Is ‘Naked’ Misogynistic?
…And if so, is that bad?
Help me here.
I’m trying to figure out how these new postmodern cultural critiques
can have any helpful aspect to them.
I was impressed by the movie, a bit stunned. Some awesome stuff.
I mentioned it to some folks (incl a PhD anthro candidate) and they
said it was something but also misogynistic. Someone else said that
their lesbian girlfriend who was on her highhorse especially at the
time concluded it to be M. So she obviously knew what she was
talking about. My pal let her decide for him because it seems that’s
what a good feminist does to put power where it belongs or something.
It all clearly meant that Naked was *bad evil* in some way. Not
showing it but being it. But they didn’t say how. It made them kind of superior,
it was a judgement, and it had the effect of dismissing the movie.
In fact, that was the signal that chat about it was over. It was the
conclusive remark beyond which nothing else could be said. Hmmm,
I thought. How does this work? How are chips played and cashed
and how do trumps like this work?
Hateful of women… I thought it showed realistic characters in tough
pitiful spots, largely of their own making. I thought it was emphatically
evenhanded all around. Excrutiating. So why single out women for
some kind of special protection or consideration from the plot or fate
or whatever made folks miserable in this movie. Everyone in the movie was
miserable and searching for love, at least with a small fraction of their
consciousness. Some characters were perhaps more tormented than others.
I suppose you could say there were some weak women and cruel men.
Suffering men. Johnny. Acid wit. I can’t forget the crazed Scotsman either.
I thought it was a realistic movie. Gritty. Pushy. Fresh’n’awful.
Wallowing isn’t fun. But there was a strong undercurrent of hope
and humanity to go with the desperation.
ANYWAY! When someone can dismiss a movie as being M, it seems
to me to mean that A.) the director was lying somewhere and the
critic has found it out; that the characters are not realistic, that
they are being dishonest (written to be); that there is a secret agenda,
B.) more rarely, that the movie is a political tract outlining a movement to
keep women down—this would be the OVERT M movie; a propaganda or
didactic piece, C.) that the movie would be better if certain things
were fixed—that is, if the M aspects were removed. The M aspects
taint the movie, remove them and the movie is fixed perhaps.
Someone who says a movie is M isn’t saying that it’s all bad.
Fix the bad parts and they seem to say it would be good.
I would think that a movie could be called M and any number of
other ism’s depending on the characters and that this could be
good. People are this way, show it. Make art with it. The truth
will out. It will then be helpful. Help people to see. Covering it
up is what causes trouble. If you’re lying about something you
can’t claim it as a legitimate plot device can you? But if you’re
up front, I’d think you could use anything. Merit decides if you
were right, if the movie is good. This is your first grade art lesson.
To do anything else would be propaganda, dishonest in a way that
any kid would wonder what you were up to.
Can a movie be M or racist without the characters being that way?
Obviously it’s fine to have stories about racist or ‘ist’ characters,
but it seems like if it’s mishandled in certain ways then the whole
movie gets a label. Maybe when the bad guy wins? ???
That never happens? Isn’t a legit plot? Needs pickets and protests?
So how could N have been made in a way that wasn’t M?
You’ve got all your characters and they’re like they are,
in the same situations, now make N not M. Enlighten it.
How could our lesbian have fixed N? This seems implicit
in such a criticism. —When I say a movie sucked coz it
had gratuitous everything, I mean that if it was all removed,
then it wouldn’t have sucked so bad. Right?
Also it seems that just calling it M was enuf to give it a
taint. But oddly the taint only infected that one movie. You’d
think the director’s secret agenda would result in all his work
being tossed. Also the taint effect was strange in that it was
something that for some reason adults couldn’t be expected to
handle. It had to be called out. Warned about, in case you
couldn’t take it. Not that it was a hard movie, but that it was M.
I recall one remark someone briefly made about why N as an M
movie was bad. It was phrased postmodernistically, but it was
something to the effect that the M was bad “because it was
stated in a way in which there could be no reply”. But the chat
about this movie stopped there so I couldn’t get clear about what
she meant. I thought that line might’ve held a kernel of what
postmodernists are up to. But it didn’t go anywhere to explain
how movies could be any different (which movie CAN you argue
with?).
Help?
ls@bs.fetching.com wrote in reply:
[ ]
> it is perfectly fine to have a character in a film that is misogynist
> as long as the character isn’t praised for their actions. []
Thank you for your reply. It makes sense and I agree with it,
but for the above. More info needed. How does one evaluate
this praise for a wicked character? Obviously, many wicked
characters will win out in the end, triumph over good characters,
etc., in any realistic movie. What’s an example of ‘bad’ praise?
I.e., a misogynist character being praised for their behavior?
By the director? By what happens to him? How would that look?
In ‘Naked’ I recall that the brilliantly loathesome Jeremy walks out
unscathed, in a manner, not that he wasn’t damned in a way also.
I find it hard to imagine how any movie could take away the viewer’s
power of decision. If it’s an overt propaganda/didactic movie one
could just disagree. Examples would help. [See previous posts from
thread “Naked’ misogynistic? How? What’s that mean?” for more background.]
