Reflected in Ice: An Aspergers Review of Frozen

The following movie review contains mild spoilers. I try to tread lightly, but can't avoid addressing a few in-movie moments or thematic elements.

There are two measures of good art.

The first is anything that can make me feel strongly. The other is that which holds up a mirror to the viewers, in which, each sees herself.

Frozen accomplished both of these goals with resounding success.

Secret Wish - Tami Vaughn
I had this printed on a mousepad I used for years.

Good mirrors are composed of metaphors and character traits and plot in the right combination of vague and specific to reflect a broad range of life situations and personalities. Many types of people see themselves in Frozen: girls who are raised to be perfect, sisters who struggle in their relationships, women who are deceived by those they trust, those who have secrets, neurodiverse people, anyone who is misunderstood, and anyone who is rejected for all the wrong reasons. And like the second trial in The NeverEnding Story, a mirror which reveals the viewers "true self", Frozen's mirror can reflect the ugly parts of some people, like the blogger, "Well-Behaved Mormon Woman", who calls Frozen part of the "gay agenda to normalize homosexuality" and who says it's terrible we're letting kids get the message that rebellion is better than obedience.

Can you hold it down, please?
I'm trying to make history over here.

Whatever, lady. I have an entirely different view when I look at myself in art.


Frozen reflected many visions for me. Most strongly, it portrayed my autism in a very accurate way. It also reflected my relationship with my sister, and my struggles to leave the religious culture of my birth (incidentally, Mormonism), and my struggles relating to my family members who still belong to that culture. I will cover my thoughts on all these points.

Social equality activists argue for more representation of minorities in fiction. There are many good reasons to do this, but for any creator, the biggest reason should be "to make better art". When the same old characters are dancing to the same old plots choreographed with the same old tropes and the same old twists, only the same old segment of society is allowed to see themselves reflected in art. And even that segment is only allowed to get the same messages they always have about themselves. The mirror is cracked and the reflective backing is faded. It ceases to be useful even for the intended audience.

What's fun is a funhouse with only one twisted mirror?

Frozen is the first movie I can remember that explores the relationship between two sisters. I'm sure there are other examples, but they are few and far between. Often, to find them, you have to leave the mainstream film scene, into the art houses and foreign films.

Because of this dearth, Frozen had it easy. Its subject and plot is low hanging fruit. Disney made the only mainstream movie about sisters in recent history, so of course anyone who is a sister and has a sister is going to see herself in it. Finally, someone is showing her herself.

Because women are so rarely represented in movies, outside certain highly limiting tropes, we latch on to anything we're given. And it benefits us all greatly. Frozen allowed my sister and I to have a conversation we were unable to have before, because we lacked any kind of context to have it. Frozen helped her and I understand one another more.

Any filmmaker following in Frozen's footsteps will face a steeper challenge. The next attempt will require a little more thought and nuance in order to be good art and not simply derivative.

This is a good thing. I hope many attempts will be made to best Frozen's "sisters" mirror. And while we're at it, let's take a look at other female-female relationships. Mother-daughter? (Brave got us started there.) Business partners? Partners in crime? Buddies? (More Thelma and Loiuse, please.)

And God forbid.. Perhaps we could see female-female romantic partners? In spite of the success of the big gay agenda, I currently only have one small part of one song that describes what it feels like to be snuggled up with my lovely girlfriend. That ought to give well-behaved blogger up there a real example of homosexuality portrayed in the media.

Anyway, there's plenty more low-hanging-good-art fruit for the picking. Half the movie-viewing audience are women who really want, crave, and need more mirrors.

Now, I'm not implying Frozen's creators were amateurs and that it only succeeded because they entered unexplored territory. They tread some other ground which is extremely well-trod and managed to find a fresh mirror there, too.

The "be your own unique self no matter what people say" theme has been done to death. It's part of American culture, and we love it every single time. Where this theme gets stale is, again, where we endlessly see the same take on it. The underdog nonconformists who win in the end, they all start to blur together after awhile, until we forget that this is the theme of pretty much every single movie, ever. We don't even notice it anymore. The individualist rebel has become the new conformity, the ideal that we all strive for equally, to the point where we shun anyone who fails.

Repeat after me...

For Frozen to pull this old trick out of the bag, dust it off, and make it seem like they were the first to ever think of it, is a pretty tremendous feat. A mirror is pointless if we keep seeing the same image. It's the one that reveals a different side, or that pimple hiding under the chin, is the one that wins the "Good Art" award from me.

The song "Let It Go" is good art for the same reasons. It speaks to these common themes and others, of social rejection, of turning ostracization into chosen isolation, of the damage caused by suppressing feelings, of finding self-acceptance, and of having uncontrollable emotions or an inner power which is misunderstood.

This scene made me cry the first time I saw it. Which leads us to autism.

Others have written about this topic. But I shall write more about it. Because when you meet one person with autism, you've only met that one person with autism, so there's no one definitive autistic perspective.

[Mild spoilers incoming!]

Elsa is born with her power, and she is taught to hate and suppress it. She learns from her well-meaning parents that she is dangerous and likely to hurt others, especially her sister Anna, who she loves. She has to hide away in her locked room, stuff her feelings, and resist using her powers because of these inaccurate beliefs about herself.

Her powers are a double-edged sword. They started as a force for good, which she used to make her sister happy and strengthen their sisterly bonds. But after one mistake, her talent turns into a dark and ugly thing, not because of Elsa herself, but because of how the people around her view it.

Ironically, it isn't her magic that hurts Anna. It's Elsa's self-imposed isolation because she believes herself to be dangerous. All Anna wants is the same love they once shared. The door that separates them wounds more sharply than the ice which was easily healed.

In a perfect case study of unintended consequences, Elsa's suppression of her power is what keeps her from controlling it. It all comes out sideways at the worst time, and she ends up in mutually-agreed upon exile, but with disastrous results for both her and her people. Again, it isn't her powers that are dangerous, it is how she and everyone else is handling them.

Olga Bogdishina's book, "Communication Issues in Autism and Asperger's Syndrome", talks about the ways autists process sensory information differently from neurotypicals (NTs). Among other issues, autists deal with being either hypo- or hyper-sensitive to stimuli. "Their senses seem to be too acute…or not working at all…"

Excellent book.
So read it.

Every autistic individual has a mashup of different conditions under which their senses are either ramped up or remote and blocked off. For some, sounds will always be too loud (auditory hypersensitivity) but they have no idea what they're feeling (alexithymia). For others, they do fine with sound... until they get overstimulated. Then they can hear a pin drop on the other side of the house.

Emotions should be counted among the "five" senses. Emotions are a sense, giving us information about our internal reactions to outside events, and are subject to hypo- or hyper- sensitivity effects. For autists, emotions can be remote and incomprehensible, or very loud like a blaring siren. While I've had periods in my life where I was more hyposensitive to my feelings (my teen years), these days, I tend to be more hypersensitive. I usually know what I'm feeling, and why, and even what I need to do to change those feelings. The downside is that strong emotions are very, very strong. Overwhelmingly so. Uncontrollably so.

And that's where meltdowns come in. 

Add to the complication, I was raised in a passive-aggressive environment, where showing certain emotions was never allowed. I quickly learned that crying would invoke an angry response, or accusations, or that I could hurt the people I loved. I became very good at repressing my tears if anyone else was around. When I became an adult, I had to teach myself to cry. It's a lesson I've never fully learned, and I have lots of triggers and shaky boundaries around that. All stuff I continue to work on.

When I feel cornered and triggered, I can meltdown. My emotions become so overwhelming that they shut down my thinking brain, with symptoms very similar to panic attack. I feel anxiety like fire, in my whole body, even my skin. I can't breathe, I can't think straight, I can't act in the best ways to protect myself. Everything becomes all-or-nothing. I may lash out and say hurtful things.

I'd put something funny here but it isn't really funny.

Cue Elsa. Here she has this double-edged power. She can build magnificent complicated fractal-based buildings using only her mental powers, but when she loses control, she shoots icicles from her hands.

Elsa's big triggers are related to emotions. When her parents die, her room turns frosty. And just like me, she becomes most dangerous during conflicts. She always risks hurting someone when she feels powerful things. And most of all, no one understands her. She's hurting and afraid, but everyone thinks she's a monster.

Her powers are just like my overwhelming emotions. As a child, I dealt with them by never feeling anything. As an adult, I still try to stuff them sometimes, but it totally backfires, especially when it reminds me of being a helpless child and I get triggered.

Power over ice is the best metaphor here. Aspies are often thought of as being emotionally cold, yet like Elsa's power, our emotions are often very active and passionate. Emotional repression is like trying to freeze feelings. And when I get upset, words come more difficult to me, as if my thoughts are freezing up. When the panic sets it, it's hard to breath, like my chest is frozen with fear.

It's not an icebeam, no that's all Jonny Snow!
(And Elsa the Snow Queen)

Anna tries to reason with Elsa, so together they can solve the endless winter problem. I related to Anna here, as well. My solutions are so simple, yet sometimes so hard to convey.

This is when Elsa whirls around in frustration, erecting a defensive ice barrier all around herself. Unknowingly, she hits Ana in the heart with an icy ray.

How often have I whirled about in my own pain and frustration said something that wounded someone I love? The closer to meltdown I am, the worse it is. I'm not trying to hurt anyone, though people accuse me of doing so. I'm as surprised as Elsa is, when she hears Ana's little cry of pain.

The metaphor continues through Anna's reaction. She seems fine for awhile. She knows she's got a problem, but she runs around for awhile and even has a comedic musical number with the trolls, before the ice starts to take over and incapacitates her. That's how painful words work. We stand up and shake them off and move along in life, but if the words were painful enough, they cause traumas that are hidden but still slowly freezing us to death.

Elsa finds her answer, and it's the answer I found. By stuffing her emotions, by trying to deny who she really is, by allowing social shame to consume her, she becomes explosive. It's only when she "lets it go" and accepts who she is in spite of what others tell her, that her talent becomes a controllable force for good. A unique power no one else has.

The message here, for anyone with autism or Aspergers, is to be true to your autistic self. NTs are going to set up alot of incomprehensible social standards for you to follow, but maybe you don't have to. At least not all of them, not all the time. Maybe there are ways around them, or maybe you can just do what you're going to do anyway, without shame. Maybe some of those social standards are lame and need to be questioned and rejected.

Art by FabUUlousGear.
Because you can get this as a mousepad.

By accepting and being open about all facets of your personality, you learn to control your powers. You can avoid those pesky painful meltdowns altogether, and forgive yourself when you can't. You can create your own environment, a palace on a hill, free from overstimulation and ridiculous social rules. And when you get really good at that, maybe you can come down off the hill and be a leader for others.

Or not, and that's okay, too.

One of the emotional elements of Frozen, for me, was Elsa's entire story arc. I had a rotten 2013. I was diagnosed in April. Conflicts between me and Roland were increasing in intensity and frequency. For many reasons, my anxiety continued to increase, until it pained me every single day. I was melting down every couple of weeks, every month at a minimum. I had multiple scary suicidal moments which recurred for months.

My diagnosis was helpful, but it also spun me into turmoil. I had my own self-rejection/self-acceptance narrative arc. I had to learn about my traits, my powers, and my limits, and then learn to articulate them to others.

As I watched Elsa struggle on screen, trying on various options to deal with her power/curse, I watched myself. I felt her pain and confusion. I understood her loneliness. But I also triumphed with her. I danced with her as she sang of how she no longer cared what anyone else thought, she no longer wanted to hide her true self, she would no longer try to be the perfect girl everyone expected her to be.

It's making me tear up as I write about it.

By the end of the year, I'd found my balance, an equilibrium, of how to live with autism and accept myself. The hardest part was learning how to be around others. Living in an ice castle is one thing, but I have family. I learned to set boundaries to keep other people from hurting me, which also resulted in me hurting them less. Like Elsa, I am now able to step out on the stage, confident, knowing I am loved.

That's not to say I won't continue to struggle. Every story arc repeats itself. On screen, it's just a sliver, a slice, of the cyclic life-themes we continue to deal with. Frozen gives us a common language to think about it and discuss it.

The story also reflects isolation, of being around others and yet effectively alone because true communication is impossible. This is the story of autism.

When I first started researching autism, I wondered what non-verbal autists could possibly have in common with me and other aspies. Yet I still had this deeply empathetic response to any non-verbal autist I read about or saw on video.

In the documentary Wretches & Jabberers, two men with classical autism travel the world to meet other autists and advocates. I found myself almost in tears through the whole film. Even though their experience of life is, in so many ways, very different from mine, I felt some common, mysterious tie.

Wretches and Jaberers

There's a moment in the film where Larry expresses how painful it is when people thinks he's stupid because he can't talk. I related so hard to this moment, not because people think I'm stupid. The opposite, I'm normally perceived as being above-average. It took me awhile to figure out what I had in common with Larry in this moment.

Then it occurred to me – the key thread is being misunderstood.

I know myself really well. I know my capabilities and feelings and outlooks. Yet often NTs think they know these better than me. They make assumptions about my motives, and then they argue with me, trying to convince me their outside perceptions are more real than my own experience.

All autists are deeply misunderstood. NTs often think we're stupid, or out of control, or crazy, or drama, or unfeeling, or unempathetic, or dangerous. They think we're emotionally unintelligent. We are painted in broad strokes with wide brushes that assume intentions and ascribe meanings which aren't true.

It's even harder, for those of us who are skilled in the use of language, when what normally works for us suddenly stops working. We sometimes can't find words, or the words we use are suddenly incomprehensible to NTs because of their assumptions or because autistic thought patterns are so different and difficult to communicate across the divide. Other skills, like sensory processing or executive function and abruptly fail, and we blow through expectations set by past behavior.

For this and many other reasons, I've known instinctively, since I was a small child, that I could expect to be misunderstood on a regular basis.

To see Elsa fleeing her own kingdom really struck a chord. She tried so hard to be like everyone else and to avoid hurting anyone, and yet she still failed and had her motives misascribed. This is something many autists can relate to.

The misunderstanding is even more acute because Elsa looks normal. Her "disability" (diversability) is invisible, so when it suddenly appears, it is all the more shocking and horrible and more difficult to understand. Aspie behavior is much the same. Because no one can see a reason for strange behavior, NTs can hurtfully ascribe motives that make sense to them, but not to us.

"You just need to try harder..."
Helpful advice, but only a little

It's easy to see why someone in a wheelchair isn't running in a marathon, but when a well-dressed, intelligent, and verbal aspie with sensory processing disfunction fails to reciprocate a friendly greeting, it must be out of rudeness or meanness or a lack of empathy, not out of severe social anxiety, or an inability to assemble the words into meaning, or the inability to instinctively understand what the appropriate response is.

Likewise, when Elsa's power first escapes in public, she is accused of being a sorceress, a monster. The people are not only afraid of her, some of them hate her and want her dead.

This reflects the quick switch of being admired by everyone, then abruptly alienating them, and not knowing why. That's the life of an aspie who passes as neurotypical, builds up expectations, then shocks everyone when we reach a limit and breakdown, or fail at some seemingly simple task (like shaking someone's hand). People don't realize the capricious nature of Aspergers, that sometimes those little things are impossible for us, even if it was possible just a minute ago.

Just like it became impossible for Elsa to contain her powers.

Though Elsa is a secondary character, she upstages Anna, the protagonist, who may also be a relatable character for aspie viewers. She is clumsy, socially awkward, blunt, practical, lonely, and unorthodox. She also expresses an impulsiveness and devil-may-care attitude which is not only endearing, but common to the Asperger's experience.

I related very strongly to Anna's confusion and pain when Elsa shuts her out the way my sister did me. Elsa's reasons for the rejection seemed to be good, but it caused more harm than it prevented. As in their case, my own relationship with my sister seems to be improving the more time we spend talking to one another, not less.

My sister's reasons for shutting me out are rooted partially in long-running misunderstandings about my behavior vs. her interpretation of my behavior. Once I told her I am as aspie, she could understand me more. (No everyone reacts this way, however. I have heard that revealing an Asperger's diagnosis sometimes causes increased misunderstanding in families.)

My sister's reasons are also partially rooted in religion, which leads me to the last mirror that Frozen held up to my life.

When I chose to leave the religion of my birth, I felt a mix of conflicting emotions. I still do. On the one hand, I can celebrate my freedom from expectations and rules which never quite fit me, as Elsa does. There is much joy to be had in that. My new beliefs and new way of living is very me. I've lived this way for thirteen years, and the more time that passes, the more I know this path is totally right for me, and I won't let anyone take it from me.

Yet like all good stories, there are tradeoffs and conflicts. This isn't a Mary Sue story, and the price I paid is steep. I left most of my family behind. I left my cultural homeland behind. I could no longer fit in there, so I exited. By isolating myself from them (and that isolation is a two-way street), they can no longer hurt me, and likewise, I no longer hurt them by being myself in their presence. But my leaving had unknowable destructive effects back home. My family misses me, and though their desire for me to fit their mold is unrealistic, it is also real.

Though we now live in very different worlds, we are still family. This story arc has not ended for me yet. I'm still the Elsa dancing in her ice palace, singing "Let It Go", trying to forget the people I left behind, trying hard to pretend they're better off without me as I am better off without them.

Our issues seem insurmountable, but maybe they aren't. The trolls sing a song about fixer-uppers which is about marriage and romance, but it also addresses blood-family. "Everyone’s a bit of a fixer-upper, that’s what it’s all about! Father! Sister! Brother! We need each other to raise us up and round us out." 

Getting to the point of acceptance is the hardest part. Unconditional love isn't loving in spite of differences; it's loving because of the differences. Unconditional love has no room inside it for wishing the other person were different. We can wish they'd treat us better, and set boundaries towards that end, but when we want them to act a certain way so we can pretend they are a fantasy version of themselves? That is very selfish indeed. That's alot of strings attached, enough to turn our loved-one into a puppet.

I love you...
I just don't approve of your choice to be a chicken.

The way I choose to live is a very spiritual path for me, uplifting, deep. Like Elsa, I feel ostracized for being who I am. In "Let It Go", when she sings the words, "No right or wrong, no rules for me", it's because those rules don't fit her the same way fit the others. She's decided "the perfect girl is gone" because she has a new standard of perfection all her own. This feeling is reflected in the lyrics of the radio version by Demi Lovato, "Up here in the cold thin air I finally can breathe; I know I left a life behind but I'm too relieved to grieve".

Having gone through that, it really is a weight thrown off. 

It's sad that by creating her own standard and cutting those strings, Elsa has to isolate herself: "Standing frozen in the life I've chosen, you won't find me, the past is so behind me, buried in the snow."

Elsa does eventually find acceptance among her people, but the movie fails to explain how this happens. The implication is that it magically happens once she comes to accept herself. In real life, it's kind of that simple, but not really. The reality is that some people will accept you. Others will reject you even more. Still others will reject you at first, and then slowly decide that love is more important–and more effective–than trying to form everyone else into a standard of false perfection.

In my case, whether talking about autism or religion, self-acceptance is my priority. If I have to reject myself to be accepted by others, their love isn't worth it. I would rather live my life in the best way I know how, and let them come around to me, if they want. In many ways, this is my "kingdom of ice-olation", but it's a price I am willing to pay.

Science Realism in Fiction

I came across a great article last week about the science in science fiction.  It was written by Jenny Cabotage, who is both a fantasy writer and a biologist.  As a scientist who "knows better", how does she handle slightly unrealistic science in the spec fic she consumes?

She sits back and enjoys the ride.

That conclusion took me a while to come to.  Even as a kid, I reveled in finding technicalities in the science fiction I consumed.  Remember, this was the late 80's and 90's, when our TV scifi diet consisted of Star Trek and Quantum Leap.  Scientific errors were low-hanging fruit.  Explosions would never be very large in oxygen-free space, we could never upload a virus into an alien ship and expect it to be compatible, and if you go back in time and even breathe, you will change the future.

Or my biggest pet peeve: Why is the evil guy always ugly??

Maybe that's why I loved reading classic SF so much.  Isaac Asimov, a biochemist himself, always wrote stories that seemed at least plausible.  Even those I considered far-fetched, like the famous "stars" who recorded their dreams to sell as mass media, become more possible as time wears on.

As I learned to write, I promised myself I would never make the cardinal mistake of Star Trek aliens, where each race was basically a human with advanced makeup and appliances.  Aliens won't be humanoid.  They'll be weird!

As I got even older, I noticed that even fictional aliens who weren't humanoid tended to be modeled after earth animals.  You've got the stereotypical reptile race, the ape race, the insect race, the lion or cat race, the cute mammalian race, and the fish people.  Also lame.  Can't these people think of anything more interesting?

Then I learned about certain concepts of character development.  The reader must sympathize with the characters.  They need to feel connected.  They need to relate.  And it's really hard, if not impossible, to make a reader relate to a gelatinous blob with purple dots that thinks in binary and can merge with another of its species and come away as a different creature.

(Perhaps this is why Star Wars seemed so refreshing.  The cast of aliens is brilliantly diverse, and Lucas manages to make us relate to them.  The bad guys are still ugly, though.  And they speak with British accents.)

I think back to some of the scifi that went way too far away from my human values, my human desires.  For some readers, that scifi might have been thought-provoking, but for me, it was as unrealistic as too-human SF.  Or worse, I found the ideas distasteful.

To use Asimov again, and I'll try to do this spoiler-free, I hated how he "ended" the Foundation series in Foundation and Earth.  (More books have been written since, by other authors, and I've not read them yet, so I don't know if they fixed what I hated.)  Instead of leaving me feeling like they'd saved the universe, I felt like they made a huge mistake.  And more importantly, the novel failed to complete the promised plot arc that the previous books established.  The ending seemed to come out of nowhere.  The goal shifted and all the things I'd been made to care about were deemed unimportant.

Note that I read this when I was like, 17.  And haven't read it since.  Who knows what I'd think now.  The point is, that many humans have a certain set of values, and for some, Asimov violated those values in Foundation and Earth.  He failed to convince me that I should agree with the aliens, yet his humans went right along with it.

Are there aliens out there with weird and crazy values?  Yes.  Maybe those aliens are even right, even if their values are deplorable.  And we should explore them in SF, just as we should explore aliens with weird bodies, or science that is barely understandable, or not comprehensible at all.  The problem is, how do we tell those stories in ways that people can relate?

I ran into this problem in the early drafts of Emerald City Dreamer.  I wanted to be as "realistic" as possible. I wanted to be true to my characters as possible.  The result?  My characters came off completely unsympathetic.  They weren't even aliens.  Everyone in ECD has a humanoid body.  It's just their actions and values, even the actions and values of the humans, did not make enough sense to a large enough percentage of my critiquers.  So I had to make some major changes.

In fiction, the story is far more important than "realism".  The world has realism.  In SF, we use stories to explore ideas, and those can be accurate down to the letter.  Internally consistent, and even completely scientific.  But in the end, stories are, ultimately, about the characters.  What choices do they make in this world of new ideas?  The answer to that is what makes readers feel satisfied, or not, at the end of a story.  That is what makes readers interested enough to keep reading.  That is what separates this medium of fiction from academic papers and essays.  Because of the characters and their choices.

To pull that off, readers must relate to the characters.  Especially if they're aliens.  Especially if you must sacrifice some scientific realism or logic to make it happen.  You have to risk a couple of readers saying, "That would never happen", to make the rest of your audience love your story.

It helps me to think of SF as mythology.  Because, in a way, it is.  In the old days, the hero trudged into the underworld to save his lover from the torments of a god.  Today, he's got a high-tech costume and he's fighting aliens with quantum tunneling stabilizers.  So what if that costume could never contain all those gizmos and gears or make him actually fly or any of that?  Who cares if Black Widow, being thrown against a stone wall from somewhere in the sky would actually crush her dead?  (Ok, I cared for a couple of seconds.)  And who cares if the technobabble is technobullshit?

When you hear a myth, you're not rolling your eyes, saying, "Yeah, like the gods would ever talk to Orpheus.  He's just some dude.  And like Hades would give a crap about music.  Hell, there aren't any gods in the first place."  We accept it as myth.  As fiction.

Likewise for our science fiction.  Yes, it's great to try to include as much science in science fiction as we can.  But after a while, we have to accept that it's just myth.  At the very least, taking this attitude helps me enjoy movies more.

At best, it helps my writing.  I try to pack in as much realism as I can, without making the stories too inaccessible to readers.  In fact, realism is a great tool to generate ideas during world building.

I'm building a world right now, about a species that co-evolved with a fungus that produces a complex biochemical mix the aliens need to thrive and survive.  The themes are about classism and privilege and poverty.

Because there are no humans in my story, I walk a difficult line.  I cannot describe my aliens through a human perspective.  My aliens have to be sympathetic and relatable on their own.

My world building process goes something like this: "Assume X is true.  What would that do to their culture?  To how their bodies evolved?"  I take those answers, and say, "Now that Y is true, what does that do to their religion?  To their attitudes on war?  To how their reproductive systems evolved?"  Those kinds of questions help me brainstorm and hopefully come up with awesome details to set in my world, and perhaps even plot points.

At some point, I realized my creatures seemed a bit like otters, and they had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  They walk on two (sometimes four) legs, and have two genders.  And their personalities, for the most part, are strikingly human.  Why?  Why would aliens "just happen" to have all these elements, when they evolved so far away in a completely different ecosystem?  And why does their climate seem a bit like a swamp?

I could tweak those facets.  Give them alien faces and even more alien bodies and come up with strange surroundings.  But that would go too far.

They have faces because readers need at least a few anchors to the reality they understand.  I want them to love the characters and understand my message, so I give the aliens faces.  Enough of this planet is like Earth that readers have a context to understand the changes I've made.  So I can spotlight that which I want the readers to see.

You get to a point where it is mythology.  The point of my story is, "What happens when classism is biologically enforced in an obvious way?"  I want the unfairness of my alien society to be clear and emotional.  I want them rooting for my poor character, and hoping my upper-caste character does the right thing in spite of his cultural programming.

I don't want readers hung up on trying to picture a creature shaped like a five-legged walrus with no torso, or sort out their feelings for a protagonist with tentacles for a face.  I might explore those options in another story, where they don't distract from what I'm trying to do here.  Maybe in a different story I'll have human characters to be the lens through which we view the uber-strange aliens, or where the uber-strangeness is part of the mood I hope to establish.  Maybe I want you to feel confused or disturbed or unsympathetic or whatever.  (Hi, Kafka.)  But not here.

So as we consume fiction, it helps to let go a little.

As creators, learning to letting go a little, in just the right places, is part of the craft.

Analysis of Sucker Punch - A Feminist Perspective

Sucker Punch was released this weekend to extremely negative reviews, with a score of 36% on Metacritic, and an abysmal 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. You can't set expectations much lower than that, yet I enjoyed every minute of this film.  I am still thinking about it this morning, and all its implications, hence this blog post.

I will start with a non-spoilery review, and then launch into a detailed analysis of Sucker Punch from a feminist perspective. 

I know why critics did not like this film.  And so in this review, I will tell you what you need to bring with you, so you can enjoy the film as much as I did.

First, watch this trailer.  It is the best of the trailers, and gives you a good setup to help you understand what is going on.  It is a deeply-psychological movie, in the tradition of David Lynch (Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) and Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich).  Additionally, it is a "layer" film, like Inception or The Matrix -- there are multiple versions of reality.  Armed with that knowledge, you should be able to suspend disbelief, sit back, and go with it.  No part of you should be screaming "That would never happen!", because when you're inside someone's mind, anything can happen.

That said, the fantasy action sequences should not be considered gratuitous.  This movie illustrates how the human mind deals with severe trauma in order to survive.  If you have a basic understanding of dissociation -- the idea that the mind can detach from reality in order to not experience pain -- the entire premise is not only plausible, but meaningful.

You are joining a girl's fantasy, created to protect her mind from the terrors she will experience in a mental institution in the early 20th century.  Unlike Lynch's Mulholland Drive, (Salon.com analysis here), the narrative is well-portrayed in a chronological, clear storyline.  It is easy to follow if you understand the premise at the outset.

In other words, be prepared to take certain parts of the film unseriously.  Enjoy the ride.  Take other parts very seriously.

It helps to have seen a number of darker comic book movies like 300 and Sin City, as well as a few over-the-top kung-fu movies like Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers.  Being familiar with Japanese animation will also help.  Snyder very much captures the feel of all three genres.

A basic understanding of feminist issues will also contribute greatly to your enjoyment of this film.  When the credits rolled, I said: "This film is a summary of the experience of women throughout the 20th century."  My hope is that women will have a better time of things in the 21st.  In the meantime, this film has much to teach the ignorant about the plight of women.  It is a primer.  If you think feminists are a bunch of angry women who whine for no reason, or bra-burning dykes seeking revenge against males, go see Sucker Punch, and then come back and read my analysis.

Lastly, be prepared for a very dark story.  It crosses some barriers of what's "ok" to do in a movie plot.  Be prepared to let go of your notions, because much like another Zack Snyder flick, The Watchmen, this film is unafraid of revealing harsh reality in a fictional guise.

If you are a writer or connoisseur of storytelling, and have not seen the film, refresh your memory of the Hero's Journey before viewing.  It follows the steps very closely, and it was a joy to watch this unfold.  There is perhaps, arguably, even a meta-Hero's Journey, which I mention with a bit more detail in the spoilery section.

Many critics slammed the acting, but I enjoyed the actors.  Somehow Emily Browning (Baby Doll) captures the essence and spirit of an Japanese anime schoolgirl, even though nothing about her looks Japanese.  She manages to pull it off in spite of her Scandinavian eyes and too-blond hair.  She fills the rest of the film with soulfull looks that seem to tap the heart and the "ethereal beauty" centers of the brain.

Those reviewers who did not understand the psychological premise, or those who were unfamiliar with or do not like the genres listed above, may have thought the film incomprehensible or over-the-top.  But mostly, critics hated it because they did not have the feminist context through which to interpret this film.  It breaks certain rules and exagerates certain norms, the combination of which I believe many people would find disturbing or nonsensical.

If good stories examine the human condition, then this is one of the best.

Now, go see it, and then read my analysis.

Warning: Here There Be Dragons Spoilers

This movie tells the tale of a girl placed in a mental institution in the 1950's.  Really, it could be set at any time from 1890-1970, which is why the fashions and sets contain so many anachronisms.  The essential structure of the plot actually happened to tens of thousands of people, particularly women, through that time (and before).  All it took was an accusation of insanity by a significant male (father, husband, brother, doctor), which would typically go unquestioned, and a woman could find herself in Baby Doll's place: Committed to an institution rife with mental, physical, and sexual abuse.  Not only that, she is on schedule to receive a lobotomy.

If you accept that this tragic premise is so true, so incredibly real -- if you understand the history of these women, who were entirely powerless and could do nothing but try to cope -- then you can understand the rest of the film.  It also helps to note that while the psychiatry field has been "cleaned up" in recent decades, and rarely perpetuates these abuses, this reality of powerless women still exists in many other areas of life, even here in America.

Then we are faced with two layers of Baby Doll's fantasy world.  In one, she is being placed not in an institution, but in a 1930's bordello.  In fact, some part of me wondered if that was her "true" reality, since this is the layer we are most frequently return to.  The rape subtext implied in the institution is replaced with ownership-prostitution, and we see that there aren't many differences.  In both they are powerless, in both they are used, in both they are treated like objects. 

And in both, with no other tools (or "weapons" as the film euphamistically calls them), they are forced to use their sexuality to attempt escape.

This is a shocking fact that many movie-goers do not wish to face.  Women should not have to use their sexuality to get what they want, but the sad reality is, women with no other options must and will use their bodies.  And for doing what they must, they are later harshly criticized, and sometimes further victimized, for doing so.  It is the last choice available for Baby Doll and her friends, and so they take it.

When Baby Doll dances to distract her captors, we never get to see her moves.  She dissociates from a distasteful, unpleasant use of her body, the way many victims of sexual assault do to survive the physical and emotional pain.  (And I wonder if "dancing" in the bordello layer is an escape from sex on the institution layer.)  Her form of dissociation plunges her into a third layer of fantasy, wherein she is a powerful warrior equipped with a katana and pistol.  Here she is capable of destroying dragons and twenty-foot demon samurai.  Her sexual power transforms into real power.  The other girls are likewise equipped with symbols of male power: machine guns, shotguns, knives, swords, and perhaps most threatening of all (to the male hierarchy), technical expertise with helicopters and airplanes.

Yet the women are still sexualized in their scanty outfits, which one reviewer called an unzipped geek-boy fantasy.  Even here, Baby Doll cannot shake the sexual roots of the power she is using in the "real world".  She may be defeating steam-zombies and high-tech robots with impossible slow-mo battle moves, but in reality she is just shaking her booty to distract the men so the other girls can gather the tools of escape.

Reviewers can blame the writer and director for the situation these girls are in, but Zack Snyder merely holds a mirror up to our own society.  (I believe the The Social Network intended the same thing, when every single woman in that film (with one exception) was brutally objectified.)  Many don't like what they see, and even fewer understand, and so they are left squirming, vaguely aware that something is not right.  But when one in four women in America are sexually assaulted, many before the age of 18, we need to make films, (and yes, even PG-13 films with glossed-over details), to expose the seriousness of these crimes towards women.  (More rape statistics here.)

Perhaps, like Baby Doll, society itself likes to dissociate, fantasizing of a world in which women are happy with their lot, where females are really powerful, and where rape doesn't exist or doesn't hurt anyone.  We want our movies to support these fantasies, and when they do not, like in Sucker Punch, we fail to comprehend it and criticize it as done by a "filmmaker who has absolutely nothing original or even coherent to say." (New York Post review)  And yet this is one of the most original and thought-provoking movies I've seen all year.  I would expect those ignorant of white male privilege to be blind to its merits.

Even at the end of the film, when Sweet Pea boards the bus to freedom, it is only by the grace of a male that she gets away.  After all that work, she must still pass a male gatekeeper, who knows nothing about her, yet through the kindness of his heart, lies to the police and lets her get on the bus without paying for a ticket. 

Like The Social Network, there is but one powerful woman in this movie.  And she is the psychiatrist, Dr. Gorsky.  Yet even her power is subjugated through the "good old boys network" run by an evil orderly, who falsifies signatures and takes money from men to get rid of troublesome girls.  Once she learns of this racket, she has the ultimate authority and has Blue arrested.  Yet she is incapable of saving Baby Doll or any of the other girls from their tragic fates.  Her powerlessness is reflected on the bordello level of reality... There she plays a harsh Madam supposedly in control of the girls, but we soon learn that she is just as owned by the club-owner as they are.

Even in their fantasy world, they are aided through the missions by a male "commander", Wise Man, who takes not only a mentor role, but also that of an officer, a superior.  Even equipped with weapons and fighting skills, they cannot escape their roles in a male-dominated society.

The only "real" male who shows any sympathy for Baby Doll is the lobotomist, who displays a spark of regret for what he has done and calls attention (too late) to the falsified signature.  In a deleted scene, he also plays the High-Roller with whom Baby Doll has a loving sex scene -- but oddly, this was cut in order to give the film its PG-13 rating.  The one time Baby Doll has control of her sexuality, using it willingly and for her own pleasure, it is cut to make the movie more palatable for modern society.

By the end, Baby Doll must sacrifice herself to save one of her fellow women.  This further punctuates the story of American women throughout the last century -- lacking any other power, many women found themselves sacrificing their own comfort, freedom, or lives, for the sake of their sisters and children.  Or even for the sake of their men.  I'm talking about sacrifice of body, career, education, life choices; choices of who to marry, when to start a family, where to live, what political views to hold, what talents to pursue, whether to own property, when and who to have sex with, and so on.  In fact, Baby Doll's sacrifice is a sexual one: By revealing herself to the men on the bordello-level, she is sentenced to have sex with the High Roller.  (She defends herself ineffectively by kicking a man in the groin, a stark contrast to the fantasy world in which she kills a dragon with a sword.)  In reality, it means her mind will be destroyed through the act of lobotomy... She will be turned into a passive, submissive woman, so she can play her rightful role in society.

Many of the reviewers criticized Sucker Punch as a feminist revenge film.  But I simply cannot agree.  In the battle fantasies, not a single male human is killed.  Read that again.  Yes, they kill steam-powered German zombies.  Yes, they kill Orcs.  Yes, they kill robots.  Yes, they kill dragons.  Yes, they kill demons.  But it is no accident that the one chance Baby Doll has of killing a living human male (the map-courier in the German trenches), she refrains.  Instead of lancing him, she uses her sword to lift the map from his shoulders.

Even when Blue tries to rape Baby Doll, she stabs him, but not fatally.  He is still alive enough to attempt the rape again, this time post-lobotomy, when her last remaining defenses have been ripped away.  These women, even when they become ultimately powerful, do not use their powers for revenge. 

Many critics disparaged this film's PG-13 rating.  Michael Medved thought it should be NC-17.  Yet what was so challenging in this movie?  No sex.  No nudity.  Very little, if any, bad language.  Cartoon violence.  Very minimal use of blood (blood on her fingers when her sister dies, blood seeping through fabric from Blue's and Rocket's stab wounds).  NC-17, for that?

I will tell you what was so challenging in this movie, and these are not things the MPAA bases ratings on:

1. Women die.  Lots of women die.
2. Women have power.  Even if imaginary power, they have lots of it.
3. There is a subtext of rape.  Lots of rape.  It is never shown, in fact not even explicitly implied.  If you know what to look for, it is merely hinted at.
4. This movie displays the harsh realities of being a woman in this world.

While the MPAA couldn't find this offensive based on objective standards, many subjective reviewers did.  And that fact points not only to the ignorance society holds for these issues, but also to why movies like this are so desperately needed.

[A few side notes about the Hero's Journey and alternate interpretations of the ending: There is some guesswork as to whose reality we are viewing in the movie.  Roland suggested that we are actually seeing two hero's journeys, of both Baby Doll and Sweet Pea.  I began to argue, to point out that since the camera does not follow Sweet Pea, her journey, if she has one, is not being told.  He counter-pointed that Baby Doll is Sweat Pea's mentor/guru (Supernatural Aid); that the main character is actually Sweet Pea, telling her own story through Baby Doll's lens.  After all, Baby Doll does say "This is your story."  It is interesting to think about.

Alternately, the ending where we get to see Sweet Pea's final escape may in fact be Baby Doll's fantasy.  Perhaps Sweet Pea escapes, but from Baby Doll's point of view, she can only hope she makes it to the bus stop.  The lobotomized Baby Doll must now live entirely inside her head, and she chooses Sweet Pea's escape for her own "paradise".  This idea is supported by the fact that Wise Man is also the bus driver, someone none of them have ever seen before in the real world.]

This film stands at a historical cusp.  Whereas many films today reflect a girl-power can-do attitude of third-wave feminism, I think this is more of a wish than a reflection of how things are.  This film says, "This is how things were, and maybe how things still are, but the fantasy is the way things can be."  With its mix of female powerlessness and female power, it fits the zeitgeist of the confusion many women now feel about what role they should play.  Should I be like my mother or grandmother, exerting subtle manipulation as my only manifestation of action?  Or should I be a male-in-girl-clothes, sporting guns and killing toy soldiers like the generations of second- and third-wave feminists before me?

Perhaps the tragedy of this film shows us that both roles are dangerous and lead to an equally futile conclusion.  Perhaps we should throw away both the male and female "weapons" of the past, and forge new impliments of power.  Fourth-wave feminism, now in its fetal stage, seems to suggest that.

UPDATE: Zack Snyder gave an interview yesterday that adds more interesting insights.  It is worth reading in its entirety, but here are a couple of callouts:

Would you say the film is a critique on geek culture’s sexism?
It is, absolutely. I find it interesting, in a lot of ways, that this movie – of all the movies I’ve made – has been universally hated by fanboys. It’s like a fanboy indictment, in some ways. They can’t have fun with the geek culture sexual hang ups.

I thought it was basically you commenting on those attendants at Comic-Con who shout, “You’re hot!” at beautiful cast members.
Yeah! 100%. They don’t know how to be around it. It’s funny because someone one asked me about why I dressed the girls like that, and I said, “Do you not get the metaphor there? The girls are in a brothel performing for men in the dark. In the fantasy sequences, the men in the dark are us. The men in the dark are basically me; dorky sci-fi kids.”

There has been a gender divide on whether people like this film.  This goes along with what I said about society not wanting to pull down the curtain that protects their ignorant bliss.  Likewise, geek boys are faced with the reality that they may not be much different than the Mayor, watching Baby Doll dance on the stage.  They came to see a film about fighting girls with tits and asses, and while they're getting that, they're not allowed to be comfortable with their feelings.

It's a cruel bit of sadism on Snyder's part, and in a way, I almost feel bad for the geekboys... almost.  And in this sense, maybe it is a revenge film.  Revenge on the male audience.  (And saying so makes me feel uncomfortable, because I don't like to think of myself as a vengeful sort of woman.)

Is it wrong to enjoy seeing Babydoll in that school girl outfit, though?
I have no problem with this dichotomy as to why she is in the outfit. You can say what you want about the movie, but I did not shoot the girls in an exploitative way. They might be dressed sexually, but I didn’t shoot the movie to exploit their sexuality. There’s no close-ups of cleavage, or stuff like that. I really wanted it to be up to the viewer to feel those feelings or not. Does that make sense?

And the big reveal: Snyder didn't do anything to evoke that sense of sexuality other than dress the women in school girl outfits.  No intentional shots of the sort directors often make to add sex to the movie.  In other words, any turn-on felt by viewers is their own damn fault... or... maybe they can think, "she shouldn't have dressed that way".

As to how a man could capture the feel of the experience of being a woman so well... The truth is simple.  He stayed humble and gave the actresses their own voices:

Most female action heroines are generally very interchangeable with men. Can you talk about the process of finding that specific female voice?
As a man, you can only do what you can do as far as understanding the female psyche. I just tried to write as honestly as I could, so then the female actors would fill in the emotional blanks I left for them. I feel like the girls were really up to that and into that. I thought it was an interesting approach. A good example is when we did the scene where the girls were going to break out and they’re all saying “They’re in!” and they’re crying at the end of the scene. That’s not in the script, and that was just them. If I had written that, I probably would have thought it was cheesy and no one would cry at the end of the sequence.

This is a lesson that could be learned from self-described male feminists everywhere, one which some male feminists do well (like by boyfriend) -- but other well-meaning, condescending, protective men just manage to piss women off more.  If you want to truly understand why so many women are <insert "unreasonable" opinion or emotion here>, then listen to them.  Ask them.  Stop making assumptions to protect your own vulnerable status, and trust their perspective.

It is interesting then, that so many reviewers complained about the "poor acting", when I thought the acting was brilliant.  Maybe, like the film itself, the actresses were too honest.

Update 1/3/2012: Be sure to read on into the comments, as many of my readers continue to have fascinating insights and theories of their own.