Sucker Punch, released in April this year and directed and written by Zack Snyder, he of 300 and Watchmen fame, has caused a serious controversy in critics and film fans. Is it exploitative or is there any redemptive feminist hope for this film? The criticisms are pretty easy to understand. How can this film, with its clearly fetishizing costumes, also be empowering? Star Emily Browning has said it was indeed empowering to film, as she could embrace both her sexuality and an aggressive attitude. Snyder himself has said that he wanted to create new female icons for girls by turning the standard sexualised clichés into ones that can kick arse, but how sincere can this aim really be when the heroine is almost constantly in a sailor outfit with a thigh-length skirt and stockings? Is it even possible to subvert these clichés? So many questions…
I think the answer is in the film’s construction. Starting with the throwing of Babydoll (Browning) into an asylum after she is orphaned, it follows a retreat into the two levels of her imagination, the first based in a dance club/brothel and the second in a quasi-steampunk, fantasy world of dragons and robots. These second layers of fantasy are where the fetishization lies; in the brothel they’re in expectedly whorish attire, and in the next layer down, the costumes are militaristic, but still exposing and admittedly impractical. However there’s never any doubt that these are ever even supposed to be reality. The line is made absolutely clear between the different levels of perception. ‘Reality’, or the first level before the other fantasy worlds are reached, is dingy and dark. Sexuality here is dangerous and undesirable, represented in the character of the highly unpleasant Blue who works in the asylum. No fetishization there. On the second level of the brothel, sexuality is a commodity and clearly negative, and on the third level, there is no doubt that sexuality goes hand-in-hand with a kind of violent empowerment. Surely the multiplicity of the interpretations of sexuality here also shows how unstable these conceptions of sexuality are? I’d like to hope that the way sexuality is shown in different lights in this film causes some sort of analysis in the mind of viewers, who can question their own looking at the girls in the tiny outfits: are they supposed to be looking at them like this on each level of fantasy?
On an aesthetic level, the whole film insanely stylised, like 300 and Watchmen and the designs of the opponents which the girls have to fight are really incredibly rendered. I felt like the immersive stylization of the film also helped act against the fetishization of the girls on the final level of fantasy, making them into active parts of their surroundings rather than static and objectified images.
Feel free to argue with me, but give it a watch first.
Recommendations:
Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
More controversial female-centred violence, although far more critically favoured than Sucker Punch.
Inception (2010) Directed by Christopher Nolan
Scaled-up action on multiple levels of consciousness.
Jo Gilbert
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