Oracles, Strippers, Background Queens, Prostitutes

Suzanne Reisman — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 07:21:23 -0500

I read CityMama's review of 300 on BlogHer with great interest. As I noted in my comment on her excellent post, I had just read a story in Entertainment Weekly about the film. It seems that in Frank Miller's original comic book, Queen Gorgo appears only in passing. The director of the film, Zach Snyder, decided to amp up her role, presenting her as "a front-and-center partner to Leonidas," the leader of the 300 elite Spartan warriors who face down a Persian army of 250,000. Frank Miller, bless his heart, initially objected. He told Entertainment Weekly:

At first I very much disagreed with itâ€¦ My main comment was "this is a boy's movie. Let it be that."

And here my friends, encapsulates everything I dislike about Frank Miller. Why can a "boys' movie" not have a strong woman character in it? Do boys really dislike women that much that we are utterly useless and peripheral to their entertainment, other than serving as sexy fantasy objects? (A role played well by The Oracle, which EW reviewer Lisa Schwartzbaum described as, "essentially naked, unless you call wet, transparent gossamer fabric a cover-up. She's a dirty delight â€“ and a close approximation of Miller's original drawings.") Perhaps Miller is wrong about what boys want: CityMama reports that the audience â€“ filled mostly with teenage boys - cheered most when Queen Gorgo actually picked up a sword and got into the action.

When Sin City came out in theaters a few years ago, Entertainment Weekly referred to him as a great visionary. I'm sure that his wonderful graphics and unique presentation style are, but I wrote a letter to the editor noting that his storylines â€“ in which women are all strippers (one with a heart of gold, natch), violent prostitutes, or prison guards who wear no clothes â€“ are just tired old riffs on the Madonna/whore dichotomy. Visionary my ass. My letter was printed, along with my email address. That's when the hate mail started pouring in.

Not all the email said that I was an idiot asshole who obviously had never looked at a comic book in my entire life (thanks for the false assumption folks, but I do in fact read comics â€“ just not lame ones), but most of it did. Not all of the emails defending Miller's creative genius were from men, either, but most of it was. (My favorite was from a male college student who was featured on a collector's show on HGTV for his extensive Spiderman collection. He told me that I was out of touch with reality.) I touched a raw nerve. Die-hard Frank Miller fans really hold their gender stereotypes sacred it seems.

I never saw Sin City. I'm not into stylized movies about rapists and prostitutes and the one good man who saves the slightly sullied Madonna character, no matter how beautifully they are shot. I don't know if I'd like 300 (BlogHer Contributing Editor Liz Rizzo left a comment on CityMama's review that makes me think I might), but it does intrigue me. "Boys' movies" are OK with me (The Departed, anyone?) as long as they are actually interesting. And to me, interesting means that you move beyond inane stereotypes about female characters.

Suzanne has a "girls' blog" at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

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Oracles, Strippers, Background Queens, Prostitutes