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so...Kick-Ass...
Apr. 13th, 2010 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mustinvestigateI didn't enjoy Kick-Ass nearly as much as I thought I would.
(Also, have there officially been enough disingenuous 'real people become costumed vigilantes and wackiness/serious business commences!' works for it to qualify as a separate genre from 'superheroes'? And does this genre have a less unwieldy title?)
I don't know what left the sourness for me...the sexual politics (there are no nerdgirls! and, Nice GuysTM, hot personality-less girls totally owe you a wild sexual relationship when you do nice things for them, even if you've been lying about who you are to get close to them!), or the 11-year-old serial killer...who I kind of liked, as a character and a concept...but it should at least be acknowledged that being fundamentally brainwashed into cold-blooded murder and kept from interacting with the outside, non-murdering, world from a very young age is a Very Bad Thing. Hell, Buffy was only killing demons, and she had entire seasons to mourn her lost potential as someone who didn't spend her nights killing other sentient beings!
And also the adolescent Kick-Ass had no issues with becoming a killer either. But he chose vigilantism for himself and was also sort of a dumbass, so that was more of an irritation with the writing than the gut-deep worry I felt for wee Hit Girl.
And yet I kinda think it's a little worth it if a pre-teen girl distains Bratz in favor of a butterfly knife.
I am conflicted.
And possibly just very old and not getting it.
(Also, have there officially been enough disingenuous 'real people become costumed vigilantes and wackiness/serious business commences!' works for it to qualify as a separate genre from 'superheroes'? And does this genre have a less unwieldy title?)
I don't know what left the sourness for me...the sexual politics (there are no nerdgirls! and, Nice GuysTM, hot personality-less girls totally owe you a wild sexual relationship when you do nice things for them, even if you've been lying about who you are to get close to them!), or the 11-year-old serial killer...who I kind of liked, as a character and a concept...but it should at least be acknowledged that being fundamentally brainwashed into cold-blooded murder and kept from interacting with the outside, non-murdering, world from a very young age is a Very Bad Thing. Hell, Buffy was only killing demons, and she had entire seasons to mourn her lost potential as someone who didn't spend her nights killing other sentient beings!
And also the adolescent Kick-Ass had no issues with becoming a killer either. But he chose vigilantism for himself and was also sort of a dumbass, so that was more of an irritation with the writing than the gut-deep worry I felt for wee Hit Girl.
And yet I kinda think it's a little worth it if a pre-teen girl distains Bratz in favor of a butterfly knife.
I am conflicted.
And possibly just very old and not getting it.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 05:12 pm (UTC)...yeah, that's pretty much what would come of that frighteningly compatable DNA. Stop making me want to write baby!fic, for the love of all that is pervy!
no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 11:36 pm (UTC)non-awesome non-babyfic
Date: 2010-04-18 02:07 pm (UTC)Two little girls stood just outside the light of a flickering streetlamp. Both wore candy-colored wigs and leather – one a miniskirt, one a full-body suit covering Kevlar.
Two men lurked in opposite alleys, keeping a sharp eye out for other too-attentive lurking men. The shorter one unconsciously rubbed a roughly splinted finger through his glove with worried pride.
The woman on the rooftop across the street watched through the scope of her sniper rifle. She kept a bead on the miniskirt, just in case. Maternal instinct was a funny thing – she ached to scoop up both girls, tuck them away in some border universe where kids never disappeared on a two-block stroll home from school or stood on street corners in platform heels, but if she saw a single flicker of a hidden switchblade, she wouldn’t hesitate.
The girls concluded their conversation and separated, one into the light and one into shadow.
Silk Spectre quickly broke down her rifle as static crackled in her earpiece. “I got an address,” the girl murmured.
“Good job, kiddo,” Nite Owl whispered. “Now get your hiney back to the rendezvous point.”
“Be there in five,” Silk Spectre acknowledged and headed down a fire escape, but not until she’d seen the girl take her husband’s hand, heard his relieved exhale even through the static.
* * *
Ursula was the one who insisted the icing be purple. Along with a certain gnome-ish cast to her features (poor kid), she shared a favourite color with her father. Sally was making a hash of the message in yellow icing – which was supposed to read “Congratulations on your first bust, Hit-Girl!” – but then they couldn’t exactly have ordered it custom from the bakery. Hollis was wearing circular holes in the carpet and had already bummed half a pack of Ursula’s unfiltered Calumé Vanillas.
“Five years!” he exclaimed again, and coughed. “We had another five years! Not until she’s 16, at least, and can make her own decision – am I the only one who remembers that?”
Ursula pounded him on the back. “It was her friend, schatz. Would she ever forgive herself, or her parents, if they kept her on schedule, after this life sought her out now?”
“Then why a cake? Why a celebration?” Hollis drew viciously on his cigarette and hacked the smoke back out.
“Because everyone deserves to be properly welcomed into a family business,” Sally insisted, finishing off her highball in one shaky gulp and flicking stray ash off a sugary purple rose. “And she’s gonna do great.”
* * *
“Stay behind us,” Silk Spectre admonished her daughter, checking and double-checking the fit of her bullet-proof vest.
“Mooooooom!”
“You got the intel, so you’ve got a right to be here. But stay out of the way – we all hung back and learned from our elders when we started out.”
She crossed her fingers behind her back and ignored Nite Owl’s conspicuously cleared throat. Her husband crossed his arms and nodded, backing her up, but she could tell by the pattern on his mask that he, too, was smirking at her.
“Fine,” Hit-Girl huffed, “but it’s not fair. I’ve been training – ”
“Life isn’t fair,” Silk Spectre shot back. “Now get into position behind Nite Owl.”
“Please tell me I’m not my mother,” the woman whispered as they entered the seemingly abandoned warehouse from the other side, only half in jest.
“Are not your mother,” he whispered back automatically, as he had at least twice a day for the previous eleven years.
Neither of them was surprised when their cover was blown almost immediately by a small body dropping through a hole in the ceiling brandishing nunchucks. Fortunately, their target and the three thugs playing poker with him froze in bewilderment at the sight of the tiny apparition, giving the team precious seconds to get into place around them.
“Okay, you cun – ”
“Language!”
“ – er – whoremongers?”
“Hurm. Accurate.”
“Let’s see what you can do now!”
Re: non-awesome non-babyfic
Date: 2010-04-18 10:10 pm (UTC)Re: non-awesome non-babyfic
Date: 2010-04-19 07:08 pm (UTC)Re: non-awesome non-babyfic
Date: 2010-04-19 04:34 am (UTC)I LOVE YOU
Oh my god, what is the OT3 configuration here? You must write more! PLEASE OH PLEASE
Re: non-awesome non-babyfic
Date: 2010-04-19 07:26 pm (UTC)Maybe I'll write a some more vignettes, but it's a happyhappyjoyjoy universe that makes me want to barf a little. Ursula and her girl survived the attack, but not unscathed. Nurse left (...sensibly, really), and since Ursula reconciled socially with the rest of the gang she and Sally have had an ongoing unexamined revengesex/guiltsex Thing while Hollis hovers about whimpering, "OT3?" as is his wont. Not entirely sure about the younger generation, whether it's the three of them, or just the bizarrest functional marriage (because you know Walter would insist on getting married rather than simply fornicating in happyjoyland) with Dan making like Hollis there or busy shagging the life out of, I don't know, Doc Manhattan?