Opinion Piece- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as a feminist work
So, I'm trying some "real journalism" here on the blog this week. No goofy lists, not many jokes, I just want to try something new. I am going to discuss feminism and while I appreciate as a generically hetero male it may sound somewhat odd, it's an issue that needs more awareness. This said, I'm going to try not to get weighed down in gender politics and stay discussing the film and story. I'm also discussing the full details of the David Fincher version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo so if you haven't seen it yet, watch that and then read this.
I think the idea of feminist films is somewhat of an interesting idea. I think it's wrong to force feminist characters or moments into film where it doesn't fit but there's definitely a lack of strong female characters in mainstream media. The main problem I have here however is the way that films are acknowledged as feminist. The most common way is the Bechdel test, in which a film must have at least two main female characters have a conversation about something other than men. It's an interesting idea but my preferred method of testing films is the amazingly named Sexy lamp test. The test is simple: if any of your female characters can be replaced by a sexy lamp, you fail. Both of these tests are used to consider if films are feminist but what if a film doesn't pass one of them? Can it still be a film with strong female characters?
Enter Lisbeth Salander from Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. To clarify, this film definitely passes the sexy lamp test. There's no way that a sexy lamp would be able to revenge rape anyone or ride a motorbike in such a cool looking way so passed with flying colours. What I want to discuss here is the Bechdel test. I can't remember any moment in the film where Salander talks with any other female character properly, let alone another lead. There is one moment where she takes home and sleeps with another woman (played by Elodie Yung who is popping up everywhere now) because that's just what she wants to do. And for me, this leads onto what makes the film actually feminist, despite failing the Bechdel test.
There's a moment in the film in which Daniel Craig's character is traumatised and then Salander (who by the way, is played amazingly by Rooney Mara) sleeps with him. At first, this frustrated me. In a typical film with weaker characters, the heroine will always fall for the hunky lead and he will conquer her sexually. Salander being a stronger character, I expected her not to fall for the male, even if he is Daniel Craig, hence my anger. What I realised when thinking over the film later was that this actually shows her strength. She wanted sex, she took sex. Sure, they made a connection but she was not indebted to him for knighting her with his python cock. See, Salander is independent. She doesn't need anyone, male or female and this is why this film is able to fail the Bechdel test but still be a strong feminist film.
Perhaps as a society we need to evaluate how we consider films to be feminist. The Bechdel test, while a good start, clearly isn't an accurate way, as I've discussed here. We just need to recognise great female characters where they appear and try to encourage production companies to have these kind of characters far more widespread. Progress is being made with characters like Furiosa and Rey last year being amazing characters, even ignoring the fact that they're female and looking to the future with characters like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel getting standalone films with fantastic leads, there's progress being made. What Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has shown is that films can have such strong women and don't necessarily need to be passing the Bechdel test to prove their strength.
I think the idea of feminist films is somewhat of an interesting idea. I think it's wrong to force feminist characters or moments into film where it doesn't fit but there's definitely a lack of strong female characters in mainstream media. The main problem I have here however is the way that films are acknowledged as feminist. The most common way is the Bechdel test, in which a film must have at least two main female characters have a conversation about something other than men. It's an interesting idea but my preferred method of testing films is the amazingly named Sexy lamp test. The test is simple: if any of your female characters can be replaced by a sexy lamp, you fail. Both of these tests are used to consider if films are feminist but what if a film doesn't pass one of them? Can it still be a film with strong female characters?
Enter Lisbeth Salander from Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. To clarify, this film definitely passes the sexy lamp test. There's no way that a sexy lamp would be able to revenge rape anyone or ride a motorbike in such a cool looking way so passed with flying colours. What I want to discuss here is the Bechdel test. I can't remember any moment in the film where Salander talks with any other female character properly, let alone another lead. There is one moment where she takes home and sleeps with another woman (played by Elodie Yung who is popping up everywhere now) because that's just what she wants to do. And for me, this leads onto what makes the film actually feminist, despite failing the Bechdel test.
There's a moment in the film in which Daniel Craig's character is traumatised and then Salander (who by the way, is played amazingly by Rooney Mara) sleeps with him. At first, this frustrated me. In a typical film with weaker characters, the heroine will always fall for the hunky lead and he will conquer her sexually. Salander being a stronger character, I expected her not to fall for the male, even if he is Daniel Craig, hence my anger. What I realised when thinking over the film later was that this actually shows her strength. She wanted sex, she took sex. Sure, they made a connection but she was not indebted to him for knighting her with his python cock. See, Salander is independent. She doesn't need anyone, male or female and this is why this film is able to fail the Bechdel test but still be a strong feminist film.
Perhaps as a society we need to evaluate how we consider films to be feminist. The Bechdel test, while a good start, clearly isn't an accurate way, as I've discussed here. We just need to recognise great female characters where they appear and try to encourage production companies to have these kind of characters far more widespread. Progress is being made with characters like Furiosa and Rey last year being amazing characters, even ignoring the fact that they're female and looking to the future with characters like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel getting standalone films with fantastic leads, there's progress being made. What Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has shown is that films can have such strong women and don't necessarily need to be passing the Bechdel test to prove their strength.
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