Star Wars: Episode VIII ***Speculation & Spoilers***

[knapplc]

3 hours ago, zoogs said:

Dude, Kylo Ren looks freakin weird shirtless. I was not okay with that scene! Haha. I do love the parodies that came out of it though. Something about the angle and his waist-high pants...it's so interesting that in every other shot he manages to look like he has a slim and not totally hulked out figure. Turns out he wasn't joking when he went undercover on Starkiller Base, Kylo is shredded.

 

I didn't mind that scene since it showed a candid moment - one of the few we've ever seen in these movies.  I do wonder if that wasn't a body double, though.  That torso did not look right for his head.

[Making Chimichangas]

Okay...now I have GOT to talk about the scene where Luke milks that sea cow, walrus, looking thing.  That one shot, where you see 4 bewbs, and I was laughing saying, good gawd, that ain't right.    Then Luke milks it, the thing turns its head, looks directly at Rey (and the camera) and I swear it has a look of...how do I say this delicately but still get my point across...like it just orgasmed.  Having seen TLJ three times now, that scene makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.  

 

Then there is that ailen in the casino that shrieks during the stampede scene.  It looks like to me that particular ailen has like 6 bewbs.  I mean it's a fast shot and that alien is not on screen for more than two seconds tops, but that's another part of this movie that just makes me say WTF Rian?!?!  

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by Making Chimichangas

[Landlord]

On 1/1/2018 at 0:52 PM, zoogs said:

too much of Wonder Woman's protagonist stature was centered around her appearance; kickass fight scenes with bystander dudes observing, "I don't know whether to be frightened or turned on." Come on...)

 

 

 

Wait, i'm sorry...what's the problem with this?

[zoogs]

1 hour ago, Landlord said:

Wait, i'm sorry...what's the problem with this?

I'll just share the review, since it said it better: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/02/i_wish_wonder_woman_were_as_feminist_as_it_thinks_it_is.html

 

Perhaps I, a person who writes about gender and feminism every day and hasn’t seen enough superhero stuff to be impressed by the mere existence of a female protagonist, am the wrong audience for this film.Perhaps I was too distracted by the figure-skater dress Diana wears for most of the film, sculpted with tiny bumps for her apparently ever-erect nipples, to applaud the heavy-handed lines (“What I do is not up to you!”) that gesture toward female empowerment. I wondered why I’d come into the movie expecting some energizing woke-feminist manifesto instead of a film that stars one sexy woman surrounded by throngs of horny men, barely passing the Bechdel test after the opening scenes on Diana’s home island.

 

[Landlord]

That quote doesn't really have anything to do with what you said.

[zoogs]

To me, whatever chance Wonder Woman had of being some kind of feminist antidote to the overabundance of superhero movies made by and for bros was blown by its prevailing occupation with the titular heroine’s sex appeal. Characters frequently note that Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, who goes by Diana in the film, is “the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.” Her male companions in the fight against Germany’s WWI forces drool behind her back at the notion that there may somewhere be an island full of women who look like her, with no men in sight. When she walks into a room, even dressed in a plain gray suit and bowler hat instead of her usual sensual armored leotard, men go silent and stare. “I’m both frightened and aroused,” goes one character’s response to Diana’s ass-kicking moves, prompting one of the audience’s loudest, longest laughs at the screening I attended.

[zoogs]

To be clear, this isn't an argument that the movie is bad or that this makes it misogynist. It's an (IMO, worthy) examination of whether WW deserved some of the "boldly feminist" plaudits it was receiving. I think I would say WW isn't really for me, largely because comic book movies in general are not for me. I'm happy they finally have one starring female role, but that fact doesn't bowl me over, either. The genre is still fundamentally male-oriented, and it will be a while before all aspects of that can be taken on.

 

It's different from the fury I would reserve for Jurassic World. Which in this area was actively bad. Didn't try to be good. Tried, maybe without realizing, to be exactly as awful as it was.

 

I love Supergirl, though. I guess it's not fair to compare movies and TV in this area. TV always leads cinema here, for whatever reason...but a lot of the critiques the Slate author levied at WW are absent from Supergirl. It's just a really well crafted cast. Not that it's lacking for romance, either, but Kira isn't sexualized, the show isn't shot for the male gaze, the supporting male (good guy) characters are exemplary in their respect for women for reasons other than their bodies, and it abounds with strong female characters (one who runs the media empire where Kira/SG works; her foster sister who is a lead secret agent fighting the bad guys; her foster sister's girlfriend who is a big-time police detective). I think there is much more of a template for all of this on a network procedural than there is in Hollywood, though.

 

But back to Star Wars, though  

[Landlord]

Does 'sex appeal in the main protagonist' really fall under feminism? Obviously it does to the degree that it intersects with a lack of representation of women in media. Of course. But that phenomenon seems more to me to deal with the bias/privilege of attractive people in general (coincidentally, something we don't really ever talk about?) I know that unattractive men make careers, and unattractive women do as well though not to the same threshold of success, but has anyone ever seen a superhero that doesn't possess sex appeal? 

 

One thing I am sick of is the boob separating breastplates. That's totally not functional and completely antithetical to the whole idea of body armor

[knapplc]

That's what's great about Rey. She's not a female protagonist/superhero, she's just a superhero.  Everything about her is average - looks, clothes, upbringing/heritage, etc.  And yet she's an ass-whooping sword-wielding superpower-using screen grabber.  I get the argument that she's a Mary Sue. She's still pretty cool.

[Saunders]

Quote

Characters frequently note that Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, who goes by Diana in the film, is “the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”

 

Because she's an Amazon... That's literally a trait of her people.

 

 

[Saunders]

Also, let's try to keep the political stuff on that portion of the board. Thanks.

[zoogs]

1 hour ago, Landlord said:

Does 'sex appeal in the main protagonist' really fall under feminism? Obviously it does to the degree that it intersects with a lack of representation of women in media. Of course. But that phenomenon seems more to me to deal with the bias/privilege of attractive people in general (coincidentally, something we don't really ever talk about?) I know that unattractive men make careers, and unattractive women do as well though not to the same threshold of success, but has anyone ever seen a superhero that doesn't possess sex appeal? 

 

One thing I am sick of is the boob separating breastplates. That's totally not functional and completely antithetical to the whole idea of body armor

Yes, exactly, I think it does. To a very meaningful degree. There's total exclusion of women, to begin with. And then there's the inclusion only of exceptionally attractive wom(a)n. And then, as in this case, where bombshell sex appeal is at the core of the character's purpose and presentation. Knapp nails it: this is what is great about Rey. And Rose. And I would take issue with the term Mary Sue (ref: https://www.themarysue.com/lets-talk-about-rey-and-rey-backlash/ -- namely, it's a term often used to put down strong female characters when the male analogue Gary Stu is almost never seriously applied)

 

@Saunders: heh, there was nothing inevitable about that. The director's hands were not tied. They weren't held down until they said, "OK, OK, fine we'll go with the mini skirt and the poppin' breastplates." Amazons aren't even real. To the extent that this is a part of the WW character conception from the beginning: yes, and that's part of the reason why I wasn't interested to begin with. It always struck me as a character created largely to serve male fantasy. That and the rest of the genre. I mean, it's fine in a sense: different things for different audiences. I'm just not interested in it, and I don't think that it particularly qualifies its director for a movie with a very different intent. Not that it disqualifies them, either.

 

Here are some more examples of what I'm talking about. This isn't an accident. I mean, read through those descriptions.

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ross-putman-descriptions-female-women-scripts_us_56bb86dce4b0b40245c5046c

http://www.scriptmag.com/features/specs-the-city-female-characters-and-pretty-much-every-movie-ever

https://twitter.com/femscriptintros (a cliffsnotes of it all)

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/gender-bias-hollywood-movie-industry-sexism-bechdel-wallace-test-charlize-theron-geena-davis-a7889956.html

 

It's automatic. It's effective. It sells really well. You have to really try to push back against it. I don't need every movie to do it this way, but I appreciate the hell out of the ones that do, like Star Wars, which makes a mission out of it. It's not only refreshing as a matter of taste; I think it's important for all of us to start seeing more and more women in film depicted not as eye candy ("accidental" or otherwise). We all grew up with a hell of a lot of the opposite programming.

 

Feel free to move this to the sexism topic as it may be more germane there. However, I would push back against the notion that perspectives on gender are merely a matter of politics or partisanship.

Edited January 3, 2018 by zoogs

[Saunders]

11 minutes ago, zoogs said:

 

Feel free to move this to the sexism topic as it may be more germane there. However, I would push back against the notion that perspectives on gender are merely a matter of politics or partisanship.

I do think it's more appropriate somewhere else because it's going to derail this thread (as it already has).

 

But I was more referring to the kylo ren post political opinion piece above.

[zoogs]

@Saunders: Ah, I see. I've been preferring to post anything SW here, partly just because I have to tag *spoiler* elsewhere. I see what you mean.

 

But I don't know...this is a Star Wars thread. The entire franchise has literally always been about restoring a democracy against space-Nazi fascists. Star Wars is political to its core. I don't know if it's possible to divorce its choice of political message from a discussion of the movie, at least without missing the entire point behind it.

 

A lot of pop culture in general is political, too...but movies and music and literature still feel a lot more loungey. I mean, it's not POTUS tweets or tax policy. I don't think it's possible to sequester it all away or keep it super neatly compartmentalized. Not trying to do harm by it though, sorry.

Edited January 3, 2018 by zoogs

[zoogs]

Oh yeah, Luke's expression after he took a swig -- dead giveaway.