Any parent who allows their kid to go see this film deserves what
they get. There have been NO ads on any of the kids networks. The
name of the movie is Kick Ass. And it's not like American parents
are, oh I dunno, watching what their kids are READING , so this
could have been dealt with over a YEAR ago.
I have first prints of each issue of this book. #2 is even signed by
Mark. Hit Girl is awesome. If I gotta sit through Transformers,
then kids can stay home while I watch Kick Ass.
By the way, Kick Ass now replaces "Spider Man" on my list of comic
book movie adaptations. Because of this film, I will be checking for
"Scott Pilgrim".
Daryle
On Apr 16, 2010, at 11:05 AM, Keith Johnson wrote:
If this were Japan, or S. Korea or France or Germany, no one would
bat an eye at this violent, vulgar little girl.
Still, I understand why some parents wouldn't want their kids to
see the film. And that doesn't make one some kind of nutty ultra-
conservative for not wanting, say, a ten year old to see this flick.
But, gee, if only there were a way to shield children from "R"
rated movies with problematic themes. If only there were some kind
of way to protect children from TV programs and movies that are too
adult for them. If only parents had the ability to--I don't know--
simply prevent their kids from seeing these movies by saying "no"...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kelwyn" <ravena...@yahoo.com>
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2010 10:10:30 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [scifinoir2] She shoots! She swears! She's 11!
Profanity-slinging kid does damage in Kick-Ass'
By MARK CARO
A pistols-wielding girl massacres a suite's worth of thugs,
exchanges brutal blows with the kingpin and uses language that
might make David Mamet blush - if only because it's coming out of
the mouth of an 11-year-old girl.
The movie may be called "Kick-Ass," a title that already has some
parents shielding their young'uns from the marketing campaign, but
the pre-release publicity has focused less on the high school-age
male title character than the diminutive Hit Girl, played by now-13-
year-old Chloe Grace Moretz. One of the film's explicit trailers
plays like Hit Girl's greatest hits, complete with her dropping "f"
and "c" bombs and shooting a doorman through the cheek while
dressed in a schoolgirl outfit.
This is all played for kicks, of course. Director Matthew Vaughn's
R-rated "Kick-Ass," which opens Friday, is a comic book movie based
on the work of Mark Millar and John S. Romita Jr., so everything is
delivered inside giant, nothing-reallycounts quotation marks.
Still, you can't forget that you are watching an 11-year-old girl
causing violent mayhem and taking punches in the face from an
adult, all while out-cussing Tony Soprano. Sure, you can't take
your eyes off Hit Girl, but is this a good thing?
"I don't know that it means anything other than the destruction of
civilization as we know it," joked film critic-historian Leonard
Maltin.
"There's always that question of whether movies lead social change
or reflect it. I always think the answer is somewhere in the
middle, but there's no question that movies and TV shows have
broken down or dissolved a lot of barriers of what is considered
acceptable for men and women and boys and girls."
Hit Girl certainly marks the extreme end of a progression that can
be traced back a few decades. Audiences were shocked when Linda
Blair spewed profanities and vomit as the12-year-old possessed girl
of "The Exorcist" (1973), though they could console themselves that
it was the devil's doing.
Also in1973, Tatum O'Neal played the sassy-mouthed (PG-rated),
cigarettesmoking, 9-year-old con artist of Peter Bogdanovich's
"Paper Moon"; she became the youngest Oscar winner, for best
supporting actress, the next year.
Jodie Foster became another troubledgirl icon with her Oscar-
nominated performance as the 12-year-old prostitute of Martin
Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (1976).
No cheap thrills were meant to be derived from her mean-streets
situation; here was a girl who needed protection - and got it from
Robert De Niro's unhinged title character. Yet the director's
seriousminded intentions couldn't keep John Hinckley Jr. from being
so smitten with Foster that he tried to impress her by shooting
President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Thematically, the closest movie precedent to Hit Girl may be
Natalie Portman's 12-year-old Mathilda, who learns hit man Jean
Reno's tricks so she can avenge her murdered family in Luc Besson's
"The Professional" (aka "Leon," 1994). But Besson is ultimately a
sentimentalist who spares Portman's character from doing the lethal
work, whereas Vaughn isn't exactly concerned about Hit Girl getting
blood on her hands.
Or, as the "Kick-Ass" press notes state: "Hit Girl is a sparky,
spunky force of nature, likely to be an instant professional icon
redolent of Jodie Foster in 'Taxi Driver' and Natalie Portman in
'The Professional.'" (No one from Lionsgate or the film was made
available to comment.)
"The notion of innocence in this society is gone," said Neal
Gabler, author of "Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered
Reality." "It's not just a function of violence. I think it's a
function of a certain social cynicism that has just built and built
and built over the years where people believe in nothing."
Which isn't to say violence doesn't play a role. "There was kind of
a firewall between kids and violence, and that firewall is
completely gone now," Gabler said. "Kids sit around and kill people
on video games."
And if the finger-waggers come out against "Kick-Ass," then the
movie essentially has done its job.
"If you're making this movie, you want people to disapprove because
popular culture has always been a form of rebellion," Gabler said.
"One of the reasons American popular culture is so 'trashy' is not
because everybody is stupid; it's because people love the idea of
challenging official culture."
Yet don't assume that the reactions to Hit Girl will be anything
close to universal. Melissa Silverstein, who writes the feminist
blog Women and Hollywood (womenandhollywood.com), saw an advance
screening of "Kick-Ass" and said she was surprised by how torn she
felt.
"It was disturbing, but I was also empowered in the same moment,
and that doesn't happen very often," Silverstein said. "It just
kind of flew into the face of all expectations of how girls act on
screen, and that's what was so exciting and breathtaking. I
couldn't help but feel some semblance of excitement as a person
who's watched male comic book characters save the day time and time
again."
At the same time, though, she was "ambivalent about someone who
just kills people for the sake of killing," and the casual use of a
certain very vulgar anti-female epithet bothered her. "I saw all
the boys sitting around me loving that, and they loved it a little
too much."
Given that one of the movie's teen boys is so wowed by Hit Girl
that he declares he'll wait for her to come of age, male reactions
to this prepubescent character could represent another can o' worms.
Silverstein didn't think her portrayal ever became "icky" in a
"Lolita" kind of way.
Still, the image here of a young heroine certainly differs from
earlier times.
"For prepubescent guys you have to create a different kind of love
object in this cynical and far less innocent kind of world," Gabler
said. "How do you design a Shirley Temple for this era?"
Step one: Give her a gun.
Mark Caro: mc...@tribune.com
