What's the Problem With Hit-Girl?
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
I can not argue with that, and I suppose I'm one of those kids, funny thing though when you talk about your dad, MY dad wouldn't let me watch "Stickin' Around" which was one of the best kids shows when I was little, so to explain my child hood, I'd usually see Starship Troopers or other violent programs when my parents would be at parties and I'd be downstairs watching TV or some suchGL2814E said:
I love hit girl it's rare a child actor can be good in my eyes. If Anakin in episode 1 was half as good as Chloe is in kick ass the movie could have been worlds better. I know Anakin wasn't a psychotic kid on a killing spree but the kid playing him was just so annoying. Well to be fair Anakin sucked in all 3 movies but only episode 1 had a kid around the same age.
It's so nice seeing someone finally get the non victim woman role right without her coming off as annoying/bitchy.
It's so nice seeing someone finally get the non victim woman role right without her coming off as annoying/bitchy.
I love Hit Girl. She's such a badass. The craziness of the little tiny girl being such an over-the-top, holy shit did she just do that, badass makes me love her. Best character ever.
Personally, I love the character Hit-Girl. Something I'm getting kind of tired of seeing is this worn-out archetype of female characters, especially young ones, put in sort of a "damsel in distress" or "victimized chick" archetype. Especially with the drawing on anime and manga archetypes where the female is ALWAYS in distress or victimized (especially in tentacle porn, oh god, the tentacle porn...seriously Japan, what the hell?) being part of Hit-Girl's image. I'm glad to see this stupid archetype take it in the ass partially because I hate the idea of that centuries-old "men are dominant, women are supposed to sit there and take it" gender role BS that has been so ingrained in humanity as a whole.
I know a lot of the rabble being roused by this is from guys who are intimidated by women stronger than them or think that women shouldn't be stronger than them. Me, I don't care. I love the idea of women going out and kicking peoples' asses. I mean, hell, it's worked well for Wonder Woman...when she's got the right writer, anyway (though that applies to any hero). Plus there's also some rabble being roused by the fact it's an 11-year-old girl doing these violent acts. Look, whoever's raising hell about this, it's a comic book/movie, it's not real. Yeah, there's the whole "they put it on film" thing, but again, it's a movie. It's make-believe. It's about as real as the heart Michael Atkinson supposedly has (yes, I had to get a Michael Atkinson joke in there). Now do I think a few little girls are going to see this as a means to step up and prove that women can do anything men can do? Yes. Do I think this is going to be the start of the feminist uprising? No. Do I think it's time for the men to hide the skin bins and (pardon the expression) man the guns? Again, no. Do I think little girls are going to start kicking peoples' asses? Yet again, no. Personally, I think that, if anything, characters like Hit-Girl are going to start springing up all over the place and stagnating the image to the point that I never want to see it again, but I do think that, taken in the way I saw in Kick-Ass, this was just an interesting story that played out in a way that some people didn't like. I can see why people would get up in arms over it and why other people would call those first people mysoginistic because of it, but again, it's not real.
I know a lot of the rabble being roused by this is from guys who are intimidated by women stronger than them or think that women shouldn't be stronger than them. Me, I don't care. I love the idea of women going out and kicking peoples' asses. I mean, hell, it's worked well for Wonder Woman...when she's got the right writer, anyway (though that applies to any hero). Plus there's also some rabble being roused by the fact it's an 11-year-old girl doing these violent acts. Look, whoever's raising hell about this, it's a comic book/movie, it's not real. Yeah, there's the whole "they put it on film" thing, but again, it's a movie. It's make-believe. It's about as real as the heart Michael Atkinson supposedly has (yes, I had to get a Michael Atkinson joke in there). Now do I think a few little girls are going to see this as a means to step up and prove that women can do anything men can do? Yes. Do I think this is going to be the start of the feminist uprising? No. Do I think it's time for the men to hide the skin bins and (pardon the expression) man the guns? Again, no. Do I think little girls are going to start kicking peoples' asses? Yet again, no. Personally, I think that, if anything, characters like Hit-Girl are going to start springing up all over the place and stagnating the image to the point that I never want to see it again, but I do think that, taken in the way I saw in Kick-Ass, this was just an interesting story that played out in a way that some people didn't like. I can see why people would get up in arms over it and why other people would call those first people mysoginistic because of it, but again, it's not real.
Wow, Moviebob. I finally COMPLETELY, wholeheartedly agree with one of your views! 'Twas a fascinating, fantastic article. I didn't know that much about the comic, so it shed some new light on this phenomenon.
As for Hit-Girl, I certainly think she exposes our Double Standards in a admirably provocative way. Let's face it, she's there to offend and entertain simultaneously. What the mainstream doesn't have is the balanced, nuanced, informed perspective that history/psychology/whatever else this involves/ provides.
I think the ordeal can be observed and analyzed and condemned to kingdom come, but what's there is there, and indeed has been there for much longer than most would see.
TV Tropes, our friendly resident fiction-analyst, offers proof: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LittleMissBadass
(Okayyyy....have officially been reading that site for way too long. I should've been clued in by their motto: Tv Tropes WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE!!!! must...stop...)
As for Hit-Girl, I certainly think she exposes our Double Standards in a admirably provocative way. Let's face it, she's there to offend and entertain simultaneously. What the mainstream doesn't have is the balanced, nuanced, informed perspective that history/psychology/whatever else this involves/ provides.
I think the ordeal can be observed and analyzed and condemned to kingdom come, but what's there is there, and indeed has been there for much longer than most would see.
TV Tropes, our friendly resident fiction-analyst, offers proof: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LittleMissBadass
(Okayyyy....have officially been reading that site for way too long. I should've been clued in by their motto: Tv Tropes WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE!!!! must...stop...)
I figured she was designed to offend. The whole concept of Kick Ass seems to be to take the standerd fun comic trope and screw with it. Basically "what, you like it when the Punisher or Spawn or Wolverine go on kiling sprees, and now you're offended?" mindset.
I haven't seen the movie, but in the book her introduction more or less involves her gutting a gangster and then slicing apart his face with a samurai sword. At the very least, you can't question why that is considered inappropriate.Quiet Stranger said:
Spoilers are for something that happened around the third page of the book, but I do not know about the movie, thus the spoilers.
And the title character is introduced by him being shown getting his manhood electrocuted while under mob interrogation.
I think that everyone getting offended gets the point of hit girl, but they take it as completely literal. The comic though was very uncomfortable with the relationship they made between Big Daddy and Hit Girl.
I kept thinking about "The Bad Seed" for some reasong.
I'd love to see a little girl kick the blood & guts out of people. I love taboo things. Plus, I'd love more gender reversal in movies; with women rescuing men in distress.
I'd love to see a little girl kick the blood & guts out of people. I love taboo things. Plus, I'd love more gender reversal in movies; with women rescuing men in distress.
The problem with Hit Girl is they make her engage in melee combat, I mean come on, she probably weighs like 40 kgs. Whenever that happened i cringed as the suspension of disbelief was completely shattered.
Shooting guys is one thing, but even stabbing and especially fighting require strength that a child could never have.
I would have no problem with hit girl if she just shot dudes, and would even bend to allow the swords, but a character is not meant to detract you from the world the film is creating and as such she is probably the worst film character this decade, completely ruined the film for me.
Shooting guys is one thing, but even stabbing and especially fighting require strength that a child could never have.
I would have no problem with hit girl if she just shot dudes, and would even bend to allow the swords, but a character is not meant to detract you from the world the film is creating and as such she is probably the worst film character this decade, completely ruined the film for me.
Case in point, Heavenly Creatures. Which was based on a true story. (shivers)shemoanscazrex3 said:
EDIT: In full agreement with Furburt, must have missed his post!
I'm not going to repeat my rant about the daily mail review/hack job on this movie, but I would like to call out any references to the schoolgirl uniform thing.
She's a girl of school age, they generally wear school uniform, and ok, it's discussed that she doesn't go to school, spending all her time learning how to kill people, but, the one scene where she does show up in that outfit, it's an abvious plot to look 'safe' and 'unthreatening', not some jailbait outfit meant to entice the male bad guys sexually.
Neither is her superhero outfit a sexual thing, at least to me, it looks like the kinda thing a young girl may have designed for herself, then had Daddy get made for her.
Really, the whole sexual content relating to Hit Girl is one comment at the end from a guy who doesn't realise how young she was and says he'll save himself. The sexuality side has been blown out of all proportion, when the violence side actually is fair game for a legitimate debate.
However, the idea of 'copycat' attacks by girls of her age are going to end up with a lot of preteen girls in the emergency room of hospital with missing fingers in a bag of ice. The violence is so over the top, unrealistic and stylised, that most of it just isn't copyable.
You give a girl super sharp knives on cords, and tell her to attack someone, and if she does, you'll be looking at a girl bleeding to death about 2 minutes later. Hell I'd trap my fingers in one of those butterfly knives and I'm 37. (EDIT: not saying boys of her age would do any better btw)
Strange how there's no news stories about how Billy Elliot made loads of kids give up their burgeoning careers in football and music to become ballet dancers, isn't it.
Maybe because kids aren't complete idiots who'll just obey everything they see on screen.
My only ongoing comment on the Mail article is a movie review should review movies, not just state the reviewers moral objections and judge the movie purely on how offensive it is. You can cover these things but not make that the only thing you hang your opinion on.
I seem to remember the Passion of the Christ getting decent reviews, yet they can't all have been Christian reviewers, so it should be possible to see the merits of a movie that doesn't suit your own beliefs.
I'm not going to repeat my rant about the daily mail review/hack job on this movie, but I would like to call out any references to the schoolgirl uniform thing.
She's a girl of school age, they generally wear school uniform, and ok, it's discussed that she doesn't go to school, spending all her time learning how to kill people, but, the one scene where she does show up in that outfit, it's an abvious plot to look 'safe' and 'unthreatening', not some jailbait outfit meant to entice the male bad guys sexually.
Neither is her superhero outfit a sexual thing, at least to me, it looks like the kinda thing a young girl may have designed for herself, then had Daddy get made for her.
Really, the whole sexual content relating to Hit Girl is one comment at the end from a guy who doesn't realise how young she was and says he'll save himself. The sexuality side has been blown out of all proportion, when the violence side actually is fair game for a legitimate debate.
However, the idea of 'copycat' attacks by girls of her age are going to end up with a lot of preteen girls in the emergency room of hospital with missing fingers in a bag of ice. The violence is so over the top, unrealistic and stylised, that most of it just isn't copyable.
You give a girl super sharp knives on cords, and tell her to attack someone, and if she does, you'll be looking at a girl bleeding to death about 2 minutes later. Hell I'd trap my fingers in one of those butterfly knives and I'm 37. (EDIT: not saying boys of her age would do any better btw)
Strange how there's no news stories about how Billy Elliot made loads of kids give up their burgeoning careers in football and music to become ballet dancers, isn't it.
Maybe because kids aren't complete idiots who'll just obey everything they see on screen.
My only ongoing comment on the Mail article is a movie review should review movies, not just state the reviewers moral objections and judge the movie purely on how offensive it is. You can cover these things but not make that the only thing you hang your opinion on.
I seem to remember the Passion of the Christ getting decent reviews, yet they can't all have been Christian reviewers, so it should be possible to see the merits of a movie that doesn't suit your own beliefs.
Oh and as for the swearing, anyone who things 11 year olds don't use the C word have never visited my home town after school and been either near McD's or the Bus stop for 5 minutes.
Sure it's a shock in the movie,but its another sign of the two girls in one body that is Hit girl/Mindy, the 'Daddy's little girl' and the stone cold killer.
Sure it's a shock in the movie,but its another sign of the two girls in one body that is Hit girl/Mindy, the 'Daddy's little girl' and the stone cold killer.
the sickest part of the whole thing was that she was deprived of a childhood by her father so that he could get revenge on the man who wronged him. he brainwashed her into thinking it was some sort of game (and he even said that he thought of it as introducing a game to her) and put her into harms way on multiple occasions. thats not good parenting
but anyway i still loved the movie, that aspect is just really fucked up
but anyway i still loved the movie, that aspect is just really fucked up