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Let me just state that I think the Pacific Rim concept is great, as it adapts longstanding themes from Japanese tokusatsu shows, (like Ultraman) that I grew up with, however, after seeing the film and reading backstory, the treatment of its few female characters is not something I relate to.
(contains spoilers)
Each female character is only realized in relation to a male character. In the film we only have one female character of note, Mako Mori, who is held back from being a Jaeger pilot, despite training for years and being the most capable candidate
Mori is only allowed to fight due to the agency of Raleigh, at no time does she stand up for herself and demand better treatment, the training accident begins because Yancy recalls the death of his brother in battle, but Mori is the weaker of the two, as she falls into her memories of childhood trauma, which Raleigh has to pull her out of.
During battle Mori is capable but at the climax of the film, she faints due to lack of oxygen and has to be jettisoned in an escape pod by her male co-pilot.
What you didn’t see in the film - when Stacker Pentecost rescues Mako as a child, there is another pilot in the Jaeger, a female pilot, who has passed out, leaving him to pilot alone. (ah irony) The female pilot, Tamsin will later die of cancer, due to radiation poisoning in a hospital bed, while Stacker who is suffering the same aliment is allowed to sacrifice himself in battle.
The only other female in the film is Sasha, the Russian pilot, we only see a glimpse of her (in armor with boob plates) her co-pilot is her husband Alexis, and to all appearances, she and her partner are equal (with matching bleach blonde hair).
In the film crowd scenes in Scatterdome and among the techs and scientists, there are no women. Yet, in the graphic novel Year Zero, there is a female scientist (Caitlin Lightcap)
Caitlin Lightcap is inexorably linked to the scientist Jaspar Scoenfield - who created the Jaegers- because the two had an illicit affair when he was her older married professor. Jaspar convinces Caitlin he was never serious about their affair and asks her to join the Jaeger program for which she is overwhelmingly grateful.
Caitlin restarts her romance with Jaspar when they work together because Jaspar decides he missed her more than his now ex-wife, when Caitlin discovers a pilot Sergio, has feelings for her, Jaspar becomes jealous, to the point he puts the pilot in danger.
It is Lightcap’s attachment to Sergio that compels her take the leap to link with him in the ‘Drift’ so they pilot the Jaeger together, not her scientific acumen.
It then behooves Jaspar to break off their relationship - in affect, passing her over to another man - so Caitlin can be with Sergio (so much for Caitlin’s apparent growth and independence)
Jaspar is magnanimous enough at the end of the story to give her credit for her scientific discoveries, while at the same time negating them by making a reference to ‘Love’ being the real force that saved the day’.
The only independent female I can find in Year Zero is Luna Pentecost, who is the sister of Stacker, who quickly perishes in a Kaiju attack (you can see the half second moment in the film when a jet crashes into a Kaiju’s tail)
So, if the screenplay writer is listening, there are easy quick fixes to this problem, put more women in the story as capable professionals, (pilots, techs, scientists) to help solve problems - not as appendages only activated by male characters and discarded (by dying and passing out) when the focus shifts back to the male protagonists. If you had the relationship of the scientists as mentor-student without a sexual element, if you'd had a team of female pilots, females in the background, female friends of the male pilots (think of the relationships of the male and female soldiers in Aliens). Women are lovers, wives, sisters and daughters to male characters, but it doesn't need to be single-note confining as well as defining.
(contains spoilers)
Each female character is only realized in relation to a male character. In the film we only have one female character of note, Mako Mori, who is held back from being a Jaeger pilot, despite training for years and being the most capable candidate
Mori is only allowed to fight due to the agency of Raleigh, at no time does she stand up for herself and demand better treatment, the training accident begins because Yancy recalls the death of his brother in battle, but Mori is the weaker of the two, as she falls into her memories of childhood trauma, which Raleigh has to pull her out of.
During battle Mori is capable but at the climax of the film, she faints due to lack of oxygen and has to be jettisoned in an escape pod by her male co-pilot.
What you didn’t see in the film - when Stacker Pentecost rescues Mako as a child, there is another pilot in the Jaeger, a female pilot, who has passed out, leaving him to pilot alone. (ah irony) The female pilot, Tamsin will later die of cancer, due to radiation poisoning in a hospital bed, while Stacker who is suffering the same aliment is allowed to sacrifice himself in battle.
The only other female in the film is Sasha, the Russian pilot, we only see a glimpse of her (in armor with boob plates) her co-pilot is her husband Alexis, and to all appearances, she and her partner are equal (with matching bleach blonde hair).
In the film crowd scenes in Scatterdome and among the techs and scientists, there are no women. Yet, in the graphic novel Year Zero, there is a female scientist (Caitlin Lightcap)
Caitlin Lightcap is inexorably linked to the scientist Jaspar Scoenfield - who created the Jaegers- because the two had an illicit affair when he was her older married professor. Jaspar convinces Caitlin he was never serious about their affair and asks her to join the Jaeger program for which she is overwhelmingly grateful.
Caitlin restarts her romance with Jaspar when they work together because Jaspar decides he missed her more than his now ex-wife, when Caitlin discovers a pilot Sergio, has feelings for her, Jaspar becomes jealous, to the point he puts the pilot in danger.
It is Lightcap’s attachment to Sergio that compels her take the leap to link with him in the ‘Drift’ so they pilot the Jaeger together, not her scientific acumen.
It then behooves Jaspar to break off their relationship - in affect, passing her over to another man - so Caitlin can be with Sergio (so much for Caitlin’s apparent growth and independence)
Jaspar is magnanimous enough at the end of the story to give her credit for her scientific discoveries, while at the same time negating them by making a reference to ‘Love’ being the real force that saved the day’.
The only independent female I can find in Year Zero is Luna Pentecost, who is the sister of Stacker, who quickly perishes in a Kaiju attack (you can see the half second moment in the film when a jet crashes into a Kaiju’s tail)
So, if the screenplay writer is listening, there are easy quick fixes to this problem, put more women in the story as capable professionals, (pilots, techs, scientists) to help solve problems - not as appendages only activated by male characters and discarded (by dying and passing out) when the focus shifts back to the male protagonists. If you had the relationship of the scientists as mentor-student without a sexual element, if you'd had a team of female pilots, females in the background, female friends of the male pilots (think of the relationships of the male and female soldiers in Aliens). Women are lovers, wives, sisters and daughters to male characters, but it doesn't need to be single-note confining as well as defining.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-20 11:06 pm (UTC)But I used to love Godzilla movies as a kid. I'd root for the monster, then go build myself a miniature city (Tokyo?) in my room and stomp it to pieces.
Right now I don't remember the plot of any of those monster movies. I so have to go watch them again.
All I remember right now is that the human characters were definitely boring, only the monsters were cool.
Hmm... would that be a plot point for a Pacific Rim 2? That some of the monsters are on our side?
And if Kaiji are capable of cloning themselves, doesn't that mean they have a pretty advanced science?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-20 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-21 04:04 pm (UTC)But if the Kaiji are capable of cloning themselves, and adapting other Kaiji based on fighting Jaegers, then perhaps they know enough about science to open another portal. (Especially since the previous portal was keyed to Kaiji DNA.)
And do we really need a sequel?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-21 04:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-21 06:09 pm (UTC)I had just assumed that the smaller aliens were related to the bigger aliens and were the same race. (Except perhaps they are super-seruming some aliens to go out and fight the Jaegers.)