Er, wasn't absolute nonviolence pretty much the entirety of what Gandhi was known for? All I know of that you could be referring to is his recruiting for World War One. Elaborate?
Dont get me wrong, Gandhi is certainly an inspirational figure, but much of his non-violence ideology was merely a facade, he played the role of the starving saint while allowing his people to lash out in violence and anger, specifically during ww2. And only when his demands were met did he call off the mobs.
IMO he was brilliant, he held the moral high ground while indirectly fighting a violent war for independence. But I will backpedal on my hyperbole in calling him warmonger
I have read and seen some fucked up things on the internet, but your part in this discussion has been the worst thing I've seen on the internet, ever. I was compelled to keep reading and reading just to see if you ever saw any kind of sense but you did not, and that is scary and depressing.
Your idea of moral justice backed up by the pseudo-philosophical bullshit of equilibrium means absolutely nothing, it is not justice for a killer to be killed, or even for a rapist to be raped. Putting the power of punishment in the hands of the victim of a crime is a disturbing thought, as if the arbiters of justice in our society should be the one's who's minds are most clouded by hatred.
The idea that a horrible crime justifies the same being done to the perpetrator is so clearly reprehensible and base, that civilised society did away with such notions years, and years ago. There is no justifying rape: in this scenario, the man is a sickening villain, and the woman is a sickening villain in equal measure.
In short, it is my sincere hope I never ever have to come into contact with you or anyone else like you.
Er, wasn't absolute nonviolence pretty much the entirety of what Gandhi was known for? All I know of that you could be referring to is his recruiting for World War One. Elaborate?
Dont get me wrong, Gandhi is certainly an inspirational figure, but much of his non-violence ideology was merely a facade, he played the role of the starving saint while allowing his people to lash out in violence and anger, specifically during ww2. And only when his demands were met did he call off the mobs.
IMO he was brilliant, he held the moral high ground while indirectly fighting a violent war for independence. But I will backpedal on my hyperbole in calling him warmonger
I have read and seen some fucked up things on the internet, but your part in this discussion has been the worst thing I've seen on the internet, ever. I was compelled to keep reading and reading just to see if you ever saw any kind of sense but you did not, and that is scary and depressing.
Your idea of moral justice backed up by the pseudo-philosophical bullshit of equilibrium means absolutely nothing, it is not justice for a killer to be killed, or even for a rapist to be raped. Putting the power of punishment in the hands of the victim of a crime is a disturbing thought, as if the arbiters of justice in our society should be the one's who's minds are most clouded by hatred.
The idea that a horrible crime justifies the same being done to the perpetrator is so clearly reprehensible and base, that civilised society did away with such notions years, and years ago. There is no justifying rape: in this scenario, the man is a sickening villain, and the woman is a sickening villain in equal measure.
In short, it is my sincere hope I never ever have to come into contact with you or anyone else like you.
Have you ever been the victim of an especially egregious crime? Im very curious because you are so clearly able to place judgment on the victims of such egregious crimes. Im not putting any power in the hands of anyone with my "pseudo-philosophical bullshit", im practically the only one here abstaining from judgment at all. You are judging a character for her reaction to something that you have likely never experienced, and if you admit that you would act in a similar matter as her but still think its "wrong", well that is the epitome of hypocrisy. So unless you know the depth of pain that lisbeth knows, I would ask you kindly to refrain from voicing your judgment.
Justice, as a concept, works if and only if it applies the same rules to everyone.
I have not experienced rape so I do not know how I would react to such a horrible crime. What I do know is that my judgement would be clouded and however justified I would feel, my vindication would not be the course of justice. There is no hypocrisy in saying that I am just as much a possessor of the same human faults as any other human, but that does not change the fact that they are faults.
If you have been abstaining from judgement, please enlighten me, is she justified and morally correct in her actions?
Adding perspective. It's another revenge movie with "vigilante justice" scenes. But no one cried foul as far as I've seen, and last I looked, slow, brutal torture was just as illegal as rape.
Thank you zelda2fanboy. Because of you, I now know not to watch Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
On topic... well, out of context, yeah, it sounds pretty awful. Just reading the first page of comments, apparently this character is some sort of masturbation fantasy for the author? Which I guess means that the author secretly dreams of being anally fucked with a glass dildo by a woman? Whatever, I have no desire to know more.
As to those of you who are saying that the rapist deserved it - no he didn't. He deserved to be shot in the head, sure. If she'd murdered him, I'd have been "oh, that's okay then." If she's murdered him slowly and painfully, I'd have been "well, she's insane and sick, but I'm still okay with this."
By using the same method on him that he used on her, she has sunk to his level and is now as bad as he is. They BOTH deserve to be shot. Or, you know, imprisoned. Yes, he is worse because he also breached ethics, but the mutual rapes are so far worse that that part seems rather small by comparison.
Rape is never excusable. Not even when it's done to another rapist.
Don't watch movies for grown-ups unless you are a grown-up. Simple as that.
If you seriously can't see the role those scenes played in the characterizations of everyone involved, then you are not the target audience for the movie. If it made you uncomfortable, it doesn't mean that it was pointless, it means that it made you uncomfortable. Which, I think, is just as legitimate a sensation for a movie to create as any other. If you need movies that don't bother you, don't watch movies with adult themes.
Well in that case, Lisbeth's pipe scene should have definitely gotten a pass since it matches the overall style and mood to a T.
Obviously, I think it's just that we as an audience are so desensitized to brutal violence, and the concept of sexual abuse is still understandably an uncomfortable and disturbing subject.
I can actually support the killing of criminals, in a dim sort of way. I think it's hypocritical to kill based solely on the fact that one has committed a crime, but if it's necessary to prevent another crime, or to prevent someone from informing his bosses that you're coming to take back your kidnapped daughter, then yeah, okay, I can at least argue the case with some conviction.
Liam Neeson's character, however, is a horrible person who deserves to go to jail for as long as the authorities will have him. I have forgotten most of that movie, but the scene where he tortures a man to death with electricity is beyond the pale. Even if it was necessary for that man to die, the only justification for killing him so slowly is for the pleasure Neeson's character takes in it; and "causing pain when there is no reason, and taking pleasure in it" is one of the best definitions for the word "evil" I can come up with.
Because rape is unavoidably more traumatic when you present it in fiction. Neeson might beat the shit out everyone like a Boss and if you judge it by the real world, those people have all died in fairly horrible ways, but it's a hell of a lot easier to gloss over that with editing in a film than it is rape. Likewise, there is a side of it that taps into people wanting to be Bond and spies and action men - there's no such side to rape.
Emotional aftermath is far more easily avoidable too.
You think Bjurman could go to the police? Or that they'd both go to jail? Just, No.
Also, why must Salander be a paragon? Has her disregard for right and wrong in exchange for whatever seems fair made it difficult for you to approve of her? Good!
I can actually support the killing of criminals, in a dim sort of way. I think it's hypocritical to kill based solely on the fact that one has committed a crime, but if it's necessary to prevent another crime, or to prevent someone from informing his bosses that you're coming to take back your kidnapped daughter, then yeah, okay, I can at least argue the case with some conviction.
Liam Neeson's character, however, is a horrible person who deserves to go to jail for as long as the authorities will have him. I have forgotten most of that movie, but the scene where he tortures a man to death with electricity is beyond the pale. Even if it was necessary for that man to die, the only justification for killing him so slowly is for the pleasure Neeson's character takes in it; and "causing pain when there is no reason, and taking pleasure in it" is one of the best definitions for the word "evil" I can come up with.
Don't forget he also used painful violence and threats against another person's loved ones in order to get information out of a crooked French cop. That guy's wife wasn't guilty of anything other than association.
So, I just watched the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (the American version) and I didn't like it. Granted, I never got bored and it was really well photographed, but I can't shake the feeling that that was an incredible waste of time and a sense of shock that so many people like it. I had no idea what was going on until about the last thirty minutes. All of the investigation stuff was sifting through photos and names of people I had no reference point for, and basically the case hinged on two pictures that apparently had such an obvious correlation that two characters figured it out separately on their own.
But before this turns into a user review / rant and before the dozens of people shouting that the book / other movie were way better, there's one point of contention in this movie that bugged the hell out of me. There's about 15 to 20 minutes of this lengthy 2 hour 36 minute movie devoted to a detailed rape and revenge sequence. I have no idea why it's there, I don't know how it serves the plot, I don't know why it was as explicit as it was, and I don't know why people haven't called bullshit on it yet. For those who haven't seen it
Lisbeth Salander is a computer hacker working for various companies under the table. She gets her money from a trust fund and dresses like a person who might do drugs or have trouble with the law. She has to go to "some guy" to declare her mentally competent and he precedes to ask her to perform oral sex on him to get her money. She agrees. Later, she goes to his apartment, where he handcuffs her to a bed, and as the movie makes sure to tell us, anally rapes her on screen. For some reason, the guy tries to be all nice and friendly afterwards like he doesn't know what he just did. She plans for a little bit and goes back to his apartment. He tries to "apologize" or something and she tasers him. She then handcuffs him, anally rapes him with a glass dildo, and says that she'll blackmail him with secret footage she took of the rape. Then, she tattoos "rapist pig" on his body.
So, how is she any less of a rapist than the guy who raped her? Theoretically, the guy could easily call the cops and they'd both go to jail for a really long time. Isn't rape categorically wrong and a crime no matter who commits it to who? Why does this beloved (from what I've seen online) character get let off the hook? One could argue that he "deserved" it or was "asking for it," but by definition, no one deserves or asks for rape. It's not possible. It feels pretty despicable and disgusting to paint that act of violence as justifiable, which I'm pretty sure this movie does. Maybe I'm weird and looking at it the wrong way, but it feels fucked up.
Your kind of missing the point here, and I think some of the responses (though not all of them) are as well.
Liz is damaged goods, she is a genius but is borderline dysfunctional. You weren't really supposed to be thinking it's "right" that she did this to the guy in any true sense, so much as "OMG, he ran into someone just as F@cked up as he is and paid the price".
Liz is "good" in an absolute sense in that in the big picture she winds up going after the bad guys and laying it all on the table for what is right. On a smaller scale though, well, she's a head case.
The point of the sequence your dealing with is that it's establishing characterization, and a counterpoint you can use to compare what she does later on when it really matters, as well as establishing her style of doing things and what her capabilities are.
It should also be noted that this is a series about a duo of very flawed people who ultimatly wind up relying on each other to get things done. Neither of our protaganists would have succeeded entirely on their own. Both were basically scumbags or insane, who wound up doing the right thing to deal with a situation far worse than either of them. It's intentionally a "dark" story.
No offense, but I think people who see a message here that what Liz did was some kind of "white knight" move just because it was a woman victimizing someone who did the same to here, are projecting onto it, and it might actually say more about them than the movie or it's intent in the scene. I wound up getting a differant impression from it entirely.
It was a brutal scene, but think of it as a darker version of say the crusading "down and out" private eye who might very well wind up shooting it out with a bunch of hitmen to save some innocent people later on when he could just walk away, who spends the first half of the movie lying to people, stealing, cheating, drinking heavily, getting slapped by his multiple ex-girlfriends, and other things. It's more dramatic, but the point is can the end of the movie make you forget for a second that the guy who was just that heroic drank his rent money, and stole his ex-girlfriend's tips to buy off his landlord for another day or whatever. Such a character might be portrayed as perpetually hung over for the first half of the movie. Actors like Bruce Willis kind of cut their teeth on roles similar to this.
That's my take on it at any rate. I haven't read the books, which I imagine like many mysteries were probably better in that form. To me this seemed like a pretty by the numbers mystery/suspense movie.
Of course also understand that there are hero/protaganist types that have done far worse than Liz did, which is probably why I kind of just took it as "meh". Those who think it was a feminist statement are probably projecting. I'd stand corrected if the author/creator intended it that way, but I just didn't get that from it. The movie was just trying to play things edgier than most.
So, I just watched the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (the American version) and I didn't like it. Granted, I never got bored and it was really well photographed, but I can't shake the feeling that that was an incredible waste of time and a sense of shock that so many people like it. I had no idea what was going on until about the last thirty minutes. All of the investigation stuff was sifting through photos and names of people I had no reference point for, and basically the case hinged on two pictures that apparently had such an obvious correlation that two characters figured it out separately on their own.
But before this turns into a user review / rant and before the dozens of people shouting that the book / other movie were way better, there's one point of contention in this movie that bugged the hell out of me. There's about 15 to 20 minutes of this lengthy 2 hour 36 minute movie devoted to a detailed rape and revenge sequence. I have no idea why it's there, I don't know how it serves the plot, I don't know why it was as explicit as it was, and I don't know why people haven't called bullshit on it yet. For those who haven't seen it
Lisbeth Salander is a computer hacker working for various companies under the table. She gets her money from a trust fund and dresses like a person who might do drugs or have trouble with the law. She has to go to "some guy" to declare her mentally competent and he precedes to ask her to perform oral sex on him to get her money. She agrees. Later, she goes to his apartment, where he handcuffs her to a bed, and as the movie makes sure to tell us, anally rapes her on screen. For some reason, the guy tries to be all nice and friendly afterwards like he doesn't know what he just did. She plans for a little bit and goes back to his apartment. He tries to "apologize" or something and she tasers him. She then handcuffs him, anally rapes him with a glass dildo, and says that she'll blackmail him with secret footage she took of the rape. Then, she tattoos "rapist pig" on his body.
So, how is she any less of a rapist than the guy who raped her? Theoretically, the guy could easily call the cops and they'd both go to jail for a really long time. Isn't rape categorically wrong and a crime no matter who commits it to who? Why does this beloved (from what I've seen online) character get let off the hook? One could argue that he "deserved" it or was "asking for it," but by definition, no one deserves or asks for rape. It's not possible. It feels pretty despicable and disgusting to paint that act of violence as justifiable, which I'm pretty sure this movie does. Maybe I'm weird and looking at it the wrong way, but it feels fucked up.
As someone who has experienced that, I can say that I wanted to do far worse to the guy who assaulted me. The fact that anyone could feel sorry for the rapist is completely alien to me, he deserved every single fucking bit of it.
Well, they largely abbreiviated what Liam Neeson did in the movie he was in. What's more he was less of a head case than Liz was. See Liz wound up in that situation largely because she actually was pretty much nuts to begin with. There were plenty of things she probably could have done in response to this guy's shakedown. She actually decided to pay into the sexual blackmail on her own, until the guy raised the stakes, and did it to someone crazier than he was.
You'll notice that in MOST movies, especially nowadays, they imply the violence, or have the heroes get disproportionate results from what they do. In cases where it's "intense" you might have the hero shoot someone in the kneecap or something like that which is "brutal" but also fairly detached compared to an actual rape or torture scene.
Sometime look at what they actually show going on in some of these movies and what it involves (and the distance between the actors in some cases), then think about that scene, and you'll understand. Most movies don't really fully use their ratings. Also most movies try and create and maintain an artificial moral line, torture is wrong, heroes won't torture, rape is wrong, heroes won't rape, etc... Dark secrets and brutal behavior have to take place within "acceptable" lines. Liz who does some very heroic things, also brutally raped some guy, victimizing him as bad as he did, that's part of what makes it thought provoking, and makes her seem genuinely flawed and "dark" since she steps outside of the established safe zone. The point is that because you do bad things, doesn't mean your a bad person in the big picture, and that's what makes this a bit differant... well at least with it being done in a mainstream movie.
If Liam Neeson mutilated some guy's genitals with a power drill to get information it might be realistic, but in most movies there is a line that "heroes" won't cross even when they are supposed to be "Dark", which is why when you see a really flawed hero or heroine it's fairly shocking.
Such are my thoughts. I hope I'm articulating that well.
So, how is she any less of a rapist than the guy who raped her? Theoretically, the guy could easily call the cops and they'd both go to jail for a really long time. Isn't rape categorically wrong and a crime no matter who commits it to who? Why does this beloved (from what I've seen online) character get let off the hook? One could argue that he "deserved" it or was "asking for it," but by definition, no one deserves or asks for rape. It's not possible. It feels pretty despicable and disgusting to paint that act of violence as justifiable, which I'm pretty sure this movie does. Maybe I'm weird and looking at it the wrong way, but it feels fucked up.
See, I haven't seen the american version, but in the book and original film, she does not agree to perform oral sex, but rather is forced to. Her original plan was simply to tape him forcing her to perform oral sex and blackmail him to grant her her rights. Then he instead brutalizes and rapes her. So his punishment is to feel the same humiliation and pain that he made her feel. As for why he can't go to the cops: as you said, they BOTH go to jail, something that he, as an entitled man in a position of power, is not willing to do. She gets institutionalized again, but his life is OVER.
And again, at least in the original film, she is not receiving money from a trust fund, but her personal bank account. She does not have control over them, because she was declared mentally incompetent as part of a life-long conspiracy against her that you have to be interested in the series as a whole to understand.
As to what it adds to the plot: nothing. Not for THIS film. It is something important later, but in this part only serves to inform you, the viewer, about Lisbeth Salander as a character, and the lengths she will go to.
So, why is it there? because its thematically important in the first part, and plot-important in the later parts (and you can't add it in later, it has to come up in sequence) and they planned since day one to adapt all three films.
Why is it "justified"? Because Lisbeth is a scarred woman who has come to view the world with a brutality to match what she received growing up.
Why is it so graphic? to disturb you. You arent supposed to be HAPPY about either scene. You are supposed to be horrified, then vindicated AND horrified.
And that's a central theme, whether the original author intended it or not (from what I am told, he apparently wrote this purely for self-gratification). IS it justifiable to do monstrous things to punish a monster?
wait till you see the rest of the story, and that revenge-rape will make so much awful sense
There's a Law and Order SVU chapter that sounds a lot like the plot of the movie. It goes like this:
Girl with hi IQ raped as a child by three men
As an adult she's good with computers and uses her skills to get to each man.
She carves them words and sodomizes them.
The police caughts her and send her to trial.
In the end she finds her daughter product of the rape by listening to her laugh and one of the bad guys confeses out of guilt.
just because there is a bad thing in a movie/book doesnt mean the agenda is to suport..quite the oposite in this case
the whole point in thease things is to make the veiwer think, to consider if they think the situation is right or wrong... and then some people miss the point and get their undies in a twist because they think protagonists are suposed to follow rules to align with their own morals
the best storys dont work like that
Harry Mason said:
Don't watch movies for grown-ups unless you are a grown-up. Simple as that.
If you seriously can't see the role those scenes played in the characterizations of everyone involved, then you are not the target audience for the movie. If it made you uncomfortable, it doesn't mean that it was pointless, it means that it made you uncomfortable. Which, I think, is just as legitimate a sensation for a movie to create as any other. If you need movies that don't bother you, don't watch movies with adult themes.
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