Already Under Fire, a Producer Is Going Further
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
LOS ANGELES, June 24 — For a while Wednesday night’s block party for “Transformers” was shaping up to be the hottest ticket in town.
But that was before Courtney Solomon, planning a celebration of his own, called in the SuicideGirls.
Having already provoked parents, women’s groups and the ratings board with explicit ads for the coming torture movie “Captivity,” Mr. Solomon and his After Dark Films now intend to introduce the film, set for release July 13, with a party that may set a new standard for the politically incorrect.
This is disgusting... this filmmaker is openly declaring his outright, unapologetic misogyny. And hoping to make money from it. His 'justifications' read like a Hollywood version of the explanations "white power" groups give publicly for their politics. Let's see if people actually speak out against it.
One person already has: Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and other proudly feminist art, on the blog Whedoneque (thanks to Tina for the link).
Incidentally, can we finally put to bed the whole debate about whether the Suicide Girls are a feminist organization?
A few highlights:
“The women’s groups definitely will love it,” Mr. Solomon hinted. “I call it my personal little tribute to them.”
[dot dot dot]
Mr. Solomon, a Toronto-born entrepreneur who acquired the rights to the game Dungeons & Dragons while working from his bedroom and wound up directing its film under the tutelage of the producer Joel Silver, casts his struggle with those who object to “Captivity” as a Larry Flynt-style fight against censorship and repression. Yet this promotional master of Hollywood’s dark side is waging the battle with typical outrageousness. The movie, which is rated R, will screen only once before its opening, at an expected showing for women’s groups in New York, at which he wants to engage in a town-hall-style debate with detractors.
“We would not be receptive,” said Meaghan Carey, deputy director of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women. “We’re not going to go protest so they can get press.”
OK, so let me get this straight: promoting a film about how torturing women (in a very real and non-consensual way, just to be clear) is sexy by paying women to participate in a deliberately, openly anti-woman event is a brave fight against censorship and repression? Amazing. I'm still waiting to find out exactly which movies have been censored for being too sexist. You know, as opposed to the movies that actually do get censored, such as Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia by the great Australian documentary filmmaker John Pilger.
And NOW's predictable response, of course, is to remain silent, because they don't want to take the bait.
Granted, Solomon certainly is deliberately baiting the women's movement. Why? Perhaps he wants to prove that the women's movement is dead in the water, or that feminists are all humorless caricatures who just can't understand that it's "just a movie." (Hint: So was Birth of a Nation. Wonder if the Times would also glowingly describe that gem as, like, so awesomely politically incorrect and badass!)
But here's the thing: the women's movement isn't dead, despite the best efforts of groups like NOW. And we do have sense of humor, and we are a damn creative bunch. So here's a call to my sisters and brothers in LA-- get on this! Show this asshole what a real women's movement looks like!
Now, I'm not advocating that you sunny California types do anything illegal. But according to the article, "the primary audience... will be fans, who can cycle through the club free in groups of 50." How hard is it to get those tickets? And how much chaos could a group of 50 cause once it's deep in the heart of a party filled with a "warren of live torture rooms"? Especially one that "everybody on the Internet gets to watch"?
I'm just saying.
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2 comments:
Good points. But as for this:
"Incidentally, can we finally put to bed the whole debate about whether the Suicide Girls are a feminist organization?"
No, we shouldn't put it to bed. The community itself is having a debate about it right now:
http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/21762/
Thanks for a very interesting link, Anon! I'm glad to see this debate going on.
Missy Suicide's response is rather jarring, though: talking about empowerment in the same breath as referring to grown women as "girls" in need of chaperones? Um.
We have done promotions with Courtney in the past and, while he is not afraid of controversy, I don't think that makes him a bad person. I believe in people's rights to freedom of expression and don't see what it so wrong about pushing boundaries. No one is forcing anyone to see the movie. Adults should be able to make up their own mind about what they see and what they don't.
I just think this is an incredibly simplistic argument. This type of thinking sets up "controversy" and "pushing boundaries" as ideals which automatically promote free speech and democracy, without any regard to the actual content of the controversy in question.
Was it controversial for Don Imus to call the strong, intelligent women of the Rutgers basketball team "nappy-headed hoes"? Yes. Was it thereby a blow to free speech? Were the millions who called him out on his racism and sexism actually jack-booted thugs out to destroy freedom? No. Fox News and its partisans like to use this argument all the time. It creates an atmosphere where people in the media and people with money, the people who have more free speech than a thousand ordinary people, get to air and promote the most racist, sexist, backward, hateful bullshit, and anybody who stands up against it is a fascist who hates free speech.
Free speech has to be viewed in a context in which a tiny handful of huge corporations control television networks, movie studios, print media outlets, advertising and news. When the people who control that power structure use their power to further degrade oppressed groups, those groups have every right to fight back.
I realize that Missy doesn't speak for everyone at SG, and perhaps some of the women there agree with me. But I just don't feel all that empowered by a site that encourages me to "browse girls" and that thinks showing your tits, however pierced and tattooed and subversive they might be, is more important that fighting for actual change in women's lives. I'm all in favor of women expressing ourselves sexually however we please... but let's not kid ourselves that it's a strategy for political change.
By the way, a great resource on the whole "is porn empowering?" debate is Ariel Levy's book Female Chauvinist Pigs. I think she handles the question in a smart, non-reductive way, and she talks to and writes about sex workers, 'Girls Gone Wild' participants, and lots of other women without belittling or patronizing them, and lets them speak for themselves-- something that's rare and lovely, in my opinion.
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