Robin Hood (2010)

Ok blog readers. I am going to tell you something. Get ready for it. Ok, prepared?
I’m a feminist.

No, not the kind from the ‘60s. Not the kind from the ‘70s or ‘80s. Not even really the kind from the ‘90s either, even though that's when I grew up. The kind from right now, probably more aptly named queer-something-or-other. I’m into thinking about things like gender, sex, sexuality, queerness, LGBT issues, etc. And specifically thinking about how these sometimes broad, intangible concepts intersect and interact with pretty much every aspect of real life that you could imagine. And how those interactions, whether under-wraps or overstated in day to day life, are inevitably and often interestingly manifested in the media, specifically film.

In case you didn’t realize that I had this thought pattern from older posts, I just thought I should let you know. Because I am about to go off on a pretty specific aspect of the latest cinematic iteration of Robin Hood Hollywood is offering. You know. The one that’s out right now, with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. Yeah.

Here’s the thing: this movie is dumb. I don’t even know if I can confidently say that this movie ever even had the potential to be good. I mean, you take a story that’s been done many times over on film and you pretty much give us the exact same thing with different actors. I think there was one moment of suspense in the whole thing. One. And the fight scenes. The endless and repetitive fight scenes. Please stop.

But even if you set aside the unoriginality of the most recent Robin Hood—which I grant that you could, if you’re a huge fan of the mythology and you’re really into seeing “the olden days” reconstructed with a big budget—even then. Even. Then. You can’t ignore the annoyance of the treatment of the character of Marion Loxley, played by Cate Blanchett.

She starts out as this ridiculously capable woman who runs a whole town for ten years during her husband’s absence. She manages the household, she runs off thieves, she fights for the townpeoples’ rights, etc. Basically she performs the roles of Lord and Lady of the Manor simultaneously and effectively, albeit not without struggle. Great. This is good.

But then guess what happens. Russell Crowe shows up and through some silly and contrived arrangement gets to pretend that Marion is his wife. All of a sudden it’s “Wife, get me this” “Wife, show me the village so I don’t look like an idiot” and “Wife, ask me nicely.” So she swoons. She swoons. After approximately three days of knowing each other, they’re exchanging dramatic ‘I love you’s and slow dancing prom style to some Medieval band. Apparently for no other reason than that Robin Hood put her in her place. Awesome.

And that’s not all. The filmmakers have the audacity to have Marion follow Robin into battle, predictably striving to do some heroics while actually just messing everything up because of her unsurprising ineptitude at hand to hand combat. Guess who saves her. I’m lucky my eyes didn’t get stuck rolling so far back into my head at this particular scene.

But do you know what? I’m not even mad about Robin Hood. I think we all could have predicted that this was the type of female “heroine” that we’d be offered in this type of movie. Plus, historically, this version of Marion would probably have been burned at the stake for her extremely progressive attitude. So I guess this is progress.

What I’m really mad about is the recent news that they’re planning on remaking The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Hollywood actors. As in (probably) a more conventional leading lady, a more palatable storyline, and less grittiness. (They’re also planning on re-doing the recent awesome movie Let the Right One In, but that’s fodder for a whole other angry essay.)

Anyway, this “leave the Swedes alone” moment isn’t an entirely unrelated tangent. Because the fact that Western mass media markets actually prefer Blanchett’s performance of the acceptable version of a the life and romance of a “strong woman” over something like the remarkably different and varied versions of femininity, feminism, sexuality, sex, gender, etc that world has to offer… That’s what really bothers me.

Seriously, it’s 2010, and we’re still all buying into the whole “she couldn’t do it without a strong man” crap? How is this still even a thing? I’m so tired of it. I swear to God I’d pay $100 a ticket if Hollywood was to produce a movie that in any way took a risk when it came to how it handled its female characters.

Am I the only one?