I just posted a simpler version of this in comments following my review of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but I think it’s important enough to promote to its own post.
Here’s a question for everyone who thinks Ramona is free to do as she pleases: What if Scott had failed in his fights with the exes? What happens to Ramona — and her supposed affection for Scott — in that case? Does she say “fuck you” to the exes anyway, and especially to Jason Schwartzmann? Or does she meekly go back to Schwartzmann’s controlling, asshole ex?
Is Ramona free to do as she pleases no matter how Scott fares? How much control does Ramona have over her own life within the context of this metaphor?
I’m not asking what may or may not be in the comic book. I’m asking what fans of this story see Ramona’s choices as being in this scenario. I’m asking fans to step outside the story and look at the metaphor on a slightly larger scale. What does Scott’s having to fight the exes mean for Ramona?
If this is a valid metaphor for modern relationships among young people, there should be something to extrapolate from it.
Wow, you are OBSESSED with Scott Pilgrim!!!!
If Scott loses, and he has no more lives left, then he has three choices in the context of this movie:
1) Choose Continue and Try Again: In which case the movie is even longer and more repetitive.
2) Quit and Play Another Game. In which case he chases another girl he fancies.
3) Quit Playing 1P vs. and Start Playing Co-op – which is what happens in the final fight.
Some might say 4) quit gaming and start living real life, but games and life are inseparable for these characters, so I doubt that’s possible.
If I imagine Scott losing for good and think about Ramona though, that’s tough…In my imagination, Ramona, as she is hastily drawn here, would be stuck with Schwartzmann, Can I imagine a Spiderman 2-ish scenario in which she is able to destroy the chip herself and is it consistent with the rest of the movie?
Hmm… you know what? I don’t even think she likes Scott enough to generate that kind of energy. I see her biding her time with McDoucherton for a while, and then sneaking off through a warp door at a later date to possibly be adorably stalked by some other childish hipster.
The thing is, she’s so vaguely outlined, it’s tough to nail exactly what she’d do. The only thing I’m sure of is that if she feels any real passion for Scott, I totally did not pick up on it at all. Let’s say she succeeds in destroying the chip on her own, I can’t really see her going for (or staying with) Scott…even after he levels up and gains his self respect…and a job.
Within the context of the film? Well, she would be forever under Gideon’s control. The movie makes it uncomfortably clear that she has no choice in the matter and doesn’t bother to flesh out the character. She only gains a smidgen of rebelliousness when she sees Scott and Knives being hurt (for all the good it does her there).
Movie Ramona doesn’t seem to have many choices if Scott loses. Ideally she would just tell Schwartzmann to get a life, and completely disallow him from continuing his evil exes game. At which point whether she remains with Scott is up to her.
I think the most frustrating thing is that the scenario being posed is impossible, because as the hero Scott can’t lose in any permanent sense. Which means that not only does movie Ramona not have much of a choice, she can’t even be asked to choose.
To start, I will say that I loved the movie, but I have not read the books, so this will purely be about my interpretation of the movie.
To put it as simply as possible, the outcome of each fight determines Scott’s feelings about and behavior toward Ramona. Each fight represents Scott coming to grips with something in Ramona’s past that intimidates him, or an insecurity he himself brought to the table. For example, if Lucas Lee had defeated Scott, it would mean that Scott would be forever comparing himself to the famous ex, and feeling like he comes up short. Most likely, this would translate into resentment which would cause him to treat Ramona poorly. If the vegan had kicked his ass, it might mean that Scott has an addiction he feels will interfere with the relationship, but finds himself unable to give up. If we take it literally (which I don’t necessarily think is required), it means Scott eats meat and Ramona is a vegetarian. If the vegan defeats Scott, he continues to eat meat, but constantly feels like it bothers her, or means he isn’t good enough for her, even if she doesn’t really care.
So, basically, in the context of the movie’s metaphor, Ramona is free to behave as she pleases, but each lost battle would strengthen a negative aspect of Scott’s personality, making him more likely to drive her away. When she first agrees to go out with him, Scott clearly is to Ramona as Knives is to Scott. He is an easy, non-threatening rebound fling. Then, as he starts coming to terms with the ways in which he is emotionally immature and working to change them (here represented by fights that visually represent the level of difficulty Scott feels in making these realizations and/or changes), it starts to become a real relationship to her, and the stakes are raised.
The chip, which has been mentioned above, is part of the metaphor. It’s Scott’s fear that Ramona will not be able to get over Gideon and be happy with him. It breaks during Ramona’s fight with Knives, because that fight shows Scott that Ramona does in fact have feelings for him. Again, if Scott had lost that final fight, it would not mean that Ramona would be stuck with Gideon, or that she would not have chosen Scott in the end. It would just mean that Scott was unable to learn whatever lesson he needed to learn, and would be that much more likely to sabotage the relationship.
The evil exes are NOT Ramona’s baggage; they are Scott’s. The movie is not so much about a relationship as it is about one person struggling to grow enough to be ready to enter a relationship.
That’s just my take on it. MaryAnn, I respect your opinion, but I don’t agree with it at all. In the interest of full bias disclosure, I am a guy, and I have been a video game geek for pretty much my entire life. (In fact, my dad tells me Zork was my primary motivation to learn to read a couple years ahead of my peers.)
She leaves him, quits her job, gets into writing comic books and one gets optioned for a movie. Quentin Tarantino directs Ramona – v – the world, a horribly sexist movie about a woman who has to fight 7 of her beloved man’s exes (well if guys get to have a terrible movie about it, why can’t we?)
I’m not the one who has posted 300+ comments in response to my review. :->
I would be happy to leave this film alone, but it seems like many of my readers do not.
Drave nailed it, and
is the money quote.
Ramona ran to Canada to get away from Gideon once, and at the end of the movie she does finally choose to go off one last time to address her problems. It serves to reason that if Scott were to fail, she would either a) run again or b) face her problems alone.
Worth pointing out for the sake of this thread that Ramona says the chip is Gideon’s “way of getting inside my head”. Not his way of “controlling my thoughts”, but just instilling that doubt that invokes her desire to bail. He’s able to activate her insecurities, but he never puppets her, or outright forces her to do or say anything.
Drave, if your comment had a face I would hug* it.
*not a typical thing to do to a face, admittedly, but it seems like the opposite of a punch :)
First contention: Gideon had wired a chip into Ramona’s head, so Ramona had little chance of escaping Gideon’s reach. Ramona still had free will with regards to her actions, but she had to be under some form of pressure from Gideon…
The other members of the League of Evil Exes were apparently manipulated by Gideon (“It took me TWO HOURS!”) into doing his dirty work as well, so one could argue THEY had little say about their obsession over Ramona. The Evil Exes obviously couldn’t let go in some way, but Gideon pumped up their wrath and urge for conflict to superhuman levels…
One thing that’s itching the back of my mind: at first Ramona seems disinterested in Scott, but when she realizes Scott is crushing on her she did move rather quickly into getting the two of them into bed. Was she using Scott as part of her attempt to break free of Gideon’s leash (the chip)? And isn’t that the same way she’d used all her other relationships (she used Patel to fight off the whole football team, for example; she used Roxanne to learn the ninja skills Ramona uses to traverse subspace; the books made things more clear about what Ramona took from each Evil Ex)?
Finally, Drave. That’s the sensible, intelligent positive interpretation I was waiting for. So, the movie is just as self-centered as Scott (we could almost say that it takes place entirely within his mind). The other characters exist solely to aid him on his personal path toward self-respect. They have little to no significance on their own.
It’s not a movie about the relationship between one man and the woman (and girl) in his life. It’s a movie about one man’s internal struggle with his own insecurities. Doesn’t make me feel any better about the insubstantial nature of the stepping stone characters, and I personally don’t buy the change at the end, but I respect your interpretation and I can understand how and why you like the movie.
Dave hit the nail on the head. Fighting the exes is a metaphor for personal growth and self-improvement. If Scott fails in fighting the exes, he fails in his self-improvement and growth, which means he ultimately fails to be the man that Ramona wants and deserves, which means that she leaves him because he’s not good enough for her.
In retrospect, I think this entire Scott Pilgrim debacle comes from you reading the metaphors (fighting the exes, the chip) too literally.
Drave:
The only thing I would add to your general assessment is that Todd and Scott have a bass battle, meaning the real insecurity there is whether or not Todd is a better bass player than Scott.
I’m not reading the metaphor too literally. I get that it’s a metaphor. What bothers me is that it’s a *repulsive* metaphor.
Why is it repulsive, though? A guy overcomes his neuroses about his girlfriend’s exes. It’s a pretty basic metaphor.
Is it possible to read too far into something? I can’t deny your decision to look farther into it, but I would say that what you came up with being both unintentional on the part of the filmmakers and not unintentional as a result of their close-mindedness or ground-in biases against anyone — I don’t think Edgar Wright or his screenwriter are actually sexist, and I think your interpretation would be something they would’ve been eager to discuss and address if somehow you could go back in time and present it at the script stage — is a sign that it is worth letting go of, at least as a criticism against this movie. The mentality you are mad about is certainly worth attacking, but I still say you’ve picked a truly innocent target to heap all of these complaints on.
I find TZarek’s metaphor repulsive as well, because it posits a main character who is self-centered to the point of narcissism and borderline sociopathy, and presents that as a model everyman of my generation. I’d rather the film be the incoherent result of unconscious sexism manifesting itself in the adaptation process than buy that metaphor.
Who cares whether they are or not? What does it even mean to say a person “is” sexist — that they have ever engaged in a sexist action ever? That they once had a sexist thought? That they tie women to race tracks while twirling their mustaches?
The MOVIE is sexist. This sexism may be intentional on the part of one or more of the eighty bajillion people involved in making it, or the result of unconscious biases of one or more of those people, or an emergent property. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the film’s story boils down to “man vs. man for possession of woman” and the woman in question doesn’t have a choice in the matter.
Which she doesn’t — Ramona says she “can’t help [her]self” around Gideon because “he has a way of getting into [her] head.” It’s explicit: The chip allows Gideon to control Ramona.
If Gideon wins, he gets to keep Ramona via the chip. And when Scott wins, he’s told by Knives, “Go get her. You’ve been fighting for her all along.” In other words, Ramona isn’t treated as a free-willed person; she’s a prize for the winner of the fight between Gideon and Scott.
(I know we’re not supposed to talk about the comic in this thread, but I can’t help it. I reread the last volume on the train this morning, and it is SO MUCH BETTER in this respect. MASSIVE SPOILERS: Gideon uses Scott’s Power of Love sword to kill him (with everything THAT implies), 1-up kicks in, Ramona (who had gone home to North Carolina, not back to Gideon) and Scott fight Gideon together, Ramona (not Scott) gets the Power of Love back from Gideon, while Scott gets the Power of Understanding (not Self-Respect), specifically the understanding that Gideon is his own worst tendencies writ large. Scott and Ramona both land the killing blow on Gideon simultaneously.)
Wait… I thought she had a (SPOILER) computer chip in her head that made her unable to choose for herself? I don’t know if the outrage applies here.
I tried to watch the film with your review in mind, and I just don’t see the anti-woman sentiments. Ramona is strong-willed and individualistic, but she’s trapped by an evil mastermind. I mean, I get that it’s “save the princes, mario” and all, but the movie wasn’t really so much about Scott winning Ramona as it was about him winning control over his own inner self. This wasn’t even subtext; they used graphics to illustrate the difference. The hero finally wins when he realizes that Ramona isn’t an object to be won, and just starts to fight the guy who is trying to kill him.
Perhaps I read too much into that, but it seems to be the overall message. And then, we have an ending where not only does he become willing to give Ramona up (SPOILERS) because she’s not his anyway, but he also just asks if he can come along. And she says sure why not. Isn’t that what most good relationships in your life have been like? Maybe it’s just me?
If we switched the genders of the main cast, would the complaint be that it’s now a woman defining herself in relation to a man?
Dunno… doesn’t seem to be too much here to get angry about. It’s an okay movie with some fun action and interesting effects.
Why are so many people so reluctant to say that anyone is “actually sexist?” The world is a sexist place therefore most of the people in it are going to be “actually sexist”, including a lot of women and including a lot of people we like. Including a lot of people I like and I am a semi-professional feminist. I have a lot of wonderful friends and I’d say most of them have at least a couple assumptions, ideas, or points-of-view that I would consider to be sexist. That won’t change until the world changes.
I think the problem here is that we still equate being sexist with being a monster. Or, at any rate, with being a Neanderthal-type men who think that women can’t drive or do anything except get them coffee and have sex. It’s just not the case. Sexism is much more subtle, often seemingly benign, and often coexistent with other points-of-view that we would consider “progressive.” (The number of people I know or I’ve met who are, say, all about legalizing gay marriage and sympathetic to the plight of gays but still think that feminists are just pains in the ass who whine about nothing is staggering and sad.) Therefore, although I’ve never met Edgar Wright, nor even seen the film in question here, I’d say that it’s pretty damn likely that, in some ways at least, he is “actually sexist.” We can criticize that without vilifying him or impugning the value of his other work.
This question is a complete red herring. Men and women are not treated equally by movies or by society; to truly gender-swap the situation, you would have to posit that such a movie exist in a context where men are routinely objectified and the female perspective is regarded as the default, with the male perspective treated as a deviation from the norm.
In the actual society we live in, if you switched the genders of the main characters, the common complaint (from a different group of people than the ones criticizing the movie here) would be that Scott is a wimp who needs to fight his own battles and Ramona is an emasculating bitch. The term “feminazi” would probably show up in there somewhere.
Well, you’re certainly not writing as though you fully understand the metaphor. All of your posts still operate from the presumption that it’s about a guy actually fighting his girlfriend’s exes for control over her, as opposed to a guy battling his own neuroses and insecurities on a journey of growth to become the mature, sensitive man that his girl needs him to be. If you really feel that that is inherently a repulsive metaphor (as opposed to a poorly delivered metaphor or an incomplete metaphor or whatever), I’d like to hear why.
Uh, ever seen a Woody Allen film? I’ll fully accept that this is a different strokes issue, but I really don’t think a guy with deep insecurities working to overcome them is inherently a borderline sociopath.
Froborr, I think I love you.
Well, I disagree with your read on all of this. Scott ultimately fights Gideon because Gideon is a bad person, and “explicit”ly states that he’s not doing it to “win” her. And he doesn’t, either: at the end, after it’s all over, he allows her to walk away, even though it hurts him, until Knives encourages him to follow her.
And as I posted a few comments up, Gideon cannot puppet Ramona or tell her what to do. She can do whatever she wants, and does. It just instills that nagging doubt that nothing is going to work out, something that causes the “flight” side of her “fight or flight” instinct to kick in. If Gideon could just control her, she would never have moved to Canada or been with Scott at all. The point (for him) is to ruin her future relationships with her own neuroses.
My two cents here is that sexism is a form of close-mindedness, and if you are willing to listen and change, you are not close-minded. Having met and talked with Edgar Wright a few times, I think the concerns that MaryAnn and others have raised with the movie would bother him, and like I said, if we had a time machine, he would probably try to address those in a way that is more satisfying for everyone. There are so many people who would either ignore these kinds of criticisms or even respond to them with further, blatant sexism (as illustrated by quite a few morons in the review comments).
More importantly, I believe the fact that he missed these complaints is just happenstance. I feel very strongly that there are elements in this movie meant to counter these complaints, that were put there on purpose, but were apparently not done well enough to please everyone. Beyond the “monsters” that actively live into their hate, this also, in my opinion, takes Wright out of the group of people who are passively sexist.
All I can say is that all of my arguments still apply if this is the scenario. I don’t think being a runner emasculates Scott. I think the movie clearly illustrates these issues as coming from the characters.
I mean, what about the way Scott Pilgrim plays or makes these points suggests it is a metaphor for all relationships, or more importantly, what tells you that Ramona is meant to represent all women? It seems like the movie can only be truly misogynistic or close-minded if somehow Ramona’s personality is meant to be indicative of women as a whole, and yet that can’t be true, because there are several women in the movie who would clearly not react to the scenario in the same way Ramona does.
It’s the metaphor that’s repulsive, not what it represents. The metaphor they chose to use is a bunch of men fighting to possess a thoroughly objectified woman.
I see it as a bunch of asshole exes showing up to try to kill Scott, in an attempt to control Ramona’s love life, and Gideon taking it a step further at the end because he’s a total dick.
I think you have to read Scott participating in that framework into the movie for it to be there.
Yes, and then the movie repeatedly subverts, poke fun at, and ultimately very vocally reject this literal metaphor. If anything, the whole movie is teasing, if not mocking, the idea of a bunch of men literally fighting over a woman. You’re missing the silly forest for the mock-serious trees.
If he Edgar Wright were indeed bothered by the charges of sexism AND he were willing to actually listen to the criticism AND he were willing to do so with the intent of possibly having some assumptions he was unaware of pointed out and examined instead of just the intent of giving a knee-jerk rebuttal of the the feminist bitches’ arguments and going on his merry way, then I would say that he was a stand-up guy. But that STILL wouldn’t make him not sexist. He still had those assumptions to begin with. It would just make him not a jerk. Again, “sexist” and “jerk” are not the same thing.
I’d say most of my aforementioned would fit this description, which is why they are my friends. They occasionally betray some sexist attitudes. But because they are stand-up guys, they are actually willing to listen to me when I say “Don’t you think that’s kind of sexist?” and actually entertain my point-of-view, even if, in the end, they don’t agree–and sometimes they do agree.
My comment was in response to all the times I hear various versions of “He can’t be sexist because he treats his wife well” or “He can’t be sexist because he’s liberal” or “He can’t be sexist because look how much respect he has for X woman” or “He can’t be sexist because he’s read Simone de Beauvoir” or just “He can’t be sexist because I like him. He’s a nice guy.” Or a variation: “She can’t be sexist because she’s a woman.” Basically the only people left in the “sexist” category are men who “tie women to race tracks while twirling their mustaches.” And that’s a problem because it means that anybody who criticizes anyone or anything for being sexist will be dismissed by most as an unreasonable feminazi because most people have either wives or girlfriends or mothers or sisters they love, or women they respect a lot, or progressive politics, or positive qualities of some kind, or two X chromosomes, or some combination thereof. And yet sexism still runs deep in our society.
Basically, I’m just trying to unfreeze the dialogue. We need to be willing to criticize as sexist people we like, or people who create good art, or artists who have depicted some good female characters at some point, or artists who care about the opinions of others and are open-minded enough to re-examine their biases. It’s the only way any progress will ever be made.
So yeah, if Edgar Wright has actually a made a sexist film, and he would actually be concerned enough about that perception to hear criticism of his work and to entertain it seriously, yes, he is still sexist. AND a stand-up guy. These things can co-exist.
One of the problems I have always seen in and for feminism is that a large portion of the culture, male and female, has an issue with access to it’s terms. Most people do assume that “sexist” equals “irredeemable jerk,” that is why they say things like, “He can’t be a sexist, he’s a good guy.”
Honestly that is probably the reason that Scott Pilgrim had spawned three threads.(it’s still 3 right)
All of which have some pretty good length to them. One person says “apple” and someone reads “pterodactyl.”
Well, I’m telling you what I think defines sexism here, and I would say where those “assumptions” come from or what causes a person to make them is important. Like I said, I think he attempted to address the sexism at hand even without people’s time-machine criticism, which says to me that he did not rest on assumptions; he took action to counter something before it happened, and any lingering sexism, he truly had not considered or could not see at the time he co-wrote the film.
But it seems to be that unintentional sexism is a bit more tricky than other forms of discrimination. For instance, aren’t you “allowed” to not be aware that something is considered racist in a certain culture without becoming a racist? You learn, and then you change. Sexism has a bit of a catch where sometimes not considering what the other gender thinks is the sexism, but it seems like plenty of people could honestly fall into that category while still actively trying to promote equality.
For me, a racist, or a sexist, or someone homophobic, or whatever, is someone who clings to those thoughts and opinions. Even if it’s important not to think of all sexists as vile people, I think it’s equally important to separate the inconsiderate from genuinely innocent people who are making an effort.
In any case, though, I do think your point is valid, I’m just trying to illustrate how my definition is different.
We need someone with an entirely objective viewpoint to provide a clear definition of sexist, to aid in the difficult task of distinguishing the sexist people from the normal people.
That’s not the metaphor. That’s what the metaphor is a metaphor *for.*
The metaphor is the series of videogame battles between (mostly) men for a woman’s affections.
But that *is* what is actually happening in the movie! Within the story space of the film, there’s nothing metaphoric about that. Scott is actually doing these things. He is really battling the exes. It’s not even as if Scott is dreaming these things. We are meant to take them as real. Not “real” real, as in something that would actually take place in the real world, but real as in something we are intended to suspend disbelief about and accept as real in Scott’s universe.
And that’s what what is happening in the movie is a metaphor for, outside the story space of the film.
Of course I know that in real life people often have hangups and neuroses that they have to overcome in order to grow as a person. I don’t object to that — it’s reality, it’s part of becoming an adult. What I find repulsive is the way that reality is represented in this film: as the series of videogame battles between men over a woman.
I keep trying to come up with a comparable metaphor that reduces men to machines (as happens to Ramona via the chip) or prizes, but there really isn’t a comparable one because of the differences in how men and women are treated by the culture at large and by pop culture in particular. There simply is no similar cliché that removes a man’s autonomy. Even in movies about women chasing men as prizes — like in romantic comedies — the men are far more fully fleshed out characters. The notion of an almost anonymous, blank-slate man who serves as a reward for a female protagonist simply does not exist as a movie trope.
I disagree. Look at Run, Lola, Run for an example of what I’m talking about. There is definitely that stereotype; it exists and lots of popular entertainment projects exploit it, but I am not convinced that this is what’s happening with Scott Pilgrim.
I just watched Neil Marshall’s excellent Centurion last night, for another example. (MILD SPOILERS) This film features some burly guys trying to rescue another burly guy. The prisoner is not emasculated by his captivity, he is merely outmatched and in need of rescue. He remains one of the manliest characters in the picture.
Simply being a captive does not make a woman weak, and being defended does not make her the victim of sexism (however you want to define it). This certainly happens all the time, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think it is happening in Scott Pilgrim. Romona is perfectly able to defend herself when not being mind controlled. Her character clearly does not need a man; she’s smarter, better-looking, stronger, and more capable than Scott. This doesn’t seem like sexism to me. Semantics? Maybe so… it doesn’t seem offensive, either way.
I get that she’s the ‘prize’ for a good portion of the movie, but the action on screen overtly labels this concept as something to be defeated, not celebrated. Scott learns not only how wrong he was, but he also learns how to be right.
Which is, I think, pretty cool.
Even if this is true, how is it a defense of the film? Why does the story need to mind-control a character? Why does Ramona have to be artificially weakened, her self-determination taken away?
It sounds like you’re saying that if Ramona were not artificially hampered in this way, she wouldn’t need Scott at all. Would Ramona have anything at all to do with Scott if she weren’t mind-controlled?
So what the hell is she doing with Scott?
Do you see how this could be considered offensive to some? That a smart, strong, capable woman must be *hampered* in order for some guy whom everyone keeps insisting is not worthy of Ramona until the end of the film to have a shot with her?
But to neurotic young men pining for a woman they hope to win, she’s often a blank slate – they love her from a distance and barely know her while they fantasize about somehow winning her heart. That’s sexist of them perhaps, but is it sexist of a movie to have such a character? Must a movie told from the sad sack’s POV redeem itself by showing her POV in order not to be regarded as “sexist”?
Just asking to understand your point better, btw. Not intended as argumentative.
Nobody has responded to my explanation of the chip, which I still think is valid. She is not being controlled in any way; her autonomy is not compromised. The chip just instills doubt, which brings up her neuroses that were there before (and are still there after) Gideon’s around. The villain preys on her insecurity. Is that not what most villains do?
She chooses Scott because he’s easy, for the same basic reason Scott initially chooses Knives. Maybe you are referring to something else, but the chip does not play any part in her decision to choose Scott.
As for the smart, strong and capable part, we’re talking shades, not extremes. The point is that she’s not a complete damsel in distress. She doesn’t ask Scott to solve her problems or spend all of her time calling out for anyone to help her, and she takes limited amounts of action, even if she second-guesses herself. In fact, her return to Gideon can be viewed, based on the fight that she and Scott have in the bar, as an attempt to get Scott out of fighting the last three exes rather than a regressive run back to Gideon. In any case, she can be all three of those things and still have moments of weakness.
The movie doesn’t necessarily need to show Ramona’s POV to not be sexist. It just needs to have Ramona take a more active role: She should be *horrified* that her evil exes are still trying to control her, and taking part in fighting them! At the very least, give Ramona an arc: She starts out expecting to be saved (because underneath, she has much the same avoid-all-problems slacker tendencies as Scott), and then at the end she helps take down Gideon as an equal participant.
Instead the only Evil Ex fight Ramona takes active part in is Roxy. So… women can fight each other, but only men can fight men? Yeah, nothing sexist there.
Yeah, but who’s sexist, the movie or Scott? If it’s his metaphor… or is it?
I did respond, and I showed that your explanation is not valid. Once again: Ramona says that she can’t help herself around Gideon because he has a way of getting into her head, and then she reveals the chip. That directly contradicts your explanation.
It seems highly unlikely she had the chip from the beginning of the movie, both since it would have made it difficult to escape from Gideon, and because you would think Scott would feel it while they made out. I think Gideon installed it on Ramona somewhere between Ramona and Scott’s fight at the Clash at Demonhead party and their conversation after the Katayanagi twins battle.
How? He has “a way of getting into [her] head”. That doesn’t mean he puppets her or tells her what to do, it just instills doubt, and doubt triggers her “flight” reflex. We can all agree that relationship metaphors abound, and I would say this is a perfectly solid one.
I admit that I have not seen this for myself, but reportedly, you can see her rubbing her neck in a few scenes as an indication that it is there the whole movie.
Well, I’ve been seeing this argument a lot, lately; and it’s a disturbing trend in film criticism. We’re looking at the genesis of a whole new Hayes code, which defines a movie as ___ist and offensive, because it has characters and content which are ___ist and offensive.
Like the Hayes code, the movie makers are guilty by association with the characters in their movies. Or am I misunderstanding the commenters presumtively labeling Wright as sexist because he has a sexist character?
In such an enviroment, if this attitude takes hold, we’ll have no more movies like Schindler’s List, because it will be regarded as violently antisemitic becaue it contains violent antisemitism – and never mind the stance of the movie or its makers. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’ve read just such criticism of Schindler’s List. At one time, this could be dismissed as loony, but now it’s a growing trend.
The argument I’m reading here is that it makes no difference what the intent of the movie maker is, who’s POV the story is told from, or what the ultimate resolution of the character arc might be, he’s sexist so the movie is sexist. Or what am I missing?
Why? A movie can be about a passive, imperfect, even flawed female character without being sexist; it’s just a movie about a passive, imperfect, and flawed female character. It sounds like you’re essentially arguing that the movie is sexist unless Ramona is a paragon of strength and grrrl-power. No one is holding up Ramona up as some model of all womanhood; in fact, characters in the film specifically react to how damaged she is, and she stays damaged even until the final frame of the movie.
Likewise, a movie can offer a male point-of-view on romance without being sexist, and a movie can follow a male character without fleshing out the female characters without being sexist (just as a movie can follow solely its female characters and not be sexist). These are arguably FLAWS of the movie, and “Scott Pilgrim is a bad movie because it has flat undeveloped characters” is a totally valid criticism. But that’s not the same as it being sexist.
That’s another irritating trend. If a female character is ever weak, or in a position to receive help from a male character, or ever once unable to do everything herself, then the movie is “sexist”.
Female characters now have to be at least as strong as all men in the movie and fully self-reliant, or the movie is unforgivably flawed and crypo-sexist.
How sexist is that? Female characters must be pedestal-mounted paragons of feminist virtue? That’s fucking Victorian.
Not necessarily. But the perspective of the movie — as distinct from Scott’s perspective, which is NOT the same thing — it also treats Ramona as a blank slate. Ramona doesn’t have to be a blank slate from the movie’s perspective for her to be one from Scott’s perspective… but she is anyway.
It doesn’t necessarily need to show her POV, but it does need to show her as something beyond what Scott sees her as in order to evade these criticisms, yes.
Again, it’s the metaphor, the way in which he does it, that offends.
No no no. *Scott Pilgrim* is sexist — from my perspective, in my opinion, your mileage may vary — not because it features a sexist protagonist but because the perspective of the film itself is sexist. Stories *about* sexism do not have to themselves *be* sexist. This one is.
No, precisely the opposite. Ramona just needs to be human, and depicted as a person. But she isn’t here. She’s a cipher.
This is what so many seem to misunderstand about feminism. It’s NOT about insisting that women are perfect. It’s about insisting that women are *people.*
No, we’re saying exactly the opposite.
But why is ‘being a human’ synonymous with being assertive, with defying the system, with strongly asserting her agency and independence? Can’t someone be human while being passive and weak? Is the implication that a passive, flawed, weak woman who allows men to fight over her is subhuman?
Sure. But she still needs to be a fully developed character. Ramona isn’t.
OK. Does seem to me that at least some of this lengthy argument might be over the shades of gray on this point: to what extent the movie should be understood as “Scott’s metaphor” or whatever, which is why I asked.