This trailer was recently pointed out to me. It’s a trailer for a movie called Knights of Badassdom, and the premise seems to be that a group of medieval fantasy fans perform a spell that winds up accidentally releasing a demon from Hell.
I watched the beginning of the trailer. It looked amusing and cute, and as an added bonus, had quite a few actors from some of my favorite shows. “Tyrion is in a movie with Abed and River? Sign me up!”
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Peter Dinklage, Danny Pudi, Steve Zahn, Ryan Kwanten, and the other buddies in this buddy comedy were there to have fun and be silly and have wacky misadventures, and Summer Glau was primarily there to look hot. Oh, and kick ass. She’ll be the Exceptional Woman who can be gorgeous and kickass. She just won’t be allowed to be funny.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the demon that they raise from Hell is a succubus: a female demon that sexually seduces men before eviscerating them.
Of course. Of course they raise a succubus. What was I thinking – that they wouldn’t raise a succubus?
I want to like it, but I’m reflexively sighing and eye-rolling over a movie trailer about a bunch of male sci-fi geeks, written by male sci-fi geeks, where the only two women of note seem to be the Hot Girl Fighter and a sexual demon that devours men. It’s fetishization of female sexuality and fear of female sexuality all rolled into one.
I’m disappointed. In the first half-minute of the trailer or so, I expected a parody of sci-fi/fantasy movies where the characters in it treat their convention with the same seriousness that Frodo and Sam treated their quest in The Lord of the Rings. I thought it would be like that episode of Mr. Show that parodied historical documentaries by doing a fake documentary of Civil War reenactments.
In fact, that was a pretty funny sketch. I think I’ll watch that instead.
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Haha, literally 3 minutes ago I wrote on Facebook, “Oh, Knights of Badassdom. Will you be nerd heaven, or an assemblage of tired jokes and misogynistic tropes?”, and then I come over here and you’ve written basically the same thing in more detail. Feminist/geek hivemind strikes again!
Hee, it’s like we’re synchronized or something!
And really, why stop at a succubus? Why not a whole army of succubi? Or a trifecta of a succubus, a banshee, and a Gorgon?
Also, how much do you want to bet that Summer Glau’s character will be the one to defeat the succubus and therefore everyone can cry that it’s NOT SEXIST because a GIRL defeated it?
Oh, no question – after all, she is the one who refers to the succubus as “that bitch” in the trailer, probably because she is Not Like Those Other Women. Poor Summer Glau. The way she’s been fetishized by the geek community is just icky.
Ha, I wish I was better feminist, but man this trailer had me from, “I’m packin’ an ounce of killer shrooms, and there be monsters in need of pummelin’! Also, “this is a LARP not a Wicker Man cosplay!”
I also think that with all the “in a a world stuff” I’m probably cutting them more satiric slack than they deserve on the succubus/kick ass chick angle.
Oh, I giggled several times, too. It was just the second half that gave me a sad. I did *love* the “in a world in a world in a world” gag.
Hi! I’m here from the Shakesville blogaround.
I think everyone I know has posted this trailer on FB or G+ this week, with salivating comments, and I had the exact same reaction. I wanted to like it, but…
I found myself waiting to see whether Summer Glau would even get a line in the trailer, or if she was only there as nerdbait eye-candy. And, yes, she did get to speak. Like Rainicorn points out above, she got to call the succubus a bitch, just to prove she was special and could be misogynist just like one of the guys. *sigh.*
Hi! Thanks for commenting.
Yeah, it’s disappointing, because up until the part where they revealed the succubus, it seemed like a refreshingly cute movie. The guys weren’t douchebros but rather endearing nerds. And they still might be. I might see this movie anyway simply because the non-sexist part of the premise seems cute, and I like so many of the actors in it, but I won’t get my hopes up about it being women-friendly.