By the end of the day I have thought of several ideas on what I want to write about, only to not feel like writing about them when I start writing.
This doesn’t happen all the time. But it happened today.
I wanted to write about the violence in the movie Kick Ass. Edmund and I saw it last night, and we both though it was too violent. I thought it missed the mark.
Screw it. I think I WILL write about Kick Ass.
Note: there will be spoilers for the movie Kick Ass below. If you don’t like spoilers, don’t read the spoiler part.
One of Edmund’s Facebook Friends responded to his post about the movie saying, well, let me show you:
The response to Edmund’s complaint about the violence: “It’s supposed to be ott, man. It’s a comic book movie.”
My first thought was, yeah sure, it’s a comic book movie: so what? It doesn’t mean Kick Ass gets a pass on violence. The violence still has to be palatable, and to me it wasn’t.
My creds: I was brought up watching rated R movies on VCR in the 1980s. My Dad loved him a good action or Sci-Fi flick, and he, my brother and I would watch them together. The Charles Bronson Death Wish movies, the Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry movies, horror flicks. I have a fine appreciation of Quentin Tarantino films, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1 and 2. I LOVED 300 and enjoyed Sin City – two more “Comic Book” movies. So when I say I thought a movie was too violent, it’s not because I am some sort of shrinking violet.
***********HERE BE SPOILERS***********
In the scene where Hit Girl meets Kick Ass they are in a room of drug dealers. Kick Ass is trying to tell the main guy to leave his girl friend alone. Hit Girl comes in and kills (i.e. murders) everyone in the room. [Hit Girl is an 11-year-old super heroine with awesome fighting and shooting skills.] My issue was not that she murders everyone, it was that it was not clear that they DESERVED to die. They were drug dealers. Whatevs. Stealing their drugs and/or money is a suitable punishment. Death is over-the-top. Death is what bad guys deal, not good guys.
And Hit Girl is supposed to be a good guy. Not like the Comedian in The Watchmen, who was maybe on the good guy side, but an awful person, who did bad things. Hit Girl is supposed to be on the side of good and therefore should not be murdering with impunity.
In a scene later in the movie Hit Girl comes to rescue her dad, Big Daddy and Kick Ass, and she kills every one in sight. And here the murder death kill was acceptable. These guys were going to kill Big Daddy and Kick Ass and therefore deserved to die. Later still she storms the kingpin bad guy’s lair and kills just about everyone. Again: acceptable. The scenes were a little over the top, but whatevs.
Now what is unclear to me is whether I would feel the same way if Hit Girl were Hit Guy or if Hit Girl was a bit older. I don’t think so. But I admit there may be some bias there.
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And another thing: Where are my women at? Where are my black people at? There were two, count em, TWO roles for women in this film. Everyone else with a substantial role was a dude (and mostly white.) No reason half the thugs couldn’t be women. No reason half the lead roles could’ve been played by a person of color. No reason at all. I mean, it’s a FANTASY.
I am so over the sausage fest.
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