Throughout the past few weeks of class, especially in
relation to the Kitty Pryde discussion, we discussed the children characters
within a comic book. Thinking back to 2010 when a movie came out with a very
strong title: “Kick Ass”. One of the
main characters within the Kick Ass movie is a 10 year old murderer of
criminals. “Kick Ass” was originally a comic that came out in 2008, into 2010
it was adapted into a movie under the same title. Hit girl is the most
emotionless, completely cut-throat (sometimes literally) character within both
the movie and comic. Hit Girl’s mother was murdered by criminals and therefore
her father, aka Big Daddy, allows her to fight alongside him avenging her
mother’s death by killing many criminals.
Hit
girl has been trained to kill, she has a keen interest in weapons and has much
knowledge of them, and she is also a brutal fighter for being such a small
child. Hit Girl is often described as handling death well, in one of the last
scenes of the comic/movie, Kick Ass (the
main character and crime fighter as well) tells Hit Girl that Big Daddy has
been murdered to which she responds, “Finish the job, mourn later”. Hit Girl
does not allow her emotions to get the best of her, but rather fights off any
feelings that may occur for she attempts to keep a strong face throughout the
hardships.
Hit
Girl is very grown up for her young age. She is often times a very good killer
for people do not expect someone so innocent and young to have the potential to
kill without a second thought. One could argue that this is not an acceptable childhood
and when the movie came out, church groups did just this, they protested the
film for they believed it was child abuse to not only the character hit girl,
but also to the young actor playing her. So now I pose the question to you all:
Does this character Hit Girl make you uncomfortable? Or can you put her age and
gender aside and see her as merely another comic book character?
I have attached two scenes the first is between Hit Girl and Big Daddy, wherein he teaches her the lesson of getting shot.
The second clip is a short snippet of Hit Girl in a fight scene.
I haven't watched Kick Ass but from the second clip, Hit Girl seems very gory and aggressive. But since both her mother and father were murdered, her violent disposition is justifiable. I think Hit Girl is a strong character who can fend for herself. Another movie that also reminded me of the issue of age, gender, and violence, is the movie Hanna. This movie also focuses on a young girl who is trained to be an assassin by her father. I thought that both in both movies both Hit Girl and Hanna are in similar situations
ReplyDeleteI have not seen Kick Ass or Hanna, but as I watched these scenes, I was really surprised with the blatant aggression and gory murders Hit Girl carried out without having any emotional reaction whatsoever. I think it is most surprising for me because she is still a young child when her parents were assassinated in the same way that she is also emotionlessly assassinating others. At such a young age, she still needs her parents as her guardians, so one would think that their deaths would have a much more profound impact on her. Her actions seem unnatural for a child, especially for a child that has gone through all of that. Although her physical strength and heartless acts of violence can cause her to be portrayed as a strong character, this makes me wonder where exactly the fine line between “emotionally stable” and “just not right” is drawn.
ReplyDeleteI find it disturbing that a child could commit actions like this, the gender of the child being irrelevant. However, it could be interpreted that this emotional shutdown is a response because she was not able to handle the emotional baggage attached with the murder of her mother. It was too much, making it easier to shut feeling off instead of feeling pain.
ReplyDeleteAs a comic character, it is reasonable that she challenge society's expectations in a dramatic, sellable way. It intrigues people that child could turn into a character like Hit Girl, and that sells comics/movies.