Tag Archives: Stieg Larsson

Monika Bartyzel on the Hollywoodization of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

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Sometime commenter on HU Monika Bartyzel had an thoughtful post about the softening and sexualizing of Lisbeth Salander in the Hollywood version of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” I talked to her a little about it on email, and she kindly agreed to let me publish her further reflections. So here they are:

I appreciate the book. As you’ve already seen with Twilight, I can read around certain issues if I find something compelling or interesting. I so completely appreciate his [Stieg Larsson’s] intent and the path he takes that any literary questions of value/etc are irrelevant to me. The only thing that did really weigh on me was supposed to – it was hard work to read about repeated abuse to one woman, but I think it was entirely necessary to make the environment palpable, especially to those who would deny it…while also noting that even with just a sliver of what Lisbeth experiences, the audience sees it as too much. It adds weight.

As for similar problems – do you mean in her characterization or the film? Yes, the film is dense and not structured in the usual way (again, I don’t mind that). As for her – it’s similar yet very different. It basically boils down to privilege and how stories are filtered. Larsson saw a rape and wrote from the vantage of being emotionally impacted by the continual violence against women that he saw. Fincher is coming from sexy Hollywood of flash and lust.

So through Larsson and on the page, Lisbeth’s vulnerability is more about the men than about her (though her body is slight). She has things happen to her that she can’t control, so she reacts in an entirely different way to the world than we do. For her, in the book, she feels like she’s given a lot to Mikael and has deep feelings for him (love? No idea. She cares for him, but there’s no base of comparison). So when he walks off with his long-time paramour, she’s hurt and writes him off. But she wasn’t womanized. She wasn’t a romantic fool. There was never a moment of dual intimacy. To her, she’s sharing a lot; to him, she’s cold, aloof, and fascinating, but not warm. It’s a look at her struggle to find the balance between who she became due to her terrible life, and the human feelings and impulses she has. Some say that it’s ludicrous that she’d even like Mikael, but it’s not. He’s the second kind man in her life, the first who isn’t a father figure. He isn’t a misogynist, he’s smart, fit, and comes to her in a place of warmth and kindness that immediately gets under her skin because no men have this obvious, inherent respect for her.

Fincher takes the vulnerability of a girl whose legal and human rights are continually ignored and thrusts her into a two-part personality of the soft girl who just wants to be loved and the hard girl who will kill if she’s crossed. So to him, her sneers are sexy, rather than sad or unfortunate. He makes her obviously romantically interested in Mikael. He makes her share dark secrets and openly trust him. He makes her the emotional hero and
Mikael the man who broke her again. He takes away the context around Lisbeth so to understand her, you fill in the blanks, and since she’s been infused with more classic Hollywood portrayals, the blanks are filled in with assumptions that defeat the purpose. The biggie for me: In the book she’s attacked by drunk guys and her computer is broken. No one helps her and it helps to set up how men continually try to prey on her. In the film, it’s just a thief, and she’s just a tough ass-kicker. It glamourizes it at the expense of the painful truth.

You can read Kinukittys’ discussion of the film here. Richard Cook’s take on the book is here.

Not a Superhero Comic, But It is Plenty Violent

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Written by Stieg Larsson
Translated by Reg Keeland

Every mainstream reviewer seems to love this novel. It’s an international bestseller that’s spawned two sequels and has already been made into a movie. All this despite the fact that the author is dead and Swedish. My reaction, however, was “meh.” Other than the Swedish names that I can’t pronounce, there’s nothing in this book that sets it apart from any typical crime thriller.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a terrible novel. The mystery at the heart of the story is well-crafted, and I didn’t notice any glaring plot holes. The pacing is brisk, except for a few lengthy discussions of Swedish finance. The translation from the original Swedish produced a few awkward lines, but nothing memorably ridiculous.

 But much of the novel’s appeal depends on whether the reader identifies with the main character, Mikael Blomkvist. As shameless Mary Sues go, Blomkvist could give Superman a run for his money. Blomkvist is a middle-aged, left-leaning journalist and magazine editor, just like Stieg Larsson. He also happens to be one of those courageous and brilliant journalists who’s dedicated to THE TRUTH. And he’s irresistible to the ladies without even trying (I’m not joking about that last part, he gets as much play as James Bond per film). Perhaps if I were a middle-aged Swedish journalist, I might find Blomkvist appealing. As it is, he’s somebody else’s empowerment fantasy, and I just feel left out.

Although Blomkvist is the protagonist, the titular girl with the dragon tattoo is Lisbeth Salander, an anti-social hacker who helps Blomkvist solve the big mystery. The inspiration for Salander is rather odd. According to a longtime friend, Larsson admitted that as a teenager he failed to intervene when he witnessed a woman being gang-raped. So the character of Salander was supposed to be his attempt at redemption, and the writer’s redemption came from the character’s rape-revenge narrative. (Spoiler Alert!) Midway into the novel Salander is orally and anally raped by her legal guardian. Salander eventually gets a fitting revenge, but the novel never spends much time on her reactions or development. Despite his desire for redemption, Larsson is always more interested in the trials and tribulations of his thinly drawn author-avatar. The plot focuses on Blomkvist and the big mystery, Salander becomes his sidekick and eventually his lover, and the rape-revenge storyline ends up being much more exploitative than Larsson probably intended.

The entire novel, in fact, seems like an effort to have a sexy violence cake and eat it too. On the surface, the novel takes the uncontroversial stance that raping women is bad. But this is still a crime thriller, and the genre requires a certain amount of depravity. The numerous instances of sexualized violence are not simply elements of the story, they’re the driving force behind the plot and the novel’s most notable feature (besides the unpronounceable Swedish names). I’d go so far as to say that the sexualized violence is one of the novel’s main selling points. The forbidden thrill of sexual violence can be secretly and safely indulged so long as it’s coupled to the condemnation of the same sexual violence.

But I’d be lying if I said the sexualized violence actually offended me. Mostly, I was just bored. This novel is not some glorious, genre-busting breakthrough. It’s nothing more and nothing less than competent pulp, Scandinavian style.