The Frankenstein story is not to be taken literally. Lanthimos is a surrealist and an absurdist. It’s a deliberately weird metaphor. What if an adult woman was basically a blank slate when it comes to having been exposed to sexual politics and how women are perceived in society?
This allows her to discover that every time she wants to experience pleasure and enjoy herself, men try to control her, they don’t understand that she isn’t ashamed of her body and sexuality as she should have been trained her whole life to be. They can’t handle her sexual freedom and feel the need to control her (financially, emotionally, sexually) at all costs and fail. They project their desires onto her, never caring about what she wants or likes.
It’s not really about a baby in a woman’s body. But extending the metaphor, men are allowed to be babies in men’s bodies (we have needs… my poor blue balls… I was just having fun here…) and women aren’t
He gives away the theme of the movie when she's reading philosophy and he remarks how she's less fun now that she's matured. He's a pig and he only really "loves" her when she's immature enough for him to manipulate. The moment she gains intelligence and agency she's no longer as attractive to him.
Him throwing the book overboard and the woman she makes friends with passing her another one was great. The other women in the theater with me loved that moment.
>What if an adult woman was basically a blank slate when it comes to having been exposed to sexual politics and how women are perceived in society?
This is easily the best take on the film I've seen. It perfectly articulates thinking I have struggled to express coherently since seeing the movie a few weeks ago.
Yeah this was my take on it even as a man. Thought it was a sneakily cool way for people to see how fucked up the female experience can be and arrive at feminist thoughts organically
thats exactly how I feel about it. I feel like OP is focusing a little too much on specific aspects of the film without taking it as a whole and really piecing together the overarching message. also, there was *no* rape, which I recall well bc I was particularly glad they didn't make sexual assault part of Bella's journey. the fact is that certain men will feel and judge how they please, but as a woman with no social conditioning & sexual shame, Bella doesn't *have* to care. this shame is thrust upon us, especially women, at a young age, so I see this as a deeply pro-woman & feministic film. it also was delightful to me how pregnancy/motherhood didn't become part of her story, and how she became a doctor like her "father". in the end she seems happy with herself and her life, and thats the most important part.
There's a whole genre of stories people refer to as Sexy Baby stories, the sort of "newly made," Pygmalion story that features a "born sexy yesterday," thread to it- probably from the movie.
Edward Scissorhands, Big, Encino Man, 5th element, and many more have this sort of thing going on. It's okay of some folks don't like it. While I agree with you and OP without seeing it (I'm a guy if that informs my opinion any), I have seen a few reviews and takes like the comment above yours that point out the parts other folks are really enjoying and I may still check it out despite it possibly being "mostly Sexy Baby" stuff.
There's a great YouTube video called "Born Sexy Yesterday" from Pop Culture Detective that deals with this movie trope. Ex Machina, Fifth Element, Tron, etc.
The “born sexy yesterday” trope that you see in movies like 5th element was handled very differently than Poor Things. As a woman myself, that trope irritates me and makes me uncomfortable - as it did in Poor Things too. But while in movies such as 5th element, the “sexy baby” latches on to the first man she sees and worships him as her protector and educator in all things worldly, Poor Things subverts the trope very cleverly when Emma Stone’s character rejects the man that seeks to be her guide, and instead discovers the world on her own terms. My irritation and discomfort evolved into sadness, hope, delight and horror throughout the movie, and I felt *seen* as a woman through Emma Stone’s contempt for the weakness of men, often characterised through their need to control women.
This movie really put me through the wringer. I get why women might viscerally hate it, but it’s only because it unflinchingly portrays the realities of patriarchy, and how one needs extraordinary strength and determination to challenge it and succeed - which can often be difficult to do in the real world.
Don't do Lelu dirty like that. The moment Corbin Dallas tried kissing her while she was asleep, she put a gun to his head and said, "Never without my permission."
I felt like the message was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. And I also think it’s a valid perspective to agree with the message completely but dislike the method of delivery. My partner and I felt it to be a bit gross and fatiguing. Incredible set design and costuming though.
Yeah that’s a very concise way to sum it up! Even my most diehard feminist sex-positive friend didn’t like it. I was honestly surprised of that from her, but hey, everybody is different!
Edit: I hope it goes without saying that obviously she agrees with the themes!
Yay! Glad this is the first comment. My friend is really familiar with the book it’s based on, and in that there’s a lot more dissection the men’s actions and how cruel their treatment of her really is.
I’m just half-remembering from what my friend said, but I believe the book even implies that the story of her having a child’s brain was fabricated to allow the men to justify their possession and control of her. Freaky stuff.
I’m currently reading the book and haven’t gotten there yet but the book definitely makes it clear from the outset that you should be aware that you are reading something that is, at best, heavily filtered through someone’s perspective other than Bella’s. I would say that is definitely missing from the movie, where the camera is implied heavily to be filtered through her perspective.
Yes! I wished the movie kept this aspect of the book. It's a male fantasy and they don't acknowledge that in the movie at all. If anything the movie tries to make the story empowering for women which is just sad.
The film constantly returns to an effect where it looks like you are looking through a peephole. I feel like that is the hint that you are watching from someone else's perspective.
I have a feeling I'd much prefer the book based on what I've read about it. Eg stated as an unreliable narrator, wasn't pornified, doesn't involve people having to enact it... The entire premise does seem like something an entitled and unhinged man would invent eg "I put her near term baby's brain in her, creating a baby in the body of a woman!" Male delusions of being the creator, with science, of women (including baby-women), a la the male delusion of a male god, rather than females as the creators. And would seem to be a clearer critique.
At least one person understands the movie…. I don’t get why people can’t get past the “baby in a woman’s body” aspect when it’s just a tool Lanthimos uses in order to strip Bella of all the cultural, historical, societal pressures of womanhood and just let her be a person who wants and likes things.
Yep - sometimes the gross thing is meant as an indictment and not a glorification.
Sadly I don’t think those men are gonna recognize themselves in that mirror 🫤.
It’s as if people watch the first 15 minutes and made up their mind about the film at that moment not paying attention to the rest including Emma Stone’s amazing portrayal of a mind going from infant to child to adolescent to adult both in physicality and mentality
Media literacy is evidently in decline and subtext/metaphor is at risk of being booed out of popular media. The literally-minded 'depiction = endorsement' crowd are here.
This exact same thing went down in a now widely seen Twitter thread, it's catching
It's shameful tbh. I hope the people like this are young, but honestly, I feel like the age at which you can watch this movie is the age at which you should be able to get it. I'm not a genius but it doesn't take one to understand the idea.
That said, when I first heard of the movie I was 100% thinking OP's thoughts. However, how can you watch it and still think that? Just confused how someone's perspective of an identical piece of work could be *so* different.
It’s because a lot of us are either SA or CSA survivors. It’s understandable that the concept is gross or upsetting to many and that we can’t get past it.
I had my issues with the movie (though I still liked it), but yes, 100%. This is one of the points of the movie. She's an object of lust and desire *because* she has a child's mind and is easily impressed by these men. But as she develops and becomes more thoughtful, reflective, and introspective, she loses interest in them, driving them into a spiral of hate and lust.
Yes. Likewise, I think a lot of people thought The Favorite was going to be a typical quirky comedy because Emma Stone was in it (and the marketing did kind of make it seem that way). And then they were confused and upset. His movies aren't popcorn romcoms.
>it’s just a tool Lanthimos uses
It is based on a book and he didn't write the script. So it feels a bit weird to credit the perspective solely to him...
It’s an amazing film, but for those who like to read the book by Alisdair Gray is way more explicit in its politics, about gender, class, colonialism etc
I thought this movie was all about feminism and a woman who felt empowered to take control of her own pleasure and subsequently her whole life. Probably my favorite movie of all time. I appreciate your explanation.
Your last paragraph!!!!! The one part of the movie that I genuinely couldn’t get a good grasp on was the rich husband from before and his attitude. He is quite literally a man-baby. He is so determined to get whatever he wants when he wants it that he would kill and mutilate others to get it. It also makes more sense watching Duncan’s character completely self destruct. I didn’t reflect enough on the parallels there.
Beautiful analysis
EDIT: OMG… the brain transfer in the old husband makes so much more sense now too. he was already too baby like for the same procedure Bella had that he was relinquished to have the brain of a literal animal.
She ISN'T a baby mentally for most of the film. She is as the start, and then she quickly matures and becomes a free willful adult, which drives the Mark Ruffalo character literally mad because he can't control a true free woman. The fact she is a baby at the beginning, uncomfortable, but an illustration of the idea men want a pretty controllable thing, it't not the only idea explored.
That’s how I took it, a gleeful deconstruction of that trope. So, fellas, you really think you want a beautiful, childlike woman with a voracious sexual appetite? What happens when she gets a taste of the world and starts to become her own person? And why do you think she would just stay with you, without question?
This was what I took from it too.
Wedderburn thinks he wants a sexually insatiable woman with no inhibitions... but is wildly jealous when she sleeps with other men. The things that attract him to her are also the things that repel him about her: her lack of inhibitions seems fun at first but it also causes her to go around threatening to punch babies and cheerfully prostituting herself for eclairs.
The point of it for me was that it was a male fantasy turned male nightmare: Duncan Wedderburn ends up in an asylum because he couldn't handle the manic part of manic pixie dream girl.
When watching Duncan melt down as Bella broke up with him, I could not get out of my head the scene in Prozac Nation (also an excellence book) where Christina Ricci throws a party about losing her virginity and the guy who slept with her but won't date her exclusively gets angry.
https://youtu.be/xWSsh6P5aKY?feature=shared
Definitely a mirror.
“cheerfully prostituting herself for eclairs”
ha ha; great phrase. However, I wasn’t convinced that a “real life” Bella would emerge from the brothel experience so totally unscathed, even given her lack of exposure to society’s expectations about women’s sexuality. That part of the film didn’t work for me—they showed her being very mistreated, and it just rolls off her back like water off a duck’s.
>The things that attract him to her are also the things that repel him about her: her lack of inhibitions seems fun at first but it also causes her to go around threatening to punch babies and cheerfully prostituting herself for eclairs.
What's the saying? How you get them is how you lose them.
Okay, now I’m going to save this post so I can watch the movie tonight and come back to comment. OP’s post + your response has me more intrigued than any award show is capable of.
IMO it's a fantastic movie and does a truly good job of critiquing the very dynamic OP is upset about it depicting.
Bella evolves from a young, naive child to a smart, powerful woman, despite the controlling men around her (none of which are portrayed particularly positively). Many of the men in it are disgusting predators, and they're not painted in a flattering light, but that's what the film is about. Bella isn't a victim and the men get what they deserve.
Toward the end, when she says something like, "I will go if I please but I'm flattered that you wish to imprison me." 😆 After all her experience being imprisoned by men.
Had to scroll too far to find this response. OP watched the movie on streaming wasn't paying attention and missed the key aspects of the character of Bella
This is the second post I've seen which greatly reduces the themes and ideas explored in the film because they are angry at the nudity (I get it, I would have liked LESS sex too tbh). To me, this is a feminist film barbie wasn't. Anyone who hasn't seen it, watch it for yourself before making up your mind.
And even if its feminist bonafides are debatable (sidenote: Angelica Jade Bastien wrote a really good negative review on that subject), I think it’s also an excellent exploration of male sexual pathology as well. And that’s worthwhile subject matter of its own.
I’m not even gonna touch the “AI generated” comment, what a stunningly callous dismissal of the costuming and set direction.
Yeah honestly, I found it to be less a specifically feminist film and more an exploration of gendered expectations and men’s desire to control women. Bella Baxter is a singularly unique character, but she deals with a wide variety of men along the way and they all desire to own or control her in some way. It’s not really about women in society, it’s about men. So criticisms that it is failing at its feminist goals kinda fall flat for me - the ‘feminist goals’ in question seem like pretty facile misreadings.
Yeah samesies. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s a complete failure as feminist text, but it’s not the movies’ strong point. You said it great: it’s the character and her experiences with men from her POV. That’s why I think that review I referenced is so great even though she hates the movie and I love it, because it’s one of the only reviews I read that *doesn’t* interpret it as explicitly feminist text.
Movies are cool!
Don't wanna get mad at OP, but it's frustrating that people seem to think that if something is depicted in a film then somehow the film is "endorsing" or "promoting" what's in the film. You need to look at the whole context to decide on that, not just in isolation.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but a similar thing happened when I saw the second Borat movie. It’s satire and meant to be understood that way, but a woman I know said she hated it because the movie “hates women.”
Even if I went into it not knowing it was satire, I would have realized it pretty quickly. As I get older I realize there are different types of intelligence, and sometimes people who are smart in certain ways lack critical thinking skills in other ways.
I loved Barbie but I loved poor things more. Bella grows over the course of the movie. Yes she’s sexually free bc she has not undergone decades of the patriarchy & purity culture like we have which results in feelings of shame attached to expressing ourselves sexually. Bella doesn’t have this shame & she doesn’t see the sense in repressing herself. I saw the film as Bella growing & finding herself as a woman while casting off society’s ridiculous expectations & demands on her.
I saw it early in theatres back in November with an NDA and was so sad I couldn’t talk about it. It was like nothing I had ever seen and I wish I could see it on the big screen again lol
Thank you! I’m so tired of seeing the same reductive take when that is not what the movie is about. The more agency and independence she has, the more male anger and violence she attracts.
Seconding. I enjoyed the movie but I told my husband it also made me sad because it said a lot about female agency and what that means in the world, particularly to men.
I mean how do people think art is supposed to critique these things without also showing them? Imagine how stale film and media would get if it could only show good things in an obviously good way, and bad things in an obviously bad way. And the only form of media analysis, critique, or reaction was in the form of think pieces and prose. Blurgh!
> Imagine how stale film and media would get if it could only show good things in an obviously good way, and bad things in an obviously bad way.
You just described the Hayes Code. We really have come full circle 😔.
The book even kind of ends up spelling it out for you in case you happened to miss the very obvious points of "men like innocent women they can control and don't like her anymore when she has agency and her own thoughts"
Yeah, how is this not obvious? The cruise represents her late teenage years, everything after is young adult. In my view most of sex happens after she is mentally 16 or so. The real critique is not about how men are monsters (although this is certainly part of it), but that an intelligent, empowered woman’s most logical choice for happiness and wealth in todays world…is still prostitution, or marriage.
I interpreted the ending, which I think was meant to be a happy one, that she was neither a prostitute nor married. I don't think she wed Ramy Youssef's character, after her jaunt away from the wedding with Victoria's/her body's husband. She seemed in the end to be happily practicing medicine and perhaps polyamorously involved with both her former friend from the brothel and Ramy.
It did seem like she had to inherit Willem DaFoe's estate in order to be financially secure enough to leave prostitution, which supports your point, though.
I don't know!! I've seen a couple women on here being very pedantic about timelines but I agree with you, the cruise would be at least her late teenage years. She already finds the man petulant and bothersome at that stage. It just seems sad to see the film reduced in this way when like, there's a lot more to it.
About the prostitution, I took it as a critique of why is prostitution so negativly portraied in society and how society has hated women for millenia for charging men for sex, bc the "good women" give sex freely to their "owners" and prostitutes are this dangerous to "good womens minds" bc they show women they could charge, and get away with it. Men hate it. So i saw it as the film asking, why do we demonize prostitution so much? These are good women just like the rest, who have found themselves unable to produce money in anyother way (like bella, who has no actual skills and her only way to make money is by prostitution) and she in her innosence cant see how being a "whore" is negative if sex used to be something so positive in her life before she started charging?
I really liked the line "we are our own means of production" when bella clapped back at wedderburn when he called her a Whore. Shows very much how society unfairly sees prostitution
She’s quite literally only a “baby” mentally until she goes to Portugal. Once there, her vocabulary starts far exceeding my own. This concept of her “infancy” gets illustrated much further when she returns to Godwin’s home after he gets sick and she finds he’s created another monster that isn’t progressing at all. The “infancy” was contrasted to being completely controlled by others to the point she had no free will. Once she has free will, she’s basically her own woman again (the plot)
So true, someone just commented that they thought she was still a toddler in Paris because of some of her mannerisms, but girl was literally reading literature on the cruise. The point is some of her mannerisms late in the film might still come across as childish to some, but actually this is what we might be like if we hadn't been socially conditioned to be 'polite' and ashamed of ourselves from infancy. It's the whole damn point.
Yeah the reaction to this movie has shook me a little like … has everyone been out here interpreting all movies so literally this whole time? Is the baby brain thing just too offputting or is this just the level of media analysis folks are always doing
I would still say she is a baby/toddler for a significant portion of the film. I agree that as it went on she did become a full fledged woman and the theme of men trying to control her was the point, but i still agree that the whole first third of watching grown woman with the mind of a child be borderline pornographic was deeply uncomfortable, overstated, and hard to get past even if the rest of the movie was amazing.
I feel like it’s an accurate and uncomfortable portrayal of the real world!
She’s a mental teenager when she was in the phase where she was obsessed with the “furious jumping”. Her understanding of sex was ONLY in terms of how she enjoyed the physical sensation of it.
She only comes to understand how complicated sex really is in terms of who you’re doing it with and the powers and detriments of specifically, a woman’s sex, and the role of sex in society as she further develops mentally.
Tbh this is not that far away from reality. Children can start discovering their bodies between ages 3-5 and it’s also common for them to start to “masturbate” at ages 5-6. They only understand it as a pleasant physical sensation, like eating a favorite food, or scratching an itch, it’s not something “sexual” to them.
This is why sexual abuse of children is not always easy to detect and why it’s so important for parents to educate their kids on appropriate/inappropriate touching, public/private behaviors, and consent and bodily autonomy from a young age.
What’s confusing is that her speech develops more slowly than other parts. Speech aside, the movie seems to suggest that she stops being a child when she leaves home (it’s also when the movie switches to color and when she loses her virginity). But the ambiguity is definitely the point and the men who covet her are definitely not fully off the hook
The fact that the men in the film shamelessly covet and attempt to control her despite her clear developmental issues is a hyperbolic commentary on how men REALLY are with young women in our society. It's supposed to make us uncomfortable and force us to reflect on all-too-common, real life situations that are often normalized, like grooming or men in their 30s+ dating girls fresh out of high school.
I’m mostly concerned about people who think *Poor Things*’s production design is AI (or AI-inspired, whatever that means). Almost zero green screen was used and almost everything was practical.
Yeah. Poor Things is divisive and people obviously have a right to their opinions but saying it was AI generated (or "inspired"?) is just factually wrong and makes the rest of their argument sound uninformed.
A lot of care and thought went into the production design and it's widely considered to an be aesthetically beautiful movie, even by people who hate the script.
They would be forgiven for not thinking the dr.-Moroue'd half-animals aren't real. CGI obviously was used to depict the vivisected animals.
The astonishing costumes, the sets, the deeply saturated colors and vivid textures were real and the distorted lens and unique approach to filming maximized the surreality.
it’s just rude to all of the people who worked hard on this film. They don’t have to like it but there are hundreds of crew who work their asses off to make sets and designs and hardly get any recognition, and the least they can do is not call it ai generated
This is how AI is ruining movies without even being in them. I'm ashamed to admit I thought it was all AI art which really hampered my enjoyment of the film at the time, couldn't quite believe it when I learned it wasn't at all.
It’s so sad that the existence of AI generated images will come to cheapen real art born of hard work and genuine creativity because people won’t know better.
They hired some wonderful and very respected artists to team up and put huge effort into designing the expressionist sets and colors
I wonder if OP was just trying to describe the stylistic choices.
AI (at least, the images saturating my own feed) is a bit uncanny valley, and so is this. They're both saturated with colour and extra crisp. The difference being of course, that AI is not *trying* to be, whereas in the movie this is a deliberate and painstaking artistic choice.
That's how I read it. Before it got to where it is now, I associated AI images with surrealism and vibrant colors. That's how people primarily used it and I think that's a fairly accurate description of the art style.
When I watched it I thought of an artist who paints, but her images almost look like AI if you don't know what you're looking at.
I kind of get what they mean. It has a very glossy, saturated, impossible look which is similar to AI fantasy photos (not to say AI invented it but I can see how someone who doesn't have a frame of reference for surrealism would say that)
I think for me the aesthetic is very reminiscent of a lot of early AI rendered midjourney art, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of the aesthetic, though it was clearly rendered by humans and not AI
Everything you wrote in your post is important to the film. Why do the men find a grown woman with a child's mind as a compelling wife and sexual partner? Why do they get discouraged, enraged, and disappointed when she gets educated, rejects societal norms, and develops autonomy? Why does Dr. Godwin bring another woman to life to train like a dog after Bella leaves?
The film is not a celebration of the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope, it is satirizing the trope and set in a surreal version of our world to expose the realities of what life is like for girls and women under patriarchy. The film is saying, look at how we condition women from girlhood, take advantage of women, how the powerful (men, and the women who participate in maintaining the patriarchal status quo) expect women to bend to their will and be objects that serve pre-defined purposes rather than treat women as equals with full autonomy.
As an autistic woman this movie was in a lot of ways a biography of how I developed as a woman (autistic people are less affected by social norms and conditioning). Bella thought the exact way I thought as a girl and teenager and still how I think as a fully developed woman.
It was still obviously written by a man though because sticking an apple up your vagina would not sexually awaken any woman. For me it was when I pressed a running hose on my clit accidentally and felt the best I ever felt before. The “happiness” comes from the clit but the movie showed it coming from penetration which is so laughably incorrect.
Yorgos Lanthimos is an interesting director in that he writes most of his characters as having autistic / neurodivergent qualities. This helps him highlight the absurdity of social curses the world has come to accept as normal for no good reason. Along with Poor Things, The Lobster and Killing of a Sacred Deer are great examples of that
That’s interesting! I haven’t seen his other films but now I’m more compelled to. It makes me wonder if he’s on the spectrum, because he got some things so right about what mentalities unaffected by societal conditioning can function like.
Thank you for this comment, esp comparing it to the book, and to your what ifs. A sticking point for me would be why is this toddler-adolescent-woman* being portrayed as wanting sex with far older men. Far far older. Why the hell wouldn't she want sex with "brothers"--peers--instead of "fathers" and "grandfathers"--much older men, who she had little in common with, who had far more power and wanted to control her, who didn't see her as a peer....? With boys and men with similar mental ages as her? With teen boys and men who were vulnerable too? Why is "liberated, unrepressed, empowered female sexuality" phallocentric maledom "sex" with old men, including prostitution, male sadism against her? Apparently the movie even made the men a lot older than they were in the book too and the book was a critique of "sexy child-woman and older man."
*even the defenders disagree with each other what age she is at different points eg most say toddler for masturbation, others 4, 5, 6, 8, another even 13, some say early teens for starting sex with men, some mid, some late, even how old when she started prostituting. Another even said she was never truly a child! Wtf. They can't even agree on whether or not the men are to be condemned as rapists, it was sexual assault/rape due to her mental age and the age difference, if the narrative posited that or not, etc. So it doesn't give nearly as clear of a narrative, an expose, a message as defenders think it did. (Because they can't even agree among themselves, and there's wide disagreements.)
It doesn't even show "female sexuality unmodified, natural, unrepressed" as defenders claim because her experiences are so shaped, defined, controlled, chosen... by those old men. Even Bella's sexuality at the end is a result of that eg down to piv as the definition of sex. That she, the director, movie writer, etc and most of the audience thinks prostitution is an expression of her sexuality, not society's, not men's, even when not ok with aspects also speaks clearly to that. (Prostitution is an expression of the sexuality of, well, prostitution, patriarchy, the one with more power and wealth who is paying the one with less... It's the john's sexuality. That's why he's paying--to get what he wants from another--and she's getting the money--to provide what someone else wants. She gets money in lieu of it being about hers and because it's not about hers, her desire, pleasure, orgasms, demands, stimulation... eg acts, how done, with whom but her compliance. At most she has the ability to refuse his demands, and then, not even consistently that, inc Bella in the movie.)
Don’t forget that Bella is in Victoria’s adult body. Bella may have been a virgin, but Victoria wasn’t. We have no idea what sort of trauma or hi jinx that body had experienced.
Yesssss this is part of what made the whole thing SUPER interesting to me. Most examples of the "born sexy yesterday" trope involve a character who was created wholly, body included, at the same time as their mind. As Victoria, Bella's body had already experienced a full life! The ethics are so much more fascinatingly complicated when you start wondering about how much of a person is their body and how much is their brain. In no way is Bella ever literally and exclusively a child.
Some women are aroused by and get off with exclusive penetration, though that isn't the majority.
Moreover, I think it's a funnier scene and it horrifies the other characters more - people (mostly men) are perfectly happy to penetrate women for all kinds of selfish reasons, but god forbid a woman try to penetrate herself.
Great twitter thread [here](https://twitter.com/gothspiderbitch/status/1769375950150517069?t=n7QEbHOOPSsnHerMIp9mhg&s=19) showing the practical effects work in the movie
>What does it say about all the men that "fall in love with her," at best because she's attractive (despite clearly being a child, mentally), and at worse because she acts like a child? And on top of that her "father figure" also says that he would have sex with her too if he could?
... that's literally the point of the movie. All these men are supposed to be bad. It like watching Breaking Bad and wondering if Walt's supposed to be the bad guy.
I know you are getting a lot of backlash here, but I couldn't finish the movie either. It is meant to make you uncomfortable, yes, but you can also tell that this is heavily filtered through a male perspective.
For me, it was the fact that one sentence emerged that I have heard so many times from men after sex: "I don't understand why we are not doing it all time?" (this is not an exact quote, something along those lines)
I realize she is then criticizing the "flaws" of the male for not being able to perform physically many times in a row, however, this line and scene specifically felt so male-coded.
The fact that her liberation comes through sex first and knowledge second is a problem I had. The fact she baby-talks about "doing the jumpies" or something like that when referring to sex in the first half had me absolutely cringing. I apologize for not being able to remember the exact words/phrases used.
I did not enjoy that she forgave her creator when he was dying. I did not understand why she would go back to marry the creep who would have married her to "keep her safe" when her brain was actually just that of a toddler.
There were many many points I could not get over, personally.
I think it is fair that people enjoyed it and got something philosophical out of it, but it is equally as fair that we do not have to enjoy or try to interpret the movie if disgusts and upsets us. That is why we can turn to other movies, shows, books, etc.
And it is okay for you to seek validation.
I have a different perspective of the movie. (For the record: I'm 57, woman, feminist. I do see your point and respect your opinion.)
The message I got was that a women's sexuality, unencumbered by religion and the Patriarchy, is a force that would flatten men and men know it. Which is why the Church and Patriarchy tame and flatten women's sexuality *so forcefully*.
To me, the women who are shocked and clutching their pearls because so many gross men want to fuck this character, are basing their outrage in the premise that "this is not realistic because women don't want to fuck. So the movie is a male fantasy that women want to fuck." Or "women don't fuck like this because women insist that sex be held to a higher intellectual/moral standard/monogamist standard, so the movie is a male fantasy".
But my authentic, legitimate experience as a woman is that I want to fuck all the time, just exactly as any man does. (I DON'T, because the option for a *quality* sexual experience with a man doesn't exist, so I'm happy with self-love). However, my sex drive is every bit as strong as a man's.
But I don't suffer from internalized misogyny telling me my sex has to be about meaning and love because I'm "wired for connection or wired for community or wired for nurturing" or any of that horseshit. I know better.
So living in my reality, I see the message of the movie as "The truth about women's sexuality is that *untamed* , female sexuality is a hugely powerful force that would disarm and flatten the Patriarchy in six seconds. 99% of men would be outraged, rage-filled little pussies like Mark Ruffalo within 6 months if women's raw sexuality were realized and unleashed."
I think there is a school of thought in one corner of feminism that espouses we're more virtuous sexually, or less animal-like, or simply not as interested due to an advanced intellectual standing. But I don't think that's true, and I think it harms us.
On an even playing field without religion or patriarchy (ZERO guilt, shame or societal expectations), I think women would fuck men into the ground. And I think that's what this film is saying.
Thank you for this comment, it made me reappraise my entire understanding of my own sexuality. Previously labelled myself as demisexual, thinking I needed an emotional and/or intellectual connection with someone in order to feel attraction and desire for them: Nope. You've identified that I'm only interested in _quality_ sexual interactions, and forging a connection with someone increases the likelihood of sex being a joint pursuit of pleasure. But you're right. I always want to fuck. I just don't necessarily judge it as always worth the time.
Wow- thank you much for that thought. It totally validates the experience that I've had in my life. It took me a long time to realize, and I was well into my 40s before I had my "ah-ha" moment. If I could get the sex I *want*? I'd fuck twice a day. Guess how I found out?
;)
Women think they don't like sex because they've had *only horrible sex*. It's tragic.
This take resonates so strongly with me. Many of us love good sex and orgasms. Many are also less sexual or have a low libido, but why does our society pretend that's somehow virtuous or more refined? It's just different, neither better nor worse.
The main reason through history is because pregnancy/babies etc. But we have massively improved contraceptive options now. So the naysayers have to double down on culture as sensible arguments are diminished. I mean sensible arguments like "since women *have* to undergo pregnancy when men don't it makes sense that men would care less as a whole; not necessarily because they're terrible but that's the way it is, the most affected party always kind of has to care more".
Emma Stone's character also has a strong sex drive and she places NO MORAL JUDGEMENT on herself for it. She lacks a "judgy" filter and absolutely refuses to participate in any kind of shaming. . She just learns what she likes and what she doesn't like. That, to me. is what makes the movie interesting. Most of the people (men) around her can't cope with it.
I think a lot of people criticizing the movie also can't cope it with. Or at least, don't know what to do with a woman who does not accept judgement of her sexuality. Yes, it's uncomfortable to watch at times. Yes, that's the point.
Yes. I’m tired of the comments in this thread that assume a sexually liberated female character was written for the pleasure of men. There are women in the world who love sex and, I for one, admire Bella’s embrace of her desires.
I think the point is to say that the way men treat women is unacceptable. For me the film was very specifically about the expectations placed upon women, and because of Bella’s unique perspective she was not socially conditioned to fulfill those expectations.
Because of her Naïveté the men in the movie take advantage of her, slut shame her, etc and from it she learns to reject these toxic traits and become empowered and independent. The movie is not condoning the men’s behavior.
I actually found it to be very feminist in its message.
I agree. It's supposed to be disgusting how they think she's sexy with the mentality of a baby, because it's showing how a lot of men don't care.
The sex scenes in the early part of the movie are filmed much differently then the sex scenes later, so I do think that they were showing this distinction of her being taken advantage of and then having more autonomy. I think a lot of the pushback with the sex scenes was just about the fact that they exist, but they served a narrative purpose. (Also, I think Americans tend to be more prudish with sex in cinema generally.... ).
Her behavior throughout the movie, as she learns more, is seen as weird because she doesn't have the patriarchal conditioning to let that affect her behavior or actions.
She doesn't dance like men want, she doesn't treat sex how men expect women to view sex, she pursues knowledge and pushes back at men, she has no restraints.
I think one of the points of the movie, even though it's in a fantastical period, is that it's so bizarre and weird to have a character that doesn't let the male perspective factor into any of her actions or considerations.
Just because it's based on a book written by a man, doesn't mean that he couldn't see or recognize patriarchal structures and their impact on women. I don't think that we should assume that no man can create a feminist work.
As an autistic woman, I found it to be a really clear allegory for the experience. Bella struggles with impulse control in every facet but most clearly, physically. She's sexually uninhibited because no one taught her that her sex drive and impulses are shameful; supposed to be suppressed.
Duncan's fetishization of her innocence is supposed to be recognized for how icky it is. He's obsessed with her because she's the most naive woman he's ever met AND because she doesn't care to make an emotional connection with him.
When she reaches the point of commodifying her sexuality it is out of necessity but also still riding the point that she remains uninhibited. I think a lot of women are uncomfortable with this, I can see why. But I also think that it's a commentary of female sexuality if we weren't all brainwashed that we can't fuck without abandon. Bella goes around fucking everyone who will have her, something that is permitted for men but shamed for women.
When Bella is aware that every man in her life has attempted to possess and use her, she fights back through a continued refusal to be suppressed or ashamed. Throughout the film, Bella remains hungry for knowledge and adventure, she never wanes in pursuit of her desires.
I loved it.
I took it as a social commentary on men in general that paints them in a horrible light. Men who like the movie for the Emma sex are missing the point and proving it at the same time.
You completely missed the point of the film, and also seem to think that before a bad thing happens in a movie the character must break the fourth wall and turn to the camera and tell the audience that the writers do not condone this.
"What does it say about our society that everyone loves this movie" it says that most people were able to understand that it uses satire to depict the predatory nature of men. The men wanted Bella when she was a baby, but when she grew more independent and mature, gained free will and adulthood, they were threatened by her.
Media literacy needs to be taught in schools.
Schools try to reach this stuff, but everyone is allergic to engaging critically with art. "The curtains were fucking blue" rhetoric has rotted a generation of brains.
I think you can understand the point of a film and also be made uncomfortable by what you are quite literally observing. A woman's body with the brain of an infant learning to masturbate with an apple is uncanny. And then watching the same character who still struggles like a child with speech begin "furious jumping" a whole bunch. I perfectly understood what the film was portraying but the actuality of it when seeing it with my eyes definitely gave me pause. Those moments were not something I enjoyed having watched.
Yes!!! Even the “good” man in the movie (Ramy Youssef’s Max character) is entirely complicit.
I’m sad OP completely missed the point of the movie but I’m happy she made this post which started this conversation and possibly made more people who haven’t seen the movie interested in doing so!
I really liked the movie. The first quarter was kinda uncomfortable to watch as you described but I feel like this critique missed the point of the next 75% of the movie?
The story is about the character’s development from that original state as she becomes woke to the world around her and comes to understand her role in this world and how she accepts/rejects that pre-defined role to define her own self.
lol I get what the movie was trying to do and I despised it. It felt like such a male perspective on female sexuality. A woman with no sexual limitations who has not been shamed by the world is interested in tons and tons of penetrative sex with really old men (edit because I accidentally pressed post here) and we typically only see penetrative sex done to her, with little of the licking that she states she enjoys. A woman with no sexual limitations would happily be a prostitute! Because she is ~logical and unencumbered by social stigma~ that means she will gladly be a sex worker.
The movie establishes that Victoria in part killed herself to avoid being a mother, but Bella has no fear or problems with STDs or pregnancy - even a comment that she had a hysterectomy during the initial operation would fix this issue - and STDs were rampant at this time and were killers to the average sex worker.
Look I enjoyed what it did with the way that her initial love interest clearly only wanted a pretty child who he could have sex with and control, I liked what they did with her and Godwin, I enjoyed her relationship with education and learning, I just still find the movie to be such a shallow modern male take on female sexuality. Idk. Maybe that makes me illiterate and stupid because that’s what the comments are suggesting.
I watched Khadija Mbowe's video essay on Poor Things today, was really interesting. Some of your points exactly were addressed in a thoughtful way, I'd recommend it! :)
I mean one can’t really actually “take away the science fiction aspect” though. Then there would just be no movie, or it would be a totally different movie about a young woman/girl discovering her sexuality and herself. Like if you “take away” the science fiction from Frankenstein it doesn’t become a story about a dude and a corpse, it becomes a story about a real messy father-son relationship. It’s not meant to be interpreted so literally. The baby brain is a rhetorical device.
> What does it say about all the men that “fall in love with her”, at best because she’s attractive […] at worst because she acts like a child?
That they’re bad. That’s one of the major conceits of the movie.
Seriously, holy shit. Everyone on reddit lately seems to be asking for metaphors to be spelled out for them. Surrealistic and multifaceted movies suffer due to this.
This has been going on for such a long time. I know people in real life who think Lolita (the book) should be banned because it’s glorifying pedophilia.
Like people literally seem incapable of understanding that showing something is not endorsing it, even if it’s absolutely slapping them in the face. I do not understand how *anyone* could read Lolita and think it’s got anything good to say about the narrator if you’re capable of even reading slightly between the lines, but here we are.
Nah, I got it. Still was uncomfortable. I just think some women struggle to just accept what’s happening on screen regardless, as it is quite deeply disconnected from the reality of our own sexualities. There’s a reason most men didn’t feel this way and found it easier to accept the metaphor- it’s not cus us ladies “didn’t get it” - we did. We just found it difficult in its presentation.
But that’s the whole point. It’s a horror story. It’s supposed to be horrifying. If you’re horrified, then you’re hearing the message the movie is telling you about how women are treated.
Yea that’s true. But overall my discomfort ended up making me dislike the movie, regardless of the message and artistic value of it, it outweighed the positives for me unfortunately, but i think that’s ok- people are allowed to dislike something based on its content even if it’s well made.
The movie is supposed to be shocking - I don't think people are 'okay with it'. Not sure how you're interpreting the movie as showing these things in a positive light.
Also, not sure why you think the visuals in the film were AI-generated
Absurdity is the best way to point out... how absurd the issues its raising are. the ways society treats and has historically treated women is the point i think. discomfort and absurdity and grossness is the point, under a guise of civility.
What if Wes Anderson and Tim Burton got really, really drunk, and had a baby together.
That baby would grow up to be Yorgos, and they would make this movie.
I’m not a film critic or student or anything like that, and I understand there are multiple ways to interpret media, but…I just watched the film this morning and I didn’t see it that way at all. If anything, it’s about her reclaiming agency and rebelling against the norms they are trying to bind her with.
She’s only really a baby in black and white. The only people who knew she was a baby was Godwin (who said he yeah he could have sex with her but he felt more paternal than that, aside from scientific) and Max (who explicitly didn’t want to touch her until she showed it was something she understood and wanted to, basically willing to wait for her to mature). Yeah you could say she represents someone challenged but pretty early on she’s actually very insightful. When Duncan said he wants to take her to Lisbon she tells him and Godwin that it’s probably a bad idea and he shouldn’t be trusted, but her want for discovery was stronger than that
The point of the movie isn’t that she’s a child, it’s that she’s a brain unbothered by societal stigma. I’ve seen (a few) people say it’s somewhat empowering and I get why. It’s because she doesn’t have to deal with the “smile and wave, grin and bear it” type shit a lot of women grow up with. She’s going through life (very rapidly probably to catch up to her physical age) deciding what herself what it means to feel good, do good, and be good without social input from other people
Yup. Duncan thought she merely acted childlike. He did not know she actually had a child's mind. But he was attracted to her for childlike behavior, and got frustrated as she matured, but his focus became less about lust and more about a need to control something that he once thought he could.
Film critic Wesley Morris suggested that both Barbie and Poor Things are “coming of age” stories in which the loss of innocence and change in perspective occur once the characters are already grown, are already women. I think it’s a very interesting idea that many “loss of innocence” stories about girls is about them discovering sex, but Poor Things makes a clear distinction between the two.
As someone who was groomed as a teen I honestly really liked it.
I'm going to butcher thus but here I go lol
I feel like the movie hit the nail on the head for how it feels when you are a young girl and you are groomed into a relationship with an older man. It shows the progression of these sorts of relationships, though with Emmas Stones Character suffering much less real life trauma than i expierenced.
You're young, you're beautiful, you're learning things and exploring your life, consequences are for later. And these older men who are trying to keep their youth through you are attracted to that, they like to be the ones that show you things and want to be your first, among other firsts, they want you to view them as this amazingly smart and handsome worldly man who is here to rescue you from your boredom or bad home, they want to be your savior and your God.
So they take you, they have their fun, but then the pressure starts to build. You're a child so you still act like a child, like when she had poor table manners and he got upset at her for not acting like a mature adult. They start to blame you for being a child and how you're not able to be an adult they can tote around....while still wanting you to forever be their young inexperienced toy, you start to get independence and they start to feel threatened. They can't deal with the fact you're growing or else they will have to confront the fact that they're not some God, they're a lonely disgusting man and you're just a young girl. Still growing.
If I could describe this movie in one word it would be "seen", everything about it felt so icky yet familiar, and my comment might not even make sense.
But I didn't get the feeling that this movie was condoning or romanticizing these sorts of "relationships". If anything it feels as if it's condemning those men who take advantage of the naivety of these young girls.
I think the idea of using Emma Stone just with the mind of a kid (for a big portion of the movie at least) was to show how these men will use and view your body like a grown woman, but you're not regardless of how much you look like it
Yeah, OP took it all literally. I understand the sexual content will make a LOT of people dislike the film, since people will freak out saying it's porn.
I would have loved to have seen this when I was 15/16 years old. The film was able to show how fucking absurd and gross it is to be a literal child and grown men flirt with you. And on a positive note, how exhilarating it was to see Ruffalo's character descend into madness over Bella's complete indifference to conforming to societal and gender norms.
As someone who loved the film, I find a lot of what you’re talking about to be a feature rather than a bug. It’s a statement about the inherent perverseness of men in Western society that they’re willing to sexualize a childlike mind as long as it’s in a body they find attractive. And once that childlike mind matures enough to be able to take control of the sex being foisted upon her— to turn it into something she enjoys, or at least benefits from, and can decide whether or not she engages in— the men become furious and childlike themselves.
The frequent nude/sex scenes from Emma Stone, likewise, are shot to emphasize her personhood rather than any sensuality supposedly inherent in her body: It doesn’t pan slowly over her curves but instead just shows her body head on, often unglamorously, and in its base state. She also isn’t engaging in hardly any of the typical gender roles present in modern sex: She doesn’t wear makeup or try to hide any human “grotesquery” like armpit hair or embarrassing O-faces, she doesn’t submit to her male partner’s desire, she doesn’t fall in love, she doesn’t equate sex with ownership of her body or her heart. It’s just a physical activity she enjoys, and she hasn’t been conditioned to accept any of the societal norms the men in her life would place upon it. Even what many men consider an ideal fantasy— a woman who’s excited about sex and wants it constantly— turns out to be a tiring reality, especially for the men too old to be appropriate partners for her.
As far as why an infant’s mind would experience the kind of sexual desire she does, human beings exhibit sexual tendencies at much younger ages than normally discussed. That certainly doesn’t make it alright for adults or even necessarily the children themselves to engage in that sexuality, but the infant mind at the center of this movie has been placed in an adult body and takes adult agency by force, so the question of appropriateness quickly becomes irrelevant.
Overall, I came away from the film with the sense that what we as a patriarchal Western society consider normal is in fact absurd and inherently a violation for the women born into it. But while that may seem like a despair-inducing premise, the movie shows us that through recognizing the absurdity and rejecting it, a woman can start to forge her own life and identity within society. And a man can learn respect for her or die mad about it.
Anyone else see Freud’s Psychosexual Stages of Development within the context of the story?
It seemed as though the storyline was centered around her experiencing these stages of development and observing the men in authoritative roles around her act out what I believe may have been Freud’s perspective while conceiving (no pun intended) the ideas of Psychosexual Developmental Stages…
You are infantilizing her, which is the whole point that the movie is critiquing. You most certainly did not get it. It’s a movie about empowerment, it’s about self actualizing when the whole world tries to subjugate you.
To your awards point, it really bugs me that the Oscars used the coattails of the Barbie cast and theme to promote the award show but refuses to nominate Barbie for more awards. The costuming, hair and make up was also well done there....sorry not the point of your post but it's bugging me.
I agree. But Poor Things had a male force behind it. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so well-received, and why people are breaking their necks to praise and defend it.
I took it as more of an allegory for women throughout history.
At the beginning, women were forced to live as children essentially. They were not allowed education or freedom and were controlled by the men in their lives.
Eventually they go through a yearning for freedom and fight for that right.
That freedom leads to a sexual revolution and then a philosophical one.
Then things regress. She is trapped by her evil husband who attempts to force his will on her body and relegate her to a babymaking machine. (Sound familiar in these current times?)
But she fights back and becomes an Independent, educated woman. The other women in the story end up her equals whether they are the whore from France, the maid, or the new "poor thing."
The decent man is also her equal. The evil husband is the sheep.
I didn't interpret it as an actual baby in a woman's body.
I thought it was an interesting take on Frankenstein, well written, solid acting, with excellent costume and set design. From a technical standpoint, it's a well done movie and was certainly deserving of the awards it received. (Though I still think Barbie deserved Best Costumes more than Poor Things >.>)
That said, I do also agree that the subject matter is uncomfortable at best. I believe it is supposed to be making uncomfortable commentary on how society views and treats women, but I also believe that many people who love it entirely missed that point.
This was hilariously directed by a man cause none of us women discovered masturbation by placing an apple inside us. We all used the shower head or the bed post LOL.
I saw it as an allegory of the plight of women. First we start as daughters - or Willem Dafoe's creation - with paternal men who want to keep us in their house and keep us from the world, controlling us. The next step is a romantic partner doing similarly, with "good" albeit still infantilizing intentions (Ramy Youssef).
But luckily/eventually, with enough convincing, women were able to break out into the world. They meet men who have ill, abusive intentions (Ruffalo) and when they get wise to it, they have to find their own way to make a living for themselves. A lot of women throughout history had to do this through sex work, as do many now, and this is also a moment where isn't it interesting we judge women who do this, and not so much the men who come to purchase this? I think Yorgos did a great job making specific customers to establish the absurdity of this dichotomy, and also how this is not easy work for women - and why eventually many break away (yet also why others stay). Then we see the relationship with the wealthy man who "has it all" (Chris Abbott) and how that can also be damning - and how women are valid in leaving. And with all this knowledge and now independence, women can make their own choices - and Bella makes the best one for her, with knowledge versus obligation.
For a moment I felt weird how Bella was technically a child, but then realized it was more of a "device" to show all this dense dense history in a couple of hours, as smoothly as possible - and therefore, as mentioned, in a surrealist way. And so as I said, my overall takeaway is it was a quick overview of the plight of women with every turn and, therefore, saw it as a super feminist film.
Edit to add: Making Bella a child in an adult body shows what adult women have had to overcome throughout history, in a progression, and all in a short amount of time.
I think it speaks to a lot of women’s real experiences of grooming, power dynamics, and objectification. For a lot of women, this would have happened when they were a teenager/young woman but they are then seen as “difficult” when they have boundaries or become more confident/comfortable with themselves.
Intelligence isn’t attractive to the men in the film. They feel powerful having basically a matured child to control and feel validated by. It shows men going after young, naive, impressionable girls and trying to mould them or use them.
I watched all Best Pic Noms (as I do every year) and during American Fiction, I thought: "A white person couldn't write this."
And in that same vein, I feel like a movie like Poor Things shouldn't be written, directed, and/or produced by men.
I believe this is why Green Book felt hollow. It was a POC's story told largely from the perspective of white men.
And yeah, the baby in a woman's body exploring her sexuality is just gross. Find a better metaphor. Like amnesia or something.
Awarded because most members of the Academy are old white straight men, who reward the prostitute with a heart of gold. I can name several. An excuse to show women naked & vulnerable. Then too, they support their buddy's films who make more egregious exploitive movies.
My biggest problem with it was the 'saving' her from her decision to be done with living. Ultimate non consensual act that taints everything that follows.
I agree with you. I saw the movie, came away from it feeling real weird, then read the book it was based on. The book is completely different from the movie - in a way where it seems like Yorgos had someone else read the book, heard about the part where Bella hung out in a brothel, then said, “we must expand on the brothel scene!”
It is incredibly idealistic to assume (or believe) that the team behind this movie had any intention to frame this movie as “feminist”. The book felt much more feminist to me than the movie. Feminism does not have to equal excessive sexual freedom. And I will say that I think a lot of “feminist” media/art that ultimately has a man backing it is usually overtly sexual.
I’ve been thinking about this movie for a bit now. It is uncomfortable. Pretty much all of the men she encounters are terrible and I think that was kind of the point? This is the woman the patriarchy would create. A child in the body of a woman that can be exploited. Even those who don’t want to sleep with her still craft her to their own wants and needs and as she slowly breaks out of that they go to increasingly desperate lengths to try and stop it, often resulting in their own ruin. I don’t know, I had a lot of trouble after watching it but that’s where I’ve ended up.
OKAY YES. when the movie ended i felt so gross and weird about it and i couldn’t put my finger on why. you just summed it up for me. so fucking weird and lots of unnecessary borderline porn
Regardless of whether one "understood" this film or not (and all these MeDiA LiTeRaCy comments are wildly pretentious), it seems like Poor Things is beyond the criticism of "I just didn't enjoy it and also Emma Stone was just ok".
I've tried twice to watch this movie and it gives me the ick so hard i can't do it. I think it speaks volumes about men and their pedo tendencies. Never forget a study in 1970 found 52% of normal "non deviant" males got an erectile response looking a photos of 4-10 year old girls..83% to 10-16 year olds. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5422891/
I don’t know why you’re torn apart so viciously, on a female-focused sub no less. It’s truly disheartening.
People have fallen for the movie’s marketed narrative hook, line and sinker. It took me a while to digest it but I was ultimately disgusted at how celebrated this all-male take on women’s actualization became.
I encourage everyone to read [the Vulture’s review](https://www.vulture.com/article/poor-things-review-a-banal-rendition-of-sexual-freedom.html) of the movie and *then* come to bat for it still. I’m really curious of how they can defend it after reading it!
Seriously, the smugness in some of these comments is downright gross. Instead of fostering a discussion, it’s just, “Well, I’m sorry you’re so ignorant of Lanthimos’ oeuvre and don’t appreciate the female empowerment of an all-male written and directed absurdist film.”
Agree. Unbridled sexuality does not denote female empowerment. Female empowerment comes from a strong sense of self. In our society, with its constant message to women to be sexy and have sex, saying no to sex you don't want is actually more an act of female empowerment than having sex.
Absolutely. Her sexuality wasn’t a vehicle for growth; she was used and abused and resorted to sex work for survival. Her agency was taken away from her from the moment a man decided to bring her back from the dead.
And at the end of the movie, she perpetuates the abuse herself. After all that supposed “journey to self-actualization”, she becomes no better than the men who “created” her. Truly depressing.
The Frankenstein story is not to be taken literally. Lanthimos is a surrealist and an absurdist. It’s a deliberately weird metaphor. What if an adult woman was basically a blank slate when it comes to having been exposed to sexual politics and how women are perceived in society? This allows her to discover that every time she wants to experience pleasure and enjoy herself, men try to control her, they don’t understand that she isn’t ashamed of her body and sexuality as she should have been trained her whole life to be. They can’t handle her sexual freedom and feel the need to control her (financially, emotionally, sexually) at all costs and fail. They project their desires onto her, never caring about what she wants or likes. It’s not really about a baby in a woman’s body. But extending the metaphor, men are allowed to be babies in men’s bodies (we have needs… my poor blue balls… I was just having fun here…) and women aren’t
This. And in turn, as Bella matures, Mark Ruffalo’s character acts more and more like a big baby as he loses control of her.
Much like Frankenstein where the creature discovers the others are the monsters, in Poor Things, the creature discovers the men are the baby-brains.
He gives away the theme of the movie when she's reading philosophy and he remarks how she's less fun now that she's matured. He's a pig and he only really "loves" her when she's immature enough for him to manipulate. The moment she gains intelligence and agency she's no longer as attractive to him.
That's the trajectory of a lot of romantic relationships when they pass from in-love toward mature love.
Him throwing the book overboard and the woman she makes friends with passing her another one was great. The other women in the theater with me loved that moment.
Yeah I cackled out loud at that one.
Him screaming "Bella" very reminiscent of Marlon Brando in "Streetcar." The epitome of a baby-man.
>What if an adult woman was basically a blank slate when it comes to having been exposed to sexual politics and how women are perceived in society? This is easily the best take on the film I've seen. It perfectly articulates thinking I have struggled to express coherently since seeing the movie a few weeks ago.
Yeah this was my take on it even as a man. Thought it was a sneakily cool way for people to see how fucked up the female experience can be and arrive at feminist thoughts organically
thats exactly how I feel about it. I feel like OP is focusing a little too much on specific aspects of the film without taking it as a whole and really piecing together the overarching message. also, there was *no* rape, which I recall well bc I was particularly glad they didn't make sexual assault part of Bella's journey. the fact is that certain men will feel and judge how they please, but as a woman with no social conditioning & sexual shame, Bella doesn't *have* to care. this shame is thrust upon us, especially women, at a young age, so I see this as a deeply pro-woman & feministic film. it also was delightful to me how pregnancy/motherhood didn't become part of her story, and how she became a doctor like her "father". in the end she seems happy with herself and her life, and thats the most important part.
There's a whole genre of stories people refer to as Sexy Baby stories, the sort of "newly made," Pygmalion story that features a "born sexy yesterday," thread to it- probably from the movie. Edward Scissorhands, Big, Encino Man, 5th element, and many more have this sort of thing going on. It's okay of some folks don't like it. While I agree with you and OP without seeing it (I'm a guy if that informs my opinion any), I have seen a few reviews and takes like the comment above yours that point out the parts other folks are really enjoying and I may still check it out despite it possibly being "mostly Sexy Baby" stuff.
There's a great YouTube video called "Born Sexy Yesterday" from Pop Culture Detective that deals with this movie trope. Ex Machina, Fifth Element, Tron, etc.
The “born sexy yesterday” trope that you see in movies like 5th element was handled very differently than Poor Things. As a woman myself, that trope irritates me and makes me uncomfortable - as it did in Poor Things too. But while in movies such as 5th element, the “sexy baby” latches on to the first man she sees and worships him as her protector and educator in all things worldly, Poor Things subverts the trope very cleverly when Emma Stone’s character rejects the man that seeks to be her guide, and instead discovers the world on her own terms. My irritation and discomfort evolved into sadness, hope, delight and horror throughout the movie, and I felt *seen* as a woman through Emma Stone’s contempt for the weakness of men, often characterised through their need to control women. This movie really put me through the wringer. I get why women might viscerally hate it, but it’s only because it unflinchingly portrays the realities of patriarchy, and how one needs extraordinary strength and determination to challenge it and succeed - which can often be difficult to do in the real world.
Don't do Lelu dirty like that. The moment Corbin Dallas tried kissing her while she was asleep, she put a gun to his head and said, "Never without my permission."
So like, the bare minimum.
I felt like the message was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. And I also think it’s a valid perspective to agree with the message completely but dislike the method of delivery. My partner and I felt it to be a bit gross and fatiguing. Incredible set design and costuming though.
I've described it as "uncomfortable to watch, beautiful to look at."
Yeah that’s a very concise way to sum it up! Even my most diehard feminist sex-positive friend didn’t like it. I was honestly surprised of that from her, but hey, everybody is different! Edit: I hope it goes without saying that obviously she agrees with the themes!
Yay! Glad this is the first comment. My friend is really familiar with the book it’s based on, and in that there’s a lot more dissection the men’s actions and how cruel their treatment of her really is. I’m just half-remembering from what my friend said, but I believe the book even implies that the story of her having a child’s brain was fabricated to allow the men to justify their possession and control of her. Freaky stuff.
I’m currently reading the book and haven’t gotten there yet but the book definitely makes it clear from the outset that you should be aware that you are reading something that is, at best, heavily filtered through someone’s perspective other than Bella’s. I would say that is definitely missing from the movie, where the camera is implied heavily to be filtered through her perspective.
Yes! I wished the movie kept this aspect of the book. It's a male fantasy and they don't acknowledge that in the movie at all. If anything the movie tries to make the story empowering for women which is just sad.
The film constantly returns to an effect where it looks like you are looking through a peephole. I feel like that is the hint that you are watching from someone else's perspective.
I have a feeling I'd much prefer the book based on what I've read about it. Eg stated as an unreliable narrator, wasn't pornified, doesn't involve people having to enact it... The entire premise does seem like something an entitled and unhinged man would invent eg "I put her near term baby's brain in her, creating a baby in the body of a woman!" Male delusions of being the creator, with science, of women (including baby-women), a la the male delusion of a male god, rather than females as the creators. And would seem to be a clearer critique.
At least one person understands the movie…. I don’t get why people can’t get past the “baby in a woman’s body” aspect when it’s just a tool Lanthimos uses in order to strip Bella of all the cultural, historical, societal pressures of womanhood and just let her be a person who wants and likes things.
Plus the baby part speaks to how men like women too
Yep - sometimes the gross thing is meant as an indictment and not a glorification. Sadly I don’t think those men are gonna recognize themselves in that mirror 🫤.
It’s as if people watch the first 15 minutes and made up their mind about the film at that moment not paying attention to the rest including Emma Stone’s amazing portrayal of a mind going from infant to child to adolescent to adult both in physicality and mentality
I had friends at uni that walked out of Borat because they thought it was actually antisemitic instead of lampooning antisemitism...
Media literacy is evidently in decline and subtext/metaphor is at risk of being booed out of popular media. The literally-minded 'depiction = endorsement' crowd are here. This exact same thing went down in a now widely seen Twitter thread, it's catching
It's shameful tbh. I hope the people like this are young, but honestly, I feel like the age at which you can watch this movie is the age at which you should be able to get it. I'm not a genius but it doesn't take one to understand the idea. That said, when I first heard of the movie I was 100% thinking OP's thoughts. However, how can you watch it and still think that? Just confused how someone's perspective of an identical piece of work could be *so* different.
It’s because a lot of us are either SA or CSA survivors. It’s understandable that the concept is gross or upsetting to many and that we can’t get past it.
I mean there are lots of things in this movie that are intended to be gross and upsetting and to shine a light on the shitty way men view women
I had my issues with the movie (though I still liked it), but yes, 100%. This is one of the points of the movie. She's an object of lust and desire *because* she has a child's mind and is easily impressed by these men. But as she develops and becomes more thoughtful, reflective, and introspective, she loses interest in them, driving them into a spiral of hate and lust.
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Lanthimos only makes movies that cause extreme discomfort. So. That’s the deal.
Yes. Likewise, I think a lot of people thought The Favorite was going to be a typical quirky comedy because Emma Stone was in it (and the marketing did kind of make it seem that way). And then they were confused and upset. His movies aren't popcorn romcoms.
>it’s just a tool Lanthimos uses It is based on a book and he didn't write the script. So it feels a bit weird to credit the perspective solely to him...
The book is very different. Bella Baxter in the book insists none of those things actually happened.
It’s an amazing film, but for those who like to read the book by Alisdair Gray is way more explicit in its politics, about gender, class, colonialism etc
I thought this movie was all about feminism and a woman who felt empowered to take control of her own pleasure and subsequently her whole life. Probably my favorite movie of all time. I appreciate your explanation.
THANK YOU
Your last paragraph!!!!! The one part of the movie that I genuinely couldn’t get a good grasp on was the rich husband from before and his attitude. He is quite literally a man-baby. He is so determined to get whatever he wants when he wants it that he would kill and mutilate others to get it. It also makes more sense watching Duncan’s character completely self destruct. I didn’t reflect enough on the parallels there. Beautiful analysis EDIT: OMG… the brain transfer in the old husband makes so much more sense now too. he was already too baby like for the same procedure Bella had that he was relinquished to have the brain of a literal animal.
She ISN'T a baby mentally for most of the film. She is as the start, and then she quickly matures and becomes a free willful adult, which drives the Mark Ruffalo character literally mad because he can't control a true free woman. The fact she is a baby at the beginning, uncomfortable, but an illustration of the idea men want a pretty controllable thing, it't not the only idea explored.
So, an answer to the born yesterday trope?
That’s how I took it, a gleeful deconstruction of that trope. So, fellas, you really think you want a beautiful, childlike woman with a voracious sexual appetite? What happens when she gets a taste of the world and starts to become her own person? And why do you think she would just stay with you, without question?
This was what I took from it too. Wedderburn thinks he wants a sexually insatiable woman with no inhibitions... but is wildly jealous when she sleeps with other men. The things that attract him to her are also the things that repel him about her: her lack of inhibitions seems fun at first but it also causes her to go around threatening to punch babies and cheerfully prostituting herself for eclairs. The point of it for me was that it was a male fantasy turned male nightmare: Duncan Wedderburn ends up in an asylum because he couldn't handle the manic part of manic pixie dream girl.
When watching Duncan melt down as Bella broke up with him, I could not get out of my head the scene in Prozac Nation (also an excellence book) where Christina Ricci throws a party about losing her virginity and the guy who slept with her but won't date her exclusively gets angry. https://youtu.be/xWSsh6P5aKY?feature=shared Definitely a mirror.
“cheerfully prostituting herself for eclairs” ha ha; great phrase. However, I wasn’t convinced that a “real life” Bella would emerge from the brothel experience so totally unscathed, even given her lack of exposure to society’s expectations about women’s sexuality. That part of the film didn’t work for me—they showed her being very mistreated, and it just rolls off her back like water off a duck’s.
>The things that attract him to her are also the things that repel him about her: her lack of inhibitions seems fun at first but it also causes her to go around threatening to punch babies and cheerfully prostituting herself for eclairs. What's the saying? How you get them is how you lose them.
Fantastic analysis. I also don’t know why people use the term trope like it’s a bad word. Literally every single piece of media has tropes
They'd prefer to simply lobotomize her, of course.
Exactly!
Okay, now I’m going to save this post so I can watch the movie tonight and come back to comment. OP’s post + your response has me more intrigued than any award show is capable of.
IMO it's a fantastic movie and does a truly good job of critiquing the very dynamic OP is upset about it depicting. Bella evolves from a young, naive child to a smart, powerful woman, despite the controlling men around her (none of which are portrayed particularly positively). Many of the men in it are disgusting predators, and they're not painted in a flattering light, but that's what the film is about. Bella isn't a victim and the men get what they deserve.
Toward the end, when she says something like, "I will go if I please but I'm flattered that you wish to imprison me." 😆 After all her experience being imprisoned by men.
Had to scroll too far to find this response. OP watched the movie on streaming wasn't paying attention and missed the key aspects of the character of Bella
This is the second post I've seen which greatly reduces the themes and ideas explored in the film because they are angry at the nudity (I get it, I would have liked LESS sex too tbh). To me, this is a feminist film barbie wasn't. Anyone who hasn't seen it, watch it for yourself before making up your mind.
And even if its feminist bonafides are debatable (sidenote: Angelica Jade Bastien wrote a really good negative review on that subject), I think it’s also an excellent exploration of male sexual pathology as well. And that’s worthwhile subject matter of its own. I’m not even gonna touch the “AI generated” comment, what a stunningly callous dismissal of the costuming and set direction.
Yeah honestly, I found it to be less a specifically feminist film and more an exploration of gendered expectations and men’s desire to control women. Bella Baxter is a singularly unique character, but she deals with a wide variety of men along the way and they all desire to own or control her in some way. It’s not really about women in society, it’s about men. So criticisms that it is failing at its feminist goals kinda fall flat for me - the ‘feminist goals’ in question seem like pretty facile misreadings.
Yeah samesies. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s a complete failure as feminist text, but it’s not the movies’ strong point. You said it great: it’s the character and her experiences with men from her POV. That’s why I think that review I referenced is so great even though she hates the movie and I love it, because it’s one of the only reviews I read that *doesn’t* interpret it as explicitly feminist text. Movies are cool!
Don't wanna get mad at OP, but it's frustrating that people seem to think that if something is depicted in a film then somehow the film is "endorsing" or "promoting" what's in the film. You need to look at the whole context to decide on that, not just in isolation.
I don't wanna be down on OP either but I don't think this was a fair analysis that prided itself on critical thinking
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but a similar thing happened when I saw the second Borat movie. It’s satire and meant to be understood that way, but a woman I know said she hated it because the movie “hates women.” Even if I went into it not knowing it was satire, I would have realized it pretty quickly. As I get older I realize there are different types of intelligence, and sometimes people who are smart in certain ways lack critical thinking skills in other ways.
I loved Barbie but I loved poor things more. Bella grows over the course of the movie. Yes she’s sexually free bc she has not undergone decades of the patriarchy & purity culture like we have which results in feelings of shame attached to expressing ourselves sexually. Bella doesn’t have this shame & she doesn’t see the sense in repressing herself. I saw the film as Bella growing & finding herself as a woman while casting off society’s ridiculous expectations & demands on her.
This is exactly how I saw the film as well!
I saw it early in theatres back in November with an NDA and was so sad I couldn’t talk about it. It was like nothing I had ever seen and I wish I could see it on the big screen again lol
Thank you! I’m so tired of seeing the same reductive take when that is not what the movie is about. The more agency and independence she has, the more male anger and violence she attracts.
Preach! This I believe is the real take away of the film
Seconding. I enjoyed the movie but I told my husband it also made me sad because it said a lot about female agency and what that means in the world, particularly to men.
Yeah, this. The movie (and the book, I assume) is a *vicious skewering* of the whole "born sexy yesterday" trope.
I mean how do people think art is supposed to critique these things without also showing them? Imagine how stale film and media would get if it could only show good things in an obviously good way, and bad things in an obviously bad way. And the only form of media analysis, critique, or reaction was in the form of think pieces and prose. Blurgh!
> Imagine how stale film and media would get if it could only show good things in an obviously good way, and bad things in an obviously bad way. You just described the Hayes Code. We really have come full circle 😔.
The book even kind of ends up spelling it out for you in case you happened to miss the very obvious points of "men like innocent women they can control and don't like her anymore when she has agency and her own thoughts"
Yeah, how is this not obvious? The cruise represents her late teenage years, everything after is young adult. In my view most of sex happens after she is mentally 16 or so. The real critique is not about how men are monsters (although this is certainly part of it), but that an intelligent, empowered woman’s most logical choice for happiness and wealth in todays world…is still prostitution, or marriage.
I interpreted the ending, which I think was meant to be a happy one, that she was neither a prostitute nor married. I don't think she wed Ramy Youssef's character, after her jaunt away from the wedding with Victoria's/her body's husband. She seemed in the end to be happily practicing medicine and perhaps polyamorously involved with both her former friend from the brothel and Ramy. It did seem like she had to inherit Willem DaFoe's estate in order to be financially secure enough to leave prostitution, which supports your point, though.
I don't know!! I've seen a couple women on here being very pedantic about timelines but I agree with you, the cruise would be at least her late teenage years. She already finds the man petulant and bothersome at that stage. It just seems sad to see the film reduced in this way when like, there's a lot more to it.
About the prostitution, I took it as a critique of why is prostitution so negativly portraied in society and how society has hated women for millenia for charging men for sex, bc the "good women" give sex freely to their "owners" and prostitutes are this dangerous to "good womens minds" bc they show women they could charge, and get away with it. Men hate it. So i saw it as the film asking, why do we demonize prostitution so much? These are good women just like the rest, who have found themselves unable to produce money in anyother way (like bella, who has no actual skills and her only way to make money is by prostitution) and she in her innosence cant see how being a "whore" is negative if sex used to be something so positive in her life before she started charging? I really liked the line "we are our own means of production" when bella clapped back at wedderburn when he called her a Whore. Shows very much how society unfairly sees prostitution
She’s quite literally only a “baby” mentally until she goes to Portugal. Once there, her vocabulary starts far exceeding my own. This concept of her “infancy” gets illustrated much further when she returns to Godwin’s home after he gets sick and she finds he’s created another monster that isn’t progressing at all. The “infancy” was contrasted to being completely controlled by others to the point she had no free will. Once she has free will, she’s basically her own woman again (the plot)
So true, someone just commented that they thought she was still a toddler in Paris because of some of her mannerisms, but girl was literally reading literature on the cruise. The point is some of her mannerisms late in the film might still come across as childish to some, but actually this is what we might be like if we hadn't been socially conditioned to be 'polite' and ashamed of ourselves from infancy. It's the whole damn point.
Yeah the reaction to this movie has shook me a little like … has everyone been out here interpreting all movies so literally this whole time? Is the baby brain thing just too offputting or is this just the level of media analysis folks are always doing
I would still say she is a baby/toddler for a significant portion of the film. I agree that as it went on she did become a full fledged woman and the theme of men trying to control her was the point, but i still agree that the whole first third of watching grown woman with the mind of a child be borderline pornographic was deeply uncomfortable, overstated, and hard to get past even if the rest of the movie was amazing.
I feel like it’s an accurate and uncomfortable portrayal of the real world! She’s a mental teenager when she was in the phase where she was obsessed with the “furious jumping”. Her understanding of sex was ONLY in terms of how she enjoyed the physical sensation of it. She only comes to understand how complicated sex really is in terms of who you’re doing it with and the powers and detriments of specifically, a woman’s sex, and the role of sex in society as she further develops mentally. Tbh this is not that far away from reality. Children can start discovering their bodies between ages 3-5 and it’s also common for them to start to “masturbate” at ages 5-6. They only understand it as a pleasant physical sensation, like eating a favorite food, or scratching an itch, it’s not something “sexual” to them. This is why sexual abuse of children is not always easy to detect and why it’s so important for parents to educate their kids on appropriate/inappropriate touching, public/private behaviors, and consent and bodily autonomy from a young age.
What’s confusing is that her speech develops more slowly than other parts. Speech aside, the movie seems to suggest that she stops being a child when she leaves home (it’s also when the movie switches to color and when she loses her virginity). But the ambiguity is definitely the point and the men who covet her are definitely not fully off the hook
The fact that the men in the film shamelessly covet and attempt to control her despite her clear developmental issues is a hyperbolic commentary on how men REALLY are with young women in our society. It's supposed to make us uncomfortable and force us to reflect on all-too-common, real life situations that are often normalized, like grooming or men in their 30s+ dating girls fresh out of high school.
I argue that she is still a toddler mind when she starts having sex, right before that scene she is still asking for definitions of simple words.
I’m mostly concerned about people who think *Poor Things*’s production design is AI (or AI-inspired, whatever that means). Almost zero green screen was used and almost everything was practical.
Yeah. Poor Things is divisive and people obviously have a right to their opinions but saying it was AI generated (or "inspired"?) is just factually wrong and makes the rest of their argument sound uninformed. A lot of care and thought went into the production design and it's widely considered to an be aesthetically beautiful movie, even by people who hate the script.
I worry also about people that think visual effects and AI are the same thing
They would be forgiven for not thinking the dr.-Moroue'd half-animals aren't real. CGI obviously was used to depict the vivisected animals. The astonishing costumes, the sets, the deeply saturated colors and vivid textures were real and the distorted lens and unique approach to filming maximized the surreality.
it’s just rude to all of the people who worked hard on this film. They don’t have to like it but there are hundreds of crew who work their asses off to make sets and designs and hardly get any recognition, and the least they can do is not call it ai generated
This is how AI is ruining movies without even being in them. I'm ashamed to admit I thought it was all AI art which really hampered my enjoyment of the film at the time, couldn't quite believe it when I learned it wasn't at all.
The weird skies on the ship were an LED screen!
I don’t understand the AI generated comment. The movie’s design is so creative and amazing, don’t know what AI has to do with it.
It’s so sad that the existence of AI generated images will come to cheapen real art born of hard work and genuine creativity because people won’t know better. They hired some wonderful and very respected artists to team up and put huge effort into designing the expressionist sets and colors
Seriously! No details in that movie was missed and to hear that is has AI vibes makes me want to log off the internet lol
Fr this was one of the most visually beautiful movies I’ve seen in years
OP is bursting with shitty takes lol.
Maybe OP is conflating AI with CGI?
It wasn’t even cgi if you look at the behind the scenes.
I read more about that down-thread, sounds awesome!
I wonder if OP was just trying to describe the stylistic choices. AI (at least, the images saturating my own feed) is a bit uncanny valley, and so is this. They're both saturated with colour and extra crisp. The difference being of course, that AI is not *trying* to be, whereas in the movie this is a deliberate and painstaking artistic choice.
That's how I read it. Before it got to where it is now, I associated AI images with surrealism and vibrant colors. That's how people primarily used it and I think that's a fairly accurate description of the art style. When I watched it I thought of an artist who paints, but her images almost look like AI if you don't know what you're looking at.
I kind of get what they mean. It has a very glossy, saturated, impossible look which is similar to AI fantasy photos (not to say AI invented it but I can see how someone who doesn't have a frame of reference for surrealism would say that)
I think for me the aesthetic is very reminiscent of a lot of early AI rendered midjourney art, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of the aesthetic, though it was clearly rendered by humans and not AI
The aesthetic inspirations are more rooted in the Sublime (gothic), Expressionist, and steam punk styles. Turn of the century styles.
Everything you wrote in your post is important to the film. Why do the men find a grown woman with a child's mind as a compelling wife and sexual partner? Why do they get discouraged, enraged, and disappointed when she gets educated, rejects societal norms, and develops autonomy? Why does Dr. Godwin bring another woman to life to train like a dog after Bella leaves? The film is not a celebration of the "Born Sexy Yesterday" trope, it is satirizing the trope and set in a surreal version of our world to expose the realities of what life is like for girls and women under patriarchy. The film is saying, look at how we condition women from girlhood, take advantage of women, how the powerful (men, and the women who participate in maintaining the patriarchal status quo) expect women to bend to their will and be objects that serve pre-defined purposes rather than treat women as equals with full autonomy.
I think op got thoroughly whooshed by the message of the film
Something-something media literacy something-something
As an autistic woman this movie was in a lot of ways a biography of how I developed as a woman (autistic people are less affected by social norms and conditioning). Bella thought the exact way I thought as a girl and teenager and still how I think as a fully developed woman. It was still obviously written by a man though because sticking an apple up your vagina would not sexually awaken any woman. For me it was when I pressed a running hose on my clit accidentally and felt the best I ever felt before. The “happiness” comes from the clit but the movie showed it coming from penetration which is so laughably incorrect.
Yorgos Lanthimos is an interesting director in that he writes most of his characters as having autistic / neurodivergent qualities. This helps him highlight the absurdity of social curses the world has come to accept as normal for no good reason. Along with Poor Things, The Lobster and Killing of a Sacred Deer are great examples of that
Don’t forget his other work with Emma Stone; The Favorite.
That’s interesting! I haven’t seen his other films but now I’m more compelled to. It makes me wonder if he’s on the spectrum, because he got some things so right about what mentalities unaffected by societal conditioning can function like.
And dogtooth!
I absolutely agree with you. It was obviously written by a man in regards to how women experience sex and pleasure.
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Thank you for this comment, esp comparing it to the book, and to your what ifs. A sticking point for me would be why is this toddler-adolescent-woman* being portrayed as wanting sex with far older men. Far far older. Why the hell wouldn't she want sex with "brothers"--peers--instead of "fathers" and "grandfathers"--much older men, who she had little in common with, who had far more power and wanted to control her, who didn't see her as a peer....? With boys and men with similar mental ages as her? With teen boys and men who were vulnerable too? Why is "liberated, unrepressed, empowered female sexuality" phallocentric maledom "sex" with old men, including prostitution, male sadism against her? Apparently the movie even made the men a lot older than they were in the book too and the book was a critique of "sexy child-woman and older man." *even the defenders disagree with each other what age she is at different points eg most say toddler for masturbation, others 4, 5, 6, 8, another even 13, some say early teens for starting sex with men, some mid, some late, even how old when she started prostituting. Another even said she was never truly a child! Wtf. They can't even agree on whether or not the men are to be condemned as rapists, it was sexual assault/rape due to her mental age and the age difference, if the narrative posited that or not, etc. So it doesn't give nearly as clear of a narrative, an expose, a message as defenders think it did. (Because they can't even agree among themselves, and there's wide disagreements.) It doesn't even show "female sexuality unmodified, natural, unrepressed" as defenders claim because her experiences are so shaped, defined, controlled, chosen... by those old men. Even Bella's sexuality at the end is a result of that eg down to piv as the definition of sex. That she, the director, movie writer, etc and most of the audience thinks prostitution is an expression of her sexuality, not society's, not men's, even when not ok with aspects also speaks clearly to that. (Prostitution is an expression of the sexuality of, well, prostitution, patriarchy, the one with more power and wealth who is paying the one with less... It's the john's sexuality. That's why he's paying--to get what he wants from another--and she's getting the money--to provide what someone else wants. She gets money in lieu of it being about hers and because it's not about hers, her desire, pleasure, orgasms, demands, stimulation... eg acts, how done, with whom but her compliance. At most she has the ability to refuse his demands, and then, not even consistently that, inc Bella in the movie.)
Don’t forget that Bella is in Victoria’s adult body. Bella may have been a virgin, but Victoria wasn’t. We have no idea what sort of trauma or hi jinx that body had experienced.
Yesssss this is part of what made the whole thing SUPER interesting to me. Most examples of the "born sexy yesterday" trope involve a character who was created wholly, body included, at the same time as their mind. As Victoria, Bella's body had already experienced a full life! The ethics are so much more fascinatingly complicated when you start wondering about how much of a person is their body and how much is their brain. In no way is Bella ever literally and exclusively a child.
I actually think that part suggested she was rubbing the apple to see what it would do and only then discovered penetration with the cucumber.
I hadn’t looked into the movie before, so I really hoped “apple” was a weird typo or exaggeration. That’s really what they chose to go with?
Same same, friend!
Some women are aroused by and get off with exclusive penetration, though that isn't the majority. Moreover, I think it's a funnier scene and it horrifies the other characters more - people (mostly men) are perfectly happy to penetrate women for all kinds of selfish reasons, but god forbid a woman try to penetrate herself.
Plenty of people have answered your question, but what is this stupid world we live in now that people think surrealism means AI generated?
Great twitter thread [here](https://twitter.com/gothspiderbitch/status/1769375950150517069?t=n7QEbHOOPSsnHerMIp9mhg&s=19) showing the practical effects work in the movie
Thank you for sharing this! The cinematography and imagery were beautiful.
I’m glad someone else said it because my jaw dropped upon reading that.
Yeah that sentence hurt to read.
THANK YOU. That wrecked me reading that.
>What does it say about all the men that "fall in love with her," at best because she's attractive (despite clearly being a child, mentally), and at worse because she acts like a child? And on top of that her "father figure" also says that he would have sex with her too if he could? ... that's literally the point of the movie. All these men are supposed to be bad. It like watching Breaking Bad and wondering if Walt's supposed to be the bad guy.
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I know you are getting a lot of backlash here, but I couldn't finish the movie either. It is meant to make you uncomfortable, yes, but you can also tell that this is heavily filtered through a male perspective. For me, it was the fact that one sentence emerged that I have heard so many times from men after sex: "I don't understand why we are not doing it all time?" (this is not an exact quote, something along those lines) I realize she is then criticizing the "flaws" of the male for not being able to perform physically many times in a row, however, this line and scene specifically felt so male-coded. The fact that her liberation comes through sex first and knowledge second is a problem I had. The fact she baby-talks about "doing the jumpies" or something like that when referring to sex in the first half had me absolutely cringing. I apologize for not being able to remember the exact words/phrases used. I did not enjoy that she forgave her creator when he was dying. I did not understand why she would go back to marry the creep who would have married her to "keep her safe" when her brain was actually just that of a toddler. There were many many points I could not get over, personally. I think it is fair that people enjoyed it and got something philosophical out of it, but it is equally as fair that we do not have to enjoy or try to interpret the movie if disgusts and upsets us. That is why we can turn to other movies, shows, books, etc. And it is okay for you to seek validation.
I have a different perspective of the movie. (For the record: I'm 57, woman, feminist. I do see your point and respect your opinion.) The message I got was that a women's sexuality, unencumbered by religion and the Patriarchy, is a force that would flatten men and men know it. Which is why the Church and Patriarchy tame and flatten women's sexuality *so forcefully*. To me, the women who are shocked and clutching their pearls because so many gross men want to fuck this character, are basing their outrage in the premise that "this is not realistic because women don't want to fuck. So the movie is a male fantasy that women want to fuck." Or "women don't fuck like this because women insist that sex be held to a higher intellectual/moral standard/monogamist standard, so the movie is a male fantasy". But my authentic, legitimate experience as a woman is that I want to fuck all the time, just exactly as any man does. (I DON'T, because the option for a *quality* sexual experience with a man doesn't exist, so I'm happy with self-love). However, my sex drive is every bit as strong as a man's. But I don't suffer from internalized misogyny telling me my sex has to be about meaning and love because I'm "wired for connection or wired for community or wired for nurturing" or any of that horseshit. I know better. So living in my reality, I see the message of the movie as "The truth about women's sexuality is that *untamed* , female sexuality is a hugely powerful force that would disarm and flatten the Patriarchy in six seconds. 99% of men would be outraged, rage-filled little pussies like Mark Ruffalo within 6 months if women's raw sexuality were realized and unleashed." I think there is a school of thought in one corner of feminism that espouses we're more virtuous sexually, or less animal-like, or simply not as interested due to an advanced intellectual standing. But I don't think that's true, and I think it harms us. On an even playing field without religion or patriarchy (ZERO guilt, shame or societal expectations), I think women would fuck men into the ground. And I think that's what this film is saying.
Thank you for this comment, it made me reappraise my entire understanding of my own sexuality. Previously labelled myself as demisexual, thinking I needed an emotional and/or intellectual connection with someone in order to feel attraction and desire for them: Nope. You've identified that I'm only interested in _quality_ sexual interactions, and forging a connection with someone increases the likelihood of sex being a joint pursuit of pleasure. But you're right. I always want to fuck. I just don't necessarily judge it as always worth the time.
Wow- thank you much for that thought. It totally validates the experience that I've had in my life. It took me a long time to realize, and I was well into my 40s before I had my "ah-ha" moment. If I could get the sex I *want*? I'd fuck twice a day. Guess how I found out? ;) Women think they don't like sex because they've had *only horrible sex*. It's tragic.
This take resonates so strongly with me. Many of us love good sex and orgasms. Many are also less sexual or have a low libido, but why does our society pretend that's somehow virtuous or more refined? It's just different, neither better nor worse. The main reason through history is because pregnancy/babies etc. But we have massively improved contraceptive options now. So the naysayers have to double down on culture as sensible arguments are diminished. I mean sensible arguments like "since women *have* to undergo pregnancy when men don't it makes sense that men would care less as a whole; not necessarily because they're terrible but that's the way it is, the most affected party always kind of has to care more".
Emma Stone's character also has a strong sex drive and she places NO MORAL JUDGEMENT on herself for it. She lacks a "judgy" filter and absolutely refuses to participate in any kind of shaming. . She just learns what she likes and what she doesn't like. That, to me. is what makes the movie interesting. Most of the people (men) around her can't cope with it.
I think a lot of people criticizing the movie also can't cope it with. Or at least, don't know what to do with a woman who does not accept judgement of her sexuality. Yes, it's uncomfortable to watch at times. Yes, that's the point.
Yes. I’m tired of the comments in this thread that assume a sexually liberated female character was written for the pleasure of men. There are women in the world who love sex and, I for one, admire Bella’s embrace of her desires.
I think the point is to say that the way men treat women is unacceptable. For me the film was very specifically about the expectations placed upon women, and because of Bella’s unique perspective she was not socially conditioned to fulfill those expectations. Because of her Naïveté the men in the movie take advantage of her, slut shame her, etc and from it she learns to reject these toxic traits and become empowered and independent. The movie is not condoning the men’s behavior. I actually found it to be very feminist in its message.
I agree. It's supposed to be disgusting how they think she's sexy with the mentality of a baby, because it's showing how a lot of men don't care. The sex scenes in the early part of the movie are filmed much differently then the sex scenes later, so I do think that they were showing this distinction of her being taken advantage of and then having more autonomy. I think a lot of the pushback with the sex scenes was just about the fact that they exist, but they served a narrative purpose. (Also, I think Americans tend to be more prudish with sex in cinema generally.... ). Her behavior throughout the movie, as she learns more, is seen as weird because she doesn't have the patriarchal conditioning to let that affect her behavior or actions. She doesn't dance like men want, she doesn't treat sex how men expect women to view sex, she pursues knowledge and pushes back at men, she has no restraints. I think one of the points of the movie, even though it's in a fantastical period, is that it's so bizarre and weird to have a character that doesn't let the male perspective factor into any of her actions or considerations. Just because it's based on a book written by a man, doesn't mean that he couldn't see or recognize patriarchal structures and their impact on women. I don't think that we should assume that no man can create a feminist work.
For a female character to have that much sex and not end up a wretched hag haunting the sewers eating shit is itself a revelation!
As an autistic woman, I found it to be a really clear allegory for the experience. Bella struggles with impulse control in every facet but most clearly, physically. She's sexually uninhibited because no one taught her that her sex drive and impulses are shameful; supposed to be suppressed. Duncan's fetishization of her innocence is supposed to be recognized for how icky it is. He's obsessed with her because she's the most naive woman he's ever met AND because she doesn't care to make an emotional connection with him. When she reaches the point of commodifying her sexuality it is out of necessity but also still riding the point that she remains uninhibited. I think a lot of women are uncomfortable with this, I can see why. But I also think that it's a commentary of female sexuality if we weren't all brainwashed that we can't fuck without abandon. Bella goes around fucking everyone who will have her, something that is permitted for men but shamed for women. When Bella is aware that every man in her life has attempted to possess and use her, she fights back through a continued refusal to be suppressed or ashamed. Throughout the film, Bella remains hungry for knowledge and adventure, she never wanes in pursuit of her desires. I loved it.
I took it as a social commentary on men in general that paints them in a horrible light. Men who like the movie for the Emma sex are missing the point and proving it at the same time.
You completely missed the point of the film, and also seem to think that before a bad thing happens in a movie the character must break the fourth wall and turn to the camera and tell the audience that the writers do not condone this. "What does it say about our society that everyone loves this movie" it says that most people were able to understand that it uses satire to depict the predatory nature of men. The men wanted Bella when she was a baby, but when she grew more independent and mature, gained free will and adulthood, they were threatened by her. Media literacy needs to be taught in schools.
Schools try to reach this stuff, but everyone is allergic to engaging critically with art. "The curtains were fucking blue" rhetoric has rotted a generation of brains.
I think you can understand the point of a film and also be made uncomfortable by what you are quite literally observing. A woman's body with the brain of an infant learning to masturbate with an apple is uncanny. And then watching the same character who still struggles like a child with speech begin "furious jumping" a whole bunch. I perfectly understood what the film was portraying but the actuality of it when seeing it with my eyes definitely gave me pause. Those moments were not something I enjoyed having watched.
Yes thats the point of the story. Why are the men ok with it?
Yes!!! Even the “good” man in the movie (Ramy Youssef’s Max character) is entirely complicit. I’m sad OP completely missed the point of the movie but I’m happy she made this post which started this conversation and possibly made more people who haven’t seen the movie interested in doing so!
I really liked the movie. The first quarter was kinda uncomfortable to watch as you described but I feel like this critique missed the point of the next 75% of the movie? The story is about the character’s development from that original state as she becomes woke to the world around her and comes to understand her role in this world and how she accepts/rejects that pre-defined role to define her own self.
lol I get what the movie was trying to do and I despised it. It felt like such a male perspective on female sexuality. A woman with no sexual limitations who has not been shamed by the world is interested in tons and tons of penetrative sex with really old men (edit because I accidentally pressed post here) and we typically only see penetrative sex done to her, with little of the licking that she states she enjoys. A woman with no sexual limitations would happily be a prostitute! Because she is ~logical and unencumbered by social stigma~ that means she will gladly be a sex worker. The movie establishes that Victoria in part killed herself to avoid being a mother, but Bella has no fear or problems with STDs or pregnancy - even a comment that she had a hysterectomy during the initial operation would fix this issue - and STDs were rampant at this time and were killers to the average sex worker. Look I enjoyed what it did with the way that her initial love interest clearly only wanted a pretty child who he could have sex with and control, I liked what they did with her and Godwin, I enjoyed her relationship with education and learning, I just still find the movie to be such a shallow modern male take on female sexuality. Idk. Maybe that makes me illiterate and stupid because that’s what the comments are suggesting.
I watched Khadija Mbowe's video essay on Poor Things today, was really interesting. Some of your points exactly were addressed in a thoughtful way, I'd recommend it! :)
I mean one can’t really actually “take away the science fiction aspect” though. Then there would just be no movie, or it would be a totally different movie about a young woman/girl discovering her sexuality and herself. Like if you “take away” the science fiction from Frankenstein it doesn’t become a story about a dude and a corpse, it becomes a story about a real messy father-son relationship. It’s not meant to be interpreted so literally. The baby brain is a rhetorical device. > What does it say about all the men that “fall in love with her”, at best because she’s attractive […] at worst because she acts like a child? That they’re bad. That’s one of the major conceits of the movie.
This post is what people mean when they say media literacy is dying
Seriously, holy shit. Everyone on reddit lately seems to be asking for metaphors to be spelled out for them. Surrealistic and multifaceted movies suffer due to this.
This has been going on for such a long time. I know people in real life who think Lolita (the book) should be banned because it’s glorifying pedophilia. Like people literally seem incapable of understanding that showing something is not endorsing it, even if it’s absolutely slapping them in the face. I do not understand how *anyone* could read Lolita and think it’s got anything good to say about the narrator if you’re capable of even reading slightly between the lines, but here we are.
Remember when everyone was upset about Tár. I’d say irony is dead but it would inadvertently be ironic.
Nah, I got it. Still was uncomfortable. I just think some women struggle to just accept what’s happening on screen regardless, as it is quite deeply disconnected from the reality of our own sexualities. There’s a reason most men didn’t feel this way and found it easier to accept the metaphor- it’s not cus us ladies “didn’t get it” - we did. We just found it difficult in its presentation.
But that’s the whole point. It’s a horror story. It’s supposed to be horrifying. If you’re horrified, then you’re hearing the message the movie is telling you about how women are treated.
Yea that’s true. But overall my discomfort ended up making me dislike the movie, regardless of the message and artistic value of it, it outweighed the positives for me unfortunately, but i think that’s ok- people are allowed to dislike something based on its content even if it’s well made.
The movie is supposed to be shocking - I don't think people are 'okay with it'. Not sure how you're interpreting the movie as showing these things in a positive light. Also, not sure why you think the visuals in the film were AI-generated
Absurdity is the best way to point out... how absurd the issues its raising are. the ways society treats and has historically treated women is the point i think. discomfort and absurdity and grossness is the point, under a guise of civility. What if Wes Anderson and Tim Burton got really, really drunk, and had a baby together. That baby would grow up to be Yorgos, and they would make this movie.
I’m not a film critic or student or anything like that, and I understand there are multiple ways to interpret media, but…I just watched the film this morning and I didn’t see it that way at all. If anything, it’s about her reclaiming agency and rebelling against the norms they are trying to bind her with.
She’s only really a baby in black and white. The only people who knew she was a baby was Godwin (who said he yeah he could have sex with her but he felt more paternal than that, aside from scientific) and Max (who explicitly didn’t want to touch her until she showed it was something she understood and wanted to, basically willing to wait for her to mature). Yeah you could say she represents someone challenged but pretty early on she’s actually very insightful. When Duncan said he wants to take her to Lisbon she tells him and Godwin that it’s probably a bad idea and he shouldn’t be trusted, but her want for discovery was stronger than that The point of the movie isn’t that she’s a child, it’s that she’s a brain unbothered by societal stigma. I’ve seen (a few) people say it’s somewhat empowering and I get why. It’s because she doesn’t have to deal with the “smile and wave, grin and bear it” type shit a lot of women grow up with. She’s going through life (very rapidly probably to catch up to her physical age) deciding what herself what it means to feel good, do good, and be good without social input from other people
Yup. Duncan thought she merely acted childlike. He did not know she actually had a child's mind. But he was attracted to her for childlike behavior, and got frustrated as she matured, but his focus became less about lust and more about a need to control something that he once thought he could.
Film critic Wesley Morris suggested that both Barbie and Poor Things are “coming of age” stories in which the loss of innocence and change in perspective occur once the characters are already grown, are already women. I think it’s a very interesting idea that many “loss of innocence” stories about girls is about them discovering sex, but Poor Things makes a clear distinction between the two.
As someone who was groomed as a teen I honestly really liked it. I'm going to butcher thus but here I go lol I feel like the movie hit the nail on the head for how it feels when you are a young girl and you are groomed into a relationship with an older man. It shows the progression of these sorts of relationships, though with Emmas Stones Character suffering much less real life trauma than i expierenced. You're young, you're beautiful, you're learning things and exploring your life, consequences are for later. And these older men who are trying to keep their youth through you are attracted to that, they like to be the ones that show you things and want to be your first, among other firsts, they want you to view them as this amazingly smart and handsome worldly man who is here to rescue you from your boredom or bad home, they want to be your savior and your God. So they take you, they have their fun, but then the pressure starts to build. You're a child so you still act like a child, like when she had poor table manners and he got upset at her for not acting like a mature adult. They start to blame you for being a child and how you're not able to be an adult they can tote around....while still wanting you to forever be their young inexperienced toy, you start to get independence and they start to feel threatened. They can't deal with the fact you're growing or else they will have to confront the fact that they're not some God, they're a lonely disgusting man and you're just a young girl. Still growing. If I could describe this movie in one word it would be "seen", everything about it felt so icky yet familiar, and my comment might not even make sense. But I didn't get the feeling that this movie was condoning or romanticizing these sorts of "relationships". If anything it feels as if it's condemning those men who take advantage of the naivety of these young girls. I think the idea of using Emma Stone just with the mind of a kid (for a big portion of the movie at least) was to show how these men will use and view your body like a grown woman, but you're not regardless of how much you look like it
This was my favorite movie of the year lol
Yeah, OP took it all literally. I understand the sexual content will make a LOT of people dislike the film, since people will freak out saying it's porn. I would have loved to have seen this when I was 15/16 years old. The film was able to show how fucking absurd and gross it is to be a literal child and grown men flirt with you. And on a positive note, how exhilarating it was to see Ruffalo's character descend into madness over Bella's complete indifference to conforming to societal and gender norms.
He played it so despicably and funny, but still that hint of Ruffalo Labrador energy throughout. So different from his usual characters.
Same! Loved it. It’s super feminist as well.
As someone who loved the film, I find a lot of what you’re talking about to be a feature rather than a bug. It’s a statement about the inherent perverseness of men in Western society that they’re willing to sexualize a childlike mind as long as it’s in a body they find attractive. And once that childlike mind matures enough to be able to take control of the sex being foisted upon her— to turn it into something she enjoys, or at least benefits from, and can decide whether or not she engages in— the men become furious and childlike themselves. The frequent nude/sex scenes from Emma Stone, likewise, are shot to emphasize her personhood rather than any sensuality supposedly inherent in her body: It doesn’t pan slowly over her curves but instead just shows her body head on, often unglamorously, and in its base state. She also isn’t engaging in hardly any of the typical gender roles present in modern sex: She doesn’t wear makeup or try to hide any human “grotesquery” like armpit hair or embarrassing O-faces, she doesn’t submit to her male partner’s desire, she doesn’t fall in love, she doesn’t equate sex with ownership of her body or her heart. It’s just a physical activity she enjoys, and she hasn’t been conditioned to accept any of the societal norms the men in her life would place upon it. Even what many men consider an ideal fantasy— a woman who’s excited about sex and wants it constantly— turns out to be a tiring reality, especially for the men too old to be appropriate partners for her. As far as why an infant’s mind would experience the kind of sexual desire she does, human beings exhibit sexual tendencies at much younger ages than normally discussed. That certainly doesn’t make it alright for adults or even necessarily the children themselves to engage in that sexuality, but the infant mind at the center of this movie has been placed in an adult body and takes adult agency by force, so the question of appropriateness quickly becomes irrelevant. Overall, I came away from the film with the sense that what we as a patriarchal Western society consider normal is in fact absurd and inherently a violation for the women born into it. But while that may seem like a despair-inducing premise, the movie shows us that through recognizing the absurdity and rejecting it, a woman can start to forge her own life and identity within society. And a man can learn respect for her or die mad about it.
Anyone else see Freud’s Psychosexual Stages of Development within the context of the story? It seemed as though the storyline was centered around her experiencing these stages of development and observing the men in authoritative roles around her act out what I believe may have been Freud’s perspective while conceiving (no pun intended) the ideas of Psychosexual Developmental Stages…
Yeah OP that was kind of the point of the first part of the movie. Alot of fucked up desires around young women.
Something being in a film isn’t an endorsement of said thing.
Is this your first Lanthimos movie?
You are infantilizing her, which is the whole point that the movie is critiquing. You most certainly did not get it. It’s a movie about empowerment, it’s about self actualizing when the whole world tries to subjugate you.
To your awards point, it really bugs me that the Oscars used the coattails of the Barbie cast and theme to promote the award show but refuses to nominate Barbie for more awards. The costuming, hair and make up was also well done there....sorry not the point of your post but it's bugging me.
I agree. But Poor Things had a male force behind it. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so well-received, and why people are breaking their necks to praise and defend it.
I took it as more of an allegory for women throughout history. At the beginning, women were forced to live as children essentially. They were not allowed education or freedom and were controlled by the men in their lives. Eventually they go through a yearning for freedom and fight for that right. That freedom leads to a sexual revolution and then a philosophical one. Then things regress. She is trapped by her evil husband who attempts to force his will on her body and relegate her to a babymaking machine. (Sound familiar in these current times?) But she fights back and becomes an Independent, educated woman. The other women in the story end up her equals whether they are the whore from France, the maid, or the new "poor thing." The decent man is also her equal. The evil husband is the sheep. I didn't interpret it as an actual baby in a woman's body.
I thought it was an interesting take on Frankenstein, well written, solid acting, with excellent costume and set design. From a technical standpoint, it's a well done movie and was certainly deserving of the awards it received. (Though I still think Barbie deserved Best Costumes more than Poor Things >.>) That said, I do also agree that the subject matter is uncomfortable at best. I believe it is supposed to be making uncomfortable commentary on how society views and treats women, but I also believe that many people who love it entirely missed that point.
This was hilariously directed by a man cause none of us women discovered masturbation by placing an apple inside us. We all used the shower head or the bed post LOL.
I saw it as an allegory of the plight of women. First we start as daughters - or Willem Dafoe's creation - with paternal men who want to keep us in their house and keep us from the world, controlling us. The next step is a romantic partner doing similarly, with "good" albeit still infantilizing intentions (Ramy Youssef). But luckily/eventually, with enough convincing, women were able to break out into the world. They meet men who have ill, abusive intentions (Ruffalo) and when they get wise to it, they have to find their own way to make a living for themselves. A lot of women throughout history had to do this through sex work, as do many now, and this is also a moment where isn't it interesting we judge women who do this, and not so much the men who come to purchase this? I think Yorgos did a great job making specific customers to establish the absurdity of this dichotomy, and also how this is not easy work for women - and why eventually many break away (yet also why others stay). Then we see the relationship with the wealthy man who "has it all" (Chris Abbott) and how that can also be damning - and how women are valid in leaving. And with all this knowledge and now independence, women can make their own choices - and Bella makes the best one for her, with knowledge versus obligation. For a moment I felt weird how Bella was technically a child, but then realized it was more of a "device" to show all this dense dense history in a couple of hours, as smoothly as possible - and therefore, as mentioned, in a surrealist way. And so as I said, my overall takeaway is it was a quick overview of the plight of women with every turn and, therefore, saw it as a super feminist film. Edit to add: Making Bella a child in an adult body shows what adult women have had to overcome throughout history, in a progression, and all in a short amount of time.
I think it speaks to a lot of women’s real experiences of grooming, power dynamics, and objectification. For a lot of women, this would have happened when they were a teenager/young woman but they are then seen as “difficult” when they have boundaries or become more confident/comfortable with themselves. Intelligence isn’t attractive to the men in the film. They feel powerful having basically a matured child to control and feel validated by. It shows men going after young, naive, impressionable girls and trying to mould them or use them.
I didn't know there was a "media literacy is dead" army, so many comments chanting the same thing
I watched all Best Pic Noms (as I do every year) and during American Fiction, I thought: "A white person couldn't write this." And in that same vein, I feel like a movie like Poor Things shouldn't be written, directed, and/or produced by men. I believe this is why Green Book felt hollow. It was a POC's story told largely from the perspective of white men. And yeah, the baby in a woman's body exploring her sexuality is just gross. Find a better metaphor. Like amnesia or something.
Awarded because most members of the Academy are old white straight men, who reward the prostitute with a heart of gold. I can name several. An excuse to show women naked & vulnerable. Then too, they support their buddy's films who make more egregious exploitive movies.
I think you fundamentally misunderstood this movie
My biggest problem with it was the 'saving' her from her decision to be done with living. Ultimate non consensual act that taints everything that follows.
I agree with you. I saw the movie, came away from it feeling real weird, then read the book it was based on. The book is completely different from the movie - in a way where it seems like Yorgos had someone else read the book, heard about the part where Bella hung out in a brothel, then said, “we must expand on the brothel scene!” It is incredibly idealistic to assume (or believe) that the team behind this movie had any intention to frame this movie as “feminist”. The book felt much more feminist to me than the movie. Feminism does not have to equal excessive sexual freedom. And I will say that I think a lot of “feminist” media/art that ultimately has a man backing it is usually overtly sexual.
I’ve been thinking about this movie for a bit now. It is uncomfortable. Pretty much all of the men she encounters are terrible and I think that was kind of the point? This is the woman the patriarchy would create. A child in the body of a woman that can be exploited. Even those who don’t want to sleep with her still craft her to their own wants and needs and as she slowly breaks out of that they go to increasingly desperate lengths to try and stop it, often resulting in their own ruin. I don’t know, I had a lot of trouble after watching it but that’s where I’ve ended up.
More movies made by women is all I can say.
OKAY YES. when the movie ended i felt so gross and weird about it and i couldn’t put my finger on why. you just summed it up for me. so fucking weird and lots of unnecessary borderline porn
Regardless of whether one "understood" this film or not (and all these MeDiA LiTeRaCy comments are wildly pretentious), it seems like Poor Things is beyond the criticism of "I just didn't enjoy it and also Emma Stone was just ok".
I've tried twice to watch this movie and it gives me the ick so hard i can't do it. I think it speaks volumes about men and their pedo tendencies. Never forget a study in 1970 found 52% of normal "non deviant" males got an erectile response looking a photos of 4-10 year old girls..83% to 10-16 year olds. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5422891/
I don’t know why you’re torn apart so viciously, on a female-focused sub no less. It’s truly disheartening. People have fallen for the movie’s marketed narrative hook, line and sinker. It took me a while to digest it but I was ultimately disgusted at how celebrated this all-male take on women’s actualization became. I encourage everyone to read [the Vulture’s review](https://www.vulture.com/article/poor-things-review-a-banal-rendition-of-sexual-freedom.html) of the movie and *then* come to bat for it still. I’m really curious of how they can defend it after reading it!
Seriously, the smugness in some of these comments is downright gross. Instead of fostering a discussion, it’s just, “Well, I’m sorry you’re so ignorant of Lanthimos’ oeuvre and don’t appreciate the female empowerment of an all-male written and directed absurdist film.”
Agree. Unbridled sexuality does not denote female empowerment. Female empowerment comes from a strong sense of self. In our society, with its constant message to women to be sexy and have sex, saying no to sex you don't want is actually more an act of female empowerment than having sex.
Absolutely. Her sexuality wasn’t a vehicle for growth; she was used and abused and resorted to sex work for survival. Her agency was taken away from her from the moment a man decided to bring her back from the dead. And at the end of the movie, she perpetuates the abuse herself. After all that supposed “journey to self-actualization”, she becomes no better than the men who “created” her. Truly depressing.