Pretty much all of John Hughes’ films had some problematic aspects to them. This was one of the better ones on that front.
[ETA] Is it just me or is the ex boyfriend (played by Craig sheffer) a dead ringer for Angel from Buffy and Angel (David Boreanaz, or however you spell his name)… apparently, yes:
Oh, yeah; like many 80’s kids, I love the man… but he wasn’t hardly perfect.
ETA:
Wow, that similarity isn’t exact but it’s very close; trippy.
Sheffer has a slightly more narrow jaw, and more squinty eyes, I think. And a thinner nose, perhaps. But yeah. Maybe not twins, but they could be bros.
Sheffer also has a bit of a ‘butt chin,’ as my kid likes to call them…
Maybe he could use some Chinderwear, courtesy of Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank?
This brings to mind a kind of obscure movie i watched ages ago, a friend showed it to me and while the movie isn’t totally great i found the central story to be quite sweet. I also liked that the love triangle ends up in a loving poly relationship, which is something you don’t usually see. I myself am monogamous but i really appreciated the quirky story, and by the time the movie wraps up it seems very genuine (from what i recall).
Rewatching the trailer it looks hopelessly dated, curious if you’ve heard of it though
I had not heard of it, but now that I have, I will give it a gander…
The author explicitly calls for the retirement of the abduction as romance trope.
It is an abuse trope and I think it’s useful to use problematic characters and tropes to explore important issues in real life.
But I feel the author’s essay ignores a lot of nuance and blurs the lines between the purposes of fiction and important but complex real life issues.
If he seriously sees films like V is for Vendetta as “romanticizing abusive male behavior” and characters like V as “good guys” while they assault women “for their own good” that’s a big mistake.
Such characters are complex anti-heros or anti-villains not designed to be portrayed as good guys, heroes or role-models. Their desired ends may be mostly good, but their means of getting there are evil. Alternatively, their desired ends are evil, but on a personal level they can be more ethical or moral than other villains and can be heroic on occasion.
Sure, point out the banality of damsels in distress and highlight problematic tropes but trying to restrict fiction by painting with broad strokes that may include cautionary stories and fairy-tales seems a little strong.
See: Hannibal season 3, regarding the relationship between Hannibal and Bedilia.
Great action movie that this woman totally loves. And dear Dog, do I hate rom-coms. 99.9% of the time, these movies are Stalker Wins Over Prey. (Please note the conspicuous lack of sex in that last declaration.)
So gross.
@knoxblox: MST3K is high Minnesota weirdness that somehow managed to escape St. Paul, only to improve the world’s ability to appreciate terrible movies on a different level. (Also, one of my fondest memories of summertime growing up in the Twin Cities). May we learn to apply this strategy to shitty rom-cons before it’s too late!
Same here; Furiosa and the Five Wives hit all my movie lover sweet-spots.
Even more emphatic agreement; give me a regular ol’ comedy, any day.
He IS the hero and he DOES abuse her. That’s not wrong, its right on the mark. He decided what was good for HER and imposed it on her. His actions were justified for the larger mission. He saw her as entirely expendable to end the situation in England.
In the comics V is also more cold compared to the movie, and he himself knows his true nature as a monstrous byproduct of the government and uses what he is to great effect against those in charge. His actions toward Evee is just him trying to achieve his goals at any cost. The movie tries to make him more sympathetic, if he was as cold as he was in the comics the movie would’ve been way way darker… but in turn it makes his actions against Evee more problematic.
Indeed, that’s true. They also wanted it to be about the war on terror, when the original comic was about Thatcher’s Britain and the possibility of a Fascist britain.
Maybe so.
Perhaps the disconnect lies in categorizing “heroes” and “good guys" in fiction.
If I see a protagonist abusing others they’re generally relegated straight to anti-hero or anti-villain status in my mind (with a few allowances for ambiguity depending on context and power relations).
Anyway I think it’s safe to define V as an anti-hero.
I assume it’s the dark qualities that usually belong to villains which puts him on the Wikipedia list.
It doesn’t matter; V is still the protagonist (ie, the main character, whom the audience is supposed to root for) of that narrative.
He still imprisons Evee against her will, and tortures her “for her own good.”
And the trope that men dominate otherwise ‘strong women’ and the aforementioned women end up ‘loving’ them for it is STILL toxic as fuck, and needs to die.
*Edited for typos.
The fun part about discussions like this (sexism, racism, etc.) is how everyone looks to the abusers/opressors for verification, rather than the abused/opressed.
“Show me where she claims you hurt her.”
A lot of fairly tale “rescues” seem creepy as hell when examined, especially in the pre-Disney versions. (Like the variants of Sleeping Beauty where her rescuer rapes her while asleep and she wakes up with a baby or two.)
Actually what makes the movie version of V for Vendetta more problematic than the comic is that in the movie, Evey is the protagonist. She’s the one who’s PoV we follow. She changes and goes through a journey, while V doesn’t; V instigates the journey. V is some kind of twisted father figure, which is where much of the ick factor comes from. It’s literally about Stockholm Syndrome or at least the honing of a person into a tool (and the opposite of, say, the animated Beauty and the Beast, where the Beast is the protagonist, and Belle inspires him to change so he can win her heart, which, of course, is problematic in and of itself1).
1But at at least it isn’t about Stockholm Syndrome.
O_O
