SCOTT PILGRIM Vs THE WORLD
By Jen Patton
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is confusing, but not because of its fast choppy pace or because it’s jam-packed with videogame references. It’s confusing because it leaves the female viewer torn between enjoying a visually dynamic, funny, and quirky movie, and trying to negotiate the glaring flaws that are in exact opposition to that enjoyment. A conflict that arises in many genres, such as action, that are deemed a “boys’ club”.
Before we get into that, let’s look at a couple of elements already mentioned. Just a brief caveat - there are mild spoilers ahead, but nothing you can’t already see coming! Understanding the abundant videogame references will, of course, add more to the experience, but the non-gaming audience can comfortably get away with knowing little to none of the allusions, because, generally, it’s a crazy visual feast that throws so much at you that you just have to go with it.
The style is slick and punchy with precision editing and direction, and the juxtaposition of the everyday and baffling work remarkably well together, and you’re taking it all in your stride along with the characters. It loses momentum a little about halfway through though, when the ridiculously wonderful just starts being ridiculous and, at times, tedious. The choreography is excellent but the fights get less epic and entertaining as they go along.
The problem with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World doesn’t lie with its style or pop culture referencing, but rather its plot and underlining ideology. Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a twenty-something professional slacker who plays bass for the band Sex Bob-omb, and scrounges off his roommate (Kieran Culkin) and friends. He somehow manages to be effortlessly cool about everything, including dating high schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). That is until delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) speeds into his life on rollerblades, and who he becomes besotted with and ditches Knives for. But for Scott to continue dating Ramona he must first defeat her seven evil exes.
Hmm, where to begin taking that last sentence apart?
Ramona is, from the very beginning, portrayed as an object; literally she is the girl of Scott’s dreams which he has to get. Once he stalks and cajoles her into dating him, he learns that she has to be won like a prize by fighting her seven exes. If he loses? Well, she becomes someone else’s girlfriend…or is that Gideon’s pet? She has no agency or will of her own; she does not control her future or, it seems, her past.
It’s never really explained why Gideon (Jason Schwartzman), her latest ex, banded the others together, except to “control her love life”. This is everyone in Ramona’s sexual past, even if they kissed when they were kids or went out for a week – they all have power over her. Yet the landscape is strewn with Scott’s exes, both ones we know and those we hear of, and no-one is expected to confront them, Scott the least of all. Scott also leaves his exes worse for wear – he turned sweet Knives into a neurotic obsessive and Kim (Alison Pill) into a bitter shell, as he barely takes responsibility for leaving them without a second thought. Yet Ramona, who seems to have ended her relationships legitimately, has somehow turned everyone she ever dated evil? Doesn’t seem fair!
While some of these elements may go unnoticed by many, it’s impossible to avoid the treatment of the only ex without a Y chromosome, Roxy Richter (Mae Whitman). Scott is blindsided by Roxy, not just because of her super-speed and disappearing abilities, but because she’s a woman. It doesn’t occur to Scott at first that Ramona would have had a same-sex relationship, and when it comes to light, Ramona herself dismisses it as “experimenting”. Violence against women is not condonable, but despite the fact that Roxy is an adept and seemingly unstoppable fighter, and evil like the rest of the exes, Scott refuses to fight her because of her gender. At first Ramona fights Roxy herself, which begs the question why didn’t she do this with any of the other exes? She also fights with such anger and vehemence that you wonder if she’s fighting the idea of an unconventional sexual past. When Roxy points out that it must be Scott that defeats her, Ramona uses him as a puppet-like weapon instead in a supposedly ‘funny’ scene.
Scott defeats Roxy, not through his fighting skills, but by literally turning her on until she explodes. Female sexuality is seen as something that should be defeated, and is ultimately the downfall of virtually every woman in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
Is it possible to like and support style and aesthetic while rejecting the ideology behind it? It’s difficult to comfortably enjoy the wonderful elements of a movie like this while struggling with such huge discrepancies. If nothing else, it leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Rating:
Photos courtesy of Universal Pictures.
