I watched Taken and it annoyed me.
Yeah, that movie from a few years back with Qui-Gon Jinn being an avenging badass. It's almost too easy to be angry at; I can't possibly be the first to pick it apart and perhaps I am beating a dead horse here. Maybe it's famous for how hilariously misogynistic it is. But holy crap.
So Liam Neeson's daughter (and her friend) get kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers and the body/concussion count rises as Mr. Neeson cuts a swath of VIOLENCE to her rescue from sex slavery. It's obvious that the goal here was a satisfying dose of ass-kickery with a nice happily-ever-after -- entertainment, revenge fantasy, id candy, eat some popcorn, hooray for daddy badass.
I read lousy fantasy novels and love Kill Bill. I understand mindless escapism. And I probably would have been fine with this film--if there was a single female character in it who wasn't:
a) helpless
b) in some way responsible for the abduction, or
c) a passive plot stepping-stone.
I think what made it so disturbing to me is that I found it pretty entertaining during the fleeting moments that my brain was off, so I wonder how much of the subtext people would subconsciously swallow if they watched it without challenging any of it on some level.
So. Daddy Qui-Gon rescues his (virginal) daughter by the end of the movie, but we never find out what happens to her friend who is also abducted. [EDIT: I seem to recall now that she was shown dead or drugged at one point and that it's the last we see of her. Read on.] But I guess that's okay because Friend started out by telling Qui-Gon's girl that she planned to get laid by the charming French guy who ended up luring the two girls into the kidnapping (Friend also tells Daughter that she should get laid in France too because "You gotta lose it some time"). So who cares what happened to this girl because she probably deserved it for having an interest in sex, right filmmakers?
Friend is also largely to blame for the abduction because she lied to Daughter about the living arrangements they would have while in France--she said there would be other people in the house (adults I think, someone Daddy-approved) but there weren't, which allowed the kidnappers to barge right in and drag the girls out like sacks of potatoes.
Daughter's Mom, divorced from Qui-Gon, is portrayed as a frosty bitch who thinks that Qui-Gon is overprotective, and, together with Daughter/Friend, lies to Qui-Gon about the girls' actual plans for the France trip--they said they'd go to museums but are actually planning to follow U2 on a tour all over Western Europe. Dad finds out at the last second, gets mad at ex-wife for conspiring and then she calls him on being overprotective and worrying too much.
Oh, guess who turned out to be right.
Daddy can do no wrong. He kills and injures a lot of people with few to no consequences. Yes, many of them are grimy bastards who earn their bullets and broken noses. But there is also a scene in which he (nonfatally) shoots the wife of a French gov't dude because said dude is barring his path to rescue/vengeance. He shoots gov't dude's wife, not the man himself, who was being a sleaze and trying to stop Qui-Gon from rescuing Daughter. Violence against the wife is used as a way to force her husband's cooperation. She is pretty much a "Make Pierre do what I want him to do" button. We do not get anything that indicates Qui-Gon living with remorse afterwards. The candy-coated happy-ever-after at the end of the movie only tells us that Daughter loves Daddy for saving her and, guess what! She's gonna be a pop singer (with no PTSD or anything).
The one female character who is sort of directly helpful (I guess, maybe) is another abductee who Qui-Gon steals from the sex-slave holding pen and revives from a drug-induced stupor so that she can give him information on his daughter's whereabouts. We never see a woman attempting to fight back (against anyone, ever) in this film. Qui-Gon is even on the phone with his daughter as the abductors break in and his instructions are basically "They are going to take you, so tell me as much about them as you can so that I can come to your rescue."
In review:
- The girls probably wouldn't have been kidnapped if they weren't naive/horny
- The ex-wife thought they'd be okay but was wrong; the dad thought they were in danger and was right
- The dad uses violence against an innocent woman to make her husband do what he wants
- No consequences are shown for this
- No woman in this movie had any (positive) power over... anything
- The daughter was, in fact, encouraged to be completely passive
Okay. I know that these things do happen in real life. I know that fighting back is arguably too risky in assault situations, and also that this is supposed to be mindless entertainment and so on and so forth.
But how many movies/books/video games do we already have where no woman has any kind of power? Do we take it for granted that people won't take this stuff seriously? I don't think "stupid people will be stupid" is an excuse to keep making things like this.
All I'm saying is: imagine a version of this movie where Liam Neeson is a woman.
Do tell me if I'm missing something here.
(Immediately after we watched Taken I made everyone watch Hard Candy.)
So Liam Neeson's daughter (and her friend) get kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers and the body/concussion count rises as Mr. Neeson cuts a swath of VIOLENCE to her rescue from sex slavery. It's obvious that the goal here was a satisfying dose of ass-kickery with a nice happily-ever-after -- entertainment, revenge fantasy, id candy, eat some popcorn, hooray for daddy badass.
I read lousy fantasy novels and love Kill Bill. I understand mindless escapism. And I probably would have been fine with this film--if there was a single female character in it who wasn't:
a) helpless
b) in some way responsible for the abduction, or
c) a passive plot stepping-stone.
I think what made it so disturbing to me is that I found it pretty entertaining during the fleeting moments that my brain was off, so I wonder how much of the subtext people would subconsciously swallow if they watched it without challenging any of it on some level.
So. Daddy Qui-Gon rescues his (virginal) daughter by the end of the movie, but we never find out what happens to her friend who is also abducted. [EDIT: I seem to recall now that she was shown dead or drugged at one point and that it's the last we see of her. Read on.] But I guess that's okay because Friend started out by telling Qui-Gon's girl that she planned to get laid by the charming French guy who ended up luring the two girls into the kidnapping (Friend also tells Daughter that she should get laid in France too because "You gotta lose it some time"). So who cares what happened to this girl because she probably deserved it for having an interest in sex, right filmmakers?
Friend is also largely to blame for the abduction because she lied to Daughter about the living arrangements they would have while in France--she said there would be other people in the house (adults I think, someone Daddy-approved) but there weren't, which allowed the kidnappers to barge right in and drag the girls out like sacks of potatoes.
Daughter's Mom, divorced from Qui-Gon, is portrayed as a frosty bitch who thinks that Qui-Gon is overprotective, and, together with Daughter/Friend, lies to Qui-Gon about the girls' actual plans for the France trip--they said they'd go to museums but are actually planning to follow U2 on a tour all over Western Europe. Dad finds out at the last second, gets mad at ex-wife for conspiring and then she calls him on being overprotective and worrying too much.
Oh, guess who turned out to be right.
Daddy can do no wrong. He kills and injures a lot of people with few to no consequences. Yes, many of them are grimy bastards who earn their bullets and broken noses. But there is also a scene in which he (nonfatally) shoots the wife of a French gov't dude because said dude is barring his path to rescue/vengeance. He shoots gov't dude's wife, not the man himself, who was being a sleaze and trying to stop Qui-Gon from rescuing Daughter. Violence against the wife is used as a way to force her husband's cooperation. She is pretty much a "Make Pierre do what I want him to do" button. We do not get anything that indicates Qui-Gon living with remorse afterwards. The candy-coated happy-ever-after at the end of the movie only tells us that Daughter loves Daddy for saving her and, guess what! She's gonna be a pop singer (with no PTSD or anything).
The one female character who is sort of directly helpful (I guess, maybe) is another abductee who Qui-Gon steals from the sex-slave holding pen and revives from a drug-induced stupor so that she can give him information on his daughter's whereabouts. We never see a woman attempting to fight back (against anyone, ever) in this film. Qui-Gon is even on the phone with his daughter as the abductors break in and his instructions are basically "They are going to take you, so tell me as much about them as you can so that I can come to your rescue."
In review:
- The girls probably wouldn't have been kidnapped if they weren't naive/horny
- The ex-wife thought they'd be okay but was wrong; the dad thought they were in danger and was right
- The dad uses violence against an innocent woman to make her husband do what he wants
- No consequences are shown for this
- No woman in this movie had any (positive) power over... anything
- The daughter was, in fact, encouraged to be completely passive
Okay. I know that these things do happen in real life. I know that fighting back is arguably too risky in assault situations, and also that this is supposed to be mindless entertainment and so on and so forth.
But how many movies/books/video games do we already have where no woman has any kind of power? Do we take it for granted that people won't take this stuff seriously? I don't think "stupid people will be stupid" is an excuse to keep making things like this.
All I'm saying is: imagine a version of this movie where Liam Neeson is a woman.
Do tell me if I'm missing something here.
(Immediately after we watched Taken I made everyone watch Hard Candy.)