My Issues with The Fifth Element

[callistotoni]

My crabby take on the 1997 Luc Besson Sf-Fi movie The Fifth Element behind cut:
G0atface lent me one of her favorite sewing movies, The Fifth Element. I can understand the appeal, now that I've seen it. The art direction/costumes are lavish and yet silly and campy. The plot is sort of adventure-farce, with some entertainly snide Bruce Willis dialog. Obvious pokes at pop culture, yada yada. I can see the appeal.

Maybe it's because I am of a certain age, but I could not, personally, get past the widely sexist vision of this (admittedly farcical) universe. Besson reportedly came up with this movie when he was 16, and boy it shows. There are no female in any sort of normal job or in any position of real responsibility. The only women that exist for Besson are young and beutiful. The one women Besson shows who is older and "unattractive" is held up for ridicule. Besson's "perfect" human is a woman, but according to the movie she is perfect because she is beautiful. She's also supposed to be powerful, but spends much of the movie undressing and waiting for Willis to rescue her. And Willis falls immediately in love with her for no other discernable reason because she is "perfect".

Oh, and the two depictions of Asian were pretty darn racist. As near as I could tell, the only Asians in the movie was a group of stereotypical Japanese school girls and a food vender with an accent that could have come out of a Charlie Chan movie. I haven't seen anything approaching this protrayal since Micky Rooney played a buck-toothed "Japanese" man in Breakfast at Tiffeny's. Do you have to be French to get away with this stuff?

If this movie had been made in the 1960s I could more easily laugh this off. But 1997? Come on folks, we were supposed to have gotten over this women-are-not-regular-humanbeings crap.

Like I said up front, maybe I'm just more sensitive to these things. I grew up in a time when women were still fighting discrimination. I remember being told--by my Girl Scout leader, of all people--that women were unable to have careers because they were too "emotional".

So, yeah. It's a button.

Comments

[falzalot.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I never thought about it like that... I was too busy enjoying the high BSU factor. I may never be able to watch it again!

(=BlowingShitUp *g*)

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

Love that movie. visually stunning. HATE the ending.

if she's so all friggin' powerful that tawoooooooow wuuuuuuuuuv wouldnt be required to save the friggin' planet.

you'd think the all knowing aliens would have figured that part out.

so I've been known to watch it and then skip the last bit ;)

[lifeofglamour.livejournal.com]

Umm... *hugs*?

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

I never thought that "the 5th element" was good enough to really analyze. Once you start digging into movies (especially ones made outside our current political/consumer culture) you start ruining your enjoyment of work that was not created in the atmosphere that we have today. For example: I can't look at "my fair lady" without thinking that Higgins and Pickering were gay (the evidence is pretty damning).

I am also finding that "classic" movies are including stuff done in the last 20 years that I never thought would be considered "classic". The scripts these days are just getting more juvenile, but then our expectations are much more laden with thematic expectations than ever before. Story-telling is lost in the rush to include every race, religion, gender, age group and special effect in a positive way that gets us to theatres...to make someone money. This basic artistic element has been lost by many of the titles making it to the screen.

[mad-duchess.livejournal.com]

Whoa. I'll bet you kicked ass in Lit class if you can just whip out an analysis like that... Flash that great big brain at me again, baby. ;-)

I dislike the movie too, but for reasons more akin to onerie's. I used to be an avid gamer (as in role playing games like D&D). I too liked the movie right up til the end when the "solution" turned out to be sooooo damn cheesy. I've played in games at Cons run by 13 year-olds that had more complicated, more insightful, and more thought provoking puzzle/resolutions. Bah.

[maestrateresa.livejournal.com]

Totally see what you're saying. Love the movie anyway...guess I see it as a whole package: all of it is silly, therefore the foolishness of the characterizations is part of the silly package--maybe evern poking fun at it all (look at the villian, f'rinstance!)

Maybe it helps that when I was growing up, I was told repeatedly by my parents that women/girls could do anything, & this was reinforced by my mom marching down to do battle with the Hunmmmm...I need to think about that more, & maybe re-internalize parts of it.... :)