Feminists

Judith Butler argues in Precarious Life that whose dead bodies we are allowed to see, and whose remain hidden, tell us something about which lives are understood to be grievable, mournable; about which lives count as lives. At one point in Dragon Tattoo a cat is killed, its mutilated body left on the front steps. Almost everyone in the theater gasped when the cat’s body was on screen. People turned away, horrified. I did, too. I’m trained. But when the screen was filled with photographs of a woman—raped, naked, her mutilated face unrecognizable—no one made a sound.

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The main character, Lisbeth Salander, is raped twice in the film. In the first, Lisbeth is forced to engage in oral sex, which, according to the Department of Justice’s new definition, counts as rape. During the second, which is even more brutal, the discomfort in the theater was palpable. I was uncomfortable, not only because I was terrified by watching someone raped, but because it was unclear what I was supposed to make of the violence. It was unclear what kind of gaze the camera was asking me to assume.

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He knows how to create tension with clothed characters, which is apparent not only in the films already mentioned, but also in Seven, Alien 3, and Panic Room, among others. For example, when Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is captured by the serial killer and hung in the torture basement, he isn’t naked. He gets to keep his pants on, and he’s rescued the minute the knife-wielding killer starts to unbutton them.

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Earlier this week, just days after seeing the movie, I walked by the magazine rack of my local grocery and saw Rooney Mara on the cover of Allure magazine. The caption: “The Girl with the Pierced Nipple.” Granted, fashion magazines are seldom known for their courageous stands, but the caption could have said any number of things. The Woman Against Rape or The Woman Who Kicks Ass or The Woman Who Fights Back—I’d even settle for A Girl Who Fights Back. But nipple piercing? Really? When there’s all that other material?

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also, if you look at the pictures advertising this movie, she is unclothed. the male character, clothed. she is sexualized in all the art.