I just walked out of a movie; this was the first time. I wanted to see "Wanted" for an admittedly shallow reason - it has James McAvoy in it, and I think he's hot. I didn't expect that the movie would be so awful I'd rather pay for a ticket to get out of seeing it. I only regret that I didn't walk out sooner. (Possible spoilers ahead, if you care about that.)
My first clue that this would not be an enjoyable experience was in the very first scene. McAvoy's character is standing in an office watching his boss stuff her face. His boss is an approximately 300 pound woman who he characterizes as extremely annoying, also describing her sarcastically as "anorexic." Isn't that great? In the very first scene we get a whole heaping helping of stereotypes.
Let's count them:
1. Fat people are annoying and loud
2. Fat people stuff their faces with donuts and cake and junk food
3. Everyone hates fat people, so much so that for McAvoy=Gibson, pretending to like her for a minute is "the hardest work he'll do all day."
Later, we'll come back to the office for Gibson's big moment of telling off his fat boss, where he basically says that middle school must have been tough on her (cause she's, you know, fat) and that if she wasn't such a bitch they'd feel sorry for her (poor fat lady) but as it is, they want her to fuck off. She's speechless, which apparently is a win. Yay, the woman shut up! (Oh, in case, you're wondering what made the boss such a bitch, it's that she seemed to expect Gibson to actually get his work done! That's right! She had the nerve to ask him to do his work!) Then Gibson walks out and smashes his former best friend in the face with a keyboard, cause that's how real men act.
The next female we encounter in the film is his girlfriend - oh my gosh I think we have some more stereoptypes! We quickly find out that his girlfriend is fucking his best friend, also really annoying (so much so that he'd prefer to listen to the sound of the train roaring past than her voice), as well as emotionally needy and expects him to LISTEN to her and REMEMBER conversations they had! ain't that so GIRLY!?!?!?
So, to clarify, girlfriends:
1. talk a lot
2. are really annoying (must be ignored)
3. make you have stupid conversations about your relationship and then want you to remember them
4. always have bitchy attitudes
5. cheat on you with your best friend
6. are selfish and self-absorbed
7. have a prissy white cat named annabel
Great.
Well, okay, Angelina Jolie is in this film! And she's pretty kickass, right? Let's go meet her. Oh, hey, look at those arms, which are about two inches wide. My, my, admire all those bones sticking out of her body all over the place. And the way her eyes sink into her face, her lips the only soft thing about her but thank god they're so huge. Jolie is so fucking skinny in this movie it's scary. She seriously looks like a walking skeleton. This goes way beyond the point of just having (yet another) slim female as the sexy star, Jolie seriously looks like she's a few pounds away from death. And yet there she is, playing the sexy femme fatale role. Women, you're never sexier than when you're practically dead. Keep on starving!
Oh, but wait - I forgot the gratuitous nude scene. We can't forget to further objectify women by having Jolie rise out of a bath, and have the camera zoom up and down the back of her nude body. And for some reason Jolie's character just can't keep that towel on her butt. Maybe it's too heavy for her frail skeletal arms. Granted, I did walk out before the movie ended, but somehow I don't think we're gonna get a nice long pan of McAvoy's naked ass.
So then we get a bunch of violent scenes with bullets zooming slow motion through people's skulls. Now, obviously I knew this was going to be a violent movie. That's fine. That's its genre. But seriously....do we really need to slow-motion it every single time a bullet hits someone, and see bits of skull and brain matter fly off, still slow motion, into space? Do we really need to see blood flying, again slow motion every single time, in long strings from people's mouths and noses? Enough already.
For that matter, I'm sick of action movies like this one completely disregarding any sense of ethics whatsoever. How am I supposed to cheer for the good guys to win when they constantly kill and maim innocent people, not to mention cause massive car crashes and destroy property left and right? Or how about when they STRAP BOMBS to thousands of rats and set them loose to be mini suicide bombers. Seriously? Yeah, that's really cool.
But even if you try to forget all the sexist, sizist, unnecessary violent behaviour, this movie is still stupid. The dialogue is stinted and awkward, there are plot holes everywhere, and the character development is practically non-existent. There's not much more to say. It sucks. It just...sucks.
(By the way, sitting behind us in the theatre was a family with two little girls aged about five and two. I'm shocked that they brought them to an R movie in the first place, and shocked that they didn't walk out at any of the scenes that were highly inappropriate for children, like where they show Gibson's best friend fucking his girlfriend. Or you know, the CONSTANT VIOLENCE. Whatever. I feel sorry for those two girls, hopefully they were at least young enough not to understand the sexism.)
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Doesn't much sound like it was your movie. I enjoyed it well enough. Why did you see it?
Nothing classier than following up accusations of sizism with some good old-fashioned trashing of thinness, right?
Experiment here. Replace just a few "skinny"s with "fat"s in what you wrote, and you have yourself some boilerplate fat-bashing:
Oh, hey, look at those arms, which are about twenty inches wide. My, my, admire all that fat sticking out of her body all over the place... Jolie is so fucking fat in this movie it's scary. She seriously looks like a walking elephant... Jolie seriously looks like she's a few pounds away from death. And yet there she is, playing the sexy femme fatale role. Women, you're never sexier than when you're practically dead. Keep on binging!
Somehow, railing against sizism isn't so convincing when you do exactly the same thing you're condemning to another group.
Nothing classier than following up accusations of sizism with some good old-fashioned trashing of thinness, right?
Experiment here. Replace just a few "skinny"s with "fat"s in what you wrote, and you have yourself some boilerplate fat-bashing:
Oh, hey, look at those arms, which are about twenty inches wide. My, my, admire all that fat sticking out of her body all over the place... Jolie is so fucking fat in this movie it's scary. She seriously looks like a walking elephant... Jolie seriously looks like she's a few pounds away from death. And yet there she is, playing the sexy femme fatale role. Women, you're never sexier than when you're practically dead. Keep on binging!
Somehow, railing against sizism isn't so convincing when you do exactly the same thing you're condemning to another group.
I enjoyed "Wanted", but I do agree that it was sexist and sizeist and that really pissed me off... so I tried to just enjoy it for all its vapidness. ...a sort of respite from my normally intellectually heavy life.
The writer/director was the same guy who did Nightwatch and Daywatch (both of which had similarly stupid dialogue supporting really good stories, and awesome special effects and cinematography) and both of those movies are moderately sexist - despite the fact that they have two leading female characters who are complex individuals (and the part in Daywatch where the lead male character and the lead female character switch bodies), but they're also incredibly skinny such that they physically fit into prescribed gender roles. Having seen, and enjoyed, both Nightwatch and Daywatch I was able to enjoy Wanted from a cinematic viewpoint, even though the story was stupid, sexist, and sizeist.
If you haven't seen Nightwatch/Daywatch, I highly recommend them. (Watch with subtitles, not dubbed.)
I don't know. I don't think we were supposed to like anyone in this movie (save for the guy with rats who was the only humane person in the whole movie). The comic was set up the same way. All the main characters are villains. Gibson was supposed to be an asshole, and since his is the main perspective narrative of the movie, we get the asshole take on his world.
While there were times that the boss's weight was played for comic effect (bullet going through the donut hole, but that was at the end and you probably didn't see it), overall, I think the character considered his boss's extra weight as the only thing that humanized her because she was actually quite a bitch in her own right.
I think that's why I enjoyed this movie. I didn't care if any of the characters died horrible deaths. It got to the point where I just tuned the story out and watched the amazing action sequences.
I also think that it was kind of cool that they got someone who wouldn't fit a "superhero" mold (McAvoy, who I am now crushing on hardcore) for the main part.
It wasn't a great movie, but the action scenes delighted me in a way no other movie has achieved before.
I’m curious, what did you think the movie was going to be about? I say this not to criticize you for not enjoying it, but based on your objections I’m surprised you went to it at all. I’m totally with you with the sexist and anti-fat attitude that is shown through the boss and the girlfriend. And Angelina Jolie did look very sickly. Other than that one scene she is not gratuitously sexualized. She is portrayed as a cruel mentor, but the only one that has not abandoned the cause for selfish preservation.
As for the violence and they shooting of the scenes, I didn’t mind it because I was familiar with the director’s style from Night Watch and Day Watch. I actually really enjoyed the slow-mo action scenes and the cinematics because it makes it look like a graphic novel. I especially like the scene where the assassin went through the glass and onto the roof.
The movie is actually based on a graphic novel. I hear it is nothing like the novel, and is actually less violent and less sexist. The character (in the novel) is a rapist, thrill-seeking killer trying escape mediocrity. From what I understand from blogs, the purpose was to have an extremely unlikable character. People who saw the movie and read the novel said they were very far apart in the characters and parts of the story line.
The reason I saw the film is because it was departure from the graphic novel (I don’t think I would enjoy reading/watching about a character raping and killing for fun) and because I enjoyed Night/Day Watch. It also got good reviews. The premise of the book/film is to abandon ethics and too portray a society of assassins that supposedly work for the greater good, but in fact are deplorable and morally corrupt. There are no good guys, and it actually focuses on the lack of “good” and the idea of escaping mediocrity, creating your own destiny. For that reason, none of the assassins or the regular people are depicted as likable. I found his treatment of his girlfriend and boss to be jackassy (made up word), but they were also portrayed as obnoxious. I can't think of one good person in the film. Angelina never abandoned the cause but she was portrayed as cruel. As for the dialogue and plot, it is meant to be campy and goofy.
It’s fine that you don’t like the film; I just wasn’t sure what drew you to go see it in the first place, besides McAvoy.
And one of my pet-peeves is parents/adults bringing children to movies that are inappropriate. 5 year olds should not see this movie or films like A History of Violence, Devil's Rejects, In Bruges, or Dawn of the Dead (all films where young children were present).
Oh, but I do agree with you, danidae, that there should have been a shot of McAvoy's rear end, too!
(And everything RiotGrrl said.)
Nothing classier than following up accusations of sizism with some good old-fashioned trashing of thinness, right?
Couldn't agree more. Angelina looked how she always looks. THIN. Because she is in fact, thin. I think she looked gorgeous, and I loved her character.
Oh and the girlfriend was completely annoying, sorry.
The movie sounds like it was completely sexist and sizist, but we aren't going to win anyone over by using more sizist language in the other direction. Next time you write an analysis on a sizist film, try to be more respectful about the body types of all of the characters in the film.
I agree with Siobhan, whatsername, and everybodyever. Danidae, you don't know Angelina Jolie personally. You don't know what/how often/how much she eats, how often she exercises, or what her body was like when she was younger and not in the public eye. Therefore, it is not your place to judge her body as being "too thin" or "starving" any more than it is McAvoy's character's place to judge his boss as being too fat and having had a bad childhood because of it. From everything I've read about Angelina, she seems like an active and healthy woman...who happens to be thin.
@ everybodyever:
I did think about the words I used as I described Jolie's size, and hoped no one would be offended. Personally I feel there is a huge difference between judging someone's size/shape based on aesthetic reasons and doing the same thing for health reasons. I'm a slim woman myself, I have nothing against slim bodies, obviously. But I do really feel that Jolie's body in this film (or perhaps an edited version?) looked very very unhealthy. And I'm tired of seeing skinny to the point of being unhealthy women portrayed as the sexy norm. The problem with replacing "fat words" with the "skinny words" I used is that extremely obese women - so obese that it is hard to believe they are not unhealthy - are not commonly portrayed as being sexy. There is not the same kind of pressure there. Does that make sense?
But perhaps the wording I used was a bit extreme. Do you have a suggestion for how I could phrase my displeasure at seeing a (in my view) unhealthy skinny woman as the sexy lead, without sounding sizist?
@ whatsername and Genevieve PlusCourageuse- I disagree with you, though you have the right to your opinion of course. I feel like Jolie has definitely always been thin, but has also looked more healthy in other films. I think everyone has a natural body size, in a great variety of scale, and I think Jolie's body in this particular film looked like it was under her natural place. Obviously I do not know her or her eating habits, but that is my impression.
Like I asked above, any suggestions for how to word my opinion without sounding sizist?
@ RiotGrrl - Well, I usually enjoy Jolie's films to some extent, I like seeing a strong female lead, and it seemed that she would play that role again in this movie. I like a good action film from time to time, and were it not for the sizism/sexism/whathaveyou the violence alone wouldn't have been enough to make me disgusted with the film. I knew there was a graphic novel, but I haven't read it so I can't really compare.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Danidae--
It's obvious that there are far too many bodies (particularly female bodies) of the same basic size used in Hollywood to represent 'attractive' when there is a far greater variety of bodies in real life. Personally I would wish for a much greater variety to be used. Get people away from the norm of 'one perfect body.' You could have suggested that.
Interestingly enough, there is one problem with casting Jolie in this role which has nothing to do with her size. In the graphic novel, the character she portrays was a woman of color. Yet they cast the role with a white actress. Which is another dimension of the "one perfect body" problem--that the body is often a white one.
I direct you to The Hathor Legacy for further information.
Personally I feel there is a huge difference between judging someone's size/shape based on aesthetic reasons and doing the same thing for health reasons.
Speaking as a plump woman who's often wrongly assumed to be unhealthy by people brainwashed into thinking Slim Is Healthy, I think there's not as much difference as you imagine. Even when I am slim, I have serious voluptuous curves which people mistook for "fat" and "unhealthy" and "doesn't take care of herself" when I was younger.
It's really hard to talk about the obsession with size 0 with named actresses, because then it becomes personal. It's one thing to say actresses are pretty much required to be 20 pounds below a healthy weight, which is sick; to say that bodies can be attractive at many weights to the very men and boys most movies are targeting; to point out that male actors are frequently allowed to have bits of flab here and there, covered by suits and whatnot, but female actors are held to a different standard because while the men can be there for reasons other than/in addition to looks, women are really primarily eye candy, no matter what else they bring. (I got excited last night when I watched "Burn Notice" and they featured a middle-aged actress whose body looked really, really normal - that is to say, by TV standards, a bit thick through the middle. She looked great.)
I can't think of a way to say a particular actress looks unhealthy without leaping into that territory of speculating on something that's no one's business but hers.