![]() ![]() So why did I walk away from Pacific Rim feeling disappointed? The former was quietly revolutionary in the way it reinvented a buddy-cop genre with two women, and I had high hopes that Pacific Rim would be just as progressive after all, director Guillermo del Toro has given us strong female protagonists before in films like Pan’s Labyrinth and Mimic, and the premise of Pacific Rim - two pilots (Charlie Hunnam and Oscar-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi) each control one half of a monster-fighting giant robot - seemed to inherently promise the sort of gender equality you don’t always get from a giant action movie. Only nine wide-release films out this summer feature an actress in a starring role (instead of a less-important co-starring role), and only two of those - two! - have thus far been released: The Heat and Pacific Rim. Asian women are not your exotic but well-behaved ticket into political-correctness.There’s no denying that it’s been a brutal summer movie season for women. The fact there were no darker-skinned women in the film at all really bothers me as well. I am sick of seeing Western media use us for their white male-dominated needs. Asian women deserve more than being vessels to allow white men to encroach on Asian culture. I loved the film, I really did, but I think Asian women deserve better. She is “protected” by him in several occassions, her back story is presented as something he gets to be privy to, HIS GAZE is the lens in which the audience learns about Mako and Stacker’s father/daughter relationship Her hero’s journey is sandwiched between Raleigh’s and it really sends the message that he is ultimately more important than her. I will say it again, Mako Mori is a GREAT character, but it just frustrates me that she is surrounded with problematic shit in that movie. deal with the fans who talk about PacRim like an amazing feminist film. Would it have killed to make one of those scientists female? Or another race? Like a Black female scientist, guys, I would have loved that side plot so much more than watching Charlie Day run around screaming like a dying dog. Sure, it’s addressed in the film but was that necessary? And oh, speaking of that entire side-plot, let’s have more white males running around doing important things (I’m talking about the scientists, etc). And on the note of the way Asian men are treated in the film, they have a fucking character named Hannibal CHAU and he’s White.In really horrible terms, Mako Mori’s character is obligatory.Ĭombine that with the White male / Asian female dynamic and we have this sense of sexism in the cultural appropriation– the Asian males are introduced in an antagonistic light, then killed off because they are weaker than the white male lead. Giant robots have been around for over a couple centuries and have such a long history in Japanese and East Asian media–his choice to cast a Japanese woman is very deliberate and it’s hard to not see her as a form of “authentication” to appropriate Japanese ideas. Another reason the death of the Luu triplets really irked me is because del Toro was obviously inspired by Japanese media.(also I’m so sorry, I was so confused over Raleigh and the two Australian pilots help identical mayonnaise boys) The antagonization and immediate killing off of the Asian male characters (the ones played by the Luu triplets), and the killing off of a Black mentor figure (Idris Elba) for the sake of propelling a main lead’s character growth, as well as the focus on MORE WHITE MALES and their rivalry over protecting said Asian female is hmm not so hot. ![]() There’s even a “sexually tense” scene where she’s watching him undress, and I know it’s supposed to be over his scar and shit but come on, really? Too many narratives of Asian women pining over “virile white boys” to make it that accidental. I love the implications of a queer platonic life partnership (yay, no kiss at the end), but the fact remains that many people will interpret them as romantic regardless. White male / Asian female co-leads, whether platonic or romantic, have a lot of awkward savior complex– it’s inevitable.She encompasses a very heroic role in the movie (from the way she’s introduced via cinematography and story set up) and has a lot of good character qualities that both address her place as a younger character AND an Asian woman.īut there are so many gender and racial undertones that surround her that make me uncomfortable, even if those undertones are most likely unintentional. I think Mako Mori is one of the best leading female characters to grace an action film, no doubt. A friend of mine mentioned PacRim in regards to feminism, and it spurred this rant I’ve been meaning to write. Because sadly I’m actually on the fence about PacRim being a great feminist (or PoC) film, and it bothers me that many people seem to want to laud it as such. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |