Final Essay
FGSS1104
Will Stange
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a Must!
It was, famously, the first of Stieg Larsson’s final novel series. “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” gave way to a thrilling literary and film trilogy of contemporary heroism and counterculture mystique. Lisbeth Salander, the novel’s subject, is different from other heroines. She wears almost exclusively black clothing, has multiple facial piercings and died jet-black hair. She’s exactly the type of girl you would never want to take home to mom, if she let you, (she wouldn’t). Lisbeth is a product of a tragic childhood accident that killed both of her parents and left her in the care of misogynistic caretakers. She is a symbol of the kind of destructive power man …show more content…
p144). It is strange to say Salander displays any emotion, but she does empathize with fellow victims. In both the Swedish and American version of the movie her character shows disgust at the discovery of each successive victim of the novel’s serial killer. From this empathy she develops a sense of her own justice, “concealing information from the police” just like Nancy Drew, and takes over to enact her own private revenge. Neil Bjurmann, her financial advisor, rapes Salander on their third encounter. Her response after tying him to a bedpost and shoving a dildo up his ass is that “keep in mind that I’m crazy, won’t you?” before tattooing the phrase ‘I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST’ across his chest (Larsson 262). This would be the only text in our syllabus in which a woman gets back at her male oppressor directly, arguably equally, and without the aid of a ‘Daddy …show more content…
In Cagney and Lacey’s “Burn Out” we are given one female detective who works equally with her male partner and another who cannot handle finishing one extra assignment before her allowed break. Why should we be given a text that gives two contradicting views of feminism? Lacey breaks down while Cagney keeps working. A woman can handle herself on an extra assignment just as well as a man! If our goal as feminists is to show women equal to men in society, why give an example of a woman’s breakdown? Lisbeth and “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” are all about the empowerment of women as a response to their exploitation. Cagney and Lacey just give an example of that exploitation. We had enough of that in Trifles and our variations on Bluebeard. Give us a text that shows us something and does something with it, not just one that shows us
FGSS1104
Will Stange
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a Must!
It was, famously, the first of Stieg Larsson’s final novel series. “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” gave way to a thrilling literary and film trilogy of contemporary heroism and counterculture mystique. Lisbeth Salander, the novel’s subject, is different from other heroines. She wears almost exclusively black clothing, has multiple facial piercings and died jet-black hair. She’s exactly the type of girl you would never want to take home to mom, if she let you, (she wouldn’t). Lisbeth is a product of a tragic childhood accident that killed both of her parents and left her in the care of misogynistic caretakers. She is a symbol of the kind of destructive power man …show more content…
p144). It is strange to say Salander displays any emotion, but she does empathize with fellow victims. In both the Swedish and American version of the movie her character shows disgust at the discovery of each successive victim of the novel’s serial killer. From this empathy she develops a sense of her own justice, “concealing information from the police” just like Nancy Drew, and takes over to enact her own private revenge. Neil Bjurmann, her financial advisor, rapes Salander on their third encounter. Her response after tying him to a bedpost and shoving a dildo up his ass is that “keep in mind that I’m crazy, won’t you?” before tattooing the phrase ‘I AM A SADISTIC PIG, A PERVERT, AND A RAPIST’ across his chest (Larsson 262). This would be the only text in our syllabus in which a woman gets back at her male oppressor directly, arguably equally, and without the aid of a ‘Daddy …show more content…
In Cagney and Lacey’s “Burn Out” we are given one female detective who works equally with her male partner and another who cannot handle finishing one extra assignment before her allowed break. Why should we be given a text that gives two contradicting views of feminism? Lacey breaks down while Cagney keeps working. A woman can handle herself on an extra assignment just as well as a man! If our goal as feminists is to show women equal to men in society, why give an example of a woman’s breakdown? Lisbeth and “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” are all about the empowerment of women as a response to their exploitation. Cagney and Lacey just give an example of that exploitation. We had enough of that in Trifles and our variations on Bluebeard. Give us a text that shows us something and does something with it, not just one that shows us