Suicide Squad made a name for itself in Russia even before its premiere, thanks to the most intrusive and ubiquitous advertising campaign that only Hollywood creations have. The frequency of mentions of the next crazy gang of superheroes, especially on social networks, was so high that the influx of viewers into cinemas was guaranteed. What to hide, a significant part of the citizens of our country perceives cinema exclusively as entertainment, and for this reason, these people can be fed any "movie candy", the main thing is that the cover is bright and more excitement.
In this review, we will try to clarify which behavioral matrices and images were loaded into the heads of almost 5 million Russians who watched the film in the cinema.
The plot of the picture
So, faced with yet another global evil, in a battle with which even Superman himself perishes, the American government decides that it is necessary to act according to the principle "there is no reception against scrap, if there is no other scrap" and to seek help from the most notorious criminals who are imprisoned in harsh and guarded prison of the world. And so the killers, monsters and outspoken sociopaths with unique abilities and perfectly mastering the art of murder stand to defend the world. Just in case, all newly minted heroes are sewn into their necks with a microchip with a bomb and are warned that if something happens, they should not blow their heads.
The following characters were included in the team of the worst of the worst: Dadshot (super-talented killer), Harley (psycho-maniac), fire man El Diablo (fire man, burns for money, once, inadvertently handling fire, accidentally killed his wife and children), the monster Killer Hook (a mixture of human and reptile, also a cannibal), Captain Boomerang - (robber of the loot), a specialized mercenary Slipknot (who has to prove that the microchips in the heroes' necks are working properly), and a few other minor heroes.
And now about the promoted meanings:
- Scoundrels are the saviors of the world.
- "I'm not guilty!"
- Criminal romance and the image of a woman
- Attractive evil
Promotional video:
Scoundrels are the saviors of the world
Can you make a villain attractive in a movie and make the viewer sympathetic to him? Easy! To do this, you just need to come up with some sentimental prehistory for the villain, compare him with an even bigger rabble, against which our bastard will not look so bad. And in addition to do some kind of universal injustice to him. This is exactly what was done in the film "Suicide Squad", but not with one anti-hero, but with a whole squad of ghouls at once.
The whole film is imbued with the idea that the villains became such because they were treated badly, unfairly. Each of them has its own sad and touching story, listening to which during the film the viewer must "understand and forgive" these maniacs. After all, they became evil not of their own free will, but as if under the pressure of life circumstances (the trick is that in life the choice towards evil is always a person's decision, and in the film this logic can be freely distorted, which is what the scriptwriters use). In addition, as it turns out from the plot, the maniacs are not so bad, there are worse than them - this is the American government and the military, to whom our heroes, in particular the killer Dadshot, even read lectures.
In the middle of the film, the viewer learns that the unscrupulous government itself had a hand in creating a super evil, which had to be defeated, and is now trying to shift the responsibility to society to the Suicide Squad. The detachment, however wild it may sound, is very indignant at the violation of its reputation and seeks to save its "honor."
Even in the final, as a reward for saving the world, they received a verbal dry "thank you" and a reduction in the sentence by ten years. Considering that everyone is sentenced to life in prison, this looks like a cruel joke, which causes their "fair" indignation.
Pay attention to the distortion of meanings: not "I am in him a villainous criminal, which society naturally rejects, but:" society hates me, so why am I going to fight for it ?!"
Thus, shown in all their glory by the uttermost thugs, the main characters of the picture by the middle of the film appear in the form of victims of an insidious society that hates them, victims of the intrigues of "normal people". The authors diligently try to portray them as charming and colorful characters with a sense of humor and teamwork. The calculation is obvious that the friendship and mutual assistance of suicides should arouse the sympathy of the viewer, especially since every villain has a sad background that should justify him.
I'm not guilty
As already noted, the dominant subtext of the film is that evil used to be good and became evil not through its own fault and desire, but because of some sad events beyond its control. The filmmakers create an exculpatory biography for each hero, which should show that the hero has become such because of external circumstances. He is not guilty - everyone around him is guilty, and, of course, the society is guilty, the people who always condemn them. Fallen Angel's Swan Song!
Harley was a young aspiring psychiatrist, but fell in love with her patient, the mad Joker. The film is full of flashbacks that reveal their insane love in every sense to the viewer. El Diablo, like Hook, got their superpowers against their will, and cannot contain it. The killer Katana became like this after she avenged her husband and took the magic sword that feeds on the souls of the victims.
At the end of the film, the authors, in order to finally whitewash the maniacs, show us the dream of each of them. Dreams of an ordinary life, the resurrection of deceased loved ones, of a large and good family - the natural dreams of every person, in the context of the film look like a revelation, like an excuse for the villains. They are not like that - they are made so by society, the world or nature itself. It's a great excuse now used by perverts of all stripes. In reality, they were made by the writers and producers of Hollywood in order to blur the concepts of good and evil in the eyes of the audience.
The image of a woman and criminal romance
There are five women in history, three revealed images, but the image that gets the most attention is, of course, Harley Quinn. She was and remains the main advertising brand of the film - they are trying to show her as something interesting, funny and attractive in every sense. However, what does this image actually carry?
The future psychiatrist Harley falls in love with a prisoner in an insane asylum patient - a maniac Joker and brings him a weapon with which he escapes, leaving dozens of corpses behind. For this, the Joker performs a wild rite of passage over Harley, during which she dies and is resurrected from his kiss. After that, the heroine finally becomes the same as her lover and even acquires a new hair color. The storyline with the Joker appearing like a devil from a snuffbox and diligently spending screen time, sometimes longing for his beloved, imprisoned, then trying to return her, takes almost a quarter of the film (judging by press reports, some of the scenes with the Joker were also cut from the final film).
In one of the flashbacks, it is clear that the frivolous behavior of the main character is absolutely not condemned by her beloved Joker, but is even supported. In this scene, the Joker "presents" it to his new acquaintance, whom she immediately tries to seduce. When he refuses the gift, explaining his position by the fact that “she is your woman,” a couple in love kills him for such an “insult”. At the same time, do not forget that Harley is a lady "with greetings", hears voices, is glad that someone will die soon, after the next fight she was even stopped from selflessly beating a long-dead corpse.
These scenes have nothing to do with the plot of the film, but they bring a new tint to the film, aimed at female spectators. "The evil romance of dark love", which leads Harley to victories, saves her from death several times during the film and in the finale rescues her from prison. Passionate speeches, confessions, constant mentions of each other in separation and Harley's wedding-initiation, which turns her into a copy of the Joker, looks like an attempt to evoke romantic feelings in the youngest spectators. Thus, the film continues the trend towards the formation of female spectators and an unconscious attraction to the bad guys.
As a result, the main female image in the film is the image of a crazy whore, an inadequate girl, absolutely without any moral guidelines. Many scenes where Harley is filmed from behind, the camera focuses on her mini-shorts, or rather, maxi-panties. Naturally, the viewer perceives her positively, because she saves the world, jokes, is considered a beauty. Girls who watch this film will want to be like her, and boys will think that this is the ideal woman.
Attractive evil
Oddly enough, fear, along with disgust and bashfulness, is one of the natural barriers against the penetration of everything alien inside the personality. It is he who includes the deep mechanisms of counteracting this or that danger in life.
Every sense has a function. If the feeling is “removed”, the function will cease to be fulfilled, there will be a “failure” in the integrity of the algorithm of adaptation to the individual's environment. Evolutionarily, the function of fear is protection, generation of strategies to counter danger. And it doesn't matter how real is what the psychic apparatus protects itself from like that. By naivety, many people think that since something is bothering them, some feeling, then it must be removed. They do not always manage to see that this feeling serves only as an indicator, a signal from the "system" that you are going in the wrong place.
The addiction to fear is nothing more than the loss of this ancient mechanism of self-preservation. Conscious victory over fear differs from getting used to fear in that the analysis of the situation, the choice of the alternative and the action itself in the first case, and complete inaction in the second are compressed in a split second. It is this difference that the vague term "tolerance" is intended to hide. Just as disgust is a barrier to the penetration of various kinds of impurities, bashfulness is a barrier to fornication, so fear is the last line of defense for the penetration of everything dark and evil. After all, even succumbing to temptation, in one minute you can be frightened and change your mind.
A huge number of horror films, thrillers and bloody action films have been trying to shoot this last cordon for more than a decade. One of the main implications of this film: "There is no need to be afraid of the terrible!" Indeed, the film contains stories of heroes in which any evil is justified by the fact that there is an even more evil evil! A normal psyche will naturally reject murder and cruelty, but when this is done by a person in the form of a clown with a painted smiling mouth and ridiculous green hair, who, it turns out, also knows how to truly love, the scale of values begins to malfunction.
The same is with the image of his girlfriend - an outwardly sweet, naive child, with touching multi-colored ponytails, inside which a lustful prostitute and a cruel killer coexist. The killer Dadshot is shown in the same perspective: here he kills on order, and in the next scene he walks with his cute little daughter, and now he appears in the eyes of the audience as a loving father who is not allowed to communicate with his adored child. In other words, outright maniacs, presented in an attractive wrapper, broadcast from the screen: "You don't need to be afraid of evil!" The official motto of the film “Justice has a bad side” also works for this thesis.
Drugs
All heroes use a lot of alcohol and sometimes take heavier drugs. One of the characters jokingly considers the magical whirlwind to be his hallucination from pills.
Sex
The only vivid image of a woman is the image of a girl of the easiest behavior. In this regard, many of the film's jokes are tied precisely to this topic.
Violence
All the main characters are maniacs who enjoy murder (during the film, phrases like "Hurray, a lot of people will die" are heard). Violence is shown in the film as a means to any goal.
Morality
The Suicide Squad movie promotes several key messages:
- Scoundrels are the saviors of the world. The heroes of the film are scoundrels and monsters who, by the will of fate, become heroes-saviors of the world. Pathetic speeches about saving the world are put into the mouths of ruthless maniacs.
- "I'm not guilty!" After watching the film, it will become clear to the child that the villains may be innocent of their crimes, this is their "natural feature" or a chain of events and accidents, the basis of which could be simple human feelings. In general, the villains must be "understood and forgiven."
- Criminal Romance and the Image of a Woman. Almost a quarter of the film "Suicide Squad" is devoted to imposing the love story of two inadequate marginals on the viewer. The main female character is a mad killer.
- Attractive evil. Breakdown of fear as the last barrier to the penetration of sin into the human soul.
Interestingly, the film absolutely clearly works to create a negative image of the American government and American intelligence services. Apparently, this is due to the fact that Hollywood acts to a greater extent as an instrument of global rather than regional elites, that is, it is engaged in global politics. The representation of the American government as the main cause of the emergence of global threats can be regarded as further evidence that the process with the “closure” of the unipolar world and the debunking of the “American dream” is in an active phase.
Elizaveta Kvasnyuk