Last Friday I watched Kingsman: The Golden Circle in theaters and it was like watching High School Musical 2 because both series apparently like to reuse plots. I won’t over-praise or completely bash the Kingsmen movies because even with all their problems I can’t say I didn’t enjoy watching them. I went into the second movie ready for the same video game-like cinematography and graphic fight scenes set to catchy music, but something wasn’t quite the same about this movie. Then Channing Tatum showed up and I had to change my mindset entirely in order to make the movie watchable. This sounds like I hated it, but I actually had a pretty good time. However, many have criticised these movies to be unapologetically misogynistic and they aren’t entirely wrong. For the most part, women in the series are pushed to the back of the scenes reducing a love interest into a first-place reward, a skilled agent into Fearless era Taylor Swift, and an intelligence agent into cannon fodder for a weak plot’s motivation.
At the end of the first movie Princess Tilde’s (Hanna Alstrӧm) only scenes were about butt sex as a reward for Eggsy (Taron Egerton) saving the world so it was a little weird seeing that she and Eggsy were not only dating but also living together in the second movie. Their relationship is strange. They go to meet her parents and basically reenact the scene from Drake and Josh where Josh tries to give Drake the answers to questions through an earpiece. Unfortunately, signals get crossed, Eggsy is accidentally incredibly rude, then leaves due to an emergency which means that his relationship with Tilde and her parents is… where? He never interacts with them again and you can bet they don’t know what his super secret job is so on what excuse did they forgive him? Despite all the jokes about “oh, no, the in-laws” it’s actually very important to have at least a respectful relationship with your significant other’s parents. This disregards that. Tilde is dismissed again when Eggsy insists he has to have sex with another girl in order to complete his mission. In an otherwise interesting article, somebody tried to argue that Tilde tries to pressure him into marriage but this is untrue (Madison). Eggsy is the first to say “I want to spend the rest of my life with you!” and Tilde asks “is this a proposal?” Of course, cue stumbling over words and backtracking, causing Tilde to get mad and hang up. Which makes sense, to me at least, because if I got a phone call from my boyfriend and the two takeaways are “I’m going to bang another girl” and “I don’t want to marry you” then who wouldn’t feel like something wasn’t right? This gets worse when he plants a tracker in her vagina because for some reason that was “the only way.” This, for those who don’t know already, was a non-consensual act and therefore sexual assault. It’s the same as taking a condom off in the middle of sex and not telling your partner and it’s a whole other level of an invasion of privacy. She wasn’t even the one they were after, she just happened to be that guy’s girlfriend. Then we return to Tilde, who is now hopped up on drugs and can only be saved by her Kingsman in a well fit suit, Eggsy. Can you hear me yawning?
Moving from boring to disappointing, guess who was on the other side of the previously mentioned earpiece? Roxy (Sophie Cookson). This scene reminded me a lot of Taylor Swift’s video for “You Belong With Me” where she sits on the bed with her glasses and watches Eggsy impress his girlfriend’s parents. I really thought this was going to turn into a very dreaded love triangle but my fears were alleviated when she died only seconds later. This was… interesting on its own but what really pissed me off was the return of Harry Hart (Colin Firth) which was wholly unnecessary and really just to get Colin Firth in the second movie. This would have been a great time to develop Roxy’s introduced-but-barely-looked-into character. In the first movie, Roxie was a standout agent, completing each trial without fail and eventually being the only trainee to actually become an agent by passing every test. Eggsy was given another chance and let in because of his connection to Harry. Roxy earned it. They could have been an amazing power team. Every scene they have together exhibits a natural dynamic that allows the two to efficiently solve problems, competently complete missions, and easily understand each other. If you set it up in the first movie that Kingsmen has two new bright young agents and you want to kill off every agent but two for the second movie, why would you not take advantage of the established but less rounded character with a lot of potential? Why would you instead bring back a dead man who already had a full story arc?
Luckily, Kingsmen can redeem itself if it ever gets the support and funding for a third movie. With the introduction of a second female agent, Ginger Ale (Halle Berry), who is entering the field for the first time, they could diversify their cast a little bit by having a black woman. Kingsmen is truly the king of tokenism, with one female agent in a sea of men at Kingsmen, followed by one black female agent in a sea of white men at Statesmen (though they do show a single black man sitting at the table as a hologram.) Ginger Ale discusses her position as a woman in a field dominated by men and how she can never get the same jobs as them which can only be a commentary on sexism in the workplace, so they better pull through. It is my hope that after moving her from intelligence agent to field agent, Ginger Ale will take on the role that Roxy never got to see. However, the movie ends with Tequila (Channing Tatum) walking into the Kingsmen headquarters and he is not the American agent I want to be developed in a third movie.
The real problem with Kingsmen is that nobody can agree on whether these movies are supposed to be satire or if they are serious. Judging the second movie, I’m not sure anyone involved knows either. They had the same amount of fight scenes but more gore and less funky music, and grew to be more sexist, confusing, and random. By trying to bring in more women, it showed either a half-assed attempt at feminism, a lack of understanding about what women want from representation, or both. I can only hope that they quit while they’re ahead or that the next one does better.
Works Cited in this piece:
Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, performances by Taron Egerton, Julianne Moore, Edward Holcroft, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Colin Firth, 20th Centruy Fox, 2017.
High School Musical. Directed by Kenny Ortega, performances by Troy Bolton, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Blue, Lucas Grabeel, Monique Coleman, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, 2006.
Madison III, Ira. “‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ is a Misogynistic Mess.” The Daily Beast, 22 Sept. 2017, http://www.thedailybeast.com/kingsman-the-golden-circle-is-a-misogynistic-mess.
Swift, Taylor. “Taylor Swift – You Belong With Me.” Youtube, 16 June 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw.