Thread by @thenecronomi

Some thoughts on the social commentary in 2015's TAG (A Thread)

I first heard about Tag in May 2018. I instantly wanted to see it. I found the first five minutes or so on @Youtube and when the occupants of the 2 buses died, I was hooked. But I couldn't find it anywhere to watch.

Thursday, a friend of mine let me know Tag had come to @netflix and I watched it as soon as I could, which was yesterday. And I absolutely loved it. I loved the #horror of the first two acts. The excessive #gore and #blood. I loved how over the top some scenes were.

When the third act came and things came together, at the time I was blown away. I adored the craziness and how it explained some of the stuff that felt too out of place before. I loved how it went from an all female cast to a mostly male cast and why. Then it happened...

When the final couple minutes hit, something about it really fell flat for me, but I couldn't immediately figure it out. A day later, I've had time to think a lot more about this film and what I liked and disliked. I've had some distance to realize what it was that turned me.

SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT FORWARD:

The entire thing is a video game. Mitsuko must find her way out and make her way to the creator, a guy who stole her DNA and put her in a 3D game. That's not what bothered me. That's the part I liked.

But then a younger, more virile version of the creator showed up in only his underwear looking to finally conquer the one part of Mitsuko he never could before. Rather than give in, Mitsuko does something they'd never expect... and kills herself.

Now, in the moment, I thought this was grand. She had all the power and had found a way out of the situation. Yay, Mitsuko! But no.

But the more I've thought about it, the more I realize the message we were given by this film is "Women are playthings. If you don't like it, Die."

Mitsuko kills herself and is immediately once again in the video game. She is (for some reason) suddenly able to transport at will to the other characters she also plays and has all three of them commit suicide. At the very end of the film, she awakens in a pile of snow...

And tells herself that it's over now.

What the fuck kind of shit is that?

She has literally alienated herself from all society to get away from having sex with a man. She no longer has any friends, no city to live in, nothing. Presumably, this white snow is her life now.

As I thought about the beginning with all the cute girls in their school girl outfits, their pillow fights, bikinis, etc, I thought it was a fun look into how a "man" runs a planet filled with women. They're all there for his entertainment, but the more I ran this through my mind

the more I began to worry that this is actually what Sion Sono WANTS the world to be. He's literally the male in charge of what all the females acting in the film need to do, how he shoots them, which parts of their bodies he shows us, who lives and dies.

The film almost fakes being a feminist plot by empowering women and showing the only (presumed male) as a pig headed creature running on instinct rather than thought. But at the end, we learn she was never empowered. She was always at the whim of a man.

And when she was finally able to choose to let him play with her or not, she didn't attack him, or stop him from doing it to others. She took that on herself and took her own life.

This is most disturbing to me, because it's how it ends for so many victims of sexual assault in real life. They never find justice. They don't win. They can either suck it up and be controlled by a man or they can kill themselves. But no justice found.

Tag (2015) is a FANTASTIC film for the blood and gore, the over the top insanity, and even the plot that I've ruined here today... but make no mistake about it being a feminist film empowering women. It does nothing of the sort.