Zack Snyder Discusses SUCKER PUNCH and How It's a Misunderstood Commentary on Sexism and Geek Culture
Sucker Punch was director Zack Snyder’s first original film production that wasn’t based on property that already existed. He set out to make an original film in an industry that was filled with reboots and sequels, and it didn’t really turn out as well as he would have hoped.
While the movie was packed full of awesome badass visuals of women kicking ass, the story wasn’t really solid ,and a lot of critics and audiences didn’t care for the movie. One of the main reasons why a lot of people didn’t care for it was that they felt it was sexist.
If you’ve seen the movie, it’s not hard to see why people would feel that way about it. But Snyder feels like those people misinterpreted the movie. During an interview with Donnia Harrington at ComicBookDebate, Snyder explained:
“I’m always shocked that it was so badly misunderstood. I always said that it was a commentary on sexism and geek culture. Someone would ask me, ‘Why did you film the girls this way?’ And I’d say, ‘Well you did!’ Sucker Punch is a fuck you to a lot of people who will watch it.”
That’s an interesting statement. Is he putting the blame for the film’s content on geek culture because that’s what movie geeks wanted to see? Am I misinterpreting his statement? Look, I actually like Zack Snyder, but I’m really not quite sure what he’s trying to say here.
Was the movie made to make men want to look at the beautiful women being objectified as a commentary on men looking at women in an objectified way? And is the movie a “fuck you” to the people who liked it and liked looking at the girls, or the people calling it out for sexism? I’m confused.
Anyway, when the director was asked if he considered Sucker Punch to be a timely film, in particular “with the #MeToo movement and the themes of the film paralleling the experiences of assault survivors,” Snyder told the site that “it was liable to happen.”
Snyder went on to say that he hopes that one day his true director’s cut of the film will be released. Apparently Warner Bros. ”heavily altered Snyder’s original idea for Sucker Punch to make it more audience-friendly.” The filmmaker went on to say:
“To make them think they’ve had a great show, the movie got changed by the studio for the audience. The voiceover [in the beginning of the film] doesn’t address the actual injustices, but addresses the way the studio would want you to feel, and they don’t want to offend anybody. It’s self-empowering, but doesn’t challenge you the way it was supposed to.”
He went on to admit that he thought the voiceover was a “contrived post-production mechanism,” but that he agreed with the message, even if it was conventional.
I’m still not clear on what that message is, but if you have an idea of what Snyder is trying to convey in this interview, please feel free to share your thoughts below.