Something interesting happened when I recently rewatched The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I hadn’t seen that movie in years, so I had forgotten many of the finer details in it. This especially became apparent when the heroine Elizabeth Swann was brought aboard the Black Pearl for the first time.

Up to this point in the film, she’s nearly drowned and had to be saved by Jack Sparrow, been chased and terrorized by two ghoulish pirates, and been forced to surrender herself at knifepoint. Basically, she’s not anything like what I’ve come to expect from modern heroines who seem designed to do everything by themselves rather than relying on a man for anything.

Major Shock

But the real shock came as soon as she came face to face with the crew of the Black Pearl. Here she is, surrounded by evil pirates who wish to do her harm, and she immediately starts running her mouth at them. And what happens? Something surprising yet totally logical. A big pirate violently backhands her and tells her to shut her mouth until she’s spoken to.

The moment she was struck made me wince. I hadn’t expected such brutality because I’m so used to women in films today talking back to men twice their size and getting away with it. Sure, the main villain Captain Barbossa shows up immediately after this and criticizes his pirate for laying a hand on the young lady. But the lesson has been learned. Both the audience and Elizabeth understand that she’s in considerable danger. These enemies won’t hold back just because she’s an unarmed woman.

Thankfully, she uses her brain to figure out that she does have some leverage over them. She threatens to drop a gold coin into the sea, and all of the pirates go from nonchalant to desperate in a heartbeat. After she asserts herself in this way, she’s relatively safe for a time, but there is always the threat of force hanging over her as a result of that first slap.

Modern Movies

Imagine if this had ever happened to Rey in any of the Star Wars sequels. She gets captured in all three films, and yet she never suffers like Elizabeth. Bad guys use the Force on her to make her cry out in pain sometimes, but that’s just not as visceral as a backhand to the face. I think a lot of people would like her character a lot more if she had actually endured more injustice and indignity on her hero’s journey.

I don’t condone hitting people, but that’s par for the course when it comes to action movies. Luke Skywalker didn’t just get attacked in an ethereal way by the Force, but he got beaten up by Tusken Raiders, attacked by heavy equipment, and had his hand chopped off with a lightsaber over the course of the original Star Wars Trilogy. Leia got shot by multiple laser blasts and nearly crushed a few times, and Han Solo was tortured and encased in carbonite. Both C3PO and R2D2 got blown to pieces by laser blasts. No one got out of those films unscathed.

The point is, main characters need to suffer to make their triumph feel earned. Modern characters, especially heroines, don’t seem to suffer much at all. I’m sure there are some exceptions (like Dune), but I’m talking about the vast majority of films with mainstream appeal.

Slap in the Face

The big pirate who hit Elizabeth in the face was quite right to state that when a prisoner is in the hands of awful people, he or she can’t expect to be in a position of power at all. It was foolish of Elizabeth to think that she could immediately talk her way out of her predicament. And she immediately paid the price for that presumption.

I’d like to see more movies today that are meaner to their main characters. I’d like to see characters who are more interesting and face foes who actually force them to grow and do something outside of their comfort zones. And I want significant danger and peril to be ever-present in stories that I’m meant to take seriously. That’s what gives characters a chance to become great and memorable.

That seems to be what separates old great films from modern films. Modern ones feel too safe while older ones had an edge to them.

So many people today think that being a victim is a strength — that they can complain and run their mouth — and those above them will take pity on them rather than just steamrolling them. That only works in a moral society where victims feel safe calling upon justice to save them.

But when they’re instead surrounded by pirates who see binding laws simply as guidelines, they’re about to find out that reality is not pleasant, and it will be like a slap in the face.

This is the Deja Reviewer bidding you farewell until we meet again.

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