SSC Film Studies

Kick-Ass

"giving girls and female viewers heroes that they can relate to (symbolically if not physically) and for showing girls that they don’t need a strong male hero to lean on, that it’s possible to stand strong on their own."

When Kick-Ass goes and tries to convince Katie's ex-boyfriend to stay away from Katie he gets in a situation that is too big for him and Kick-Ass nearly gets killed but Hit-Girl comes in a saves Kick-Ass's life.

When Kick-Ass goes into the flat to stop Katie's ex-boyfriend the non-diagetic music is very serious connoting Kick-Ass's intentions and how serious he is. But when Hit-Girl comes into save Kick-Ass the non-diagetic music turns into very happy and playful non-diagetic music. This shows the innocence of Hit-girl and shows how young she really is but this also shows her experience in the field of stopping the bad guys and that she is that good and experienced at it is literally child's play for her also with no help from Kick-Ass she controls this scene.

When we are introduced to Hit-Girl when she kills her first person in the film we are given an low angled medium close-up of Hit-Girl this shows she is a dominant character in this scene and is going to take control of it. Also the framing of Hit-Girl is very good because the framing is not tight but it is in fact quite open this shows that this scene is open to her and that she will probably be able to do what she wants because the open framing lets gives her the opportunity to do this. Also the mise-en-scene used in this shot is very good and this is because there is a punching bag right behind her this represents what Hit-Girl is able to do and that she is skilled at combat.

When Hit-Girl Kills the stereotypical woman in the flat that is very nice looking thin basically representing what a woman is supposed to be. Hit-Girl wins the battle of the representations because the representation of the stereotypical/passive woman has been killed off by a much more powerful/active non-stereotypical woman in the form of Hit-Girl. Because Hit-Girl is a very young, non-attractive (because she is so young), strong and smart girl and the prostitute (stereotypical woman) is killed off this shows that stronger women are the better women.