The Substance, the visceral and stomach-churning body horror film written and directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, has been described by its star Demi Moore as “The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Death Becomes Her.” It tells the story of aging Hollywood actress Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) who gets fired on her 50h birthday for someone “newer,” and is offered a black market drug that turns her into a younger, more beautiful version of herself. In the preface to the aforementioned Oscar Wilde novel, he writes, “When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.” And Fargeat’s no-holds-barred approach to body horror – loaded with criticism of Hollywood’s ageism and beauty standards – is exactly how she dreamed it, regardless of whether or not audiences are ready for it. 

The main point of criticism viewers have for The Substance – aside from those who don’t really understand what “body horror” actually means and that it is, in fact, gross – is that the messaging is too relentless. But based on Fargeat’s meticulous script that includes  “as much detail as possible,” this is exactly the point. Every single aspect of the film, overt and subtle, had something to say about ageism and beauty standards in Hollywood, from the cinematography, to the casting, to the specific ways body horror was used. In doing so, Fargeat gives Hollywood a taste of its own medicine. 

 Immediately after watching The Substance, my first thought about Coralie Fargeat was, “this woman knows her film theory.” Unsurprisingly, she attended La Fémis, one of the most prestigious cinema schools in France. Fargeat’s facetious filmmaking challenges the way women have historically been represented in narrative cinema. Her use of fragmentation with the character of Sue (Margaret Qualley), the “younger, hotter” version of Elizabeth, is a direct reference to ideas about representing women first theorized in the 70s by Laura Mulvey. Mulvey argues that fragmented shots of the female body (eyes, boobs, butt, feet, lips, etc.) freeze “the flow of action for erotic contemplation” and present the female body as “mere verisimilitude,” embodying the possessive desire caused by castration anxiety from the male viewer. 

With Sue, Fargeat takes this history of Hollywood attempting to possess the female body by lingering on it, fragmenting it, and deconstructing it, rendering it completely absurd. In a scene where Sue is shooting an episode of her workout show, excessive zoom-ins, slow-mo, replays, and a grid of the shot showing her lips saying “Sue” a million times over garnered laughter from the audience – both genuine and uncomfortable. But it’s just a hyperbolic version of what cinema has been for over a century. The use of nudity serves a similar purpose: Qualley poses nude, lingers, and contemplates her own eroticism. Moore’s nudity is far less stylized: she is lying on the floor or leaning over the sink, unfragmented, unglamourous. 

There is only one male character in the entire film: Dennis Quaid’s scummy studio executive. The rigidity he represents is made all the more real by his constant proximity to the camera. He often enters from a distance and approaches the camera as if invading it. The use of a fisheye lens makes him even more confrontational of a presence. Quaid is also shot flatly and symmetrically, emphasizing the shallowness of his character. The “in-your-faceness” of the film is made literal by the cinematography – it is not a dialogue-heavy movie. It is all completely thought-out and audiences fall right into Fargeat’s well-trained hands whether they like it or not. 

Between films like Poor Things, Drive Away Dolls, and Kinds of Kindness, Margaret Qualley has enjoyed a year as the thriller genre’s new muse. Demi Moore, however, while unanimously popular in the 80s and 90s, hasn’t been in the spotlight for some time. In this way, both of these were stunt castings. Demi Moore was once the highest paid actress in the world, but her career waned immensely in the 2000s and 2010s, both because of her stepping aside to raise her three daughters and the scrutiny the media placed her under. “She’s been put through the media wringer throughout her 40-year career,” writes Richard Lyndon for Vanity Fair, “scrutinized and speculated about and cast aside.” 

In the late 90s and early 2000s, the rise of tabloid culture, beauty and plastic surgery fads, and the inception of the internet, caused a phenomenon of popular actresses either being cast away from the spotlight or getting procedures to look younger. Other actresses popular during the 80s and 90s who suffered immensely because of drastically changing and increasingly harsh media reception include Courtney Cox and Meg Ryan, whose plastic surgeries were moreso the result of external pressure than autonomous decisions, and were criticized heavily. 

However, actresses who have aged naturally are treated no better, Demi Moore included. Other actresses like Geena Davis and Glenn Close have struggled immensely with  getting roles since hitting 50. Moore falls more into this category, as does Elizabeth: her boss fires her exactly on her 50th birthday, sending her a syntactically devastating note on a bouquet of flowers: “you WERE great!,” in contrast with Sue’s congratulatory “you ARE great!” No woman is spared from agism in Hollywood. Fargeat, therefore, does not spare patriarchal Hollywood overlords for a second in The Substance. 

Messaging in The Substance is rivalled in explicitness only by the positively unhinged body horror. Many claimed The Substance to be one of the grossest movies they’ve ever seen, but there was no better genre choice in my eyes to convey Fargeat’s message. Aging, in its simplest terms, is getting nearer to death, a physical transformation that transgresses inside and outside, alive and dead. This is called abjection, a tenet of literary criticism theorized by feminist cultural philosopher Julia Kristeva, and is the subconscious recognition of one’s own mortality brought about by the transgression between the inside and outside of the body, the self and the other. 

Women’s bodies are no stranger to inside-outside transgression and are far more subject to abjection. Between menstruation, childbirth, penetrative sex, birth control, menopause, and all the other daily horrors we experience, we come face to face with the limits of our corporeality on the regular – more than men will ever have to. As Sue becomes more and more abusive of the Substance, she becomes more and more abject. A nightmare sequence shows her back opening up to spill out all her organs, she has to pull a whole chicken wing out of her belly button during rehearsal for her show, and at the end, when she attempts to take full control and not switch back with Elizabeth, her teeth and ears begin to fall off. 

When Sue decides to use the single-use Substance to create yet another version of herself, she turns into the horrifying conglomeration of blood and body parts “Mostro Elisasue.” The elements of her body that transgress inside and outside are extremely purposeful. At one point, an orifice from the monster (an ear? A mouth? Something else perhaps?) opens, producing a lone untethered breast. Here, Fargeat takes a part of Sue that was once for erotic contemplation and renders it a tool for disgust. Aging, despite being a privilege, can still be physically arduous. The idea of trying to counter aging is just as gruesome: the injection of the Substance, including all the needles and stitches, are the parts of real anti-aging procedures we don’t see, and that we only judge the results of.   

Every detail of The Substance being considered “too in your face” by audiences isn’t just missing Fargeat not taking herself too seriously, it’s also missing the irony. The “in-your face-ness” of everything on the internet – every post on social media, every pop culture trend, the mere concept of “influencers,” is all about how to be more beautiful, how to look younger, and buy all these products. But when Fargeat uses that exact same method of saturating the screen with all this visual pathos – this time to comment on the horror of ageism and beauty standards – that’s when something being too overt is criticized.  

The Substance itself is a metaphor for these trends that we see everywhere: Ozempic, trending surgeries like BBLs, buccal fat removal, eye lifts – it’s all body horror. It’s all injections, removals of flesh, the splicing off of excess, putting it elsewhere, things entering our bloodstreams. Aging, too, is bodily decay. One, however, is natural, a privilege even, and is only treated as such when it happens to men. Fargeat’s film may be outlandish, but in this case, as in many, the more impossible and hyperbolic the scenario, the clearer the picture it paints of the body horror women undergo every second, whether at the hands of time or of the world around us.

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There is an entire cultural language behind queer pop music that cannot be reduced to queer people simply singing about being queer. It’s for that reason that earlier this year, Jojo Siwa came under fire, and rightfully so, for her comments about “creating” the genre of gay pop, and doing “what had never been done before.” There are queer artists who pioneered the aesthetics of the genre and were queer themselves, like David Bowie, Elton John, and Freddie Mercury, among others. But what makes this genre of pop music queer is also its sonic trademarks, influence, association, and on many occasions, the direct recognition and appreciation of queer audiences.

Since the late 20th century, a litany of gay icons like Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce have enjoyed popularity while also being embraced by queer communities. Their discographies have become defined by queer pop staples, such as unapologetic accounts of love, sex, and their own bodies – all while accompanied by sexy, glittery, high-fashion stage outfits and danceable electropop. These gay pop icons, or “mothers,” are perfect examples of what actual allyship and advocacy look like: using one’s platform to promote queer artists and imagery regardless of consequences to publicity, and regardless of whether or not something is palatable for the industry. It’s the difference between artists now merely saying they support queer rights versus what that support would’ve signified based on social context in the past. For instance in the 1980s, Madonna spoke openly in support of queer people at the height of the AIDS crisis, doing so even before America’s conservative president Ronald Reagan.

Now, Charli xcx, with her torn-up T-shirts, visible bras, mini-skirts, and club-style production, has entered this elite universe of pop girls. But what makes charli xcx especially iconic among queer audiences is her lexicon of references and associations. Her association and frequent collaboration with the late, great trans producer SOPHIE is widely known, with Charli xcx paying tribute to her multiple times on BRAT in honour of her influence and passing. She has also collaborated with Troye Sivan, an openly queer artist, many times, including on her most recent remix of BRAT’s “Talk Talk.” They are also currently co-headlining the SWEAT tour in North America. Charli xcx’s influences also reside in underground culture and counterculture, a sort of numinous space pioneered by and for queer people.

Chappell Roan is another current queer pop heavyweight, whose image exists at the intersection of queer aesthetics and text. She sings about being a lesbian from the perspective of authentic experience, which is especially resonant considering her comparatively conservative Midwestern upbringing. All the while, she pays homage to pillars of queer culture like John Waters. She’s even dressed as the legendary 1980s drag queen Divine, who starred in most of his movies. Because of her upbringing secluded from queer spaces in the Midwest, Chappell also makes a conscious effort to bring her music and performances to parts of the US that aren’t as inviting to queer performers. For instance, she performed in her Divine outfit at Kentuckiana pride in Louisville, Kentucky this past June.

What Charli and Chappell offer is ultimately a hedonistic rebuttal of the self- pitying and watered-down pop music that has been dominating the charts, which queer pop music has always been about. Freedom of identity becomes linked to musical freedom, with the sound of queer pop music intending for the listener to move their body and enjoy themselves, unconcerned with being taken seriously or rejected by the public. The terms “gay icon” and “gay pop” have far more to do with hedonistic, countercultural aesthetics, which sometimes intersect with actual queer text, more than many people realize. Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” for example, is a dance club classic rife with excess, leather, and glitter that is actually about her fantasizing about women while having sex with men.

Gaga’s 2009 track, and its accompanying album The Fame Monster, are an example of where queer pop intersects with recession pop. According to Dazed magazine, “Recession pop” first rose to prominence in the years surrounding the 2008 financial crisis, and refers to the fast, frenetic melodies and hooky lyricism that defines the music of recession periods, “colouring economic hardship with relentless optimism.” But the sound reflects more than an affective response to the economy; Diane Negra, professor of culture studies and co-editor of Gendering the Recession, calls it “a fulcrum moment after which many people rewrote the terms of their engagement with capitalism,”making it a cultural reconfiguration of capitalist hegemony as a whole.

The intersection of queer pop and recession pop is defined by excess, indulgence, club culture, and alternative aesthetics. It’s the idea of idolizing cheap luxury and abundance as a way of aesthetically rebuking economic and identity boundaries, and rejecting expectations outlined by hetero-capitalist society.

The period around the 2008 financial crisis saw a kind of unprecedented countercultural movement with albums like The Fame Monster and Blackout, which are now regarded as classics among queer audiences. They are examples of the connection between marginalized communities victim to both classicism and homophobia, and the way that LGBTQ+ people are denied full participation in the economy. The ostracization of queer people and the middle class from popular culture during recessions causes pop music to cater itself to alternative spaces, relocating the nucleus of pop music into underground clubs and raves as opposed to stadium tours and awards shows.

As opposed to the retrospective lens through which recession pop and its connection to queer culture from the late 2000s is viewed, young people today, more aware of their socio- economic milieu than ever, are actually able to detect the “silent recession” we are in through the indications provided by pop music. The world does not need to openly be in crisis for recession to be considered so, as we continue to globally suffer from post-pandemic economic decline in what is being called a “silent depression.”

The newness and self-awareness of this particular iteration of recession pop is what attracts it to queer audiences: its nostalgia factor is authentic, and it doesn’t shy away from the contemporary moment. It isn’t a recycled formula which tries far too hard to connect to marginalized audiences through unconventional aesthetics. BRAT, for instance, didn’t come to be because it was sensing or jumping on a trend, economic or cultural; Charli’s style has been popular among alternative audiences for some time, and only during the current recession period has gained mainstream popularity. Just listen to 2020’s how i’m feeling now, with the hard-hitting hyperpop intro of “pink diamond,” which embodies the same ideals as BRAT but was recorded at the very beginning of the pandemic, before we could even process its affective and economic impact.

What this self-aware, queer-oriented era of recession pop tells us is that culture has finally caught up to visionaries like charli xcx and Chappell Roan. Artists like Tove Lo, Kim Petras, and Ayesha Erotica are all LGBTQ women who have been releasing BRAT-like electropop music since the mid-2010s. All of them take influence from 2000s icons like Britney and Gaga and have long been overlooked commercially, but have always been embraced by queer audiences. However, it just may be that the state the global economy has put us in has finally necessitated this kind of energy that has been embraced by queer people on the margins of society since the beginning of the 21st century.

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“P.I.M.P” by 50 Cent is having an unprecedented resurgence in pop culture. An immensely talented and adorable dog won an award at Cannes, has his own Wikipedia page, and attended the Oscars. A dreamy, French, silver fox lawyer has taken the internet by storm. These unforeseen events can be attributed to Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, which has arguably been the film that has kept the most momentum post awards season (albeit largely thanks to North America always being late to the hype of international films). It also did not walk away empty handed, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and deservedly so – the film offers a completely fresh take on the legal drama that only a female director could conceive.

Anatomy of a Fall is the story of Sandra (Sandra Hüller), an author living in a secluded town in the French Alps, whose husband Samuel (Samuel Theis) mysteriously falls to his death from the attic and is found by their visually-impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner). Sandra is suspected for her husband’s murder, for which she undergoes a tense and emotional trial. What makes the film so different from the standard courtroom drama, however, is that Sandra’s legal interrogation reflects the kind of suspicion and blame that women (especially bisexual women, like Sandra), are met with every single day. Through flashbacks and domestic scenes outside the courtroom where we see Sandra in her most intimate moments, the film explores how trust is something bisexual women are hardly ever afforded under any circumstances.

Perhaps the most subversive and surprising element of Anatomy of a Fall comes right at the end; Sandra is acquitted, but we never find out exactly how Samuel died. This perplexing conclusion, though, is not the first time the film withholds information or disguises the fact that the audience, who is usually granted more omniscience than characters, knows just about as much as they do. In a pivotal scene, an argument between the couple the day before Samuel’s death – recorded by her husband without her knowledge or consent – is used against Sandra in court. As it begins playing in the court, and we see it transcribed on the screen, the scene transitions into a flashback of the row itself, presumably from Sandra’s point of view. Just before the climax of the fight, Triet throws the viewer back into the courtroom, where sounds of glass breaking and other aural indications of violence fill the silence. Although Sandra provides the court with an explanation of violence, we never actually see it.

The only character one could argue knows more than us is Sandra herself; we never actually see her actions the day of Samuel’s death on screen – we only have her verbal testimony. Despite being a defendant under scrutiny from just about everyone else in the film, she has the most agency over what both the characters and the audience know. The fact that a woman has agency over what the truth of the scenario is, and that it never comes out, shows Triet’s brilliant message that objective truth and patriarchy go hand in hand. “It’s not reality, it’s our voices. That’s true, but it’s not who we are,” argues Sandra. Women are constantly having their voices used against them by men in the search for objective right or wrong, true or false, innocence or guilt. Having a woman control the entire scope of the narrative obstructs the audience and the other characters from seeing the truth “objectively,” and the patriarchal satisfaction of finding a woman guilty, as is typical of the legal system, is thrown out the window.

It isn’t a coincidence then that the prosecutor is a man while the defendant, the primary witness (her son), her son’s court monitor Marge, and the judge are all either women or, in the case of Daniel, a disabled boy. As someone who does not embody the perfect patriarchal ideal of masculinity, Daniel is aligned with the women in the courtroom against the infuriating prosecutor. The women have control over the information and the outcome, yet it is a man who delivers the final argument for what he believes to be the truth. The prosecutor attempts to incite, provoke and goad Sandra through chastising and frankly sexist interrogation tactics. But Sandra remains resolute, having likely experienced similar accusations from her husband Samuel, and from countless other men for as long as she can remember.

An eye-roll-worthy but salient moment of the trial comes when the prosecutor spotlights Sandra’s infidelity with women and her identity as bisexual, implying that her sexual orientation makes her inherently promiscuous and untrustworthy. Sandra is unbelievably calm and collected in the face of this preposterous claim, but her sexuality as a point of contention for men is a very important aspect of the film. These kinds of accusations are all too familiar to bisexual women, both demeaning them and propping up the straight white man as the epitome of the healthy partner. This part of the trial shows the depressing truth that even the emotional fragility and instability of men will be taken more seriously than a calm and composed woman. If anything, Sandra’s coolness during the trial is completely in line with her character, because as a bisexual woman, she’s been on trial her entire life.

So how did a film with such strong queer themes, a woman who is morally ambiguous, no shocking reveal, and very few adult male characters become an awards season darling? For lack of a better term, Justine Triet has played high-brow cinema’s game, but by her rules. The Academy is no stranger to the courtroom drama, but usually deals with them in a very conventional way. Acclaimed courtroom dramas are usually male-dominated, where the hero is either a defendant who has been wrongly convicted, or a conflicted lawyer trying to do the right thing. None of these tropes appear in Anatomy of a Fall. The film instead allows our biases towards or against Sandra to be purely emotional because we don’t know the truth – an approach seemingly contradictory to the genre itself. Its discursive elements shine through their subtlety, and all the details of the case become a means through which Sandra’s husband’s life, not just his death, are easily blamed on her for being a bisexual woman.

There were so many films by women this year pertinent to feminist issues that were neglected by major awards ceremonies; Priscilla was absent from the Oscars, and of course all hope was shattered for Barbie. And although queer representation was fantastic in the indie/comedy genres, there wasn’t a ton that had the level of prestige (or pretentiousness) demanded by the Academy. But thanks to its unprecedented approach to the courtroom drama and perfect amount of subtle criticism, Anatomy of a Fall triumphed, and gave us a bisexual, feminine masterpiece in a legal drama’s clothing.

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Let’s start with some of the positives, which are unfortunately also laced with negatives. Although Killers of the Flower Moon does not live up to how Indigenous people should be represented in film, it did give us an outstanding performance by Lily Gladstone. Not relying on the fact that her work will be automatically  praised like her co-stars Leonardo Dicaprio and Robert DeNiro, Gladstone gave a layered performance that earned her a Best Actress nomination, making her the first Native American woman to do so. A win for her would be historic, and would hopefully create a space for more Native women in mainstream cinema – a space where they can tell their own stories, rather than having white male directors like Martin Scorsese dictate the narrative. 

Best Supporting Actress is probably the best major category overall, in terms of both inclusivity and merit. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the heavy favourite to win the award for her part in The Holdovers, and deservedly so. She was a highlight in this funny and heartwarming film, rounding out a successful year for her overall, with her return to Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, and being arguably the only good thing about Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a. The Weeknd) and Sam Levinson’s exploitative dumpster fire show that was The Idol. The rest of the category includes gems like America Ferrera for Barbie and Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, making the nominees mostly women of colour, all of whom have been nominated for their work in musicals or comedies, genres which are often overlooked by the Oscars.  

The Best Director category, on the other hand, was met by most with face palms. An opportunity to include more than one female director, as well as directors of colour, was practically spoonfed to the Academy, yet they still didn’t bite. The most talked about snub has been Greta Gerwig for Barbie, a film that also saw its lead Margot Robbie omitted from the Best Actress category. Many have dismissed the sexism of this slight with the logic that Gerwig was omitted because the Oscars generally do not take blockbuster comedies very seriously. While this is true, a film that did as well as Barbie would have a far greater chance of being considered were it directed by a man, and were it not aimed at female audiences. Just look at Poor Things, which was considered a comedy by the Golden Globes and also saw its director nominated at the Oscars.  

Alas, this is not where the double standard ends. Many have pointed out that Gerwig will profit even if she wins in other categories, like Best Picture, hoping that the film “pulls an Argo” by taking  this award as compensation. But if that’s the case, why were Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, and Yorgos Lanthimos nominated for Best Picture when their films monopolized the other categories as well? While Gerwig is perhaps the most salient example, the directing category overall committed several egregious oversights in a year where diverse filmmakers proliferated. 

Past Lives is probably the film that got the most royally screwed over this year, in Best Director and several other categories. Lord knows how long it’s been since a directorial debut was as revered as this one from Celine Song, who easily could have joined Justine Triet in the Best Director category. In addition to creating an incredible artistic achievement, Song was also able to tell a semi-autobiographical story about moving from Korea to Canada and pursuing the arts, representing the shared experience of many Asian-American immigrants while maintaining a deeply intimate tone. The authentically beautiful star-crossed lovers story also saw an outstanding performance by Greta Lee, whose absence from Best Actress is nothing short of a travesty. 

With these snubs, it feels as though the Academy is almost riding the wave of its Asian representation from last year with Everything Everywhere All at Once and its record-breaking cleanup. The 2022 film took home almost all the major categories, including Best Editing, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Actress, and Best Picture. The fact that Everything Everywhere was transgressive in both its themes and storytelling, managing to paint a deeply complex picture of intergenerational trauma among Asian immigrant families (like Past Lives), actually gave us a lot of hope for the Academy’s ability to recognize such stories. Unfortunately, with the absence of Song’s masterpiece from most major categories, it now feels like a one-off. 

Certain incredibly deserving female-directed films were nowhere to be found at all. While not as Oscar bait-y as some anticipated, Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn featured some deeply original screenwriting on behalf of the director, and gave us an outlandishly disturbing performance from Barry Keoghan that easily could have been nominated. Yet the Oscar robberies this year extend to films that would typically be very well-received, such as the dramatic biopic. Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla featured an intimately told story that underlined the issues of Elvis Presley’s treatment of Priscilla Presley, without erasing Priscilla’s subjectivity or turning her into a polemical figure. Priscilla also features breathtaking costuming and set design, and two tour-de-force performances by Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi. Yet this was still not enough to appease the overwhelmingly white, male selection committee. For a deep dive into the film, you can read my review of it for the Daily published in November. 

I could go on and on about my plights with the Oscar nominations this year. Where was Charles Melton in Best Supporting Actor for May December? Why was Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster not nominated for Best International Feature? Why wasn’t The Boy and the Heron nominated in more categories outside of Best Animated Feature? The Academy has become an expert at crushing the hopes of film lovers who wish to see themselves and their stories celebrated at the most esteemed levels of cinema. Outrage, however, can facilitate change. Even if they still have a long way to go, the diversity of the selection committee has greatly expanded since 2014 when the average age of the members was 63, while 76 percent were men and 94 percent were white. While most of the known 2024 releases so far are set to be sequels and remakes, the diverse storytelling that began in 2022 and blossomed in 2023 will hopefully continue its momentum, and eventually break through the Academy’s pretentious, normative barriers. 

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Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person – directed by Ariane Louis-Seize 

Imagine Taika Waititi’s 2014 fantasy comedy What We Do in the Shadows meets a coming-of-age story about depression and the pressure to conform to familial expectations among young women. This is Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, which probably wins the award for best title of the year. Shot and set in Montreal, the film follows young vampire Sasha (Sara Montpetit), whose empathy and inability to watch others suffer makes her incapable of feeding on human flesh. When she meets the suicidal teen Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), who she promises to kill and eat, their pact inspires hilarious escapades and is complicated by the bond that is forged between the two. 

Although Anatomy of a Fall is the French language title that has gained the most awards season hype, Quebecoise director Ariane Louis-Seize’s strikingly original film should not be overlooked. Humanist Vampire is so deeply compassionate and endearing, and is such a welcome depiction of how depression, especially amongst women, while onerous and debilitating, can allow for a greater capacity for empathy. This silver lining is at the incredibly big heart of the film, which  is accompanied by a playful score and bitingly funny dialogue (no pun intended). Unwaveringly charming in spite of all the blood, Humanist Vampire shows 2023’s triumph in female direction at the local level. 

Past Lives – directed by Celine Song 

The fact that this  film is  Celine Song’s directorial debut both terrifies and excites me. Its emotional warfare in the form of unrealized lifetime love destroyed me, but wow, did it hurt so good. Past Lives tells the story of childhood sweethearts Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae-Sung (Teo Yoo), who lose touch when Nora’s family immigrates to Toronto from South Korea. They connect sporadically over the next 24 years, but by the time Hae-Sung is finally able to visit her, she is already married to someone else. 

This romantic drama is somewhat of a modern rendition of the star-crossed lovers tale, but its fusion of this format with themes of the diasporic vs. indigenous Korean experience – semi-autobiographical of Song’s own upbringing – are what make it stand on its own. It is not just Hae-Sung and Nora’s distance, timing, and career paths that divide them, but also how they experience their culture. In one scene, Nora tells Hae-Sung that since emigrating, she only ever speaks Korean to her mother. Later in the film, Nora explains to  her husband that Hae-Sung’s distinct “Koreanness” makes her feel both alienated from and connected to her culture at the same time. The film’s stylistic understatedness and temporally expansive narrative only amplify its emotional blows to create one of the greatest debut films not just for a Korean-Canadian female director, but for any director in general. 

Barbie – directed by Greta Gerwig 

It would be ridiculous to recap 2023’s women in film without including the bedazzled, pink, cinematic leviathan that was Barbie. Greta Gerwig’s latest film is a stark contrast from her previous two dramas, but her masterful storytelling brings this doll extravaganza to life in a way that is both layered and enthralling. Millions flooded theatres dressed head-to-toe in pink to watch Barbie (Margot Robbie) and a hapless Ken (Ryan Gosling) embark on an adventure from Barbie Land to the real world to find out why Barbie has been experiencing “malfunctions” like flat feet and cellulite.  

Barbie in and of itself was undeniably delightful, but what made it truly extraordinary was that it reached so far beyond the narrative world it created. Rarely do we see certifiable “blockbusters” of this kind: so self-aware, so funny, so socially engaged, so pink, so feminine. The fantastical world it built reached out of the screen and into the hearts of audiences – an engagement that could not have come at a better time. It not only brought people into theatres amid the SAG-AFTRA strike, but revived going to the theatre as an all-around event. Barbie set all kinds of records at the box office, becoming Warner Brothers’ highest grossing film ever, the highest grossing film ever by a female director, and the biggest film of 2023 worldwide, proving that female directors don’t have to sacrifice their femininity and creative integrity to dominate the cinematic market. 

Saltburn – directed by Emerald Fennell 

Whether you’ve been pining for a new Emerald Fennell flick since Promising Young Woman, or you heard “Murder on the Dancefloor” on TikTok and wanted to see what all the hype was about, Saltburn was most likely on your radar towards the end of 2023. When Oliver (Barry Keoghan) meets the affluent Felix (Jacob Elordi) at Oxford in 2007, they become close friends, prompting Felix to invite Oliver to Saltburn, his rich family’s extravagant, baroque estate. Upon Oliver’s arrival, things become incredibly sexual, tense, uncertain, and downright disturbing. 

Like Gerwig, Fennell’s sophomore feature is narratively quite distant from her first, but maintains her signature psychological tone and banger soundtrack. She uses these mechanisms to create a depiction of how class is not just about division, and that for some, there is truly never enough wealth. Fennell uses Oliver’s creepy behaviour to represent how relentless economic and social climbing can be, as he parasitically infiltrates Felix’s loaded family. This economic invasion is largely depicted through mind games and sex, which make the film as juicy as it is poignant. While the internet-ification of the film risks reducing it to a mere TikTok sound, its online presence has exposed many to a level of subversive media they may not have encountered previously. For a more in-depth look at Saltburn’s symbolism, check out the Daily’s review by Evelyn Logan. Along with Barbie, Saltburn showed that female filmmakers not only dominated cinematic culture in 2023, but also the world of the internet. 

Bottoms  – directed by Emma Seligman 

The unhinged teen sex comedy is back and gayer than ever, all thanks to Emma Seligman. Finally liberating us from the years of painfully out of touch, forcefully Gen Z-ified Netflix teen flicks, Seligman, along with star and co-writer Rachel Sennott, revive the most enjoyable aspects of the R-rated teen sex romp with a refreshing, queer perspective. “Ugly, untalented gay nerds” Josie (Ayo Edeberi) and PJ (Sennott), in the hopes of  getting closer to pretty girls Isobel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber), start a “self-defence” fight club at their school to stand up to tyrannical football players. 

Because the film’s queerness and femininity aren’t used as rhetorical devices and are allowed to just exist as the chaotic plot unfolds, its identity politics paradoxically become much more digestible. Josie and PJ’s identities and status as outcasts goes beyond them being gay, making it a part of their identity, but not their entire identity. This allows Bottoms to go all out in its violence, obscenity, and hilarity – something female-directed films aren’t often allowed to do. With the most side-splitting lines you’ve ever heard being doled out by the minute, Seligman’s flick proves that women, specifically queer women, are here to spearhead a new, inclusive era of the teen comedy without losing an ounce of the absurdity that makes the genre so adored. If you’d like a closer look at how Bottoms revamps the vulgar, teen comedy genre, you can read my film review for the Daily published last September.   

Five films are not nearly enough to encapsulate just how prolific female directors were last year, but these picks are certainly some of the best overall, across all films. Even if major award ceremonies have given us little hope in terms of their ability to actually acknowledge these critical and commercial standouts, the flow of female-directed film and television gained a momentum this year that shows no signs of decelerating. More female-directed content is already being anticipated for 2024; Canadian director Molly McGlynn’s coming of age film Fitting In is set to be released in February, while Lulu Wang (The Farewell) has a new series called Expats coming soon that’s already gained lots of buzz and critical attention. Keep an eye out for female-directed film and television; buy tickets, talk about it, engage with it – you will most definitely encounter a perspective you haven’t seen yet.

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Priscilla, Coppola’s latest film, follows the early life of Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny), pop culture icon and wife of Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi). In Priscilla, Coppola does away with the masculine biopic trend of grandeur for its own sake. Instead, she focuses on the inner workings of Priscilla’s life, through which her story comes into being. Coppola’s visually breathtaking sets and incredible costume design perfectly emulate the glamour of the 50s and 60s, pulling us into Priscilla’s world. But it is the intimacy we are granted and delicacy with which Coppola treats her story that make us want to stay.

Based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, the film follows her life from 1959, when she first met the musician, to 1973, when she divorced him. Although it follows the timeline of their relationship, the film could never be mistaken for one solely about Elvis; the personal transformations Priscilla undergoes during their relationship are clearly its focal point. Coppola takes great care in showing the moments in their relationship when they were apart for extended periods, proving that Priscilla’s personal development is the true focus. Never during these episodes do we see Elvis – we only hear his voice on the phone. Because of his absence, the spotlight is on Priscilla, and we are privy to her subjective account of these separations. A subtle yet effective detail, the film could have been completely different had they ceded this screen time to Elvis.

Following Sofia Coppola’s show-don’t-tell approach to direction, the scenes where we do witness Priscilla in her intimate moments are when we truly see her character develop. Dialogue is minimal, and the inner workings of her character are revealed through mise-en-scène details. For instance, during Elvis’ return to the military, we see Priscilla revelling in the cozy, pastel warmth of her teenage bedroom, writing in her diary. As the relationship evolves, her private life does too. When they are living in their Memphis home Graceland, monumental and imposing architecture provides the backdrop for Priscilla’s daily activities, replacing the earlier feeling of youthful yearning with one of isolation. With the help of Cailee Spaeny’s captivating performance as Priscilla, intimate cinematic techniques prove to be the catalyst of the film’s emotional impact.

Coppola worked closely with Priscilla Presley, even having her act as an executive producer, to ensure that the artistic rendering of her story was done justice. As such, her story and relationship were treated with great nuance. Priscilla and Elvis met when she was 14 and he was 24, creating an immediate power dynamic in a relationship that was clearly one between an adult and a child. A lesser director would turn what was a real woman’s account of her own relationship into some teachable moment or grooming awareness campaign. But for Priscilla herself, the story was more complex than this. For a long time, she believed the love between them was incredibly real, and describes moments of tenderness that would make this seem so. It is only as her idea of love broadens and Elvis reveals himself as a wielder of power that she begins questioning their life together.

When it becomes clear to the audience and Priscilla that the power Elvis wields over her is becoming abusive, and he starts shedding his kind, loving facade, Coppola once again approaches this development with great courtesy. Scenes of abuse or strife are never exploitative or excessively violent, as is often the case in films directed by men, and are dispersed sparingly. For Coppola, depicting domestic violence doesn’t necessitates explicit imagery, as raw, emotive performances from Spaeny and Elordi have a far greater impact.

Despite the deeply personal tone of the story, the experiences Priscilla undergoes resonate universally among women. There is always a deep and internalized want to be desired and desire to be loved, overwhelming and blinding. Especially when you are young, you are never taught to distinguish attention and power from love. It is a long and difficult process realizing that you do not have to compromise yourself to be loved, and to see that if this is being asked of you, it is not really love. This is what makes Priscilla’s conclusion so satisfying. When Elvis asks if she is leaving him for another man, she replies with the heart-piercing line, “I’m leaving you for a life that’s my own.” This not only shows how self-assured and mature Priscilla has become, but ends the film on a tone of hope. Priscilla’s life does not end with her divorce – it begins.

The final scene of the film is the cherry on top of Priscilla’s freedom. In a moment that is serene and bittersweet, she drives away from Graceland after being seen off by the women of the house who supported her all that time. The most immaculate detail of the scene, though, is that it is accompanied by Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” – a song Parton famously refused to sell to Elvis. And what a perfect choice it was to end the film with the two women who most famously said no to the King – Dolly and Priscilla.

A film like this, so respectful of its subject, so personal yet such a ubiquitous female experience, so intimately executed, was desperately needed right now. Between Elvis and Oppenheimer in the last two years, I personally could not endure another passion project asking me to sympathize with a mythologized version of a white man and ignore his horrible actions. Thankfully, a Madonna biopic is in the works, but the fact that Priscilla was able to garner the attention and critical acclaim it did gives promise to a more sensitive evolution of the biopic that will see more iconic women rendered on the big screen. A love letter to Priscilla at its core, this is how I want to enter the era of the intimate, woman’s biopic.

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) 

It feels wrong to start this list with anything other than Rocky Horror. The movie-musical follows prudish couple Brad and Janet, who stumble into the mansion of mad scientist Dr. Frank N. Furter. From there, things get incredibly freaky in every sense. Perhaps one of the most essential queer films of all time, it continues to be at the centre of LGBTQ+ cultural discourse. Its fluid, sexy, and liberated depiction of gender and sexuality was far ahead of its time, and is still a common talking point in discussions of queer visual culture. 

Rocky Horror is the epitome of camp with its absurd and colourful sets, over-the-top makeup and costumes, and legendary musical numbers. It blurs the boundaries between scary and beautiful, especially through the character of Frank N. Furter (played by a corset-clad Tim Curry). But what makes it so special are the theatrical screenings. Independent cinemas usually screen the film around Halloween, and viewers dress up, have a “V” for virgin written on them if they’ve never seen the film, and interject the dialogue with “slut” and “asshole” when appropriate. Montreal’s Cinéma Imperial held a themed Halloween ball for the film just last week. But even if you watch at home, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is truly a one-of-a-kind filmic experience for queer audiences and Halloween lovers in general. 

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Although not an explicitly queer film in its content, few films have become quite as endlessly referenced among LGBTQ+ moviegoers as Elvira. Based on the character from the TV series Elvira’s Movie Macabre, it follows Cassandra Peterson as Elvira who goes to a small, puritanical town in Massachusetts to collect an inheritance, but immediately sticks out like a sore thumb. Her massive hair, slinky dress, gravity-defying cleavage, and bold sexuality are all foreign to her new community. This reaction doesn’t damper her spirit; instead, she quickly transforms her surroundings.  

Few characters have such campy wardrobes and sexual openness as Elvira, making her an icon to queer viewers despite not being a queer character. Cassandra Peterson, however, is queer herself and is in a long-term relationship with a woman. The film’s hilarious, dirty dialogue also makes it very fun to quote, and is often featured in queer media like Rupaul’s Drag Race. Peterson herself even went on the show as Elvira to guest judge in 2012 and 2019. So, even if the film alone isn’t explicitly “queer,” it perfectly represents the sexuality, campiness, and scariness celebrated by the queer world. 

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Potentially my personal favourite movie of all time and the origin story for many bisexual women, Jennifer’s Body has recently experienced a renaissance and risen to cult classic status. It is the story of Anita “Needy” Lesnicki and her best friend Jennifer who, after a sacrifice gone wrong, becomes a boy-eating demon. Themes of compulsory heterosexuality, the ambiguity of female sexuality, and violence against women underscore a riveting and bloody teen flick that, had it not been marketed to young horny boys, should have been an instant classic upon its release. 

Written by Diablo Cody (Juno) and directed by Karyn Kusama, the all-female directorial team clearly understands the complicated dynamics and latent queer desire of young female friendships. The explicit communication of these themes adds another layer to  the film’s action, creativity, humour, and cartoonish gore. Like Elvira, it is also endlessly quotable, and Megan Fox’s delivery as Jennifer is campy teen horror perfection. In my eyes a perfect film, Jennifer’s Body is a must-watch queer girl horror movie. 

Black Swan (2010)

Unlike the campier selections here, Black Swan is a haunting psychological thriller directed by Darren Aronofsky at his finest. When ballerina Nina is selected to play both the black and white swan in Swan Lake, she becomes so hellbent on perfection that her body and mind begin falling apart. She becomes paranoid about her rival Lily, and the tension between the two escalates to something that is beyond merely professional. Nina’s psychological hallucinations gradually build throughout the film, revealing her desire for Lily. Through Aronofsky’s cryptic filmmaking, we are as unable to tell what is real and what is fake as Nina is. 

Nina’s paranoia manifests in a disturbingly visceral manner. She has visions of  her nails bleeding and falling off, and wings sprouting from scars on her back as she literally becomes the swan queen. Similar mirages occur with Lily; after an intense love scene between the two, Nina wakes the next day to find that it was another hallucination. Like Jennifer, Nina’s queerness is subliminal, and can only be seen through the horror of what is likely a schizophrenic episode. With Tchaikovsky’s musical masterpiece underscoring Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winning performance as Nina, Black Swan is a thrilling, terrifying, and captivating account of queer and perfectionist desire. 

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2021) 

The most recent entry on this list, Bodies Bodies Bodies is a satiric horror-comedy that ridicules the oblivion of privileged young people through the use of violence, murder, and chaos. When a group of rich influencer twenty-somethings camp out in a mansion during a hurricane, one gets their throat slit during a murder mystery game. The rest of the group then violently turns against one another as they try to find the killer among them. We watch as their logic slowly deteriorates, with personal plights influencing accusations. 

Sophie (played by nonbinary actor Amandla Stenberg) and Bee, the main lesbian couple in the film, are already together when the film starts. This casual representation means that there is no tedious queer relationship trauma to be dealt with. And (spoiler alert), their survival throughout the film topples the trope of swiftly killing off gay characters. Bodies instead dedicates its social commentary to the hilarious ignorance of the characters, who all feign socio-political awareness despite living in a bubble of privilege. Their shallowness is hysterically conveyed in their line delivery, making Bodies not only a definitive queer horror movie, but a quintessentially Gen Z one too. 

Of course, what defines “queer horror” is not objective or finite, but these films provide an excellent first foray into an important sub-genre. The conventions of the horror aesthetic have long been synonymous with queer culture, which is why it is so crucial that when queer folks appear in horror films, they are justly represented. Engaging with queer horror films, in turn, encourages proper representation of the LGBTQ+ demographic in the genre. This gives queer artists and stories the freedom to be scary not because of trauma and homophobia, but because of the gore, camp, and excitement that queer horror fans truly love.

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The record, which Mitski has deemed her most American yet, certainly lives up to this descriptor – but in a way that is both layered and critical. The artist uses instrumentation and lyrical imagery distinctly associated with Americana culture to insert herself, a Japanese-American woman, into an aesthetic tradition that has jettisoned her. It is a tradition that fills her and those like her with isolation and uncertainty, something she communicates with outstanding musicianship. She positions herself as a guiding presence for other female Asian-American artists who are inserting themselves into a racially rigid alternative music scene. 

Part of what makes this album so exciting is that it is a new musical era for Mitski. For non-fans, Mitski’s discography can be meticulously broken up into pairs, with each album building on the tonal themes of the last. Her first two records were mainly intimate and haunting piano ballads. She then turned to a grungier style, primed with staticky, fuzzy guitars and intense, purposefully screamy vocals. Her most recent pair of albums were two danceable, poppy synth projects reminiscent of the 80s. All of her albums contain similar themes of lost or unrequited love, reconciling identity, and so on, but they are always developing to accommodate her new musical styles and ever changing mindset. 

The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We introduces listeners to a musical world untouched by Mitski as of yet – one of folk rock and country tunes, some of which are almost Dolly Parton or Johnny Cash-esque. She swaps electropop reverbs for a more classic sound, with instruments like plucky acoustic guitars, banjos, and snares, while keeping elements from her past works such as her signature rapturous builds. The bluegrass feel of the tracks could not be more distinctly Americana, with the sound of soft, slide guitar transporting listeners to the plains of the past. The naturalist vibes even transcend instruments, with dog barks and cricket chirps audible at the end of “I’m Your Man”. She also includes religious sound motifs, with organs and choirs in the singles “Star” and “Bug Like an Angel” respectively. 

Lyrically, The Land carries on its nostalgic and folky energy, as Mitski’s poetry recalls American literary traditions through pastoral allusions. She describes the natural American landscape in tandem with its industrial side, particularly on the track “Buffalo Replaced.” She sings: “Freight train stampedin’ through my backyard / It’ll run across the plains / Like the new buffalo replaced.” These descriptors of the unruly American West contrasted with its current state perfectly complement her musical combination of classic sounds with contemporary adjustments. She also subtly plays off of religious music, discussing heaven, God, and the devil – all common themes in traditional Americana media. “I try to remember the wrath of the devil / was also given him by God,” she sings in “Bug Like an Angel” as a way of communicating her personal relationship to the spirituality and morality associated with the American ethic. 

Literally harmonizing American sounds, spirituality, and nature, Mitski inserts herself into a musical and aesthetic history that first-generation and non-white Americans have historically been excluded from. Through instrumentation and word painting, she takes a very recognizable and very American style and flips it on its head. She maintains twangy melodies and lyrics that describe the beauty of the American landscape while pointing out the socio-political dynamics of American folk media that get ignored in its depictions. Americana-style media instead tends to opt for imagery of daring outlaws, disparaged and barbaric Indigenous communities, and American myths of defiance and heroism. The album title itself pokes fun at these tropes and stems from a joke Mitski made about spoofing state slogans to make them as literal and accurate as possible. Mitski is therefore subverting the carefully constructed idea of “Americanness” with a dash of facetiousness. 

Mitski also uses this cultural pride against itself. The beauty and divinity of lyrics supposedly representing a land of peace and acceptance are instead used to articulate feelings of isolation. She wrote a good portion of the album during the pandemic, a time in which the United States was a deeply inhospitable place for Asian-Americans. This writing process allowed her to resurrect feelings of loneliness and not belonging explored in her earlier records. Instead of describing an undying faith, Mitski’s inclusion of religious lyricism becomes deeply personal and isolating. Take “The Deal,” for instance, where she speaks of making a deal with the devil in order to exchange her soul for numbness and peace instead of a lifetime of confusion and pain. In situating herself among grandiose nationalistic themes, she is able to explore the deeply personal through lines present in all her albums in a new way. 

While she is certainly a pioneer in uplifting the powerful presence of Asian women in alternative music and its subgenres, Mitski is far from alone in this quest. There have been several female Asian-American musicians infiltrating the mainstream in recent years, all without conforming to its expectations of passivity and apoliticism. Take for instance Japanese Breakfast, the indie project fronted by Korean-American artist Michelle Zauner, who is unafraid of venturing into perverse themes over atmospheric beats. Zauner also published her memoir Crying in H Mart last year, which delved into her relationship with her Asian heritage and received great appraisal. There is also the extraordinary British songstress Rina Sawayama, who, like Mitski, is unafraid of exploring different genres. Take her debut record SAWAYAMA, which includes both nu-metal and 2000s girl-pop tracks. 

Each of these women is committed to challenging norms and boundaries in alternative music, all while being acutely aware of the Western, predominantly white social landscape they find themselves in. And, with The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, Mitski takes a huge leap in this mission, turning American music upside down to continue to make way for other artists like herself. 

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The film is centred around gay best friends Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and PJ (Rachel Sennott), create a “self-defence” fight club in an effort to attract the interest of popular girls Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber). The club, in turn, becomes a safe space for all the girls in school. The film breathes new life into the gory teen comedy genre in a way that is both simplistic and subversive. It is hilariously self-aware of its themes like identity and typical high school movie structure, relishing in its absurdity rather than forcing discourse. And as a theatrical release, the film could not come at a more crucial time. Not only does it rejuvenate this genre; it shows that young people and artists are not dependent on streaming services — the central perpetrators of the SAG-AFTRA strike — for innovative and provocative content. 

What makes Bottoms so deeply refreshing is its satirical relationship to genre and identity politics – it’s able to make poignant commentary through genius humour. From the jump, Josie and PJ are allowed to just exist in their queerness without the film needing to include some dramatic “coming out” backstory. Nor does it adhere to the one-gay-protagonist-per-film rule, or input unnatural verbal cues that scream “remember: they’re gay!” When the film does reference direct identity categories, it does so in a way that is side-splittingly satirical. In a scene between Josie and fellow club member Annie, Josie delivers the line: “I know you’re a Black republican but you’re the smartest girl in the club.” 

Although Bottoms does include discursive dialogue, it does so sparingly and with great impact. Such is the case near the end of the film, after the horny motives of the club are revealed. Josie is left on the outs with PJ and Isabel and seeks the advice of her older lesbian neighbour, Rhodes (Punkie Johnson), who tells her something along the lines of “when I was in high school you couldn’t be gay. Now you can, nobody cares, but you can’t also be untalented.” This point underscores the very soul of the film, which is that sexual identity today is only a small fragment of the disastrous high school experience, echoing the feelings of all the “ugly, untalented gays” like PJ and Josie. 

Bottoms is just as sharp in its self-referentiality when acknowledging genre conventions. At one point, PJ directly confronts the absurd trope of classes only lasting the span of one scene (“why is the bell ringing? We just sat down.”) The film also toys with the jock archetype through its main antagonist, Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine). His monumentally absurd ignorance – most palpable when he lip syncs “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” blissfully unaware that his house is being egged – relentlessly spoofs the hyper-masculine, narcissistic  way that jock characters are usually portrayed.  

Bottoms lets its social criticism speak for itself,  allowing the film to pack itself to the brim with cutting one-liners, original sight gags and gory slapstick. It is easy to tell that Seligman and her star and co-writer Sennott have been jotting down quips for and writing the film since college, as the script never once misses an opportunity to go for the joke. In the very first scene Sennott and Edebiri exhibit their ludicrously funny chemistry, concocting a horrible yet entertaining plan to get the attention of Brittany and Isabel. By prioritizing the comedic aspects of the film, Seligman and Sennott do something queer, female-led teen comedies are never allowed to do: ditch the sentimentality for pure, uncensored, youthful madness, all without glazing over important themes. 

We have Seligman to thank for the final product of Bottoms achieving all its gruesome glory, because she refused to take no for an answer from producers. Seligman said that it took multiple pitches to get the film picked up, as production companies kept asking her to make it either less violent, less gay, or less sexual. Thankfully, smaller companies like Brownstone and Orion, who did pick up the film, are willing to take risks and support the ambitious work of younger, marginalized artists like Emma Seligman, who share the lived experiences of their characters and intended audience. 

Bottoms being a theatrical release also sets it apart from the content of major streaming services. It firstly is a nod to the origins of the teen sex comedy, which gained popularity in the 2000s with movies like Superbad. But it maintains great authenticity in comparison to the faux-progressive, nostalgia-porn teen films by streaming services like Netflix. Not all of their teen content is bad, but much of it is very clearly an attempt at discursive cinema that is rendered shallow and incomplete by its recycled subject matter and aesthetics. Just look at the Kissing Booth or the To All the Boys franchises. 

Relationships between content and distribution are incredibly important amid the SAG-AFTRA strike. Independent, theatrical distributors are more inclined to release meaningful, personal projects like Bottoms than streaming services. Viewers who appreciate their representation and connect with these works can support it through ticket sales, unlike the unfair compensation creators get from streaming services. These pay cuts also disproportionately impact marginalized filmmakers like Emma Seligman, who is a queer Jewish woman. Although production companies and theatre chains aren’t saints either, going to cinemas and supporting the work of independent filmmakers is an excellent way of supporting artists during the strike. Most importantly, it acknowledges the will of the viewer; young people are not as reliant on titan streaming services as they think we are. We care about good cinema that represents us in our current moment, which for many of us means seeing other weird, unhinged gays try to figure out who they are. And to them, and to anyone else who needs to laugh harder than they ever have, Bottoms is essential viewing.  

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An absolute titan in the world of drag, Sasha Colby is a trans activist with decades of experience. She is both a former winner of the Miss Continental drag pageant and the mother of the Colby dynasty, a legendary and revered drag performance house. So, when she entered the werkroom with the arresting entrance line of “period!” it is unsurprising that the other queens howled with both admiration and intimidation. That “period!” has echoed throughout the season, with Sasha having bodied every challenge. But what makes Sasha’s presence on the show so impactful beyond her fierce resume and undeniable front-runner status is that she is entirely shifting the narrative of trans queens and their visibility on the show. Her transness is shown as a large part of her identity without reducing her to merely “the trans girl.” Sasha brings a previously repressed trans vocabulary to mainstream queer media. 

Both Rupaul as an individual and Drag Race have had problematic attitudes toward the more marginalized sectors of the queer community in the past. In recent years, fans have begun calling out this harmful behaviour and demanding change. The show was heavily criticized for perpetuating racist stereotypes of sassy, angry Black women by giving queens of colour the “villain” edit, and the way it treated trans queens followed suit. When the season nine cast was announced in 2018, Rupaul received uproarious – and deserved – backlash for declaring that contestant Peppermint, who identifies as a trans woman, was only able to compete because she had not begun medically transitioning, and even going so far as to compare trans queens on hormones to Olympic athletes on steroids. 

It is difficult to count all the ways in which this statement is completely abhorrent coming from a drag queen. Ironically, it perpetuates the idea that gender is bodily, despite drag as an art form existing to subvert this notion. These blatantly transphobic comments are also especially baffling considering Rupaul constantly references and co-opts language from the ballroom scene of Harlem in the ’80s – a scene led by Black trans women that he was immersed in himself. In addition to the backlash, this statement also sparked questions over how someone so prolific in the art of drag could forget its trans roots. Is trans visibility really visibility when it’s projected through a cisgender lens of production? 

In the years following this incident, it seems as though Rupaul has received his much-needed education on the importance of having trans representation on the show, even apologizing for his earlier upsetting comments. Yet medically-transitioned trans queens have only really appeared in spin-offs of the show, which don’t generate the same level of viewership or discourse. Last season, the show had two queens who were out as trans before the season aired, and three additional queens either came out as trans on the show itself or while it was airing, for a record of five total trans contestants. However, the show was still guilty of reducing contestant Jasmine Kennedy’s arc on the show to her coming out, giving her the “sympathy edit” and making her transness the central, and arguably only, point of her personality. 

Enter Sasha Colby. Sasha had already been name dropped on the show before — her drag daughter Kerri Colby, who appeared on season 14, previously announced that Sasha was in fact her drag mother. When it was Sasha’s turn herself to enter the werkroom, she did not disappoint — so far, she has won three challenges, has never been in the bottom two of the week, and is the heavy fan-favourite for the crown. Sasha’s preceding reputation and incredible run on her season thus far are legendary by the show’s standards in general. But what really sets her apart is the space she is creating for future trans performers on the show. 

With Sasha, the show is finally giving us a trans queen whose longevity is not dependent on how much sympathy the producers can squeeze out of her transness. She is able to tell her story and bring attention to trans issues, especially how they manifest in her native state of Hawai’i. She has also referenced other trans performers from outside the mainstream such as Leiomy Maldonado, an Afro-Puerto Rican trans ballroom performer known as the “Wonder Woman of Vogue.” Although she did not give much context on Leiomy, it is important that Sasha acknowledged vanguards of current trans performance like her. Merely referencing the performer also encourages viewers to do their own research and not rely solely on mainstream programs for queer education. 

Paradoxically, it is Sasha’s status as a trans icon that allows her to circumvent the narrative usually applied to trans queens, proving that they can have a powerful, multi-dimensional presence on the show. So what does this mean for the future of trans performers in the mainstream, and on Rupaul’s Drag Race in particular? Although the season is not even over, wild theories are already circulating that Sasha will win and then take over for Rupaul. Although this theory is pretty unfathomable, it indicates that there is a ubiquitous desire for people like Sasha to have the power in the industry to bring in a new, more inclusive era of queer media. Regardless of the outcome of the season, Sasha’s impact on the show is undeniable. Not only are we rooting for her but for a future full of people like her. Until the world is filled with incredible trans performers serving up all the talent they have to offer, let’s continue to spotlight trans trailblazers like Sasha Colby.

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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.  

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