Kick Ass: Creating the Comic, Making The Movie

Oh Kick Ass, we hardly knew ye. I'm still depressed about the marketing campaign, the opening weekend, the subsequent significant drop off, and just about all that sadness. But I am holding out hope for success on DVD and maybe even sequel that will open limited initially, and be screened less often, as should have been the case with the first film. I recently took a peek inside Mark Millar's making-of book entitled Kick-Ass, Creating the Comic, Making the Movie, which many sites gave away in contests last month, and a peek led to essentially reading the entire book cover to cover. The book made me love the movie even more and I thought a little post on the matter would be fitting.

First off, this making-of book isn't like the cheapo, I can find that info anywhere, why are you wasting my time, making-of books that I see most often. This book is different because it came directly from the source, from Mark Millar, author of Kick Ass, the comic, who has had a hand in the movie since day 1, as the comic and the film were developed simultaneously. The book provides as much of a back story for the comic as it does the movie, which is pretty awesome. It feels completely comprehensive. It even goes into the guerilla marketing for the *comic*, which is the kind of thing that would normally never have a place in a making-of book, but is completely fascinating. We even get email exchanges between Millar & director, Matthew Vaughan from throughout the entire process. One of my favorite bits was learning about how, to raise money for the comic, Mark Millar held a contest - whoever donates the most money (auction style) gets to name the main character. And who won? Yup. Dave Lizewski. 3000 bucks and his name is immortalized in both comic & movie history. Pretty badass.

The book also gets incredibly specific when it comes to commentary. You have comments from Jane Goldman (the screenwriter) on Dave Lizewski, Matthew Vaughan on casting Aaron Johnson, Clark Duke on Being a Fan, John Romita Jr on designing Dave, costume designer Sammy Sheldon on the costume for the movie (complete with comic design to film design in sketch form to film design on the actors for every costume in the movie), Nic Cage on being inspired by Adam West, Mark Millar on Fanboys, so on and so forth. And everything I had questions about got answered - why did Big Daddy's motivations change from comic to movie, who the sketches of the random "villains" were on Big Daddy's, wall, how did Johnson get the part when they specifically wanted an American, and the list goes on. Plus the book is large and filled with pretty pictures, organized effectively, which I always appreciate. Here's what the book says it contains:

-Millar's early comic book script pages
-Eye-popping romita art, including new pages especially drawn for the movie
-Exclusive contributions from the cast and crew
-Hundreds of movie photos, sketches, storyboard and pieces of production art

Correct!

The only thing that sucks about this book? It's a cruel reminder of the potential of Kick Ass that was squandered by Lionsgate's shitty campaign. The last few pages are on Volume 2 & the sequel to the movie. A sequel sure seemed definite when the book was published, but despite announcements otherwise, I'm not so sure we'll be seeing that hit theaters.

But if you're a fan of the film, you should definitely pick up this book. I read the damn thing cover to cover and it's LARGE. And then I dropped it in my pool. And now it's all fucked up and warped and I might have to buy another one. But that's another story for another time.

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In Defense of Hit-Girl

Since Kick-Ass was released in theaters, there's been a lot of swirling hubbub about Hit-Girl- her place in cinema, her place in feminism, her place in the film. It's an interesting debate, since the space she's occupying is unique in Western cinema.

There is a wonderful article about the phenomenon of ass-kicking pre-pubescents over at a wonderful blog, The Mystery of Girl's Media, and I'm going to touch slightly on some of that here, but you should give it a read.

One of the comments about Hit-Girl's ease of disposing of other humans is that it seems indicative that she will become a serial killer. I don't think Hit-Girl is going to turn into a serial killer. Especially now that she's going to be acclimated to life as a normal kid and has a supposedly strong father figure, who was her father figure before, who she trusts and loves and who apparently believes in the value and the power of the law (or else he wouldn't have stayed a cop). In the first place, serial killers aren't trained to be serial killers. They are innately serial killers. They're not carefully taught to torture animals and derive sexual gratification from torture and dismemberment. It's readily apparent in most case studies that there is something about a serial killer that is exceptional and usually off from a very early age. At no point are we shown that Hit-Girl has a built-in disdain for human life or a hatred for older men. She has a massive daddy complex, sure, but guess what: So do lots of girls.

She does, however, enjoy violence. But enjoying a bit o'the ol' ultra violence does not a serial killer make, not by default.

What's interesting about Hit-Girl is that she has ZERO sexuality. NONE. Even the winks and nods to male fantasy tropes amount to zero in effectiveness because she doesn't have it, it's not there. The blown kiss, the school girl uniform. She's not cashing in on the lust of the men around her, she's using her own guilelessness to make them uncomfortable or lure them into underestimating her.  The doorman doesn't let her in to screw her, he lets her in so she can use his phone to find her mommy and daddy. They don't want to do her, they want to pat her on the head and give her a cookie, or shoo her away. She doesn't count, until she's stabbing them.

Back to a prior talking point, she enjoys violence, something girls, especially little ones, aren't supposed to do. People are up in arms over a little girl using that language and liking weapons and being violent, but to be honest, I think that's better than the picture she herself painted (over sundaes with her dad at the bowling alley) of an alternate 11-yr old's reality. One where she wants to own and idolizes Bratz dolls, and is taught through Miley Cyrus videos that the best thing to be is sexy and available to boys. A girl is just as likely to become a hooker from playing with Bratz dolls as she is a serial killer from playing violent video games- in fact, the social imperative to bombard girls with images that tell her she is supposed to be hyper sexualized make the former a much more likely prospect than the latter.

Album cover
and Nickelodeon
Broadcast
Performance.













I've been babysitting a girl from age 7 to age 9 and I have tremendous difficulty dealing with that aspect of her world. That said, while, yes, killing people is bad, in the grand scheme of morality, I sorta think it's cooler to be killing violent drug users in your teen years than getting pressured into having sex or doing sexual acts with boys. ...have I mentioned lately that I'm completely well balanced and normal? I am. I swear.

Interesting fact 3: She hasn't been sexually abused. In WESTERN cinema, I would challenge you to find a young girl fighter character, particularly one who ever dons a school girl uniform to kill people, who wasn't either sexually abused or the object of sexual desire for her mentor. Yes, Hit-Girl has been abused, by having her childhood replaced by grueling, painful, dangerous training at the hands of an obsessed father. However, he has real affection for her. They drink hot chocolate with marshmallows. And he isn't sexually interested in her. Leon in the Professional is kind to Mathilda, but wants her, though he is a moral enough person not to act on the desire. Big Daddy does not think of Mindy in those terms, which is a revolutionary aspect to that character outside of, well, Japan, and even Japanese school girl killers are largely fetishized (see: Kite).

The biggest problem with the character is that the film is constructed in a way that has the audience too busy cheering her on for anyone to mourn how tragic she is. There just isn't time, and even if there were, it's all a bit candy colored and kinetic for it. A half a scene with her ex-legal guardian telling Big Daddy something we already know- this isn't a childhood, and Mindy deserves one- doesn't quite do the trick. We're watching a little girl who's been turned into murderer hack'nslash her way across the kind of ordinance Spike Spiegel would have had difficulty with. But I was reveling in the action of it, not heartsick over what she was going through. So it's an interesting push and pull.

Ultimately, Hit-Girl has created a template for future girl fighters- ones that aren't being grabbed, groped, oggled. Ones that don't kill men after they've attempted rape, but just because it's their job, or their opponent is a bad guy.  It may be charged with all kinds of controversy, but the fact that Hit-Girl's character, power, and appeal doesn't revolve around her or anyone else's sexuality is in fact the biggest step a female action hero (or anti-hero, or participant, in the least) has taken in some time.

Stop back in three days, when we talk about why The Losers was fun but Aisha was a wasted opportunity.

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Things That Are True: I Am Buying These

I want to be Hit-Girl and I want to marry (...yes...marry...not anything less virtuous than that....of course not...) Kick Ass so it seems only natural that I buy these figures for myself. Though the smart thing to do would be to wait until Comic Con so I can make a point of going to the Entertainment Earth booth to buy them w/o shipping costs and because I love having "Toy Goals" at Comic Con. I'll get there during preview night and get meself a pack before the other 129,999 people get a chance to pick one up and I'll immediately take them out of the box (an important lesson I learned, courtesy of @BurnettRM - toys are meant to be taken out of the box!) and set them up with my Nite Owl, mask-less Rorshach, Tarantino as a Crazy 88, Joker bobble-head and my army of mini-mates. Oh and my custom made Daniel Faraday unpainted action figure WHAT HOW COULD I NOT ORDER THAT?!

Click below to be awesome and pre-order now!

Order Kick-Ass 6-Inch Action Figure Set from Entertainment Earth!

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