Another Squicky Thought Or Two About Batman

[caitri]

Cut for spoilers, potentially triggery discussion.


Okay let's talk about incarcerated women, shall we? We see two of them in the film: Talia's mom and Selena. Talia gets to see her Mom pulled away for a gang rape after which she dies (though, in retrospect...that doctor could engineer some stuff up for Bane but not for her, huh? WTF patriarchy?). Then we see Selena go to prison; they explicitly say it's all male because it's so easy for her to break out of women's correction centers. This is immediately followed with the dialogue of "it's okay, she knows how to take care of herself."

Um.

So...does anyone else read this as reinforcing the onus of "it's your own fault if you get raped"? Cos that's kind of what I see here.

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Another thing that really struck me is how the international actors are coded within the broader context of the film. Tom Hardy (English), Liam Neeson (Irish), and Marion Cotillard (French) all get elided into the vaguely middle-easteriness of it all. (Question: Did anyone catch where the prison was supposed to be?) In contrast, Michael Caine is the good guy, but he's the Cockney who calls Bruce "Master" and only wants him to be personally happy.

'Kay.

And then there's the whole only-Bruce-can-be-trusted-with-the-nuke issue.

Let's contrast this with the Avengers briefly.

The Avengers are a nominally international body: Cap, Iron Man, and Hawkeye are Americans; Black Widow is formerly Russian; Bruce is essentially a wandering ex-pat; Thor is a legalized alien. *G* SHIELD itself is a bit fuzzy--there's that "Homeland" in the title but Fury's bosses are pretty clearly an international group itself. In the comics SHIELD is basically one or two steps above Interpol, which can similarly be assumed here given the ease with which Cap and Widow go into German civilian airspace. Of course, they too have to deal with a nuke at the end and only the wealthy billionaire industrialist can take care of it.

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So. Thoughts? Comments? Flung produce?

Comments

[caitri.livejournal.com]

I think what they were going for was a griefstricken!Bruce learns to feel! again! sort of thing, and it...so didn't work. This was part over-ambition--like, seriously, they have a lot going on in this three hour film and it sure as hell *feels* like a three hour film--and part lack of chemistry and part trying to force a feeling besides nihilism into it. "It's not all doom an' gloom, kids! Look, there's smooches!"

Yeaaaaaah, real emotion doesn't work that way, sorry, guys. Not only was there no build up or progression but there was no *time* for build up and progression.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

I feel like we might need a flowchart to keep track of all the levels of man!pain....