Is "True Grit" Glamorizing or Criticizing Hyper-Masculinity and Violence.

sky33dive · 2011-03-23T09:06:56+00:00

I think this is simply the case of someone injecting gender where it need not be injected. The story for me was about three flawed characters somehow coming together for one another. Mattie starts off the movie as cold and not trusting of others. We see that she starts to develop a more convivial tone with her two compadres. Jeff Bridges finally awakens from his drunken stupor to develop a plan to save Mattie. Damon overcomes his ego and shows respect for both Bridges and Mattie at the end. This movie is about unchartered territories and three unlikely people coming together for one another in very imperfect ways. It's a story, nothing more. I think it's a genuinely American thing to do to try and find a meaning/moral/lesson from any story. If that's what the film was solely about - a lesson or two - then you could sum it up with a bunch of words, but a good film is about telling a story with verisimilitude. Look at how many theories and personas have been projected onto Hamlet over the years. Hamlet is a million different people if you listen to the scholars. In reality he is one person. He's one guy that you hear a story about. And the characters in True Grit. They are three characters you hear a story about.

Dbagg · 2011-03-23T09:00:04+00:00

I don't know but I sure enjoyed it.

ExpendableOne · 2011-03-24T04:09:28+00:00

If female characters are too feminine or positively presented as having strong feminine qualities, feminists put them down or call them sexist for being too weak or stereotypically female. If female characters have too many masculine characteristics or qualities that are associated to men, feminists call it sexist for being too masculine or displaying qualities that they associate with men.

thetrollking · 2011-03-23T06:18:57+00:00

In this, Anita denies that Mattie from “True Grit” is a feminist character for two major reasons: 1) Mattie never changes, so she’s less a character with development than a “type” and 2) Mattie is just a traditional hyper-masculine Western character in a woman’s body, and feminism is about critiquing masculinity as a form (in part), not reinforcing the idolatry of masculinity. I think that Anita may have a point when it comes to other characters in less thoughtful pieces than “True Grit”. Action films that center around traditional cold-hearted hyper-masculine characters that are nonetheless held up as ideals aren’t particularly feminist, even if the character is female but is traditionally masculine in this way. And I think you could make an argument that this means that in the “tough girls” genre, it’s Buffy that’s more feminist in this sense, since she does incorporate “feminine” qualities into her work---cooperation, empathy---and in doing so, makes clear why those qualities are values.

Huh? Say wut? Since when do women use cooperation and empathy? Just look at the mean girls and how they give each other, and other women, eating disorders. Or female hate for "nice guys". If anything wouldn't these be masculine qualities? Look at, "No man left behind" and unit cohesion which are military values that date back thousands of years.

I just don’t think any of this really applies to “True Grit”. I think Anita’s analysis fails on one major point, which is that she assumes that “True Grit” is a typical Western that valorizes the hyper-masculine, violent, cold-hearted world that it portrays, and that is a profound misreading both of this film and the Coen brothers’ larger body of work. In watching a Coen brothers movie, it’s usually important to really pay attention to the ending. Often the ending of their movies are comments on everything you just watched---think of how “Raising Arizona” and “No Country for Old Men” both end with characters describing dreams that point to the reading of all the events that happened before.

And here she is again, defining what maleness or masculinity is and she is a woman who knows nothing of it.

Is Mattie a feminist character? I don’t know if you can really apply ideology in that sense to feminist characters, nor should you. But Anita spells out what she considers important in a feminist story---interrogation of the notion that traditionally masculine characteristics (emotionally inexpressive, aggressive, dominating) are superior to traditionally feminine characteristics (emotionally expressive, cooperation, affectionate)---and I think that “True Grit” is absolutely that story. The violent, hyper-masculine Western is portrayed as leaving those who engage with it as broken, sad people who have no connection to others and who die unloved. Doesn’t get more critical of traditional masculinity than that. On the gender front, what makes this all very dark and tragic is Mattie has no real options, as a woman. Traditional femininity doesn’t serve anyone well in this harsh environment, either. But I’d say that’s just it---the Coen brothers routinely object to the very existence of soul-less, violent environments. Even so, it’s clear that nurturing is considered a higher moral good in this world. Rooster’s saving grace as a human is that he saves Mattie’s life. He abandons the world of the Western for a moment to nurture a child. And that’s basically the only good thing he ever does in his life, and it’s traditionally a feminine thing to do.

These feminists seem to know nothing about history or masculinity. Where do they think they get the moral authority to define maleness/masculinity.

awkfoo · 2011-03-23T15:07:56+00:00

True Grit is about cowboys... I didn't notice any sexism when watching it.

2011-03-23T21:58:35+00:00

Amanda Marcotte needs to fuck off and die.

Title	Is "True Grit" Glamorizing or Criticizing Hyper-Masculinity and Violence.
Author	thetrollking
Upvotes	1
Comments	7
Date	March 23, 2011 6:09 AM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/g9ipf/is_true_grit_glamorizing_or_criticizing/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/is-true-grit-glamorizing-or-criticizing-hyper.1041824 https://theredarchive.com/post/1041824

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