Screen Machine

Review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World seemed to be a film that everybody had an opinion on, but rather than whether it was good or bad it was more about who would like it and why. And it turns out I shouldn’t have liked it – even though I did.

According to a lot of film writers Scott Pilgrim was made for one or all of the following - gamers, comic book fans but, worst of all, for misogynistic (if geekier inclined) males. The misogynistic tag is what troubled me the most because even though I call myself a feminist – I really liked Scott Pilgrim a lot. I loved the pacing, the gags and thought the soundtrack was stellar. So I had another look.

For me, the most noticeable ”sexism alarm” when viewing a film is the presence of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG), a term coined by Nathan Rabin of the AV Club and defined as follows:

that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures… Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life. She’s on hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness.

Ramona Flowers (the love interest in Scott Pilgrim vs The World) is definitely not your typical Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Her demeanour is considerably less bubbly (and thankfully non-tap dancing) and she does appear to be seeking her own happiness somewhat (or at least a desire to get away from the drama of her exes). She is not “completely available” and she doesn’t necessarily “really like you” like most MPDGs – though she is “absolutely desirable”. On the flip side it does seem that it’s Ramona and all her baggage (in Evil Ex form) that is what allows Scott to find his own fulfilment in the end (firstly through love which doesn’t cut it and finally through self respect which does). She is also a character defined by her past and present love interests. Apart from her love life, her work and her ever changing hair colour is about all we know of her.  This leaves Ramona in the somewhat grey area of MPDG’s like Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’s Clementine.

In 1985, Alison Bechdel’s comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” introduced what has become popularly known as The Bechdel Test, a type of litmus test for female presence in movies. The three basic requirements for movies are: (1) It has to have at least two women in it, and preferably characters with names (2) These women must talk to each other and (3) They must talk to each other about something besides a man. Does Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World pass or fail? Lets see: There are more than two named female characters.  These female characters do talk to each other. And yes, the female characters do technically talk to each other about something besides a man on a few occasions (though not for very long). To be fair most of the film is spent talking about relationships and not many of the male or female characters talk about much else. Welcome back to the fun grey area of feminist analysis, we hope you’ll stick around.

Aside from that, I can tell you that I really did like the most excellent sidekick cast. The “League of Evil Exes” be damned, I wanted more screen time for the “League of Super Sort’ve-Sidekicks” which are mostly women. Between Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick Alison Pill, Ellen Wong (and token guy Keiren Cullkin) I would have trouble choosing a favourite character actor. It didn’t hurt that most of the support cast also got the best zingy one liners and hilarious gags - the two things which I liked best about this movie. Once again these characters were 2-by-4 in terms of “inner life”. They can mostly be summed up in one or two words: There’s the constantly acerbic Julie, fast talking sister Stacey, outspoken drummer Kim and the lovesick teen Knives Chau. Oh and the gay roommate Wallace. The actors gave these characters more heft but in a movie that’s based more around quips than real dialogue how much depth should we be looking for? Is it enough to say that though the female characters had only 1-2 personality traits turned up to 11 most of the male characters fared the same? In fact the only real, rounded character in this movie was the one played by Michael Cera. Which could be because his name was in the title? In the end rather than finding either Scott Pilgrim or Ramona Flowers particularly offensive to my feminist sensibilities, I just found the supporting cast of characters funnier and more engaging but it would have been great to see more movie minutes devoted to developing them into more rounded characters.

Sam watches far too many movies of all sorts but mainly American indies from the 90s, French New Wave flicks and anything involving Judd Apatow and Woody Allen.

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