIE, on the other hand, was definitely satirizing the military.

OT: Interesting theory, Bob. Will wait until next episode before I comment though.
 

JonnWood

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Two Angels said:
It doesn't matter what it tried to do, what messages it was trying to put across... it was still an average film with a poor script with average acting.
So what a work tries to do is irrelevant, and only what it achieved matters, you say. I disagree. At the very least, what falls into the gap between reach and grasp can be examined by later filmmakers trying similar things so they can see where it went wrong. One of the things I've learned about life is that it's generally a good idea to try and learn from other people's mistakes, not just your own.

It may not matter to you, but I think it matters to someone. It matters to me, it matters to Bob, it matters to a lot of people in this thread.
yeel said:
...
I could dwell about the possible meanings of the movie but it would go well beyond my abilities and the point I'm trying to make. In short there just seems too be much more going on in the movie to warrant this very narrow interpretation. ...
Um, I'm assuming you happened to miss that this is Part One. There's more to come, and Bob's going to expand.