SLIDESHOW: A Taxonomy of Girls Ganging Up in the Movies
As director Zack Snyder demonstrates in this week's Sucker Punch, there are few filmic thrills as satisfying as watching women band together to turn gender assumptions upside down. But Emily Browning's Babydoll wasn't the first to grab a weapon and lead her lady friends into the fray; plenty of women have cleared the path for the Sucker Punch gang where sisterly solidarity is concerned, even if some of them used sex appeal or caustic wit instead of samurai swords or machine guns to deal death blows to the enemy. Join Movieline in revisiting the varied history of sisterhood in cinema as we catalogue over a dozen case studies of fierce femmes fatale doing it for themselves on film.
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Correction:
"As director Zack Snyder demonstrates in this week’s Sucker Punch, there are few filmic thrills as satisfying as watching women band together to turn gender assumptions upside down" TO WOMEN. Yes, to women. To us guys? Not so much, especially since the process of "turning gender assumptions upside down" involves women enthusiastically murdering men. Hence another reason why Sucker Punch is going to crash and burn. You can't sell a feminist revenge fantasy to young males, even if you pretty it up by dressing the girls like whores and surrounding them with pretty CG.
I can only hope for a crash; I too am so tired of seeing the magic kick-butt cheerleader who singlehandedly takes out a group of Army Rangers... or whoever is in range at the time.
Of course it's spreading. TV is full of these magic women who abuse the foolish and stupid men who get close. But what do you expect? In a world where even lipstick is sold via an empowerment "you go gurrrl" message, it's obvious somebody decided to quit respecting men.
Any male who buys a Kindle or a T-Mobile phone should have his man card revoked. Their commercial depiction of men is approaching evil. It's not even funny anymore; it's cliche. A harmful, hateful cliche.
"Not so much, especially since the process of "turning gender assumptions upside down" involves women enthusiastically murdering men."
Not always. The Bride was an equal opportunity assailant.
Anyway, the goons and soldiers being oh so efficiently dispatched in every other action movie are played by men. Usually the one doing all the killing would be described as being more masculine than his unworthy opponents.
It sounds as though when the hero has tits you no longer know who to root for. Do you think that's because you cannot empathize with a female action lead? Or is it because you suddenly feel as though the film has a blatant disregard for (hu)man life?
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