Reflections on Sin City

After watching the movie twice I came to the following conclusion. Upon its surface the viewer sees many heroic male gestures at protecting women from misogynistic men. At its core, the film is misogynistic. Yes, I think Frank Miller, like many of the consumers of the comic industry's pulp, face the same problem toward women. Female sexuality is potent. They have a failure to cope with this potency by the very fact they can't dialogue with it. They must protect it in a gesture of self-effacing heroism. By doing so, they keep feminine sexuality at arm's length. This gesture and the feminine affirms their gesture and manhood by offering a sexual proposition as favor for delivering them from a more superficially misogynistic character. This occurs in at least two narratives in the movie, that with Mickey Rourke's character and Bruce Willis' character. Both become projections for the male fantasy of the comic pulp consumer and that of Miller's: recipients of sexual overtures without expending the hard labour of any masterful interaction (via the usual trans-gender communication ritual of flirting, flowers, candy, and the power plays of oscillating betwen interest and indifference). Rather, Miller realizes his fantasy in these characters by being the hero. The feminine becomes a scenic condition for male heroic agency and the goal of that agency. The women, in both narratives, become sexually aroused by the saving actions of their heroes and so offer themselves sexually to these men.


The translation reads thus: Frank Miller and his fan club are the prototypical 20-sided dice wielder who'd rather live in the somewhat antiseptic environment of neo-medieval fantasy where some semblance of chivalry exists and gender is as stable and clearly differentiated as the seasons. Instead of occupying the hurdy gurdy reality of their lives, each retreats to his respective basement, flanked by Rush, Iron Maiden, and Boris posters jerking off to the symbolic fantasy and passing on the absent fleshy reality that inspires it.

These men groom a fantasy that raises the status of their plastic copulating objects to that of love interest. This object is more real than real, more human than human. Because its reactions conform to the universe that this dice-roller has cast. They fear real women, seeing their capricious nature as unjust. And in seeing this caprice as a very bitter and smarting scar on their fragile ego, they cast out the real woman. That, my friends, is the misogynistic core that these role players roll over with dice, demons, knights, knaves, classic rock, cola, zits, and undone zippers. They'd rather live in their unkempt, musty subterranean dwellings than to occupy a world that they must share with others, where they must clean up and compromise in order to dwell. Meeting half way means a decapitation of that fantasy. That is a proposition that sacrifices too much because it hurts them too much.


As I said, this is utter nonsense. Pass me the dice bro.