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

[anthony87]

Anyone else think it's interesting that Bob has now done two videos explaining this movie to people who didn't "get it" after he himself was quite critical of the Mass Effect fans telling him that he didn't "get it" with regards to the dissatisfaction regarding the ending?

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

"...for the castle seige segment, which features the possibly deliberate submersive symbolysm of Babydoll having to kill a newborn dragon and it's mother with her sword, in other words, destroying traditional feminine gender roles of child nurturing and motherhood itself by rendering herself symbolically masculine via her cartoonishly phalic katana sword."

Sorry but what the hell did I just hear? Am I the only one who's getting the strong feeling that MovieBob thinks he knows 10x more about the "true intended meaning" of this movie than the directors/writers themselves?
This is taking "over-analysing" to a whole new level.

I would expect the conversation to go something like this:

Zack Snyder: So here is a badass scene of Babydoll slaying dragons! Exciting stuff!

MovieBob: But surely it's a lot more than just that? *long lecture of the true intended meaning*

Zack Snyder: ...what the crap? I mean...err...why yes, of course, that's exactly the subtle message I was trying to deliver! Good observation! Tee hee hee."

 

[Soxafloppin]

I didn't enjoy the film, but I enjoyed this two part special..Bob makes good points.

 

[mfeff]

I think it's unfortunate that you didn't comment on the character of the "High Roller", the other sympathetically portrayed male character and the one you'd least expect to be shown that way. It's shame that his only scene was in the directors cut.

This is a good point that I will iterate with a quote from the character:

"High Roller: All I require from you is a slither of a moment. To have you not by force, but simply as a man and a women. To see in your eye, that simple truth, that you give yourself to me freely. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Now of course, for such a gem, I will give as well. I'm willing to give you freedom. Pure and total freedom. Freedom from the drudgery of everyday life. Freedom as abstract ideal. Freedom from pain. Freedom from responsibility. Freedom from guilt. From regret. Freedom from sadness. Freedom from loss. The freedom to be happy. Don't close your eyes; I need you to look at me. The freedom to love."

The other thing is: While i see where your interpretation of the movie as a commentary on the progress of feminism comes from i interprete it a bit differently. To me it's mostly a coming of age story. Babydoll, representing childhood, obviously has to sacrifice herself for Sweetpea, the adult, to survive. This happens, in the burlesque world, with the loss of her virginity to the High Roller and in the asylum world with her lobotomy. While the symbolism of sex as a rite of passage is fairly obvious the lobotomy part is far more interesting. She accepts the loss of her free will to let the other part, the adult, take control. That seems pretty brutal but it's not that bad of a representation of the transition into adulthood.

I like where this is headed, however, in accord with what the high roller has to say on the subject the implication is that "hanging on" to the virginal archetype is in and of itself a self reinforcing narrative on Babydoll's part. Couple this with Bob's observation that Baby slays the dragon and offspring, baby "cannot" be a mother, or a parent, simply due to being virginal and a "baby". This synthesizes both approaches.

The idea of loosing one's "free will" to the lobotomy is interesting but I would disagree on the face of it. That until one confronts the myriad self reinforcing projection of archetypes and personalities onto others (simply psychological projection) one is not "really" free, one is a slave to ones' own projections and (real or imagined) expectations of others.

This seems close to the concept known as hypoagency, specifically female hypoagency; simple "one agency" when in a situation with many agents/actors/people.


Waxing a little Nietzschean personally I simply found the asylum to be a metaphor for all the competing wills contained within some individual, maybe or maybe not female. The metaphor is one of psychosis. To wax a little Jungian the lobotomy is just this:

Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious C.G. Jung. -Study in the process of individuation

Mind you I find Sweat Pea to still be a "persona" forse. Though one persona and one mythological world (a real world with only a single set of filters) is better than half a dozen personalities and 3 worlds of psychological retreat.

As far as it goes "high roller" is not just a man, but an idealized "real man". One that creates a "space" for a woman to be a woman. He doubles as both the psychological dumping ground for all the myriad troubles that sexual responsibility entails, but also as the "safe bet", or "sure thing", in the gambit to secure a mate. It's all just smoke and mirrors though, reinforcing the character (unreliable narrator's) formation of archetype(ing) of people whom they are encountering or dealing with in the present or the past, or even that idealized future.

Could go so far as to say he is a quintessential "alpha". Sweat Pea maybe a nod to the fairy tale of the princess and the pea, princess elevates to "Queen" through male intervention, going any further than this means reading just so much into it, simply because the audience is never presented with a "male" other than the old guy, wise old man/hero's journey.

Sucker Punch = MTV + Jung + Fred. N. + Princess Pea (fairy tale) ? Don't see much more than that... could be wrong, it's art I spose.

 

[nayrbarr]

I don't care what others think, I always quite liked this movie. I watched it after seeing your review, so my views may have been tainted slightly by that, but I do agree with your points here. You've raised some good points and I rather want to watch the film again to put your ideas to the test.

 

[TheSchaef]

Moulin Rouge satirizes the whole "love conquers all" motif behind so many garbage movies and songs... and far too many people missed that point, hailing the movie as being oh-so-romantic-I-love-the-music! Basically, the movie makes fun of the very people who like it, and they still like it.

The part that should really make your blood boil is that this film, not unlike Sucker Punch et al, has layers, and each of those layers drives home the same point.

You are correct that the film is a tale of loss, ironically set to music extolling the virtues of love conquering all. But even beyond that, it is a retelling of the Orpheus myth, someone who descends into the underworld to save the woman he loves, but unable to bear the price of saving her, looks back, and thus she dies.

As if that's not enough, when the theater troupe has to sell an idea to The Duke, they cobble together a piecemeal fictionalized version of their own story, meaning the play they are putting on is just a second layer of the same theme. This layering is extremely obvious to the lay viewer but what they miss is that just as the cast are conning The Duke with the most cunning lie of all - the truth - the movie as a whole is doing the same to the audience.

As if THAT'S not enough, when they are selling their bill of goods to The Duke, they burst into spontaneous song. The only piece of music not lifted from 80's big-hair pop, but it packs a bigger punch then all the other pieces in the soundtrack: it's the most famous piece from Offenbach's ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD.

People talk about the love conquers all theme, and then they walk out of the movie talking about what a downer the ending was, because that's not what Orpheus is about. According to the story, to love something is to lose it, and we are to leave behind these highly idealized notions of a fairy tale existence. The gaudy, garish look of the film was supposed to emphasize this. Ah well.

 

[minuialear]

"...for the castle seige segment, which features the possibly deliberate submersive symbolysm of Babydoll having to kill a newborn dragon and it's mother with her sword, in other words, destroying traditional feminine gender roles of child nurturing and motherhood itself by rendering herself symbolically masculine via her cartoonishly phalic katana sword."

Sorry but what the hell did I just hear? Am I the only one who's getting the strong feeling that MovieBob thinks he knows 10x more about the "true intended meaning" of this movie than the directors/writers themselves?
This is taking "over-analysing" to a whole new level.

I would expect the conversation to go something like this:

Zack Snyder: So here is a badass scene of Babydoll slaying dragons! Exciting stuff!

MovieBob: But surely it's a lot more than just that? *long lecture of the true intended meaning*

Zack Snyder: ...what the crap? I mean...err...why yes, of course, that's exactly the subtle message I was trying to deliver! Good observation! Tee hee hee."

Yeah, seriously. Not to mention, if Snyder was actually trying to make the film this intelligent, why wouldn't he create a metaphor around Babydoll confronting the nature of the actual real-life issues that got her in there (reclaiming something that was hers, or defending the people she loves from an aggressor, etc)? Why would she randomly be fighting against motherhood and female roles; unless I'm forgetting something, there was nothing to suggest that anyone was forcing her into motherhood, or forcing her to stick within gender roles other than being a sex object in the institution. You don't call a film smart for throwing in random metaphors for female empowerment just-because (and maybe the argument that they are actually are metaphors for female empowerment would seem more plausible if the metaphor itself was actually tied to the plot and not kinda just out there)...

 

[xPixelatedx]

The moment you described the dragon scene my eyes rolled off to the side so hard that they spun a 360 and now I can see through dimensions.

I'm sorry man, at that point you are just really digging. I mean, damn... what a string of complete, utter nonsense. I seriously doubt that was all planed that way, and if it was I hate this movie even more now. There is such a thing as symbolism to the point of obnoxiousness, and if that dragon scene was made to be how you said, then this movie is the most obnoxious movie ever made.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Thanks Bob, that was really insightful. Not necessarily accurate, but well thought out and argued and creates a discussion. Kudos.

 

[TheSchaef]

Well my point re: that comment was more to say that Snyder isn't exactly known for making films that make people think

Perhaps not, but there's little denying that most of the material he chooses (or is selected) to direct tends to be based on deeper ideas.

Miller's 300, for example, is a highly stylized and fantastical retelling of the Persian siege (and Greek defense) of Thermopylae. Obviously we're not supposed to believe the Persians had giant war-beasts and the like, but what is revealed at the end places the story in its proper context: the lone survivor Dilios retelling in a grandiose fashion to rally Greeks to the cause, ending in the battle at Plataea, where the Greeks ultimately beat back the Persian invasion.

The same can be said of his adaptation of Moore's Watchmen. While Snyder gets all his geek cred for a faithful retelling that employs a lot of the money shots from the comic, keep in mind the story itself is about costumed vigilantes who, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan, have no actual superpowers. It takes place in a world where their kind, once lauded, are driven into retirement by political pressure, Nixon (apparently to the detriment of society) is in his fifth presidential term, the threat of nuclear war (already heightened in "real" 1985) hangs like a cloud over everything, and with the heroes, the populace, the geopolitical situation, everything is a powderkeg set to blow the proverbial shit directly and succinctly into the fan. Following close behind the revolutionary dystopic future of Blade Runner, it creates a dystopic present, deconstructs an entire genre built around Superman and Captain America, and burdens the reader with a titanic amount of moral ambiguity.

One might argue that his projects are based on existing works that do all the "thinking" for him, but it's not like we're talking about Bayformers here.

 

[hentropy]

"...this is intended more as an illustration of the danger of ascribing negative artistic intentions to a film or other work because it approached difficult subject matter and didn't quite stick the landing, because often enough it actually might have been the exact opposite of what you assume."

Or it may be that the first assumption is exactly the right one, and you're reading too much into it. I'm more inclined to believe the latter because of Snyder's own comments in regards to his movies and the fact that he didn't seem very eager to embrace any kind of second meaning behind everything.

Still, it matters little. It wasn't a matter of "sticking the landing", because that assumes you know how you want to land. The problem with the basic story and themes is pretty obvious to 90% of the people who saw it: it was completely unfocused and any message or clear theme was muddled by all the different "layers" and pretension.

It seems more likely to me, that instead of Snyder being some kind of genius who knowingly installed all of these layers and messages in the movie (which all amounts to 'you are a bad person for watching this movie' according to Bob himself), that he's just a life-long nerd and fanboy. He might be a great director, but like many (not all) life-long nerds, he has a warped few of females, femininity, and most of all feminism. He made Sucker Punch because he wanted to have girls being empowered in his warped view of empowerment, but had all the antagonists be male and protagonists be female because that's his warped view of what the feminist ideal is. As he continued writing it, he wanted to put more themes and layers in it instead of keeping it concise, because he's not a career writer of original material and like so many college students thinks that deep and complex = good.

I don't know what it's in the man's head, we could all be horribly wrong. Still, none of this affects the fact that Sucker Punch is a bad movie in pretty much every way, everything it tries to do fails and fails miserably.

 

[ElPatron]

Like others said before I think the High Roller should have been mentioned. In the cabaret world he didn't actually look evil, more like someone who is just oblivious to the abuse that goes on the backstage. In the "real" world, he was tricked into performing lobotomy.

'Never meant to change my opinion'? Then you might want to change the title of your video, Bob.

It wasn't meant to change your opinion on the subject of *quality*. You can like the movie. Or don't like if you want.

But many critics were indeed wrong about the movie.

he has a warped few of females, femininity, and most of all feminism. He made Sucker Punch because he wanted to have girls being empowered in his warped view of empowerment

It's a film where Zack Snyder probably thought of when he was 13, and tried to then "update" by means of "feminist standards" to make it seem empowering, only to come out muddled.

I disagree. Nothing about the movie seems "updated".

I might have missed the point of Movie Bob's videos about the subject. I thought that the whole point was "This is okay because it empowers women, right? WRONG!"

Now this is my personal interpretation of the movie: every time the girls try to "empower" themselves with sexuality things go wrong.

 

[Rawberry101]

I subscribe to the belief that good films don't need to be explained.

That said, this video did change the way I saw the movie.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

This seems close to the concept known as hypoagency, specifically female hypoagency; simple "one agency" when in a situation with many agents/actors/people.

I am eternally thankful to you for finding this video.

It really opened my eyes as to the reasons behind...well, pretty much EVERYTHING that has been happening in the past few months/years regarding women in movies/games.

I wasted so much time and effort in these forums battling it out against females who were heavily into topics such as Sexism in Gaming and Tropes vs Women - I kept saying so much stuff but I myself never truly understood the root of the message I was trying to get across.
I failed to see the ultimate reason behind why certain females have always acted in such a way.

As a matter of fact I was aware of female hypoagency (had read some stuff about it) but I knew that mentioning it in arguments would get the females even angrier, and at the time it sounded more like a theory than anything 100% solid.

But the lady in that video opened my eyes with in-depth explanations and irrefutable proof. I have an immense amount of respect for her, she (and others like her) truly understand the situation.
I will no longer need to battle or argue with females in these forums (and other forums) because...the whole topic is more or less irrelevant and pointless to begin with, I know the underlying root of the female subconcious and why they act the way they act! It's like being enlightened to a whole new level of knowledge, a golden key to understanding :O

WOOT.

 

[minuialear]

Well my point re: that comment was more to say that Snyder isn't exactly known for making films that make people think

Perhaps not, but there's little denying that most of the material he chooses (or is selected) to direct tends to be based on deeper ideas.

Miller's 300, for example, is a highly stylized and fantastical retelling of the Persian siege (and Greek defense) of Thermopylae. Obviously we're not supposed to believe the Persians had giant war-beasts and the like, but what is revealed at the end places the story in its proper context: the lone survivor Dilios retelling in a grandiose fashion to rally Greeks to the cause, ending in the battle at Plataea, where the Greeks ultimately beat back the Persian invasion.

The same can be said of his adaptation of Moore's Watchmen. While Snyder gets all his geek cred for a faithful retelling that employs a lot of the money shots from the comic, keep in mind the story itself is about costumed vigilantes who, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan, have no actual superpowers. It takes place in a world where their kind, once lauded, are driven into retirement by political pressure, Nixon (apparently to the detriment of society) is in his fifth presidential term, the threat of nuclear war (already heightened in "real" 1985) hangs like a cloud over everything, and with the heroes, the populace, the geopolitical situation, everything is a powderkeg set to blow the proverbial shit directly and succinctly into the fan. Following close behind the revolutionary dystopic future of Blade Runner, it creates a dystopic present, deconstructs an entire genre built around Superman and Captain America, and burdens the reader with a titanic amount of moral ambiguity.

One might argue that his projects are based on existing works that do all the "thinking" for him, but it's not like we're talking about Bayformers here.

I agree completely that 300 and Watchmen were deep; I'd argue they were significantly deeper than his films let on. And because of that I would say the fact that he basically glossed over what made both that deep, and went for "Oooh, shiny man-chest and crazy CGI!" kinda is exactly the reason why I say that Snyder's not exactly known for making people think. If anything, he takes things that are intelligent and drowns them with aesthetic stuff to the point where they're barely recognizable and not really all that intelligent anymore.

Also, Fun fact: Michael Bay and Zack Snyder were in the same film class.

 

[ElPatron]

I'm wrong about Sucker Punch, am I? I don't even have an opinion about it, how can I be wrong?

You broke the system! We're all going to die!

If you have to explain what something symbolized, it didn't.

That's not entirely true. In highschool I had to study a lot of symbolism. If what you said was true then poetry would be dead.

 

[hentropy]

I might have missed the point of Movie Bob's videos about the subject. I thought that the whole point was "This is okay because it empowers women, right? WRONG!"

Now this is my personal interpretation of the movie: every time the girls try to "empower" themselves with sexuality things go wrong.

No, I get his point, there. I just disagree with him. I think Snyder had Babydoll fail and it was "Sweet Pea's story all along" because he wanted a twist and bittersweet ending (another thing amateur writers immediately think are cool and deep), not because he was making any statement about feminism. But it is a matter of opinion.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

Very interesting show.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

OK, so the movie is getting its panties in a bunch over Feminism and blatant sexuality in western fantasy...

Wut? Don't crap all over the good Fantasy when you're trying to crap all over the bad. That's what really got MY panties in a bunch in the end.

I wanted to draw similarities between this movie and Spec Ops: The Line, but there's too much of a difference. Spec Ops actually had something worthwhile and thought-provoking to say. This, movie, not so much.