<<SPOILER ALERT: This artilce discusses several current and upcoming movies and may reveal plot information that all readers may not want to know about before viewing the films in question.>>
I went to the movies this weekend. While sitting through the preview trailers before the feature, I found myself more than a little bit aghast at what appears to be a disturbing trend in movie-making.
I saw, one after the other, promos for two upcoming flicks--one starring Kevin Bacon, and the other Jody Foster--in which, in both cases, the protagonist is, victimized by ugly, vicious hoods. When their physical/psychic wounds have healed sufficiently, he, and she--automatic pistol in hand--undertakes a personal vigilante vendetta directed against the scum-of-the-earth class of sub-humans that presumably lurk in the shadows all around us all. Personally speaking, I get more than my minimum daily requirement of murder and mayhem from reading the newspapers and watching the nightly news. I think I'm going to have to give both of these films a pass.
The movie I'd paid to see, "The Bourne Ulitmatum" had essentially the same sort of premise--the protagonist propels himself through a death-defying gauntlet, driven by his vengeful compulsion to confront, and, presumably, kill, the man who has stolen his identity.
Yet another example is the film "Kingdom"--yet to be released, but which I saw in a "sneak preview". In this one, an intrepid team of FBI criminal investigators is dispatched to Saudi Arabia after a community of American ex-patriot oil company employees and their families is attacked by radical Islamic militants. The second half of the film features a prolonged series of ambushes, bombings, hand-to-hand combat and gunfights in which the wicked jihadis are, satisfyingly, and violently, vanquished.
What does all of this say about our culture, I wonder? Are we all so oppressed by the atmosphere of fear and victimization (initiated by 9/11, and exacerbated by both the news media and Bush/Cheney/Rove) that we feel compelled to vicariously experience the sweet relief offered by seeing righteous victims exact bloody retribution on a bunch of verminous villains?
Another movie I saw this past weekend was "Waitress", in which the protagonist is a sweet, simple young woman with an angelic smile whose greatest source of pride and satisfaction is her virtuosity in creating a seemingly infinite variety of pies. Unfortunately she is stuck in a loveless marriage, with a self-centered, controlling, abusive husband. In this case, though, thankfully, there is no bloodshed. Even though at times the audience might wish she would, she restrains herself from plunging a chef's knife into her abuser's chest.
In a very sad post-script to "Waitress", though, the young woman--Adrienne Shelley-- who both wrote the screenplay and directed the movie (and played the part of another of the trio of hapless waitresses around whom the story revolves) was murdered in New York City before the film was released. The real-life bad guy who took her life will not, presumably, suffer the kind of violent, eye-for-an-eye kind of street justice that moviemakers today seem to find so appealing. What do you think, I wonder? Should life imitate art?
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Comments: 10
I HATED THAT MOVIE! Phone booth drove me absolutely nuts.
Yes, Paul I also see the trend in these upcoming and already released movies. I do not go to the movies often because anymore all of them are the same with a little twist.
Good movie commentary/review - Thanks!
Something I found interesting, by the way, was the audience reaction (in a theater on a Navy base) to the pummeling of a "hot Asian chick/ninja" by Bruce Willis in his latest "Die Hard" sequel. Initially, when seeing her take a fist in the face, I sensed a sort of shocked reaction. As the fight between the ninety pound bad-girl and the two hundred plus pound hero continued, though--and she was clearly giving as good, or better, than she got--the audience was clearly enjoying seeing her get a thumping that she clearly deserved. When, later on, when Willis informed her villainous boyfriend that he could find her at the bottom of an elevator shaft "with an SUV up her ass", the line produced a lot of appreciative, approving laughter.
In "Kingdom", FBI Agent Jennifer Garner gets involved in a similar brutal fist/gun-fight with an Arab terrorist, and takes a hell of a beating, but she prevails. It seems that Hollywood is on the leading edge of feminism these days, providing women with an equal opportunity to both take a licking and shoot up a few bad guys.
I do have to argue, however, with your assessment that hollywood is on the leading edge of anything even vaguely pro-woman. An occasional flick wherein some extremely hot woman gets to play macho is in no way a counter to the immense woman-hating machine that is the mass media.
Reread your description of the Die Hard fight - she's half his size and hot, (he's getting oldish and is not hot) and she must not have given as good as she got if she ended up dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Laughable, indeed.
Of course Garner won, she was up against an Arab terrorist - and we know from the movies anyone from the American side can beat them. Even a hot little girly.
I just don't get Jody Foster. She has enough clout not to do that dren, and yet...