Movie Rant: Men Who Hate Women (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

The pros and cons of condensation

But the condensation of Larrson’s book is not necessarily a bad ting. In many ways the ‘slimmer’ movie actually reinforces the main message Larsson wanted to convey. It was for example a wise decision to tone out the whole distraction of the Wennerström subplot. It would have slowed down the film unbearably and diverted attention from the main story, and its message about men who hate women.

My only problem with this particular approach to Stieg’s book is that it while you win some, you also lose something important from what I strongly feel is his key message. You lose an important link: Namely, that men who hate women are part and parcel of a society that is still, by and large, dominated by men and men’s values in politics and economics – and where the extremes of political and business life quickly inevitably becomes a cause for violence against people in general.

Maybe not the direct violence such as beating a woman senseless and raping her, but isn’t it – in an all too real sense – not an attack on the life and wellbeing of others if you exploit, say, workers in countries with lower wages and less regulations (e.g. Wennerströms exploitation of Polish factory workers in the book)?

Isn’t it unavoidable to confer this kind of violence on other people if you insist on building up a huge industrial empire, like the Vanger corporation, where you have to be uncaring about the fate of God knows how many sacked employees during firing rounds or the plight of low-wage  workers in developing countries, pollution, etc. in order to remain competitive and keep growing?

Is it possible to build such an empire without becoming uncaring both within – as regards to your own family – and without as regards to all the people who are affected by the conquests of your corporation?

I strongly feel that Larsson’s answer in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a resounding ‘no’. The Vanger family may have have absolutely everything in material terms. But no love, no warmth of family, no nothing. Just a nightmare of hidden sexual exploitation and murdering of women inside and outside the family, as well as nazi support and God knows how many ugly business practices that hurt people all over the world. At least you get that impression if you read the book. But the link between men who hate women and men who want to be rich and powerful business owners no matter who they have to fuck over on the way to the top … well, it’s very weak in the movie, I think.

The not so adamant question of responsibility

Another theme that’s been been weakened in the movie is that of how we should deal with these rapists, nazis, and capitalists? The book for example describes how Lisbeth Salander pursues the powerful businessman, Hans Erik Wennerström, in order to help clear Mikael Blomkvist from the charges that he falsely accused Wennerström of corruption.

She actually ends up causing Wennerströms death – indirectly- by phoning one of the mafia-types that he owes money and revealing his hiding place in a villa in Spain. A few days after this, Wennerström is found in a pool of blood in his room and it is implied rather strongly that some Colombian hitmen ‘coincidentally’ decided to take a holiday in the same area around the time of the murder. Just after Lisbeth’s call.

She didn’t call up the hitmen but she called someone who knew them. And she probably knew that as well. Lisbeth Salander is not stupid, after all.

“There are no innocents – only different degrees of responsibility!” she almost shouts at Mikael Blomkvist when they discuss why some men in the Vanger family turned rapists and whether or not Harriet Vanger have an indirect responsibility for the continued women murders, because she hid in Australia for 40 years and did not return to report her brother to the police.