I saw the new version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” movie on Christmas Day (you don’t force your seasonal observances on me and I won’t force mine on you), and of course I had mixed feelings even before the opening wails of Trent Reznor and company running “The Immigrant Song” through the random industrialization machine signaled the puzzling (and oily) James Bond intro. (Not all that inexplicable, really; it was, you know, edgy. Man.) (And apparently I shouldn’t be so offended, since Wikipedia tells me that marching bands commonly play “The Immigrant Song” at high school and college football games. We will never speak of this again, all right?)
I mean, I know Daniel Craig is Bond, but this is a different huge, high-profile franchise. And the damned thing was way too long, anyway. It made me cranky even before I found out it was a serial killer movie. To which I say – really? A serial killer movie? (Yes, yes, it was a serial killer book before it was a serial killer movie; I don’t care.) I love murder and evil as much as the next person, but serial killer plots are where writers turn when their ideas have abandoned them and all they have left is to sit at the kitchen table, alone, hating their mothers. (I know, some people like serial killer movies. Whatever.)
Anyway. I didn’t go to see this movie for the plot (although a serial killer seems egregious even in a movie you fully expect to suck). I went, obviously, because I have a huge crush on Rooney Mara. I am perfectly happy to watch Daniel Craig for hours at a time, as well. I felt OK about this, at the time, because Rooney wants me to stare at her, enthralled, for the duration of the film. And I’d read her bloviating about how vulnerable the character is, and what a triumph this is, so I thought I knew what to expect. I mean, a vulnerable female character – what next? A brilliant, insightful, shockingly attractive, effortlessly sexy male journalist?
I began to feel uncomfortable in the role of voyeur, though. Mara’s character, Lisbeth Salander, couldn’t be more vulnerable. Steig Larsson took pains to fuck with her in every way he could come up with, and the actress sold it and then some. She was bad ass – so bad ass, in fact, that she made Daniel Craig pretty much superfluous. Which is saying something. (He has it all – acting, looks, ill-humored comments in interviews.) The extravagantly unpleasant abuse Larsson heaps on Lisbeth is unnecessary, at least in this version, because Rooney Mara nailed it. Her portrayal is so good she could have just showed up and solved the mystery, and we’d still get it.
But then we wouldn’t have gotten to see the rape scenes, and that would be a shame, wouldn’t it?
I’m also accustomed to women suddenly taking a sharp left turn without signaling to inexplicably fall in love with some asshole, largely in service of the ego of the writer/director/male movie-going public, but when Lisbeth Salander does it, that’s just wrong. I was actually offended. It wasn’t that I couldn’t see a beautiful woman in her early twenties going for a man who’s over 40, rumpled, and kind of ordinary (except for his keen intellect, indefatigable sense of justice, and blinding yet low-key charm), even one who isn’t played by Daniel Craig. My issue is that this woman set her father on fire, people. We just saw her get brutally raped. No penis is magical enough to magically fix her issues with men. I do not buy it to a degree that destroys all the disbelief I’d managed to suspend. It is more unlikely than the serial killer. It is more unlikely than everything. It is wrong and stupid.
I have two related problems. The movie makes it clear to us that Lisbeth sleeps with women because she’s damaged. To which I say, fuck you, movie. Bisexuals are fucking sick to death of being tormented and confused. Please accept that some people like both men and women and move on, all right? How often do I have to explain this to you? Also, the woman Lisbeth picks up is much better than the stupid journalist, anyway. When he shows up at Lisbeth’s apartment and seems vaguely threatening, the girl asks Lisbeth if she wants her to stay. That is sweet. On the other hand, we have the 40+ year-old man macking on a woman almost as young as his daughter, and he knows she’s fucked up, on top of it. And the movie doesn’t seem to think this is horrible and creepy. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to find it romantic. Fuck you again, movie.
I actually enjoyed the movie, mostly, even though it pissed me off (if I only liked things that didn’t piss me off, I wouldn’t like much) and made me wonder about myself for wanting to stare at Rooney Mara/Lisbeth Salander under these circumstances. It is not the first time I’ve had these concerns. And regardless of how wrong or not wrong this might be, I’m proud to say Lisbeth really did save the day. She totally rode in on her motorcycle and saved Daniel Craig’s ass, and then, as an encore, she took care of the slippery businessman who had tried to ruin Craig’s career at the beginning of the movie. Lisbeth is as cool as Clint Eastwood (in a spaghetti western sort of way, not Every Which Way but Loose or Pink Cadillac or some shit like that), and women don’t get to be Dirty Harry very often.
Hm…have you seen Noomi Rapace in the role?
So this was basically my reaction to the book. Larsson created what could have been an interesting character, but he’s more interested in playing out his middle-aged fantasy of “rescuing” a cute goth chick.
Richard’s review of the book is here.
Richard, is it a middle-aged fantasy of rescuing or being rescued by a cute goth chick?
Kinukitty, I took it that the film was suggesting she had some problems with men, not with women. What was it that told you she was fucking women because of being damaged? The other film version did have more extended scenes with her girlfriend, but I didn’t see her being cured of women here.
There’s been some controversy with Shame over a similar issue. The lead fetishizes sex as a mechanical process to such a degree that, in the depths of his perverse detachment, he takes a blow job from a man.
Shame is definitely using male-male sex to show How Bad Things Have Gotten for the protagonist; Shivers actually uses homosexuality in a similar way. As, for that matter, does Fanny Hill — gay sex is a marker of the depths of depravity in all.
I think there’s a pretty good argument that something similar is happening in the film version of Dragon Tattoo. Lisbeth mentions to her guardian that she’s finally met someone he’d be happy with, for example; i.e., someone who would provide her with a healthy relationship. But the girl she was sleeping with before seemed very nice, caring, generally supportive. Obviously, it started as a one-night stand, which might make her guardian flinch, but, on the other hand, the guy she’s touting is old enough to be her father. I think it’s reasonable to see that scene as strongly suggesting that heterosexual relationships are superior to homosexual ones simply because they’re heterosexual.
I think it’s a fairly standard male fantasy to get with a radioactively hot woman who also happens to be half one’s age. Extra bonus points if said girl is damaged and one can save them from a life of misery/homosexuality. And tough women are thoroughly fetishized in our culture; there’s no question about that.
“Extra bonus points if said girl is damaged and one can save them from a life of misery/homosexuality.”
I thought the extra points were for a threesome.
Of course, he basically ditches her, suggesting that her view of the relationship as “salvation” is actually wrongo. So, she may feel saved in the film…but the film suggests that she actually isn’t–and that Daniel Craig doesn’t really have a magic penis…but is just another guy looking to get laid. He’s obviously meant to be a better, more sensitive dude than her father or her rapist, but he’s not the ideal alternative she initially thinks he is. She realizes this eventually and chucks his Christmas present. So…there are some currents in the film which reject the notion that hetero-relationship=better than homo-relationship. Nevertheless, it is pretty unbelievable/unrealistic that she would immediately fall all over him just because he was nice to her for five minutes (and because he almost got shot in the head). There’s a male fantasy element here, but the film at least does eventually suggest that it IS a fantasy.
I’m not saying it’s a great movie or anything…and it is sexist and exploitive of women in a number of ways (all that nudity displayed by the heroine…not so much for the hero, for instance), but we the film does suggest that maybe her falling all over Craig was a mistake on her part.
She is pretty badass though…and definitely the best part of an otherwise mediocre movie.
I think you’re misreading the end of the film; or at least the reading is more ambiguous than you’re making it out to be. It’s not entirely clear what his relationship with the other woman is. I got the sense that there was at least a possibility that there was a misunderstanding on Lisbeth’s part (maybe someone who’s read/seen the sequel can explicate for sure.)
Lesbianism: What the book makes clear, and the Swedish series, but not Fincher, is that she is bisexual and bases attraction on the person. In Fincher’s world, there’s this insinuation that she’s gay and Mikael cures her. So if they do #2, it will look very much like she “goes back to women.”
Eric – I don’t think she ever saw Mikael as an ideal, that’s part of the problem with Fincher’s spin. She knows EVERYTHING. She knows he has a lot of casual sex and it ultimately committed to Erika, even if she’s married to someone else. Lisbeth just got wrapped up in feelings that were unfamiliar to her and she handled them poorly.
Noah – Erika is his long-time love. They didn’t work exclusively, and both married other people, yet started an affair with each other. His marriage ended, hers continued because she wanted the sex and the friendship but not a relationship. Lisbeth knows all this.. It’s part of her report in the beginning. In fact, she knows about all Erika’s secrets too.
Though yes, how it is framed it also makes her look like she’s overreacting or assuming.
Yeah, Noah, I can see that, but you could also make the inverse argument about Boys Don’t Cry: all the straight sex is from a point of depravity. The only loving relationship is between the 2 girls in the film. I think the point of Shame was that it didn’t matter who the guy was fucking — that was what was depraved. But you can read it as homophobic, too.
I had forgotten about Lisbeth’s admission, but Eric gives an accurate reading of the ending. The woman he’s with is his long time lover, and he lied to Lisbeth about what he was doing.
Haven’t seen Boys Don’t Cry. But oppression is disproportionate by definition; playing into a history of discrimination is different than flipping that history.
Re Lisbeth…I don’t think there’s actually an issue of lying. Miscommunication, maybe…though Monika seems to be arguing in the book that Lisbeth knows Mikael so well that lying isn’t really on the table, at least in the novel.
Yes, she “overreacts,” to the final scene…but only because she “overreacts” to her relationship to Craig in the first place. That is, she sees the relationship as more than it is…which is why when something happens which she logically knew would be likely (but not emotionally)—that is, Craig returning to Robin Wright—she goes a bit overboard as well. My point is merely that the movie portrays her falling for Craig and all that entails as a delusion on her part…NOT as some kind of external universal “truth” that finding a “nice guy” will solve all your problems and cure you of homosexuality. Perhaps SHE initially reads it as such, but it’s clear that she is “wrong” in the movie’s terms, since Robin Wright is the metaphorical “wife” that Craig will never leave and that was always the case…
Somebody above was suggesting that the movie plays into the trope that sex/love with a “good man” will cure you of lesbianism, etc. I see the argument, but the movie is a bit more complicated about this than such a simple claim. This is not “Goldfinger”–despite the horribly crappy Bondian opening sequence…and the near-murder of Immigrant Song.
The way it turns out, she “saves” him multiple times, but he never really does save her from anything…even if she initially thinks that may be happening. So..there is some feminist consciousness there…though I wouldn’t call it a feminist movie for a number of other reasons.
Oh…the main thing is that it’s perfectly clear what his relationship to the other woman is…since she’s a main character in the film and their relationship is previously established.
Their reunification doesn’t mean that Craig has kicked Lisbeth to the curb permanently (or at all), but Lisbeth is faced with the fact that she’s not A#1 in his life.
It’s not clear that it’s just her who thinks she needs him to save her, is the thing. The movie strongly suggests that she’d be healthier/happier/normalized if Mikael followed through and did save her. It’s not just that she’s deluded; it’s that it actually is a tragedy that he’s not there for her.
The scene where they’re in bed and he flips her over so he’s on top seems important here…
Of course, there’s also the scene where she remains on top…though that one has different connotations, as he seems to have lost interest.
“The movie strongly suggests that she’d be healthier/happier/normalized if Mikael followed through and did save her.”
Sure…and if my aunt had balls—
Just the opposite, I think, it suggests that Mikael can’t follow through and save her, because such salvation isn’t possible in those terms. Sure, “if” he saved her, she’d be saved…but he can’t, so she won’t be…
In general, I’m not sure where you get this notion that the film “strongly suggests” that she’ll be normalized if he sticks it out. Where? Are there other examples of damaged women being saved by older sensitive men? Lisbeth being saved by her previous ward? Hardly…eventually, circumstances intervene and she has to fend for herself…which is to say, there is no such thing as permanent salvation. In the serial killings? No sensitive man saves the daughter/rape victim. Rather, her SISTER saves her (and her sensitive uncle ignores her in her hour of need–suggesting perhaps that men, even sensitive men, can’t really be trusted)…and then she forges an independent life by herself. And who clears the way for her to return to “life” as herself?—Not a man, but Lisbeth, who kills the serial killer, etc.
Actually, insofar as any saving is done in the film, it’s by Lisbeth….both of herself and of Craig. She extricates herself from the abuse with the counsellor/parole guy and from whatever abuse was going on with her dad. She saves Craig from de rigeur serial killer and from Craig’s economic/journalistic enemy. She even has “normalized” herself to a great degree (got herself a job, leading an independent life, etc.). It’s only if you’re willing to read bisexuality, tattoos, etc. as abnormal that you can say that she isn’t a normal functioning member of society (I’m not willing to do that, for the record). In fact, she is the most competent, effective, efficient figure you’re going to find. If anything, she’s a “Mary Sue”–men (and women) want her, and women (and men) want to be like her (nobody wants to undergo what she does…but everyone would like to be able to react to such trauma with such resources, force, efficiency, resiliency, etc). She (at times, anyway) may feel like she needs to be saved….but the film doesn’t really give that indication. She’ll save herself (and does), thanks very much.
Yes, she’s emotionally “damaged” and it’s a male fantasy to save (and sleep with) such young women…but the film doesn’t fulfill the salvation fantasy as easily as it does the sex one.
Maybe your claim is that’s it’s also a fantasy for older men to be saved by (and still sleep with) such figures? But more often isn’t being saved by a woman somewhat emasculating? Even in 2012?
Or maybe the only male fantasy being fulfilled in the film is the one revolving around younger attractive women being willing to have sex with (or throwing themselves at) older, less attractive men (though Craig is a sex symbol in his own right, right?).
I agree that the sex fantasy is a real and sexist one…but the notion that the movie suggests that Lisbeth needs saving by a man (or that such salvation is likely/possible) is much more tenuous—in fact, largely nonexistent.
So how do you square that with Monika’s argument that the movie sexualizes and softens her compared to the book? Or with kinukitty’s essay? Are they just delusional?
He doesn’t save her…but her relationship with her softens her and moves her closer to being a typical romantic heroine. The end plays as romantic comedy almost; she gets him flowers, there’s a misunderstanding, etc. As Monika says, the blanks that get filled in are Hollywood tropes. The fact that the romance doesn’t work isn’t a rejection of romance as such, or of the attraction of romance. It’s a reiteration that romance with a man is something she needs (as a woman) to be normal/happy/fulfilled, but can’t have.
In fact, I think you can read it as a fairly typical hollywood dilemma; the competent career woman, unhappy in love. Is it an accident that she attains financial stability right before we see her lose her love? Broadcast News with a goth girl — except in Broadcast News the heroine at least actually gets to choose her career, rather than just having to go back to it by default.
Masochistic fantasies for men are pretty prevalent, by the by.
I think the movie’s fairly confused, basically. The book (as I understand it) is more complex on these issues and the movie tries to follow the book’s plot for the most part, without having the wherewithal to get us inside the possible complexity of Lisbeth’s (or Mikael’s) mind. Even basic things are unclear. Like when she set dad on fire…Was this an act of “madness” (as she at one point implies), or was it an act of self-defense and perfectly justified (as I think much of the movie implies).
I’m not trying to make this movie some kind of ideal treatment of women’s rights, consciousness, and liberation—I’m just pointing out that the claim that was made (that it’s a fantasy of man saving woman and curing her of homosexuality) doesn’t make sense in terms of what actually happens in the film.
I would also say that pointing out that something is a trope, “successful career woman unhappy in love” doesn’t tell you much…since those tropes can be played in a variety of ways.
Such a trope can mean, “Being successful at work will make you unhappy in love, ergo you should forego your career, and allow men to control the public sphere”–
Or
the same trope can be played to blame a sexist/patriarchal society for putting too much of a burden on women… That is, it’s society that makes happiness both at work and at home a near impossibility for women…so society should change.
Admittedly, you see the latter far less in popular culture, but the same basic narrative can tell very different ideological stories.
I would say in “GWTDT”–there are lots of tropes, but what exactly they “mean” isn’t particularly consistent…as the movie itself isn’t consistent. Sometimes it’s empowering to women, sometimes exploitive.
Lisbeth’s “unhappiness in love” is clearly not because she’s a successful career woman, but because she’s been abused by men (including her own father) her whole life and is emotionally damaged. So…it’s not her public sphere efficiency that fucks up her private life….it’s men who fuck up her private life, from beginning (dad) to end (Mikael). It’s not Broadcast News (a much better movie, btw). The narratives of the two movies are far from identical up to the final shift…so the comparison doesn’t really work in any significant way. We might say that GWTDT gives the illusion that men have ultimate power over women…but we could also say that the film shows a very powerful woman capable of overcoming all of that patriarchal social hegemony. That is, it’s somewhat contradictory.
Sure, masochism is a frequent male fantasy….so now you’re claiming the reverse of your original argument? (That it’s a fantasy of male saving female?)—Just checking…
I actually think some of my reading is perfectly coherent with Kinukitty’s and etc…but I don’t feel obliged to see things identically. I haven’t read the book, so can’t argue (or agree) with Monika. I do agree with her that Lisbeth is sexualized for male viewer’s pleasure, but that doesn’t mean what I’m suggesting isn’t also true. That is, the movie is contradictory to some degree. Is this shocking? I also fail to see how anything I’ve said makes out anyone to be delusional, but whatever.
Again, I don’t want to be the “defending GWTDT guy”— I actually don’t think it’s all that great, or liberating, or whatever…. It’s just not quite so clearly about the “guy saving girl” narrative that you (were) claim(ing). Now it seems that the claim is different?
My understanding is that in the books, the relationship between the two continues to be vexed, and that Lisbeth has a number of sexual encounters with both men and women, retaining her bisexuality. I don’t know enough about these to suggest whether or not the reader is meant to see her return to women as a symptom of her “failure” with Mikael, or whether she simply continues to be bisexual, as she always was, but it’s an interesting question. Of course, it tells us basically nothing about the meaning of the film.
Finally (I hope):
“It’s a reiteration that romance with a man is something she needs (as a woman) to be normal/happy/fulfilled, but can’t have.”
You’re free to read it that way, I guess, but since so much of the film revolves around the wrongs done to women by men–and especially the wrongs done to Lisbeth by men—and even the sins of omission made by otherwise nice guys—I think the notion that the story says: “All will be cured by the presence of a penis,” is far too simplistic. There may be currents of this in the film, but there are also strong countercurrents, which makes the film more interesting in this regard than you suggest (though not so interesting, really, as a murder mystery/serial killer story). The villains are all men here, and the male “protagonists/heroes” are basically impotent and accomplish nothing of value (Craig and Christopher Plummer). Only Lisbeth is an effective agent. Craig’s only real effective move is asking her for help. Plummer’s only effective move is asking Craig for his…and only because it leads to Lisbeth.
Perhaps all of the “feminist” elements come from the book’s plot and all of the “sexist” elements come from Hollywood, but I doubt it. My guess is that the book is similarly vexed and contradictory.
Feel free to now misread my commentary—I’m retiring from this debate (I hope—we’ll see how strong my will power is).
“Feel free to now misread my commentary”
Oh, tosh. It’s a conversation. Competing readings are how such things work.
I’d agree that the movie vacillates between its feminism and its objectification. I think it also vacillates between seeing Lisbeth as powerful and overcoming her damage and as seeing her as simply damaged and in need of healing. Her personal choices — from goth attire to her personal distance — are shown as part of that damage…and I think her bisexuality is shown as such as well. (Don’t we see her getting together with the woman in the club directly after the rape scene?) Similarly, I think it’s too simple to just say that the proffered happy ending at the conclusion is delusional, or not something the movie believes in. The film pushes towards a heterosexual happiness that is denied…but that doesn’t erase the potential romantic ending, or the power it has in a Hollywood film.
You can do various things with tropes…but tropes can also do various things with you. Strong women who can’t have love are a staple of Hollywood. When you set the ending up as Lisbeth attaining financial security and then failing in love, you stumble into the trope whether you want to or not.
I’d agree the film is confused. It wants to have both its powerful, abused, kick-ass narrator and its Hollywood romance too. I think one of the ways that works out is that bisexuality is seen as part of being damaged, and heterosexual happiness as a potential, albeit unsuccessful, normalization.
“But oppression is disproportionate by definition; playing into a history of discrimination is different than flipping that history.”
Well, sure, which was part of my point: you’ll read Shame as homophobic, but wouldn’t read Boys Don’t Cry as heterophobic. Or Dragon Tattoo as pro-lesbian relations: shouldn’t Lisbeth have learned her lesson (given how most of the men fuck Lisbeth over in one way or another)? I don’t think Shame was actually making any generalizable statement about gay relations as such, only about the lead’s way of approaching sex as a purely objectified experience. I’d be surprised if McQueen has much of a problem with homosexuality, but I don’t know much about him.
Anyway, mega-dittos to Eric.
And I remember Mikael saying he was going to be doing something other than seeing his girlfriend (working?) to Lisbeth, which turned out to be a lie.
Shame doesn’t care about homosexuality per se. But it positions the homosexual relationship (along with the three way) towards the end of the film, where it can emphasize the escalating degradation. It’s casually, not ideologically, homophobic. Same with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I’d say. They’re both pretty stupid films.
Oh…re masochism. It’s not a contradiction to fantasize about being dominated by a woman and saving a woman. Fantasies aren’t algebra; opposing desires are perfectly compatible.
Oh…also, in terms of Mikhail’s uselessness, I think you’re maybe overemphasizing it? He’s the one who solves the mystery, after all.
I repurposed Eric’s comments as a post over here.
“Fantasies aren’t algebra; opposing desires are perfectly compatible.”
I agree with that, but I think Dragon Tattoo is, from a male perspective, more a fantasy of being rescued than rescuing.
As for Shame, I think it supports both interpretations. Reading homophobia isn’t the right one, but it isn’t wrong, either. Homosexual encounters can be depraved, just like heterosexual ones.
If you look at David Fincher’s overall career, you’ll see a consistent pattern of one bad film followed by one good film. (Seriously, check out his imdb page!) His last film was the Social Network; thus “Dragon Girl” had to be crap, as a matter of metaphysical necessity…
Did you read my review of Shame? It’s here if you’re interested. Homophobia was the least of my objections to it.
I thought the reason that she slept with daniel craigs’s charecter was because he was wounded;seeing that it triggered that men can be vulnerable and having sex with him was her way to comfort him.