Oz: The Great and Powerful (and everything I hate about gender stereotypes in movies).

If you’ve heard me rant about strong women on TV, you know I have a huge (massive, epic even) ax to grind when it comes to how women are written for the screen.  I mean, really, do all women have to fawn over men who treat them badly?  Do women have to be good to get the guy?  And on, and on, and on. I’d heard that the new Oz movie wasn’t particularly good and not to expect too much from it.  That’s okay, we were really only going to the theater as a treat for the kids, I could lower my expectations accordingly.  I wasn’t prepared for how intensely bad the writing was.  For your edification, let me count the ways:

A kingdom full of intensely powerful witches really can’t handle crap for themselves.  They need a powerful, male, wizard to come straighten things out for them.
The protagonist is a shallow and selfish egomaniac who has never done anything good for anyone, even his best friend. Yet the audience is clearly expected to identify with and applaud this absolute nimrod.  Why?  Because of his roguish grin?  Because he’s attractive?  Because for three nanoseconds he shows signs of having a conscience?  I don’t understand why men in film get incredible license to be absolute jerkfaces that their mother would be embarrassed to call their own but audiences still cheer for them- but what do you call a woman who is that selfish and ignorant of the consequences of her actions?
All of the women fawn over this selfish brat.  Even the smartest woman in the film, Glinda the “good”, is completely reliant on him and ends up falling for him.  (Even though when she first meets him, she says she knows that he’s a selfish liar.)
Do we really need another movie whose romantic plot boils down to a selfish man who leaves a chain of broken hearts in his wake with no thought to consequences just needing someone good, pure, and innocent to believe in his better nature so that he ultimately becomes a better man?  What’s the moral there?  Your actions don’t have consequences because when the right one comes along you’ll be different?  And girls, it doesn’t matter how much of a rat a guy is, your love can change him?
It’s not like it’s a redemption story.  Oz becomes all powerful by using the same cheats and sleight of hand that he always did, but do we ever know that he does it for a different reason than what he always had?  Did he do it to be good, or to become more powerful?
There’s a dual story arc I find troubling.  Oz, the character, is selfish and self-serving and is ultimately rewarded with a kingdom.  The two evil sister-witches are selfish and self-serving, and are rewarded by being made ugly and exiled from society.  Whaaaaat?  It’s okay to be selfish, as long as you’re male.
Glinda’s power is being good, and she shoots rainbows and bubbles.  In the Oz universe this is logical.  But in the real world, how far does sweetness and innocence get a girl?  Maybe this is just me being jaded, but the fantasy can only be taken so far, and the trope of the sweet innocent girl’s love changing the jaded heart of the bad boy is so done.  Plus, her goodness wasn’t enough to protect her people  by itself.  She needed a man who cheated and tricked others in order to stay safe.  Wonderful.

Okay, okay, so it’s a fantasy movie.  And, to an extent, it had to be faithful to the fantasy it precedes.  Everyone knows that Oz is a trickster and Glinda is good and on and on.  Okay, so there’s that.  Did they have to make this movie?

But I can only be so bitter. It gave me something to get my blood boiling for an afternoon, and the heaving bosoms were glittery and abundant, so that’s always nice in a film.

le sigh.