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Mostly this is about my icon, and superheroes, and girls kicking ass.
It's funny - I found myself super-excited about Kick-Ass (which did not disappoint me), and in the months previous finally got around to reading Soon I Will Be Invincible, which is actually more superhero-genre intake for me than I am used to. (I know considering my fandom it doesn't make a lot of sense. Shut up.)
I do recommend the book, which has a well-crafted narrative voice, particularly from the perspective of Dr. Impossible, and highly recommend it for any of you who are interested in reading the story from the villain's perspective. Because Dr. Impossible is a villain, yes, with the typical comical take-over-the-world schemes you're familiar with from your childhood, but those schemes are delivered straight-faced and with a very recognizably human voice. Not human as in it'll touch you, but human as in it feels like an actual person talking. Minus, you know, the whole superhero/supervillain thing. You'll inevitably draw parallels between this book and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog (as far as I know, neither influenced the other), and for those of you PpG fans out there who are interested in villains (Mojo Jojo in particular), you'll probably find a wealth of creative inspiration here.
That's my plug for that. Now. Kick-Ass.
I was giddy like gangbusters about this ever since the red-band trailer w/Hit-Girl came out, and when I finally got around to seeing it last week I had a blast. And I'd talk about how awesome it is, but after reading a few things, I have something else I want to respond to/get off my chest.
Ebert (who I do think has intelligent opinions occasionally, but who I also have been reluctant to trust ever since he put down the awesomeness that is The Powerpuff Girls Movie) gave the film a very unfavorable review, objecting to the violence dealt by and to Hit-Girl. That, and the following comment stuck out to me as well:
Now, the quoted bit first. I would hope that the "home video audience" wouldn't include parents who aren't supervising what their six-year-old is exposed to at home (because the truth is you have parents who don't supervise what their kids watch, either because they don't care or they don't have the time, or because their kids have access to this magical thing called the internet and know of these things called torrents that their tech-illiterate parents aren't aware of). But it's kind of impossible to take that out of the equation, so let's say you have this general pool of kids who are exposed to excessive violence, and blood, and cursing. Out of those kids, you have a relative handful who actually go out and commit violence against other kids their age. And I would assume that's the segment of the population that Ebert is concerned about in that quote.
... I get the impression from Ebert's review that he is actually talking about two different audience segments here - the six-year-olds at home who are being further desensitized to violence via various media, and the older pre-teens/teenagers who are getting involved in gang violence. Maybe it's just me, but... I feel like the type of kid who would go out and shoot another kid isn't going to be saved or corrected by a less violent movie. Millions of people around the world are exposed to this stuff, and a great deal of us do become desensitized to it, but it isn't inspiring significant numbers of us to take arms and go around beating the shit out of other people for giving us crusty looks. When I was nine, I saw seriously violent movies (yay Hong Kong cinema!) and tried to pick up the Playboy station when the parents were out, and I didn't become an instrument of violence, nor a sexual deviant. I daresay I grew up pretty normal, relatively speaking. And I have to assume, based on my limited interactions with the rest of the world, that the majority of us are not going to be induced to more violent behavior just because we saw a violent movie.
With that out of the way, though, the point that's more important to me is a point that Ebert has already shown me he isn't going to get. I am a girl. Or, I was a girl. (I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a woman.) So when I'm watching an 11-year-old girl up onscreen, who is beating up bad guys, killing a bunch of them (who, let's point out, are pretty obviously trying to kill her), taking bullets (sort of), flinging around knives and ninja stars and loading more clips into her guns and running up walls and kicking all sorts of ass? I cheer. I rejoice. I get up and fucking sing. Because there is so much media - so much - that never shows girls kicking ass without sexualizing it, when it decides to show girls kicking ass at all.
Maybe it's just me, but I also feel like when Ebert is appalled at the notion of a little girl kicking ass, he is kind of unintentionally saying that this is not how little girls are supposed to act. Never mind that children in general aren't supposed to act this way: he doesn't call her a "child" hurting people. He really does seem to focus on the fact that she is a girl. I'm sure it is unintentional, as is a lot of sexism (though too little of it, unfortunately), and coming from an adult male, I understand that he isn't going to react to it the way I will.
Because when I see girls like that onscreen? Girls like Hit-Girl and Buttercup? I wish I'd seen them when I was six. Because maybe then I'd have punched the bully in the gut instead of crying. Maybe then I'd have kicked that shitface in the dick when he whipped it out. Maybe I'd have run after the fucker who grabbed my ass and jabbed my elbow into his solar plexus instead of just standing frozen to the spot out of shock and horror.
I need to know I can do that. We all do. We need to know that we are strong and fierce and a fucking force to be reckoned with. We need girls like Hit-Girl and Buttercup, who are violent and bloodthirsty and spit in your face and make no apology for it. We need to know that we can do that. We need to know we are Untouchable.
We need girls who are unapologetically strong in as many ways as possible (and yes, that includes physically and mentally) so we can be, too. Never mind that Ebert objects to Hit-Girl. I don't. I can't. I want to be Hit-Girl. Maybe I already am. (I wish!)
Just knowing that Hit-Girl exists, that the Powerpuff Girls exist, makes me feel like I can (and want to) be a stronger woman. They already make me wish I'd been a stronger girl.
So to hell with the haters. Bring it. Because us girls need to know that we can kick ass.
And you can't fucking touch us.
I do recommend the book, which has a well-crafted narrative voice, particularly from the perspective of Dr. Impossible, and highly recommend it for any of you who are interested in reading the story from the villain's perspective. Because Dr. Impossible is a villain, yes, with the typical comical take-over-the-world schemes you're familiar with from your childhood, but those schemes are delivered straight-faced and with a very recognizably human voice. Not human as in it'll touch you, but human as in it feels like an actual person talking. Minus, you know, the whole superhero/supervillain thing. You'll inevitably draw parallels between this book and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog (as far as I know, neither influenced the other), and for those of you PpG fans out there who are interested in villains (Mojo Jojo in particular), you'll probably find a wealth of creative inspiration here.
That's my plug for that. Now. Kick-Ass.
I was giddy like gangbusters about this ever since the red-band trailer w/Hit-Girl came out, and when I finally got around to seeing it last week I had a blast. And I'd talk about how awesome it is, but after reading a few things, I have something else I want to respond to/get off my chest.
Ebert (who I do think has intelligent opinions occasionally, but who I also have been reluctant to trust ever since he put down the awesomeness that is The Powerpuff Girls Movie) gave the film a very unfavorable review, objecting to the violence dealt by and to Hit-Girl. That, and the following comment stuck out to me as well:
When kids in the age range of this movie's home video audience are shooting one another every day in America, that kind of stops being funny.Let it be known on my part that I tend to take what individual critics say with a grain of salt, as the opinions I form about what I watch tend to matter more to me than others' (as it should be).
Now, the quoted bit first. I would hope that the "home video audience" wouldn't include parents who aren't supervising what their six-year-old is exposed to at home (because the truth is you have parents who don't supervise what their kids watch, either because they don't care or they don't have the time, or because their kids have access to this magical thing called the internet and know of these things called torrents that their tech-illiterate parents aren't aware of). But it's kind of impossible to take that out of the equation, so let's say you have this general pool of kids who are exposed to excessive violence, and blood, and cursing. Out of those kids, you have a relative handful who actually go out and commit violence against other kids their age. And I would assume that's the segment of the population that Ebert is concerned about in that quote.
... I get the impression from Ebert's review that he is actually talking about two different audience segments here - the six-year-olds at home who are being further desensitized to violence via various media, and the older pre-teens/teenagers who are getting involved in gang violence. Maybe it's just me, but... I feel like the type of kid who would go out and shoot another kid isn't going to be saved or corrected by a less violent movie. Millions of people around the world are exposed to this stuff, and a great deal of us do become desensitized to it, but it isn't inspiring significant numbers of us to take arms and go around beating the shit out of other people for giving us crusty looks. When I was nine, I saw seriously violent movies (yay Hong Kong cinema!) and tried to pick up the Playboy station when the parents were out, and I didn't become an instrument of violence, nor a sexual deviant. I daresay I grew up pretty normal, relatively speaking. And I have to assume, based on my limited interactions with the rest of the world, that the majority of us are not going to be induced to more violent behavior just because we saw a violent movie.
With that out of the way, though, the point that's more important to me is a point that Ebert has already shown me he isn't going to get. I am a girl. Or, I was a girl. (I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a woman.) So when I'm watching an 11-year-old girl up onscreen, who is beating up bad guys, killing a bunch of them (who, let's point out, are pretty obviously trying to kill her), taking bullets (sort of), flinging around knives and ninja stars and loading more clips into her guns and running up walls and kicking all sorts of ass? I cheer. I rejoice. I get up and fucking sing. Because there is so much media - so much - that never shows girls kicking ass without sexualizing it, when it decides to show girls kicking ass at all.
Maybe it's just me, but I also feel like when Ebert is appalled at the notion of a little girl kicking ass, he is kind of unintentionally saying that this is not how little girls are supposed to act. Never mind that children in general aren't supposed to act this way: he doesn't call her a "child" hurting people. He really does seem to focus on the fact that she is a girl. I'm sure it is unintentional, as is a lot of sexism (though too little of it, unfortunately), and coming from an adult male, I understand that he isn't going to react to it the way I will.
Because when I see girls like that onscreen? Girls like Hit-Girl and Buttercup? I wish I'd seen them when I was six. Because maybe then I'd have punched the bully in the gut instead of crying. Maybe then I'd have kicked that shitface in the dick when he whipped it out. Maybe I'd have run after the fucker who grabbed my ass and jabbed my elbow into his solar plexus instead of just standing frozen to the spot out of shock and horror.
I need to know I can do that. We all do. We need to know that we are strong and fierce and a fucking force to be reckoned with. We need girls like Hit-Girl and Buttercup, who are violent and bloodthirsty and spit in your face and make no apology for it. We need to know that we can do that. We need to know we are Untouchable.
We need girls who are unapologetically strong in as many ways as possible (and yes, that includes physically and mentally) so we can be, too. Never mind that Ebert objects to Hit-Girl. I don't. I can't. I want to be Hit-Girl. Maybe I already am. (I wish!)
Just knowing that Hit-Girl exists, that the Powerpuff Girls exist, makes me feel like I can (and want to) be a stronger woman. They already make me wish I'd been a stronger girl.
So to hell with the haters. Bring it. Because us girls need to know that we can kick ass.
And you can't fucking touch us.
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Yes!
I wish there were more girls like Buttercup to prove to women and little girls we can kick ass too and not be subjected to cowering in corners 'behaving the way we're supposed to' or so they say.
I have yet to see Kick Ass. I really want to after watching that trailer though.
Re: Yes!
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Why can't girls whose parents didn't raise them with a twisted moral compass be just as bad-ass as Hit-Girl? I think that's what turned me off about the character. Had her father never been released from jail, and if her guardian had continued to raise her, would Hit-Girl still have that vendetta? Would Hit-Girl still be as willing to cuss and kick-ass and slice and slaughter?
It just makes me sad to think that only maladjusted, angsty, twisted backstories will allow a girl/female character that kind of awesome in mainstream media.
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Let's be honest, in the context of the movie, it probably would (particularly when you take into consideration how, oh, every other female character is treated in the movie). But since it didn't happen, and Hit Girl was a hardcore little bitch with guns on wheels, I do have to say that while the situation read as maladjusted and twisty, I never got the sense that the character herself was wangsting about her tragic twisty life (up until a very particular point in the movie). Even when she talked about it afterwards, though, she was very matter-of-fact.
IDK, I think this is also something that tends to bug me less about heroes (since it makes the typically boring protagonist more "interesting") and more about villains (giving them a twisty backstory to "explain" where the character came from). I feel like too much of the time (particularly in fandom), there's an attempt to rationalize villains' behavior rather than just letting them be the bad guy. And while I like to go on at length about how much I like to humanize characters, I do feel there's a difference between humanizing them in ways that feel familiar (getting frustrated with their mom, having road rage, etc.) and humanizing them in ways that are a blatant attempt to get the audience to feel sorry for them and want to cuddle them.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSh2zBGwCxw
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Granted, none of my preferences are absolutes, and there are exceptions to every rule, but generally, that is what I prefer.
You should definitely read Soon I Will Be Invincible (http://www.amazon.com/Soon-Invincible-Vintage-Austin-Grossman/dp/0307279863/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273133223&sr=8-1). I think you'd enjoy it a lot.
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But who am I to talk, I give Him a past :P. The thing is, even though you can feel for him based on it I still don't think that makes him any less hateable. I always say if you don't hate him and he doesn't make your skin crawl at least once a sentence, you're not writing Him right *lol* :3
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That review just made me laugh. I love reading over the top reviews like that.
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I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH THE LAST SIX SENTENCES OF THIS ENTRY.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
Remind me to watch Kick-Ass.
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It is violent, but most excel.
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OR I'LL STREAM IT WHEREVER
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I go for the Bubbles school of thought: Meek and loving until you make me really mad and I scream you into next week :3..Or use pepperspray/heavy leg braces/large male friend. One of the three :3. I'm hardly ever alone because I am an easy target and I know that well. But being smart is half the battle, right? :D (not saying that others aren't smart but you know)
I think..with Hit Girl being bad because that was how her daddy made her (I haven't seen the movie) but I don't think that is really an issue of gender. I think really, when we don't make gender an issue with that it could have just as well been a boy or girl with that origin. A boy would have needed the same sort of history IMHO because children are not born thinking like that and if child soldiers IRL have taught us anything I think one of those things is a lot of it is brainwashing..Just, not even getting into if the character is a good fictional rolemodel at all but more on the basic underage soldier idea :(..
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Really, all three of the PpG do this, which is part of why I love them so much. So I have to say that Bubbles is awesome, but I have to disagree with her being meek! Mild-mannered, certainly, and gentler than her sisters, but the girl still kicks some serious booty.
The reason I brought up gender at all in this post was largely in response to Ebert's read of the film, which to me sounded inherently gendered. As far as brainwashing goes, gender certainly would have very little (if anything at all) to do with it.
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Yay brainwashing is more age based than anything..at least in a more realistic world...
I still wonder how the PPGs were born talking and everything..Untill the movie I had an idea (I still might write it) about the Professor teaching them like babies for years (even though they were born with bigger bodies)
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Honestly, I'm glad kids have a bit more access to violence and sexual(ish) things nowadays. I didn't when I was younger, so I had absolutely no idea what to do when I did find out about those things. Instead of keeping information away, we should be explaining and expanding and making the little tykes of today into the super awesome people of tomorrow. Of course there always needs to be limits, but it can't hurt an eight year old to know what bad touching is or how to defend herself.
And while it's great to have kickass female characters, it makes me said that that's what the character is known for. I think to actually achieve equality, we need more 'real' characters. Male, Female, or otherwise. Common attitudes and personalities may be useful, but all it does is divide everyone further.
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not sogood old days, you were considered a spinster by like twenty-four (with the exception of Shakespeare's time). Girls only obviously. But everyone was expected to start courtship as soon as they became men and women. And only in Western society is there this idea about adolesence, which we can blame so very much on... But that's a rant for another day.Bravo.
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Baby steps. We're getting there! (I hope.)
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Anywho, yes. This is why I never listen to critics.
You already know my feelings about blaming the media for personal actions, so I won't talk about that. You're completely right about having a kick-ass girl on screen (kinda sad she has to be completely prepubescent for it to happen... but baby-steps, baby steps). Inching nervously away from the "girl power!" aspect of it though, I think I'd like to say I love her because she's so badass and continues to be badass throughout the movie. I hate when a girl always ends up wanting to back out or becomes weak or has second thoughts. I hate when anyone does that. Missions of revenge don't work that way. Granted, some girls and guys on psychopathic killing sprees of hatred may fall in love and decide that this new love is more important than revenge, or sacrifice themselves when they are so very close... Every hero has a weakness and they're only human (usually). Even when Hit Girl's first push is taken from her, she never once questions, never loses her motivation. I LOVE it.
In the end it is she who galvanizes David into action, not the other way around; it is he who wants to quit, he who wants to give up because he finally has something to live for ("eh", to sex as a motivator, but ok). I keep thinking of her like Batman, who no matter what series or comic we're talking about, always manages to come up with determination, cajoling, often silently, another person (or persons) into action, simply by leading. Since I LOVE Batman
and Robin!, this is probably one of the best compliments she could get from me as a character.As for comments that she's flawed as a hero because she was brain-washed into it... semantics! You say brainwashed, I say highly trained to fight and defend in a heightened state of freedom. I wish I'd learned fighting styles when I was young. In any case, it's not as though the father is doing it for the purpose of hurting innocents (and isn't all forms of socialization and parenting forms of brainwashing? It just depends on who puts what ideas into little heads. Two children with the same exact upbringing will still end up two totally different people). So she's not "normal". Bleh. Normal is overrated anyway. Look what normal did - it precipitated a whole city of cowards and one, read ONE, naive boy who got fed up and thought he could make a difference when no one else was willing to. It wasn't for glory (he didn't tell any of his friends) and it wasn't to get the girl (that was a happy little side-effect). He got his ass kicked, should have died, but he did what he thought was right and asked for nothing in return. Hit girl did the same and she lost something; she made a sacrifice for her way of life. That is what makes a hero. That is what we're missing in life.
::sigh:: so much for keeping it simple and quick this time...
PS: I am a girl. Or, I was a girl. (I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a woman.)
Me too! It's so weird, isn't it? I guess it doesn't help when you don't look it/aren't treated like it either. I don't ever want to grow up. ^-^ ::cue Toys'R'Us theme song::
Unfortunately it seems to be indicative of our generation as most of us tend to both feel and be immature... but anyway.
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YSM to HG being the instigator, the catalyst that pushes KA into action in the end, and YSM also to her character not conforming to the general definition of "normal" (a result of her abnormal upbringing; "normal" to and for her character is a different thing entirely).