This article in the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend about Kick-Ass, a school holidays film starring an 11-year-old girl who shoots a man in the face, impales another and says things like:
“OK, you c—s, let’s see what you can do now.” The film is described as containing “scenes of carnage and massacre played for laughs.” Read the article here.
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and… at least in the photo accompanying the article, our 11-year-old anti-heroine is also dressed in cliched ‘naughty schoolgirl’ fantasy attire, complete with doe-eyed, open-mouthed expression and large phallic symbol in hand. except, under the costume IS a schoolgirl. wrong on so many levels…
This is from an interview with Chloe Moretz and her mum:
““It’s a movie,” she says, a little wearily. “Obviously a little girl can’t beat up and kill huge heavy men. I don’t see how anyone wouldn’t realise that it’s not real, it’s Hit Girl. I’m just Chloe Moretz.”
Has she ever used a four-letter word off-screen? “Never,” she shrieks. “Ooof. My mom would ground me for, like, the rest of my life.” Moretz can’t even bring herself to say the film’s title out loud in interviews, instead calling it “the film” and later she admits that at home they called the movie “Kick-Butt.”
“I knew it was a controversial role, but it was a role I wanted to do,” says Moretz earnestly. “A month or so before I got this script, Wanted (like Kick-Ass, based on a comic by Scotland’s Millar] came out, and I really, really wanted to be a take-charge action heroine like Angelina Jolie.” Who knows how Moretz became aware of an 18 certificate film about hipster assassins, but let’s assume she saw TV trailers. “Anyway, when she read Kick-Ass, my mom was like, ‘Chloe, you’ll never believe this …’ I read it and I was like, ‘I have to be Hit Girl!’ ” ”
Full interview here: http://chloemoretz.com/2010/03/23/what-are-little-girls-made-of-sugar-and-spice-punches-and-the-odd-four-letter-word/
See how Chloe has absorbed the Hollywood lie that because it’s “not real” none of this matters? Sad, very sad.
What interests me is that this film is produced by Brad Pitt. With a family of young children, some of whom he has adopted from countries where children are exposed to quite significant violence, i’m interested to know what his thoughts are on producing a movie with a role model like Hit Girl in it. Because whether it is intended for children or not, they will see it, & Hit Girl will be a role model to them.
I don’t have much to say about this except WHAT THE?
Some people have a very warped sense of humour. This is not funny in the slightest.
Dave Grossman, an ex-lieutenant, psychologist and writer, described in his book ‘On Killing’ (1995) the various ways that soldiers are taught to kill. The military does all it can to destroy mens’ natural inhibitions against killing. Violent films are a central part of it. They work very well and anyone in the army knows it. It’s hard to comprehend that people can still believe movies have no effect. Grossman is very concerned about popular culture (movies, games, music etc.) that seems to be related to escalating violence in the Western world. And of course rape is part of that, as well as being a regular feature in war.
Part of the problem with movies, he points out, is that extreme violence and horror begin to be associated with comfort, pleasure, soft drink, confectionary, and the intimate contact of one’s date.
Actually I highly recommend this book. It’s not about ethics of war, or justifying or condemning killing in the military, instead it looks in great depth at the psychology of killing in combat. Very interesting discussion about violent films.
I wonder whether films featuring violent women and girls will have an extra impact on levels of violence by women?