Today's brunch special: metacriticism. I'm going to review a review (of a movie I haven't seen yet, no less), and you'll understand why in a second. Read this and come on back.
Now, I haven't seen Sucker Punch yet. I plan to, and when I do I may like it, dislike it, be ambivalent toward it, start a religion centered around Carla Gugino . . . there are any number of potential outcomes. I have nothing invested in this particular movie other than the hope, as with any movie I plan to see, that it will be good. But I do have a fair amount invested in good, thoughtful criticism, which brings us to this review. The author opens with this salvo:
Have you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a stripper as she sashays her tight little booty up on stage in front of leering old men and rowdy frat boys?
Me neither.
The author, in reviewing a movie that—from what I've heard and read—literally takes place inside a woman's mind, is declaring no interest whatsoever in what takes place inside a woman's mind (if that woman's business is professionally removing her clothes for an audience). And, of course, there are no laws on the books requiring human beings to have empathy and intellectual curiosity. But the open, proud declaration that one does not care to even the slightest degree about half the human race makes the declarer, to be as polite as I can, a malignantly stupid fucking asshole.
I've been friends with a number of strippers in my life, and had actual interesting conversations with a few others I met on a more professional basis, and it should come as no surprise to anyone who actually gives a shit about human beings that they're people just like any other. There's a widespread assumption that strippers are all craven, emotionally damaged sociopaths, and while some strippers may be that thing, it's because some human beings are that thing. Some of them just prefer it to temping. Some of them are simply proud of their bodies. Some of them derive pleasure from pleasing others. The problem with actually thinking about this, though, is that thinking is hard and empathy is for faggots. So, okay, let's operate under the premise that strippers are soulless automatons and inherently uninteresting, bro. Yeah, I don't give a fuck what strippers are thinking either, bro. Let's read the rest of the review. Bro.
The critical appraisal of the movie is badly and laboriously written, with endless pointless renderings of the word “explosion” as “'splosion.” Perhaps this is some kind of fanboy in-joke that I don't get. So let's take a look at the adjective “pants-stiffeningly” as applied to Carla Gugino's performance. Now, I'll make the assumption that the author is saying that Carla Gugino gives him an erection, which I will grant is an entirely defensible aesthetic reaction for a bepenised heterosexual. The term “pants-stiffeningly,” even discarding its formal clunkiness and surplus syllables, does not even accurately describe the attainment of an erection. “Pants-stiffeningly” implies that one's pants themselves are becoming stiff: “Yeah, Carla Gugino's so hot she makes my pants feel like my mom forgot to add fabric softener. Mmm mmm mmm.” And oh yes I did talk about yo momma, motherfucker.
Once the issue of the stiff pants is resolved, we proceed to a timely, hip Charlie Sheen joke—seriously, getting fired from your job, doing shitloads of blow, yelling non sequiturs, and hanging out with porn stars? That's called “junior year in college,” civilians—and the author tut-tutting at director Zack Snyder for not choosing to show Emily Browning dancing in the movie. Again, I haven't seen the movie, but the assumption that because we don't see her dance, it had to have been filmed, deemed unworthy to include in the finished movie, and subsequently cut is a logical fallacy based on the author's own prejudices, not a sign of the movie's quality.
Dwelling overmuch on the author's dull prose style and mediocre intellect is unneccessary, but it bears mentioning that nearly every single mention of a female character in the entire review is paired with a dimunitive of some sort: “our little heroine” for example, to describe Emily Browning's character. Even uglier than the condescending casual misogyny is this analogy: “with the finesse of a proctologist with elephantiasis of the index finger,” in reference to Zack Snyder shoving Eurythmics songs up someone's ass or something. Again, it's poorly constructed: the repetition of “with” serves no rhythmic purpose to the sentence. And, while at this point, criticizing the imagery for inelegance is beside the point, it is nonetheless lazy, much like the rest of the review.
At the conclusion, we come to realize that underlying the assessment of Sucker Punch is a preoccupation with the fact that Zack Snyder is directing the next Superman movie: “Guys, if you go see this film this weekend, the terrorists win. All you are doing is confirming to the 'brain trust' powers that be at WB that Snyder is the man for SUPERMAN.” Perhaps, as someone who does not give two laminated fucks whether anyone ever makes another movie about Superman ever, I should take my own advice and try to feel the author's agony over whether Snyder is the right man for the job. His complaint is that Snyder “couldn't add substance to a film if he were armed with a shovel, a syringe, and a bucket of KY.” Which, I should point out, is an odd idea about how to give aesthetic, formal, or intellectual substance to a movie: how does one lend dramatic weight to narrative events with a shovel, and syringe, and a bucket of KY? Are they semiotic representations of some sort for the creative process? If so, to which areas of screenwriting and cinematic language do those signifiers speak? The criticism of lack of substance is funny, coming as it does in the midst of a review that consists of little substance other than whining and contempt for women. Perhaps “substance” means something different on the island of the fanboys than it does on Earth. We may never know. I still don't give a shit about Superman; a failure of empathy, I guess.
Whether or not Sucker Punch is good, I've yet to discover. Its $19 million opening weekend against an $80 million budget is a mildly ominous sign for its commercial prospects unless word of mouth leads to a couple more $10 mil + weekends. Judging from the reviews, that looks unlikely, though there's always DVD and overseas to make its budget back. One does have to wonder, though, whether we'd even be having this discussion, be it about the movie's commercial prospects, or content, at all if the protagonists were teenage boys rather than girls. In fairness, there a couple other reviews of Sucker Punch on that same site that were more considered, and while tepidly ambivalent nonetheless lack the virulent, piggish ignorance of the one under discussion. I know nothing about this guy other than what insights he permits readers in this review, but I do hope that he recovers from whatever trauma led to his disinterest in and contempt for women. Some of them are quite lovely, and they like you more when you cease thinking of them as things to masturbate to. Still don't care? Your loss.
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