Things I read on Twitter ...

So, there were a few things tearing up the Twitter stream lately that I'd like to break down.

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First up, TokyoPop is closing its US operations. This news has been greeted with a mix of disappointment and unsurprise, no less than by me. Of course, the American "otaku" community's relationship with American translators of manga has always been one of love mixed with hate, so it's no surprise that the ambivalence that's been there since the beginning should be there at its end.

I've been a manga and anime fan on and off for years, and remember the excitement of being able to buy Sailor Moon manga in the store coupled closely with the knowledge that the translations weren't very good. I remember being excited seeing manga bloom on the shelves of comic book stores and bookstores and then being upset at how much they cost. I was glad TokyoPop had done so well and made a degree of concessions to manga fans and then the reports came out about the really poor way it has treated its creators of original work (which I won't even pretend to be conversant in). Like I said, mixed feelings. Very mixed.

Still, reading over the press release about the company's end, I can't help but be drawn to this:

Starting with just four titles -- Parasyte, Ice Blade, Magic Knight Rayearth, and, of course, Sailor Moon -- we launched MixxZine, aspiring to introduce comics to girls. These four series laid down the cornerstone for what would eventually become TOKYOPOP and the Manga Revolution.

My best friend tweeted about the ludicrousness of a decision to pair up a violent manga like Parasyte with titles like Magic Knight Rayearth and Sailor Moon. Even so, I can't help but be heartened by the phrase "aspiring to introduce comics to girls." Despite all their odd decisions over the years, one has to admit they really did it. They built it. We came. And they're proud of it. Considering the alienation most women feel from comic book publishers and the geek industry itself, the fact that as this company is going out of the US it has said "We wanted you there, and we wanted you there from the beginning" is a very, very big deal.

Thanks for the memories, TokyoPop. (And I better get to buying more Fruits Basket if it goes out of print. Eeek!)

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Switching over from an acknowledgment of geek women and girls to yet another sad dismissal, many on Twitter have also been epically pissed about this off-hand comment in Ginia Bellafante's New York Times review of the TV adaptation of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series:

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness [the series sex and incest] has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

Well, Bellafante's got me there. I certainly wouldn't stand up at my book club and demand we read The Hobbit over Lorrie Moore, but that's only because Lorrie Moore is really good and in any book club I'd be a part of, the ladies would have all have read both The Hobbit AND The Lord of the Rings trilogy in high school, even if they never got through the appendixes (cough cough).

As for my own book club -- which isn't so much a club but my best friend and I looking at our more than 100 unread books each that we own and going to each other "Maybe something should be done about this ..." -- we're both reading Orlando right now. It's fantasy-tinged novel by Virginia Woolf about a nobleman who becomes a woman, which is awesome in itself but we're reading it too so we can get references in Alan Moore's (no relation to Lorrie) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics. So I would also suggest to Ms. Bellafante that perhaps she hasn't gone to the right book clubs.

But amid all the indignation the main point of this passage has gone curiously unremarked upon. Now, I haven't read Martin's work. I hear it's a fantasy version of The War of the Roses, and so long as he has a heroine half as cool as Queen Margaret of Anjou I'm pretty much down. Anyway, I have no authority myself on what would or wouldn't appeal to the average woman or average geek woman about Martin's work but I'm a little weirded out by the assumption that what the average woman wants is stories with lots of sex, preferably incestuous sex. That's not usually a stereotype that comes up, although I guess considering how often the Times writes trend pieces about how women are like Sex in the City maybe that's just the buzz around the office. Or maybe she/her friends read a lot of Flowers in the Attic in her youth and that's the "girl fiction" standard she's going for.

On the other hand, and because I don't want to be too mean, considering one of the few non-Tolkien doorstopper fantasy novels I've ever read is Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, which is much higher on sex than it is on fantastical elements, she may have a point. Still, I'd probably tell my book club to read Tolkien over Carey. I guess we have to get through Silmarillion at one point.

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And speaking of novels that have developed a reputation in my mind as dense and long and maybe don't have a literary reputation comparative to their time/effort demand, Atlas Shrugged has a mainstream movie adaptation. The first part of it, anyway.

I haven't seen it yet. Other than professional critics I think nobody has seen it yet. I'm not sure I will see it. I have the book lying around somewhere and I'll get to that one day because I've read enough of Steve Ditko's Mr. A comics for it to be worth it and sometimes I like to track the depth of my anger levels. Yet even though I admit I don't have an informed opinion, there have been a couple of things I've been wondering in the amazement over the collective critical throw up.

1.) I wonder if it's fair to call Bella Swan fandom's choice of "Worst Female Character" ever when Dagny Taggart exists. From the little I saw/heard of her in the trailer and what I've read about her character in essays about the book she seems incredibly unpleasant. Of course, I've also wondered that when I read the Sookie Stackhouse series. And when I saw my roommate was reading a Shopaholic book and remember the blinding rage I felt watching 30 minutes of that movie.

2.) How much the people who are freaking out over the negative reviews in the form of comments don't really seem like fans. They seem like cheerleaders.

I saw this phenomenon a lot when the conservative comedy An American Carol was coming out. You'd see a lot of messages of support in response to the bad reviews but most of them weren't about how great the film was or how much they expected to enjoy it, but how glad they were that something on "their side" was coming out. I remember one comment in particular that gushed "I'm going to take 12 of my friends!" I had to laugh because 1.) I don't know anyone who has that many friends and 2.) it's hard to get my friends into anything I'm really, really excited about. How many viewings of Monty Python and the Holy Grail have been ruined by someone who knows all the lines and says them before they happen?

I also doubt their fannishness because fans tend to fret and freak out over whether a movie adaptation of their favored work will be good, and then when it turns out not to be curse the filmmakers and talk about how amazing the book was and how nobody could get the essence anyway. I try to be above that but I've succumbed to the hype/hate cycle. These cheerleaders, on the other hand, seem to bypass all that and go straight to "It's amazing!" Of course, people want these movies to fail, so some defensiveness can be expected and even human. It still seems like an alien concept to me. I won't pretend I don't prefer movies that reflect my worldview but since when did watching a movie become voting?

Oh well. Hopefully there'll be a potential Rifftrax. It'll rock! Or it'll suck! I need to post about this everywhere! And bring 12 of my friends! DOWN WITH ATLAS SHRUGGED! UP WITH RIFFTRAX! I HAVEN'T SEEN IT AND IT DOESN'T EXIST BUT I DECLARE VICTORY! TEAM MIKE NELSON! Wooooo!

Hanna: It's better, but not great ...

I've seen the premise of "young girl assassin" in quite a few different types of media now, but I have to admit the title character in the new movie Hanna, played by Saoirse Ronan, reminds me less of the characters from the anime Gunslinger Girl, Hit-Girl from the movie/comic book series Kick-Ass or the Cassandra Cain Batgirl and more of the character Eli from the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In. I think this is because I liked the character and the film for what it wasn't, in much the same way I wager most of the people who loved Let the Right One In did so less for its own merits and more because it wasn't like Twilight.

Don't get me wrong, Let the Right One In was a good film, and so is Hanna but most of the accolades for the former seemed to be some brand of "Wow, this movie does vampires right, not like those awful, wuss-ass sparklepires." In a similar sense I like this film better than Gunslinger Girl because Hanna as a character has more depth and character growth compared to the blank, albeit often tragic, slates that populate that story. And while I wouldn't call Hanna a girl power character, like Christy Lemire did, I preferred her story of escape and trying to become human through interactions with her peers and a mother figure better than Hit-Girl's journey, where she's mostly influenced by older men.

The film begins in snowy Finland, where Hanna is being brutally trained by her father, ex-CIA agent Erik Heller (Eric Bana) in combat, language and general knowledge but keeps her isolated and ignorant of some technology in the world. After training her to a certain point, Erik allows her to signal the CIA and begin the mission she has long been trained for, which is slowly revealed over the course of the movie. What we do know is that Hanna is constantly pursued by CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). Throughout her journeys, Hanna also meets up with a British family that gives her a taste of a normal life.

Before I watched this film I wondered if the film would be one of exploitation, like so many of these stories are. I didn't get that vibe, and I wondered if I should count that among the movie's flaws, but in the end I believe Erik's motives turn out to be far more altruistic than expected, which leaves a better taste in my mouth. It still doesn't make Hanna a feminist heroine, but that's okay. Assassins by their very definition really shouldn't be.

On that note, the film also does well at making Hanna scary but still sympathetic. I was a little facetious when I compared her to Eli earlier, but they are both essentially dangerous "children" trying to make their way in the ordinary world, and while Hanna's friend Sophie (Jessica Barden) doesn't have a major role the way Oskar does, their relationship has some parallels.

I also really liked Blanchett's character, who I think is one of the more effective villainesses I've seen in awhile. What I like so much about her is how she's a woman but she's still very much the standard military heavy, even down to the Southern accent that Blanchett uses to bark out orders to her subordinates. Even while the character's childlessness occasionally comes into play, it's a role that could have easily been played by a George C. Scott type, but just happens not to be.

On the same note, another refreshing piece of the story, and one that's not really emphasized in the trailers, is how often the conflict and the relationships comes from women: Marissa vs. Hanna, Marissa vs. Hanna's mother and grandmother, Hanna and Sophie, Hanna and Sophie's mother. The film passes the Bechdel's test and passes it often. Erik may have trained Hanna and she may meet up with nice men, but it still feels like in the end women are the driving players of a large part of the tension and character building.

The film's also exciting. I wasn't too fond of the last chase scene, but there are a lot of riveting sequences, especially the one where Hanna escapes from holding. I like the direction, too, especially Joe Wright's nature shots. The action is shot with less quick cuts than the average movie, allowing you to better see what's going on, and The Chemical Brothers' score does wonders for setting the mood. I hadn't been familiar with them before but I really loved their work in this film.

That being said, the film stumbles sometimes. The screenplay isn't sure how adept Hanna is at modern technology. One scene has her scared of an electric teapot and a TV but before the climax happens she's able to research her past on the Internet. The final sequence that compares Marissa quite literally to a big bad wolf after Grimm's fairytales have been used throughout the film in a not-quite-cogent metaphor also made me groan.

Still, it's a decent movie if not a great one. I wouldn't say it's a must see but it's worth checking out, at the very least for Blanchett. It was better than I expected, anyway, which is something I, like Lemire, am glad to say after Sucker Punch and Kick-Ass.

This IS a Sucker Punch review: Empowerment shouldn't be so depressing

Ever since I was a little girl my id has been something of a complete dipshit. When all the other girls were avoiding the proliferation of huge tits-tiny bikinis-big swords books that seemed to flood a quarter of the comic book shelves in the 90s as sexist garbage a small voice in the back of my head would always whisper, "But they're superheroines ... they can't be that bad, right?" This may go a long way toward explaining why I grew up to make a blog called "Chicks Who Kill Things" and not something like "Enlightened Discourses on How to Further the Role of Strong Genre Fiction Heroines in Urban Fantasy, Comic Books and the Culture at Large." While I can always fault this tendency -- it's true my first comic was a Jim Balent Catwoman -- it sometimes leads to good results -- I'm really glad I started reading comics. Yet it sometimes leads to bad results, like an urge to see this movie.

Sucker Punch has gotten terrible, terrible reviews. As I write this it's got a 20 percent fresh rating on Rottentomatoes.com. I can't imagine this review is the first of those you've read, but in case it is, the movie follows Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who has been framed for the murder of her younger sister and imprisoned by her stepfather in an insane asylum, where she's due to be lobotomized in five days. To deal with the pain, Baby Doll mentally escapes into an alternate reality where she's actually in a brothel and is due to be sold to "the high roller" in five days. In this reality the psychiatrist becomes her madam (Carla Gugino) and the head of the hospital the evil, slimy head of the brothel (Oscar Isaac). In the brothel she meets five other girls, Amber (Jamie Chung), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), Rocket (Jena Malone) and her sister Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish). Baby Doll is also made to dance, and at the madam's urging when she dances she goes within herself to another fantasy, this one where she's a sailor suit-clad fighter in a world that crosses just about every genre well-loved by nerds. In this fantasy a wise man (Scott Glenn) tells her she and her friends can escape if they find five items: a map, fire, a knife, a key and an unknown item that will require a great sacrifice.

A lot of pixels have been spilled on how much this movie panders to a geek audience and a male geek audience in particular. Let me tell you right there that this is not why this movie is bad. This movie is bad because it has a girl and her friends cutting open samurai giants and steampunk zombie Nazis and a dragon in a castle and robots on a train set to blow up a futuristic city and yet it is totally, completely not fun. Okay, well, it's mostly not fun. When they found the fire and lit the fire in the nerd mashup fantasy world I was like, "Wow, that fire looks really pretty." That may have been the only time I had fun.

There are a couple of reasons the movie falls apart for me. The first is that director Zach Snyder seems to have spent way more time thinking up the story/visuals than the characters. Baby Doll doesn't speak for about 10 to 20 minutes of the movie and is mostly a passive presence, staring at everything with a wide-eyed, lips pursed expression of beaten down, beautiful fear. When she finally starts talking the movie is more concerned with moving the plot forward than the emotions of her or any of the other girls, who are called on to either be fighting badasses or to look scared and cry a lot. Snyder tries with the sister relationship between Rocket and Sweet Pea but that never feels like it gets to the emotional level it should. The action scenes just aren't very good, either. They're usually confused and muddled and shot through a brown filter that makes everything look the same despite the very different locales. Reviewers have compared the action scenes to video games, but that's not really fair. I felt more connection to Heather from Silent Hill 3 (which also has a plot where the character descends to an evil world and then a still eviller world, I guess) than I ever did to Baby Doll.

Even if they were great, though, they'd have an uphill battle in overcoming the nauseating "brothel" plot. Now, I will say this for Snyder, I do get the impression that however flawed the movie is, he and the actresses think it's empowering. Even though I rolled my eyes at shots like Baby Doll's high-heeled "battle" shoes and how every outfit was some sort of sexy black hell, I did feel like the film at least likes its female characters and feels sympathy with them, as opposed to something like Frank Miller's The Spirit movie which has tough female characters and doesn't seem to like them too much but thinks it can fall back on "But they can fight!" if anyone accuses it of sexism. Like the scene between the Comedian and the first Silk Spectre in Watchmen, all of the scenes of men threatening or killing helpless women are appropriately horrible. (Speaking of which, man, I hope Snyder took Gugino out to a lot of fancy but professional dinners where he said "thank you" a lot in between these two movies.) I appreciate that but I don't appreciate how much time we spend in the horrible scenes. Watching this movie I didn't feel empowered at seeing women fight monsters, I felt depressed at seeing women get killed and nearly raped by men.

Also, the even the mashup scenes of empowerment seem somewhat hollow since they're led by a man in all of it. I don't understand what Glenn's was supposed to represent or why he was there, other than to be the "good" man. I have to admit while watching the movie I made up a fake backstory where he's actually Baby Doll's real, dead father. Despite the ending, I still want to believe that bit of fanon.

This is a concept that really needed to either go campy or needed a Tarantino-like touch to work. It needed to either be big and ridiculous like a Russ Meyer or John Waters film so its uglier moments could go down easier, or the characters needed more time to talk and grow inner lives like they do in most Tarantino films -- admittedly I'm thinking more the Tarantino of Kill Bill than the Tarantino of Death Proof, where the talking goes nowhere, but that's another story. At any rate, though, the movie needed to be big and fun, the movie needed to be worthy of a name like Sucker Punch.

I will throw the movie a bone, though. I didn't hate the ending as much as some people did. HUGE SPOILERS BELOW.

At the end of the movie, which comes after all the non-blonde heroines are dead (sigh), Baby Doll realizes in the "brothel" layer of the plot that what she has to sacrifice is herself, and by doing so she'll allow Sweet Pea to live. Her decision has repercussions in the "insane asylum" layer of the plot, where she gets lobotomized. The lobotomy was supposed to be authorized by Gugino's character and when she discovers this she has Isaac's character, who forged her signature, arrested. So the implication isn't that Baby Doll gains freedom through a lobotomy, but that she's sacrificed herself so that not only Sweet Pea will live but that life in the asylum may get better for the inmates. It's not a story of self-empowerment (at one point Baby Doll explicitly says it's not her story), but the story of the empowerment of others. It also has a degree of symmetry, as Baby Doll failed to save her sister at the beginning of the story but manages to save another girl who's lost a sister, as well as many others.

Granted, I would have felt better about this if they'd given Baby Doll a stronger personality from the beginning though, maybe making her a sort of McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest to the other girls. So I can't help but feel depressed at how it all went. Very, very depressed.