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bewizeThe film is violent and has bad language. So does my post. There will definitely be spoilers in everything, including any vid links and pics. Read at your own risk.
Barring for the moment that Mindy is clearly a sociopath, she is also the absolute break out shining character of this movie. And she's an 11 year old girl.
The first scene where we meet her in the movie shows us her father, Big Daddy, training her to "take a bullet" by shooting her in the chest at fairly close range. She has on a bullet proof vest, of course, and while she originally says that she's scared and also complains that she "hates getting punched in the chest," she doesn't really seem overly bothered by it. She also says, rather matter of factly, that she wouldn't be afraid of someone who pulled a gun on her.
And here is where it takes a bizarrely creepy turn. We, as the audience, believe her. From the outside looking in, the idea is so horrific that we can barely stand it, but from the audience POV, the whole scene becomes bizarrely funny and we learn, up front, that Hit Girl aka Mindy is not someone to be fucked with.
Then she negotiates a trip to the bowling alley and a hot fudge sundae for the indignity of taking two more bullets. For all that she clearly knows about guns (including the speed at which a handgun bullet travels), she still comes across as a little girl. She's even wearing a pink jacket (over her kevlar) and a pink hat.
The next time we see her, she's eating the promised ice cream sundae. Her father asks what she wants for her birthday and she eagerly replies that she wants a puppy and a Bratz doll. Nick Cage gives her a look that would be appropriate if she'd grown a second head, and she bursts into very childish giggles. It turns out that what she really wants, and gets, is... well check it out for yourself.
Since Youtube won't embed for some stupid reason, you'll have to click this link. Note the excitement and glee - both very childish reactions - and compare it with the deadly proficiency of her actions.
These two clips set up the dichotomy in Hit Girl's personality. She is at once both innocent and childish, while also being absolutely lethal. Her relationship with her father is open and honest and clearly loving, but also sick and twisted. (Batman fans, pay attention to what Robin should be like if he was trained to be a this sort of crime-fighter.) Her former guardian even accuses Big Daddy of brainwashing her - which he doesn't technically deny, he just says he's made it a game). It's an odd game, though, where she blithely murders a man handcuffed to a car and sitting inside a metal compacter and then says with clear disgust, "What a douche."
Big Daddy sets Hit Girl lose on the bad guys, keeping a watchful sniper eye on her, and the only admonishment we ever hear him give her is, "And Hit Girl always keeps her back where?" "To the wall, Daddy. It won't happen again."
In short, this 11 year old girl stays exactly on par with every one of the male superheroes/villians she is surrounded by. In fact, she's better than most of them. And the truly astonishing thing about it? Movie critics overwhelmingly seem to hate that!
Roger Ebert called the film "morally reprehensible." Kenneth Turan (American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California) writes, "[Hit-Girl’s] language is so astonishingly crude that it has taken people’s attention away from all the killing she does, which is mind-boggling as well." Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman mentions that Hit-Girl’s sadism isn’t much different from Bruce Willis’s in the Die Hard movies.
I call bullshit, because the double standard here is so disgusting it's perverse. Kick Ass himself is still a child. (The movie doesn't make clear how old he is, but he's in high school, can't drive yet and clearly isn't an adult.) The beating he takes through the movie is far worse than anything visited upon Hit Girl.
Furthermore,nearly every review I've read seems to focus on Hit Girl's language. Yes, she says fuckers. Yes, she says cunts. And then she murders more people onscreen than anyone else. But that part seems to be less important to most of the people screaming foul.
Actress Chloe Moretez has this to say about her character: “Of course, kids shouldn’t be able to see the movie, but just by hearing who she is, she’s a girl taking charge. She stands up for girls. It’s always a boy doing this and it’s always the damsel in distress. This time it’s a girl taking charge and she’s going and doing this and getting it done the right way.”
I can already hear people screaming about "right way," but the thing is - in this movie, we do not question the violence perpetrated by Big Daddy. We do not question the violence perpetrated by Kick Ass. We chuckle and laugh (a la Pulp Fiction) when the bad guys kill other bad guys in bloody spurts of gore.
Even when Hit Girl slices and dices and shoots and carves and mangles her way through bad guys, we're likely to cheer. It isn't until the last fight scenes, when Hit Girl takes a beating from the lead bad guy that we suddenly remember that she is, after all, only a little girl. And then it gets uncomfortable and people are likely to cry foul (even though we likely didn't cry foul ten minutes prior with Kick Ass was teh victim of a worse beating).
Moretez addressed those concerns by saying, “It’s good you felt that way. Because that’s the scene where you’re supposed to see Hit Girl become a little girl, you know, and that’s when you start feeling for Hit Girl. People are always rooting her on to kill people, but now it really shoves the people back into reality.”
Even the man who tries to stand up for her to Big Daddy ends up chuckling when Hit Girl demolishes an entire room of mobsters on camera to try and saver her Daddy and Kick Ass. He laughs, even though he just told her father that she deserves a childhood.
In the end, we see Hit Girl start integrating into a "normal" life. She comes out of hiding. she goes to school. And she clealry handles bullies in her own unique and blunt way.
Was she brainwashed? Probably.
Would she make the same decision anyway? I don't know. We see other characters make the same decision and we don't question their motives. We find them admirable.
Is Hit Girl an easy character to like? Hmmm. Probably not. But, she doesn't care.
The way I see it, is that people love this:
But hate this:
Find this acceptable:
But object when she's the one getting hit (regardless of the fact that she's just murdered about a dozen people).
I love it. I love all the controversy and I love all the hysteria. I love that she manages to somehow point out so many double standards. I love that she has people talking about implied sexism.
Hit Girl battles the critics
Kick-Ass and the Hit-Girl debacle
Does (accidental?) sexism fuel many of the Hit Girl critics?
Forrest for the Trees... How some critics mixed the complexity of Hit Girl, and why some criticisms are rooted in accidental sexism.
But, mostly, I just love Hit Girl.
She's one of seven female characters in the entire movie. The other six are:
1. Kick Ass's mother - who dies in the only scene she's in.
2. Kick Ass's English teacher - who (disgustingly) flirts with him in class after she catches him staring at her boobs
3. Red Mist's mother - who in one scene defers to her husband and in the other remains silent
4. A female druggy - who both talks about her "tits" and runs away from a fight, even though running pretty much guarntees her death at Hit Girl's hands
5. Erika Cho - the love interest's BFF who is seen cringing and being bitchy, then randomly falls for one of the dorky hero's dorky friends
6. Katie Deauxma - the love interest who is at once both cringe worthy and somehow sweet and innocent
Hit Girl is the only female character who breaks rank. She has agency. She has personality. She has grit. She does more saving than she needs to be rescued. She absolutely shines.
Hate her if you must, but at least admit - she's fucking awesome.
Barring for the moment that Mindy is clearly a sociopath, she is also the absolute break out shining character of this movie. And she's an 11 year old girl.
The first scene where we meet her in the movie shows us her father, Big Daddy, training her to "take a bullet" by shooting her in the chest at fairly close range. She has on a bullet proof vest, of course, and while she originally says that she's scared and also complains that she "hates getting punched in the chest," she doesn't really seem overly bothered by it. She also says, rather matter of factly, that she wouldn't be afraid of someone who pulled a gun on her.
And here is where it takes a bizarrely creepy turn. We, as the audience, believe her. From the outside looking in, the idea is so horrific that we can barely stand it, but from the audience POV, the whole scene becomes bizarrely funny and we learn, up front, that Hit Girl aka Mindy is not someone to be fucked with.
Then she negotiates a trip to the bowling alley and a hot fudge sundae for the indignity of taking two more bullets. For all that she clearly knows about guns (including the speed at which a handgun bullet travels), she still comes across as a little girl. She's even wearing a pink jacket (over her kevlar) and a pink hat.
The next time we see her, she's eating the promised ice cream sundae. Her father asks what she wants for her birthday and she eagerly replies that she wants a puppy and a Bratz doll. Nick Cage gives her a look that would be appropriate if she'd grown a second head, and she bursts into very childish giggles. It turns out that what she really wants, and gets, is... well check it out for yourself.
Since Youtube won't embed for some stupid reason, you'll have to click this link. Note the excitement and glee - both very childish reactions - and compare it with the deadly proficiency of her actions.
These two clips set up the dichotomy in Hit Girl's personality. She is at once both innocent and childish, while also being absolutely lethal. Her relationship with her father is open and honest and clearly loving, but also sick and twisted. (Batman fans, pay attention to what Robin should be like if he was trained to be a this sort of crime-fighter.) Her former guardian even accuses Big Daddy of brainwashing her - which he doesn't technically deny, he just says he's made it a game). It's an odd game, though, where she blithely murders a man handcuffed to a car and sitting inside a metal compacter and then says with clear disgust, "What a douche."
Big Daddy sets Hit Girl lose on the bad guys, keeping a watchful sniper eye on her, and the only admonishment we ever hear him give her is, "And Hit Girl always keeps her back where?" "To the wall, Daddy. It won't happen again."
In short, this 11 year old girl stays exactly on par with every one of the male superheroes/villians she is surrounded by. In fact, she's better than most of them. And the truly astonishing thing about it? Movie critics overwhelmingly seem to hate that!
Roger Ebert called the film "morally reprehensible." Kenneth Turan (American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California) writes, "[Hit-Girl’s] language is so astonishingly crude that it has taken people’s attention away from all the killing she does, which is mind-boggling as well." Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman mentions that Hit-Girl’s sadism isn’t much different from Bruce Willis’s in the Die Hard movies.
I call bullshit, because the double standard here is so disgusting it's perverse. Kick Ass himself is still a child. (The movie doesn't make clear how old he is, but he's in high school, can't drive yet and clearly isn't an adult.) The beating he takes through the movie is far worse than anything visited upon Hit Girl.
Furthermore,
Actress Chloe Moretez has this to say about her character: “Of course, kids shouldn’t be able to see the movie, but just by hearing who she is, she’s a girl taking charge. She stands up for girls. It’s always a boy doing this and it’s always the damsel in distress. This time it’s a girl taking charge and she’s going and doing this and getting it done the right way.”
I can already hear people screaming about "right way," but the thing is - in this movie, we do not question the violence perpetrated by Big Daddy. We do not question the violence perpetrated by Kick Ass. We chuckle and laugh (a la Pulp Fiction) when the bad guys kill other bad guys in bloody spurts of gore.
Even when Hit Girl slices and dices and shoots and carves and mangles her way through bad guys, we're likely to cheer. It isn't until the last fight scenes, when Hit Girl takes a beating from the lead bad guy that we suddenly remember that she is, after all, only a little girl. And then it gets uncomfortable and people are likely to cry foul (even though we likely didn't cry foul ten minutes prior with Kick Ass was teh victim of a worse beating).
Moretez addressed those concerns by saying, “It’s good you felt that way. Because that’s the scene where you’re supposed to see Hit Girl become a little girl, you know, and that’s when you start feeling for Hit Girl. People are always rooting her on to kill people, but now it really shoves the people back into reality.”
Even the man who tries to stand up for her to Big Daddy ends up chuckling when Hit Girl demolishes an entire room of mobsters on camera to try and saver her Daddy and Kick Ass. He laughs, even though he just told her father that she deserves a childhood.
In the end, we see Hit Girl start integrating into a "normal" life. She comes out of hiding. she goes to school. And she clealry handles bullies in her own unique and blunt way.
Was she brainwashed? Probably.
Would she make the same decision anyway? I don't know. We see other characters make the same decision and we don't question their motives. We find them admirable.
Is Hit Girl an easy character to like? Hmmm. Probably not. But, she doesn't care.
The way I see it, is that people love this:
But hate this:
Find this acceptable:
But object when she's the one getting hit (regardless of the fact that she's just murdered about a dozen people).
I love it. I love all the controversy and I love all the hysteria. I love that she manages to somehow point out so many double standards. I love that she has people talking about implied sexism.
Hit Girl battles the critics
Kick-Ass and the Hit-Girl debacle
Does (accidental?) sexism fuel many of the Hit Girl critics?
Forrest for the Trees... How some critics mixed the complexity of Hit Girl, and why some criticisms are rooted in accidental sexism.
But, mostly, I just love Hit Girl.
She's one of seven female characters in the entire movie. The other six are:
1. Kick Ass's mother - who dies in the only scene she's in.
2. Kick Ass's English teacher - who (disgustingly) flirts with him in class after she catches him staring at her boobs
3. Red Mist's mother - who in one scene defers to her husband and in the other remains silent
4. A female druggy - who both talks about her "tits" and runs away from a fight, even though running pretty much guarntees her death at Hit Girl's hands
5. Erika Cho - the love interest's BFF who is seen cringing and being bitchy, then randomly falls for one of the dorky hero's dorky friends
6. Katie Deauxma - the love interest who is at once both cringe worthy and somehow sweet and innocent
Hit Girl is the only female character who breaks rank. She has agency. She has personality. She has grit. She does more saving than she needs to be rescued. She absolutely shines.
Hate her if you must, but at least admit - she's fucking awesome.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-06 06:47 pm (UTC)I agree that the more objectionable photo is the schoolgirl with gun fetishy one--that's classic fanservice. Blargh.
The fact that she's the only female with any real agency, as you indicate, is indeed a point in her corner! It's weird that that strikes me as a kind of ageism, though? You know, that the only time a girl CAN be free or mostly free from the whole burden of gender is when she's literally PRE pubescent!
The only thing that bothers me about the trailer, and this will show how loopy I am, is that there's no way a child would be able to handle the recoil of those guns that easily. The language didn't bother me, the death didn't, but yeah. A kid firing a .45 without any sort of recoil shock--that shatters my suspension of disbelief! :P
Thanks for an intriguing read! I'll definitely keep your thoughts in mind when I see this film!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-06 07:23 pm (UTC)As for the recoil... there are a few things in there that I question about what, physically, any of the characters could do. But, since we see Big Daddy going out of his way to teach her how to handle herself, I can only assume she's had so much practice with guns that she knows how to anticipate and react for recoil. Or something! *lol*
Thanks for reading. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 02:06 am (UTC)I wonder if that perception comes because she's the only character really free of "sex." All of the other characters are at least (impliedly if not actually) sexually active. Even the other women.
That's very interesting to think about.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-06 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 02:22 am (UTC)YES!
So much awesome here.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 12:59 am (UTC)I found that Kick-Ass made me uncomfortable, but for me it was actually seeing Hit Girl killing people that bothered. I think maybe the beginning of the film made me want to take the violence more seriously, so I was taken aback when it turned out the movie wanted me to cheer this stuff on. Like - you have this extremely disturbed child and I'm supposed to be amused? And that kind of cast a pall over all the violence.
But then, I couldn't say that that wasn't intentional on the part of the filmmakers. Just... I felt like the people around me watching were all like, this is awesome, and I was sitting there all squirmy. Which I don't think is a bad response to have to something, because I like things that make me squirm. But it didn't seem like what they were going for.
I kind of want fic dealing with what actually happens when Mindy starts school, because the idea is kind of terrifying. Awesome and terrifying. Or more 'charming' family scenes :) She was definitely the most interesting character in the movie.
A friend of mine mentioned that he'd seen critiques talking about how Hit Girl's character was sexualised, and just being like... no. And that that's a character that usually would be, so people are reading that over how she's actually presented? Which is creepy in itself. But yeah, it's so unusual for that kick ass female character not to be sexualised, for there to be more going on for her. & I guess I agree with
Um, sorry for going all TL;DR in your journal! The whole discussion is fascinating, thanks for writing :)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 02:33 am (UTC)but for me it was actually seeing Hit Girl killing people that bothered
Oh, I definitely think it was supposed to bother you. I would agree though that most people found it awesome instead of disturbing.
From what I can see, no one questions that:
1) Hit Girl was brainwashed
2) Big Daddy was abusive
3) Hit Girl is a sociopath
All of those things are very disturbing. But when we see Hit Girl as Mindy, I don't think those things come out very well, because we really end up liking this child. And we don't want her to get hurt, so we cheer her on even when she's doing things that are kind of awful.
The worst part for me was the man in the car crusher. That was just... terrifying, actually.
I kind of want fic dealing with what actually happens when Mindy starts school, because the idea is kind of terrifying. Awesome and terrifying. Or more 'charming' family scenes :) She was definitely the most interesting character in the movie.
God, yes. (I also want fic where she meets Wolverine from the X-men, and he's disturbed by her. B/c nothing disturbs him and he's trained young girls to be brutal fighters, just not... that brutal.)
A friend of mine mentioned that he'd seen critiques talking about how Hit Girl's character was sexualised, and just being like... no. And that that's a character that usually would be, so people are reading that over how she's actually presented?
You know, I didn't get "sex" from her at all (thank all that is holy). I've seen some discussion about how she wasn't sexualized, but I've not seen anything suggesting otherwise. I'd actually be really interested in reading that sort of critique.
I mentioned in a comment above to Hellkitty that I actually think Hit Girl is the only character who isn't sexualized. She reads to me like an 11 year old in that regard. In so many others, she doesn't seem at all childlike, but she didn't seem like an adult either.
it's so unusual for that kick ass female character not to be sexualised
I hadn't really thought about this before, but you're right. And it was damned refreshing!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-07 05:26 am (UTC)She comes across quite charmingly, doesn't she? And because she and her father do clearly love each other, it's easier not to be disturbed.
It's not like the bad guys weren't excruciatingly awful too, so I guess when everyone's engaged in ultra-violence, it's okay. :\
The worst part for me was the man in the car crusher.
I'm sorry it pops up so often I can say this, but somehow, people getting crushed is always the worst D:
I also want fic where she meets Wolverine from the X-men, and he's disturbed by her. B/c nothing disturbs him and he's trained young girls to be brutal fighters, just not... that brutal.
Oh, yes. I'd read the hell out of that.
It's not like she just been trained to defend herself, or to take an enemy out - she's been trained to kill them dead. No leaving them for the criminal justice system to deal with...
Though saying that, it occurs to me there's actually a thing with young boy characters who kill people 'innocently', because otherwise that person could always hurt them again... I'm thinking like in Ender's Game, but I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere. And somehow I'm sure it never generates the same moral outrage.
I'd actually be really interested in reading that sort of critique.
I might have to ask him what he was actually reading, because it's not something I've stumbled across either. Hmm.
In so many others, she doesn't seem at all childlike, but she didn't seem like an adult either.
Yeah - you believed she was a child still, even if you hate the thought of a child going around killing people. She didn't seem like a grown-up played by a child, or older than her years or anything... she just seemed like the product of her upbringing. Her scary, scary upbringing.