You all may have heard about the uproar over the (admittedly tasteless) ad for X-men: Apocalypse. You know, this one:
Rose McGowan and thousands of others decided to get on Twitter and voice their concerns over this ad, which was posted on billboards in large cities across the nation. Some were concerned over the fact that they saw a woman choked out in a larger- than-life image in public areas. Others, understandably, were just bewildered someone actually thought this was a good idea. And others, such as Mrs. McGowan, were concerned by the nonchalant portrayal of violence against women in Hollywood.
She has a point - many films have pretty extreme scenes of violence and are praised for them, or the violence is ignored in favor of more dramatic scenes. Indeed, discussing violence against women through visual media can be extremely hard and emotional. Showing raw hurt and violence can affect an audience in profound ways, and can be extremely useful. It can also be tasteless and careless. However, none of that applies here. Ironically, this movie and this scene in particular should have been an extremely empowering moment for women.
In the past, Mystique was a one-dimensional character; a lackey for Magneto, an assassin, a sex icon for many. In these more recent films she is a complex character, with as many lines as the men in these films, more important roles, and is pretty hardcore. She was about to assassinate Apocalypse before he used his god-like powers to choke her out. Which she has done many times before, in the comics and in the films. Remember the foot choking scene from that horrible movie?
SPOILERS
In this scene three of the most hardcore women in comic book history lay a full on smack-down on apocalypse. Phoenix, Storm, and Mystique (who has much less power than the other two) all work together to open an all-mighty can of whoop ass. Seriously, hands down one of the coolest scenes an any movie. In fact, the act of choking out a woman (among other things) is explicitly acknowledged as a Bad Thing ™ when Storm switches sides after seeing one of her heroes choked out by her idol.
Sadly, Fox is still the old man who sometimes does cool stuff but most of the time does something awful afterwards, so instead of say, a Phoenix Endsong type ad we got that atrocity up there.
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However, none of that really matters. Because this was an action film! It's hard to understate how pointless it is to criticize an action film for violence against women. Seriously, it's a sexist argument. Violence against women is a serious issue, but in an equal world we would view violence against women no differently from violence against men in action films. Rather than some white guy swaggering in to help the defenseless maiden, we get a woman getting choked out. Followed immediately by some other women just destroying in every sense of the word her attacker.
If this was a romance or a comedy, I would grab my pitchfork too. We need to stop messages that violence against women is okay in everyday life. That an abuser can get the girl or that hitting people is funny. But in a sci-fi action film? I say kudos to the director who realized that heroines aren't snowflakes.
