Things meant to be progressive just end up being incredibly offensive

[u/Character_Growth_397]

What If - In one of the comics Miles becomes Thor, and it's full of stereotypes about black people such as the Mjolnir having graffiti on it and the infamous "by Odin's fade"

Emilia Perez - Everything about the movie

[u/ViralGameover]

I feel this way about Promising Young Woman, but I understand others may interpret it differently.

A rape revenge story where we never see the victim of the crime, where the men who commit these kinds of crimes need nothing more than to be embarrassed, and where the only way to enact change is to martyr yourself and let Alfred Molina and the police save the day.

[u/CarlosH46 → u/ViralGameover]

Honestly not a bad perspective at all. I understand that the point of the movie was to show institutional, personal, and cultural biases that play such a huge part in perpetuating rape culture, but at the same time all of the revenge amounts to “look at what you did!” And then basically committing suicide instead of getting revenge some other way and moving on to advocate for victims or promote reform.

[u/sock_with_a_ticket → u/CarlosH46]

I'm pretty convinced that Emerald Fennel only has a career because she's rich and has connections having been to the right prestigious school and university, as did her father.

[u/teeno731 → u/ViralGameover]

Idk if this makes it better or worse, but the original ending had everyone get away with everything. The body is burned, and she told nobody where she was going. Maybe it would have hammered home the point that men get away with fucking everything, but I might have walked out of that theatre angrier than I was at the released version.

[u/Pinball_Lizard → u/teeno731]

It’s actually even more interesting because there were THREE endings considered: the “total downer” mentioned above, a “total triumph” ending where Cassie burns the rapists alive in their cabin, and the bittersweet middle ground they ultimately went with.

I can see multiple perspectives here: I think the ending they went with makes the most sense with Cassie’s character, focusing on more cerebral methods of revenge, so it seems odd to me that in the other two she seemingly had no plan to take down the people most responsible other than brute force.

On the other, I totally get that her backup plan being “fall back on the system that’s already betrayed me multiple times” seems weak. I did think the fact that she essentially solved her own murder from beyond the grave was cool though.

[u/Digresser → u/ViralGameover]

I think Promising Young Woman wanted to present a couple of different messages.

It wanted to look at all the different types of people who can be involved in having rape allegations, including credible allegations with evidence, dismissed--and the various motivations they might have for doing so.

I think the film succeeded with that message.

It also examined how the various fallouts of the miscarriage of justice: Nina killed herself, the lawyer had a breakdown, and Cassie's grief and rage resulted in her taking increasingly dangerous risks that culminated in her own brutal death.

With that message, I think the film wanted to have it both ways.

By repeatedly showing us how much Cassie's parents loved her, and by showing us how much "promise" Cassie never got to fulfill, we do get to see how the inability to move on from tragedy can create additional tragedies.

It also clearly painted the picture that revenge is usually not without significant cost.

But...it ALSO presented the idea that revenge can "right wrongs" and that, for some, it can be worth the cost it exacts.

Cassie went to the cabin to carve Nina's name into Al's flesh, but she was also prepared for the outcome that she wouldn't survive the experience. The film does suggest that the only form of justice Nina/Cassie would ever receive either came from Cassie resorting to cruelty/violence or, like you said, martyrdom.

As messages go, that one's a bit on the murkier side, but it IS definitely thought-provoking.

Personally, I wish they'd skipped the text messages at the end. Not only was it incredibly unrealistic that Cassie could have timed the messages to when the police arrived, but the texts shifted the film's ending from a complete tragedy to a more audience-satisfying "justice has been served" ending, and I think that slightly weakened the film's overarching themes and messages.

It left us with the idea that Cassie "won" but up until that point it was clear that no one involved "won"...it was all just various degrees of loss, and no one we saw lost more than Cassie did.

[u/Helpful_Top7823 → u/ViralGameover]

holy fuck thank you, I will die hating this movie. as a survivor it was incredibly triggering, especially since I thought I was watching a rape revenge fantasy movie that was campy & would end in the perpetrators' deaths (since that's what the trailer made it look like) & I was beyond pissed at the end.

then to find out the supposed reason for her dying in the end was "realism" - as if it's realistic for the feds to bust up a wedding to arrest a bunch of wealthy white men for sex crimes. yeah right!

[u/Pumpkin_Sushi → u/ViralGameover]

Its a two hour strawman comic, where every man she comes across is just dying to rape someone. Itd be comical if it weren't so obviously being played seriously.

[u/CoupDeGraceTyson → u/Pumpkin_Sushi]

I know you’re a straight guy. Probably white, but not necessarily. Just as many POC have the same views, but fewer have the audacity.

[u/fuckingstupidsdfsdf → u/ViralGameover]

You definitely missed the point. It's not supposed to show the way the world should be, it's a brutally dark and real depiction of the way the world is.

[u/ViralGameover → u/fuckingstupidsdfsdf]

I disagree. It’s not brutally dark or the way the world is. The movie lives in a fantasy land where this woman can pretend to be drunk, embarrass men who are trying to date rape her, and then present the audience with a police force that’s going to solve all the problems. Ending the movie with essentially “don’t worry, she got one over on them in the end, here come the boys in blue!!!” is wild.