The DIY Feminism of ‘The Babadook’
If science fiction shows us what we fear about our future, horror films show us what we demonize now. Take last year’s “Mama” and “The Conjuring.” Though quite good, both channeled our culture’s feminist backlash by indicting women who defy their “natural” maternal instincts. “The Babadook,” the debut feature from Aussie writer-director Jennifer Kent (expanded from her award-winning short “Monster”), may press that same bad-mommy button, but it does so with a great deal more insight and compassion – not to mention a crafty girl aesthetic. Imagine a movie hand-stitched by an Etsy queen or, better yet, a Bust Magazine editor, and we have some sense of what “The Babadook” brings to the table.
Amelia (Essie Davis) is a struggling single mother. With her salary as an eldercare nurse, she barely makes ends meet, and she’s still mourning her husband, who was killed en route to deliver their son, Sam (Noah Wiseman), now six years old. It doesn’t help that the kid is a handful. With his penchant for shrill tirades and handmade weapons, the hyperactive boy has been pulled out of school and alienated everyone in Amelia’s life. Even before a real monster descends upon their household, then, life is a nightmare – an effect captured in a recurring series of quick, rhythmically intercut shots that recall the drug montages of “All That Jazz” and “Requiem for a Dream.” (A clever association.) Click: child yanks mother from a deep sleep. Click: they peer under bed for monsters. Click: they peer in wardrobe for monsters. Click: mother reads child another bedtime story. This repetition of the mother-and-child routine is a soul-chilling metronome–one that’s especially unsettling because Amelia drones on in an exaggerated version of the impatient singsong every parent uses with a kid who just won’t go the f–k to sleep. Continue Reading →
The Fairest of Them All
I woke up laughing today. I’d dreamed that someone had (nastily) said to me, “Your ass is getting fatter” and I’d replied, “Thank God.” I’m still laughing as I write this–the person was so devastated I wasn’t devastated!–but it does make me think. What would happen if we all, especially women, unplugged from caring what others thought of our looks? A negative (hell, even a positive) evaluation of our attractiveness is often the most powerful weapon in a saboteur’s arsenal. Imagine how much we each could get done if we stripped others (and ourselves) of that power.
‘Mockingjay Part 1’ Does Not Condescend
Not having children of my own, I hardly have my pulse on the Young Adult reading public. Yet I’d assumed most tweens would feel as I do about the Hunger Games books – that the first was by far the best and that, by Mockingjay (the third), the series had devolved into a grim distillation of Marxist theory with a light dusting of romance. (Okay, maybe I didn’t think the tweens in my life would articulate it that way.) Instead, at least two twelve-year-old girls in my life have solemnly informed me that Mockingjay is their favorite. This admittedly unscientific sample suggests I may have underestimated this demographic. Unfamiliar with radical political theory though they may be, these kids want to learn.
So perhaps I am wrong in assuming that “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” won’t find many fans. After all, the film is quite good – if also the darkest and least accommodating in the series so far. It is certainly the most meta: an indictment of media, totalitarianism, and the commodification of revolutionary heroes. This almost compensates for Lionsgate’s blatantly greedy choice to split the book into two movie installments, as does the intensely bleak note on which Part 1 concludes. No happy endings here, folks. Get Hollywood on the horn! Continue Reading →