Post by leunas on Jan 30, 2007 16:05:04 GMT -5
I mentioned the other day I watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, for the first time since the film was in the theaters.
Square ain’t exactly progressive in its race and gender roles, but it was still disturbing to see Hollywood slapped all over Final Fantasy’s more or less deep themes. And with it came all that bull5h1t of a mainstream, capitalist narrative. Like sexism. And racism.
Aki is a doctor. She has her own spaceship. She saves the planet. So she’s supposed to be the filmmakers’ perfect woman (remember when she was in Maxim?), but having her PhD and knowing how to pilot a ship into space are pretty cool, even if its men deciding what makes a woman perfect. Like there is such a thing.
What did I remember about Aki after all these years? That she is a Mary Sue. (It sucks Mary Sues are almost all we get as female leads, but also sucks because that label, in a way, invalidates them as legitimate characters.) I remember the detail of her hair, her pores, her bikini picture. That in the film her boyfriend dies to save her. Stuff that we always hear about women: their looks, their scandals, their romances. Not their mental or physical accomplishments, but their abilities to look good and be somebody’s girlfriend.
www.lake-desire.com/newgameplus/index.php/archives/203
Square ain’t exactly progressive in its race and gender roles, but it was still disturbing to see Hollywood slapped all over Final Fantasy’s more or less deep themes. And with it came all that bull5h1t of a mainstream, capitalist narrative. Like sexism. And racism.
Aki is a doctor. She has her own spaceship. She saves the planet. So she’s supposed to be the filmmakers’ perfect woman (remember when she was in Maxim?), but having her PhD and knowing how to pilot a ship into space are pretty cool, even if its men deciding what makes a woman perfect. Like there is such a thing.
What did I remember about Aki after all these years? That she is a Mary Sue. (It sucks Mary Sues are almost all we get as female leads, but also sucks because that label, in a way, invalidates them as legitimate characters.) I remember the detail of her hair, her pores, her bikini picture. That in the film her boyfriend dies to save her. Stuff that we always hear about women: their looks, their scandals, their romances. Not their mental or physical accomplishments, but their abilities to look good and be somebody’s girlfriend.
www.lake-desire.com/newgameplus/index.php/archives/203