Damsel: Immoral, Tropey, Nonsensical Girl Boss Trash

Black woman here. There’s nothing that takes me out of a European fantasy story faster than showing random black people sprinkled in with no explanation. Instead of focusing on the story, I immediately begin thinking about how this world or population came to be…and the more I think about it, the more I’m PUNISHED for it.

I did love how she chose to save a murderous dragon, but let her father die who, despite his mistake, actually risked his life to try and save her. What a horrible character.

"Oh you can accept magic, hobbits and an evil sentient ring, but not Honda Civic cavalry? racist."

The major plot hole: The dragon can identify the lineage of her enemy by the smell of their blood. She also knew that the king from another kingdom she killed was the father of the princess she was hunting. By that logic, she should have smelled the king's blood and realize there and then that she's been fooled by the actual king/queen of the land.

It's funny that Shrek did this whole trope subversion with Fiona better over 20 years ago. Fiona was also a great character in her own right.

Every time we think we have hit rock bottom, Hollywood drops a nuke down the mineshaft and reveals a new cavern of concentrated cringe and hate.

You know what's fucked up? Every time arranged marriages are explored in a narrative, they're almost universally portrayed as a sacrifice for the woman, but not for the man. Like men don't also desire a relationship of mutual love, respect, and support.

>Modern Day "Did God paint you?" riots for 5 months

"I should not have sold my DVD collection" that hit hard

This movie is what happens when you try to do "subversion" but end up doing all the tropes everyone's tired of

Writer 1: "I want a Mary Sue. But I don't want to get called out on it." Writer 2: "Have her get hurt. A little burn is all it should take to shield us from that criticism." W1: "Brilliant! But the thought that I, I mean she, might be diminished in some way while showing how awesome women are doesn't sit right with my entitlement." W2: "Magic healing slugs. That way, we can claim she struggled and still have no lasting consequences." W1: 😃

Damsel is such a perfect summation of what streaming has become. It's empty, can be played in the background while you doomscroll and you still fully understand it, and exists mostly for the people involved to pat themselves on the back about their superior virtues. 42:45 Nook of No-Tagsies is gold

i love that point. writers always trying to make movies "that reflect the modern world" but what they actually mean is make movies that reflect downtown L.A.

The plot point of a dragon being upset that someone killed her babies isn’t even original - Dragonslayer did it much better more than 40 years ago. Galen is justified in killing the baby dragons - they’ve just killed the princess and are currently eating her corpse, so they clearly pose a threat to him as well. But the movie takes a moment to show Vermithrax realizing her children are dead, and then becoming enraged in her grief. (And that’s really saying something, since Vermithrax was a stop-motion puppet and even a short scene like that would have taken days to film.)

I will admit. A survival horror movie about a girl trying to avoid being a sacrifice to a dragon sounds awesome on paper. Or the premise of a virgin sacrifice winning the dragon over to her side for some revenge. What doesn't work is fusing both concepts together with woke glue and creating an abomination I'd like to call wasted potential

"Damsel" is an "updated for modern audiences" version of 1981's "Dragonslayer." And nothing says, "it's going to be awful" more than the phrase "updated for modern audiences." "Dragonslayer" had good effects for its era, nice performances by Peter MacNicol and the legendary Sir Ralph Richardson, and "strong, independent female characters" such as Caitlin Clarke's "Valerian" and Chloe Salaman's "Princess Elspeth." No agenda. No "The Message." No identity politics. It's just a fairly entertaining film about honor, courage, sacrifice, magic, and a dragon. That modern Hollywood turned it into vapid, predictable, morally relativist, bean-counting, feminist pandering dreck by "updating" it is just part of a very depressing trend.

The "Screw", being a public servant who doesn't like his job but feels his sense of duty, does more for society than Damsel.

I love how someone got thrown into the cave, survived the fall and then while running from a fire breathing dragon, found what she believed to be an exit, decided to then go back into the cave to draw a map and sign it. truly stunning and brave.

The explanation of the expense of horses in medival times cant be understated. It cracks me up when shows depicting that time frame just have random horses available whenever, at anytime, for free

Despot, Please release your full analysis of Scum as a standalone video. The smash cuts back to the fem-fantasy were hilarious, and more jarringly effective because I was riveted to the analysis of the themes in Scum. Every time we went back to fem-fantasy my mind started wandering because, as you have pointed out, we’ve see current-year trash many times.