This is not a Sucker Punch review but I talk about another Zack Snyder film

I meant to see Sucker Punch this weekend. No, really, I did. It was going to be great. Well, the movie probably was not going to be great but having just seen a sexploitation film like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! it would have been a nice lead-in to something like Sucker Punch. How do they compare? How do they contrast? Where does one go wrong and the other right? Do they both go right? How about those Alice in Wonderland stories that are very similar? Will I ever get around to finishing that video game?

Alas, I went home to see my mother this weekend, and while I planned to see the movie while my mother was working at my aunt and uncle's yogurt store (it's in Red Bank, N.J. so stop by when you're going on your Kevin Smith-related field trip!) business has been slow during the cold weather so she texted me to come visit her at work. So, alas, Sad and Lonely Mom trumps Probably Bad Movie. Maybe next weekend.



But I guess this is a good opportunity to think a little about Zack Snyder, and his last movie I saw, Watchmen. Now, I love Watchmen. Like, really, love Watchmen. I was on a whole podcast dedicated to Watchmen and have a poster of Rorschach. I'm first and foremost a lover of the comic and will defend Rorschach as an awesome character to those who dislike him because damn it some characters are fascinating if they're not models of how one should behave, but I know some people aren't fond of it. And some really aren't fond of the movie.

But I think there's a lot to like the movie. I don't think they could have found more perfect actors for Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson, who did great despite maybe being a bit too attractive for the part) or The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) but the movie's not very good for women. I disagree with those who say the near-rape scene was sexualized; I actually thought it was the right type of brutal and harrowing. I did think the death scene of Silhouette and her girlfriend was sexualized, though.

I'll be first to admit the movie has its problems, though, and I'm not too fond of what ended up in theaters OR the really badly-put-together "Ultimate Cut" which has The Black Freighter cartoon clips inserted haphazardly into it, breaking up the flow to a crazy degree. Still, the "Director's Cut" hits a certain sweet spot. It's not quite as rushed and explains a little more. Also, it has a few more scenes of Laurie, my favorite character. Albeit not enough to redeem the pathetic portrayal of the character in the movie for me.



Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II. I'm not sure what went wrong here. Akerman's something of a blank, and considering that Carla Gugino, who played the first Silk Spectre, did a pretty good job even with unconvincing old age makeup, I don't think it's Snyder giving her bad directions. Yet ... I don't think it's totally her fault, either. I doubt she made the decision to cut out some of the character's more aggressive lines. I doubt she made the decision to turn the character's already impractical costume into something that was just as impractical but in a different way. And I really doubt she made the decision to make the character a nonsmoker, meaning the character ends up pushing a button on the Owlship with a giant fire sign because it's fun, rather than because the character was looking for a light.

Like I said, the Director's Cut restores at least some of the character's edge, having her beat up one of the military men who are keeping her locked up in the base after Dr. Manhattan goes to Mars and handcuff him in the bathroom but it's still something of a waste. Especially because in a lot of the pre-release interviews Malin Akerman seemed really excited about playing the role and about the film itself. So it's a bummer that it all didn't come out so well.

Actually, it seems like a sad trend that women in superheroine movies seem to either be good at their roles and yet dismissive of comics or comics culture as a whole (Gwenyth Paltrow, Kirsten Dunst to a certain extent) or excited about comic books or playing a superheroine and then and then not so good at acting (Jessica Alba). Which sucks. And, like I said, I'm not sure whose to blame here, if the movies are casting the wrong people or directing them the wrong way or both. And the sort of blank faces of the girls in Sucker Punch I'm seeing in the movie posters don't lend themselves to me thinking this one's going to be much better.

At least I heard they cut out the sex scene, right? Not that I thought the sex scene between Laurie and Dan to "Hallelujah" was that bad but maybe "You're My Thrill" might have been better considering that was the song actually mentioned in the comic book and ...

Oh, hold on, let me go to this Sucker Punch-related interview ...

EMILY [Browning, star of the film]: I had a very tame and mild love scene with John Hamm... I think it's great for this young girl to actually take control of her own sexuality. Well, the MPAA doesn't like that. They don't think a girl should ever be in control of her own sexuality because they're from the Stone Age... So essentially, they got Zack to edit the scene and make it look less like she's into it. And Zack said he edited it down to the point where it looked like he was taking advantage of her. That's the only way he could get a PG-13 [rating] and he said, "I don't want to send that message." So they cut the scene!

Actually, never mind. I'm depressed forever.

Why I Liked "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"

Image taken from Wikipedia

I was kind of bummed but not exactly surprised when some of the more prominent feminist sites didn't acknowledge the death of actress/cop/dental hygenist/exotic dancer/model Tura Satana last February. Bummed because Satana's history -- living in an internment camp, learning martial arts and tracking down her rapists, becoming the leader of a gang, modeling for Harold Lloyd and then working as an actress on his recommendation -- should be worthy of merit. Not surprised because feminism and sex work has an uneasy history, and I have to admit I'm not always sure who's right in this debate.

Ever since I was 11 I loved comic books because I loved the idea of superheroines. Yet I very early on told myself to accept that the heavy and unequal sexualization of female heroes - and yes, they are unequal no matter how much you like looking at Dick Grayson's butt - was part of the package. Is a woman kicking ass rendered moot if she does it in a low cut top? Can true empowerment really be reached if women remain sex objects first and foremost?

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is not a comic, but it shares many traits with comics, especially the comics of the Silver Age. Fight scenes abound in the story. Characters fight with judo chops and test their strength against racecars. Women are dressed in skintight clothing and have big breasts. The characters use slang and the same quippy style of talking that I remember from comics written by Stan Lee. Its director, Russ Meyer, also reminds me more than a little of comic books' preeminent showman, even if their intended audience is much different.



NSFW, some offensive language

It's this sort of high cartoonishness that, as Roger Ebert says in the above documentary, sort of mitigates any offensiveness one might take from the movie. Can one really take a movie seriously if it has lines like "The point is of no return, and you've reached it!" For those who haven't seen the film, the plot centers around three go-go dancers who like to race fast cars. A man joins their drag race and for reasons that aren't entirely clear, the main girl, Varla (Satana) kills him and kidnaps his girlfriend. Later the girls run into a misogynist old man and plan to steal his money, but it doesn't quite work out as they planned.

Is this movie tailor-made for the male gaze? Absolutely. Yet the movie doesn't have a great opinion of the men doing the gazing. Watch the opening scene below. After the hilarious spoken word intro (my absolute favorite part of the movie), the movie cuts to our three ... um, main characters ... dancing in glittery bikinis for men. Yet the women are filmed from below, a shot often used for powerful figures (see: Citizen Kane) while the men are filmed from above, visually cueing us to the fact that they are weaker despite the creepy shadows.



The men they meet later in the story don't get much better: the misogynist old man, the racecar driver and even the only male character in the story who could be a hero are unattractive and schlubby. The one attractive male in the movie is mentally slow, like a darker version of Rocky Horror from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Obvious abelist issues aside, it's clear who are the more powerful figures here. Laughing the way they do, Varla, Rosie (Haji) and Billie (Lori Williams) remind me more than a little of mythical witches, with their cars standing in for their brooms.

Yes, these women are villainesses. Did that schlub deserve to get killed? No. But since when do the teenagers in a slasher film deserve to get killed for having sex? As spectators, we enjoy these women the same way we enjoy Disney characters like Maleficent. They may be bad, but they're fun to watch as they're bad. And anyway, the old man, who has nefarious plans for their kidnap victim, is much worse.

[SPOILER] On a similar note, it also helps that for the most part it isn't the schlubby men who take the women down. "The Vegetable" takes down Rosie, but that death feels as senseless as he is, and not as a justified revenge you can cheer over. Varla kills Billie, and Varla herself is taken out not by the "hero" of the story but the female victim who spends most of the movie crying and whimpering in a bathing suit, proving that even at the end the weakest woman is still stronger than the strongest man.[SPOILER]

So, is Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! exploitative? I think so. Is it feminist? I think so, too. It's feminist enough to give props to Tura Satana, at least. Those are some nice, big judo chops.

Things I am Excited For: Avatar: Legend of Korra

One of the hard things about being a geek -- and by "hard" I do not mean actually difficult but I mean "maybe I should rethink my life choice" -- is that even though you may have loads of stuff to read and watch and otherwise enjoy and engage in, there's still that moment where you get way too excited about the next big thing. It will never be enough!

So while I'm really enjoying the Twin Peaks and the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes I'm watching, the Fruits Basket manga I'm consuming, and the little bit of headway I've made on A Vindication of the Rights of Woman -- hey reading that for fun is geeky -- I'm still excited over the news that came out this week for Avatar: Legend of Korra.


Image courtesy Nickelodeon, taken from WSJ.com

You probably do not need me to tell you that Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Nickelodeon television that is not to be confused with either James Cameron's blockbuster movie nor the cowardly, racist and reportedly not very good live action film it inspired -- is amazing. Like the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World comic series, it's a great example of a western media learning from anime not just by aping its style, but by getting to the heart of its appeal and making something new. It's also brought Eastern Culture and a plethora of strong female characters into the homes of the young and the young at heart.

The spinoff series, which will have a female Avatar as its lead, was announced last year but this week was the first time we saw her face. The Wall Street Journal also has an interview with the creators where it's announced Nickelodeon has ordered 14 more episodes. Good news upon better news, there.

I was a Janey-Come-Lately to Avatar: The Last Airbender. I knew while it was airing that people enjoyed it, often saying it was a great show because it had a serious, involved story that could be enjoyed by adults as well as kids. While I think they overemphasized the seriousness of it (the show has a lot of jokey pratfalls that are meant to appeal to children) I loved almost all aspects of it.

Yet I hadn't realized quite how much it had meant to people until the controversy surrounding the movie. As a woman, as someone who was once a young girl, I was overjoyed by the great amount of strong and very different female characters that populate the story. (And they're different in both personality and design, which is another great thing.) I am white, and while I grew up searching for female characters to relate to and enjoy and didn't always find much, I'm sure those who grew up non-white found even less.

It's sort of a bummer that it's mostly hated because people thought it was bad more than people thought it was racist. There are still some who will argue that just because a character is entrenched in Asian and Inuit culture and writes in Asian languages and uses Asian styles of fighting DOESN'T MEAN HE CAN'T BE WHITE (OR WHITE WITH A TAN) and that makes me depressed. Of course, the fact that the live action movie was both racist and bad perhaps speaks to a general lack of care inherent in its creation in general. The two go hand in hand in this case.

Not that such sad news doesn't make this any less funnier:



Ahhhh, that never gets old.

But the anticipation for this new show makes it better, at the very least. And I'm really happy to have this to look forward to.

That being said, if Korra falls in love with Katara and Aang's kid I'm going to find that a little creepy. Your girlfriend can't be your dad. I draw the line here.

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Meanwhile, I'd be remiss if I as a white blogger were to discuss Asian culture for entertainment and not acknowledge the tragic earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. Please give what you can and try to do no harm.

White Tiger Was All Hook and No Bait: A Reflection on Bringing in Big Names in Other Fields

Occasionally over my years collecting/reading Marvel Comics I've picked up a mini-series here or there spotlighting a superheroine. This sometimes turns out to be a mistake, and when it does, it usually turns out to be a mistake in the exact same way. What's fascinating about Marvel's 2007 White Tiger miniseries is that it manages to have the same problems as comics back in the 1990s despite being written by a "name" writer, specifically fantasy Young Adult fantasy writer Tamora Pierce and her husband Timothy Liebe.

Reading the book was a disappointment, especially since while I have not yet read Pierce's books, both she and Liebe made mostly-favorable impressions on me when they were active on Livejournal near the time of the mini-series' release. Unfortunately, the book is something of a mess. It's saddled with an unmemorable gang/police procedural plot. The writers can't seem to decide if the heroine, Angela Del Toro, is super-serious or a wiseacre. And then there are the guest stars. The numerous, numerous, numerous guest stars.

I feel like I've read a number of miniseries like this one - the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman mini-series in the 90s being the one that comes to mind the most right now. Miniseries that spotlight a superheroine but put her in an overly-complicated plot that requires a lot of infodumping, contains a lot of continuity links and is dreadfully lacking in any human drama. All in all, the entire enterprise feels like an attempt to spotlight a character without knowing why she should be spotlighted and without even the confidence that the character can stand on her own.

Yet what bothers me about the book when I look back on it is not so much that the comic was mediocre. What bothers me is I can't figure out what Marvel was trying to do here. Presumably, putting a name writer on a book creates crossover appeal. Say what you want about the comic book adaptation of Anita Blake, but it's pretty clear the prime purpose is to get fans of the original novels to purchase the work in a new format. It may be a format they're unfamiliar with (comics) but it's a story they heard before and thus may be a good entry point for at least some of them.

But who would want this comic as an entry point? I've been reading Marvel Comics since I was 11-years-old, and while I admittedly don't know much about Heroes for Hire (case in point: I thought this comic was going to be about a tiger in human form) I had very little idea what was going on here. Many of the guest stars motivations' heavily involve things going on in other books and the book contains inside jokes that mostly play to longtime readers. It's the extreme inside of inside baseball. One might argue this was done so readers of this book would be interested in other properties, but I sort of doubt that. I can't imagine anyone becoming interested in X-Men because Emma Frost shows up for one page to point out something insignificant and snark at the heroine, never to be seen again.

There's been a lot of speculation and thought on the comic book industry and the video game industry's attempts to bring in outside writers who've succeeded in other fields, most of it coming down on the side of disfavor. I don't think it has to be that way. A writer who succeeded in one field could very well succeed in another.

But that shouldn't be taken as self-evident. Crossover appeal also shouldn't be taken as self-evident. When I worked in a bookstore, I remember telling a Jodi Picoult fan that Picoult was writing a Wonder Woman comic, and the fan, far from being happy about the news, glared at me in disbelief and wondered why Picoult would do something like that.

Also, if you're famous in another field or not, if you write a mini-series about a rarely used character, please teach me something about that character, please make me want to read her somewhere else, please make it count. Because I need no prodding to pick up a story about an FBI agent who wears a tiger costume and fights bad guys, but the writer, whoever she is, needs to give me the a reason to want to keep reading it.