Feminist Upset That an Action Movie Contains Violence Against Women

Back in February, when a feminist remarked on the fact that most speaking roles in films are men, I posted that it was because most of the bad guys are men. I also noted that if filmmakers increased the number of female characters by making female bad guys (bad girls?) for the heroes to kill, feminists would complain about "violence against women."

Over at Feministing, Chloe reviewed Killers and fulfilled my prediction:

Perhaps one of the most upsetting things about this movie is the rather graphic violence against women. It's nice to see women get in on the action, literally: The majority of the assassins who come after Spencer and Jen are women. But it's not nice to note that the assassins who are most brutally killed are women. When the women are killed - impaled on chandeliers made of antlers or shot point-blank - we see it in gory detail, and we see close-ups of their bleeding bodies. When the men are killed, there's no such attention to detail.

I haven't seen Killers so I can't remark on whether or not there really was more gore when women died than men, or if it was just Chloe's perception. Even if it was the case, does it really matter? There are hundreds of films (or more) out there where dozens of men die messily and no women do, so is one film that subverts this trope really that bad? "Graphic violence against men" occurs in virtually every action film. The only difference between this film and the others is that is that the people dying graphically have tits.

It is impossible to please feminists. If what Chloe wrote about a majority of the assassins being women is true (and there is no reason to think that it isn't), then Killers is probably the first action movie in which most of the bad guys are really bad girls. Instead of praising the film for this new step in the full inclusion and portrayal of women in film, she attacks it.

After fifty years of feminism, it should be clear that feminists do not want equality and this is just another example. When hundreds of movies show countless men dying graphically, no one (including feminists) bats an eye, but when one movie shows female antagonists dying graphically, feminists whine about its depiction of "violence against women."