For indie film snobs like myself, A24’s first big release of the year is practically a holiday; not only does it tell us what our Halloween costumes are going to be, the studio has become a favourite in the world of independent film. A24 has gained serious recognition in recent years, with the subversive studio becoming known for challenging the lens of white patriarchal cinema. So, when X, the studio’s latest slasher flick, came out on March 13 2022, it was completely fulfilling in its satire of horror’s conventional aesthetic. The film aimed to focus on horror’s approach to femininity in general. X was highly revered by critics, making it all the more shocking when Mia Goth, the star of the film, and director Ti West were absent from all award shows’ nominations lists.
The film and its prequel Pearl (2022), which was equally well-received, externalize female subjectivity and sexuality, in contrast to its usual function within the genre. These films use blood and gore to show this externalization, with Pearl constantly wielding some kind of slasher weapon in both films. With these films, West asks a question Hollywood has been dodging for decades: what do we fear more from women — violence or sex? The Academy’s response to the films —or lack thereof — delivers some clarity. It solidifies the film’s claim that although horror can have value in high culture, it still demands a tortured white male protagonist — not a sexually frustrated woman with an axe.
It is safe to say that every major cultural and political institution, Hollywood included, expects young women to relish in their beauty and sexuality, provided they do so passively, and that this will disappear as they age. The problems that arise from these expectations are completely exploited in X. The film takes these societal burdens and uses them to critique the horror tropes of the objectified “final girl” and the villainized childless older woman. In the film, Maxine, a young porn star, is attacked by the villain, Pearl, not out of fear but out of resentment-Pearl has been stripped of her sexuality by society’s beauty conventions, and envies Maxine as a result. Maxine represents a cruel, unattainable desire for Pearl; this duality is furthered by the fact that the two characters are both expertly played by Goth. Yet to some degree, Pearl and her husband also represent repressive traditional values by hunting Maxine and her co-stars, showing that a full-fledged embrace of sex work was still taboo for young women even following the sexual revolution of the 70s (when the film is set) and still is today.
In Pearl, we go all the way back to the year 1918, but the way traditional femininity burdens young women is still familiar. Pearl will do anything to get out of her rural environment and become “one of the pretty girls in the pictures.” So, when she is eventually rejected, we understand the origins of her continued violence and its escalation as seen in X. It is all related to her self-image and sexuality —there are several interactions she has with Maxine throughout the film demonstrating her envy, and her unfulfilling sex life with her husband is also a major plot point.
It is Goth’s ability to self-awarely interpret the various kinds of female subjugation that allows the films to triumph. In her connected but individually nuanced roles as young Pearl in Pearl, and both Maxine and an older Pearl in X, Goth delivers three highlight-of-the-year performances that she could have been nominated for. However, because all of these performances attack the exact image of femininity in horror that high culture cinema seeks to uphold, the Academy’s neglect of these performances is, as Mia Goth herself said in a recent interview for her new film Infinity Pool, “very political” and “not entirely based on the quality of a project per se.”
So, did Ti West really create a self-fulfilling prophecy in this film and its prequel? The nominee lists for the most anticipated film award ceremonies of the year makes it seem so. It’s not that the Academy is afraid of horror as a high art form — Silence of the Lambs took home five Oscars in 1992, including Anthony Hopkins for best actor in his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter. Even works of horror that were slammed by critics and viewers for their insensitivity, such as the controversial Jeffry Dahmer biopic series Dahmer-Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story, were nominated for — and even won — at the Golden Globes this year. This show was rightfully deemed insensitive by many, as the families of the victims were not consulted prior to its conception and because it fed into the romanticized serial killer culture of American media. It completely failed in its postulated task of “decentralizing” the killer (which is difficult when the title — Dahmer-Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story — has his name in it not once, but twice). These two instances thirty years apart both go to show that regardless of quality, entertainment organizations and award shows will always eat up the tortured male main character in horror, only serving to fulfil cinema’s patriarchal individualism complex.
With these egregious fumbles made by organizations like the Academy and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) in mind, what silver lining can we extract from this all too familiar situation? This is not the first time stellar performances by women in horror have been ignored by award ceremonies; Toni Collette’s performance in Hereditary (2018) and Florence Pugh’s in Midsommar (2019) were two indie horror tour-de-forces snubbed from all major awards. This time, because of the multiplicity of Goth’s incredible roles and her direct response to this issue, it seems the conversation is being taken more seriously.
We can hope that critical acclaim online and collective outrage over this situation encourages films like X and Pearl to continue cutting their way into the mainstream. We should expect that in the future, horror films with more complex female stories and perverse themes will be recognized sooner, and not immediately relegated to cult classic status, as is often the case with these types of films. For now, we can eagerly anticipate the third installment in West’s trilogy, MaxXxine, which is set for a 2023 release, and hope that Goth’s performances, West’s stories and all those alike continue to accumulate credibility and crack the Academy’s stingy, patriarchal shell.