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[Editor\u2019s note: The following article contains spoilers for both \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d and \u201cBlonde.\u201d]<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been five years since the start of #MeToo, and mainstream Hollywood still doesn\u2019t know what a truly feminist film looks like.<\/p>\n
The releases of the highly debated, female-directed \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d and the would-be awards darling that reimagines Marilyn Monroe\u2019s trauma, \u201cBlonde,\u201d proved an even deeper issue when debating the gender politics of films: \u201cFeminism\u201d has been co-opted to the point of becoming meaningless. 2022 marked the Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade\u2026 and also #MeToo film marketing jumping the shark.<\/p>\n
Olivia Wilde\u2019s off-the-rails press tour for \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d started with the \u201cBooksmart\u201d helmer praising the film for being a beacon of female pleasure (spoiler: lead star Florence Pugh\u2019s character is repeatedly raped in retrospect and cannot consent since she is chained to a bed and held captive unconscious). In a splashy pre-release cover story, Wilde made what seemed to be a sex-positive statement to Variety: \u201cMen don\u2019t come in this film. \u2026 Only women here!\u201d<\/p>\n
Sure, but is a coerced orgasm in a simulated VR sequence really the climax of the feminist movement?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, \u201cBlonde\u201d writer\/director Andrew Dominik has categorized any criticisms of his film being anti-choice as merely a trendy take in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. \u201cBlonde\u201d author Joyce Carol Oates tweeted that the film miraculously lacks a male gaze \u2014all while still including multiple sequences that take place inside the embattled Hollywood icon\u2019s vagina.<\/p>\n
The present-day discussion on what is deemed a feminist feature has gone the way of the method acting debate: What are we even talking about anymore? A \u201cfeminist\u201d film has become a token buzzword rendered meaningless in a time when it should be most meaningful. Forget about the \u201cFeminine Mystique\u201d: Modern marketing is all about the feminist fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n
\u201cI noticed that people who read film theory and people who go to film school to make film tend to never meet or never know anything about each other,\u201d \u201cBrainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power\u201d director Nina Menkes told IndieWire, citing the importance of her documentary on feminist film theory and the overwhelming amount of research findings linking pervasive sexist imagery and onscreen violence to sexual assault. \u201cBrainwashed\u201d premieres October 21 with a mission to dissect the male gaze, something which isn\u2019t at all tied to the gender of the director but rather the universal language of cinema.<\/p>\n
So, allow Menkes to define feminist film theory: \u201cFeminist film criticism illuminates the way gender is constructed in cinema and the political meaning of those constructions,\u201d Menkes said. \u201cThe definition of feminist is that men and women have equal rights. Men and women are both full-on human subjects. It\u2019s not like one gets to be a subject (the man) and one gets to be an object (the woman).\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cI think there is a lot of disagreement and confusion, so people can say a film like \u2018Blonde\u2019 has a woman protagonist and she\u2019s the main person in the film so obviously it\u2019s a feminist film because it shows that she suffered at the hands of men: \u2018It\u2019s like a #MeToo movie!\u2019 That\u2019s their argument.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menkes continued, \u201cBut then as many people have said, \u2018Yeah, but the way you shot it and the way the POV was constructed in that film, takes away her agency.\u2019 Leaving out the script issues, which are many, but the way it was shot and the way the POV was constructed created a situation where the viewer is aligned with the POV of the oppressor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d has been forced upon the zeitgeist as a female-branded film, starring a #StrongFemaleLead opposite the sensitive gender non-performing former boy bander turned androgynous pop star, and directed by a #TheFutureIsFemale director. It\u2019s Phase 5 of the Third Wave Feminist Cinematic Universe, one that emphasizes clickbait \u201cfilm movies\u201d like \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d rather than moving works like Sarah Polley\u2019s \u201cWomen Talking\u201d or Maria Schrader\u2019s #MeToo origin story \u201cShe Said.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d tells the story of a 1950s housewife whose life\u2019s goal is to be the perfect wife to her perfect husband (Harry Styles), all while having perfect sex on the kitchen counter as Styles\u2019 head slips below Pugh\u2019s apron. The steamy cunnilingus scene all but broke the internet; that, and the never-ending gossip of how Styles, Pugh, Wilde, and co-star Chris Pine conducted themselves on set.<\/p>\n
A source revealed to IndieWire that the highly controversial set was without an intimacy coordinator, all while off-set Wilde emphasized just how sexy and Adrian Lyne-y the sex scenes between Pugh and Styles were on her year-long press tour. \u201cWhy isn\u2019t there any good sex in film anymore?\u201d Wilde infamously asked, promising that \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d would rectify that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the idea that just because you have a female lead character, that instantly makes the film feminist, is a bit na\u00efve. bell hooks said it best. She said, \u2018Patriarchy has no gender,’\u201d Menkes said. \u201cAs women, we have internalized a lot of these concepts on a very, very deep level to the point that they\u2019re just reproduced. When women directors reproduce these tropes, you wonder how much is just automatic. I ask the same question of women that I ask of men: How do you think that reproducing the same shit is supposed to be revolutionary or commenting on it? Because we have had 120 years of the male gaze on our backs, because we have had 96 percent of films directed by men that objectify women all throughout history. It\u2019s so ingrained, it\u2019s so deep.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Menkes credited Wilde for employing a feminist shot design and use of visual language, especially when filming lead star Pugh\u2019s nudity, Menkes noted that on a script level, \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d is decidedly anti-feminist. Why?<\/p>\n
Well, mainly because none of that hot sex Wilde boasted about is consensual. Spoiler alert: The ending of \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d is that Pugh\u2019s character is actually being held hostage by her abusive incel partner (Styles) and literally chained to a bed as they live out their \u201cideal\u201d lives in a virtual reality simulation called Victory. Pugh eventually escapes, but there is no redemption. It\u2019s a rape fantasy without the rape-revenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Olivia Wilde is saying this is a celebration of female pleasure, it definitely fails on that point, because all the pleasure we see is in that framework,\u201d Menkes explained. \u201cPugh\u2019s character is coerced, and she\u2019s actually all dressed up and ready to go at night after she\u2019s been cooking and cleaning all day, so how is that a liberation of female pleasure? The great majority of the film, if you look at the amount of minutes onscreen, is in the \u2018Stepford Wives\u2019 zone. She looks like she\u2019s having fun but it\u2019s all within the zone of her being tricked and Stockholm syndrome. It\u2019s hard to read that as straight-up female power or female pleasure, in that view.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menkes compared \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d to falling short of \u201cA Woman Under the Influence\u201d or \u201cGaslight,\u201d two films that are directed by men, but what Menkes called \u201cbrilliant cinematic masterpieces that are actually really feminist.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plot of \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d is hardly feminist when examined more closely, but behind-the-scenes issues are troubling as well: A source told IndieWire that more than half of the production assistants were not included in the film\u2019s credits, despite being listed on IMDb. The production assistants left out, including COVID compliance officers, are all women. (IndieWire has reached out to representatives for the \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d production for comment.)<\/p>\n
But the marketing campaign has told us that \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d is a feminist film. And similarly, we\u2019ve been told that \u201cBlonde\u201d is utilizing the male gaze to turn it on its head and shine a light on the \u201cHollywood meat-grinder\u201d that America\u2019s sex symbol Monroe endured, as writer\/director Dominik has stated and author Joyce Carol Oates has defended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are women who might look at \u2018Blonde\u2019 and say, \u2018It talked to my experience of being abused,’\u201d Menkes said. \u201cMy personal opinion is that continuing to objectify women onscreen even if there is some sort of angle to \u2018make it OK\u2019 is really problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBlonde\u201d star Ana de Armas is lit in very soft \u201c2D lighting,\u201d according to Menkes, with overly sexualized slo-mo capturing Monroe\u2019s \u201cSeven Year Itch\u201d upskirt moment. But Dominik is emphasizing the predatory camera to deconstruct the male gaze and call attention to the horrors of Hollywood with meta cinematography, right?<\/p>\n
Menkes thinks that\u2019s a leap: \u201cIn my personal opinion, that is double-speak for objectifying a woman onscreen. We heard the same thing from \u2018Blade Runner 2049\u2019: \u2018I was making a point about objectification.\u2019 If you want to jump back to \u2018Contempt\u2019 by Godard: \u2018I\u2019m making a point about female objectification.’\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cWell, if you make a point about female objectification by objectifying women onscreen exactly the way they\u2019ve been objectified for 123 years in hundreds of thousands of films, I don\u2019t think you can do it. You\u2019re actually just reinforcing the status quo, you\u2019re perpetuating it while pretending to be cool. These male directors who\u2019re recreating and reproducing these images are not part of the revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBrainwashed\u201d opens October 21 in theaters. For more information on screenings, view the original article at IndieWire<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Don\u2019t Worry Darling,\u2019 \u2018Blonde,\u2019 and the Faux Feminism of 2022\u2019s Most Debated Films (Opinion): [Editor\u2019s note: The following article contains spoilers for both \u201cDon\u2019t Worry Darling\u201d and \u201cBlonde.\u201d] It\u2019s been five years since the start of #MeToo, and mainstream Hollywood still doesn\u2019t know what a truly feminist film looks like. The releases of the highly
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