Inception: icons and meta
Nov. 7th, 2010 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bennet_7Is there anything better than a DVD rip leaking a month before the official release?
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Well, Christmas is pretty good. So is winning the lottery. And getting into grad school (which is what I should have been trying to do instead of making icons).
Still, I was pretty pleased when Inception appeared on the internets last weekend as I've been enjoying the hell out of the fandom. Rewatching the film, the flaws I mentioned previously (characterisation, dialogue: Nolan, get better at these!) are still there but they don't diminish my enjoyment of the film overmuch and hopefully it won't fall apart the more I view it.
The quality of this copy isn't the greatest but it was decent enough for me to waste a couple of hours making icons.
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Usual rules apply: comment, credit, don't hotlink, don't re-militarize the Rhineland, be nice to your mother, there is no rule six, live every week like it's shark week.
Caps are my own. My resources.
If you'll allow me a moment's self-indulgence, I'd like to discuss two of these icons. Firstly, this one which, let me just say, there is an essay and a fic on the parallels between Jane Eyre and Inception and husbands who lock up their crazy wives and the young women who discover them. However, I find the idea of Ariadne as Jane squicky as hell so if you are tempted to fic the idea, please have her walk a different path.
Secondly, this was a joke on my part because this scene (where she asks whose subconscious they're going into) is one of the two clunkiest exposition scenes in the film (I think the other is when they get to the third level and she finally gets around to asking if they're killing parts of Fischer's subconscious when they kill a projection). But having thought over it a littlelot, I don't think Ariadne is just the exposition fairy and she has a lot more agency in the film than I first thought. It's her idea to go to limbo after Cobb and Eames have given up, she then shoots Mal, and she gets herself and Fischer back to safety rather than risk more time in limbo helping Cobb with Saito. Honestly, I think she'd shoot the tyres and that's the highest compliment that I have for fictional characters.
Really, someone needs to write about the representation of women in Nolan's films in general. I don't think he's misogynistic but I do think he's sometimes a little neglectful. Ariadne's something of an exception in that she isn't a love interest or a love interest who dies, although YMMV if you're wearing shipper goggles (Natalie from Memento also, maybe, because her relationship with Leonard wasn't really romantic and I haven't seen Insomnia so I can't comment on that (but I do know that Nolan didn't write that script)). I don't see any reason why Eames or Yusuf couldn't have been female (I do think Arthur and Saito needed to be the same gender as Cobb or his close relationships with them might have been hard for the audience to view as strictly platonic and that would have lessened the importance/impact of the loss of Mal (if there's someone waiting in the wings, as it were)). I'm not saying that Nolan needs to shoehorn women in for the sake of flag waving feminism and he's certainly not the biggest offender out there, but considering he makes such big movies that also garner critical respect, it would be nice to see more women in them, doing things other than dying. I hope Ariadne was a step in a better direction.
Am I expecting too much? Is it a day ending in "y"?
.
.
.
Well, Christmas is pretty good. So is winning the lottery. And getting into grad school (which is what I should have been trying to do instead of making icons).
Still, I was pretty pleased when Inception appeared on the internets last weekend as I've been enjoying the hell out of the fandom. Rewatching the film, the flaws I mentioned previously (characterisation, dialogue: Nolan, get better at these!) are still there but they don't diminish my enjoyment of the film overmuch and hopefully it won't fall apart the more I view it.
The quality of this copy isn't the greatest but it was decent enough for me to waste a couple of hours making icons.
01
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46 47 48 49
50 51 Usual rules apply: comment, credit, don't hotlink, don't re-militarize the Rhineland, be nice to your mother, there is no rule six, live every week like it's shark week.
Caps are my own. My resources.
If you'll allow me a moment's self-indulgence, I'd like to discuss two of these icons. Firstly, this one
which, let me just say, there is an essay and a fic on the parallels between Jane Eyre and Inception and husbands who lock up their crazy wives and the young women who discover them. However, I find the idea of Ariadne as Jane squicky as hell so if you are tempted to fic the idea, please have her walk a different path.Secondly, this
was a joke on my part because this scene (where she asks whose subconscious they're going into) is one of the two clunkiest exposition scenes in the film (I think the other is when they get to the third level and she finally gets around to asking if they're killing parts of Fischer's subconscious when they kill a projection). But having thought over it a Really, someone needs to write about the representation of women in Nolan's films in general. I don't think he's misogynistic but I do think he's sometimes a little neglectful. Ariadne's something of an exception in that she isn't a love interest or a love interest who dies, although YMMV if you're wearing shipper goggles (Natalie from Memento also, maybe, because her relationship with Leonard wasn't really romantic and I haven't seen Insomnia so I can't comment on that (but I do know that Nolan didn't write that script)). I don't see any reason why Eames or Yusuf couldn't have been female (I do think Arthur and Saito needed to be the same gender as Cobb or his close relationships with them might have been hard for the audience to view as strictly platonic and that would have lessened the importance/impact of the loss of Mal (if there's someone waiting in the wings, as it were)). I'm not saying that Nolan needs to shoehorn women in for the sake of flag waving feminism and he's certainly not the biggest offender out there, but considering he makes such big movies that also garner critical respect, it would be nice to see more women in them, doing things other than dying. I hope Ariadne was a step in a better direction.
Am I expecting too much? Is it a day ending in "y"?
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-07 06:01 pm (UTC)I definitely agree with this. As I said, shoehorning women in just for the sake of equality is not what I want and it would be odious. But when the gender doesn't matter, why not consider casting either gender? While I really want to see more female lead characters in films, I also think it would be cool to see women take those secondary roles where they just get to make jokes and blow stuff up. I don't need them to be poster girls for feminism, I'd just like them to be there in the first place.
also, you have to take into account the genre of the film. essentially, it's an action movie, and action movies generally attract more of a male audience. a greater proportion of male actors will naturally allow the (predominantly) male audience engage with the medium more, which is what any director wants.
See, I don't agree here. I know plenty of guys who list Alien as their favourite film: that has a female main character who was originally supposed to be male. Likewise, guys who go ga-ga for Buffy Summers because she kicks ass. I think that guys do and would respond to an action movie/TV show with a female lead - but the story itself has to be good. I think that the Catwoman and Elektra movies did poorly not because they featured women in the lead roles but because they sucked. After all, men having been buying comic books about female superheroes for decades.
But I don't think Hollywood is willing to take the chance and that may be because there aren't as many female actors capable of handling the action or because they don't give them the opportunity.
Incidentally, the films I have seen twice at the cinema this year? Iron Man 2, Inception, and Tomorrow, When The War Began, an Australian film about a group of teenagers battling occupying forces with guerrilla tactics, led by 17 yr old girl. Women do turn out for action movies and while percentage wise there may be more men, I don't think the difference is dramatically huge.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-07 07:19 pm (UTC)True, true. But comic books have traditionally been a media most commonly consumed by men (many women buying them lately though) so there was/is an audience among them that responds to the many titles featuring women.
but then, isn't this going back to your point? did you go back because you identified with the male lead (besides when the war began...), or because the story was good? i'm guessing it's the latter.
Actually, with Iron Man 2 it was because I love Tony Stark and enjoy the hell out of his character - I thought the plot was a bit of a mess. For Inception I did go back because the story is good but the character I identify with the most is Arthur. I think women do find it easier to identify with male characters than men do with female characters and whether it's because there are more male characters than female characters for us to look to, or it's something we've had to become accustomed to this over time and they haven't, I don't know. I suspect it's both.
It would be interesting to know how the Inception fandom breaks down gender-wise, but I suspect that there are far more women than men and they are predominantly writing the male characters.
I'm afraid I have to bow out now as it's 3:15 AM and I'm losing brain functionality. But I've enjoyed the debate (again!) and hopefully this and my comments to the others explain where I'm coming from in wanting more awesome women in great movies (which I think Nolan can provide).