Empowerment? Or not?

On the other hand, though it's fetishistic and personal, I like to think that my fetishes aren't that obscure. Who doesn't want to see girls running down the trenches of World War One wreaking havoc? 

- Zack Snyder, director and co-author of Sucker Punch 

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

The Wiseman, Sucker Punch

Over the last decade, there's been an increasing interest in movies that examine the relationship between reality and the mind.  The Matrix is the flagship for this concept, supported by films like Pan's Labyrinth, the undervalued Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Cell, and most recently Inception.

The newest entry in this category is Sucker Punch, directed and co-written by Zack Snyder, which will premiere in March of 2011. The trailer portrays Sucker Punch as a hyper-kinetic anime-influenced action and martial arts extravaganza which deals with an orphaned teenage girl in the 1950s, who is imprisoned in an insane asylum by her stepfather after her attempt to kill him to prevent being raped.

Once in the asylum, she discovers that it's a front for a brothel, and that she's going to be lobotomized in order to be a more willing prostitute. In an attempt to escape her unhappy reality, she enters an internal fantasy world, where she discovers that her actions there, aided by her companions from the asylum, can aid them in achieving freedom in reality.

The trailer shows the fantasy world as a wide-reaching combination of disparate environments and influences, ranging from Chinese temples to the trenches of World War One, with futuristic cities, zombie soldiers, dragon-guarded treasures, mirror finished androids and steampunk battlesuits.  This extravagant dream landscape is alternated with, and in some ways paralleled by, the stark brutality of the real world.

On the face of it, the film looks like a winner for the box office sweepstakes in 2011. Based on the trailer, Zack Snyder has taken his experience in adapting other people's visions from 300 and The Watchmen and successfully applied it to his own vision.  However, I'm a little concerned by the way in which the heroines of the story view themselves in their self-generated dream world.

In the real world there are very obvious reasons for the decision to make a movie featuring attractive young women dressed in stayup stockings, mini sailor suits, fishnets and lots and lots of tight leather,* and I'm sure those reasons will be reflected by the box office turnout.  However, within the context of the movie itself I find myself looking for a reason that would explain why teenage girls exploring a self-created fantasy world would decide to dress themselves in this fashion, especially in what is apparently a 1950s setting.

In a contemporary piece, it would make sense to me. After all, current iconography is thick with portrayals of female action characters dressed in exactly this fashion, ranging from Sailor Moon and her ilk from the world of anime, Lara Croft, almost everyone that Milla Jovovich has ever portrayed on screen, innumerable comic book characters, and so on. I suspect that a lot of people placed in that situation might well look like their World of Warcraft characters (and suddenly discover how impractical those outfits really are).

In the 1950s?  Hmmm…a girl in her late teens might see herself as, I don't know…Faith Domergue from This Island Earth? Wonder Woman? Wearing some variation on Marine battledress, perhaps - we are talking about the decade after WWII, after all. For that matter, they might look like Dale Arden based on some vague memory of the Flash Gordon serials from their childhoods, or perhaps even Joan of Arc.

And, to be fair, there are echoes of these elements in the outfits that the girls give themselves in the landscape of their fantasy - goggles, bits of medieval armour, military caps, and so on. But for the most part, their outfits seem to be designed more to titillate than to protect - as Mr. Snyder admits, "fetishistic".  Why would these girls make that decision?

The entire question of female empowerment is obviously one which I can't comment on from a position of authority, in spite of my affection for the Spice Girls, so my apologies in advance if my interpretation is somehow lacking.

As I understand the concept, female empowerment allows for a woman to wear revealing and provocative clothing.  The choice of clothing is celebratory:  "I dress this way because I think that I'm beautiful and sexy, and this is my way of expressing it."  The flip side of this is the non-empowered woman, who wears sexy outfits out of a desire to please and/or arouse the opposite sex:  "I dress like this because my husband/boyfriend/man likes it."  The subtext here is that there is an externally imposed imperative: "YOU HAVE TO DRESS THIS WAY FOR ME."

The problem is simple:  to the external viewpoint, the results may well be indistinguishable.

So, as is so often the case, we have to turn to intent and choice. The woman in the first example is empowered, as I understand it, because she is in control of her decision - she has chosen to dress in a certain fashion because she thinks that it expresses her beauty.  The non-empowered woman in is dressing in a certain fashion because of someone else's opinion - she is fulfilling their desire rather than her own.

On that basis, I can't find it in myself to empower the girls in Sucker Punch. In fact, I think they're sort of sad, these drab trollops recruited from an insane asylum, who can't even escape from being dress-up dolls for men in their shared fantasy. It's like finding out that even in their dreams, slaves still wear their chains.

Obviously it's not only reality which is a prison.

- Sid

* It's difficult to see the sales pitch to the studio having to go very far after "lots and lots of tight leather".

The Making Of.

And so, the end of my journey into zombiehood.  But at least a semi-successful one, given that I was awarded the Best Costume prize at my workplace.  Because I've received a lot of positive comments, combined with a little scepticism about how I proceeded with the makeup, I thought that I should document the process along with the materials involved:  white glue and toilet paper, and a bit of cardboard.  (As usual, just click on the photos for the full-sized picture.)

Friday dawned - actually, it was considerably before dawn when the alarm went off.  I indulged in a peaceful cup of tea, then started on the makeup at 4:00 AM.  (The down side of using white glue is slow drying time.)

Step one:  beard removal.  Not really procedurally interesting, but a very important step, and as always a bit of a shock - it's probably been a decade since I last shaved off my beard.  Fortunately, I was spared the minor irony of cutting myself while shaving, so no real blood was involved in the final effect.  (By the way, a couple of comments about the photography: first, the pictures were all taken in my bathroom mirror - I've flipped them over to match the photos taken at work.  Second, they're not great - it was very early in the morning, and the final post-makeup shots were evaluated without the benefit of glasses, or else I would have kept shooting until I got something that was in focus.)

I started the actual makeup process by creating the piece of visible skull on the left side of my head.  I had a lot of surgery after a childhood accident, and one of the results was a minor dent in my forehead, which I took advantage of to inset the piece of file folder that I used for bone.  Even so, the edges are quite visible in the photo, but it doesn't matter, since I'll be adding torn skin to mask the join.  As part of my testing during the week, I had produced some pieces of white glue "skin" for exactly this purpose.  (By the way, this was a common practise when I was in public school - boys would use white glue to make wrinkly skin on the back of their hands, and then gross out the girls by sticking pins through it and so on.  I very strongly remember a fellow named Carey Cain who was really good at it.  And afterward, the white glue pieces could be peeled off like loose real skin, once again grossing out the girls.)

Next, paint face with glue.  (It's not rocket science, is it.)  The first photo above about half way through the rough coat, with various runs and bubbles and so on.  The bubbles aren't a bad thing, though, because those provide the spots where there can be sores or other areas of damage.  The drips get smoothed out and the edge get blended - the great advantage of white glue is water solubility, so a wet brush evens things up quite easily.

The last two pictures show the dried ready-for-makeup results.  I've added in some toilet paper and glue to create what will be the gaping wound on my nose, and you can see how the area around the skull fragment has been built up.  On the other profile, there are two spots on my cheek which will also end up being open wounds - one of them was the open wound test from earlier in the week, moistened and glued into place.

Sadly, I don't have any in-progress photos of the makeup process, but for a very good reason:  I panicked.  I started to do the white undercoat for the makeup, and it looked horrible.  I blended in some green, filled in the eye sockets, and it still didn't look much better, and I was convinced that I'd screwed up the whole thing, and it wasn't exactly something that I could start over. But, as I kept working away at it, and as I added in more green, edged the wounds with black then added the fake blood, it started to come together.

I finished off with a liberal dusting of waste toner powder from the copiers at work, added a dental appliance that I bought for ten bucks with the rest of the makeup, dressed in my torn and bloodied suit and shirt, and I was done - just in time to head off to work, where fluorescent lighting added the finishing touch for the look of the undead.

Oh, as a sidebar, I also did a disgusting wound on my hand.  There was originally an open slice in my throat as well, but it started to come apart at the edges and I sacrificed it in the interests of getting the job done. 

Over the course of the day at work, the white glue around the mouth area began to break up as I stretched it to remove and replace the dental piece so that I could alternately talk to and horrify people.  This actually added to the effect, making it look like the skin was peeling off, so I just touched up the gaps with more fake blood.  In some cases, it was necessary to glue pieces back into place to to rescue the integrity of the whole thing, but again, this added to the impact:  the fresh glue giving the impression of pus under cracked skin.

Sadly, all good things come to an end, and when I tried to partake of a burger at the annual company Hallowe'en barbecue, the parts around the mouth broke up completely and I surrendered to the inevitable - peeled off the remaining bits, washed off the makeup and powder, and, as one wit suggested, returned to being Clark Kent.  Fortunately the judges had all seen me in full rig, so I wasn't disqualified from the costume contest.

I put the picture at the top of this posting on Facebook, and in addition to a number of compliments on the whole look, I was asked where I had learned how to do the makeup.  I wasn't sure if this was a compliment or an insult - after all, it's just glue, toilet paper and a little imagination.   However, the question that no one has asked is "why a zombie?"  Once again I have to give credit and thanks to my niece Jody, without whose positive influence I would never have thought to become a member of the risen dead.

The biggest surprise in the whole process?  I shaved off my beard, created gaping, necrotic, blood-soaked wounds and the illusion of rotting flesh on my face, added a blackened dental appliance - it would have been nice if someone at work had failed to recognize me...

- Sid

P.S.  Monday morning at the office and the prize for best follow-up comment goes to Joseph Shewfelt:  "Back from the dead, I see."

"Step 7: Add some blood and you're done!"

Just a quick in-progress photo of some zombie makeup testing - I wanted to try making an oozing sore (yes, I know, there must be absolutely nothing worth watching on TV tonight).  I did an initial layer of white glue on my cheek - white glue is the poor man's alternative to latex makeup* - and after it had dried down a bit, tore open a hole.  Then I curled back the edges of the hole, and added on some more glue to build up the depth.  I think I'll try for some more depth when this is dry, but it's not a bad proof-of-concept:  just add some red to the interior to create the effect of an open wound, maybe judiciously drip in some some pus as per yesterday's posting, and voilà.

And what is everyone else doing with their evenings?

- Sid

* The down side of white glue versus liquid latex is slower drying time, so I'll be getting up quite early on Friday morning to go into makeup, as they say in Hollywood.