Personally, I’m fond of this kind of critique, although
outrage isn’t my response to every offense (blog). Like many feminists, I
thought the scene in Star Trek: Into
Darkness featuring Dr. Carol Marcus in her skivvies was gratuitous
(article), but the most I could work up was a chuckle at such a naked
attempt to inject eye-candy into the movie.
I’m not, however, above turning away from something in
disappointment. I recently started reading Paolo Bacigalupi’s Hugo
Award-winning sci-fi novel The Windup
Girl. The first chapter was about Anderson Lake, a Western businessman
running a factory in Thailand. The second was about the Chinese immigrant Hock
Seng, a factory manager who aims to steal important designs from Lake. The
third was about Emiko, a Japanese girl who was created through genetic
engineering and works at a sex club.
At this point, I began to get a sinking feeling.
The stereotypes could not be any clearer: the dominant,
straight-talking, brook-no-bullshit Westerner; the passive, sneaky, subservient
Asian; and the sexpot Asian. In the case of Emiko, we must sit through a description
of her rape by her employer and the club’s patrons--at some level, an enactment
of a sadistic fantasy shared by the author and many in his audience. I kept
reading, but when the big white Westerner rescued the helpless little Japanese
girl, thereby winning her gratitude and setting the stage for eventually gaining
her love and conquering her body, I decided I had better things to read.
Which brings me to Machete.
In this age of active, sometimes overactive (blog), social and cultural
sensitivity, what are we to make of a movie that blatantly breaks so many of
the rules and is openly acknowledged by director Robert Rodriquez to be an
homage to the exploitation flicks of less enlightened decades?
The text on the Japanese DVD case calls Machete the “complete filmization of a man’s dream,” and that it is--at
least for many men. About a brawny, ugly Mexican who’s good at killing in
grisly ways, it spills gallons of blood and shows miles of skin. Scenes of
bodily fluids flying from gunshots, impalements and even weed-whackers are
interspersed with scenes featuring svelte young women nude, topless, or in
kinky costumes--sexy nurse outfits, a nun’s habit, black leather, and so on. While
the plot deals with social justice--specifically illegal immigration--racial
slurs and stereotypes abound.
Why is this okay, if it is indeed okay? Because it’s
fiction? Because it’s all in fun? Because it’s a parody of exploitation flicks
and not exactly one itself? Because the sexualized women are strong women?
Because the epithets aren’t meant spitefully? Because all of these infringements
actually serve to turn themselves on their head in order to make a point that
is the opposite of what they might
suggest on the surface?
No doubt the answer is all of the above, but at least some
of the infractions are simply enjoyable without any need for an excuse. The
racial aspects demand separate treatment, but with regard to the portrayal of
women, which might in another film provoke cries of sexism or misogyny, perhaps
we can say that sometimes it’s all right to put feminist narratives aside and
just enjoy a ridiculous fantasy.
Sometimes it’s okay
to just be a man or woman who thinks Michelle Rodriquez looks hot as Hell in
black leather with matching eyepatch.
