Sci said:
I don't know if you're quite following what I mean when I say that one might interpret the narrative as being sexist or racist.
You're evaluating this from an in-universe perspective -- "Slipknot wasn't targeted by other characters for racist reasons, therefore it is not racist."
I'm arguing from a metatextual perspective.
Here's a way to illustrate the difference:
Black Dude Dies First is an undeniably racist trope. Yet when we say that, that doesn't mean we're saying that the characters in a film that employs the Black Dude Dies First trope are themselves racist. Indeed, when a monster kills a black dude first in a horror movie, it is not that the monster is racist. It is that the narrative is racist because it is constructed in such a way to depict black lives as being less valuable than white lives -- as "filler" people there to die so that we will feel tension over the fate of white characters.
Now, you may or may not argue that Slipknot's fate is significant enough to mark Suicide Squad as a racist film. As I said, I'm not quite willing to go that far myself, because this film doesn't particularly depict anybody in a good light, and both its most sympathetic (Deadshot) and least sympathetic characters (Waller) are persons of color. But whether or not Slipknot was targeted by other characters for being Native American does not in and of itself determine whether or not the film is racist. You have to examine things metatextually.
So in-universe the film wasn't racist to kill off Slipknot,
No. That is a category error. You cannot determine whether or not a film narrative is racist by evaluating it from an in-universe perspective. You
have to evaluate it metatextually in order to make this determination.
but out of universe, we are to assert the writers intended harm to the Native American community by killing of Adam Beach's character?
Racism is not necessarily intentional. As Hillary Clinton recently put it, implicit bias is a problem
everybody has to grapple with. A racist narrative can result from unconscious biases -- witness, for instance, Tim Burton's consistent failure to include persons of color in his films.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
False dichotomy. No one claimed sexy=sexism. But there are ways to be sexy without being objectified.
I was asking you a question, mate.
Yes, you were. And it was a question based on a false a priori assumption. It was, in other words, a bullshit question designed to allow you to control the parameters of the debate.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
That is too narrow of a definition of sexism. A narrative that depicts women as being sex objects for male pleasure may not be engaging in discrimination or prejudice per se, but this is still sexism.
I pulled the definition out of the dictionary.
Shockingly, a complex social phenomenon, the study of which drives an entire field of academic study and the combat of which drives numerous governmental agencies and activist groups, just
might be too complex to be adequately encapsulated in a single-sentence dictionary definition.
As to the film, every female character had their own story, backstory, and agency.
Not really. The only female characters with any agency are Amanda Waller and the Enchantress. Harley's entire personality is built around her submission to a man; Katana is fixated on her dead husband and has next to no personality otherwise; June is essentially a victim of the Enchantress's magical body-rape; Deadshot's daughter is just there as a prop to make the audience feel sympathetic to him; and El Diablo's wife exists for the sole purpose of being killed so the audience will feel sympathetic towards him.
They weren't there to give men boners.
Then Harley, the Enchantress, and Katana all should have been given different costumes.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
What repressed doctor persona? Nothing in the film suggested she was repressed before meeting the Joker, nor anything in the original version of her in The Animated Series.
I'd have to go back and watch the original episode and reread Mad Love, but I'm certain the intention was Harley was a square who was charmed by the Joker and embraced his live free lifestyle.
The impression I got from both the "Mad Love" episode and comic one-shot was that she was an unscrupulous doctor wishing to profit off of treating high-profile patients. ("Well, I've always had an attraction to extreme personalities. They're more exciting, more challenging..." "And more high-profile?" "You can't deny there's an element of glamor to these super-criminals." "I'll warn you right now -- these are hard-core psychotics. If you're thinking of cashing in on them by writing a tell-all book...")
Edited to add: I just re-watched part of "Mad Love." In fairness, there
is a scene later in the episode where Joker reassures Harley that it's understandable to fall in love with him because she's been a dedicated career woman who put her profession ahead of fun, and that it's natural to fall for someone who can make her laugh. End edit.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
M.A.C.O. said:
HOWEVER, Harley being sexy and promiscuous is always on her own terms. She's not available sexually to anyone she chooses not to be with. The Joker originally, but now it's down to Ivy and Red Tool (Deadpool parody. We don't need to use our imaginations of how Harley reacts to men disrespecting her.
There are two problems with this argument:
1. She is depicted in the film in explicitly proprietary terms vis a vis the Joker. She does things like wear shirts that say "Daddy's Lil Monster" or clothes that say "Property of Mr. J," and her entire character is oriented around pining for him, around "giving her life" for him early on; she is depicted as someone who is a "being for others" (to paraphrase Paulo Freire in
Pedagogy of the Oppressed), as someone who exists for the Joker -- and the film never outright depicts this as a bad thing. This, in spite of the fact that the Joker began their relationship by electrocuting her and demanding that she commit a faux suicide ritual to please him.
2. This is in the context of a work of fiction created by a man, which features other inappropriately sexualized female characters.
Is that harmful to women in the real world though?
Have you really never run into the numerous examples of research showing that sexual objectification of women in media is deeply damaging to women, particularly to teenage girls? Is this a serious question?
As for her wardrobe and the phrases on them, I chock it up to it being things Harley would wear and style to her liking.
Of course they are things the fictional character would like to wear. That is not the point. The point is that this fictional character is being depicted by this narrative as someone who likes to wear sexually objectifying clothing
in the larger narrative context of also being a character who is obsessed with feelings of love and submission towards an abusive predator. This is a character that was assaulted by a man, who
symbolically kills herself to prove her devotion to him, and wears sexually revealing clothes that assert proprietary ownership of her by that man. This is
not an independent character. This is the very definition of a character that is defining herself by her subordination to a man.
So, no, you can't fairly argue that her expression of her sexuality is an act of empowerment. It is an act of subordination.
Hey, man. Women like women too. Hehe.
Besides, I'm certain those specific scenes were not the reasons people chose to patron and repatron the film.
Which does not address the question of whether or not the film is employing the male gaze.
For inarguable example of pointless "male gaze", look no further than Alice Eve's underwear scene in STID. Which was in several trailers and stills, and added nothing to the film. It got so bad that JJ and co had to come out and apologize for it.
I completely agree.
Of course, Harley's bra shot and ass shot were both in plenty of trailers and publicity stills, too, and added nothing to the film, either.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
What you are describing here is how members of the audience choose to appropriate and reinterpret works of art for their own personal aesthetics goals. It's awesome, but it has nothing to do with whether or not a film employs what academics have identified as the male gaze.
If the fans don't have ownership of the media they are consuming, than who does?
Legally-speaking, Warner Bros. has ownership of
Suicide Squad and its related media, obviously.
Less legalistically -- that's not the point. How an audience chooses to appropriate a work of art is actually not the same thing as a critical assessment of the themes at play in that work of art. It's the difference between a
Harry Potter novel that depicts Hermione and Ron as being in love, and a
Harry Potter fanfic that depicts Hermione as only really being in love with Harry. The content of the work is not the same thing as the appropriation of the work for the creation of subsidiary derivative works.
Women like Harley because she's independent and fun.
Harley, at least in
Suicide Squad, is
not independent. Her entire psyche revolves around a man.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
M.A.C.O. said:
I don't consider exposed mid-driffs to be a sexualized area.
So why didn't we see Rick Flagg's abs?
I couldn't tell you.
I can: Because
Suicide Squad is a film designed to sexually objectify its female characters through costumes that make no sense in the context in which they are presented, purely for the titillation of audiences.
I can tell you I saw the Joker's abs, and pectorals though. Because for some reason the dude wasn't wearing a shirt several times throughout the film.
Yes, it is a long-standing male power fantasy to associate shirtless masculinity with assertions of power and dominance, especially over women. He's not objectified for the pleasure of audiences, he's shirtless as an expression of power. And notably, of course, the Joker is not shirtless when he's in combat -- his outfit
still makes more sense than Harley's.
Not like those X-Men films, am I right?
The
X-Men films are also sexist, yes.
Is Slave Leia sexist now too?
Is this a serious question?
Yes, of course the "Slave Leia" bit in
Return of the Jedi was deeply sexist.
Like I said in my original post, Enchantress never used sexuality or beauty as weapon.
Which actually makes her magic bikini even
more sexist of a creative decision on Ayer's part, because we are left without even so much as a character-appropriate justification for that costume. Harley's costume at least makes sense insofar as this is a character who is obsessed with pleasing a man to whom she has subordinated herself -- it's still sexist, but at least it is consistent with the characterization (as the character itself is sexist). With Enchantress, there's not even
that. She's just belly-dancing in a magic bikini for no reason. It's ridiculous.
When people bring up domestic violence in SS, it isn't El Diablo and his family that they are talking about. It's the Joker and his physical assault (slapping, shoving and punching) of Harley that they are referring to. However, like we saw, those scenes were excluded from the movie.
I am bringing up both, and both are more than adequate supports for the argument that
Suicide Squad glorifies domestic abuse. And, once again, the Joker
literally electrocutes Harley, so, no, not all of the scenes where he is violent towards her are cut.
With Diablo, we never see him attack his family. Know his family died when he lost control of his temper and by extension his mutant power and burned their home down.
Yes. And the film doesn't even bother to give his family names -- they are props that exist to make us go, "Oh, poor Diablo!" That is a form of glorifying domestic abuse.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
Can you think of any other film in recent memory that was tarred and feathered unjustly?
I'm sorry, but do you actually read film reviews and critiques on a regular basis? People call out racism and sexism in movies all the time. Nothing unique about it with Suicide Squad.
Hell, at least these criticisms of Suicide Squad only emerged once critics had actually seen the film. Compare that to the vitriol unleashed against this year's Ghostbusters remake just in reaction to the mere idea of an all-female version of that story before anyone saw it.
Difference is, people in the media were praising GB,
After they saw it (not before they saw it), because it turned out to be a generally good movie.
People were rushing to GB's defense long before they saw the movie. A counter movement to the alleged "Ghostbros" who were down voting the trailer on Youtube.
Who? I remember people rushing to say, "Give it a chance, don't assume it's bad because it has an all-female cast" in response to the "MRA"-aligned backlash. This is not the same thing as asserting it is a good movie.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
M.A.C.O. said:
while it was the general audience that was left cold by it.
According to Box Office Mojo,
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call had a total domestic gross of $127.3 million as of 22 September 2016. It has a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 76% and an audience score of 56%. It is an exaggeration to say audiences were "left cold" by it. It wasn't a mega-hit, but it was seen by a great many people and was enjoyed by most people who saw it.
Not really an exaggeration to say audiences were left cold by it. To compare GB and SS. <SNIP>
So what? I'm not comparing their box office results. I am saying that it is wrong to claim that GB "left audiences cold." It was a popular movie that was enjoyed by many people -- as was
Suicide Squad!
M.A.C.O. said:
Calling it a hit would be a false statement.
I don't know -- how do you define a "hit?" By profit percentage? By ratio of income to expense? By number of tickets sold? I have a hard time saying that a film that made $227 million isn't a "hit," even though, yeah, it's not as big of a financial success as
Suicide Squad has been.
And of course, this isn't a binary thing, it's a continuum. Films are not either mega-hits or bombs. There's an entire spectrum of financial results a film can achieve.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
Point is, you asked for another movie that had been "unfairly tarred and feathered." I pointed out that Ghostbusters was trashed before it was even released because a lot of people got butt-hurt at the idea of a female Ghostbusters remake. So that's a perfectly fair and prominent example of a film being unjustly tarred and feathered.
Suicide Squad, by contrast, only started being the target of any critics when it actually screened for them and it turned out to have all sorts of narrative problems.
Taste in film in subject, sure. But the math just doesn't support the notion that GB was very good.
1. Nonsense -- it is a film that many people saw and which most people who saw enjoyed.
2. Again,
so what? That is not the issue. The issue is whether or not there has been another film that was unfairly tarred and feathered, and
Ghostbusters was unfairly tarred and fathered before people even had a chance to see it!
Suicide Squad, by contrast, only got negative reviews when it was actually screened for critics, and was widely regarded as a highly-anticipated movie before that point.
A film which most audiences and critics expect to be good, gets a fair shot from critics once it is screened, and is negatively reviewed, has NOT been unfairly tarred and feathered. A film that gets people trashing it and trying to organize a boycott against it before it has even been released, solely because they don't like an all-female cast, HAS been unfairly tarred and feathered.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
Suicide Squad, by contrast, only started being the target of any critics when it actually screened for them and it turned out to have all sorts of narrative problems.
I was under the impression that people had sent their bullets and drawn their blades against SS after BvS disappointed HEAVILY all expectations.
Who? The critics I followed were mostly talking about how they were hoping it would be good and "redeem" the DC Extended Universe after
Batman v. Superman disappointed them.
Sci said:
M.A.C.O. said:
The reverse was true for SS. Critics were praising Ghostbusters before
Who?
Still waiting on an answer for this one.
M.A.C.O. said:
Sci said:
This is circular logic. What agenda do they allegedly wish to advance by hurting Suicide Squad's box office?
Isn't it the purview of people in the media to tell their consumers how to think? Don't watch this, watch this? This is why people point to critic scores as a measure of quality. I mean, Spider-Man 3, Cloud Atlas and Sharknado all have positive reviews on RT, does that mean we should embrace them all for being "good" films, because other people said so?
This is an utter non sequitur and it has nothing to do with my question. What alleged agenda do these critics who all have it out for
Suicide Squad wish to advance by hurting it at the box office? Are you alleging that they are all trying to advance a particular political ideology? What is this "agenda?"
M.A.C.O. said:
Haha, what part of my post ever gave you the impression I was worried about the comic book genre being endangered/the bubble busting?
Because nothing about the question you asked ("Why would anyone go see a comic book movie if people on site after site are saying these negative things about it?") makes no sense otherwise.
Sci said:
But there's no reason for Katana to bear her midriff or show off her cleavage in a combat situation (certain Rick Flagg doesn't dress to show off his pecs or his abs). (ETA: Same with Harley's costume -- it's ridiculous from a combat standpoint. End edit.) And Enchantress spends much of the movie just standing around in what amounts to a magic bikini.
You want to blame someone, blame the comic book industry for its standard boob-tastic approach to female superheroes
I completely agree that the comic book industry has a major problem with sexism and female sexual objectification.
That doesn't mean it's okay when that problem carries over into movies.
No-one goes to a superhero movie for metatextual analysis of gender roles.
I'm sorry to hear that you don't want to think critically about the media you are consuming. But just because you don't like analyzing what you are seeing doesn't mean that something isn't there in the piece. To paraphrase "Mr. Plinkett" at Red Letter Media in his analyses of the
Star Wars prequels: "You might not have noticed it, but your brain did."
eyeresist said:
Sci said:
Considering that this film glorifies the relationship between the Joker and Harley ... and considering that this film also asks us to feel pity for El Diablo because he lost his temper and killed his wife and children? I think that that criticism is completely fair.
Misuse of the word "glorifies". Obviously Harley herself thinks it's great, but then she's obviously crazy. We're not supposed to think it's normal.
Normal? No. But the narrative implicitly asks us to root for their relationship; it depicts Harley's "loss" of the Joker at the end of Act II as a sad thing, and it depicts her reunion with him at the very end as a positive thing. It asks us to be sad for her that she's lost him and happy for her that she's with him again... even though this is a guy who literally assaulted her and demanded that she commit a suicide ritual to prove her devotion to him. And that's just restricting ourselves to material that wasn't cut from the theatrical release.
So, yes, the film glorifies Harley's relationship with the Joker, even though that relationship is depicted as one built on abuse, subordination, and sexual objectification.
El Diablo has the unique excuse of being host to a demon. There is no suggestion that what he did (under the influence) is acceptable, but it is forgivable because, you know, literal demon possession.
"It's not my fault, the [alcohol/drug/whatever] made me do it" is a pretty common excuse amongst domestic abusers. The fact that the narrative substitutes a drug with a demon doesn't mean it's not still depicting a domestic abuser as not being responsible for his actions and asking us to feel sympathy for him for his abuse of others, while not ascribing any real agency or personality -- not even a name! -- to his victims.
eyeresist said:
Sci said:
I think Suicide Squad would have been less "domestic-violence-is-okay-y" if the narrative had been constructed to depict Harley as recognizing her relationship with the Joker as abusive and as something she needed to escape
So the problem is that Harley didn't embody the politically correct attitude?
I had no idea the idea that domestic violence and abuse should not be depicted as good things we should feel sorry for a character if they lose, or as things that should make us feel sorry for the abuser, constituted political correctness.
And if this complaint about setting a bad example is legitimate, surely Waller murdering all those people is a MUCH bigger moral problem than Harley's relationship issues? (especially given all the mass shootings in the US.)
The difference is that the film doesn't ask us to feel that Waller did the right thing by murdering her employees -- but the film does ask us to root for Harley's relationship with the Joker.
And I think I'd look up stats on deaths from domestic violence compared to deaths from mass shootings before I make any sort of comparison about which is a bigger problem in the film.
