Dissenter (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dis_senter) wrote,@ 2007-12-27 13:44:00 |
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bad, bad, bad fantasy
Oh, woe is me! I have been exposed to the horrors of extra-strong concentrate male supremacy. In other words, much against my will, I was dragged off to the cinema to see Beowulf. I really cannot begin to describe how terrible this (mostly computer-generated) movie was. Okay, yes, the original tale of Beowulf is as male supremacist as you can get, with all of the in-built misogyny that goes along with that, but, at least within the (admittedly narrow) bounds of male supremacy, it is still a story that attempts to have meaning, to show characters striving towards something, and it is very sad and evocative and beautifully written.
All of that was destroyed by the butcherers who made Beowulf. Every man in the movie, including Beowulf, is portrayed as a lout who thinks of nothing but killing and fucking, which is shown to be a good thing, the stuff ‘true’ heroes are made of, in fact. And consequently, that is all there is to the movie, men going around tearing monsters apart and fucking women in between. Oh, and getting drunk.
But there is something far more disturbing about the movie than this lowest-common-denominator interpretation of the story of Beowulf. It is more misogynist than the original. Yes, a movie made in 2007 is more misogynist than a story that was written down thousands of years ago, during a time when women were classed as property and the debate was still going as to whether they had souls or not.
It has been a few years since I read Beowulf, so my memory of these things may not be perfect, but from what I remember, there is Beowulf, who slays Grendel, a monster, and who then slays Grendel’s mother, a demon/monster who lives in a pool, and then rules the land quite happily until a dragon comes in his old age, which he must also slay, and does, but at the cost of his life.
But in the movie, this plot is altered to make Grendel’s mother the central doer of all evil and curse of the poor little menz. (Grendel’s mother is played by Angelina Jolie wearing gold high heels and not much else. No, I’m not kidding. Clearly wearing Prada is the thing to do if you’re a demon these days). Her tactic is to make herself all beautiful and stuff, and then seduce the poor little king of the land into sleeping with her, which he has no control over at all, naturally, and then to spawn horrible demon children, like Grendel, who go about terrorising the countryside.
So Grendel, we are expected to believe, is actually the son of the then-king of Denmark, but luckily gets done away with by Beowulf, a hero from a distant land who likes nothing so much as to fight demons naked (again, not kidding) while all of his Thains look on admiringly. And then, of course, Grendel’s mother gets all pissed off when Beowulf kills her son, and goes on a killing spree herself, so Beowulf must go off to her pool to do away with her.
He tracks her down, and when he meets her, does she say something like, ‘hey, you killed my son, I really hate you and want to rip your beating heart from your chest?’ No, she says, ‘ohh, you big handsome man, you. If you’ll fuck me and give me another demon-child, I’ll make you king of this land and give you heaps and heaps of gold. How about it?’ Because, you know, that’s usually how a woman responds to a man who murders her children. Naturally, because she’s all seductive and wearing her shiny high heels bought from the nearest mall, poor little Beowulf is powerless to resist, and falls victim to her unholy shoes. Afterwards he wanders back to the king’s hall, muttering about how the heels and all that James Bond gold body paint made him do it, and when he gets there the king conveniently names Beowulf his heir, bestows upon him all of his possessions including his wife, whom Beowulf has been eyeing, and then kills himself by jumping out the nearest window.
So Beowulf becomes king and prances about for a bit all pleased with himself, but then, alas, those troublesome women come along again to spoil all his fun. (Though at least he still has his naked wresting matches with his Thains). Because the queen, the wife of the last king, and now Beowulf’s wife, refused to sleep with her last husband because he fancied a demon over her, and she refuses to sleep with Beowulf for the same reason, ‘forcing’ the poor, lonely little man into the arms of other women. Oh, the hardship of it all!
Many years pass, and we come back to Beowulf in old age, now a child-rapist sleeping with a girl who looks about 14, and for no apparent reason, other than being a treacherous female, Grendel’s mother sends her current son (and also Beowulf’s son), a dragon, out to plunder the countryside, forcing Beowulf into his final battle, which kills both him and the dragon. But at least, before he dies, he gets the chance to tell his wife that he always loved her in his heart (because nothing says I love you like mass infidelity), to which she replies, ‘oh my darling, I still love you too.’ The movie ends with Beowulf’s successor, his closest slash-buddy, seeing Grendel’s mother in the ocean beckoning him, while he begins to walk towards her.
Yeah, whatever, boys. Next time stick to your computer games, and if naked men are really so appealing there’s always Sim City.
***
In other news, I have started reading Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (the book that The Golden Compass is based on), and so far it’s really crap. Boring characters, bad writing and not even one half-interesting idea in sight. And yet it was supposedly voted the third-most popular book in the whole of Britain. The damn thing is about 400 pages long, and I’m only up to page 20 and already I’m bored. So far, there’s been a bunch of men sitting around talking and squabbling for power amongst themselves, blah blah blah, and a girl whose main recommendation appears to be that when a man half twists her arm off as a thank-you for her saving his life (but, you know, she deserved it anyway ’cause she’s female), she doesn’t cry like those ‘other’ (?) girls, who are weak. Ah yes, the old ‘she’s a female character, and I apologise for it because they’re never quite as good as men, but its okay because she’s different from those other females, she’s strong, as opposed to the rest of them, who are weak, and thus deserve to be kicked around and/or completely ignored’ trick.
I'm a bit further along now, and the story at least has improved marginally, but naturally it appears that the central evil character of the novel is a woman. And naturally, she is evil because she has power. But all of the powerful men in the novel, even though they go about trying to murder each other and abusing children, they are all good and moral and upstanding citizens. Yawn.
Men should be banned from having anything to do with the fantasy genre, they really should.
Oh, woe is me! I have been exposed to the horrors of extra-strong concentrate male supremacy. In other words, much against my will, I was dragged off to the cinema to see Beowulf. I really cannot begin to describe how terrible this (mostly computer-generated) movie was. Okay, yes, the original tale of Beowulf is as male supremacist as you can get, with all of the in-built misogyny that goes along with that, but, at least within the (admittedly narrow) bounds of male supremacy, it is still a story that attempts to have meaning, to show characters striving towards something, and it is very sad and evocative and beautifully written.
All of that was destroyed by the butcherers who made Beowulf. Every man in the movie, including Beowulf, is portrayed as a lout who thinks of nothing but killing and fucking, which is shown to be a good thing, the stuff ‘true’ heroes are made of, in fact. And consequently, that is all there is to the movie, men going around tearing monsters apart and fucking women in between. Oh, and getting drunk.
But there is something far more disturbing about the movie than this lowest-common-denominator interpretation of the story of Beowulf. It is more misogynist than the original. Yes, a movie made in 2007 is more misogynist than a story that was written down thousands of years ago, during a time when women were classed as property and the debate was still going as to whether they had souls or not.
It has been a few years since I read Beowulf, so my memory of these things may not be perfect, but from what I remember, there is Beowulf, who slays Grendel, a monster, and who then slays Grendel’s mother, a demon/monster who lives in a pool, and then rules the land quite happily until a dragon comes in his old age, which he must also slay, and does, but at the cost of his life.
But in the movie, this plot is altered to make Grendel’s mother the central doer of all evil and curse of the poor little menz. (Grendel’s mother is played by Angelina Jolie wearing gold high heels and not much else. No, I’m not kidding. Clearly wearing Prada is the thing to do if you’re a demon these days). Her tactic is to make herself all beautiful and stuff, and then seduce the poor little king of the land into sleeping with her, which he has no control over at all, naturally, and then to spawn horrible demon children, like Grendel, who go about terrorising the countryside.
So Grendel, we are expected to believe, is actually the son of the then-king of Denmark, but luckily gets done away with by Beowulf, a hero from a distant land who likes nothing so much as to fight demons naked (again, not kidding) while all of his Thains look on admiringly. And then, of course, Grendel’s mother gets all pissed off when Beowulf kills her son, and goes on a killing spree herself, so Beowulf must go off to her pool to do away with her.
He tracks her down, and when he meets her, does she say something like, ‘hey, you killed my son, I really hate you and want to rip your beating heart from your chest?’ No, she says, ‘ohh, you big handsome man, you. If you’ll fuck me and give me another demon-child, I’ll make you king of this land and give you heaps and heaps of gold. How about it?’ Because, you know, that’s usually how a woman responds to a man who murders her children. Naturally, because she’s all seductive and wearing her shiny high heels bought from the nearest mall, poor little Beowulf is powerless to resist, and falls victim to her unholy shoes. Afterwards he wanders back to the king’s hall, muttering about how the heels and all that James Bond gold body paint made him do it, and when he gets there the king conveniently names Beowulf his heir, bestows upon him all of his possessions including his wife, whom Beowulf has been eyeing, and then kills himself by jumping out the nearest window.
So Beowulf becomes king and prances about for a bit all pleased with himself, but then, alas, those troublesome women come along again to spoil all his fun. (Though at least he still has his naked wresting matches with his Thains). Because the queen, the wife of the last king, and now Beowulf’s wife, refused to sleep with her last husband because he fancied a demon over her, and she refuses to sleep with Beowulf for the same reason, ‘forcing’ the poor, lonely little man into the arms of other women. Oh, the hardship of it all!
Many years pass, and we come back to Beowulf in old age, now a child-rapist sleeping with a girl who looks about 14, and for no apparent reason, other than being a treacherous female, Grendel’s mother sends her current son (and also Beowulf’s son), a dragon, out to plunder the countryside, forcing Beowulf into his final battle, which kills both him and the dragon. But at least, before he dies, he gets the chance to tell his wife that he always loved her in his heart (because nothing says I love you like mass infidelity), to which she replies, ‘oh my darling, I still love you too.’ The movie ends with Beowulf’s successor, his closest slash-buddy, seeing Grendel’s mother in the ocean beckoning him, while he begins to walk towards her.
Yeah, whatever, boys. Next time stick to your computer games, and if naked men are really so appealing there’s always Sim City.
***
In other news, I have started reading Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (the book that The Golden Compass is based on), and so far it’s really crap. Boring characters, bad writing and not even one half-interesting idea in sight. And yet it was supposedly voted the third-most popular book in the whole of Britain. The damn thing is about 400 pages long, and I’m only up to page 20 and already I’m bored. So far, there’s been a bunch of men sitting around talking and squabbling for power amongst themselves, blah blah blah, and a girl whose main recommendation appears to be that when a man half twists her arm off as a thank-you for her saving his life (but, you know, she deserved it anyway ’cause she’s female), she doesn’t cry like those ‘other’ (?) girls, who are weak. Ah yes, the old ‘she’s a female character, and I apologise for it because they’re never quite as good as men, but its okay because she’s different from those other females, she’s strong, as opposed to the rest of them, who are weak, and thus deserve to be kicked around and/or completely ignored’ trick.
I'm a bit further along now, and the story at least has improved marginally, but naturally it appears that the central evil character of the novel is a woman. And naturally, she is evil because she has power. But all of the powerful men in the novel, even though they go about trying to murder each other and abusing children, they are all good and moral and upstanding citizens. Yawn.
Men should be banned from having anything to do with the fantasy genre, they really should.
