City of Sin

[the_siobhan]

So I went and saw Sin City the other night. The night before I came down with the neck-swelling disease from Hell.

Ahem. Anyway. I had really wanted to see it earlier. In fact I've been salivating over the commercials for months. But the_axel and I have movie tickets that we have to use up but that can't be used for the first 10 days a movie is showing. So we waited and I contented myself with watching the trailers obssessively.

The interesting thing about waiting was that I got to hear opinions from a whole lot of people beforehand. People who raved about how great it was. And people who really didn't like it at all. And in my completely non-random, non-scientific sampling of people, without fail the ones who were disappointed were people who had never read the comic book.

The reasons people cited were all exactly the reasons that I once gave why Sin City isn't one of my favourite comic books - the monochromatic tough-guy characters get to be hard to tell apart. The repetative story lines. The one-dimensional villains. The disjointed timeframes. (Well actually I like that, but I can see how it throws some people off.)

So although I thought it was a good comic, it still wasn't one of my absolute favourites. But I still went batshit fangirl when I found out it was being made into a movie. And I was thrilled when I saw how popular it was and the fantastic reviews it was getting.

Because I really, really, really want Hollywood to witness the success story that is the Sin City project. And I want them to realize that they can make a comic book into a movie and keep the characters and the story lines true to the original without turning it into a giant lamefest (*cough*Keanau Reeves*cough*) and it can still make money.

Because I'm still pissed over what they did to Tank Girl

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Another criticism I've seen, and one find a lot harder to articulate my reaction to, is one I've seen in feminist communities; that the movie is intrinsically anti-female. The majority of the female characters are sex-trade workers. Violence against women is treated as "normal". The huge majority of women are buff Hollywood babes.

Well, yeah.

It wasn't mentioned in the movie, but I remember in the comic book there was mention of the fact that the politicians specifically kept all "vice crimes" illegal, because that way everybody made more money off them - the mob, the crooked cops, the crooked politicians. It was pretty clear in the movie as well that the majority of the cops were on the take and the city was run by professional criminals and sickos.

So you have a town that is basically being used as a warehouse for the "sinful" tastes of the rich. The men who are young, strong and not from one of the rich families end up working mostly as rent-a-thugs, unless I guess they join the police force and get in on the game. And the women who are young, pretty and not from one of the rich families end up working as... hookers and strippers? You think?

Because of this debate I was actually looking for women who weren't in the sex trade while I watched the film. A couple of waitresses. A terrorist. A parole officer. Her girlfriend (mentioned, but not seen) who is a shrink. A judge. Maybe a couple of police officers, but it was kind of hard to tell in the riot gear. Then again, maybe not - the way Marv was mowing through them.

Also because of this debate I was looking for women of different body types. Even fewer of those - one waitress who fits into the Hollywood definition of chubby, although she'd be completely normal anywhere else on the planet. The terrorist, who had visible muscles on her arms. And the judge, who looked like she might be a little older. The sad part is that's actually a pretty good ratio for a Hollywood movie.

But you know, I think none of those things are actually important. Those are background details, part of the setting. What matters more is the women themselves - one dimensional film noir characters with rediculous lines that they were, they had guts. The waitress talks back to the violent ex-boyfriend who terrifies her, and threatens to defend herself against one of his drunk friends with a knife. The parole officer gets up to defends her home from an intruder in the middle of the night, and later knocks Marv out in the hope of saving both their lives. A hooker takes action to revenge her sister's death. A whole story line is based on the hookers who not only wrest control of their own fate away from the men, but fight to defend it. The women aren't the main protagonists in the stories so we don't get to hear their voices, but they are far from passive.

I get that the overt violence in the movie might be too much for people. There were some pretty gorey/disturbing scenes in it. But the whole point of the stories is that they are set in a universe where life is cheap and everything is for sale, so complaining that one of the things being sold is people kind of misses the point. Walking in there knowing that's the universe of the stories and then complaining about what the characters do to survive in it, is more than a bit like purposely going out of your way to be offended.

I saw one comment from a person say that she went into the movie "bracing herself" to be appalled. And all I could think of at the time was, "Well, you got what you wanted. Here's a cookie."

Comments

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

And I usually end up being the first one to pass out from exhaustion.