Sucker Punch and the Political Problem of Fantasy to Female Representation
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SUCKER PUNCH AND THE POLITICAL PROBLEM OF FANTASY TO FEMALE REPRESENTATION Anna Mullins A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2013 Committee: Becca Cragin, Advisor Jeffrey Brown Bill Albertini © 2013 Anna Mullins All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Becca Cragin, Advisor One of the main tasks of feminism in the twenty first century is to address the way sexual fantasies of women limit the ability to achieve real world change in gender relations and gain political equality. Fantasy, as the means by which capitalism operates (i.e., it is through the use of fantasy that consumers are convinced to buy products) dominates American popular culture and, since the female body features so centrally in these fantasies, feminism is charged with disrupting a complex system that equates women with pleasure. Sucker Punch is important to this discussion because it is a unique example of a mainstream attempt to critically address dominant fantasies about women and, using the work of Laura Mulvey, Slavoj Zizek, Jeffrey Brown, Angela McRobbie, and Rosalind Gill, among others, I explore the way the film gives important insight into the limits of successfully emptying fantasy of pleasure. I divide the film’s engagement with pleasure into two main areas: postfeminism and male desire. Ultimately Sucker Punch offers a disturbing vision of the way postfeminist empowerment fantasies (which are broken up into empowerment through female sexuality and empowerment through violence) map onto male heterosexual fantasies that encourage and allow women to be sexually exploited. Further, the fact that that Sucker Punch was a commercial and critical failure reveals the problems inherent in critiquing popular depictions of the female body whilst simultaneously trying to sell (and thereby popularize) that critique. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank first and foremost Dr. Cragin for her incredibly helpful feedback, patience and guidance throughout this project and beyond. I likewise am very grateful to Dr. Brown and Dr. Albertini for their input and suggestions. And to all three members of my committee I thank you for your inspiring seminars that influenced this thesis greatly. I would like to thank the members of my cohort and the cohort of 2013 for all their support during the stressful times, and the laughter during the good times. To my friends in Raleigh (Jillisyn!) and England, thank you so much for helping me get to the end, and finally to my parents and my brother Edward, a huge thank you, I could not have done this without you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION: THE RISE OF NERD CULTURE AND FEMINISM .......................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: SUCKER PUNCH, POSTFEMINISM AND FANTASY ........................ 19 CHAPTER TWO: SUCKER PUNCH AND THE VIOLENT CGI BODY .......................... 41 CHAPTER THREE: SUCKER PUNCH, THE MALE GAZE, AND FANTASY................ 64 CONCLUSIONS: CAPITALISM, POSTMODERNISM, AND FEMINISM ...................... 86 WORKS CITED........ ............................................................................................................ 93 1 INTRODUCTION: THE RISE OF NERD CULTURE, AND FEMINISM When I first watched Zack Snyder’s film Sucker Punch upon its release in March of 2011, I was surprised by its confusing, yet intellectually provocative content. I hadn’t closely followed its production, but had seen its trailers which flaunted the sexuality of its female cast, and had expected a mindless, sexist film that would peddle tired and shallow postfeminist ideas regarding female sexuality and empowerment whilst exploiting its female stars. I attended a screening with several male colleagues and friends who, in conversations prior to seeing the film had made it clear through pseudo-jokes that their interest centered around the women and what they looked like. Afterwards, discussing the film, almost all of the men I was with were frustrated and angry at what they had seen. They felt that Sucker Punch was ridiculous, that it blatantly preyed on male interests and fantasies, and that it sent the repellent message to women that as long as they close their eyes and pretend it’s not happening that it’s okay to be raped/ exploited. Only one of them unashamedly reveled in what he had seen, openly stating that he found the film arousing, and only two felt that the film was more complex and less exploitative than it seemed. What I saw was a film that, rather than feebly reproducing postfeminist and/or sexist ideas, seemed to be attempting to critically address them and I was surprised that this seemed to be almost entirely lost on the film’s audience. I was also surprised at the particularly hostile response that it provoked among men, since it was clearly marketed toward a male audience. Thus this project was inspired both by the content of Sucker Punch (that is, what I think the film is saying about female sexuality and performance) but also the reaction to it. Initially, while I knew that Sucker Punch represented mainstream confusion about female empowerment, I struggled to make sense of Sucker Punch in its context, that is, in many ways it 2 is unlike any other mainstream Hollywood film (especially in terms of form), yet it also appears to serve as a hyperbolic expression of Hollywood’s brand of feminism, which is often synonymous with postfeminism (i.e. decidedly un-feminist). It wasn’t until I began reading interviews with the director and paying attention to how the film was marketed and who the audience of Sucker Punch was supposed to be that I began to realize that, while it is about female sexuality and how women are represented on film, it is really about male desire and a male understanding of female empowerment. And it is not just a general male attitude that is important when considering Sucker Punch, but in particular the attitude of male nerds towards women. In this way the film brings together two complimentary contemporary cultural trends: postfeminism and nerd culture misogyny. In order to understand how I am approaching Sucker Punch and what it suggests about gender politics in the 21st century it is necessary first to discuss how the film was generally received, how the film was marketed/hyped, and most importantly, to outline the landscape of gender politics in 2012 focusing particularly on the rise of the male nerd and his importance to feminism. The general reaction to Sucker Punch was widespread disappointment and derision. The ratings aggregator Rotten Tomatoes confirms that Sucker Punch was, and remains, a greatly unpopular film. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 23% critic rating and a 47% general audience rating. It would be impractical and distracting to attempt to reproduce every single negative review here, so in the interest of space and brevity I have chosen excerpts from certain professional reviews which echo (albeit comparatively more eloquently) the general reaction and main objections to Sucker Punch. 3 Perhaps the most common complaint from critics is that the film is misogynist and hypocritical (i.e., it exploits women even as it proclaims to be empowering). Michael Philips for The Chicago Tribune describes the film as a “greasy collection of near-rape fantasies and violent revenge scenarios disguised as a female-empowerment fairy tale,” while A. O. Scott for The New York Times, draws attention to the women’s sexual appearance as “garish boudoir fashions, cropped schoolgirl uniforms and the latest action lingerie” stating that “the actresses go along with Mr. Snyder’s pretense that this fantasia of misogyny is really a feminist fable of empowerment.” The misogynist content of Sucker Punch is compounded by the poor quality of the performances (Roger Moore for The Orlando Sentinel focuses this criticism not on the cast as a whole but rather the main actresses “who give five of the flattest performances ever”) and the dull action which creates the powerless sensation of watching someone else play a video game. Scott complains that Sucker Punch “could not quite overcome the inherent tediousness of watching someone else play” and Glen Kenny for MSN Movies states: “[b]ut surely the wackily eclectic action scenes pack some punch, no? Not really. They're largely acceptable, but hardly what you'd call imaginative, and the content that surrounds them is so labored and lame that at times you feel like you're stuck in a video game that has the worst-cut scenes ever.” While the performances are considered flat, the plot of the film is confusing and unnecessary. Todd McCarthy for The Hollywood Reporter claims Sucker Punch “is built so as to dispense with the need for narrative logic,” which Philips echoes: “[t]he film abdicates so many basic responsibilities of coherent storytelling, even coherent stupid-action-movie storytelling.” 4 Most critics believe that Sucker Punch takes itself too seriously. Moore summarizes the film as “a humorless quest fantasy” while Kenny rhetorically asks “[a]nd did I mention the humorlessness?” It is Scott however who makes explicit the general sentiment that the film would overcome its flaws by embracing humor: “[w]ith a touch of humor — with any at all — ‘Sucker Punch,’ which Mr. Snyder wrote with Steve Shibuya, might have acknowledged the campy, kinky aspects of its premise.” Finally, many of the negative reviews complain about the blatant attempt by Snyder to appeal to young men with images of scantily clad women. Kenny angrily writes: “[b]ut "Sucker Punch" is so thoroughly labored, and panders so relentlessly to adolescent attitudes and fantasies, and is so thoroughly and stridently humorless, that it kind of sucks out your soul while you're watching it.” Peter Travers for Rolling Stone captures the sense of disappointment when he says that Sucker Punch “is a recipe for a raunchy R-rated hellzapoppin’ that pussies out in this PG-13 safety zone.” It is not so much the pandering to a male audience that critics object to, but rather the lack of delivery on the promised titillation.