Sucker Punch

(This is what I wrote for my assignment on Gender studies, word for word.)

I was interested in Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch from the moment I read a short synopsis of it at the start of this year. That was all I knew of the movie, and I intentionally stayed away from trailers, reviews, posters and even friends who had watched the film since- I did not want to hear any spoilers, or anything else that might influence my viewing in any way. I wanted to see it for myself without any expectations.

And I loved it.

Step aside boys, we'll take it from here.

I was not the only one who did- quite a few critics gave it a good review:

"Spectacular"
Hugh Hart, Wired.com

"A visual masterpiece." 
Jeremy Parsons, Reelzchannel

"A brilliant tour de force."
Bill Bregolli, CBS Radio

"Intense and revolutionary filmmaking."
Jake Hamilton, Fox-TV

So I began telling my friends about how beautiful the movie was; The cinematic visuals were breathtaking, the soundtrack immensely haunting, and the subject matter something so fresh- choosing to use original material instead of just bringing yet another comic book or fairy tale to the big screen.

That was when I started getting judged. People were telling me how it looked like a stupid/bimbo movie and kept saying only guys would want to watch a movie like that. It was strange- quite a few of my friends and I who had watched it really enjoyed it, but most of my friends who had not watched it hated it. I thus researched the marketing strategy of the film through its posters and trailers and finally understood why it was looked at with such disdain.

The film was marketed as a “girls and guns” movie, targeting an audience of young males in a way that made it look like Dead or Alive (a terrible show based on a computer game which did not do well at the box office). Such a misrepresentation of the film by the marketing department turned people off before even seeing the film, as they thought the movie was only about sex and violence. It is unfortunate that a movie of such artistic value, being inspired by classics like Brazil (1985), was discredited by its own publicity campaign.

In the Sucker Punch posters, the girls are in tight leather outfits and decked out with swords and guns. In the movie they are indeed seen at some points in these outfits, fighting off hordes of monstrous enemies during dream sequences, but these scenes take up only a small proportion of the movie. In fact, most of the scenes take place in a metaphorical representation of the whorehouse where the girls are trapped and trying to escape from, but these images never appear on the posters. Neither do images of the asylum where the girls are trapped in reality appear in the posters. There is a certain depth to this movie in terms of the exploration of the dreamscape on several levels, but none of these get translated out to the general public by the marketing method that simply resorted to using sex to sell.

When I told my High-School-Musical-loving friends that Vanessa Hudgens was acting in this movie, they were surprised. This in turn surprised me- how could they not know their favorite star was acting in the movie they were about to watch? A closer analysis of the posters drew me to a fact that shocked me: The actresses’ names were never included (in the posters or the trailers). This meant that the movie was marketed to people who did not care for the names of the actresses in the movie, but watched for their bodies instead. This was objectification of the female body on two levels- first in their revealing outfits, and second in their lack of identity (or worth) beyond their sexy bodies.


Of course one could argue from the opposite angle and say that these images represent an empowered and strong woman who fights for herself. In fact, the movie’s director does state how he was making a film about self-empowerment. The closing lines of the movie do support this view: “Who chains us... and who holds the key that can set us free? It's you. You have all the weapons you need. Now fight!” But this form of empowerment by usage of sex appeal does not overthrow the structures that hold women at an inferior position in society but instead reinforces them. The images in the poster send the subtle message that women can be strong and fight the way men can, but they have to be sexy and appealing before they can be powerful. Men, on the other hand, do not need to look good in order to fight evil and oppression. To further illustrate the point, here is a man in the same attire Vanessa Hudgens was in above.

This is quite a jarring image precisely because the stereotyped strong heroic man does not necessarily need to look good or sexy. In fact when he tries to look good, he is seen as less heroic. But for a woman, the industry’s images of them perpetrate the stereotype that her social standing and power is associated with her looks, in a phenomenon known as the reinforcement of the feminine beauty ideal.

At the end of the day I was left with a question I could not answer. Yes it is true that the marketing campaign of Sucker Punch objectified women far more than it empowered them, but is any form of empowerment better than none? In the movie all the girls (Spoiler alert, highlight to view) were stuck in an imagined whorehouse, and the only way they could get out was for the main character, Babydoll to dance seductively in order to distract the male guards so the other girls can steal the 4 items they needed to escape. So she acted submissive and sexy in order to attain power to overcome the male powers that be and ultimately find freedom. Given that there was no other way out of this patriarchal institution in this context, is this form of empowerment of women still better than none?

(Required minimum word count- 500 words. My word count? 1008 words. This is what happens when you study something you're interested in.)