This is brilliant work. I could have levitated off the ground reading this part: the "just asking questions" pseudo-intellectual who uses film discourse to avoid engaging with nuance and instead hide behind the facade that they're "fighting the good fight."
As you said, the funny thing about this comment is that it's not entirely wrong - Hot-Load7525 (WHAT is that username lmfao) strikes me as the kind of idiot who accidentally stumbles upon something partially true, but for not for the reasons he thinks.
In trying to find movies that "explain the American soul" for a recent post, I found that for a country dominated by a white, cishet male majority, the most potent observations on the American condition often come from voices who exist outside those lines. Frequently, the most biting and misinterpreted stories fall into this category. For instance, Fight Club and American Psycho - two of the most searing indictments of American masculinity - are both books written by gay men, and the latter was adapted to screen by a Canadian woman, yet all of this is conveniently left out by the groups of men who idolize these stories about transparently terrible men (and if one of said idolizers was our friend Hot-Load7525, who would be surprised?)
Another one of our era's most damning portraits of a specifically American aimless masculinity is Jarhead, which was directed and shot by British dudes. American Honey was written and directed by a British woman, yet astutely portrays socioeconomic disparities, pyramid schemes, and empty promises that are uniquely American.
Even Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, who is problematic for his own reasons, made sci-fi films that critiqued American corporations, institutional violence, and jingoism.
And though these films aren't American, look at Julia Ducorneau and Claire Denis creating some of the most poignant deconstructions of masculinity in Titane and Beau Travail, respectively.
The distance of these filmmakers from their subjects enables them to observe them with an anthropological clarity that is intrinsically tied to their identity.
Directors not aligning with their subjects is not always a good thing - HotLoad7525 is totally omitting instances of the male gaze, and elsewhere on here I saw someone mention One Battle After Another, which is a great example of a director's blind spots showing - but his thesis is still built upon unstable ground. If directors don't align with their subjects, that doesn't inherently prove that identity isn't integral to directing - it often proves the opposite, and underlines just how critical identity is, since the distance provides a more clear-eyed, less myopic perspective. And usually it's in service of critiquing pseudo-intellectual keyboard warriors like him.
Dropped on the floor reading your thoughts on this, YESSSSS exactly!!! It's the inconvenient leaving out that takes me out 😭 Thanks so much for writing this out August
You’re very welcome, thank you for this wonderful piece.
And yeah, people like this will only cite examples that fit their narratives and feed their confirmation bias. I read a great piece on here by Jeff Rauseo about how the diverse casting of The Odyssey is destined to disprove the “anti-woke” mob since it’s already an incredibly successful film. The racist, transphobic comments that have circled that movie’s casting come from the same folks who decried things like The Little Mermaid and Snow White remakes for allegedly failing because they were woke in their castings, when in fact they failed for reasons that had nothing to do with the actors and everything to do with them being movies no one asked for. It’s all just confirmation bias.
But again, when The Odyssey inevitably continues to be a success, watch these same hypocrites stay silent because that success doesn’t fit their narrative. And you know the piece hit a nerve because there’s a keyboard warrior replying to damn near every comment on it 😭
Oh boy I felt this so acutely while watching One Battle After Another. In my opinion, it was so so obviously a movie made for white men. However much he tried to really embody the characters, Paul Thomas Anderson’s non-blackness and non-womanness was glaring to me in every scene.
The third act really didn’t do WW any favours. But I have to say that I caught the film on opening night with a packed audience— when the movie arrives at the trench sequence, you could feel the electricity in the cinema.
This is brilliant work. I could have levitated off the ground reading this part: the "just asking questions" pseudo-intellectual who uses film discourse to avoid engaging with nuance and instead hide behind the facade that they're "fighting the good fight."
Thank you so much Eleanor ❤️ It's infuriating, isn't it!!
This is such a good look at how people think the director experience affects the making of the movie
Appreciate you ❤️
As you said, the funny thing about this comment is that it's not entirely wrong - Hot-Load7525 (WHAT is that username lmfao) strikes me as the kind of idiot who accidentally stumbles upon something partially true, but for not for the reasons he thinks.
In trying to find movies that "explain the American soul" for a recent post, I found that for a country dominated by a white, cishet male majority, the most potent observations on the American condition often come from voices who exist outside those lines. Frequently, the most biting and misinterpreted stories fall into this category. For instance, Fight Club and American Psycho - two of the most searing indictments of American masculinity - are both books written by gay men, and the latter was adapted to screen by a Canadian woman, yet all of this is conveniently left out by the groups of men who idolize these stories about transparently terrible men (and if one of said idolizers was our friend Hot-Load7525, who would be surprised?)
Another one of our era's most damning portraits of a specifically American aimless masculinity is Jarhead, which was directed and shot by British dudes. American Honey was written and directed by a British woman, yet astutely portrays socioeconomic disparities, pyramid schemes, and empty promises that are uniquely American.
Even Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, who is problematic for his own reasons, made sci-fi films that critiqued American corporations, institutional violence, and jingoism.
And though these films aren't American, look at Julia Ducorneau and Claire Denis creating some of the most poignant deconstructions of masculinity in Titane and Beau Travail, respectively.
The distance of these filmmakers from their subjects enables them to observe them with an anthropological clarity that is intrinsically tied to their identity.
Directors not aligning with their subjects is not always a good thing - HotLoad7525 is totally omitting instances of the male gaze, and elsewhere on here I saw someone mention One Battle After Another, which is a great example of a director's blind spots showing - but his thesis is still built upon unstable ground. If directors don't align with their subjects, that doesn't inherently prove that identity isn't integral to directing - it often proves the opposite, and underlines just how critical identity is, since the distance provides a more clear-eyed, less myopic perspective. And usually it's in service of critiquing pseudo-intellectual keyboard warriors like him.
Dropped on the floor reading your thoughts on this, YESSSSS exactly!!! It's the inconvenient leaving out that takes me out 😭 Thanks so much for writing this out August
You’re very welcome, thank you for this wonderful piece.
And yeah, people like this will only cite examples that fit their narratives and feed their confirmation bias. I read a great piece on here by Jeff Rauseo about how the diverse casting of The Odyssey is destined to disprove the “anti-woke” mob since it’s already an incredibly successful film. The racist, transphobic comments that have circled that movie’s casting come from the same folks who decried things like The Little Mermaid and Snow White remakes for allegedly failing because they were woke in their castings, when in fact they failed for reasons that had nothing to do with the actors and everything to do with them being movies no one asked for. It’s all just confirmation bias.
But again, when The Odyssey inevitably continues to be a success, watch these same hypocrites stay silent because that success doesn’t fit their narrative. And you know the piece hit a nerve because there’s a keyboard warrior replying to damn near every comment on it 😭
Oh boy I felt this so acutely while watching One Battle After Another. In my opinion, it was so so obviously a movie made for white men. However much he tried to really embody the characters, Paul Thomas Anderson’s non-blackness and non-womanness was glaring to me in every scene.
I know how it feels, Sophie!!
Thank you, Sophie!
Identity as a concept continues to strike me as a thing we should try to overcome, not embrace.
Excellent stuff!
(but... am I a bad person for liking Wonder Woman???)
Hahahahaha noooo definitely not a bad person 😂😂 I would just call it bang on average film (in line with many other DC films)
The third act really didn’t do WW any favours. But I have to say that I caught the film on opening night with a packed audience— when the movie arrives at the trench sequence, you could feel the electricity in the cinema.
Now the Wonder Woman sequel on the other hand…