Daaaamn, my 14 yo self feels SO vindicated with this essay, because yes, wanting to be hot and girly is not mutually exclusive with kicking ass, while being powerful is not mutually exclusive with bonding and cooperating with other women. You can want and have all of them, god damn it.
Yeah I wish I had realized I could like makeup AND lifting weights AND wearing skirts AND grunt. It doesn’t need to be a choice lmao. 14 year old me is shook
To me, Sucker Punch is about maladaptive daydreaming. Are the sailor suit action sequences "feminist"? Not really, but in all my fantasies as a child/ teen post-sexual assault, I would inhabit the same kind of cartoonish avatar in my mind's eye. I'm also reminded of Lady Gaga's Artpop-- her meditation on male gaze vs empowerment vs trauma. "You can't use my mind, but do what you want with my body." It's about coping, not being a perfect feminist.
Yeah, I feel like the film has a lot to say about disassociating and self numbing in the face of trauma and learned helplessness. I always took the brothel scenes as a way to romanticise being objectified and assaulted. It takes an inherently horrifying and inescapable situation and reframes it as something that can be rationalised as semi-empowering. Being forced into a brothel isn't empowering, but purposely seducing someone is more empowering than being pursued by a predator you can not escape from. To me, its very clear that the levels of unreality are coping mechanisms, and the overuse of the anime fight scenes proves how little the characters want to experience their real life. I don't think Sucker Punch is a fantastic movie, but I still love it because I feel like it "gets it", even if the execution is flawed.
besides it being my gay awakening very relatable with the sa experiences leading to maladaptive day dreaming as well. always thought it was a relation to dissociation and cluster personalities.
@strawberrylime33 Well, first I should clarify that there's a difference between coping via daydream, and actual clinical maladaptive daydreaming (which is considered a negative symptom or disorder. Similar to an addiction) I'm not a mental health professional so just take what I say with a grain of salt. I use the term a bit loosely, and maybe I shouldn't. But I feel like the line between maladaptive and normal daydreams can be blurry. But anyway. For numerous reasons when I was SA'd around the age of 6, I felt too ashamed/unsafe to tell anyone what happened to me, and I wouldn't until I left home for college. In the meantime, I still had feelings to process. For me that meant I latched on to different fictional characters. I'd write these melodramatic, romantic storylines in my head about me and the character. In many of my daydreams, I was a woman forced into some form of sexual slavery, and the character I liked would come in to rescue me and be my true love. Although sometimes it was just a cooler, more confident version of me going on the same adventure alongside the characters of a story... but it usually morphed into some exploration of sexual themes at an age that that was probably not so normal. I was escaping in the one way I could, in my mind. I could be emotional there, and create a happy ending. That's why it relates to Artpop to me. Specifically Do What U Want. The idea that you may not have control over what happened to you, you may not have the tools to heal yet, you may be trapped in an unsafe home. But no one can control what you do in your head. That little bit of freedom can keep you alive until it's safe to come back to real life. I say it's not feminist, because these fantasies are often really cringey and unrefined and raw and embarrassing to explain to others. In my fantasies I was never an empowered woman, because that wasn't even an option to my knowledge. I would infantilize myself, fetishize myself, hold myself and the characters to unrealistic or harmful standards. What feels cathartic to a person in their specific life circumstances doesn't necessarily translate to a strong feminist message in a movie. Like, I think of Babydoll's sailor suit all the time because it IS a male gaze fetish costume with gross undertones. But when Sucker Punch was in theaters, I was a teenager obsessed with anime and I just thought sailor suits were cool as hell. I didn't think about the symbolism of a school girl... I just thought it looked badass. I don't know if Zack Snyder thought about it that deeply but it works so well for me because it reminds me of how indulgent and problematic fantasy can be.
@@hannah-6080 Political movements like Feminism should be kept as far away from mental health issues as possible in my own opinion. Unless a hospital is about to be closed down due to lack of funds or is nortorious for abuse politics should be irrelevant. Too many people are using keyboard activism as an alternative to therapy and its not helping them and is harming activism. The focus on own voices activism works for class and race but is a disaster when traumatised people are involved unless you're one of the few spokespersons who went through years of therapy before starting to share anything in public. Sailor suits are interesting since they're one of the clearest overlaps between school and miilitary uniforms but that gets missed by most western anime fans. I remember reading a confused anime fan in the 2000s who saw a male teacher in a sailor collar and thought he was a crossdresser. Babydoll has a pinup costume that's not always the same thing as a fetish one. There's a joke in the anime He is My Master's final episode where two rich asshole maid fetishists compete to draw the most fetishistic uniforms possibly and the winner's secret forbidden weapon is a normal maid uniform.
I absolutely made Sucker Punch my personality when I was a wee little black girl. Something about the escapism of a bleak world into the fantasy of being a badass and looking pretty in it, just hit me a sorta way. Now as an adult, I do understand that sometimes the problems of that film are harder to ignore. But I will not lie, the train sequence breaking between the layers of reality still gives me goosebumps.
as a trans woman who didn't know it at the time - same! Something drew me in so much to that movie, it held such a fascination over me and I think it was in some way a justification for me to express some femininity / feminine desires through a "masculine" and male gazey action movie...
It definitely is trying to say a lot, I think where it misses the mark is that Snyder doesn’t completely understand the actual points he’s making. Like, he gets that the points are there to be made, he’s just not quite sure what to do with them. But for the record, Sucker Punch one of my all-time favorite films. It’s far from perfect, but I like that it at least tried to do new things and say something. And it really does have a fantastic cast.
I very much love this movie. It's downfall was certainly its incohesive narrative and the fact certain scenes were cut are only in the Director's Cut, meaning some crucial things about the story wasn't available theatrically.
I'm an incest/csa survivor. I remember sitting in the theater to watch this movie with my family at age 11. It was both thrilling and terrifying. It kind of felt like the movie was reading my mind-- i was an anime lover (naruto, bleach, sailor moon) and would go into DEEP dissociative fantasies in anime worlds as well as harry potter, percy jackson, etc. In my fantasies I would manage to escape or fight my abuser/the story's villain. I rewatched the movie recently after remembering how much of an impact it had on me as a kid. I guess part of what was so weird about watching this movie as an uncool almost-middle schooler was that it gave me such a weird feeling of both narcissism and shame. like, it kind of felt like the movie was about me but it was about this aspect of me (my sexuality/sexual abuse) that had to stay secret. And, that I was so deeply ashamed of. There was actually a ton of weird synchronicity that i wont get into details on cuz i don't wanna feed the creeps... but I guess being part of an abuser's fantasy and watching a sort of male fantasy on screen will have similar elements. Then the end of the movie, well, idk how others read it but to me i took the message as: babydoll is too fucked up to live, so she gives someone else the chance. definitely messed me up... my abuser died just a month later and even though that most likely literally saved my life I felt a lot of survivor's guilt. But I can't say i hate the movie--- i think it was pretty thoughtless but in a way that allowed it to honestly access this cultural fantasy (that is influenced by and influences reality) and just slap it onscreen without much alteration. and there is value, and a TON to analyze, in that direct line to society's unconscious. this was also the first time i had ever seen a canonical (or at least HEAVILY implied??) incest survivor onscreen, and it was honestly so exciting just to have confirmation that this thing existed at all? or was 'normal' on some level? As much as I am all for critique and scrutiny of work portraying csa/ sexual violence in general I don't want that critique to stop work getting made--even if that work is imperfect, this is a topic that is so rarely openly talked about and especially in a way where people are actually honest about their emotions/desires/fantasies. (poor things debate comes to mind). I want better art on this topic but also just more, yk?
I think that's one of the reasons I love the movie so much, is because it was unafraid to tackle some really difficult topics and shine a light on things like incest, SA, and trauma, that a lot of people go through but are often viewed as taboo to talk about or explore in any meaningful way.
I'm trying to write a screenplay about processing childhood sexual shame that doesn't actually depict any abuse and just has metaphorical ghosts and demons and its hard to know if I'm wasting my time or not. There's a strong conflict between slasher movie logic where characters have to die to build tension and themes of survival and I'm close to the point of just letting everyone but the characters who have to die at the start to set some of the trauma off live no matter how 'soft' it seems I'm being as a writer. Mostly I just want to tell people to let queer neurodivergeant people in their late teens be confused and weird and to stop putting more pressure on them to do anything but try and live. I don't think Babydoll chooses to sacrifice herself for any reason other than a desire to pick the option that will make her existance matter most out of the set of terrible choices handed to her. I haven't been able to force myself to watch the whole film since I picked up some pre=release promotional postcards for it a few months before dropping out of film school and swearing off anything cinema related for several years but its clearly supposed to be a heroic tradgedy not just misery porn.
This is what's actually so great about Sucker Punch, that despite some of its flaws, actually tackles great character study and psychology, as well as commentary on heroism and sacrifice. And all depicted by women❤ Babydoll's self-sacrifice is very much a subversion of what an Idealized Hero is, even today! And Sweet Pea's final words as the only survivor gives us an uncomfortable truth about the sacrifices real heroes do. And perhaps mostly by women. So many people don't like discomforting stories and I get that, but it's disturbing even to me how so many who don't want uncomfortable stories to censor it, or even downright marginalize painful stories. I love Sucker Punch for acknowledging pain and hope. I hope I wasn't being too outspoken. This film is imperfect but it's unafraid of being so out-of-the-box box and actually helping people reclaim pain.
@@AC-dk4fp this is interesting. i wonder if you could subvert some of the messaging around death by killing off characters the audience doesn't necessarily expect to die (ie. not the minority characters) or make the deaths not fall into the classic tropes of martyrdom/heroism/tragedy-porn, and feel more wasteful/open ended/ambiguous the way death so often does in real life? Have you ever seen the horror movie Green Room? It's super scary but grounded in realism, so v different from your story, but it comes to mind as a film that really subverts your expectations of who will live and die in a really interesting way. The deaths don't feel driven by plot/tropes, they feel random and unpredictable which is super scary!
@@evan007rose Subverting expectations is pretty normal for postmodern slashers, I just don't care because I don't like the originals either. I had the token black girl just 'nope' out of the story and live happily ever after in a different country instead. I just don't think letting worries about potential thematic criticism shape the story is that great of an idea. If you must reply to pre-existing critique you should choose a single one to reply to not try and weave a complicated narrative around avoiding pitfalls. You have to find a story to tell not just comment on other ones. My heroine has skin infection issues and wears concealing clothing because of it. This is a response to complaints about women having to get naked to be in films but I'm trying to tell a story that just happens to play into that and other stigmatised health issues. If anything the right conclusion from watching it would be that being too worried about showing skin is kind of pathological. She still has a sexy makeover at the end just one that doesn't involve showing any more skin and is in kind of mediocre to bad taste and not her actual future fashion direction.
I strongly believe that instead of remaking films that were already good, we should just remake movies that failed but had great ideas. Zack is a hack but he takes risks and i respect that!
Agree!! Suckerpunch was a fantastic looking movie with interesting ideas all folded into a hot mess. I really wanted to love it, but it missed a few key points for me.
I'd like to add that it'd be cool if some of these stories were tried as video games and not just movies when people consider remakes. We get games made into movies, but seeing it in reverse for remakes has so much potential.
I think one of the unapplauded strengths of Sucker Punch is how well it lends itself to analysis in a way many modern action films don't. the timeline of the film is also interesting as it's hinted that the lobotomy has already happened or is currently happening and the asylum level is also a fantasy.
Yes. If we try to literally just pinpoint the events logically, it might not make sense. But the film is heavily surreal anyway. It's the impact of the events that matters in the end. However, yeah, I feel like it was either masking some of the scripts' weaknesses or incohesive storyline.
Sucker Punch was a critique on the pseudo-feminism of the "Grrl Power" movement. These women were trapped in a system and sexually abused by men (The bordello layer was there to abstract the sexual abuse they suffered), and the women seemed to gain the upper hand by turning this exploitation into a powerful dance that could dazzle and control their abusers by using the male gaze against them. However, in the end, this fails because it ultimately reinforces patriarchial power relations. The message is that the patriarchy can't be defeated using the tools of the patriarchy. Frustratingly, the movie does not make this as clear as it should because at release, it insisted on giving Babydoll a happy ending. In the original, deleted ending (I know, I know), Babydoll meets the high roller, who is basically a unicorn who explains that he will never get what he really wants, which is ALL of her. He's acknowledging that the patriarchy is a barrier to genuone connection between men and women, and that her very liberation would put her out of his reach. Then the hammer is dropped and the lobotomy is complete. I LOVED this movie, but I get why others dont.
Oh yes. And personally love your critique/analysis. I was more so on the perspective of the subversion of a Hero's Journey and even as a commentary on the Idealized Hero/ine. That Babydoll's heroism ultimately leads to self-sacrifice, which itself is a noble thing and that her actions are felt and remembered, but also has morbid consequences for her. A pyrrhic victory perhaps..
That happy ending is false as hell, the same wiseman from the dreams takes her in a barren wasteland toward a sign that says paradise. Which was what they called the lobotomy. It’s all tragic. And the brothel masking the SA… that was also tragic coping strategies, I didn’t see power in that, I thought it genius that they could find power in it. But like you said. Still capitulating to patriarchy. Or power structures
This is so on point for how I feel about it. I am still frustrated by the missed opportunities, but I can still like it for the things it did well! Soundtrack is killer
@@aazhieIt's like half a dozen amazing music videos or AMVs with weak and confusing connective tissue. Same how in Watchmen the musical montages are arguably the best parts of the film.
This film is a cult classic! And there are ABSOLUTELY many valid points, and some I think even something flies past Snyder and Snyder fans, and so many of these critics. And personally love Emily Browning.
I experienced trauma-induced dissociation when I was a teenager. I love this movie because I've always felt like it addresses how dissociation can occur in layers and how trauma can affect and skew a person's perspective of the world and how things work. The way that I've always seen the layers is: Layer 1 is reality, Layer 2 is the baseline dissociation (Her stepfather selling her to a brothel is less frightening than being sent to an asylum where she's being SA'd because in the brothel world she would have some modicum of control --and freedom to express hypersexuality, whereas in reality she has no control), Layer 3 is the traumatic event dissociation (moments where she is in therapy sessions and having to confront her traumas and/or actual moments of being physically assaulted, where her mind takes her even deeper to protect itself). And like, fantasizing that you're sexy, and capable, and badass is really just par for the course in terms of dissociation, because your mind applies those things that you aspire for to your fantasies. And thank you so much for your perspective on this film, as well. I don't really think this movie receives enough of the credit it deserves. It's possible that my impression of it is heavily influenced by my own perspective and experiences, that I don't see what other people consider as "flaws" to be actual flaws. It's not perfect, sure, but it's honestly one of the best thought-out movies I have seen on the subject, and it's surprising to have been created by a man.
Exactly. i agree with all you mentioned. Also want to add that the "reality" level of her perception is also skewed as she sees characters (the other girls) that dont exist. And we can't know for sure how many of the incidents of "the real world" are actually real and happened as she experienced. Even the whole plot could be purely imagined as the movie starts by theatre curtains. Such a complicated, unique movie ❤
Tbh I actually never found sucker punch “sexy” the way ppl claimed it was. Even the brothel parts to me always felt ominous threatening and sad. It was the first pg 13 movie I ever saw (at age 9, with a friend) and it was also the first time I heard about what a lobotomy was… I didn’t sleep for a week after that lol
Same. Also tldr😢 I also never felt that, despite the sexy costumes....nothing about their postures, or lighting or viewing of their clothes, if there was any, was even objectifying! It was one of the FEW films that have sexy clothes but not once, not even Babydoll's miniskirt, was sexy or objectified. Emily Browning's "underwear" are black sport shorts or black spandex that covered her well. No "pantyshots", not even when she's flying! The camera captures her action, NOT what's under her! All throughout the action sequences she has! Amber's revealing pants aren't SEEN much in the Fantasy Realms. It's only on some promotional posters that I realized what even her soldier outfit was. And it's mostly because she's inside a robot. Both Sweet Pea and Blondie's Fantasy Realm outfits aren't even gratuitous. Heck Blondie's outfit, despite its open chest, is barely anything I can see, personally, because it's so black (all of their outfits in the Fantasy Realm are dark, grayish and black, and because of the dark cinematography on this Realm, it sometimes is camouflage). Like Blondie's "cleavages" aren't even pushed up😅 Like sorry for describing. But really, she's also wearing bullets around her with a giant machine gun, she's so badass. Sweet Pea has revealing thighs, but she also has a long cape and she has a lot of badass melee combat sequences! And her overprotective side for Rocket are always even more badass! Those scenes are highlighted about her, than anything about her clothing. And Rocket's Fantasy outfit is a goth dark nurse! And whenever she's posing, it's actually realistic posing like soldiers on standby! And she even has the best slow-mo scene of getting punched, only for her older sister to avenge her! Even the Brothel Realm, the camera captures them as characters! No close ups on their skin. Not even the Director's Cut Bordello Dance was gratuitous on depicting them! Their dances are so short and stylized, and not once was their a focus on their body parts! The Bordello Dance also depicts what else was happening, besides onstage. Backstage hubbub, like Babydoll doing chores and questionable men as customers, color the world of the Brothel Realm. The Bordello Dance scene really is a glimpse at Snyder's work as a cinematographer and a work of visual storytelling. The only time it was "sexy" was Amber's legs and high heels, as she is about to sit on the Mayor (the guy with a cigar). But after that, Amber is seen doing her crucial part. No more sexy stuff. And the MOST important part about the film NOT objectifying the female characters, was the fact Babydoll's Sexy Dance, as they transition to the Fantasy Realm, is NEVER shown at all. It may have been seen by the characters and by the men, but to us the audience, it's up for imagination. Like Babydoll's Fantasy Realm is.
@@CelesteLunaRael Back in the day MovieBob's reading was that the action sequence IS the sexy dance and its an ironic commentary on the audience's objectification of action heroines. He is MovieBob so he's probably wrong but he was one of the film's first defenders in video form.
@@AC-dk4fp I'm not objecting! The fact we don't see Babydoll's raw dance but instead her imagination, her Fantasy Realm, which she and many of us do want to come true, is the one shown to us. It's subverting what was always being depicted as "empowering", and even today. Her raw dance is not shown is blatant in its stance for not objectifying Babydoll. And instead gives us a fantastical representation of what could've been, and still none of the heroines are sexualized or objectified either. If anything, the lack of Babydoll's raw dance is respectful towards her. Whilst the Fantasy Realm is everything that's just so fantastical and dark and ridiculous!
@@AC-dk4fp I also just want to add sory The fact that when Babydoll is about to do her Sexy Dance, this time it's her own doing and weaponizing it. The morbid implications of how she has to do what's necessary under scrutiny, and yet finding a dark power and agency from it, is a dark lesson that flies over a lot of people's heads. I love the way the camera pans closer and closer to Babydoll's eyes, and also focuses on objects, some are foreshadowed for future events. And her expression is of concentration.
i actually feel like the “sexy” outfits are a great counterpoint to the uncomfortable feelings of the abstracted reality they’re facing. it does make everything feel worse and more ominous in like a “maybe dress up will help me cope with the trauma i’m experiencing” kind of way which absolutely gives me the ick in a good way (also in an unfortunately relatable way😔).
I've battled mental illness my entire life, and Sucker Punch was my first glimpse into what women like me faced in the 50s and 60s. The layers and fight scenes allowed me to not be overwhelmed by the despair of the reality. In fact it left me feeling empowered enough that I can confront this part of history with a somewhat healthy detachment I would otherwise lack.
I'm sorry to hear that. But at the same time, Sucker Punch truly has powerful themes. Despite some of its flawed writing, it had themes and situations that acknowledges pain and hope. And that's what's so great about them
Sucker Punch was a movie I loved immediately. I truly got it within my first two watches and even more as I talked to my friends who understood the movie as well. I was too young to have seen it in theaters, but I watched it ab six years ago and I’ve been a Sucker Punch apologist ever since. I truly adored the casting, the set and costume design, the music- everything drew me in and the characters & story just took me the rest of the way. I completely understand the criticism and why it failed when was released. I personally regard Sucker Punch in a similar way of Jennifer’s Body, where it was marketed to the wrong audience (pre-teen & teenage boys) and is now beginning to get more of the respect it deserves in the mainstream as the right audience is finding it (and admitting to liking it). Again, a lot of the criticism of the film is very valid, especially bc of its limitations as a film made by a man who loves his convoluted arcs. That being said, I love it!
I think average people do enjoy intellectualism in film, but there's a lot of variation on what people want to see and how well versed they are on a subect. That naturally fractures a potential audience. But spectacle and passion are the same for everyone. Barbie succeeded mostly because the marketing was great, but it had legs because forany folks, it was good food for thought. I didn't get much from it, but for folks getting their feet wet, it seemed to really open them up
And the thing is Emily Browning's Babydoll is a complicated and imperfect subversion of the perfect Idealized Hero/ine, and overall has more agency and responsibility in her actions. Despite the tragic downfall of Babydoll, she is heroic. Whereas Harley Quinn really is an antihero and anti-villain, depending on what DC has in mind.
@@JaiProdz I feel like Babydoll and Harley Quinn are products of an untold, subconscious desire to acknowledge dark heroines and their dark stories. I remember the whole internet going gaga for Dark Rey from Star Wars..... Oh well..
@@CelesteLunaRael you're absolutely right. I mean I don't know if Wednesday really counts as this but look at her character and how audiences are attracted to that type of macabre storytelling visual!
I love this movie & I also agree with all the criticism against it lol I saw Maggie Mae Fish's video about it, completely agree. It's just...Sucker Punch got to me, because that's what I did when I was in one of the worst abusive relationships I've ever had; I also retreated into fantasy, while I was awake.
I think the way the movie showed this was originally confusing for me, but it was extremely effective! There are flaws, sure, but the layers of escapism was so well done
@@ladygrey4113 Do you mean Moviebob's video review for The Escapist website? That one's not really criticism its more a genre fan with basic analysis skills trying to explain how to start examining the film to people who are too lazy to bother. He deliberately ends that video absolving himself of actually going deeper into the work or having a final point to say about it.
It's been several years since I last watched Sucker Punch but what I particularly remember liking was how Babydoll entered the third layer of the story through dancing. I liked what that implied. She's in a brothel or being trained to be in a burlesque show and as she starts becoming sexy and alluring, she enters a state of warfare. Wonderful analogy.
I agree with this so much. It's a Schrodinger's movie. It's both fun and unwatchable simultaneously. The directors cut (cuz of course there's a directors cut) is the version I prefer personally.
As Princess said, it's that potential. You can feel what it's trying to be, and many of the parts are enjoyable, so you want to forgive it for failing to be all it could have been. For me, the Snyder counterexample is Batman Vs. Superman. I can equally see what that movie wanted to say and be, but that 'what could have been' wasn't compelling enough for me to forgive what we actually got.
I think the reason why Barbie didnt vibe with me its cus I heard everything that movie wants to say but better written on Tumblr when I was 13. I'm mexican, and I think feminism in Mexico has gone beyond ''You are valid, girl'' type feminism with how often friends go missing and end up killed. Sucker Punch on the other hand understood me and how it feels for things to suck around you while not quite understanding feminism. It's always been a interesting movie for me and how it makes me feel. (Doesnt mean Barbie wasnt important for a lot of people and the basic message was something they needed to hear. We all need the ''You are valid, girl'' feminism at one point of our lives be it Tumblr or the Barbie movie)
I think you would actually like the Barbie movie because it is about “yeah, you’re a valid girl!” But the movie actually did a great job pointing out the flaws of such thinking. And was actually much more than valley girl energy. Has some flaws with its message, but it did a good job showing how that mentality (woman or man) is flawed and hurtful to both.
Barbie was feminism for “Basic women”? I can see that. Women of many ethnic communities are like… can I be seen as a human being deserving to live? Many women in America are trying to find a a way to survive the next day in a world that finds them disposable. It makes the middle class girl power stuff seem trivial in comparison.
@@candicekellum4020I think is barely a step above that. Is very much center on middle to wealthy class middle aged women. Like to op's point, it very much beyond it's range to deal with something like DV and feminicide.
I agree! America Ferrara's speech was less well written than feminist Tumblr rants I read in high school. I still enjoyed the movie but just wish they had written that part better.
Without having seen Sucker Punch outside this vid I think it's the asylum and otherworld settings and how both protagonists feel responsible for killing their loved ones.
For someone who was first introduced to Emily Browning as Violet Baudelaire way back when, kid me thought it was pretty cool to see her lead as a kick-ass action heroine (even if I didn't actually use the word "kick-ass," because y'know, 10 y/o and stuff). ⚔
Tbh this is to both of you: If you haven't seen American Gods go watch it noooooow. I will forever hold Emily Browning as one of my first "Do I want to smooch her or be her?" Bi crushes
@@CelesteLunaRael I actually hadn't read it until AFTER I watched it (horrible I know!) I do recommend reading it first, but that's largely because it got cancelled before it could actually wrap up. It got cancelled plot wise near the end of the novel. Which like nooooo. But I haven't read a bad Neil Gaiman novel so I'm biiiiiased.
"I do want to be in a miniskirt, with a sword, and fight monsters!" :unsheathes sword: As someone who hasn't watched Sucker Punch, but has seen a lot of people around me talk about it, this seems like a pretty valid reason to like it. And also fuck yeah thank you for talking about the "one exceptional action heroine among guys" being unfulfilling and dissapointing! 100%
The worst version of this isn't an action movie its my no1 most hated film The Imitation Game. There's a scene where they're recruiting women to be code breakers and the film's sole recuring female character Keira Knightly stands up in front of a room of equally smart women and does her standard "Me not like other girl me have brain" routine right in front of them. In actual history you had to be a crossword nerd to even know to show up to that audition it should have been a scene about a ton of nerdy chilling at the crossword convention but no a man wrote it so its as misogyny parading as girl power trash. Even latter there's a scene where a machine that in real life too whole teams of women to operate is just Benedict Cumberbatch getting yelled at by Charles Dance in a barn its a literal parody of itself on a level that just couldn't be written deliberately. Poor Keira starts her career loyally prepared to die for her Queen and playing sports in a censored originally lesbian friendship and then gets stuck with this crap film after film.
Sucker Punch will always be my "I see and acknowledge its wrongs, but damn, is it hype, I love it so much" movie. Though I agree, dropping the first layer of fantasy and leaning into the second layer (pretty ladies with weapons 🤩) would have made the movie much more coherent without losing the two surrounding layers that make it slay so much.
An important detail to discuss is that this movie was intended to be a musical, which was struck down by the studio. If there’s any call for a director’s cut, it’s this one, if for no other reason than sheer morbid curiosity.
As a teenager I never made the correlation between the yellow wallpaper and sucker punch, great analysis 👏🏽 this was such a “guilty pleasure” for me, I couldn’t understand why people didn’t love it 😂 edit: Princess 😮 I loved Whedons Dollhouse. *Eliza Dushku is bae idcidc* 😭
Eliza's range and charm allow her to elevate the material a lot. Dollhouse used to be a guilty pleasure of mine but since I found out Joss Whedon is such a turd, it's ruined all of his projects for me.
@@crystalcharee57 It's not just Dushku, so much of that cast is absolutely incredible (Enver and Dichen especially). Whedon sucking does hurt his work, but there are so many other people that worked on those shows that I find it dilutes the corrosive effect his involvement has on my enjoyment of those works. (As a comparison, it's much harder to ignore the shittiness of an author for me.)
@@sebrussell It's kind of the opposite for me. I think about the banality of evil that goes on on those sets that allows people like Joss (and worse) to get away with this stuff for so long. Those people are either innocent or complicit or both and that knowledge doesn't salvage those projects for me. On the other hand, a terrible author has limited access to people to hurt because it's basically a solo project. He's limited to the people in his life and maybe an editor or an assistant. Not entire film crews full of people who start out either respecting or worshipping them. That said, if I know an author is a POS, that destroys my enjoyment of their books, too.
Sucker Punch holds such a special place in my heart. I spent the majority of my teenage years in several closed psych wards (which were not quite, but almost as hellish as you see in media) and the only thing that kept me going was escapism. I watched this movie with a friend, another female patient there, and I felt so seen by Sucker Punch. Not only was I wrongfully locked up against my will, like Babydoll, but I was also dreaming about being sexy in a miniskirt, fighting monsters and escaping the asylum. I still watch Sucker Punch at least once or twice a year, even now over ten years later.
Ngl Sucker Punch has always been one of my favorite movies of all time because it’s the first time I remember really getting into media analysis. I had just read the yellow wallpaper in middle school (just for fun lol) and idk watching this movie and reading that story in the same year fundamentally changed something about my understanding of feminism.
It’s still relatively easy for abusive family to get someone committed against their will, unfortunately (like what happened in Succession, or Brittney Spears, or what my mom tried to do with me(but I’m a lawyer so knew how to avoid it))
Babydoll and Sweat Pea are the same person. The ending where she sacrifices herself so that the other can escape is actually a fantasy to mask the truth, which is that she was lobotomized. At the beginning of the movie you get a hint of this when Sweat Pea is with the others on stage, wearing a wig and dressed very similar to Babydool about to be lobotomized. Or at least that is my personal appreciation, which ends up adding another layer in terms of the psychological analysis that the film shares.
Me defending the movie a few months ago when my housemates were talking smack: "It’s a campy cathartic escapist fantasy for the mentally distressed girlies but through the gaze of men that'll put them through that mental distress."
By mentioning Sailor Moon, it maybe realize why I love the movie, and is because I loved anime and the fantasy adventure genre. Is a shame that it wasn't better put together, but it is still a fun watch.
When I first watched Sucker Punch most of my peers didn’t understand the layers of disassociation Baby doll undergoes to make her reality livable. Sucker Punch totally goes into more nuanced convos about autonomy sisterhood and sacrifice.
Yeah the dissociation makes sense within the context of the movie it's just weird that her dissociated reality is that if a horny fourteen year old boy from the 21st century instead of an exploration of the fantasy landscape of a young girl from the 1950s. I dunno. I just think the director kind of got in the way of what they were trying to create.
@@SuperPal-tr3go honestly this, felt very awkward to watch this, it felt so much like somebody using this as an excuse for stuff they find sexy rather than something that makes sense internally, and considering how heart breaking the plot is it just felt distasteful to me
Famously misunderstood movie. And that's on the movie. It either needed to be comfortable being an arthouse film that accepted that it would go over many heads, or a popcorn flick that doesnt require much of you. Instead, if you didn't get what it was laying down, you didn't realize thar, and thought you got what the movie was trying to say, which, on a surface reading, is shitty feminism
Babydoll isn't even the main character, when you look carefully you'd realize that Sweet Pea and Babydoll are the same and that her dead little sister is Rocket😭😭
Really enjoyed this. Also a fellow Sucker Punch apologist - been waiting on a 4K BluRay release for ages. Snyder has lots of good ideas in his films, just needs some help.
Every time i see a new Sucker Punch essay, my heart skips a beat. Big fan here. Just like you as it seems. "I watched this movie at a young age and surprisingly grasped it better than many critics did back then. Over a decade later, it's still among my favourites (and one of my comfort movies). I'm glad to see the film still garnering attention and that over time, the reception has become more reflective and positive." Thank you for your work😊
I’m not a fan of “guilty pleasures”, I think you should unashamedly watch the things you love. That being said this is probably the closest I’ve come to having a guilty pleasure. I LOVE this movie, it has its problems that I’ve definitely become more aware of as I’ve gotten older (I first watched when I was 14). As a mentally ill teen, this was such a good escapist movie for me, whether it was figuring out my queerness, navigating my own brain ect. My biggest beef is the edit that everyone saw, cut out really plot important scenes. The ending has such a different impact in the extended edition (on Amazon prime video sorry 😅).
Saying you don't like the concept of 'guilty pleasures' has become the "I'm not like other girls" of genre fandom tbh. If people just want to feel guilty let them enjoy things in their own way.
i really appreciate the shoutout to Birds of Prey! I feel like both Suckerpunch and BoP were both such fun and femme action films that were severely underrated and over-hated
Your point about establishing the character's interests through movie posters and whatnot brought me back to my favorite movie: Labyrinth. That five-second pan of Sarah's room near the beginning does SO MUCH heavy lifting and every time I watch it I spot something new. Such a good storytelling device for this kind of story.
I saw it 8 times in theaters when it came out!! I was going through a rough patch in my life and the film just spoke to me. To this day it still makes me cry at the ending.
I think we sometimes ask too much from the “fail” movies we love to watch. Diablo Cody said something about “Jennifer’s Body” that resonates in a parallel way, to paraphrase, “how often are talented men forgiven for making ‘crappy’ movies?” As such, why do we have to justify the simple love of kicking ass with a samurai sword while wearing a miniskirt in hyper dreamworld style?
Despite its shortcomings, this movie really resonated with me after I rewatched it recently. Something about going deep into yourself to find your inner power while traditionally performing your way through a traumatic environment really helped me out as a woman in ways that I didn't even know it would when I initially watched it as a teen.
35 yr old male here (black if that matters any) who watched this movie in theaters when it came out. It definitely stuck with me, and honestly, to this day, I unironically love this movie and will rewatch it every so often.
@@evildoesnotsleep-x2b I have, actually, several times. I'm only pointing out that I've often seen it labelled for having a trailer that was better than the film itself, and although I do think the trailer seemed to promise something that the movie didn't end up being, I still enjoyed it. 😎
@@DJtheBlack-RibbonedRose Suckerpunch is better as remix fodder for fan music videos than as something you sit down and watch all of and that's okay and there should be more high budget films like that.
The soundtrack was better than the movie and I actually liked the movie. I even plan on cosplaying as Babydoll. That scene when Oscar Isaac blew up in the dressing room. Was the realest portrayal of dread in a home with a man who suspects that you're about to leave him.
suckerpunch is my favorite movie ngl, exactly because of the aesthetic and the concept of the story that ,even through clunky delivery, shined underneath. My 16yro otaku ass really enjoyed what looked like a japanese hack'n'slash translated into an american movie. edit: 28:01 the psiquiatric hospital being a brothel makes sense, because in the start of the movie, when she is brought there, it is implied in the introduction dialogue that they prostitute the girls and lets male staff take advantage of them, so she really feels like she's being sold to a brothel instead of admitted to a psych facility
Love this video and agree with every single point and conclusion. As a journalist at SDCC, I talked to Deborah and Zack Snyder about Sucker Punch before there was a trailer ( they were promoting the Watchmen DVD release). Three things were immediately clear: 1. They were super passionate about making a movie about people's ability to who cope with trauma and oppression through fantasy, fiction, and music. 2. They were trading on Zack's dude-bro fandom to get the studios to invest in a fantasy movie for women, utilizing iconigraphy designed for the male-gaze but had already been reclaimed and flipped by women fans for decades (while getting those same dude-bros to watch a film with a feminists message). 3. It was far too ambitious to ever fully work but boy was I hoping they could pull it off.
I remember this one critic talking about how the villains in the movie (disgusting, irredeemable, losers who are easily manipulated by the spectacle of girls in miniskirts) are representative of the men the movie is supposedly pandering to. That really stuck with me and made me as a young woman for loving this movie. Also I think the the reason Babydoll is a blank slate is because as we find out at the end, she is not the main character, Sweet Pea is. Babydoll is Sweet Pea’s fantasy and the sacrifices at the end is Sweet Pea growing past her need for the fantasy
Oh my god, I would not SHUT UP about Suckerpunch months before & after it’s release; I dragged my girlfriends to the theater & to my & their surprise, they loved it
I ADORE Sucker Punch. And as someone who has been in that special little wing in the hospital more than once, I can attest to the fact that you really do go somewhere else in your head to get yourself through.
When I watched the film I was mesmerized, I was 11 and I knew I didn't understand it completely, I rewathced it last year and it blew me away, I think move can use some fixes here and there but generally it's so deep and good, and not for everyone, that's why move flopped for casual audiences and it's a cult classic for us
I LOVED sucker punch. I think it's Zack Snyder's best movie. It's a beautiful fucked up story, I've never rooted for the protagonist more than in this movie. Every time someone dies the tragedy is deeply felt. It's a super hero action movie where the stakes couldn't be any higher, and the metaphor of generic evil empire is spelled out very plainly to be the society we currently live in if you aren't the right kind of person. It's a profound message, not exactly original, Body Politique is centuries old and Frantz Fanon's take is more than half a century old, but it was the most vivid and artistic expression of the concept I've ever seen. Extending the metaphor a bit, it even covers WEB DuBois' Double Consciousness through the lens of a female body.
It's been a long day of fasting for Ramadan. I finally have clocked out, worked out, warmed my room and sat down with my food only to see this upload and excitedly yell "Aoh!" like your favorite New York Italian grandpa. Thanks so much for this upload Princess because I've always wanted more from this movie from the day it came out
I love your takes here. Back in the day I was so excited by the Sucker Punch trailer set to Lords of Acid's Crablouse, which is still one of my favorite trailers. When I saw the cluttered mess of a movie that we actually got I was so disappointed, and as you mentioned I think the easiest fix would be to get rid of the Brothel layer and just have the Asylum and Fantasy layers fighting in Babydoll's mind. Also loved the suggestion of samurai/war movie posters in Babydoll's room. Great video as usual!
I really liked this movie. Even after I found out all the guys I sucked up to as a "pick-me girl" said they didn't like it and thought it was boring. 🤔
as a longtime fellow sucker punch apologist (strangely i just rewatched the movie a few days ago, weird coincidence and great timing lol), thank you for making a video on this movie. despite its shortcomings it will be forever near and dear to my heart. also super jealous of your art book! i've always wanted to track one down :')
I think Zack Snyder meant well with Sucker Punch. I didn't see it in theaters so when I picked up the Blu-ray cheap I went straight to the director's cut. I had no idea how much was cut from the theatrical cut! The best sequence in my opinion is the "Love Is the Drug" number and without it the theatrical cut is hobbled and makes so much less sense. I love Pacific Rim. Once I realized that the white dude was the POV character and the real story was about Mako and Stacker it made it so much better. 34:14
Pacific Rim doesn't have a 'real story' even the comic relief scientists matter Raleigh Becket is just a mentor figure who has to find meaning through letting other people grow. This comment feels kind of subconsciously misandrist what's wrong with quiet men dammit.
Watched this one twice and now I'm gonna watch Sucker Punch. Honestly I don't think I'll enjoy it any more than I did the first time, but I'm open to the possibility and looking forward to it.
The intro monologue stitching with the outer monologue lives in my mind rent free. I've always wanted it framed to a wall or as a tattoo. Very inspiring words. "It's you, you have all the weapons you need. Now fight"
This was a good listen. I haven't actually ever watched this movie. I remember the marketing only being about 'girl hot' and yet everyone I know IRL that likes this movie absolutely adores it and is also a woman that finds it very empowering.
Yes, yes, yes!!! Haven't even watched your video yet but I'm so, so happy that you are looking at Sucker Punch! I watched this when it came out and I really liked the premise, although even my inexperienced ass could tell that there were issues in the framing
10:32 "I never saw the owl movie. I have no interest." That's alright, I saw it, I can vouch for it. In short, it's anti-fascism with birds in Australia, and it's wonderful and I love it.
I personally love sucker punch because it introduced me to Bjork. But also the first scene is honestly so good , the slow motion sequence accompanied by the orchestral remake of sweet dreams, it really made me feel the weight of baby doll’s situation. And of course it was perfect escapism for any teenage girl that liked video games and anime , since back in those days it wasn’t as mainstream as it is nowadays.
I’m so glad that this popped up today because I was just talking to my sister about how much we loved this movie for what it was. The soundtrack (which had a lot of the actors signing tracks. Love is the Drug is thankfully still on Spotify), the acting, the special effects, the costuming. For me as a weeb well beyond their years, it felt like an amv with a plot tied to it and that’s all I needed. I enjoyed it for what it was and I’m so glad that you recognize its faults while also not dragging it through the mud without mercy. (Also as an aside, I have to ask where your Jason Todd print behind you is from because I need it. 🥺)
Sucker Punch was absolutely a guilty pleasure movie for me for the longest time. (My opinion on it largely hasn't changed, but i have better things to revisit now.) One of the reasons was indeed wanting to fight monsters with a giant sword in my brain. But also it was the first time for me where a piece of media looked at female mental health and sexual exploitation without ever vilifying the female character, and with a lighter, less heavy, overly realistic tone and themes. It was really refreshing to me to be able to enjoy a movie that also touched on such heavy topics without casting blame or shame on the women in the story.
I am looking forward to a future where some new woman auteur remakes Sucker Punch. Or more likely uses the concept in a new way. Something that drops Snyder's particular love of the shallow that looks deep. I loved that what represented power was different on every level of the film and want that explored more deeply.
Sucker Punch is one of my favorite films!!! It was the first "adult" film I watched as a teenager and GOD it left such an impact with the layers and the implications and THE STYLE AAAAA. Never saw the trailer tho.
Ive been waiting for this one!! Naturally, as a chronically ill teenager, Babydoll translating the horrors of her reality into ones that were fantastical and could be killed with a sword needed no explaining to me. Trauma and fantasy are often intertwined! Escaping from the darkness into a world where I could be strong and badass and hot is simply an appealing concept. And being a young bisexual at the time I'm sure a part of me did think if i just watched it enough times THIS TIME Baby and Sweetpea would kiss. (ps dollhouse was a mess but at least i got to have diechen lachman on my screen for a while 😭)
I remember when i took the chance and bought Suckerpunch fo three dollars and I loved it so much deapite its problems. Afterward I thought it was based off a book or anime but found it was an original idea. It's sad i have never seen anything of its like since.
In the yellow wallpaper, the narrator mistakes the room for a nursery. She assumes that the iron rings on the wall were for children to play on, when it’s pretty obvious from that and other clues that she’s not the first unacceptable woman to be confined in that attic room.
Man yeah I remember I watched like the first 80% of this film as a kid and had to go to bed right before the heist failed and the lobotomy happened, so I remembered it as an amazing film? Anyway I still think it's great, it just didn't quite land the ending
Zack Snyder has mentioned in an interview that the Superman vs Zod fight in Man of Steel was inspired by Birdy the Mighty anime. Wouldn't be surprised he also had seen Kill la Kill for inspiration for Sucker punch
Kill la Kill is one of the least original anime ever made so its unlikely that it would be the inspiration even if the timeline didn't make it impossible. Blood the Last Vampire is a much more likely inspiration for Snyder but he's not doing anything tabletop RPGs weren't doing in the late 80s and 90s.
I always get ridiculously hyped when I see you post videos about Sucker Punch. I loved that movie. I hate defending it because if someone doesn't like it, I won't change their mind. But I find value in movies of its ilk, Jupiter Ascending is on my favourite forever list as well. Kind of wish Birds of Prey was as decisive, so all three can snuggle in a cuddle pile of estrogen infused euphoria.
(/genuine) This is not the first time you’ve explained how you’d make a movie or show better and I’ve thought “dam I wish they had hired Princess before making that cause I want to watch her version!”
I enjoy that you enjoyed it! There's something charming about listening to you discuss this movie you loved. And you do explain so well the good and the bad of it!
I feel like this film for sure would have been 100% amazing, if it was directed by a woman. The whole ideas and such are very interesting (and there are parts where even I have to admit were super cool). I remember given it an A for effort and ideas but a very solid F on execution. So a C to C- from me. And I don't wanna dislike Zack, and yes he does take risks (kind of) but he seems to ironically be stuck in his own head. Also he recently was on the Joe Rogan podcast, so the very little respect I had for him grew even smaller.
@@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ Joe Rogan is a conservative podcaster and commentator who is friends with people like Ben Shapiro, so some of us, progressive and/or queer folks, don't really like the guy a lot. I recently saw a segment of his show interviewing Coffeezilla (a guy who exposes scammers and the like), and randomly making an apology to hate speech, so ehh. But for the record it's okay if we disagree and I feel no interest in arguing with anyone here, as I don't have the time or the energy for that. I just don't like Joe Rogan because he platforms assholes and seems to be in agreement with them, and tries to make random unrelated personalities comment on issues they know nothing about (as Coffeezilla himself admitted). All for his own agenda. Just yikes.
@@MaryamMaqdisi I'm gay and yeah. I wouldn't really blacklist Zack for being in the podcast of that guy, whoever he is. But being friends with Ben Shapiro is wild. For some reason, grifters like Pearly and other alpha bs trash-talkers have sprouted recently and I don't get why people like that have a platform, because they're shallow and super insecure as f*ck.
I've heard somewhere that commenting throughout the video can be good for the algorithm, so I'm commenting at the beginning to get things started right 💪
I think the main thing that my sister and I have noticed about the film is that the main character isn't /really/ babydoll but sweet pea - we focus on babydoll as sweet pea's saviour. Babydoll's story isn't one of a daring escape from an abusive system, but of a shining moment of kindness in that system, no matter how it ends for either of them it is still a beautiful thing... if that makes sense lol. But man is it nice to hear someone say how good movies like sucker punch and birds of prey (also deathproof and planet terror tho I know ppl probably won't wanna hear it) are. My sister and I rarely talk about or show movies like those to other people bc of the whole dealing with a) those ppl not really getting my sister and I's obsession with movies and b) those people calling the movie weird or overly sexual or violent etc etc, so it's just nice to see others talking about and enjoying them the way we do.
I think to be hot and have a sword is a universal desire.
Agreed. It’s something we can all get behind.
I need that on a t-shirt!
No other desire is more human and more free of the shackles of gender than that one.
💯
Unfortunately I only have the sword part down
Lowkey Suckerpunch is a love letter to any person that imagines intricate stories and music videos when listening to music 😅😅
omg ur so right!!!
That's why I make edits to music... lol
Looool so true!
this is the best way to describe the movie and now i’m gonna tell people that when i recommend it to them
This has single handedly convinced me to finally check out Sucker Punch
Daaaamn, my 14 yo self feels SO vindicated with this essay, because yes, wanting to be hot and girly is not mutually exclusive with kicking ass, while being powerful is not mutually exclusive with bonding and cooperating with other women. You can want and have all of them, god damn it.
Yesss, this exactly
Fuck yes!
Yeah I wish I had realized I could like makeup AND lifting weights AND wearing skirts AND grunt. It doesn’t need to be a choice lmao. 14 year old me is shook
Yes!! This puts into words why I love Suckerpunch so much
YES. THANK YOU. why can't we be multiple things at the same time?
To me, Sucker Punch is about maladaptive daydreaming. Are the sailor suit action sequences "feminist"? Not really, but in all my fantasies as a child/ teen post-sexual assault, I would inhabit the same kind of cartoonish avatar in my mind's eye. I'm also reminded of Lady Gaga's Artpop-- her meditation on male gaze vs empowerment vs trauma. "You can't use my mind, but do what you want with my body." It's about coping, not being a perfect feminist.
Interesting....can you explain a little further?
Yeah, I feel like the film has a lot to say about disassociating and self numbing in the face of trauma and learned helplessness.
I always took the brothel scenes as a way to romanticise being objectified and assaulted. It takes an inherently horrifying and inescapable situation and reframes it as something that can be rationalised as semi-empowering. Being forced into a brothel isn't empowering, but purposely seducing someone is more empowering than being pursued by a predator you can not escape from. To me, its very clear that the levels of unreality are coping mechanisms, and the overuse of the anime fight scenes proves how little the characters want to experience their real life. I don't think Sucker Punch is a fantastic movie, but I still love it because I feel like it "gets it", even if the execution is flawed.
besides it being my gay awakening very relatable with the sa experiences leading to maladaptive day dreaming as well. always thought it was a relation to dissociation and cluster personalities.
@strawberrylime33 Well, first I should clarify that there's a difference between coping via daydream, and actual clinical maladaptive daydreaming (which is considered a negative symptom or disorder. Similar to an addiction) I'm not a mental health professional so just take what I say with a grain of salt. I use the term a bit loosely, and maybe I shouldn't. But I feel like the line between maladaptive and normal daydreams can be blurry.
But anyway. For numerous reasons when I was SA'd around the age of 6, I felt too ashamed/unsafe to tell anyone what happened to me, and I wouldn't until I left home for college. In the meantime, I still had feelings to process. For me that meant I latched on to different fictional characters. I'd write these melodramatic, romantic storylines in my head about me and the character. In many of my daydreams, I was a woman forced into some form of sexual slavery, and the character I liked would come in to rescue me and be my true love. Although sometimes it was just a cooler, more confident version of me going on the same adventure alongside the characters of a story... but it usually morphed into some exploration of sexual themes at an age that that was probably not so normal. I was escaping in the one way I could, in my mind. I could be emotional there, and create a happy ending.
That's why it relates to Artpop to me. Specifically Do What U Want. The idea that you may not have control over what happened to you, you may not have the tools to heal yet, you may be trapped in an unsafe home. But no one can control what you do in your head. That little bit of freedom can keep you alive until it's safe to come back to real life.
I say it's not feminist, because these fantasies are often really cringey and unrefined and raw and embarrassing to explain to others. In my fantasies I was never an empowered woman, because that wasn't even an option to my knowledge. I would infantilize myself, fetishize myself, hold myself and the characters to unrealistic or harmful standards. What feels cathartic to a person in their specific life circumstances doesn't necessarily translate to a strong feminist message in a movie.
Like, I think of Babydoll's sailor suit all the time because it IS a male gaze fetish costume with gross undertones. But when Sucker Punch was in theaters, I was a teenager obsessed with anime and I just thought sailor suits were cool as hell. I didn't think about the symbolism of a school girl... I just thought it looked badass. I don't know if Zack Snyder thought about it that deeply but it works so well for me because it reminds me of how indulgent and problematic fantasy can be.
@@hannah-6080 Political movements like Feminism should be kept as far away from mental health issues as possible in my own opinion. Unless a hospital is about to be closed down due to lack of funds or is nortorious for abuse politics should be irrelevant. Too many people are using keyboard activism as an alternative to therapy and its not helping them and is harming activism. The focus on own voices activism works for class and race but is a disaster when traumatised people are involved unless you're one of the few spokespersons who went through years of therapy before starting to share anything in public.
Sailor suits are interesting since they're one of the clearest overlaps between school and miilitary uniforms but that gets missed by most western anime fans. I remember reading a confused anime fan in the 2000s who saw a male teacher in a sailor collar and thought he was a crossdresser.
Babydoll has a pinup costume that's not always the same thing as a fetish one. There's a joke in the anime He is My Master's final episode where two rich asshole maid fetishists compete to draw the most fetishistic uniforms possibly and the winner's secret forbidden weapon is a normal maid uniform.
I absolutely made Sucker Punch my personality when I was a wee little black girl. Something about the escapism of a bleak world into the fantasy of being a badass and looking pretty in it, just hit me a sorta way.
Now as an adult, I do understand that sometimes the problems of that film are harder to ignore. But I will not lie, the train sequence breaking between the layers of reality still gives me goosebumps.
Right it’s such a good scene and I wish the whole movie did stuff like that so we could get an idea of those layers in action!
When i was a teenager I loved this film so much for the entire reason of "I want to be a cool girl in a mini skirt that fights dragons."
“I want to have matching blush with my outfit but also slay like LITERALLY”
No, deadass. I LOVED it for that reason in my teens, now I love it for basically why she states
I'm in my 40s and you know what? same.
I still want that at 25
as a trans woman who didn't know it at the time - same! Something drew me in so much to that movie, it held such a fascination over me and I think it was in some way a justification for me to express some femininity / feminine desires through a "masculine" and male gazey action movie...
Sucker Punch always felt like it was trying to say more but didn't stick the landing, so I had a bit of a soft spot for it despite it's failings.
It definitely is trying to say a lot, I think where it misses the mark is that Snyder doesn’t completely understand the actual points he’s making. Like, he gets that the points are there to be made, he’s just not quite sure what to do with them.
But for the record, Sucker Punch one of my all-time favorite films. It’s far from perfect, but I like that it at least tried to do new things and say something. And it really does have a fantastic cast.
I think you just described most of snyder's movies.
This is so well put and how I felt too
as is often the case with movies Snyder makes for WB, the directors cut adds a few scenes that add quite a bit of necessary context.
I very much love this movie. It's downfall was certainly its incohesive narrative and the fact certain scenes were cut are only in the Director's Cut, meaning some crucial things about the story wasn't available theatrically.
I'm an incest/csa survivor. I remember sitting in the theater to watch this movie with my family at age 11. It was both thrilling and terrifying. It kind of felt like the movie was reading my mind-- i was an anime lover (naruto, bleach, sailor moon) and would go into DEEP dissociative fantasies in anime worlds as well as harry potter, percy jackson, etc. In my fantasies I would manage to escape or fight my abuser/the story's villain. I rewatched the movie recently after remembering how much of an impact it had on me as a kid. I guess part of what was so weird about watching this movie as an uncool almost-middle schooler was that it gave me such a weird feeling of both narcissism and shame. like, it kind of felt like the movie was about me but it was about this aspect of me (my sexuality/sexual abuse) that had to stay secret. And, that I was so deeply ashamed of. There was actually a ton of weird synchronicity that i wont get into details on cuz i don't wanna feed the creeps... but I guess being part of an abuser's fantasy and watching a sort of male fantasy on screen will have similar elements.
Then the end of the movie, well, idk how others read it but to me i took the message as: babydoll is too fucked up to live, so she gives someone else the chance. definitely messed me up... my abuser died just a month later and even though that most likely literally saved my life I felt a lot of survivor's guilt. But I can't say i hate the movie--- i think it was pretty thoughtless but in a way that allowed it to honestly access this cultural fantasy (that is influenced by and influences reality) and just slap it onscreen without much alteration. and there is value, and a TON to analyze, in that direct line to society's unconscious. this was also the first time i had ever seen a canonical (or at least HEAVILY implied??) incest survivor onscreen, and it was honestly so exciting just to have confirmation that this thing existed at all? or was 'normal' on some level? As much as I am all for critique and scrutiny of work portraying csa/ sexual violence in general I don't want that critique to stop work getting made--even if that work is imperfect, this is a topic that is so rarely openly talked about and especially in a way where people are actually honest about their emotions/desires/fantasies. (poor things debate comes to mind). I want better art on this topic but also just more, yk?
I think that's one of the reasons I love the movie so much, is because it was unafraid to tackle some really difficult topics and shine a light on things like incest, SA, and trauma, that a lot of people go through but are often viewed as taboo to talk about or explore in any meaningful way.
I'm trying to write a screenplay about processing childhood sexual shame that doesn't actually depict any abuse and just has metaphorical ghosts and demons and its hard to know if I'm wasting my time or not. There's a strong conflict between slasher movie logic where characters have to die to build tension and themes of survival and I'm close to the point of just letting everyone but the characters who have to die at the start to set some of the trauma off live no matter how 'soft' it seems I'm being as a writer. Mostly I just want to tell people to let queer neurodivergeant people in their late teens be confused and weird and to stop putting more pressure on them to do anything but try and live.
I don't think Babydoll chooses to sacrifice herself for any reason other than a desire to pick the option that will make her existance matter most out of the set of terrible choices handed to her. I haven't been able to force myself to watch the whole film since I picked up some pre=release promotional postcards for it a few months before dropping out of film school and swearing off anything cinema related for several years but its clearly supposed to be a heroic tradgedy not just misery porn.
This is what's actually so great about Sucker Punch, that despite some of its flaws, actually tackles great character study and psychology, as well as commentary on heroism and sacrifice. And all depicted by women❤
Babydoll's self-sacrifice is very much a subversion of what an Idealized Hero is, even today! And Sweet Pea's final words as the only survivor gives us an uncomfortable truth about the sacrifices real heroes do. And perhaps mostly by women.
So many people don't like discomforting stories and I get that, but it's disturbing even to me how so many who don't want uncomfortable stories to censor it, or even downright marginalize painful stories.
I love Sucker Punch for acknowledging pain and hope. I hope I wasn't being too outspoken. This film is imperfect but it's unafraid of being so out-of-the-box box and actually helping people reclaim pain.
@@AC-dk4fp this is interesting. i wonder if you could subvert some of the messaging around death by killing off characters the audience doesn't necessarily expect to die (ie. not the minority characters) or make the deaths not fall into the classic tropes of martyrdom/heroism/tragedy-porn, and feel more wasteful/open ended/ambiguous the way death so often does in real life? Have you ever seen the horror movie Green Room? It's super scary but grounded in realism, so v different from your story, but it comes to mind as a film that really subverts your expectations of who will live and die in a really interesting way. The deaths don't feel driven by plot/tropes, they feel random and unpredictable which is super scary!
@@evan007rose Subverting expectations is pretty normal for postmodern slashers, I just don't care because I don't like the originals either. I had the token black girl just 'nope' out of the story and live happily ever after in a different country instead.
I just don't think letting worries about potential thematic criticism shape the story is that great of an idea. If you must reply to pre-existing critique you should choose a single one to reply to not try and weave a complicated narrative around avoiding pitfalls. You have to find a story to tell not just comment on other ones.
My heroine has skin infection issues and wears concealing clothing because of it. This is a response to complaints about women having to get naked to be in films but I'm trying to tell a story that just happens to play into that and other stigmatised health issues. If anything the right conclusion from watching it would be that being too worried about showing skin is kind of pathological. She still has a sexy makeover at the end just one that doesn't involve showing any more skin and is in kind of mediocre to bad taste and not her actual future fashion direction.
I strongly believe that instead of remaking films that were already good, we should just remake movies that failed but had great ideas. Zack is a hack but he takes risks and i respect that!
Tea
Agree!! Suckerpunch was a fantastic looking movie with interesting ideas all folded into a hot mess. I really wanted to love it, but it missed a few key points for me.
Was it a great idea though?
I'd like to add that it'd be cool if some of these stories were tried as video games and not just movies when people consider remakes.
We get games made into movies, but seeing it in reverse for remakes has so much potential.
yes this please!!
I think one of the unapplauded strengths of Sucker Punch is how well it lends itself to analysis in a way many modern action films don't. the timeline of the film is also interesting as it's hinted that the lobotomy has already happened or is currently happening and the asylum level is also a fantasy.
:o Ive never heard that interpretation before! Very interesting, I’ll have to keep that in mind next time i see it!
The ambiguity is both this movie's strength and its weakness.
Yes. If we try to literally just pinpoint the events logically, it might not make sense.
But the film is heavily surreal anyway. It's the impact of the events that matters in the end.
However, yeah, I feel like it was either masking some of the scripts' weaknesses or incohesive storyline.
Sucker Punch was a critique on the pseudo-feminism of the "Grrl Power" movement. These women were trapped in a system and sexually abused by men (The bordello layer was there to abstract the sexual abuse they suffered), and the women seemed to gain the upper hand by turning this exploitation into a powerful dance that could dazzle and control their abusers by using the male gaze against them. However, in the end, this fails because it ultimately reinforces patriarchial power relations. The message is that the patriarchy can't be defeated using the tools of the patriarchy.
Frustratingly, the movie does not make this as clear as it should because at release, it insisted on giving Babydoll a happy ending. In the original, deleted ending (I know, I know), Babydoll meets the high roller, who is basically a unicorn who explains that he will never get what he really wants, which is ALL of her. He's acknowledging that the patriarchy is a barrier to genuone connection between men and women, and that her very liberation would put her out of his reach. Then the hammer is dropped and the lobotomy is complete.
I LOVED this movie, but I get why others dont.
Oh yes. And personally love your critique/analysis.
I was more so on the perspective of the subversion of a Hero's Journey and even as a commentary on the Idealized Hero/ine.
That Babydoll's heroism ultimately leads to self-sacrifice, which itself is a noble thing and that her actions are felt and remembered, but also has morbid consequences for her. A pyrrhic victory perhaps..
That happy ending is false as hell, the same wiseman from the dreams takes her in a barren wasteland toward a sign that says paradise. Which was what they called the lobotomy. It’s all tragic. And the brothel masking the SA… that was also tragic coping strategies, I didn’t see power in that, I thought it genius that they could find power in it. But like you said. Still capitulating to patriarchy. Or power structures
@@jasonjrobinson Yeah, it's grim, but I don't think Sucker Punch was trying to present a solution, just a reality
The soundtrack and warped story telling is why I adore this film. It was like a hyper feminine and non-techno-Orientalist Cloud Atlas.
Haven’t seen the movie but that sound track lord I love it
This is so on point for how I feel about it. I am still frustrated by the missed opportunities, but I can still like it for the things it did well! Soundtrack is killer
@@aazhieIt's like half a dozen amazing music videos or AMVs with weak and confusing connective tissue. Same how in Watchmen the musical montages are arguably the best parts of the film.
I, too, am a Sucker Punch apologist. We exist, we have valid points!
There are dozens of us!
@@AdamGaffney96Dozens!
This film is a cult classic! And there are ABSOLUTELY many valid points, and some I think even something flies past Snyder and Snyder fans, and so many of these critics.
And personally love Emily Browning.
Yes!
I experienced trauma-induced dissociation when I was a teenager. I love this movie because I've always felt like it addresses how dissociation can occur in layers and how trauma can affect and skew a person's perspective of the world and how things work. The way that I've always seen the layers is: Layer 1 is reality, Layer 2 is the baseline dissociation (Her stepfather selling her to a brothel is less frightening than being sent to an asylum where she's being SA'd because in the brothel world she would have some modicum of control --and freedom to express hypersexuality, whereas in reality she has no control), Layer 3 is the traumatic event dissociation (moments where she is in therapy sessions and having to confront her traumas and/or actual moments of being physically assaulted, where her mind takes her even deeper to protect itself).
And like, fantasizing that you're sexy, and capable, and badass is really just par for the course in terms of dissociation, because your mind applies those things that you aspire for to your fantasies. And thank you so much for your perspective on this film, as well. I don't really think this movie receives enough of the credit it deserves. It's possible that my impression of it is heavily influenced by my own perspective and experiences, that I don't see what other people consider as "flaws" to be actual flaws. It's not perfect, sure, but it's honestly one of the best thought-out movies I have seen on the subject, and it's surprising to have been created by a man.
Exactly. i agree with all you mentioned. Also want to add that the "reality" level of her perception is also skewed as she sees characters (the other girls) that dont exist. And we can't know for sure how many of the incidents of "the real world" are actually real and happened as she experienced. Even the whole plot could be purely imagined as the movie starts by theatre curtains. Such a complicated, unique movie ❤
"I do want to be in a miniskirt with a sword and fight monsters!" Me, too, chick!
Its one of those things where I distrust when a man says he loved it but hesitantly understand when a woman says she enjoyed it.
Tbh I actually never found sucker punch “sexy” the way ppl claimed it was. Even the brothel parts to me always felt ominous threatening and sad. It was the first pg 13 movie I ever saw (at age 9, with a friend) and it was also the first time I heard about what a lobotomy was… I didn’t sleep for a week after that lol
Same. Also tldr😢
I also never felt that, despite the sexy costumes....nothing about their postures, or lighting or viewing of their clothes, if there was any, was even objectifying!
It was one of the FEW films that have sexy clothes but not once, not even Babydoll's miniskirt, was sexy or objectified.
Emily Browning's "underwear" are black sport shorts or black spandex that covered her well. No "pantyshots", not even when she's flying! The camera captures her action, NOT what's under her! All throughout the action sequences she has!
Amber's revealing pants aren't SEEN much in the Fantasy Realms. It's only on some promotional posters that I realized what even her soldier outfit was. And it's mostly because she's inside a robot.
Both Sweet Pea and Blondie's Fantasy Realm outfits aren't even gratuitous. Heck Blondie's outfit, despite its open chest, is barely anything I can see, personally, because it's so black (all of their outfits in the Fantasy Realm are dark, grayish and black, and because of the dark cinematography on this Realm, it sometimes is camouflage).
Like Blondie's "cleavages" aren't even pushed up😅 Like sorry for describing. But really, she's also wearing bullets around her with a giant machine gun, she's so badass.
Sweet Pea has revealing thighs, but she also has a long cape and she has a lot of badass melee combat sequences! And her overprotective side for Rocket are always even more badass! Those scenes are highlighted about her, than anything about her clothing.
And Rocket's Fantasy outfit is a goth dark nurse! And whenever she's posing, it's actually realistic posing like soldiers on standby! And she even has the best slow-mo scene of getting punched, only for her older sister to avenge her!
Even the Brothel Realm, the camera captures them as characters! No close ups on their skin.
Not even the Director's Cut Bordello Dance was gratuitous on depicting them! Their dances are so short and stylized, and not once was their a focus on their body parts!
The Bordello Dance also depicts what else was happening, besides onstage. Backstage hubbub, like Babydoll doing chores and questionable men as customers, color the world of the Brothel Realm.
The Bordello Dance scene really is a glimpse at Snyder's work as a cinematographer and a work of visual storytelling.
The only time it was "sexy" was Amber's legs and high heels, as she is about to sit on the Mayor (the guy with a cigar). But after that, Amber is seen doing her crucial part. No more sexy stuff.
And the MOST important part about the film NOT objectifying the female characters, was the fact Babydoll's Sexy Dance, as they transition to the Fantasy Realm, is NEVER shown at all.
It may have been seen by the characters and by the men, but to us the audience, it's up for imagination. Like Babydoll's Fantasy Realm is.
@@CelesteLunaRael Back in the day MovieBob's reading was that the action sequence IS the sexy dance and its an ironic commentary on the audience's objectification of action heroines.
He is MovieBob so he's probably wrong but he was one of the film's first defenders in video form.
@@AC-dk4fp I'm not objecting! The fact we don't see Babydoll's raw dance but instead her imagination, her Fantasy Realm, which she and many of us do want to come true, is the one shown to us.
It's subverting what was always being depicted as "empowering", and even today. Her raw dance is not shown is blatant in its stance for not objectifying Babydoll. And instead gives us a fantastical representation of what could've been, and still none of the heroines are sexualized or objectified either.
If anything, the lack of Babydoll's raw dance is respectful towards her.
Whilst the Fantasy Realm is everything that's just so fantastical and dark and ridiculous!
@@AC-dk4fp I also just want to add sory
The fact that when Babydoll is about to do her Sexy Dance, this time it's her own doing and weaponizing it.
The morbid implications of how she has to do what's necessary under scrutiny, and yet finding a dark power and agency from it, is a dark lesson that flies over a lot of people's heads.
I love the way the camera pans closer and closer to Babydoll's eyes, and also focuses on objects, some are foreshadowed for future events. And her expression is of concentration.
i actually feel like the “sexy” outfits are a great counterpoint to the uncomfortable feelings of the abstracted reality they’re facing. it does make everything feel worse and more ominous in like a “maybe dress up will help me cope with the trauma i’m experiencing” kind of way which absolutely gives me the ick in a good way (also in an unfortunately relatable way😔).
I've battled mental illness my entire life, and Sucker Punch was my first glimpse into what women like me faced in the 50s and 60s. The layers and fight scenes allowed me to not be overwhelmed by the despair of the reality. In fact it left me feeling empowered enough that I can confront this part of history with a somewhat healthy detachment I would otherwise lack.
I'm sorry to hear that. But at the same time, Sucker Punch truly has powerful themes. Despite some of its flawed writing, it had themes and situations that acknowledges pain and hope. And that's what's so great about them
Sucker Punch was a movie I loved immediately. I truly got it within my first two watches and even more as I talked to my friends who understood the movie as well. I was too young to have seen it in theaters, but I watched it ab six years ago and I’ve been a Sucker Punch apologist ever since. I truly adored the casting, the set and costume design, the music- everything drew me in and the characters & story just took me the rest of the way.
I completely understand the criticism and why it failed when was released. I personally regard Sucker Punch in a similar way of Jennifer’s Body, where it was marketed to the wrong audience (pre-teen & teenage boys) and is now beginning to get more of the respect it deserves in the mainstream as the right audience is finding it (and admitting to liking it). Again, a lot of the criticism of the film is very valid, especially bc of its limitations as a film made by a man who loves his convoluted arcs. That being said, I love it!
I think average people do enjoy intellectualism in film, but there's a lot of variation on what people want to see and how well versed they are on a subect. That naturally fractures a potential audience. But spectacle and passion are the same for everyone.
Barbie succeeded mostly because the marketing was great, but it had legs because forany folks, it was good food for thought. I didn't get much from it, but for folks getting their feet wet, it seemed to really open them up
I never noticed that BoP is also a group of 5 women led by a blond in pigtails. Sailor moon really is every where
I truly think Emily Browning was the prototype for the visual of Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad!
Good point!
And the thing is Emily Browning's Babydoll is a complicated and imperfect subversion of the perfect Idealized Hero/ine, and overall has more agency and responsibility in her actions. Despite the tragic downfall of Babydoll, she is heroic.
Whereas Harley Quinn really is an antihero and anti-villain, depending on what DC has in mind.
@@CelesteLunaRael agreed! Honestly, it also sticks out to me that both became staples of cosplay culture as well!
@@JaiProdz I feel like Babydoll and Harley Quinn are products of an untold, subconscious desire to acknowledge dark heroines and their dark stories.
I remember the whole internet going gaga for Dark Rey from Star Wars.....
Oh well..
@@CelesteLunaRael you're absolutely right. I mean I don't know if Wednesday really counts as this but look at her character and how audiences are attracted to that type of macabre storytelling visual!
I love this movie & I also agree with all the criticism against it lol I saw Maggie Mae Fish's video about it, completely agree. It's just...Sucker Punch got to me, because that's what I did when I was in one of the worst abusive relationships I've ever had; I also retreated into fantasy, while I was awake.
I think the way the movie showed this was originally confusing for me, but it was extremely effective! There are flaws, sure, but the layers of escapism was so well done
I did too. Loved the visuals with a sharp edge of meaning. Imagination to escape is a powerful thing.
The escapist did a pretty decent criticism of sucker punch and the attempts at feminism.
@@ladygrey4113 Do you mean Moviebob's video review for The Escapist website? That one's not really criticism its more a genre fan with basic analysis skills trying to explain how to start examining the film to people who are too lazy to bother. He deliberately ends that video absolving himself of actually going deeper into the work or having a final point to say about it.
It's been several years since I last watched Sucker Punch but what I particularly remember liking was how Babydoll entered the third layer of the story through dancing. I liked what that implied. She's in a brothel or being trained to be in a burlesque show and as she starts becoming sexy and alluring, she enters a state of warfare. Wonderful analogy.
Oh man, I have gone back and forth on loving and hating this movie since I first saw it, and the conclusion I've come to is that both are true.
I agree with this so much. It's a Schrodinger's movie. It's both fun and unwatchable simultaneously.
The directors cut (cuz of course there's a directors cut) is the version I prefer personally.
No movie has ever made the feminist and lesbian parts of my brain fight harder 😅
As Princess said, it's that potential. You can feel what it's trying to be, and many of the parts are enjoyable, so you want to forgive it for failing to be all it could have been.
For me, the Snyder counterexample is Batman Vs. Superman. I can equally see what that movie wanted to say and be, but that 'what could have been' wasn't compelling enough for me to forgive what we actually got.
%s 18:01
Me watching the ATLA live action like “I’m emotionally impacted by these Gyatso scenes but he also should be slinging cakes at the other monks”
I think the reason why Barbie didnt vibe with me its cus I heard everything that movie wants to say but better written on Tumblr when I was 13. I'm mexican, and I think feminism in Mexico has gone beyond ''You are valid, girl'' type feminism with how often friends go missing and end up killed. Sucker Punch on the other hand understood me and how it feels for things to suck around you while not quite understanding feminism. It's always been a interesting movie for me and how it makes me feel.
(Doesnt mean Barbie wasnt important for a lot of people and the basic message was something they needed to hear. We all need the ''You are valid, girl'' feminism at one point of our lives be it Tumblr or the Barbie movie)
I think you would actually like the Barbie movie because it is about “yeah, you’re a valid girl!” But the movie actually did a great job pointing out the flaws of such thinking. And was actually much more than valley girl energy. Has some flaws with its message, but it did a good job showing how that mentality (woman or man) is flawed and hurtful to both.
@@candicekellum4020ehh not really.
Barbie was feminism for “Basic women”?
I can see that. Women of many ethnic communities are like… can I be seen as a human being deserving to live? Many women in America are trying to find a a way to survive the next day in a world that finds them disposable. It makes the middle class girl power stuff seem trivial in comparison.
@@candicekellum4020I think is barely a step above that. Is very much center on middle to wealthy class middle aged women.
Like to op's point, it very much beyond it's range to deal with something like DV and feminicide.
I agree! America Ferrara's speech was less well written than feminist Tumblr rants I read in high school. I still enjoyed the movie but just wish they had written that part better.
I feel like American McGee’s Alice series almost hits this.
Right????
Without having seen Sucker Punch outside this vid I think it's the asylum and otherworld settings and how both protagonists feel responsible for killing their loved ones.
Take it a step further I'm willing to argue he did successfully! I'm pissed we never got the last one tho
Well, it's basically the same concept but it has more room to breath
I honestly think they go hand in hand
I appriciate the framing of "tragic wasted potential" because the movie does have legit good elements. It deserves a remake.
For someone who was first introduced to Emily Browning as Violet Baudelaire way back when, kid me thought it was pretty cool to see her lead as a kick-ass action heroine (even if I didn't actually use the word "kick-ass," because y'know, 10 y/o and stuff). ⚔
To this day, me too. Underrated actress❤
Tbh this is to both of you:
If you haven't seen American Gods go watch it noooooow. I will forever hold Emily Browning as one of my first "Do I want to smooch her or be her?" Bi crushes
@@scarletharlot8511 I want to! I haven't gotten around it because my biggest fiction read crime is I haven't read American Gods😭
@@CelesteLunaRael I actually hadn't read it until AFTER I watched it (horrible I know!) I do recommend reading it first, but that's largely because it got cancelled before it could actually wrap up. It got cancelled plot wise near the end of the novel. Which like nooooo. But I haven't read a bad Neil Gaiman novel so I'm biiiiiased.
"I do want to be in a miniskirt, with a sword, and fight monsters!" :unsheathes sword:
As someone who hasn't watched Sucker Punch, but has seen a lot of people around me talk about it, this seems like a pretty valid reason to like it. And also fuck yeah thank you for talking about the "one exceptional action heroine among guys" being unfulfilling and dissapointing! 100%
The worst version of this isn't an action movie its my no1 most hated film The Imitation Game.
There's a scene where they're recruiting women to be code breakers and the film's sole recuring female character Keira Knightly stands up in front of a room of equally smart women and does her standard "Me not like other girl me have brain" routine right in front of them.
In actual history you had to be a crossword nerd to even know to show up to that audition it should have been a scene about a ton of nerdy chilling at the crossword convention but no a man wrote it so its as misogyny parading as girl power trash.
Even latter there's a scene where a machine that in real life too whole teams of women to operate is just Benedict Cumberbatch getting yelled at by Charles Dance in a barn its a literal parody of itself on a level that just couldn't be written deliberately.
Poor Keira starts her career loyally prepared to die for her Queen and playing sports in a censored originally lesbian friendship and then gets stuck with this crap film after film.
"I want to be in a miniskirt with a sword and fight monsters" YOU UNDERSTAND ME
Sucker Punch will always be my "I see and acknowledge its wrongs, but damn, is it hype, I love it so much" movie. Though I agree, dropping the first layer of fantasy and leaning into the second layer (pretty ladies with weapons 🤩) would have made the movie much more coherent without losing the two surrounding layers that make it slay so much.
True. And they still could have put the elements of abuse that the brothel layer depicts into the asylum layer.
An important detail to discuss is that this movie was intended to be a musical, which was struck down by the studio. If there’s any call for a director’s cut, it’s this one, if for no other reason than sheer morbid curiosity.
As a teenager I never made the correlation between the yellow wallpaper and sucker punch, great analysis 👏🏽 this was such a “guilty pleasure” for me, I couldn’t understand why people didn’t love it 😂
edit: Princess 😮 I loved Whedons Dollhouse. *Eliza Dushku is bae idcidc* 😭
Eliza's range and charm allow her to elevate the material a lot. Dollhouse used to be a guilty pleasure of mine but since I found out Joss Whedon is such a turd, it's ruined all of his projects for me.
@@crystalcharee57 It's not just Dushku, so much of that cast is absolutely incredible (Enver and Dichen especially). Whedon sucking does hurt his work, but there are so many other people that worked on those shows that I find it dilutes the corrosive effect his involvement has on my enjoyment of those works. (As a comparison, it's much harder to ignore the shittiness of an author for me.)
Can’t ever see her as anything but faith on Buffy
I loved it too!!!!
@@sebrussell It's kind of the opposite for me. I think about the banality of evil that goes on on those sets that allows people like Joss (and worse) to get away with this stuff for so long. Those people are either innocent or complicit or both and that knowledge doesn't salvage those projects for me.
On the other hand, a terrible author has limited access to people to hurt because it's basically a solo project. He's limited to the people in his life and maybe an editor or an assistant. Not entire film crews full of people who start out either respecting or worshipping them.
That said, if I know an author is a POS, that destroys my enjoyment of their books, too.
Sucker Punch holds such a special place in my heart. I spent the majority of my teenage years in several closed psych wards (which were not quite, but almost as hellish as you see in media) and the only thing that kept me going was escapism. I watched this movie with a friend, another female patient there, and I felt so seen by Sucker Punch. Not only was I wrongfully locked up against my will, like Babydoll, but I was also dreaming about being sexy in a miniskirt, fighting monsters and escaping the asylum. I still watch Sucker Punch at least once or twice a year, even now over ten years later.
Ngl Sucker Punch has always been one of my favorite movies of all time because it’s the first time I remember really getting into media analysis. I had just read the yellow wallpaper in middle school (just for fun lol) and idk watching this movie and reading that story in the same year fundamentally changed something about my understanding of feminism.
It’s still relatively easy for abusive family to get someone committed against their will, unfortunately (like what happened in Succession, or Brittney Spears, or what my mom tried to do with me(but I’m a lawyer so knew how to avoid it))
Depends on the country
@@LynnHermione and the state, at least here in the US :) (sincerely, a lawyer)
Babydoll and Sweat Pea are the same person. The ending where she sacrifices herself so that the other can escape is actually a fantasy to mask the truth, which is that she was lobotomized. At the beginning of the movie you get a hint of this when Sweat Pea is with the others on stage, wearing a wig and dressed very similar to Babydool about to be lobotomized. Or at least that is my personal appreciation, which ends up adding another layer in terms of the psychological analysis that the film shares.
Me defending the movie a few months ago when my housemates were talking smack:
"It’s a campy cathartic escapist fantasy for the mentally distressed girlies but through the gaze of men that'll put them through that mental distress."
By mentioning Sailor Moon, it maybe realize why I love the movie, and is because I loved anime and the fantasy adventure genre.
Is a shame that it wasn't better put together, but it is still a fun watch.
When I first watched Sucker Punch most of my peers didn’t understand the layers of disassociation Baby doll undergoes to make her reality livable. Sucker Punch totally goes into more nuanced convos about autonomy sisterhood and sacrifice.
Yeah the dissociation makes sense within the context of the movie it's just weird that her dissociated reality is that if a horny fourteen year old boy from the 21st century instead of an exploration of the fantasy landscape of a young girl from the 1950s. I dunno. I just think the director kind of got in the way of what they were trying to create.
@@SuperPal-tr3go honestly this, felt very awkward to watch this, it felt so much like somebody using this as an excuse for stuff they find sexy rather than something that makes sense internally, and considering how heart breaking the plot is it just felt distasteful to me
Famously misunderstood movie. And that's on the movie. It either needed to be comfortable being an arthouse film that accepted that it would go over many heads, or a popcorn flick that doesnt require much of you.
Instead, if you didn't get what it was laying down, you didn't realize thar, and thought you got what the movie was trying to say, which, on a surface reading, is shitty feminism
Babydoll isn't even the main character, when you look carefully you'd realize that Sweet Pea and Babydoll are the same and that her dead little sister is Rocket😭😭
@@chakr.a Oh snap. I need to hear more about this theory
As a longtime viewer from your MelinaPendulum days, it's been so cool to see you re-analyze works that you looked at in your early RUclips career.
Really enjoyed this. Also a fellow Sucker Punch apologist - been waiting on a 4K BluRay release for ages. Snyder has lots of good ideas in his films, just needs some help.
It’s in 4K on prime. $5 extended cut.
Every time i see a new Sucker Punch essay, my heart skips a beat. Big fan here. Just like you as it seems.
"I watched this movie at a young age and surprisingly grasped it better than many critics did back then.
Over a decade later, it's still among my favourites (and one of my comfort movies). I'm glad to see the film still garnering attention and that over time, the reception has become more reflective and positive."
Thank you for your work😊
Sucker punch is just so much fun to watch because I think everyone has at some point imagined themself in a fantasy world looking hot and kicking ass
I’m not a fan of “guilty pleasures”, I think you should unashamedly watch the things you love. That being said this is probably the closest I’ve come to having a guilty pleasure. I LOVE this movie, it has its problems that I’ve definitely become more aware of as I’ve gotten older (I first watched when I was 14). As a mentally ill teen, this was such a good escapist movie for me, whether it was figuring out my queerness, navigating my own brain ect.
My biggest beef is the edit that everyone saw, cut out really plot important scenes. The ending has such a different impact in the extended edition (on Amazon prime video sorry 😅).
Saying you don't like the concept of 'guilty pleasures' has become the "I'm not like other girls" of genre fandom tbh.
If people just want to feel guilty let them enjoy things in their own way.
@@AC-dk4fp ok 👍🏻
i really appreciate the shoutout to Birds of Prey! I feel like both Suckerpunch and BoP were both such fun and femme action films that were severely underrated and over-hated
Your point about establishing the character's interests through movie posters and whatnot brought me back to my favorite movie: Labyrinth. That five-second pan of Sarah's room near the beginning does SO MUCH heavy lifting and every time I watch it I spot something new. Such a good storytelling device for this kind of story.
Being hot and having a sword is indeed undefeated😃!
You and me, Weekes, the only people to like Sucker Punch when it came out. Cheers for the reupload.
I saw it 8 times in theaters when it came out!! I was going through a rough patch in my life and the film just spoke to me. To this day it still makes me cry at the ending.
I think we sometimes ask too much from the “fail” movies we love to watch. Diablo Cody said something about “Jennifer’s Body” that resonates in a parallel way, to paraphrase, “how often are talented men forgiven for making ‘crappy’ movies?” As such, why do we have to justify the simple love of kicking ass with a samurai sword while wearing a miniskirt in hyper dreamworld style?
Despite its shortcomings, this movie really resonated with me after I rewatched it recently. Something about going deep into yourself to find your inner power while traditionally performing your way through a traumatic environment really helped me out as a woman in ways that I didn't even know it would when I initially watched it as a teen.
35 yr old male here (black if that matters any) who watched this movie in theaters when it came out. It definitely stuck with me, and honestly, to this day, I unironically love this movie and will rewatch it every so often.
Sucker Punch: Most often remembered as a prime classic example of "Trailer was Better Than the Film" types. 🎥
In other words another Zack Snyder classic
have you even watched the movie?
The movie was pretty good.
@@evildoesnotsleep-x2b I have, actually, several times. I'm only pointing out that I've often seen it labelled for having a trailer that was better than the film itself, and although I do think the trailer seemed to promise something that the movie didn't end up being, I still enjoyed it. 😎
@@DJtheBlack-RibbonedRose Suckerpunch is better as remix fodder for fan music videos than as something you sit down and watch all of and that's okay and there should be more high budget films like that.
The soundtrack was better than the movie and I actually liked the movie. I even plan on cosplaying as Babydoll. That scene when Oscar Isaac blew up in the dressing room. Was the realest portrayal of dread in a home with a man who suspects that you're about to leave him.
sukcer punch renaissance happening right before my very eyes Omg..
suckerpunch is my favorite movie ngl, exactly because of the aesthetic and the concept of the story that ,even through clunky delivery, shined underneath. My 16yro otaku ass really enjoyed what looked like a japanese hack'n'slash translated into an american movie.
edit: 28:01 the psiquiatric hospital being a brothel makes sense, because in the start of the movie, when she is brought there, it is implied in the introduction dialogue that they prostitute the girls and lets male staff take advantage of them, so she really feels like she's being sold to a brothel instead of admitted to a psych facility
Love this video and agree with every single point and conclusion.
As a journalist at SDCC, I talked to Deborah and Zack Snyder about Sucker Punch before there was a trailer ( they were promoting the Watchmen DVD release). Three things were immediately clear: 1. They were super passionate about making a movie about people's ability to who cope with trauma and oppression through fantasy, fiction, and music. 2. They were trading on Zack's dude-bro fandom to get the studios to invest in a fantasy movie for women, utilizing iconigraphy designed for the male-gaze but had already been reclaimed and flipped by women fans for decades (while getting those same dude-bros to watch a film with a feminists message). 3. It was far too ambitious to ever fully work but boy was I hoping they could pull it off.
I remember this one critic talking about how the villains in the movie (disgusting, irredeemable, losers who are easily manipulated by the spectacle of girls in miniskirts) are representative of the men the movie is supposedly pandering to. That really stuck with me and made me as a young woman for loving this movie.
Also I think the the reason Babydoll is a blank slate is because as we find out at the end, she is not the main character, Sweet Pea is. Babydoll is Sweet Pea’s fantasy and the sacrifices at the end is Sweet Pea growing past her need for the fantasy
Oh my god, I would not SHUT UP about Suckerpunch months before & after it’s release; I dragged my girlfriends to the theater & to my & their surprise, they loved it
I ADORE Sucker Punch. And as someone who has been in that special little wing in the hospital more than once, I can attest to the fact that you really do go somewhere else in your head to get yourself through.
you're on fire!!! keep doing you, love
I knew that I’d be on board when you said “dancing to Björk - relatable!” I never saw this movie because I heard it was bad but now you convinced me
Longtime watcher, rare commenter, but I’m glad you like unpopular things and make videos about them! This was a good one.
Thanks.
When I watched the film I was mesmerized, I was 11 and I knew I didn't understand it completely, I rewathced it last year and it blew me away, I think move can use some fixes here and there but generally it's so deep and good, and not for everyone, that's why move flopped for casual audiences and it's a cult classic for us
I LOVED sucker punch. I think it's Zack Snyder's best movie. It's a beautiful fucked up story, I've never rooted for the protagonist more than in this movie. Every time someone dies the tragedy is deeply felt. It's a super hero action movie where the stakes couldn't be any higher, and the metaphor of generic evil empire is spelled out very plainly to be the society we currently live in if you aren't the right kind of person. It's a profound message, not exactly original, Body Politique is centuries old and Frantz Fanon's take is more than half a century old, but it was the most vivid and artistic expression of the concept I've ever seen. Extending the metaphor a bit, it even covers WEB DuBois' Double Consciousness through the lens of a female body.
Okay, so I guess that's 2 books to add to the reading list
"You don't understand Sucker Punch" and this video make me happy people are getting this movie after all these years
You articulated perfectly why I like both Sucker Punch and Birds of Prey❤
It's been a long day of fasting for Ramadan. I finally have clocked out, worked out, warmed my room and sat down with my food only to see this upload and excitedly yell "Aoh!" like your favorite New York Italian grandpa. Thanks so much for this upload Princess because I've always wanted more from this movie from the day it came out
I love your takes here. Back in the day I was so excited by the Sucker Punch trailer set to Lords of Acid's Crablouse, which is still one of my favorite trailers.
When I saw the cluttered mess of a movie that we actually got I was so disappointed, and as you mentioned I think the easiest fix would be to get rid of the Brothel layer and just have the Asylum and Fantasy layers fighting in Babydoll's mind. Also loved the suggestion of samurai/war movie posters in Babydoll's room.
Great video as usual!
I really liked this movie. Even after I found out all the guys I sucked up to as a "pick-me girl" said they didn't like it and thought it was boring. 🤔
as a longtime fellow sucker punch apologist (strangely i just rewatched the movie a few days ago, weird coincidence and great timing lol), thank you for making a video on this movie. despite its shortcomings it will be forever near and dear to my heart. also super jealous of your art book! i've always wanted to track one down :')
I think Zack Snyder meant well with Sucker Punch. I didn't see it in theaters so when I picked up the Blu-ray cheap I went straight to the director's cut. I had no idea how much was cut from the theatrical cut! The best sequence in my opinion is the "Love Is the Drug" number and without it the theatrical cut is hobbled and makes so much less sense.
I love Pacific Rim. Once I realized that the white dude was the POV character and the real story was about Mako and Stacker it made it so much better. 34:14
Pacific Rim doesn't have a 'real story' even the comic relief scientists matter Raleigh Becket is just a mentor figure who has to find meaning through letting other people grow. This comment feels kind of subconsciously misandrist what's wrong with quiet men dammit.
Watched this one twice and now I'm gonna watch Sucker Punch. Honestly I don't think I'll enjoy it any more than I did the first time, but I'm open to the possibility and looking forward to it.
The intro monologue stitching with the outer monologue lives in my mind rent free. I've always wanted it framed to a wall or as a tattoo. Very inspiring words.
"It's you, you have all the weapons you need. Now fight"
This was a good listen. I haven't actually ever watched this movie. I remember the marketing only being about 'girl hot' and yet everyone I know IRL that likes this movie absolutely adores it and is also a woman that finds it very empowering.
Yes, yes, yes!!! Haven't even watched your video yet but I'm so, so happy that you are looking at Sucker Punch! I watched this when it came out and I really liked the premise, although even my inexperienced ass could tell that there were issues in the framing
10:32 "I never saw the owl movie. I have no interest." That's alright, I saw it, I can vouch for it. In short, it's anti-fascism with birds in Australia, and it's wonderful and I love it.
I personally love sucker punch because it introduced me to Bjork. But also the first scene is honestly so good , the slow motion sequence accompanied by the orchestral remake of sweet dreams, it really made me feel the weight of baby doll’s situation. And of course it was perfect escapism for any teenage girl that liked video games and anime , since back in those days it wasn’t as mainstream as it is nowadays.
I’m so glad that this popped up today because I was just talking to my sister about how much we loved this movie for what it was. The soundtrack (which had a lot of the actors signing tracks. Love is the Drug is thankfully still on Spotify), the acting, the special effects, the costuming. For me as a weeb well beyond their years, it felt like an amv with a plot tied to it and that’s all I needed. I enjoyed it for what it was and I’m so glad that you recognize its faults while also not dragging it through the mud without mercy.
(Also as an aside, I have to ask where your Jason Todd print behind you is from because I need it. 🥺)
Sucker Punch was absolutely a guilty pleasure movie for me for the longest time. (My opinion on it largely hasn't changed, but i have better things to revisit now.) One of the reasons was indeed wanting to fight monsters with a giant sword in my brain. But also it was the first time for me where a piece of media looked at female mental health and sexual exploitation without ever vilifying the female character, and with a lighter, less heavy, overly realistic tone and themes. It was really refreshing to me to be able to enjoy a movie that also touched on such heavy topics without casting blame or shame on the women in the story.
“Being hot and having a sword is undefeated” 100%, no notes, might even try watching this movie after this review
this was not how I expected to learn that you have piercings, but I always appreciate the quick shots of genvy
TALK THAT SHIIIIIIII!!!!!
I am looking forward to a future where some new woman auteur remakes Sucker Punch. Or more likely uses the concept in a new way. Something that drops Snyder's particular love of the shallow that looks deep. I loved that what represented power was different on every level of the film and want that explored more deeply.
Sucker Punch is one of my favorite films!!! It was the first "adult" film I watched as a teenager and GOD it left such an impact with the layers and the implications and THE STYLE AAAAA.
Never saw the trailer tho.
Ive been waiting for this one!! Naturally, as a chronically ill teenager, Babydoll translating the horrors of her reality into ones that were fantastical and could be killed with a sword needed no explaining to me. Trauma and fantasy are often intertwined! Escaping from the darkness into a world where I could be strong and badass and hot is simply an appealing concept. And being a young bisexual at the time I'm sure a part of me did think if i just watched it enough times THIS TIME Baby and Sweetpea would kiss.
(ps dollhouse was a mess but at least i got to have diechen lachman on my screen for a while 😭)
I remember when i took the chance and bought Suckerpunch fo three dollars and I loved it so much deapite its problems. Afterward I thought it was based off a book or anime but found it was an original idea. It's sad i have never seen anything of its like since.
In the yellow wallpaper, the narrator mistakes the room for a nursery. She assumes that the iron rings on the wall were for children to play on, when it’s pretty obvious from that and other clues that she’s not the first unacceptable woman to be confined in that attic room.
Omg it was my first bluray too! I loved it when it came out but have been nervous to rewatch it - I will definitely be rewatching it now!
Man yeah I remember I watched like the first 80% of this film as a kid and had to go to bed right before the heist failed and the lobotomy happened, so I remembered it as an amazing film?
Anyway I still think it's great, it just didn't quite land the ending
Zack Snyder has mentioned in an interview that the Superman vs Zod fight in Man of Steel was inspired by Birdy the Mighty anime.
Wouldn't be surprised he also had seen Kill la Kill for inspiration for Sucker punch
pretty sure sucker punch predates kill la kill
@@theebronks He went to the studio and watched KLK before it came out to prepare? Talk about a hard worker!
Kill la Kill is one of the least original anime ever made so its unlikely that it would be the inspiration even if the timeline didn't make it impossible.
Blood the Last Vampire is a much more likely inspiration for Snyder but he's not doing anything tabletop RPGs weren't doing in the late 80s and 90s.
I always get ridiculously hyped when I see you post videos about Sucker Punch. I loved that movie. I hate defending it because if someone doesn't like it, I won't change their mind. But I find value in movies of its ilk, Jupiter Ascending is on my favourite forever list as well. Kind of wish Birds of Prey was as decisive, so all three can snuggle in a cuddle pile of estrogen infused euphoria.
(/genuine) This is not the first time you’ve explained how you’d make a movie or show better and I’ve thought “dam I wish they had hired Princess before making that cause I want to watch her version!”
I really enjoyed your take on the film. I only saw it once many years ago but I enjoyed hearing why you like it!
ok so i watched this in the movie theater with my girl friends when we were 16 and it was kinda life changing at the time lmao
I enjoy that you enjoyed it! There's something charming about listening to you discuss this movie you loved. And you do explain so well the good and the bad of it!
I feel like this film for sure would have been 100% amazing, if it was directed by a woman. The whole ideas and such are very interesting (and there are parts where even I have to admit were super cool).
I remember given it an A for effort and ideas but a very solid F on execution. So a C to C- from me.
And I don't wanna dislike Zack, and yes he does take risks (kind of) but he seems to ironically be stuck in his own head. Also he recently was on the Joe Rogan podcast, so the very little respect I had for him grew even smaller.
He's an ayn rand fan boy.
Who is Joe Rogan and why is it negative Zack was there, present?
@@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ Joe Rogan is a show host who has the stupidest right-wing assholes as guests.
@@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ Joe Rogan is a conservative podcaster and commentator who is friends with people like Ben Shapiro, so some of us, progressive and/or queer folks, don't really like the guy a lot. I recently saw a segment of his show interviewing Coffeezilla (a guy who exposes scammers and the like), and randomly making an apology to hate speech, so ehh. But for the record it's okay if we disagree and I feel no interest in arguing with anyone here, as I don't have the time or the energy for that. I just don't like Joe Rogan because he platforms assholes and seems to be in agreement with them, and tries to make random unrelated personalities comment on issues they know nothing about (as Coffeezilla himself admitted). All for his own agenda. Just yikes.
@@MaryamMaqdisi I'm gay and yeah.
I wouldn't really blacklist Zack for being in the podcast of that guy, whoever he is. But being friends with Ben Shapiro is wild.
For some reason, grifters like Pearly and other alpha bs trash-talkers have sprouted recently and I don't get why people like that have a platform, because they're shallow and super insecure as f*ck.
Legend of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole is my favourite film title ever
I've heard somewhere that commenting throughout the video can be good for the algorithm, so I'm commenting at the beginning to get things started right 💪
I think the main thing that my sister and I have noticed about the film is that the main character isn't /really/ babydoll but sweet pea - we focus on babydoll as sweet pea's saviour. Babydoll's story isn't one of a daring escape from an abusive system, but of a shining moment of kindness in that system, no matter how it ends for either of them it is still a beautiful thing... if that makes sense lol.
But man is it nice to hear someone say how good movies like sucker punch and birds of prey (also deathproof and planet terror tho I know ppl probably won't wanna hear it) are. My sister and I rarely talk about or show movies like those to other people bc of the whole dealing with a) those ppl not really getting my sister and I's obsession with movies and b) those people calling the movie weird or overly sexual or violent etc etc, so it's just nice to see others talking about and enjoying them the way we do.