Cinematography of Female Objectification from the Perspective of the Male Gaze: Sucker Punch
Oğuzcan AcarSucker Punch (2011), directed by Zack Snyder and his first film not based on source material, has been the center of controversy since its release. The two main groups at the center of the debate are as follows: One group says the film represents women’s empowerment from a feminist perspective, and the other group claims on the contrary that the production contains misogynistic elements. Female actors play the main roles in this film and are the focus of the story on the fictional level. The main basis of criticism has been the presence of scenes that hyper-sexualize women and reproduce certain gender stereotypes. The defenses against these criticisms have been stated on the basis that the points considered problematic in the production were mainly due to viewers who’d internalized these problems. Among the issues that reproduce the gender stereotypes the film claims to approach with a critical lens are a brothel making up the low-fantasy universe of Babydoll’s (Emily Browning) character, the women there being enslaved and working solely to satisfy male pleasure, the constant threat of sexual violence, and the invincible appearance of male power and the film emphasizes the invalidity of the counterarguments. A new evaluation focusing on these debates in the context of the seminal concept of the male gaze as emphasized by Laura Mulvey would provide a more accurate analysis. Therefore, an examination of the objectification of women in the film, the acceptance of the audience as a male subject, and the visual narrative’s appeal to male pleasure and to the reproduction of gender inequality, as well as other similar issues, will reveal whether the film was produced within the model of the male gaze. Ultimately, this will provide a clearer idea of whether the film opens the door to female empowerment as claimed or conversely to the objectification of women. This study aims to analyze this film that has been the focus of various debates through an evaluation from the perspective of critical feminist film theory.
Eril Bakış Perspektifinden Kadın Nesneleştirilmesinin Sinematografisi: Sucker Punch
Oğuzcan AcarZack Snyder’ın yönetmenliğini üstlendiği ve kendisinin kaynak materyale dayanmayan ilk filmi olma niteliğini haiz Sucker Punch (2011), vizyona girdiği günden itibaren tartışmaların odağı olmuştur. Tartışmaların merkezindeki iki ana grup şöyledir: Filmin feminist bir perspektifte kadının güçlendirilmesini temsil ettiğini söyleyenler ve bunun tam tersine yapımın mizojinik unsurlar içerdiğini iddia edenler. Kadın oyuncuların ana rolleri üstlendiği ve kurgusal düzlemde hikâyenin ağırlık merkezi oldukları mezkûr filmde, bilhassa kadınları hiper-seksüalize eden ve belirli cinsiyet kalıplarını yeniden üreten sahnelerin bulunması eleştirilerin temel dayanağı olmuştur. Bahis mevzuu eleştirilere yönelik savunmalar ise yapımda sorunlu addedilen noktaların esasen izleyicilerin bu sorunları içselleştirmiş olmasından kaynaklandığı ekseninde belirtilmiştir. Babydoll (Emily Browning) karakterinin düşük-fantazya evreninin bir genelev olması, kadınların burada tutsak olup salt erkek hazzını tatmine yönelik çalışmaları, cinsel şiddet tehdidinin daimî varlığı ve erkek kuvvetinin yenilmez görünümü, filmin eleştirel mercekle yaklaştığını iddia ettiği cinsiyet kalıplarını yeniden üreten hususların başında olarak ifade edilmiş, karşı argümanların geçersizliği vurgulanmıştır. İşbu tartışmalara odaklı yeni bir değerlendirmenin ise Laura Mulvey tarafından vurgulanan ufuk açıcı eril bakış kavramı ekseninde yapılması, daha isabetli bir tahlil ortaya koyabilecektir. Dolayısıyla filmdeki kadınların nesneleştirilmesine, seyircinin erkek özne kabul edilmesine, görsel anlatının erkek hazzına hitap etmesine, cinsiyet eşitsizliğini yeniden üreten görsel anlatıya ve benzeri sorunlara yönelik irdeleme, filmin eril bakış modeline dâhil bir yapım olup olmadığının neticesini gösterecektir. Nihayetinde buna göre, filmin, iddia edildiği üzere kadının güçlendirilmesine mi, yoksa aksi şekilde kadının nesneleştirilmesine mi kapı açtığına dair sarih fikirler edinilebilecektir. İşbu çalışma, eleştirel feminist sinema kuramı perspektifinden bir değerlendirme ile çeşitli tartışmaların odağı olan bu filme dair bir irdeleme yapmayı gaye edinmiştir.
Sucker Punch (2011) was directed by Zack Snyder and is his first original production not based on source material. The film has also been the subject of intense debate since its release. In this context, two sides to this debate can be said to exist. The first side is the view, supported by Snyder and those who think like him, that the film contributes to female empowerment. The second side argues that the film contains elements of misogyny and fails to substantiate Snyder’s claim. Both views provided examples to support their arguments, and the film thus became the subject of feminist debates for a certain segment of the audience. Naturally, these feminist debates have been related to the concept of the male gaze in the context of nudity, the most fundamental element in the film. How women are positioned within the visual narrative has often been claimed to objectify them. Therefore, one can equally argue that this objectification aims to provide desire satisfaction for the male gaze. At this point, outlining the concept of the male gaze needs to occur first. The paradigm of the concept, which considers women as objects and men as subjects, stands out as the most important issue. The natural consequence of a mechanism that accepts viewers as male is the transformation of women into sexual objects being presented to them. The one-sided, male pleasure-oriented nature of the male gaze makes it the target of feminist criticism. The feminist psychoanalytic cinema criticism that gained momentum after the text written by Laura Mulvey (Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, 1975) has paved the way for rethinking the relationship between film and audience in favor of women. The male viewer, isolated by the movie theater, is positioned as the subject who dominates his object due to the film satisfying the male gaze. In this way, the male reinforces his power over the female. Moreover, every time he identifies with the male character in the visual narrative, the idea ossifies of seeing the woman as an object obliged to fulfill his desires. The stronger the male character dominates the female character, the more likely the male gaze is to be satisfied. However, even if the female character is not under the pressure of a male character that the male audience can identify with, she may satisfy the male gaze in terms of her appearance. The female figure is put on display and shaped according to male fantasies. Sucker Punch contains many examples of this perspective and seems to have been produced for the male gaze. Of course, the director and those who think like him do not accept these claims. According to them, the fact that the women in the movie are sexy and take part in action scenes indicates that they are powerful. Sexualization does not mean objectification here but rather liberation. On the other hand, critics who categorically reject this approach explicitly state how the misogyny has been aestheticized. They insist that the concept of empowerment is used as a kind of pretext, with women actually being objectified through the sexualized visions of them. Snyder has responded to all this by saying that the male audience wants to be presented with satisfying images of these sexy female characters but that the movie doesn’t give them this satisfaction. Of course, he seems to overlook the fact that the movie initiates the moment that creates these desires. The presence of many scenes that satisfy the male gaze of the male viewer who identifies with the camera seems to prove Snyder wrong. In addition, having a male character guide the battles of supposedly free women reproduces the idea that women are always in need of a man’s guidance. In addition, having women fight and win against various fantasy beings in the high fantasy layer yet be defeated by male power in the lower layers is problematic. In this context, male power appears to be unbreakable, which can only have a disempowering effect on women. The high number of rape attempts in the film and the constant threat of harassment does nothing to create a safe space for women. The male audience, on the other hand, seems to have a safe viewing space because the power of male characters goes unbroken. Sexualization and objectification seem to be the result of the film in practice, if not the actual motivation for its production. Thus, the criticisms against Snyder and his supporters can be said to be justified. The visual narrative in which women serve the male gaze can also be said to present cinematographic misogyny, contrary to the empowerment Snyder claims. Therefore, this evaluation of the film Sucker Punch along the axis of the male gaze has ultimately found the critical attitudes against it to be accurate.