Baby Doll and the steampunk zombie Nazis: 9 notes on Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch

1) In Sucker Punch, women in militarized Sailor Moon outfits jump from a helicopter onto an exploding train as it rushes towards an Oz-like city at night. In another scene, Baby Doll twirls in the air and attacks a 30 foot tall Samurai with her sword. Is this third wave post-Madonna feminism in action?

2) When one reads Zack Snyder's promotional comments, one could think so. The March 25th issue of Entertainment Weekly defends the film thus: "Sucker Punch may look like it gets its kicks from women in titillating getups, but Snyder's intention was to explore female objectification. Baby Doll's look is supposed to be `the personification of innocence and vulnerability,' causing the skeevy male characters to target and underestimate her. `The women take control of the sexual trappings foisted upon them, even turn them into weapons,' says Snyder. `The challenge was to confront the concept of the exploitation of women without creative exploitative imagery.'" ---Is Snyder's claim valid or just marketing spin?

3) Except for Scott Glenn, who wisely plays "Wise Man," there are only skeevy male characters in Sucker Punch. Be it an obese cook, a twisted evil stepfather, Jon Hamm as the lobotomizing doctor/high roller, Oscar Isaac as Blue Jones (the murderous pimp who runs the insane asylum), or the grotesque greasy-haired lecherous mayor, every male figure is an extreme obvious creep. As a guy watching Sucker Punch, I felt demeaned. Even in their scanty outfits, the female characters can at least kick butt.

4) Every time Baby Doll is supposed to dance for the men, the film cuts to one of her dreams of military conquest where she kills extra tall Samurai, steampunk zombie Nazis, dragons, killer robots, etc. Apparently, the dance scenes were shot but then deleted except for one inserted into the end credits (but I had left the theater by then).

Meanwhile, characters who watch the dances swoon and look agog, applauding rapturously after each one (we see that). It seemed strange for a film to continually praise scenes that it just skipped over. On the other hand, it seems very American to cut out erotic dance and substitute it with PG-13 violence.

5) Speaking of PG-13 violence, the fantasy-sequence villains of Sucker Punch (the aforementioned tall Samurai, steampunk zombie Nazis, dragons, and killer robots, etc.) are all rendered cartoonish by their obvious lack of humanity. We can't see blood because then the violence would merit an R rating, so the villains sprout flashes of light when wounded, or leak gas, or crumple into piles of CGI metal on a speeding elevated train. It makes all of Baby Doll's and Sweet Pea's and Rocket's (etc.) intensive fighting techniques a little silly. For more about the sinister effects of the MPAA on the film, check out George Russell's article.

6) I still wonder about the fact that both Abbie Cornish (who is amazing in Bright Star) and Jena Malone (of Donnie Darko) have major roles in this movie. As Melissa Silverstein wrote: "The one thought that kept coming into my mind was, what the hell is Abbie Cornish doing in this film?" Still, Abbie defends her choice:

“Throughout my life I had done different forms of martial arts. My mum was the Australian National Karate Champion and I’d learned Capoeira in Brazil. I danced as a teenager, I grew up on a farm, I rode motor bikes, horses…I used to run a lot just out in the country with my dog, so the idea of doing this film was amazing,” Cornish said. “Someone once asked me if you could play any character in a film what would it be, and the first thing that came to my mind was to play ‘The Godfather.’ Imagine that, that would be awesome. Of course there are so many roles that are male roles that as an actor I would love to explore, I would love to play, and then when you get a female role that explores some of those things and you get to be physical, it’s so incredible.”

7) Snyder mentioned somewhere that he drew inspiration from Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when writing Sucker Punch, and (spoiler alert) the ending of the film certainly bears that out. While one would think that Baby Doll would be the opposite of Randle McMurphy, she isn't. She turns out to be a doll-like variation. Oddly, Sweet Pea's story concludes much like Chief Bromden's.

8) When I first saw the teaser trailer for Sucker Punch way back in July 29, 2010, the movie looked intriguing. Ever since, with every new trailer and marketing tool, it has been steadily becoming more banal. When I learned of the five objects that Baby Doll searches for, I couldn't help thinking of every other quest movie that uses the same device.

9) In a later trailer, as soon as I heard Scott Glenn say "Begin your journey. It will set you free," I groaned. When I watched the film, I enjoyed the fight scenes, the random bombed out cathedral, the trenches, and the burning zeppelins, but I missed the music of the trailers (for instance, Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks") in comparison to pallid cover songs ("Go Ask Alice") on the film's ponderous soundtrack. I still prefer the rapid-flash incongruous imagery of the trailer to the compromised finished product. Sucker Punch seems better-suited as a logic-free dream vision than a story loaded down with a point and a plot.