Misogyny and pop culture: don't yuck my yum! (Spoilers for the movie Poor Things)

The BBQ Pit
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Yeah, it really didn’t come across to me that Eonwe was “scolding” or “lecturing” any other posters in the Cafe Society thread. (In this Pit thread, on the other hand, sure, but it’s the Pit.)

I read what she wrote as a contemptuous dismissal of the way the movie looked to her, based on reviews and trailers etc. I didn’t see her telling any other posters that they were wrong for having a different opinion of the movie.

People are allowed to have a general impression of what a movie they haven’t seen, or a book they haven’t read, is saying. And if somebody’s general impression is that this artwork they haven’t directly experienced seems to be reflecting common social biases, they are not automatically wrong just because they haven’t seen or read the work in question for themselves. Not even if you disagree with their impression.

And if somebody describes why they don’t like the reflections of social biases that are present in their impression of the artwork, they are not automatically “lecturing” or “scolding” you for having a different impression.

Well-poisoning question. Obviously, you can’t make any movie in a historically and persistently (although of course not universally) misogynistic culture and have it be magically guaranteed “not misogynist”.

Maybe Poor Things is to some extent lazily reflecting pervasive societal misogyny, and maybe it isn’t. I haven’t seen it, or even trailers or reviews of it, so I don’t know. But I think the amount of defensive bristling that Eonwe encountered in that thread, merely for describing her personal impression of the film (which she candidly acknowledged was not based on actually watching it) was a bit uncalled-for.

(And I confess I kind of wish the laws of physics would permit in this case some kind of controlled experiment in which the Emma Stone “Bella” character is played by a fat and otherwise less conventionally-attractive actress, to compare the ways that viewers react to the portrayal of her development of agency.)

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I haven’t seen the movie, but it sure is loved by a prominent extremely feminist website:

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It wouldn’t work because the dynamic was the interest men had in her as desirable property to possess and control based mostly on her attractiveness. Her “free spirit” was attractive only to very limited points.

But at the risk of being a junior mod there is a thread to discuss the movie that allows open spoilers and I am afraid this thread is crossing into spoiler territory.

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Note that, now that I’m actually looking for and at reviews of Poor Things, I also had no trouble finding ones by feminist commentators who did see the movie and who largely agreed with Eonwe’s impression (as well as ones who didn’t):

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Mine too.

Until I encountered the threads here, the terms “erotic”, “sexual”, or “liberating sex” never occurred to me. Emma Stone has created an entirely novel character, a baby/child/teen/woman without filter or fear. And no one who has seen the sex scenes is going to be titillated. Emma Stone naked is a woman (attractive) who has lived a life, has a body that shows she’s had a child and one that makes it obvious that “hitting the gym” was not part of her preparation.

The male characters are shown in the same way, with every flaw and misshapen body exposed to the camera’s gaze (I guess that would be the female gaze) and occupying a position of pathos and disgust in the narrative as it plays out.

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I would submit that a movie which stirs so much debate from all sides (and disagreement even within the same sides) has something interesting going for it.

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I think a big part of the problem is that most movies are still being made by men. There are tons of women out there who want to tell stories reflecting their own experience but they aren’t given the funding.

I haven’t seen the movie but I probably will so I have been avoiding reading about it. Why couldn’t the Bella character be a man? Was the director specifically trying to say something about the female experience? Did he think maybe he should have hired more women on the production?

There are some male directors who primarily make films about women, some with more success than others. Alex Garland comes to mind. I always kind of wonder what motivates that.

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At a guess because this is a re-imagining of “Frankenstein”. They wanted to flip the script a bit.

Change scary man monster brought back from the dead (been done) to attractive young woman brought back from the dead.

Again, just a guess.

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The director was adapting a novel from 1992.

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Maybe you should read some of the interviews with the producer who spent 4 years co-creating the character and her arc?

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Sure, I don’t think anybody at all is saying that the film has nothing interesting going for it.

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Good for him. I have spent 53 years being a woman.

Like I said I plan to see the film eventually.

ETA, I see you said producer. But I don’t think the fact that obviously he found an actress to take the part negates my points.

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Is this a whoosh? The producer is Emma Stone, you may have heard of him,

She and Lanthimos started talking about making this film while making The Favourite, she signed on as a producer and they spent 4 years shaping the character and her arc before the cameras rolled.

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This all sounds vaguely familiar to me. With the same cast of characters.

I opined I thought a school teacher shouldn’t be doing porn online in a thread about just that, even if she did get lots of money for it. I thought it mysogisnistic, degrading and demeaning for women. And should not be done.

Some people in this very thread who blasted me for my opinion that’s it’s the “male gaze” that drives Only fans is a horrible thing for a woman to do , now say a presumedly well paid actress should not have done this movie because it’s a movie by and for men to fantasize about. It’s mysogisnistic, you know. Bad for women. It degrades a sexy, slim beautiful woman.

So…all the men in the teacher/Only fans thread wanted it to happen because well, yeah, oooh! Teacher boobies!!

And all the woman posting said it’s ok because Teacher chooses to make a butt-load of money posting porn. Good for her and her bravery.

I bet Emma Stone ran to the bank to cash that butt-load of a check. Laughing all the way.

Huh?

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Being an adult, not a totally blank slate child.

Huh? I don’t think a single person has said that the actress shouldn’t have taken the part. Nor that the film shouldn’t have been made.

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Misogyny is misogyny.

It’s hard to have a firm opinion here sometimes.

If @Eonwe opinion that this movie is not for them, for whatever reason, that should be the end of it.

Their opinion is as important as anyone else’s.

I know for certain, absolutely certain I won’t be watching Only fans stuff. I think it’s a bad look for women and doesn’t help anyone but the people who own the website. It’s degrading and stupid. That is my opinion and I stand by it.

All porn is horrible for women as a whole.

That’s not to say I think ‘Poor things’ is porn. Cause I do not.

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I think you might be overselling that argument a bit? In the interviews I’ve read, such as this one, Stone has been pretty clear that Lanthimos’s direction, based on Gray’s book and McNamara’s script, was the primary shaping force: “Yorgos was the one making those decisions”, “I trust Yorgos implicitly”.

I’m not in any way dissing the hard work and creativity wielded by Stone to bring the character to life, but I think it might be an overstatement to say that the character and her experiences were “created” by Stone in any other sense.

While I’m reading stuff about this movie, a male reviewer likewise skeptical about its “feminism” claims weighs in:

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Well…at its most basic, a totally blank slate child in an adult female body finding her way is the basis of the movie. Is that inherently misogynistic?

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You are staring down a generation gap. Modern feminism is largely sex-positive. (The Mary Sue, which I mentioned earlier, certainly is.)

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But even today’s young feminists are not unanimous in support of the notion that “sex-positive” implies “porn-positive”.