Who removed Silk Spectre's skirt? I am launching an investigation and prime suspect is one Michael Wilkinson, costume designer on the Watchmen movie. He's the man responsible for the outfits that cling tightly to the superheroes in the new adaptation of Alan Moore's sanctified graphic novel. And none cling more tightly than that of the only Watchwoman.
In the comic (if you can call a graphic novel that any more, now that they're art) the Silk Spectre wears a flouncy, silky dress. Admittedly it's a dress short enough to offer Dave Gibbons the opportunity to draw plenty of female thigh, but it's there, it's a dress and, whatever it is, it's certainly not the pubis-hugging PVC leotard of the film.
Perhaps Wilkinson decided that, on reflection, PVC leotards were more in keeping with the spirit of a Nixonian 1980s. Or maybe somebody reminded him that this film, despite all the PR about art and grit, is really for 19-year-old males familiar with the outer reaches of modern pornography. Director Zack Snyder has himself raved about the new outfit, describing it variously as "a dominatrix outfit" and, also, "nipply".
So dress that woman up in bondage gear! And create a huge blue CGI penis while you're at it! But I digress. The real disappointment of Watchmen the movie is not its stodgy pacing or its unconvincing climax, it's the way it treats its female characters. It's not just the Silk Spectre's costume that's torn up. Her character is also reduced from the book's self-doubting adventurer determined to hold her husband to account as he ascends to godhood, to a dull, histrionic individual who squeals about the end of the world and just wants her bloke back.
The smattering of other female characters don't fare much better either. The Silk Spectre's mum is a sleazy old soak who is assaulted viciously and protractedly halfway through the flick (perhaps to enliven any fanboys whose attention had been flagging). Bizarrely, there's a brief backstory afforded 1940's superheroine Silhouette, one not even illustrated in the comic. The fact she's a lesbian who is murdered alongside her lover on their bed might have something to do with its appearance. Alan Moore himself is not averse to high-kicking, hot-lipped females in his comics. But at least he affords them as much character as he does his men.
In an adaptation so determined to be faithful to its source material that it sometimes seems intent on rendering every panel from the comic on screen, it's funny that the female characters should be so mistreated. "Funny" as in "completely bloody predictable".
