3/21/2023 0 Comments Snow steam iron![]() ![]() While the scenes with the woman holding the severed head look much more like Caravaggio’s painting, the scenes with Lin are highly reminiscent of Gentileschi’s. Snow Steam Iron drew from both these paintings. Lin’s story in Snow Steam Iron invoked that same emotion. It’s filled with emotion, the rage at the man that’s threatening to hurt her and the people of her city. In Gentileschi’s work, the decapitation is not effortless or cold. The focus of the painting isn’t on Judith’s beauty, it’s on what she’s doing. Judith’s maid holds a struggling Holofernes down. Gentileschi painted the scene more dynamically. This was brought to life in Snow Steam Iron by the unnamed woman holding a man’s severed head and posing with it. The woman holding the head in the short is calm and unafraid. Caravaggio depicted Judith’s act of fighting back as easy. Holofernes is drugged and unresistant, and it’s both physically and emotionally easy for Judith to behead him. It’s her choosing herself and her people over the life of the person threatening them. It focused on Judith as a beautiful femme fatale who takes advantage of Holofernes’s attraction to her to kill him. This reminded me of both paintings.Ĭaravaggio’s interpretation of the scene involves the weaponization of sexuality. The two most famous paintings of that scene are likely that of Caravaggio and Gentileschi. Snyder’s fondness of allusions to classic art came through clearly – a woman holds a man’s severed head, bringing to mind the story of Judith’s beheading of Holofernes, the general about to destroy her home. ![]() It clearly illustrated the concept of gendered violence while pointing out the focus should be on the people harmed by it. In the street scene, it wasn’t focused on the woman’s bare breast, it was focused on her face and that someone had killed her. The camera never focused on the fact the woman was naked, it was focused on the imagery of her holding a severed head. ![]() It illustrated her fear, her pain, and the fact that she has every right to defend herself. Even with no dialogue, the narrative was clearly on Lin’s side. Snyder treated the topic of abuse seriously and with the sensitivity it needs. She was treated as a person for the audience to empathize with and root for, not an object. When the police officer was hitting Lin, the primary focus of the scene was her face and the fact that she was in pain. Snyder neatly avoided any fetishization of violence. Violence against women is horrifyingly prominent in fiction, and while it’s certainly a topic that needs to be discussed, far too often, it’s used in a manner that romanticizes abuse – coercing someone into sex isn’t depicted as rape, possessive behaviour is portrayed as a sign of love, physical intimidation and damage of physical property is interpreted sexy, assault is presented as something that should be forgiven. In his short Snow Steam Iron, he beautifully depicted a story centred around an abused woman without ever glorifying or fetishizing violence. He prioritizes well-written and interesting over strong, prioritizes realistic over badass. He treats his female characters just as he does his male. Snyder doesn’t follow the model of making “strong” female characters who are most memorable for being strong or badass. I gush a lot about Zack Snyder, and one of the reasons why is that I adore the way he handles female characters. ![]()
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