'Hanna' Director Joe Wright Takes 'Sucker Punch' to Task for Sexism

Hanna-%247004662%24300.jpg" style="margin: 5px; float: left; width: 300px; height: 224px;" />Wondercon, San Francisco's attempt to get their own ComiCon, wrapped up yesterday after its three-day weekend, and somehow amidst the opportunity to pay to see advertisements, fans were also treated to the occasional interesting insight. Or at least a common complaint expressed by someone in the industry.

At a panel to promote his new film "Hanna," about a teenage girl trained to be an assassin, director Joe Wright took a second to call out the false feminism promoted by the 21st century media machine.

"For me, one of the main issues in terms of women's place in society and feminism is the sexual objectification of women," he said.

"That's something that feminists in the '70s tried to fight against but has been totally lost in the 21st century consumer-celebrity world. So for me, when I look at the poster for 'Sucker Punch,' it seems actually incredibly sexist, because it is sexually objectifying women regardless of if they can shoot you or not."

Wright is hardly the first to call out the film for these problems, but he's probably the most prominent. It's rare for a filmmaker working within the studio system to publicly call out a peer, and this is especially pointed since "Sucker Punch" director Zack Snyder has gone on the record many times stating his film is supposed to empower women.

"I have a kind of immediate, knee-jerk reaction to such iconography," he said. "I remember when the Spice Girls came out in the mid-'90s and it was all about girl power, but one of them was dressed as a baby doll, do you know what I mean? That isn't girl power, that isn't feminism. That's marketing bullshit. And I find it very, very alarming."

Wright has built a career making movies about women, but until now with "Hanna," he has not made a film that would at all be a venue for the kind of sexism he's talking about. It will be interesting to see if he has the courage of his convictions on Friday, when "Hanna" is released nationwide.