*Scott Pilgrim vs the World*
Aug. 15th, 2010 04:15 pmThrough the graces of Glenlivet and other people's questionable late-night impulses, I have seen Scott Pilgrim vs the World. I went in with low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised when the movie slightly exceeded them.
I have mixed feelings about the comics the movie is based on: I can see how Brian Lee O'Malley's storytelling is technically good, but SP's slacker ways fail to engage my sentiments. The movie really homes in on the "story in conversation with a culture / other stories" thing, making use of video gaming styles, musical themes, and characters as That [Stereotype], particularly Ramona's seven evil exes as examples of subcultures familiar to the average Toronto hipster. I think making characters That [Stereotype] is lazy storytelling at best and probably angry-making to the racefail crowd; if I'm picking up on things like "hey where are the minorities" and "giving the Indian guy mystical superpowers? Seriously?" it's likely there's pretty egregious stereotyping going on. Also, the movie fails the Bechdel test. it's possible to be a good movie without including two women who talk to each other about something besides a man (hello, every war movie ever), but I think what is and isn't included in a work says something about the culture it rose from (Hollywood, O'Malley's Toronto). In a movie with Knives Chau, Kim Pine, Roxie Richter, Julie Powers, Envy Adams, Ramona Flowers, and Stacey Pilgrim - seven women! Seven! - it's disappointing that people lacking a Y chromosome never interact with each other except to talk about Scott.
With that said, the focus of the movie is Scott Pilgrim, not![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ase's feminist agenda, and it compressed a six-volume comic into less than two hours onscreen while embodying the spirit of the comics. Scott Pilgrim vs the World is not about smart, it's about flashy. In its own arena of video game / music scene references, it succeeds admirably, and it holds your attention for most of the two hours.
At some point, I'd like to do a compare / contrast with SP and Y: the Last Man to talk about how it's possible to have a male protagonist in a story without shutting women out of the picture. It's a bit of a straw man, since Y kills all the men in the first issue, but it's still tempting.
I have mixed feelings about the comics the movie is based on: I can see how Brian Lee O'Malley's storytelling is technically good, but SP's slacker ways fail to engage my sentiments. The movie really homes in on the "story in conversation with a culture / other stories" thing, making use of video gaming styles, musical themes, and characters as That [Stereotype], particularly Ramona's seven evil exes as examples of subcultures familiar to the average Toronto hipster. I think making characters That [Stereotype] is lazy storytelling at best and probably angry-making to the racefail crowd; if I'm picking up on things like "hey where are the minorities" and "giving the Indian guy mystical superpowers? Seriously?" it's likely there's pretty egregious stereotyping going on. Also, the movie fails the Bechdel test. it's possible to be a good movie without including two women who talk to each other about something besides a man (hello, every war movie ever), but I think what is and isn't included in a work says something about the culture it rose from (Hollywood, O'Malley's Toronto). In a movie with Knives Chau, Kim Pine, Roxie Richter, Julie Powers, Envy Adams, Ramona Flowers, and Stacey Pilgrim - seven women! Seven! - it's disappointing that people lacking a Y chromosome never interact with each other except to talk about Scott.
With that said, the focus of the movie is Scott Pilgrim, not
ase's feminist agenda, and it compressed a six-volume comic into less than two hours onscreen while embodying the spirit of the comics. Scott Pilgrim vs the World is not about smart, it's about flashy. In its own arena of video game / music scene references, it succeeds admirably, and it holds your attention for most of the two hours. At some point, I'd like to do a compare / contrast with SP and Y: the Last Man to talk about how it's possible to have a male protagonist in a story without shutting women out of the picture. It's a bit of a straw man, since Y kills all the men in the first issue, but it's still tempting.
