I'm deeply excited about David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
On the one hand, I get that Hollywood is kind of jumping the shark by remaking foreign films less than a decade after the original film comes out. Especially considering the international film market in America. But I look at it this way: sometimes a story is just TOO GOOD to be left alone. Which is probably the case with TGWTDT - the books are so popular, and the story is so good, that the American film industry couldn't leave that golden egg untouched, even if the Swedish films are barely out of the projection rooms.
I get that a lot of people are upset, considering the acclaim that Noomi Rapace has gotten from her portrayal of the problematic anti-heroine, Lisbeth Salander. I get that many people see this film as unnecessary. Y'all know that personally, I did not enjoy the Swedish film and I did not enjoy Rapace in the role - my entry discussing that little skeleton in my cinema-loving closet can be read here. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I'm deeply excited about Fincher's version and I'm deeply excited about Rooney Mara as Salander. Which brings me to what I want to talk to you about today: that controversial movie poster. (This is also why this particular entry is NSFW - nipples are about to be unleashed.)
(Side note: all of Mara's piercings are authentic. She got them done as part of the job. I kinda hope she keeps them, not because I find them particularly attractive but because I'm pretty tickled by the idea of that kind of method acting. Plus fake piercings typically don't look as good as the real thing.)
Can you hear the movie audiences of America complaining about this image? However I feel about it, it's not hard to understand - we are not used to bare breasts hanging out in our advertising. Or in public at all, really. Fincher is obviously making a statement with this poster about how prepared he is to "bare it all," so to speak, and I support that - not to mention that the image itself is starkly beautiful. But I get the objections people have to it.
Well, almost all the objections. Here's a quote from an Entertainment Weekly forum about this image:
"Lisbeth Salander is fighting back from being a victim. To have her posed in such a vulnerable state (and yes, when you’re nude, you’re vulnerable, whether you’re “strong” or not) really negates the power that the Lisbeth character has earned. She is supposed to be the protector, not Blomquist. I doubt that Stieg Larsson would have approved this campaign."
There's a lot of this going around. That the problem with the image is that it cuts down how strong Salander is, how it misogynistically shows Craig as Blomkvist protecting her, restraining her, and how it negates a powerful female protagonist.
The problem with this view is that it's wrong. If you haven't read the book and plan to, no worries, I'm not going to let fly any spoilers. But suffice to say (and you've probably gotten a hint of this just in all the talking about this movie that's going on) Salander ISN'T strong, and that's the point. The entire third book is about all the people she's managed to get in her corner banding together to save her. I'm not saying she's a damsel in distress, but Salander is a broken, prickly character whose story arc is about learning how to share her problems with people she learns to trust, and how ultimately her problems are SO big she can't save herself on her own. Blomkvist is protecting her in the poster in the same way he does through every single book.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Salander. She's incredibly resilient, resourceful, and intelligent, but she only ever projects the appearance of strength to other people. Inside, she's crumbling, and it's up to Blomkvist (and eventually others) to catch her pieces and put her back together. This is what her story is about.
On the one hand, I get that Hollywood is kind of jumping the shark by remaking foreign films less than a decade after the original film comes out. Especially considering the international film market in America. But I look at it this way: sometimes a story is just TOO GOOD to be left alone. Which is probably the case with TGWTDT - the books are so popular, and the story is so good, that the American film industry couldn't leave that golden egg untouched, even if the Swedish films are barely out of the projection rooms.
I get that a lot of people are upset, considering the acclaim that Noomi Rapace has gotten from her portrayal of the problematic anti-heroine, Lisbeth Salander. I get that many people see this film as unnecessary. Y'all know that personally, I did not enjoy the Swedish film and I did not enjoy Rapace in the role - my entry discussing that little skeleton in my cinema-loving closet can be read here. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I'm deeply excited about Fincher's version and I'm deeply excited about Rooney Mara as Salander. Which brings me to what I want to talk to you about today: that controversial movie poster. (This is also why this particular entry is NSFW - nipples are about to be unleashed.)
Can you hear the movie audiences of America complaining about this image? However I feel about it, it's not hard to understand - we are not used to bare breasts hanging out in our advertising. Or in public at all, really. Fincher is obviously making a statement with this poster about how prepared he is to "bare it all," so to speak, and I support that - not to mention that the image itself is starkly beautiful. But I get the objections people have to it.
Well, almost all the objections. Here's a quote from an Entertainment Weekly forum about this image:
"Lisbeth Salander is fighting back from being a victim. To have her posed in such a vulnerable state (and yes, when you’re nude, you’re vulnerable, whether you’re “strong” or not) really negates the power that the Lisbeth character has earned. She is supposed to be the protector, not Blomquist. I doubt that Stieg Larsson would have approved this campaign."
There's a lot of this going around. That the problem with the image is that it cuts down how strong Salander is, how it misogynistically shows Craig as Blomkvist protecting her, restraining her, and how it negates a powerful female protagonist.
The problem with this view is that it's wrong. If you haven't read the book and plan to, no worries, I'm not going to let fly any spoilers. But suffice to say (and you've probably gotten a hint of this just in all the talking about this movie that's going on) Salander ISN'T strong, and that's the point. The entire third book is about all the people she's managed to get in her corner banding together to save her. I'm not saying she's a damsel in distress, but Salander is a broken, prickly character whose story arc is about learning how to share her problems with people she learns to trust, and how ultimately her problems are SO big she can't save herself on her own. Blomkvist is protecting her in the poster in the same way he does through every single book.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Salander. She's incredibly resilient, resourceful, and intelligent, but she only ever projects the appearance of strength to other people. Inside, she's crumbling, and it's up to Blomkvist (and eventually others) to catch her pieces and put her back together. This is what her story is about.
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