(no subject)

[riseupwithfists]

I love being reminded of the fact that large swaths of fandom actually can't understand the difference between depiction and approval to save their life (the above link spoils the entirety of the movie Splice, btw, but I can quote if people want to know the gist without having it spoiled).

I saw Splice today and the person above... we didn't see the same movie, clearly. And maybe I'm privileged because I see a lot of film and read a lot about film, but an interpretation of the film that assumes that it's condoning and promoting what's going down is at best facile and at worst made in extremely bad faith.

And this is a separate issue from people getting triggered by material in the movie! Apparently the American marketing campaign really misrepresented the film, and I understand that. This movie is not for everyone. It is filled with fucked up stuff. But it isn't saying what the reviewer in the link above said it was saying. ARTISTIC COMPREHENSION, Y'ALL. YOU CAN HAS IT.

Comments

[the_future_modernes]

you sure its locked?

[eisen]

I still like that the entire review calls her "Biochemist GF" instead of by name.

Because that plus the - repeated! -assumptions that Clive is supposed to be sympathetic just keep making me blink a lot and wonder what ingrained assumptions about the role of men versus women in any narrative got brought to that review; it sure sounds a lot like they went in expecting the woman to be insignificant and the man to be the moral voice of the film and that they relentlessly insisted on interpreting it through that lens even when the movie went for a totally opposite conclusion; for all the movie's failings, that particular take on the importance of Elsa versus Clive is not one that I think holds up to much scrutiny and it actually bugs me a lot because it feels a little like the reviewer is justifying their own internalized misogyny by saying because Elsa has head damage she's just a crazy bitch.

(I will not actually deny the film is a hot mess, though, and comes to several conclusions I think are hideous and abominable, even if I was entertained by it while I watched it. But that interpretation is not one I think is supportable by the film itself.)

And yes, holy crap, is this a separate issue from the triggery content of the movie, of which there is LOTS. EVERYONE WHO THINKS THEY MIGHT WANT TO SEE THIS EVER needs to understand this is a movie that contains graphic scenes of incestual rape, among other horrifying things, and nobody needs to be exposed to that if they don't want to. Absolutely nobody. It is not justifiable to discuss this movie without being upfront and honest about the fact that even a brief summary of the plot could risk triggering people, because it's just that nerve-wracking.

But it is a terribly large leap to go from "this movie contains horrible things" to "this movie ENDORSES horrible things" and I don't think that's an approach the text of the movie will support for very long.

[alliterate]

Hey, thanks for posting this - I was one of those people who saw that post and had the kneejerk "OH MY GOD THEY'RE ACTUALLY ENDORSING THIS SHIT ANYBODY WHO KNOWINGLY AND WILLINGLY SEES THIS IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET" reaction, which is, uh, problematic on a few levels. I doubt I'll be seeing it anyway, because graphic incestuous rape is really not something I want to see, but I'm glad to know it isn't what that post makes it out to be and I'm definitely glad to have it pointed out to me that I, by extension of that post, was being a giant asshat about it.

[gloss]

I keep wanting to c&p that post and transform it to lower case because I can't read it in its current format.

BUT. That is not important! I dunoo, I'm relieved in a weird way to hear that the movie isn't as horrific as is being touted.

[softestbullet]

Good to know! Not that I'll ever ever watch it (that post triggered me), but, good to know.

[irrelevant]

On the one hand, I understand the reviewer's extreme reaction. This movie appears to be full of triggers one might not even know one had, and from what I can tell (I just did a run by the movie site, Wikipedia and various film-related sites), if you haven't read in-depth reviews of the piece (which don't seem to be available at the moment), you're not going to know what you're getting. Which is... well, content considered, it's bad.

Granted, the language used in the post you linked to is deliberately inflammatory, but even if the person had written a no-bullshit, no capslock review, the basic events described would be enough (for me, at least) for a visceral reaction. Gut reactions are gut reactions because they bypass the thinking portion of the brain and go straight for your hindbrain and gag reflex, and I think the writer didn't stop reacting and really think about what they'd seen before they posted. Ah the perils of posting without the intervention of thought.

By which I mean I'm in complete agreement with you concerning the reviewer's misplaced outrage. It is one thing to depict a horrific act and yet another to glorify that act. My issue is not with the presence of graphically depicted rape in a film; depiction does not constitute approval. But even if a film doesn't show approval for a certain act, the filmmaker's reasons for depicting that act can still be wrong.

If rape is depicted graphically in any form of media, for me to give that piece of media any credence there had better be a damned good reason for the graphic depiction. Going by the storyline I picked out from between the capslock and the sketchy details other sites provided, I get the impression that the act of rape was thrown in twice, not because the rape itself was important and had meaning within the context of the story, but because the act added to the general horror of the situation. Something along the lines of, THIS IS UR WARNING: splicing/genetic engineering/scientific experimentation is bad and wrong and evil and results in abominations against the laws of god and man.

Uh...huh. Old, old message, and the medium for carrying it isn't really anything novel, either. I dunno. Splice sounds like a lot of gratuitous violence and psychological horror with very little intellectual payoff. It sounds, like so many films in many genres do these days, pointless.

I'm not a film buff or even a movie fan. The last two movies I saw in a theatre were Batman Begins and Star Trek VI, and I didn't like either one of them; I went because I needed to see how bad they were going to be, and well, they lived down to my expectations. The last time I sat still for the entirety of a rented video, I was, oh, a lot younger than I am now. My point is, if it's not animation or a book, I probably won't like it; my point is, what I know about film wouldn't fill a thimble. But if Splice was a book, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to finish it.

[dingsi]

Thank you for writing this. Let's just say I read eisen's review first, so the linked post had a lot of statements I could agree with, but also some where it made for, uh, interesting disconnect.