N.B. Film and TV reviews on this site are limited to identifying and analysing the degree of misandry and Feminist ideology they contain. They are not full reviews of plot, content and quality as are found elsewhere.
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The American (2010) is an unusual film, at least from the standpoint of yours truly who is intent on analysing misandry in film and the portrayal of men pumped out from Hollywood (although I don’t think that this is a Hollywood produced film, btw). As far as misandry goes, this film scores low on the scale. Although men in the film are as expendable as they are in any other thriller, so are the women, although to a lesser extent (naturally).
Two of the common themes that I address are quite prominent:
1) Tough Women
2) Worthless Women
(See the Reviews page for a brief explanation of these terms and The Expendables and Terminator: Salvation reviews for some examples)
The Tough Woman in this film is an assassin who is more comfortable with guns than John Rambo; and more clinical when speaking of death and killing than Hannibal Lecter; and undoubtedly more deadly than the Jackal; and a rather hot chick to boot. Yawn. The compulsion within the film industry to portray women in this way is unstoppable and unpalatable, but there it is.
A Tart with a Heart
The Worthless Woman is a prostitute, a genuine tart-with-a-heart, whom our hero George Clooney treats like a princess. He doesn’t screw her, he makes love to her. She doesn’t give him oral sex, no, he goes down on her instead. He then tips her big as a thank you for allowing him to pay to have sex with her. Well, she’s worth it, right?
I don’t have anything against prostitutes per se and I think prostitution is at least as valid a profession as soldiering for example (when looking at certain risks and the use of one’s body as a tool). However, prostitutes don’t generally make for the settling-down, make-a-home, produce-and-raise-a-family, object-of-affection type, do they? If a man is going to make a go of it with a woman and he has a degree of choice, he doesn’t go for a prostitute, no matter how hot, because it simply does not have good potential. Especially if, as in this case, she’s still on the job whilst he’s dating her. Quite a passion killer, I’d think.
Our man Clooney is portrayed as a loner, forced by his profession to distance himself from women and other relationships. The tough-and-hot assassin chick asks him at one point if he has a woman in his life or words to that effect. Remember, in movies, ALL men live for and aspire to a woman in their lives. ALL else is secondary and a man MUST be incomplete without a fair maiden to provide for, serve and perhaps, lay down his life for.
He’s sad to not have said woman in his life and so makes the decision to get out of his high-danger, criminal life and picks a local prostitute as the woman he does it for. No matter that it puts his life in danger as a result, this chick is very good looking and she likes him a lot, so it must be worth the risk.
Needless to say, he get’s killed as a result of his decision to “get out” and the last scene is of him reaching out towards the new love of his life, no doubt dreaming of what could have been with such a virtuous woman, whilst his life leaves his body. Sigh.
Women killed? Somebody call the President!
One aspect of this film that I was seriously surprised about, was how the several killings of men and women were handled. This is a critical aspect of misandry in film and I have covered it in depth in Men Are Disposable. However, in this film, there is a significant change.
During the course of the film, several men get killed, I think four, but three women are also killed. First of all, this is perhaps an unprecedented ratio of male-female deaths in a movie. However, even more compelling than this, the manner and visual portrayal of of the killings is a highly unusual reversal of typical movie fare.
The men are killed quite cleanly and quickly with no real blood on show. The 3 women are killed as follows:
- Quick and clean like the men
- Incidental killing where a body in a pool of blood is seen in the background
- Graphic female death, where the assassin woman’s rifle backfires in her hands, she falls from a high roof and is shown on screen as a bloody mess who dies shortly thereafter
Of course, the more graphic female death is not a direct killing i.e. she was not shot as an opponent the way the men were, however, it is still a very rare case of female death and blood being more prominent than men’s in that she is shown not only to deserve to die, but we see her suffering without seeing greater suffering from men at the same time. This is crucial because it is an unwritten maxim in film that for any example of female suffering shown on screen, there must be much worse examples of male suffering. This film is different.
On balance, compared with typical Hollywood fare, there is little in this film to annoy or dishearten as regards misandry. I have grown to be highly aware of the various incarnations of misandry on screen and this film left me refreshingly unagitated. Well, at least relatively unagitated as this review sets out.
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Great review!
For people who like movie reviews that also regard them for misandry, I want to mention http://www.mensmovieguide.com