Definitely Not Another Analysis of Gender Politics in Scott Pilgrim

I’m a feminist and I really liked Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Its stylization was so exciting and fresh it was hard for me to muster any criticism of Edgar Wright’s work. I felt like, as in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, he had given me something I had never seen before, and that he had clearly enjoyed doing so. It’s hard to find fault in something that evokes this sort of delight.

However, I do understand the many concerns of the writers who have expressed distaste for the film’s gender politics. Yes, this film totally bombs the Bechdel test and neatly shelves character development of women in order to focus more on rock music and video games.

I would like to point out, though, that none of the characters are particularly well-developed besides Scott. Wallace is lovable, but being gay and seductive does not constitute a full character. The rest of the band? Um, Young Neil seems like his one purpose is to eventually slide into Scott’s place in the band. As for the lead singer, I don’t even remember his name, but I do know that he’s a hunk. Cool.

I think that what many analysts are missing is that the shoddy character development is part of Wright’s point. Scott thinks he is the Protagonist of Everything. He is our first person shooter character, our hero, our pilgrim. The point is that he knows it. The humor comes from the fact that his life is sort of lame, despite his epic take on it. A working title for the movie, according to IMDB, was Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. An unemployed twenty-something who can only cook garlic bread and has no aspirations but dating a local high school girl? Yup, that’s precious and little. But Scott still behaves as the protagonist, just like all of the other characters do within their own claustrophobic story lines (Stacey gossips instead of legitimately helping Scott, Knives doesn’t notice that Scott’s losing interest, the band signs on with Gideon…). Moral-of-the-story-alert: we’re all just like Scott. We see the minor characters the same was that Scott does; they’re likable and in one-dimension.

Wright attempts to convince us that we need to be mindful of this egocentric world view; we’re all protagonists who unwittingly inflict emotional trauma on our supporting casts, trauma that is accentuated by the victims who also see themselves as protagonists. In other words, it’s always “Myself vs. the World,” and not “Myself and My Precious Little Life.”

Scott is not dueling exes to win Ramona from them as some writers have suggested, he is fighting through Ramona’s bad relationship history to get to her. Anytime we start dating someone, we’re up against that person’s romantic history. Despite not knowing the situation, we must prove that we are better than all of our predecessors. Ramona says multiple times that she’s eager to date a nice guy finally, but she’s going to need to see that Scott is the person she’s making him out to be.

She doesn’t want to make Scott jump through hoops to prove himself, but because she knows she’s been irresponsible in the past and because she’s demonized her exes it’s what’s going to happen. This is why he’s doing the fighting and not her; he has to prove himself worthy of being a “main character” in Ramona’s plot, unfair as it may be.

This is also why Scott’s final tool is self-respect and not love, and why Scott must battle himself last. In the end, the Self is the most important, but only in that we come to terms with our histories and strive to be compassionate, good people–that is, not egocentric protagonists but enlightened ones–in order to be capable of healthy love.

A fabulous article in The Awl by Mike Barthel explains the tensions between the book and the movie best, especially its discomfort with females, but I think everyone, including Barthel, was so quick to judge the film as simply a retelling of the comic that they may have missed Wright’s riff on the comic’s themes. Consider another excerpt from Barthel’s piece:

Any narrative [put into film format] has to be cut to the bone; any visual element included for aesthetic purposes necessarily obscures a gesture or a shot that could have revealed something about character or context. And these huge differences between movies and comics speak back to Scott Pilgrim‘s central message about the power of pop culture to shape our understanding of the world.

What does it say about our film industry, Bryan Lee O’Malley’s work, or Wright’s remix of the work that there was no place for depth of character here? I see this as critique, perhaps an unwitting one, on how our interaction with moralistic hero journeys work. No one’s reading The Illiad or The Odyssey anymore, but we’ll watch the movies if Brad Pitt runs around naked in them. Perhaps our culture’s current relationship with art leaves no room for anything but the egocentric worldview Scott holds in the beginning.

Or, maybe our discomfort with Wright’s lack of characterization shows that we already learned the lesson Scott needed. Maybe our world views are becoming decentralized enough that this sort of thing is bothersome, at least on screen.

I’m happy with this justification, although I do have one source of agitation in particular. There is one scene that totally perplexed me on the feminist front: Scott vs. Roxy, Ramona’s foray into homosexual relations. I’m having a hard time working it out.

1. Why does Ramona get involved? I mean, why now? I think it may be because Scott and she just got into a fight; by taking her on, she’s showing Scott that they’re in this together, that she wants him to work through her history. It’s also sort of cute, reminiscent of him and Knives rocking the arcade fights together. Maybe because she didn’t really take Roxy that seriously, so she can justify Scott’s superiority over her more easily?
2. “Um, I don’t think I can hit a girl.” That just seems like an entirely stupid line. I wish it wasn’t there. First of all, let’s just say it: you can hit girls in video games, no questions asked. Even Mortal Kombat was game for that. Secondly, I think this line is just sort of bait for the feminist rantings Wright has been facing. He should have seen that coming. Finally, I would have been able to let it go if Scott was sufficiently comforted enough to jump into battle. However, Ramona needs to hold his hand (so to speak) throughout the next few minutes of violence. This whole thing is exacerbated by the fact that…
3. Roxy is defeated by climaxing to death. What. “You will never be able to do this to her!” she squeals. Okay, I’m familiar with the literary connection between death and a chick’s orgasm, but this just seemed weird and, again, bait for the feminists Wright must have known could have interpreted his movie the wrong way. How come the chick ex doesn’t get “pwn3d” properly? What does it say that Scott’s first proactive motion in the battle, which happens with help from Ramona, is a tap on the back of her knee. What does it say that this is what kills her?

Weird, weird, weird. I have no idea.