So why have we ended up here? Why Sucker Punch? Well: Movies have to make money. And risks don’t sell. After the ’90s came the backlash; Strong Women survived, but they no longer got the attention they once did. In the absence of a widespread enthusiasm for Girly Power, misogyny—as always—crept back in.
→ The Atlantic, Sady Doyle: ‘Sucker Punch’ and the Decline of Strong Woman Action Heroines
Though her name and her pigtails infantilize Babydoll, inside her dreamworld, everything is sexually charged; her skirts get shorter and her hair gets longer. Just one of the many clues that we are not actually inside the mind of a young girl, but inside Zack Snyder’s spank bank!
→ Jezebel, Dodai Stewart: Why Sucker Punch Really, Truly Sucks
Snyder’s ideas about women may be weird, and messed up, and objectifying (and I don’t think they always are, but that’s another discussion), but at the end of the day, he wants them in his lens. When he got the chance to tell an original story, he chose to tell one about women.
→ Alyssa Rosenberg: Frances Farmer will have her revenge on Seattle: On “Sucker Punch”
But there’s more than just playing with the building blocks of nerd culture going on here. That would be fun, but Snyder is interested in something trickier, more complex and possibly just outside of his grasp – he wants to explore the role of women in culture, the impact of the male gaze and the concept of sexualized self-empowerment. That’s a big topic for a supposedly dumb action film.
→ Badass digest, Devin Faraci: SUCKER PUNCH Is Thrilling, Smart… And Deeply Flawed
If when asked, “Tell me about your character,” all that can be said is, “She is abused,” you have not told me anything about who she is. You are allowing the violence to define her and rather than showing someone rising against oppression, you are basically just perpetuating it by erasing her and leaving only what has been done in its place.
→ Cave City Sink: This movie made me feel bad to be alive: A review of Sucker Punch
