re: Atomic Blonde trailer - red band. Nice.

quote:

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I think it was just suspension of belief in a different context. Is a 12 year old girl being really good at gymnastics and using a pistol that much more far fetched than Arnold completely eliminating the population of a South American country? Or Stallone winning the Vietnam war by himself?

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I think the first part of my post made clear I admit the modern action genre is generally unrealistic - with the exception of a few relatively realistic thrillers like The Fugitive - the superhuman protagonist of modern action movies is simply not intended to be realistic.

Movies like Commando and Rambo are unadulterated testosterone fueled outbursts of fantasy. Any analysis of these kinds of movies probably ends up concluding that they say more about the fantasies of the audience than the possibility of the particular action sequences depicted.

That's the major point I was trying to make. That the action genre is the opposite of gender neutral or egalitarian by its nature. These are generally male fantasies that are being courted and enjoyed. Inserting into the genre a major female protagonist probably requires a transition from pure male fantasies of physical greatness and achievement (Rocky, Rambo, Conan, Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Charles Bronson...) into a metaphor or story driven drama (e.g. Alien). Alien is a sort of anti-action fantasy movie that sustains a gender driven narrative of male violence and domination (the Alien) being fiercely fought and eventually overcome by a great female protagonist (Weaver).

I'll have to see a great plot from Atomic Blonde before that makes sense to me on a visceral level. Right now, it just seems like a female action movie which is derivative of male action movies but doesn't address the elephant of power in the room.