Heroine Content Links #33: Hanna, more Sucker Punch (of course), and other awesomeness

About Hanna, let me go ahead and admit that I totally missed that the German assassin was supposed to be gay, and that’s bad. I don’t do as as well at catching stuff in the theater, honestly, and I just put him in a bin marked “annoying as hell” without thinking more about it. No biscuit for me.

Onto the links…

One Letter Short of a Palindrome by evmaroon at I Fry Mine in Butter has some bones to pick with Hanna. It’s all fair.

“Hanna” Movie Review at Tiny Heroes. Also see Why Sucker Punch Didn’t Suck over there.

Sucker Punched at The Absence of Alternatives – thank you alejna for sending this to us!:

I saw the trailer for Sucker Punch and it looked like a balled-up conglomeration of every Otaku’s fantasy from anime and mange rolled into one. As far as I could tell, all of the lead girls (yes, they are MEANT to be objectified as girls, so no disrespect on my part) are blonde and so pale they glow in the dark. “So this is it? We can’t f*** get a break? They are taking away manga and anime from us too?”

Sucker punched by “Sucker Punch” – Girls and guns don’t equal female empowerment at What Tami Said:

Conversely, it is the women of color in the film–Amber (Jamie Chung) and Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens)–who are drawn as the flattest of the flat characters, with no back stories or desires, but to serve Baby Doll. And it is those women whose lives are unwillingly sacrificed (literally) so that one pretty, blonde, white woman can live the life she deserves.

Further Notes on Sucker Punch, 300, and Ironic Sexy Failure by Markgraf at Bad Reputation.

Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch is a Steaming Pile of Sexist Crap at Feminist Frequency has a good list of links to other reviews in addition to the post itself. (Also see the recent post True Grit, Mattie Ross and Feminism? over there.)

I quite enjoyed the short film “What makes a great female character?” by The Escapist, which caught my attention at Inclusive Geeks. Good discussion there, and a link to a transcript if anyone needs it. Focused on games, but relevant to movies.

witchsistah’s Dear Hollywood at Ars Marginal is a must read about women’s appearance in action films. We know from a lot of interviews that women cast in action roles often do train hard for their roles, but the question remains as it was put by Denise M. in the comments: “Not saying that tiny women can’t kick ass, but why are so many of these ass kicking women tiny?”

Other Heroine Content relevant good reads:

• Movies That Hate You: My Super-Ex Girlfriend by Heavy Armor on Loose Cannon
• Why Do We Need Black Speculative Fiction? by Milton Davis at Wagadu.
• “Mutant Girls Squad” and the Horrific Adolescent by Deb Jannerson on the Bitch blogs.
• The movie Blue Crush is cited as one factor in women’s increased participation in surfing in Surf’s Way Up for Women Going Pro as Wave Riders by Regina Varolli at WeNews.
• Pop Culture and the Female Gaze by Kristen McHugh at Nerds in Babeland
• The Ridiculous Wardrobes of TV LadyCops by Sarah Arboleda at Zelda Lily
• An Uncomfortable Silence: Why Is Geek Media Keeping Quiet About The AKIRA Remake? by Arturo on Racialicious
• At the Movies: True Grit by markgraf on Bad Reputation (Also see “Avatar: The Legend of Korra” gets badass on gender expectations by Stephen B over there)
• Social Justice and Joss Whedon: So Close, Yet So Far: Buffy/Spike by s.e. smith on This Ain’t Livin’
• Peter Jackson Is Adding Female Characters to The Hobbit by Jamie Frevele on The Mary Sue.
• I Demand More Zombie-Killing Female Role Models by Kelly Faircloth at io9.

And as always, if there’s something we should see (especially if you wrote it!) feel free to let us know about it.

This post was originally published on Heroine Content, a feminist and anti-racist movie blog that ran from July 2006 to May 2012.