Hardcore Henry is sexist…?
Is anyone not offended anymore? (spoilers and shit)
Another day, another “film critic” crying about a film not being PC. Tim Molloy and this article: https://www.thewrap.com/hardcore-henry-director-explains-why-31-of-its-45-female-characters-are-prostitutes/
(Sure, I’m late to the party with this one, but my blog’s new — give me a break!) This time, the big problem with HARDCORE HENRY, an unapologetically violent film, heavily inspired by first-person-shooter video games, has been decreed “sexist” for the following reasons:
- Failure to portray any “multi-dimensional female characters”
- Naming most of the female characters things like, “Waterkid’s Girlfriend,” or “Girl in Brothel,” and not giving them names.
- Having 31 out of 45 female characters be prostitutes.
So…I don’t even know how to incapsulate this stupidity in one thesis statement or paragraph, or maybe even several paragraphs, so I’m just going to take things one by one here and stream of consciousness this acre of bullshit, nonsense that I can only hope was written by someone who absolutely needed clicks and was just grasping at straws for shit to write.
So…here we go!
Failure to portray any “multi-dimensional female characters.”
Okay…the insanity of this blows me away. Let’s just look at the male characters in Hardcore Henry :
HENRY
Henry literally never speaks. Ever. In fact, we never even see his face! He is the epitome of single-dimensional. All he does is run from one place to another, shooting guys, blowing shit up, choking guys out with their optic nerves (yes, that happens. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, go watch it), and essentially just running around on the orders of one man — Jimmy, played by the awesome Sharlto Copely.
The only information we get on Henry, is related to his memories of his wife, and anyone who has seen the film knows that…well…that’s not really any information at all.
JIMMY
Jimmy is the most compelling character in the film, somewhat related to the mystery of how he comes and goes out of the narrative, appearing and reappearing as though by magic, with the explanation of how and why only being revealed to the audience more than half way through.
Sharlto Copley’s performance is really what makes this character work though. This guy just crushes it in everything he’s in. We get some backstory on him, but really just enough to move the plot forward — and that’s basically what Hardcore Henry is: a bunch of action scenes with some basic, basic, basic plot stuff in between to tie them together. Jimmy is the primary source of exposition, and really not all that complicated. No one will be writing home to their friends about how well he was fleshed out. In fact, no one will be writing home about how ANY of these characters were fleshed out.
AKAN (The bad guy)
Akan has no depth whatsoever. In fact, we don’t even know how he has his awesome-psychic-spin-you-around-or-crush-you-with-his-mind powers either. The film never explains it, and the director, Ilya Naishuller, said this was deliberate:
“I’m just tired of the over-exposition we always get and I actually cut out the explanation for Akan’s powers. In one version, there was actually a joke about hime being bitten by a radioactive spider. And I was like, eh, it’s okay, but it’s just going to call attention the fact that we’re not going to explain the actual reason. I just didn’t want to bog you down with unnecessary detail. What’s his powers? I’ll keep you guessing.”
SO — there are the main three male protagonists. We have 1) a main character who never speaks and we never see, 2) a supporting character whose sole purpose is exposition, and 3) a bad guy who has unexplained powers and is the big bad CEO guy who wants to take over the world because…reasons.
But is anyone up in arms about “non multi-dimensional male characters?” Of course not. If you want to criticize the film for being thin, shallow, nothing but action, lacking in story etc. etc. etc., then you’d probably be right. HARDCORE HENRY isn’t Fellini or Wong Kar Wai. It’s a fun, over the top action movie that you watch for the action.
Next!
Naming most of the female characters things like, “Waterkid’s Girlfriend,” or “Girl in Brothel,” and not giving them names.
Okay, so I feel like I’ve already semi-addressed this, but let’s just go ahead over to IMDB and pull some names of the other male characters, the ones not in the 3 mentioned above: Henry’s Father (with about 2 minutes of screen time), “Slick,” who I had to go back and look up to even remember who he was (with again, hardly any screen time), and then a whole bunch of stuff like this: Police Officer #1, Police Officer #2, Headphones Guy, Waterbottle Kid, Thug in the Water #1, Thug in the Water #2, Park Thug #1, Park Thug #2, Lighter Thief Mercenary, and on and on and on and on…
Having 31 out of 45 female characters be prostitutes.
Okay, let’s get into this now…
I counted 52 male actors in this film (Maybe I missed 1 or 2 from those names I don’t have a clue about) and how many were actual characters important to the film? 3. How many have names? 5. How many names do you remember from the film?
So 31/45 women are prostitutes.
And 47/52 men are cannon fodder. (And that’s being generous. I consider there to be only 3 real male characters in this film) Henry, Akan and Jimmy.
My point here is that the “characters” in HARDCORE HENRY are not even characters. They’re props. Cannon fodder. Eye candy. Stereotypes. Plot devices. Nothing more. No one cares what “Waterbottle Kid” is doing on Saturday or what his relationship with his mom is like. No one gives a shit about what led “Rapist Cop #1” to lose his morals and become a monster.
Nobody cares about the fact that basically every male in this movie is a stereotype in some form or another: a gun wielding hero, a psychopathic villain, a rapist cop, corrupt cop, dude in a brothel, a junky, a thug, a bouncer, a guard, a stoner or a shitty boyfriend. Show me a single admirable male character in HARDCORE HENRY…don’t worry, I’ll wait.
This isn’t a film about character: this is a film about blowing shit up. Spectacle. Action. Sit back and go, “Wow, holy shit he just flipped onto a tank and dropped a grenade in it!” Wonder how they pulled off the shots. Look for the hidden cuts in the long takes. Laugh when Jimmy says, “Big Sally!” and hands Henry a big ass gun. That’s what this film is about! To critique its representation of women is to not only miss the point entirely, but to single women out as deserving of special treatment, and expose your own agenda.
I’ve thought it over, and here’s what I think: Yeah, “Hardcore Henry” is sexist. Intentionally or not, it encapsulates what film critic Laura Mulvey dubbed “the male gaze.” It presents the world entirely from the perspective of a man, and the women he encounters exist in the film mainly in relation to men, whether as girlfriends, prostitutes, victims, or bait.
More nonsense. I just can’t even deal with this shit anymore. I don’t know how many people buy into this, or whether it’s just sheltered, suburban white kids with Liberal Arts degrees throwing likes on articles like this that keep perpetuating this crap and lead to politicized Oscar speeches that make me want to choke myself out with my own optic nerve.
The “male gaze” is a nonsense film theory thing that you’ll learn in school, which reinforces my thesis/theory about who writes/reads these articles, but I also consider it to be nonsense for several reasons, which I could write an entire article on, but to sum it up: if you have a movie about a male main character, you are going to see the world through his eyes (not literally, unless it’s HARDCORE HENRY), so of course you are going to perceive things as he perceives them. Does this make a film inherently sexist? Of course not! Just like I’m not sexist for checking out the coffee girl, or aspiring fantasizing that some beautiful, cool chick will walk into my life. That’s what many, many movies are: fantasy.
HARDCORE HENRY is a motherfucking 1st person point of view film. It literally portrays a film from the view of a man. Not figuratively. Not through a “perspective,” but literally.
When Henry meets his wife, we instantly feel a connection to her, just as he does. Is this some sort of trickery? Some sort of sexist perception that a man waking up with no memory, to a friendly female face who confesses to him that she loves him and she is his wife, is just the audience being forced to perceive a female through some sort of contrived male gaze designed to reinforce sexism against women? Or is this a pretty natural piece of the plot that makes perfect sense and instantly connects us to Henry’s wife?
So, many of you might be saying, “Yeah, but the bitch betrays him at the end! See? All girls are bad! Sexism!”
Uh…where are the male moral centers of this film? Does anyone think Akan, Jimmy or Henry are good people? We identify with Henry, because he’s the protagonist and that’s how films work. Even watching a film with the main character being a total asshole, we end up identifying with him or her. House, in HOUSE M.D., is a manipulative, narcissistic, drug addict, asshole who destroys everything and everyone around him — but we love him because he’s the main character, can be occasionally nice, is funny and brilliant. But go watch the Cuddy or Wilson episodes and see what it’s like to function around House from their perspective, and House isn’t so cool. If they remade the entire show around Cuddy or Wilson, we wouldn’t think House was such a good dude.
In HARDCORE HENRY, none of the characters are good. None of them have depth. None of them have a moral center or any substance to them, because…
HARDCORE HENRY IS NOTHING BUT A SILLY, FUN ACTION MOVIE WITH JUST ENOUGH PLOT/STORY AND CHARACTER TO MOVE THE “PLOT” ALONG!!!!
But of course, there’s an answer to this too apparently…
I know, I know: It’s just supposed to be a fun movie. I hoped it would be one. I went in thinking the first-person POV was a really cool idea, but just got bored with it. The lack of depth — including but not limited to the one-dimensionality of the female characters — was disappointing.
Okay, so the film didn’t work for you. You don’t like shallow action films. Great. There’s a lack of depth that you even say is “not limited to the one-dimensionality of the female characters,” yet that’s what you chose to write your article on…
Not the lack of depth. Not the lack of story. Not Akan’s unexplained powers or motivations. Not the over the top violence. Not the shallowness of all the characters — no. You chose to write on the female characters specifically, and then you wonder why people call you out on your feminist agenda. Well…they should, because it’s blatantly obvious.
The lack of interesting female characters is part of the problem with “Henry,” but not the whole problem. I felt like there were a lot of missed opportunities. The lead villain seemed potentially interesting, but we never got to learn much about him because we only see things from Henry’s literal point of view. Other movies, like “Blade Runner,” have done a much better job of showing us the trap of being locked in our own perspectives.
Much like I just said, but you try and wrap all this up in the end with a tiny little paragraph, but the entire point of the article is HARDCORE HENRY being sexist…which it isn’t. It’s shallow — all around, and intentionally so.
(I also have no idea what BLADE RUNNER does for showing us the trap of being locked in our own perspectives…HARDCORE HENRY is nothing about perspectives…it’s about blowing shit up. And if you are referencing something about Deckard questioning his humanity and his love for Rachel, and somehow trying to relate that film’s themes to HARDCORE HENRY…then I think you need to re-evaluate your career choice.)
According to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0eSFUuB7k8 HARDCORE HENRY has a body count of 232. It’s been a while since I saw it, but I don’t remember any women being killed. It’s possible some of the prostitutes (those horribly discriminated, male-gazed, beaten down by sexism prostitutes) got killed when shit went down in the brothel, but I don’t even remember. But the overwhelming majority of deaths in this film are male. Does anyone have a problem with that?
No. And why not? Because we just assume that most deaths in films will be male. Anyone being shot, stabbed, beaten down or murdered in any other fashion is going to be a dude. 92% of workplace fatalities are male, but nobody cares. In fact, most people probably assume that’s true and have never even thought about it.
But go ahead and cast some prostitutes in your film and don’t go out of your way to write in a bunch of deep female characters, and you’re sexist…
This guy must have loved THE LAST JEDI…
Until later…
