Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was the best movie I’ve seen all year. It was absolutely perfect! PERFECT I SAY!

I’m sorry, but not even your recommendation will convince me that Scott Pilgrim v. the World is anything less than a panderfest.

Unrelated to Scott Pilgrim, I have to ask how the zombie boss returned to zombie-mode. Back on the zombie planet, didn’t Axe Cop chop the control panel that had turned all the heroes into zombies?

@skaliveson: Actually, the giant hero that appeared to be the zombie boss was a decoy!

Spielberg/Lucas/Scorsese/Nolan. Accept nothing less.

Ever since I saw Scott Pilgrim all I could think about was how awesome Edgar would do with Axe Cop. It would be phenomenal to say the least.

Scott Pilgrim is amazing. If you haven’t seen it and you are talking down on it, you have no clue what you are talking about. It reminded me a lot of the show he did with Simon Pegg, Spaced, but with a much bigger budget. I wont ruin it, but i will say enemies EXPLODE into coins when he frags them, and it looks amazing. And why would he want Spielberg or Lucas directing the AxeCop movie? They have proven themselves to be fairly boring or even bad directors.

The Scott Pilgrim movie came off as a very “boys only” movie to me, which made me sad, because looking at the trailers, I wanted to like it so much. But as a geeky fan who is also a woman, bi and a south asian person of color, I found more often than not just… excluded.

Warning, spoilers.

Many characters have a racial “theme” going on. Evil Indian Ex #1, Patel, breaks out into a random Bollywood number during his fight with Scott. Evil Exes #5 and #6, the Katayanagi twins, are Japanese pop idols who battle by summoning up dragons through their music—and don’t even get a single line of spoken dialogue between them. All the other Evil Exes got some kind of back-story for their relationship with Ramona or a feel for their characters, but not these two.

And poor Knives Chau. I get that the film’s going for funny when Scott spends an inordinate amount of time making racist cracks about her Chinese heritage, but it gets uncomfortable after the jokes just keep coming. She’s Chinese, we get it. She’s a sheltered, little schoolgirl who spends lots of her “Scott time” playing Dance, Dance, Revolution. Later, she turns into a crazed stalker—feeding into the unfortunate psycho Asian chick trend—and eventually her face is even replaced with an emoticon.

The part that actually made my mouth drop open was when Scott defeated Roxie, lesbian and Evil Ex #4, by giving her an orgasm. Let’s go through that one again: the dude killed the lesbian by using Roxie’s g-spot Ramona found while they were messing around during her bi-curious “sexy phase” to kill her. WTH?

Here end the spoilers.

Anyhow, Ethan, I really hope that if an axe cop movie is made that you can include some more characters of color—asian and latino and black kids need to know that they have secret attacks, too.

BEEP BEEP! Here comes the PC police.

There’s a “psycho Asian chick” trend!? Since when!?

I enjoyed Scott Pilgrim, and saw it twice.  Possible spoilers below.

Yes, it was full of stereotypes. Scott Pilgrim starts out as a selfish slacker, gamer, rocker. The various bands are also stereotypes ... “This song is called ‘We hate you, please die’”, “We’re here to sing about death and make you sad and stuff ...” That said, the music was used pretty well in the movie.

But by the end of the movie, you have a Scott who learns to respect himself, and therefore others. You have a Knives Chau who is strong and doesn’t need Scott. In short, you have a bit of growth in what were somewhat shallow characters. There’s other stuff too.

Stylistically, it was a great adaptation of a graphic novel, and it would be cool to see this sort of treatment of Axe Cop.

Actually, the reason the Katayanagi twins didn’t have any dialogue is because the actors didn’t know any English.

@Keisha
I understand your problems with the movie,and (even though i hate to say it) I’m glad to see a rather negative opinion on it. Since i’m not very good at, well, writing in general, i’m just going to be blunt. The way he defeats Roxxie is actually how he defeats his Ex-Girlfriend Envy Adams in the book, and probably was kept in the movie to please fans. The only reason the Katayanagi Twins didn’t have any lines, and didn’t have a backstory was probably because of time, since they actually have a whole bunch of lines and backstory in the book.Finally, i would just like to say that, if you didn’t like the movie, i suggest you read the books, and then give the movie another try.

Also, i’d just like to say real quick, You guy should all post your reviews of the movie in the Epic Reviews Thread in the forum!

I’m completely worn out by the hypersensitivity of our culture.  Stereotypes make great comedy because in general they are true.  Whatever anyone has to say about the damage done to people’s self image when it comes to stereotype comedy, I think what is much, much, MUCH more destructive is labeling people as victims and giving them all this pity to wallow in… THAT is disabling.  Stereotype jokes will always exist, and they will always be funny to most people.  They are funny because they contain truth and absurdity. Victimhood and it’s butt-ugly cousin hypersensitivity both need to be punched in the face and left out in the cold.  I’m fat and white and I grew up poor… fat, white trash stereotypes do not bother me IN THE LEAST.  I can recognize the truths, and the absurdities and laugh at them both.  I don’t think I help anyone out by being soft on them and denying reality.  We all need to be able to laugh at ourselves and the hypersensitivity we are all perpetuating is making us all spineless babies.

And Keisha, I am not aiming this all at you alone, though you did bring it up, it is something I have been confronted with a number of times in the last couple days in the news, in exchanges with friends… I just chose to vent here.  I really appreciate you reading and welcome your opinion here but I hope you don’t mind if I share mine too.

Ethan

Ethan—
I am kind of hurt that you could so casually dismiss me explaining how portrayals of women, asians and bi people by someone (me) who is a bi south asian woman as choosing to be hypersensitive. Being bi, asian, or a woman isn’t just something I can shut off in this culture—how the culture around me treats me and how I am perceived affacts me every day.

And your appaling statements about stereotypes… I’m not sure were to begin. The problem with stereotypes is that they are sweeping generalizations about large groups that are never wholly true. The reason why they appear true is because we seek out information to confirm our biases (confirmation bias) and as such, we only notice things that fit with our preconceived notion of how the stereotyped group is.

If you pay attention, you will likely notice exceptions to common stereotypes everywhere.

@Citrus:
Thank you. The movie looked very pretty, but I felt left out for the reasons I mentioned. I will take you up on your suggestion to try the comics.

Keisha my point is that it doesn’t help anyone to coddle them and protect them from generalizations.  Fat comic artists are generally lazy, bad with women and socially awkward.  That description is not totally true of me, but it is partially true.  It’s more than 50% true.  No one would laugh at or even present a stereotype if it was not true to some extent.  If something like “your about as good at ballet as a Native American” you would just confuse people.  Stand back and ask what is really offensive about saying asians in general are bad drivers.  Is it true?  So what?  Is it really worth getting all bent out of shape about?  Wouldn’t life be better if you could just laugh at the joke and make one back? 

And of course not all stereotypes are true of all people all the time… no one I have ever met would claim that.  That is a point that is literally meaningless.

There are two battles to fight here… you can fight the battle to shut up all jokes about stereotype, or you can fight the battle of people taking victim status upon themselves and being too weak to enjoy life.  The first battle will NEVER be won, because most people are OK with generalizations, because generalizations contain an element of truth.  If you can’t generalize, you can’t be truthful.  The second battle is much more practical and it makes everyone stronger.  If people aren’t making victims of themselves it’s much harder to stop them from being happy.

Why do you sit and watch a movie and focus on how left out you feel?  How often is a fat, poor artsy guy made the hero of a film?  Not very often.  I don’t care.  Movies aren’t made to appease me.  To think so would be narcissistic. It seems as absurd as being offended that Avatar focused on blue people… it made me feel left out because I am as pasty white as boiled pork meat. Lighten up sister!  You seem to be taking yourself much too seriously.  You’ll choke all the joy out of life.  In every group or stereotype there are wonderful things, embarrassing things, and hilarious things.  Denying that doesn’t help anybody out.

Sorry if you feel I’ve been too harsh.  Feel free to email if you want to discuss this any further.

So, who would play Axe Cop in said hypothetical movie?  When I read him, I hear Darran Norris’ voice

Wow, scott pilgrim sparks HEATED debate. Keisha, I feel for you, but I honestly think you’re reading way too much into the movie. I happened to like Knives (who also has the coolest name) as a character. She was funny, the actress played her well, and when I was watching the movie, I didn’t think of her as an Asian stereotype. She really seemed more like a stereotype of an inexpierenced high school girl. Just because immature Asian girls act like that doesn’t mean immature white girls don’t. And as for the bi thing, I’m bi and I thought a lot of the bi and gay humor was really funny and at times even a little more modern than what we are used to. Kieren Culkin’s (sp?) character wasn’t a flampoyant gay stereotype that you might see in most movies or shows (see: queer eye for the straight guy). Rather, he was witty and funny and, well, normal. Shocker, right? A gay dude acting normal. And really the only bisexual in the movie was Ramona, who didn’t seem like a crazy person. Her ex was a lesbian, and while she may be totally crazy, so was preatty much every other ex. I though this movie was magic, and I will continue to urge my friends to see it.

Oh, and I want Daniel Day-Lewis to play Axe Cop.

Keisha, trust me, Ethan is the least offensive, least anti-bisexual-South-Asian-girl guy on the planet. He’s also incredibly fat, and gets mocked and sterotyped for it just about every day of his tubby little life.

Most humor is an injury delivered at someone else’s expense to make the humorist look clever. Humor is pretty selfish, but so is the celebration of victimhood.

Ethan is looking out for you Keisha, because he gave you some incredible advice that if you ignore you will not be happy. THere are no happy people who concentrate on their victimhood. Further, the true racist anti-bisexual is the one that thinks you’re too South Asian bi-sexual to stand up to low brow jokes against your surface characteristics.

You are a tough, amazing, woman, made in the image of God. You are more complex and rich than even the labels you slap on yourself. Ethan knows this about you. I only wish you knew it about yourself and acted on it. You’re not a victim. You’re not weak. You’re a champion. If I can take Ethan down by making fun of his weight then he really is a small little man. If you can make me shrivel by making fun of my Christianity, Pro-lifeness, or 6’8” height then I’m declaring you the king and authority of my life even as I claim that you’re irrelevant.

You can decide who has your best interest at heart, those who agree with you that you are a crushed, fragile, pathetic little frail thing, or those who work to make you happy. Ethan gave you good advice. If you want to be happy instead of right, you should fallow it.

On a side note, I know Ethan personally and nobody has a more rich diversity of every kind of person. Ethan treats everyone special, no matter their race, ace, sexual identity or religious affiliation. He’s a better person than me. He’s a better person than most people I know. That is, he treats low people as high and doesn’t pay special attention to the kinds of people that we are usually rewarded for stroking. There are a lot of cruel, stupid, selfish or petty people that deserve your rancor, Ethan isn’t one of them.

Don’t punish him for treating you like a powerful, meaningful, competent adult. Your complaints end up saying more about your weakness than his. And you’ll just have to trust me on this one, he is respectful and happy about all cultures.

Ask him what he thinks of Asian cultures instead of misconstruing what he said. He didn’t in any way comment on Asians, he only commented on our white, racist culture’s celebration of victimhood. In that sense, you’re not acting like a South Asian… you’re acting like a spoiled, white American. Asian cultures don’t claim victimhood at all. That’s a European, progressive, cry-baby attribute we should all shed in the name of being good and being happy.

-Doug TenNapel
famous cartoonist and friend of big fat Ethan

Keisha, it’s a bad idea to cry wolf when there is *real* hatred, discrimination, and racism to fight against.  Don’t play the victim when there is no wolf.  It devalues and hurts the fight against the real persecution that exists in the world.

Interesting conversation.  As someone of mixed race I don’t look at the “what” of a person, but rather at the “who” of a person. You can drop a character in a film that is exactly the same ethnic make-up, gender and sexual orientation as me and that wouldn’t mean squat.  I identify with a black, asian, caucasian, hispanic, mixed, because of the content of their character, not the color of their skin, gender, or sexual orientation.  I guess that’s why I have friends of every stripe.

However, on the fat thing,  That’s where I draw the line.  I used to be fat.  Making jokes about fat people reminds me of the days when I was fat and it really brings me down.  I need a character in Axecop that was skinny, then became fat and then got skinny again - I would feeeel so much better about myself.

Good points, PAIN.  Why do some people identify more with skin color than with character?

People of my character aren’t represented in entertainment enough. There is far more diversity of race and gender in entertainment than diversity of character. You’re all a bunch of Characterists!