That was a waste of two and a half hours.

[elialshadowpine]

paul_zap and I decided to see Watchmen tonight, since it had just come in with our Netflix shipment, and I'd been hearing good things about it for quite some while. I'm really not sure how this got as much acclaim as it did, because I absolutely loathed it. I have never, ever seen a movie with so much rampant misogyny and accepted violence towards women.

First up. I have not read the books that it is based upon. I actually don't really give a rat's ass if the movie is true to the books or not, because either way, this shit is seriously fucked up. Whether it's the movie makers getting it wrong or the books being that way to begin with, I don't care.

(I am also not paying exact attention to movie timeline here. I'm writing as I remember shit that really bothered me.)


All right. The movie starts out with a lesbian couple being brutally murdered in the first 5 minutes, with a shot of "LESBIAN WHORES" written on the wall above them. This is later addressed by a comment from the primary narrator stating that they were "killed for their own depraved lifestyles" and because they were "indecent".

Brutal is the name of the game for this movie, which I expected given what I heard. It is not the graphic violence that upsets me. It is the focus and direction of the violence that upsets me. The primary narrator is repeatedly derogatory toward women; they are prostitutes and whores, and they deserve to be beaten, raped, or killed because of it. This attitude is repeated throughout the movie in word and action.

Another early scene is where one of the female superheroes, the Silk Spectre, is nearly raped by another member of her team, the Comedian. When he refuses to back off and tries to manhandle her, she punches him hard enough to send him flying. Yet, he then manages to beat her into the ground, and she does not lay another move on him whatsoever, despite being a "superhero" herself. She is barely rescued from being raped by other -- male -- members of the team.

BUT! While it is not onscreen, it's mentioned more than once that she later slept with the Comedian despite that he beat her badly and nearly raped her. And it's all okay! Because she got pregnant! And she loves her daughter! So it's all right and he should be forgiven! What the bloody fuck does this say about women and rape? I could sit here for a fucking hour getting into the implications of this one.

Throughout the movie, flashbacks are shown of the Comedian (who is murdered at the beginning of the movie, which starts the plot rolling... or more like meandering slowly along) assaulting women in addition to the rape scene. He specifically goes after women to attack when breaking up a riot, plus blowing up a school bus. He shoots the woman who is heavily pregnant with his child because she confronted him about walking out and leaving her stuck with the baby. The team's reaction? Is that this is all fucking okay because he did some amount of good. Because of that, it's fucking acceptable and should be forgiven, or at least forgotten.

The primary female heroine in the story does absolutely fucking nothing besides break up with her uber-brain superhero boyfriend. Which results in the almost certain doom of the world because he is the only thing keeping nuclear war from happening, and he is so upset by her leaving him (...plus some other influences) that he checks out. She does not fucking do anything proactive. She follows. She does what she's told. She is treated as the Pure Good Girl of the story that is the romantic interest for two members of the team. The only fucking reason she exists is to be a romantic interest and a Madonna to the "Whores" that are portrayed in the rest of the female cast.

I suppose you could argue that she "convinces" her boyfriend to get his act together and help save the world, but she doesn't even really do anything there. She then gets teleported back to the fight with the antagonist, where she shoots him and then fucking stupidly approaches him to see if he's really fucking dead when it's been stated that his "talent" is for catching bullets. HELLO.

There is a lot of misogyny in the comic book industry, but I have not seen anything like this level. This is misogyny on fucking steroids. This movie has been recommended to me as a great "dark" superhero movie. This is not "dark." This is a fucking study of psychopathy. These are fucking irredeemable characters. This is a fucking movie that says thematically that beating, raping, and murdering women is OK if you are technically a "good guy." But aren't they all the "good guys"?

I can say quite seriously I have never seen a movie that has pissed me off this much. And I cannot for the life of me understand why the hell so many of the self-proclaimed feminist women I know have told me that this is a great movie and a must-see.

It is six in the fucking morning, and I cannot sleep because I'm so fucking pissed over this. Argh.

Comments

[warinbear.livejournal.com]

Only parts of the book are narrated by Rorschach. There is a lot of the written story that has nothing to do with him. Frankly, I thought he was a worse 'hero' than the Comedian ever was.