candydog wrote:
I didn't ask what YOU would do. I asked if you honestly thought a male character would be allowed to punch a female character in the same scene. Do you really think that a film studio would put such a thing in a movie, and do you think that audiences would be as accepting of it as they apparently were of Anna punching Hans?
As for how I would change things? Well there's a number of ways. I mean first of all, at this point in the movie Hans has been defeated. And also, let's be honest, Anna is back in the Kingdom, she's a Princess and her sister is the Queen. She could have taken the high road, risen above what Hans said and at the snap of her fingers she could have had him arrested by every guard in the palace. So there. That's how I would have changed it. She could have even told him to his face that he can't get to her anymore. Much classier than a punch in my opinion.
Well, this is all highly speculative...
Certainly the studio would be far less comfortable with the idea of a man punching a woman. It's just the way things are that male-on-female violence, domestic or otherwise, is more prevalent than its inverse, that the male of the species generally tends to be larger and stronger than the female, and that women have more to fear from the possibility and actuality of physical attack.
Anna doesn't seem the personality to take the classier/high road option--she's impulsive and impetuous; turning him over to the guards would be more in line with Elsa's character. Hans tried to kill her sister through imprisonment and further inaction, and--far more proactively--tried to strike Anna dead with a weapon, so deck in the nose is hardly a commensurate response in spite of its violence. Ultimately, though, these aren't real people: they're imaginary characters in a fictional narrative that allows for magical powers and living inanimate objects, all of it represented by computer-generated pixels and sprites. The real point is that this is *art*, a prime purpose of which is to provide emotional release through catharsis. We can argue for the rest of the year if it was *right* choice, but the creators felt that the unexpected and visceral choice was more likely to release the audience's accumulated tension. Hermione didn't *have* to punch Draco, either, but he was a conniving, slimy, dangerous little @$$hat, and he deserved it, so when that unexpected moment came along, we (or at least the vast majority of folks with whom I've seen the film) *laughed*. We want comeuppance, a satisfaction than justice is being served, and in both these instances the point is really far more about the indignity the villain must suffer than the physical violence.
But if a chick is a giant octopod creature or can turn into a dragon, it's perfectly acceptable to kill her outright. = )
