House of Eratosthenes

I hadn’t noticed this thing about raising-daises. But there is a persistent pattern with a gloomy present giving way to a new rosy future made possible by the victory in the epic battle. It used to be an occasional happenstance that someone would have to make the ultimate sacrifice for that victory to be possible. After Spock in the Mutara Nebula, it began to happen much more often, and after Harry in Armageddon it seemingly has to happen all the time.

Vice Admiral Holdo’s weird sacrifice that defies common sense and reason notwithstanding, there’s a persistent trend in which this sacrifice is to be made by the male. The woman is to go on living. And this goes way back, to the slasher-film era. The Final Girl is a real thing, in fact it isn’t hard to pick her out near the beginning of the film if you put in one of the newer slasher flicks. You can spot her if you try. It’s kind of a fun game. “Okay she’s a slut, she’s not the F.G.” “She’s got a brain, I think she might be the F.G.” “Oh wow, I really thought it would be her…oh well, let’s see who bites it next.”

It’s got something to do with being remembered in that new rosy future. The female lives on ward after the epic battle, to be a part of this future, and likely even central to it. The Bride in Kill Bill lives, with her child — those two against the world. The father, Bill, is like a flame extinguished, to be not only deceased but forgotten. Which is weird, since the girl had a relationship with her father prior to the final events, not with the mother.

The male descends, makes the ultimate sacrifice, backs off, fades into the shadows. The woman triumphs, ascendant, raised on the dais, lives on and is remembered.

Which just goes to show, those who make the most noise about gender being a social construct and men & women being the same, are the ones who believe in it the least. Our movies are marketed to men and women differently. Males and females in the audience are looking for different things, relating to their respective same-gender heroes in different ways. One of my favorite bits of evidence is the “falling asleep” thing. Haven’t you noticed, both Wonder Woman and Moana fall asleep while they’re supposed to be sharing equal responsibility piloting a water vessel, and in both cases the second-stringer male helpmate completes the voyage while they snooze. This suggests female moviegoers are looking for things in female action heroes, that male moviegoers are not looking for in male action heroes…James Bond, after all, likely wouldn’t have snored & drooled while Honey Rider was piloting the boat. Or, if not, there is a bit of marketing research somewhere that says that’s the case.

Not sure what this means. Maybe the chicks are smarter than we are and they know you have to get a decent night’s sleep to save the world properly. Or, maybe they’re down with someone of the opposite sex doing the steering, and we’re not. Or society as a whole has figured out you can be an intrepid, courageous, desirable female when you’re rubbing crusties out of your sleepy eyes asking “where are we?” but intrepid courageous desirable males are not supposed to do the exact same thing.

all asleep while they’re supposed to be sharing equal responsibility piloting a water vessel, and in both cases the second-stringer male helpmate completes the voyage while they snooze.

Also a fairly clumsy Christ figure allusion (Mark 4:38-40).
- Severian | 09/09/2018 @ 16:57

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Symbolism & Propaganda in Popular CultureSunday, September 9th, 2018

Symbolism & Propaganda in Popular Culture
Sunday, September 9th, 2018