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The Expendables, and other things
So it's the last day of the year, the traditional day for rounding up all of the good and bad things that happened in 2012. At the moment I'm not even feeling up to rounding up all of the good and bad things that happened over the holidays, so instead I'll just be trying to chat a bit about some of the movies my brother and I have been watching on the new TV.
For the most part, as a compromise, this has meant action films: Thor, Captain America: the First Avenger, Avengers, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and the completely appalling The Expendables. All silly fun, except, to repeat, The Expendables.
(We also watched Tora! Tora! Tora! but although that has a lot of things blowing up that's not exactly in the same category as the rest of these films, so I won't discuss it much below.)
I initially meant to snark The Expendables. Really, I did. I could easily hear it in my head:
Hopeful screenwriters, one of whom is Sylvester Stallone: Have WE got a pitch for you! It's got Stallone AND Jet Li AND Bruce Willis and, to drag in a slightly younger audience, Jason Straham! And Mickey Rourke as some sort of vaguely Native American tattoo artist!
Hollywood money guys: Is Mickey Rourke actually Native American?
Hopeful screenwriters: We'll film him so darkly, it won't matter.
Hollywood money guys: Ok, we'll go for that. So, what's the plot?
Hopeful screenwriters: Things blow up.
Hollywood money guys: ....and the plot?
Hopeful screenwriters: More things blow up. And when we're stuck for dialogue, which will be often, more things will blow up.
Hollywood money guys: I dunno. I think we need more here.
Hopeful screenwriters: Ok. Here's what we got: aging action heroes and Jason Straham fly back and forth between a nameless Caribbean island that grows lots of drugs and is actually being run by some white guy from the CIA. They use a plane that says World Wildlife Organization as a Disguise Thing. Things blow up.
Hollywood money guys: I dunno. Can you give us, I dunno, some emotion here?
Hopeful screenwriters: Well, the aging action heroes can face off some dude they kicked off the team because of drug use! Also, Mickey Rourke can tell a Touching War Story.
Hollywood money guys: ...Mickey Rourke?
Hopeful screenwriters: If you have a choice between Stallone telling the Touching War Story and Rourke telling the Touching War Story, who are you going to go with?
Hollywood money guys: You have a point. Any other emotional things we can add?
Hopeful screenwriters: Well, relationships aren't really Our Thing, but if you insist, we can have a couple of women getting beaten up. And we'll ask some profound questions about why anyone would stay in a poverty stricken Caribbean country instead of just leaving since with American immigration policies that's always an option. Also, things will blow up.
Hollywood money guys: Hmm. Still not feeling it.
Hopeful screenwriters: What if we get Schwarzenegger to cameo with a joke about his potential political prospects?
Hollywood money guys: Can you get him to blow things up?
Hopeful screenwriters: No, but we can get him, Bruce Willis AND Stallone in the same room for a full two minutes which will be AWESOME for the trailers.
Hollywood money guys: Deal. Go blow things up.
So, yeah, the snark pretty much wrote itself (although I probably shouldn't make fun of the Mickey Rourke bit which was the film's only decent moment, if seeming as if it belonged in another film entirely), but as the film continued, I found myself more and more uncomfortable. Not because of the things blowing up. I'm as into big explosions as anyone. Or the crappy dialogue – it's an action film. With a script credited to Stallone. My expectations, they were not high. And not exactly because of the "Here come the Americans to save the day after they've screwed everything up," because that's a Stallone trademark (and, well, frankly a Hollywood trademark) that I was anticipating.
But because of the women.
Not, let me stress, because the film had only two women with speaking roles. After all, the rest of the films we watched were all equally male dominated, but those were fun. (Well, maybe "fun" isn't the word for Tora! Tora! Tora!.) But they also took a very different approach.
After all, with the exception of Tora! Tora! Tora! (which was striving for historical accuracy, and had almost no interest in gender issues at all), these films all featured a team of mostly men with only one woman (in Captain America, set in World War II, she doesn't join the team in the field, but helps put it together and holds a command role). Two of the films (The Avengers and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) had scenes where the women members of the team used their sexuality to extract information from the bad guys; two of the other films had women characters whose main point seemed to be sleeping with or trying to sleep with the lead (Star Trek, although that character also headed off for some sort of military job, and Captain America). Almost all of the bad guys in all of these films, even the background extras, were bad guys (Ghost Protocol also had a woman assassin, yay, who wanted to get paid in diamonds, somewhat less yay, but then again if you are collecting THAT much in cash for nuclear codes diamonds might be the easiest way to transport it, but I digress).
But, and this is key, the women in these films (mostly) did not spend the films getting beaten up or threatened and needing rescue by men. They mostly rescue themselves, when they need rescue at all (in Thor, for instance, the only people who need to be rescued are all men; Jane and Darcy need their computer equipment back, but they aren't physically threatened, and Uhura needs rescue only in the sense that the entire planet Earth needs rescue.) When the women are physically harmed, so are the men. (In fact Tom Cruise subjects his character to a surprising amount of physical pain.) In Ghost Protocol one of the women (MILD SPOILERS) even spends the film upset that she was not able to save a man although she was physically capable of doing so. This is not a judgement on her abilities in that film; the men also fail to save people. And the extras include plenty of women.
The two women in The Expendables just get beaten up.
The first is a decidedly secondary character, played by Charisma Carpenter, who gets herself beaten up by a boyfriend, and then stands by and watches helplessly as her ex boyfriend beats up the boyfriend. And that's it. The second gets kidnapped, beaten up, raped, and beaten up again. In the film's climatic scene, she is dragged around and around so Sylvester Stallone can blow things up and so that she can be saved by another man. She begs the American men – TWICE – to stay to help save her poor, Spanish speaking country which cannot possibly save itself. And which of course grows cocaine. Her father watches through a lot of this. Sylvester Stallone is so astonished to discover that she can make her own decisions that he decides to come back and blow up more of her country.
I forgot – the film has one more woman, who arrives on a motorcycle with Mickey Rourke. She has almost no dialogue; the camera focuses on her legs as she rides up a glass elevator. It's blatant, and I speak as someone who quite enjoyed the eye candy of Scarlett Johansson and more specifically her butt in The Avengers. (Given the camera's focus on it, it could almost have been given a nod in the final credits.)
The extras? Almost entirely men. The final scene? The men of the film – including the drug user who was earlier kicked out of the group (for drug use) and who had earlier tried very hard to KILL THE OTHER TEAM MEMBERS – gather together, without women, and throw knives.
Yeah.
And The Expendables expected me to enjoy this – a film that went far beyond marginalizing women, or including them as mere tokens. A film where women were excluded from all positions of power and almost all dialogues, where they were used at best as reasons for men to be protective.
Hell, Tora! Tora! Tora!, which was mostly ABOUT a bunch of men getting the U.S. and Japan into a war, in a historically sexist period, showed women with more agency and power – even though none of them were in uniform or military officers. It's a bad, bad moment when a woman secretary in a World War II film made in the 1970s has more power than the daughter of the leader of a country in a film made in the 21st century.
I don't need gender equity in my films – just as well, since I'm not going to get it. I will cheer on men heroes happily enough. But this – well, I said discomfort. Based on the length of this post, I think "discomfort" was not strong enough.
(Oh, and since I previously blogged about all of the other action flicks mentioned here, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, has a completely silly plot with huge plot holes, and a lot of things blowing up. Also, a lot of fun. Recommended mind candy of a film. Just don't think too hard about the plot.)
For the most part, as a compromise, this has meant action films: Thor, Captain America: the First Avenger, Avengers, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and the completely appalling The Expendables. All silly fun, except, to repeat, The Expendables.
(We also watched Tora! Tora! Tora! but although that has a lot of things blowing up that's not exactly in the same category as the rest of these films, so I won't discuss it much below.)
I initially meant to snark The Expendables. Really, I did. I could easily hear it in my head:
Hopeful screenwriters, one of whom is Sylvester Stallone: Have WE got a pitch for you! It's got Stallone AND Jet Li AND Bruce Willis and, to drag in a slightly younger audience, Jason Straham! And Mickey Rourke as some sort of vaguely Native American tattoo artist!
Hollywood money guys: Is Mickey Rourke actually Native American?
Hopeful screenwriters: We'll film him so darkly, it won't matter.
Hollywood money guys: Ok, we'll go for that. So, what's the plot?
Hopeful screenwriters: Things blow up.
Hollywood money guys: ....and the plot?
Hopeful screenwriters: More things blow up. And when we're stuck for dialogue, which will be often, more things will blow up.
Hollywood money guys: I dunno. I think we need more here.
Hopeful screenwriters: Ok. Here's what we got: aging action heroes and Jason Straham fly back and forth between a nameless Caribbean island that grows lots of drugs and is actually being run by some white guy from the CIA. They use a plane that says World Wildlife Organization as a Disguise Thing. Things blow up.
Hollywood money guys: I dunno. Can you give us, I dunno, some emotion here?
Hopeful screenwriters: Well, the aging action heroes can face off some dude they kicked off the team because of drug use! Also, Mickey Rourke can tell a Touching War Story.
Hollywood money guys: ...Mickey Rourke?
Hopeful screenwriters: If you have a choice between Stallone telling the Touching War Story and Rourke telling the Touching War Story, who are you going to go with?
Hollywood money guys: You have a point. Any other emotional things we can add?
Hopeful screenwriters: Well, relationships aren't really Our Thing, but if you insist, we can have a couple of women getting beaten up. And we'll ask some profound questions about why anyone would stay in a poverty stricken Caribbean country instead of just leaving since with American immigration policies that's always an option. Also, things will blow up.
Hollywood money guys: Hmm. Still not feeling it.
Hopeful screenwriters: What if we get Schwarzenegger to cameo with a joke about his potential political prospects?
Hollywood money guys: Can you get him to blow things up?
Hopeful screenwriters: No, but we can get him, Bruce Willis AND Stallone in the same room for a full two minutes which will be AWESOME for the trailers.
Hollywood money guys: Deal. Go blow things up.
So, yeah, the snark pretty much wrote itself (although I probably shouldn't make fun of the Mickey Rourke bit which was the film's only decent moment, if seeming as if it belonged in another film entirely), but as the film continued, I found myself more and more uncomfortable. Not because of the things blowing up. I'm as into big explosions as anyone. Or the crappy dialogue – it's an action film. With a script credited to Stallone. My expectations, they were not high. And not exactly because of the "Here come the Americans to save the day after they've screwed everything up," because that's a Stallone trademark (and, well, frankly a Hollywood trademark) that I was anticipating.
But because of the women.
Not, let me stress, because the film had only two women with speaking roles. After all, the rest of the films we watched were all equally male dominated, but those were fun. (Well, maybe "fun" isn't the word for Tora! Tora! Tora!.) But they also took a very different approach.
After all, with the exception of Tora! Tora! Tora! (which was striving for historical accuracy, and had almost no interest in gender issues at all), these films all featured a team of mostly men with only one woman (in Captain America, set in World War II, she doesn't join the team in the field, but helps put it together and holds a command role). Two of the films (The Avengers and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) had scenes where the women members of the team used their sexuality to extract information from the bad guys; two of the other films had women characters whose main point seemed to be sleeping with or trying to sleep with the lead (Star Trek, although that character also headed off for some sort of military job, and Captain America). Almost all of the bad guys in all of these films, even the background extras, were bad guys (Ghost Protocol also had a woman assassin, yay, who wanted to get paid in diamonds, somewhat less yay, but then again if you are collecting THAT much in cash for nuclear codes diamonds might be the easiest way to transport it, but I digress).
But, and this is key, the women in these films (mostly) did not spend the films getting beaten up or threatened and needing rescue by men. They mostly rescue themselves, when they need rescue at all (in Thor, for instance, the only people who need to be rescued are all men; Jane and Darcy need their computer equipment back, but they aren't physically threatened, and Uhura needs rescue only in the sense that the entire planet Earth needs rescue.) When the women are physically harmed, so are the men. (In fact Tom Cruise subjects his character to a surprising amount of physical pain.) In Ghost Protocol one of the women (MILD SPOILERS) even spends the film upset that she was not able to save a man although she was physically capable of doing so. This is not a judgement on her abilities in that film; the men also fail to save people. And the extras include plenty of women.
The two women in The Expendables just get beaten up.
The first is a decidedly secondary character, played by Charisma Carpenter, who gets herself beaten up by a boyfriend, and then stands by and watches helplessly as her ex boyfriend beats up the boyfriend. And that's it. The second gets kidnapped, beaten up, raped, and beaten up again. In the film's climatic scene, she is dragged around and around so Sylvester Stallone can blow things up and so that she can be saved by another man. She begs the American men – TWICE – to stay to help save her poor, Spanish speaking country which cannot possibly save itself. And which of course grows cocaine. Her father watches through a lot of this. Sylvester Stallone is so astonished to discover that she can make her own decisions that he decides to come back and blow up more of her country.
I forgot – the film has one more woman, who arrives on a motorcycle with Mickey Rourke. She has almost no dialogue; the camera focuses on her legs as she rides up a glass elevator. It's blatant, and I speak as someone who quite enjoyed the eye candy of Scarlett Johansson and more specifically her butt in The Avengers. (Given the camera's focus on it, it could almost have been given a nod in the final credits.)
The extras? Almost entirely men. The final scene? The men of the film – including the drug user who was earlier kicked out of the group (for drug use) and who had earlier tried very hard to KILL THE OTHER TEAM MEMBERS – gather together, without women, and throw knives.
Yeah.
And The Expendables expected me to enjoy this – a film that went far beyond marginalizing women, or including them as mere tokens. A film where women were excluded from all positions of power and almost all dialogues, where they were used at best as reasons for men to be protective.
Hell, Tora! Tora! Tora!, which was mostly ABOUT a bunch of men getting the U.S. and Japan into a war, in a historically sexist period, showed women with more agency and power – even though none of them were in uniform or military officers. It's a bad, bad moment when a woman secretary in a World War II film made in the 1970s has more power than the daughter of the leader of a country in a film made in the 21st century.
I don't need gender equity in my films – just as well, since I'm not going to get it. I will cheer on men heroes happily enough. But this – well, I said discomfort. Based on the length of this post, I think "discomfort" was not strong enough.
(Oh, and since I previously blogged about all of the other action flicks mentioned here, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, has a completely silly plot with huge plot holes, and a lot of things blowing up. Also, a lot of fun. Recommended mind candy of a film. Just don't think too hard about the plot.)