Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Explication
Sydnee Hosler Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Explication
In Cormack and Brickey’s article “Constituting the Violence of Criminalized Women,” they reveal the underlying terms “victim,” “mad,” and “bad” to be associated with violent women, in this case seen as otherwise “troubled” individuals. This diagnosis does not support the complexity and traumatic experiences in which these women have faced that make them seem more “crazy” than men, as most women are seen if they do not follow the rules of being “ladylike”. The film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo uses a new form of the female gaze that threatens every gender stereotype that the media and cinematography has socially constructed. The character Lisbeth Salander perfectly executes this rebellion as she grabs your attention with her “crazy,” and does it well. Lisbeth Salander is more than “crazy” because of her inabilities to be “social”. She is seen as a danger to those around her and therefore has been a ward of the state since she was 12 years of age. In order to work the system that is repeatedly working her, she fights back in her own ways, which are socially constructed as insane measures. As we see in the readings from Cormack and Brickey, the construction of women as ‘‘victims’’ has been converted into a mental-health issue” (pg. 7). She uses her perceived insanity to take care of business, in this case her guardian. After being assigned a new guardian, she quickly learns that her money will not be hers unless she does what he asks. His requests are that she provides him something and she will receive her money, this exchange consisted of receiving a blow-job in his office and giving her a check for her needs after. This later turned into a brutal rape as Lisbeth thought she was going to give another blow-job in exchange for more money. Being the intelligent investigator she is, she planned to record the sexual assault of the blow-job, unaware of just how “sick” he was. She
In Cormack and Brickey’s article “Constituting the Violence of Criminalized Women,” they reveal the underlying terms “victim,” “mad,” and “bad” to be associated with violent women, in this case seen as otherwise “troubled” individuals. This diagnosis does not support the complexity and traumatic experiences in which these women have faced that make them seem more “crazy” than men, as most women are seen if they do not follow the rules of being “ladylike”. The film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo uses a new form of the female gaze that threatens every gender stereotype that the media and cinematography has socially constructed. The character Lisbeth Salander perfectly executes this rebellion as she grabs your attention with her “crazy,” and does it well. Lisbeth Salander is more than “crazy” because of her inabilities to be “social”. She is seen as a danger to those around her and therefore has been a ward of the state since she was 12 years of age. In order to work the system that is repeatedly working her, she fights back in her own ways, which are socially constructed as insane measures. As we see in the readings from Cormack and Brickey, the construction of women as ‘‘victims’’ has been converted into a mental-health issue” (pg. 7). She uses her perceived insanity to take care of business, in this case her guardian. After being assigned a new guardian, she quickly learns that her money will not be hers unless she does what he asks. His requests are that she provides him something and she will receive her money, this exchange consisted of receiving a blow-job in his office and giving her a check for her needs after. This later turned into a brutal rape as Lisbeth thought she was going to give another blow-job in exchange for more money. Being the intelligent investigator she is, she planned to record the sexual assault of the blow-job, unaware of just how “sick” he was. She