I haven't finished watching The Meg yet. I started this nearly two-hour movie last night around 10:45, which is always a recipe for disaster, but I guess Friday night is the night you think you are invincible to sleep and could stay up until 4:30 a.m. if you so chose. Well, I so chose to sleep through much of the first half -- pausing each time, mind you, but I still don't remember most of what happened.I did remember, though, that I wanted to write a post about Ruby Rose, who I did not realize was RUBY ROSE when I saw her on screen.
So obviously I've heard Ruby Rose discussed more than I've seen her on screen, because I didn't recognize her on sight, and in fact think that John Wick: Chapter 2 is the only movie or TV show I've seen in which she appeared (though I've forgotten a lot of that movie). I've heard her discussed in terms of her gender fluidity, which I've read up on a bit more now. The Australian model turned actress apparently grew up wanting to be a boy, but then eventually decided that her identity was most accurately described as a lesbian who embraces the ideas of gender fluidity that have been allowed to enter the public discourse in recent years. She uses female pronouns but also says if forced to choose a gender she would choose male. I guess that's the very definition of fluidity.
But that's not what I want to talk about today.
I want to talk about how I don't think I've ever seen an actor or actress who looks more like they walked out of a cut scene from a video game. (Wikipedia says "cutscene," but for some reason that word looks vaguely obscene to me.)
I had this weird experience of watching The Meg and saying "I know I'm watching a movie with live actors, so how did they get that CGI character in there?"
The combination of Rose's eyes, physique and hair style in this movie make her the embodiment of female badassery that video games having been trying to capture for years now, probably ever since the inception of Lara Croft.
And since that iconic image is supposed to be inherently feminine, as it is undoubtedly meant to appeal to heterosexual male gamers (some of them incels), it's all the more interesting that Rose has toyed with androgyny in her various public manifestations and modeling campaigns.
I looked her up in John Wick 2 and I get sort of the same impression of her there, but her hair is quite different, so maybe it's really the "female renegade hitwoman" hair style she has here that's making me think of video games. Although to say she looks "real" in Wick doesn't exactly capture her either:
I suppose when you come right down to it, Jason Statham's bald head, square jaw and superhuman fighting skills make him no less of a video game icon than Rose. But since I know The Meg's male lead from countless other films and contexts, he doesn't strike me as the creation of a keyboard and a bunch of code the way she does.
Anyway, The Meg wasn't nominated for any visual effects Oscars last year, so I guess I must conclude that Ruby Rose is flesh and blood.
