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I had a chance to see Kenneth Branagh’s Thor last week, and while I liked the movie (it wasn’t perfect, but it was fun), I couldn’t help but notice that Branagh had played with cinematic gender norms in a big way.
The movie stars the ultra-buff Chris Hemsworth who has one very long and drawn-out shirtless scene in the movie while he wanders around getting dressed after escaping from a hospital. The scene doesn’t show Hemsworth flexing or smirking or showing off or acting tough. Instead, it’s very voyeuristic, making Hemsworth’s Thor the object that two female characters (played by Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings) are ogling as he wanders around the apartment putting on clothes. This might not have come off as odd were it not for the fact that …
… Natalie Portman remains fully clothed — and often under two or three layers — throughout the entire film, even during a scene where she’s caught in a downpour of rain and crawling around in the mud. At no point are there long, lingering shots of a braless Portman running through the rain, scrambling to cover herself up with a bedsheet or stripping off a layer of clothing while the male lead pretends to look away. Instead, both Portman and Dennings are made to be nerdy girls — alternately in plaid shirts or wearing glasses and firmly covered from head-to-toe.
Even Jaimie Alexander’s Sif, though clad in a leather outfit with long shiny dark hair, never comes off as sexualized. At one point, when Thor tries to take credit for helping her become a warrior, she’s quick to correct him and he relents, saying that he at least supported her.
Apart from sexualizing his lead male, Branagh also had Thor play out a number of female character comedy tropes — he smacks into doors, falls down and is generally humiliated in cute or amusing ways several times in the movie, the way of so many female actresses in romantic comedies or comedies in general, as seen in FilmDrunk’s supercut entitled “Pretty Women Falling Down.”
While I don’t necessarily applaud the sexualization or cutsey humiliation of Hemsworth, it was interested to see that gender norm being spun on its head. I don’t think it emasculated Thor or made him any less “bad-ass” by the film’s end, and it did serve as a reminder for how little you see lead male characters as the objects of lusty gazes or the sources of slapstick comedy. And I did enjoy being able to watch a big-budget Superhero film without jiggling breasts and damsels in distress.
What’s your take? Have you seen the movie yet? Do you think it’s good to focus the male gaze back on male characters, or is any sexualization a negative?
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I saw the movie with friends, and we all loved it. I thought the roles of men and (nerdy) women were very realistic. I liked being able to watch a superhero movie without it dumping on my self-image (perfect breasts and bikini bodies). Also, Sif is the first warrior woman I’ve seen in a movie with functional armor (metal bikini’s protect nothing!).
Nerdy girls who are obsessed over crunching numbers and understanding the universe from a scientific point of view is not realistic…
The only excuse for a female warrior is because it’s based on mythology…
I haven’t seen the movie yet but between what friends who have seen it have told me and reading your post, I definitely want to see it. I love the idea of being able to see a male lead half-naked and female characters oogling. It’s natural. It happens all the time.
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t cast in that role solely for being a great actor. Sexualization isn’t a negative. It’s natural. Humans are sexual. The more we fight that, the more problems we run into.
http://abigailekuewrites.blogspot.com/2010/06/you-are-piece-of-meat.html
While I do not enjoy all of Branagh’s films, I think he did well enough, considering it’s a comic-book adaption and Branagh comes from a theatrical background. The reverse sexualization was quite amusing, and a nice change from other superhero movies, like Katie Holmes walking around braless in Batman Begins, or Liv Tyler getting rain-soaked in The Incredible Hulk. Both movies are actually pretty good, but those scenes detract from the films.
Nothing reverse in that. Females do have some attraction for well-built men, since it reflects strength (to protect her) and health. It’s just not their primary point of concern, as opposed to men, who assess their female partners mostly through looks…
Men and women are not “sexualized” in the same way, so there’s nothing inverted in here. We just see something that happens all the time, but is usually not shown on the big screen, because of some Politically Correct crap mentality…
I don’t think the instances you mentioned emasculated him, but the hammer-twirling sure did…
lol lol lol lol lol … I AGREE
I quite liked the movie. It made me deliriously happy that Natalie Portman didn’t have to get nekkid during the movie, and it was nice to see someone OTHER than the female lead getting sexualized.
@Harriet Meadow
Actually, Thor whirls his hammer to better control the weather among other tricks. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mjolnir_(comics)
One more thing. If you think a guy whirling a medieval weapon is “emasculating,” you obviously haven’t heard of the flail (which can split your head open like an egg), the slingshot (deadlier than a flail because it’s long range), or nunchuks (Japanese weapons that can break your bones). Anyone on the receiving end of these implements of death was NOT questioning his opponent’s masculinity.
Good lord. I know why Thor twirls his hammer. It just didn’t translate very well on to the big screen. And I know about flails and nunchuks. Thanks for that very patronizing attempt at making my opinion invalid, though. You know what else was dumb? Odinsleep. Really? “Oh no, sh*t’s gettin’ real…I better pass out!” Was he wearing a corset or something?
Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the movie. However, there were a couple of things that just did not translate well from the comic book to the movie (especially if the viewer did not have the background information needed). It’s okay to have a sense of humor about these things!
Regarding why women love “Thor,” I suspect besides his looks the thunder god is appealing because he RESPECTS women.
It’s actually shocking to see a warrior like Thor NOT try to bed Jane Foster on the first date. Heck, the two don’t kiss untill almost the end of the movie. Instead, Thor views Jane as a friend with worthy qualities (guts, smarts, compassion, determination, etc.) that lead to him falling for her. The feeling is mutual on Jane’s part.
In short, Thor is chivalrous, which a few decades ago was considered stale and backward. However, a guy like Thor now comes off as the rebel in an American culture that increasingly tolerates and even celebrates sexist, abusive men: Chris Brown, Common, Charlie Sheen, etc.
Hence, can you blame women for falling for Thor emotionally as well as physically?
Fred: I don’t think it’s so much that Thor is chivalrous, as he does not put women on a pedestal — and believe me, that can be just as debilitating in its own way as metaphorically stepping on women. I got the feeling instead that Thor looked at women as being *people* first, women second. Frankly, as a woman who used to train in a martial art which was over 90% male, and who now studies ancient mythologies (including Norse), I find his approach to be both startlingly unique and refreshing — and enormously empowering.
I found the movie to be extremely shallow and unmemorable and, frankly, for a movie whose plot I forgot almost as soon as I left the theatre I wanted to see more beefcake and cheesecake for my bucks (for all the work Helmsworth put into his body, I think he should have been naked through all of it). I liked the fact that the women weren’t stripped down and oiled up (even in Asgard) but I still felt that Portman’s character had the stereotypical ’smart girl scientist’ role – the one where the female character is secretly right … no one believes her wormhole theory. Then all her stuff is stolen and in the easteregg, the older guy is the one brought in because he’s the cool scientist instead of Jane. I liked Dennings much better than Portman – both of them were working with cardboard caricature characters but I thought that Dennings carried hers off much better, plus she was allowed to look like an individual instead of the generic female lead look.
So you didn’t like it because Thor wasn’t nekkid?
Nah. I didn’t like it much because the characterization was shallow and stereotypical, the storyline was primitive, the ‘motivations’ were absent (really, our ‘proof’that Thor had grown up was him serving eggs and hash and two minute scene of him helping women and children?)– and if I’m going to watch a popcorn movie of that sort, I want some nice eye candy.
I think the proof that he was all grown up was actually that he was willing to give his life for a bunch of people when mega-destroyer monster thing was decimating the town.
But yes, it was a fairly simple storyline with not fairly plain characters. I enjoyed it for what it was worth, though.
“and it did serve as a reminder for how little you see lead male characters as the objects of lusty gazes or the sources of slapstick comedy.”
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You do often see males as sources of slapstick comedy. But they are usually fat gross ogres with potbellies. So it’s truly refreshing to see a hot man in that type of comedic role. I never understood why the funny guys have to be ugly?