Movie Review: Stardust
Aug. 14th, 2007 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
megwritesI went to see Stardust yesterday, and it was a good movie, but -
Way to affirm the patriarchy, dude.
For the purposes of this discussion, let us set aside the original book that Neil Gaiman wrote and pretend that the only text is the movie.
The book is, no surprise, better than the movie. There are also textual and subtextual elements in Gaiman's book that aren't in the movie, so trying to use one discussion to cover both is kind of silly.
I don't know if there's a Young Male Hero Goes On A Quest To Grow Up and Find Fortune genre, but if there is, it seems to be disturbingly misogynistic. Apparently to become a man, the Hero can have only two kinds of women in his world. Either the Damsel in Distress or the Evil Hag. Or, Beauty and the Bitch, if you will.
The only truly powerful women in the movie who could act of their own accord and defend themselves were evil, ugly witches. The only time one of these women becomes beautiful is through magic, and the more she exercises that magic, the older and uglier she becomes.
The message is clear: women who exercise power or go on their own quests are bound to end up evil. Witches are women with power. Women with power are dangerous to Manhood. Why? Because the patriarchy exists only with the consent and acquiescence of women. And if women get empowered and get uppity and start looking around and realizing that the patriarchy is, well, a giant towering heap of Stupid - they might just decide to tear it down and make a new system.
This scares the patriarchy, who oddly enough probably are ready to run back to mommy and cry about it.
The "good" women, Tristan's mother and Yvaine, were both captives and unable to rescue themselves. Not to mention that they were clearly there to service Tristan's ascension to manhood and the throne. Despite the fact that they both had infinitely more interesting stories and were themselves supposed to be above Tristan (his mother is a princess, Yvaine is a *star*).
Even Victoria, the one female character who manages to occupy some sort of in between space between Beauty and Bitch ends up being shafted. She's depicted as childish, because she exercises her own sort of witchcraft of love over Tristan and by the end of the movie safely occupies Bitch territory.
The one moment when I thought that a woman might get to break through and do something truly powerful, meaningful, and good in the movie was completely undercut when Yvaine turns to Tristan and says, after she saves the day where men had failed, "I couldn't have done it without you."
Because in this movie, the only time when it's okay for a woman to exercise power is when it's really because a man let her. So it wasn't really her, it was really The Power of Cock that allowed her to glow and save everyone.
I find this all funny-weird, because in this movie, the patriarchy is explicitly silly. Seven brothers end up murdered for its sake, it's controlled by a ruthless king who doesn't mind murdering all those around him for his ends, people from peasants to soldiers to soothsayers are openly abused.
On a practical level, Stormhold's ruling patriarchy doesn't even work - yet is presented by the movie (remember, the novel doesn't count here) as being perfectly legitimate and Tristan inherits the systems and becomes the Good King. There's no discussion of perhaps the system needing to change.
That's to say nothing of the fact that there was a woeful lack of any characters of color, when clearly there was room for them. Seeing as how the movie didn't feel obligated to follow the novel in a one to one translation, I saw several places where actors of color could've taken up spots. Even if you exclude the biggest characters - there's no reason that more of the pirate, the merchants, and others couldn't have been casted with actors of color.
It suffers from Everyone In England Must Be White Syndrome.
I'm not sure if the production was mainly British or American, but shame on *both* because:
1) The British producers should've known better. I know damn well that they have plenty of people of color in their country.
2) The American producers should've acted better. America is chock frickin' full of color and our audiences are, if nothing else, accustomed to having characters/actors of color inserted into movies for the sake of diversity. This is America, and I'd like to believe we're aware enough to say something about all white casts. Or at least raise our American eyebrows and say, "Uh, where are all the other people that should be in this movie? This ain't right."
The bright spots were the humor, above all else. The love story was done predictably, but palatably.
The ghosts of the murderous brothers were like a very, very funny Greek chorus.
I also loved Robert DeNiro's Captain Shakespeare more than words can say. I think I may actually have strained something laughing at just how wonderful his performance was, not to mention that the moment when the one pirate bursts out with, "We always knew you was a woopsie!" nearly slayed me. I think if anything else had been funny, I would have gone into cardiac arrest or something.
And the moment when the pirates say that they know what he is and he's still their captain? The love became exquisitely pure at that moment.
There should be a movie/book just about the pirates. With lots of "argh!" and "Where do you want I should put the captain's petticoats?". Why does that movie not exist?
Robert DeNiro should crossdress more, also. Just saying.
I would recommend going to see it, but it's not a movie that you couldn't wait to see on DVD. It'll definitely go in my Netflix queue and over all, I give it a nice solid B.
Way to affirm the patriarchy, dude.
For the purposes of this discussion, let us set aside the original book that Neil Gaiman wrote and pretend that the only text is the movie.
The book is, no surprise, better than the movie. There are also textual and subtextual elements in Gaiman's book that aren't in the movie, so trying to use one discussion to cover both is kind of silly.
I don't know if there's a Young Male Hero Goes On A Quest To Grow Up and Find Fortune genre, but if there is, it seems to be disturbingly misogynistic. Apparently to become a man, the Hero can have only two kinds of women in his world. Either the Damsel in Distress or the Evil Hag. Or, Beauty and the Bitch, if you will.
The only truly powerful women in the movie who could act of their own accord and defend themselves were evil, ugly witches. The only time one of these women becomes beautiful is through magic, and the more she exercises that magic, the older and uglier she becomes.
The message is clear: women who exercise power or go on their own quests are bound to end up evil. Witches are women with power. Women with power are dangerous to Manhood. Why? Because the patriarchy exists only with the consent and acquiescence of women. And if women get empowered and get uppity and start looking around and realizing that the patriarchy is, well, a giant towering heap of Stupid - they might just decide to tear it down and make a new system.
This scares the patriarchy, who oddly enough probably are ready to run back to mommy and cry about it.
The "good" women, Tristan's mother and Yvaine, were both captives and unable to rescue themselves. Not to mention that they were clearly there to service Tristan's ascension to manhood and the throne. Despite the fact that they both had infinitely more interesting stories and were themselves supposed to be above Tristan (his mother is a princess, Yvaine is a *star*).
Even Victoria, the one female character who manages to occupy some sort of in between space between Beauty and Bitch ends up being shafted. She's depicted as childish, because she exercises her own sort of witchcraft of love over Tristan and by the end of the movie safely occupies Bitch territory.
The one moment when I thought that a woman might get to break through and do something truly powerful, meaningful, and good in the movie was completely undercut when Yvaine turns to Tristan and says, after she saves the day where men had failed, "I couldn't have done it without you."
Because in this movie, the only time when it's okay for a woman to exercise power is when it's really because a man let her. So it wasn't really her, it was really The Power of Cock that allowed her to glow and save everyone.
I find this all funny-weird, because in this movie, the patriarchy is explicitly silly. Seven brothers end up murdered for its sake, it's controlled by a ruthless king who doesn't mind murdering all those around him for his ends, people from peasants to soldiers to soothsayers are openly abused.
On a practical level, Stormhold's ruling patriarchy doesn't even work - yet is presented by the movie (remember, the novel doesn't count here) as being perfectly legitimate and Tristan inherits the systems and becomes the Good King. There's no discussion of perhaps the system needing to change.
That's to say nothing of the fact that there was a woeful lack of any characters of color, when clearly there was room for them. Seeing as how the movie didn't feel obligated to follow the novel in a one to one translation, I saw several places where actors of color could've taken up spots. Even if you exclude the biggest characters - there's no reason that more of the pirate, the merchants, and others couldn't have been casted with actors of color.
It suffers from Everyone In England Must Be White Syndrome.
I'm not sure if the production was mainly British or American, but shame on *both* because:
1) The British producers should've known better. I know damn well that they have plenty of people of color in their country.
2) The American producers should've acted better. America is chock frickin' full of color and our audiences are, if nothing else, accustomed to having characters/actors of color inserted into movies for the sake of diversity. This is America, and I'd like to believe we're aware enough to say something about all white casts. Or at least raise our American eyebrows and say, "Uh, where are all the other people that should be in this movie? This ain't right."
The bright spots were the humor, above all else. The love story was done predictably, but palatably.
The ghosts of the murderous brothers were like a very, very funny Greek chorus.
I also loved Robert DeNiro's Captain Shakespeare more than words can say. I think I may actually have strained something laughing at just how wonderful his performance was, not to mention that the moment when the one pirate bursts out with, "We always knew you was a woopsie!" nearly slayed me. I think if anything else had been funny, I would have gone into cardiac arrest or something.
And the moment when the pirates say that they know what he is and he's still their captain? The love became exquisitely pure at that moment.
There should be a movie/book just about the pirates. With lots of "argh!" and "Where do you want I should put the captain's petticoats?". Why does that movie not exist?
Robert DeNiro should crossdress more, also. Just saying.
I would recommend going to see it, but it's not a movie that you couldn't wait to see on DVD. It'll definitely go in my Netflix queue and over all, I give it a nice solid B.
