I Want to Be the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Lisbeth Salander—the shy Goth girl in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—is the new Lara Croft. You heard it first here folks.
You think I’m being sarcastic, don’t you? I’m not.
She’s the next female feminist role model, not to mention the female superhero for every Geek, Nerd, and Out-of-Place-Feeling Person in the entire world.
If you don’t believe me, just you wait and see.
In the event you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me back up a tad. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the bestselling crime novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. I don’t normally read crime novels because I like to think of myself as above all of that. Thrillers, crime novels, mysteries and romance novels are to book snobs what box wine is to wine snobs. They are so easy to read that one feels as if one is cheating.
Therefore such books cannot be devoured in public.
That said, I also rarely read books by foreign authors because the long foreign sounding names and the varied cultural differences make them a tad, em, too hard to read.
Just being honest.
But I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – which is both a crime novel and foreign—because my friend Julie Roads told me that I would love it.
And I trust Julie’s taste in books.
After about 100 pages, the long funny-sounding Swedish names stopped slowing me down. And then I got completely sucked in.
I’m not even going to attempt to summarize the plot for you because it would ruin everything. What I will say is this: this is not your typical crime novel. The hero and heroine are actually real characters who could exist in real life. The villains are real villains who could exist, too. As a result, the book is creepy, scary, and engrossing—because you completely bond with the main characters and you completely believe that the villains are right there in your living room about to torture you to death.
The movie debuted a few days ago in Florida and will play in most theaters starting March 19.
But it played in my living room last week.
That’s right. I got my hands on an advance copy DVD because this blog is part of a scavenger hunt designed to promote said movie. (See the end of the post for more about the hunt). And, yes, I’m bragging about it. I got to see a movie before anyone else got to see it! You must understand what an anomaly this is. I JUST saw Slum Dog Millionaire two weeks ago. I saw Million Dollar Baby earlier this year and Annie Hall not long before that.
And I still haven’t seen the Godfather.
Or Titanic.
See? That’s why I feel special, as I’m usually the last person on the planet to see anything.
But I was one of the first to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
And so was my husband. My husband usually only watches action, horror, and dumb guy (defined as anything with Will Ferrell and/or farting jokes) movies. When I told him that I wanted to watch a foreign film with subtitles, he told me that he was feeling sleepy and was thinking about going to bed. It was only 8 p.m.
But then he caught a glimpse of a lesbian sex scene. He sat right next to me for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately for him, there was only one lesbian sex scene to be had. But there were plenty of really scary parts.
But I’m not going to tell you about those because I don’t want to ruin it for you.
I’m just going to tell you about Lisbeth. She’s tiny. She dresses in black. She rides a moped. She has about 6 nose rings. And she can swing a golf club and hack into a computer like nobody’s business.
She also has a huge tattoo on her back.
Whether or not you think that her tattoo looks like a dragon might depend, in part, on whether you’ve read the book. Case in point: after the movie ended, my husband asked, “So who was the girl with the dragon tattoo?”
The makeup crew might want to do something about that before the second movie comes out.
Anyway, despite the fact that her tattoo doesn’t look like a dragon, Lisbeth (aka The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!) is my new imaginary heroine. She’s mesmerizing.
She’s smart.
She’s strong.
She kicks ass.
She overcomes some major hardship.
She sticks it to a misogynist. And I mean that quite literally.
Just thinking about her makes me feel as if I can do anything.
She is the next Lara Croft, but better. She makes geek and nerd and misfit and small boobs seem ultimately cool.
Read the blog about the movie.
Learn more about the movie,including when it will be playing near you.
Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT - an Internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Win great prizes – a NOOK!, free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.
THE NEXT CLUE:
Like they say, it’s all in the family. In Dragon Tattoo, there are some good eggs and some really, really bad ones. This blogger, Mr. Eastman, kept his first genealogy database on 80-column punch cards, thankfully, he now has an online genealogy newsletter.
