Like many American parents, I've seen/endured all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. (My humble, untrained opinion is that the first was good, the second one poor, the third one marginal).

I'm accustomed to the standard in TV and movies that we can kill lots and lots of people and it's OK, as long as the people are not women or children. However, even taking this into consideration, Pirates 2 and to a lesser extent Pirates 3 take male disposability to an extreme.

There is a lot of senseless, pointless bloodshed--killing of men--in both movies, so much that even my dulled sensibilities were a little offended. Stands are made and battles are fought with little reason, or with tacit acceptance that it's OK that a lot of men are going to die to serve very narrow interests. Nobody seems to notice or care that tons of pirates and British soldiers are being killed.

One of the few (if only) times we take note of people being killed is a powerful scene at the beginning of Pirates 3, when hundreds of pirates--including some women and children--are being hanged by the British.

Did anybody else see the movie that way?

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 11:29 am and is filed under Men and the Media, Sexism, Gender Issues (Misc.), Advertising, TV, Movies & Gender. You can trackback from your own site.