Can you find feminism in the bottom of a jizz bath?

Please don't unsubscribe because I said jizz.

This post says both ‘fingering’ and ‘jizz’ and ‘fingerbang’ - please do not read it if that will upset you - I’m sorry! I will write about wholesome parenting stuff later in the week lol.

The questions landed in my DMs quite quickly after I said I was seeing Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos’ horny sex comedy.

‘It’s a pretty unfeminist movie’, was the first one. Followed by the withering ‘I’m surprised someone like you liked it’. Pretty soon I was asked to write about why it’s feminist and also why it’s not feminist.

And all I could think was…are we really talking about the same movie where they had a part-chicken part-goat hybrid and that wasn’t even the weirdest thing about it?

Are we really going to insist on picking apart a film where one of the main characters produces a giant bubble every time he eats? And why are we making women do this emotional labour slash work? Why can’t I just enjoy a film that shows Mark Ruffalo in the nudd just because I’m a woman? Put plainly, can a bitch live?

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that Poor Things, like every Lanthimos film, is controversial. For those not aware, it’s a sexual awakening slash coming of age story with an emphasis on the coming. Bella is ‘born’ in an adult’s body with the brain of a baby, she’s created by an eunuch daddy/Dr Frankenstein type. Emma Stone, as Bella, spends more time naked than any other cast member.

If you want to read a feminist critique on Poor Things the internet is full of them. It’s also full of praise…for it being a feminist film.

This is one reason why I don’t want to join in, but the other is that (much like Bella) I want to have a tantrum about it instead. I am tired of not being able to enjoy films anymore without dull demands to analyse said films and critique said films. I’m not talking about a film review, I love to review films, I’m talking about the desire to label a film as good or bad according to some feminist metric.

It’s like everyone is trapped in the worst reality show ever where we just walk around with knives, cutting things open and saying “is it feminist?” instead of “is it cake?”.

It’s a marketing ouroboros - films that are not feminist are labelled as feminist and then feminists see it expecting a feminist film and it’s not feminist so they’re like this is not a feminist film and then they’re slated for saying something isn’t feminist and other people say it is feminist and it was never feminist.

And let’s not even get into the Barbie of it all - where ‘feminist’ reviewers slam films that are not even meant to be feminist and don’t devote any time (let alone equal time) to any issues I deem feminist (like the fact that we are in a genocide that is disproportionately killing, injuring, and maiming women).

And *white feminist voice* anyway, back to me - if they don’t care about the issues I deem feminist, why should I have to devote time to defending the film and/or responding to the review? (You can see how I relate to a woman with a toddler’s brain).

I enjoyed Poor Things for the same reason I enjoyed Saltburn - I got to think about something else for a few hours other than the ruinous capitalist hellscape we live in.

Oh god, she’s going to talk about Saltburn….

A lot of the discourse on Saltburn has focused on whether it’s OK to like the film because the director is a nepo baby or a Tory or maybe both (I can’t remember the discourse and I’m not inclined to look it up). Is Saltburn redeeming of the middle classes? Or the rich? Is it an anti-capitalist fairy-tale or a cautionary SJW tale.

What is lost in all of this is the more important conversation: Why don’t we see fingerbanging in movies anymore? There is fingering in both Saltburn and Poor Things - is this a conspiracy against bean flicking?

What I think we need to bring back, is idiotic film discourse. I don’t want to hear justifications for how drinking bath jizz is actually feminist, I want to hear what you thought about the close up of The Tall Guy’s arm in the bath, because that was pure cinema baby.

I think my main beef with wanting me to stew over every film and give it a ‘feminist rating’ is that it sucks all of the joy out of cinema watching.

And that’s the opposite of feminism to me.

Being a feminist sucks a lot of the time. It’s true. You are awake to all of the ways that the Patriarchy ruins lives. You see all of the trauma it inflicts and all of the ways we soak in the horror of it.

It’s also joyous. It’s about trying to be free. And it’s not just about your freedom - it’s about your mother’s, your sister’s, your neighbour’s, the women you will never know and never meet.

Feminism is life. It’s screaming with pure rage and pure joy. It’s celebration, it’s struggle. It’s intersectional, it’s inadequate. It’s always learning and always being frustrated that you’re always getting it wrong. It’s about choice and it’s about not having any choices. It’s power and privilege. It’s liberation.

And that’s why I find it so exhausting to see it reduced to a tick box for a marketing campaign or a pass for someone to enjoy a film guilt-free.

Liberate us from not being able to enjoy a film without preparing its defence. Life is too short, and the struggle of feminism too long - to waste it on this endless angst.

Especially when The Iron Claw is the feminist film of the year.