You Are What You See

This whole idea started when, in an opinionated review of Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning film The Zone of Interest, Peter Rutland argues, “Viewers are invited to identify with the daily life of the family Höss.”

Now, the Höss family are Nazis. But Rutland uses the term “identify” very pointedly here, implying that to identify with is to empathize with: “The lush images of the film convey an idyllic family life, with an immaculately clean house and bountiful garden. The Nazis loved their children and their pets. … ‘The Zone of Interest’ will certainly appeal to those who admire the aesthetics of Nazism.” It’s an extreme misreading of the film, simplifying storytelling to a one-dimensional idea: whoever is on screen is who the viewer is supposed to root for, without questioning flaws or immorality.

This isn’t a new issue. Fanboys still see American Psycho as a tried-and-true drama about a well-meaning Patrick Bateman becoming demasculinized by culture, representing the male plight. Well, we hear his inner thoughts the most, and he sure makes a compelling case for himself as he declares the root of his suffering: “I’m a child of divorce!”

People made similar arguments about Succession. The Roys were such miserable people, making miserable decisions, that viewers felt like they couldn’t relate to them and couldn’t find comfort in watching them. 

It’s the lapse caused by thinking film and television only serve as tools of entertainment. If we can’t identify with characters on screen, rather if I can’t imagine it’s me up there, then I don’t want to watch at all.

'Poor Things' (2023) Searchlight Pictures

I want to relate this discourse - for all its worth only on the internet - to Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ comedy, drama, sex positive, science fiction, multinational film. The film follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), who has been reanimated with the underdeveloped brain of the fetus after committing suicide while pregnant. She goes on an escapade to experience the wide world with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), and she encounters sex, poverty, alcohol, sex, prostitution, winking, dancing, and sex.

Prior to the film’s release, Searchlight Pictures in 2021 described Poor Things as “a Victorian tale of love, discovery and scientific daring, Poor Things tells the incredible story of Belle Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by an eccentric but brilliant scientist.”

This position is crucial and brilliant, and no doubt their PR teams edited that talking point to death, as it masks the story’s outrageous sex plot while also giving the film a feminist undertone. In the film’s official summary: “Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.” In the film’s first trailer, there’s only one shot of a sex scene (it’s a close up of Bella’s face as she moans). Once the film was nearing its theatrical release following successful stints at film festivals, there were no implications of sex at all in the new trailer cut. Rather, quotes were pulled to emphasize the film’s bizarre and comedic tone and one that called Emma Stone a “heroine.”

Emma Stone in 'Poor Things' (2023) Searchlight Pictures

So, for months - even years - before the film’s release, promotion of Poor Things was topline - it’s funny and it’s feminist. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s Emma Stone, a household actress whose trademark quirk and relatability has made her beloved by many. Her most popular performances portrayed her as a girl like you and me (The Amazing Spider-Man, Easy A, La La Land, and Crazy, Stupid, Love), to a righteous and right-side-of-history woman (The Help). Sure, she’s broken the mold with stunning shows in The Favourite (another Lanthimos project) and Birdman, but these projects (though successful indies) did not affect the average viewer’s perception of the kind of characters we’re used to Stone portraying.

So, if a viewer does no more research into the film, or the book it's based on, that’s the bias they enter with: a film that’s supposedly about a woman’s journey to freedom, played by one of America’s most loveable and bankable female movie stars. People were already rooting for, rather identifying with, Bella long before they knew the whole story.

Imagine, then, to your horror, there, on screen in technicolor visuals, is Bella full frontal nude for 60% of the movie. You as sex worker! You as infant! You as sexualized!

This isn’t someone you would have rooted for - had you known any better! This is not your identity. And upon this confrontation, you must reject the main character and the story, holistically and immediately, lest you be challenged or harrowed in your own beliefs. That can’t be you up there - this is not your kind of feminism!

When viewers of Poor Things finally got the full story, their previous identifications and assumptions were unexpectedly challenged, and they felt lied to, and they had to reject what was on screen. Eventually, however, it became a competition to see whose identifications were better, or rather ‘more good feminist,’ than others’.

Some Letterboxd reviews point out this division:

• I'm genuinely concerned that so many people have found this film to be a praiseworthy feminist fable

• Maybe it’s because my feminism is not stuck in thoughtless 2010s 3rd wave influenced sexual liberation that deems fucking the most empowering thing a woman can do.

• How are y’all so easily fooled by such glaring misogyny????

• Sitting in a theater with people laughing throughout made this even MORE deeply disturbing.

• A man told you this is female sexual liberation and you ate it up. Sad. “Its a journey about finding yourself and womanhood etc etc” you’re so dumb and a boardroom full of rich men are probably highfiving rn reading all these idiotic reviews.

Most detractors’ views of the film can be summed up: Poor Things proposes that the activating key to woman’s self-discovery and growth comes in sexual freedom and promiscuity afforded by men. I’d argue, rather, that’s the film’s plot, not necessarily its point.

Bella, through her sexual exploitation by and of Duncan, sees the world and discovers herself. Any argument made that Bella is only manipulated and not also manipulator seems, to me, a diminishing view of Bella. At the film’s start she is literally too underdeveloped to understand Duncan’s sexualization of her, but come the film’s third act, Bella has a much better understanding of the world. She knows people act poorly and confronts them, like the brothel owner and her ex-husband and, eventually, Duncan. And she’s smart enough to manipulate their own selfish desires against each of them. Her complexity makes it so much harder for us to project our own biases and politics onto her, causing us to turn away when we feel slighted by her and her story.

Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo in 'Poor Things' (2023) Searchlight Pictures

Further, just because Bella’s journey to liberation includes sex, and a lot of it, does not mean the film supposes that women find freedom by being sexual. This is just Bella. In fact, the film offers up Martha Von Kurtzroc, an older woman who confesses that she hasn’t had sex in many years and is still happy with her place in life. There’s also Toinette, who becomes Bella’s friend at the brothel, and the only woman Bella is shown having sex with in the film, also suggesting sex with men isn’t the end-all-be-all for Bella’s sexual journey.

The film hopes you see the story of Bella, that you bear witness to her, in all her nakedness (both literally and emotionally) for two hours, and that you felt something.

I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t or can’t be critical of Poor Things. However, I have yet to see an argument against this film that doesn’t begin and end with accusing the film of perverting feminist ideology just because it has a female protagonist who discovers her identity while also having sex with people. 

As consumers feel they are losing their voices in public politics, whether through gerrymandering or voter suppression, they are turning towards the concept of “voting with your wallet.” It makes what we consume and how we feel about it all the more important in confirming our biases, our identities, and our politics. Basically - you are what you see.

'Sound of Freedom' (2023) Angel Studios

It happened with Sound of Freedom, where conservatives were encouraging each other to see the film and give it as much money as possible so the silent majority could finally be heard. Forget that the film was touting Q-Anon conspiracy theories, that its depictions of child trafficking were inaccurate, and that the film’s real-life subject was accused of sexual misconduct himself - every self-respecting conservative was told to see the film and “spread the message.” Elon Musk liked it too, so that’s a good sign.

If attending a film like Poor Things, that is as complex and as affronting as it is, is supposed to now be some kind of simplified political act - of voting with your wallet - that proclaims what you believe about feminism, but it’s not what you thought you were voting for, that can hurt. It’s a lot easier when the protagonist on screen is someone you feel at ease to root for, but that often requires sacrificing the film’s complexity. We can’t settle with comfortable, identifiable, easy characters who don’t challenge us, who don’t lie to us, and who do not behave like us. If we can’t relate to who we are seeing, there is still a reason to bear witness.

Just watch. Just listen. And be happy it’s not you on that screen.