“I am finding being alive fascinating.”
I’m all for a weird movie with gross scenes and questionable morals, and I‘m a firm believer of cinema existing to push the limits and to question our pre-existing boundaries. But if you’re trying to read Poor Things from a feminist perspective, which it is clearly encouraging you to do, their message just doesn’t quite hold up in my opinion.
I’m going to preface this by saying that I don’t necessarily mind sex being depicted explicitly in films, especially if this is done so to further the plot. I also absolutely love how this movie portrays the seemingly boundless curiosity of its main character Bella and how her voracious appetite for knowledge and experiences leads her to seek out pleasure in all of its vastly different forms. This honest, child-like passion for all kinds of unique sensations offers a fresh and intriguing perspective on how we go about life. It also perfectly reflects my own inner world in a way almost no other film does, by displaying the beauty of accepting life as a series of valuable experiences and learning to appreciate the whole range of human emotions, not just the seemingly pleasant ones.
While for many, freely exploring ones own sexuality is the first step on the road to self discovery and a big and important part of becoming an autonomous and liberated woman, it is not the only thing that defines and marks this transition into womanhood. Even though we see Bella becoming increasingly interested in literature, philosophy and politics and this rise in self-awareness leading her to seek out sexual experiences less and less, I still found there to be an overemphasis or rather a fixation on sex. For a piece of art that defines itself by its exploration of personal growth and the development of female agency, this story barely touches on other important aspects of establishing emancipation. It seems to me like whenever the movie does bring up other important topics (eg. wealth disparity), these issues were solely discussed on a surface level and rarely delved into further, only to make room for just another sex scene, often for comedic value.
The notion of „becoming a woman“ through sex is also just a dangerous one, as it not only does women a disservice by diminishing other formative experiences, it also trivializes the abuse that is clearly happening in this film, as Bella is not yet old enough to fully consent. The argument of her maturing faster than other children also simply doesn’t hold up, as she still walks and talks like a toddler and doesn’t even have the proper terminology for what is happening (referring to intercourse as „furious jumping“), which makes me seriously doubt her understanding of sex and its possible consequences. While the film does kind of recognise this abuse, it still puts an emphasis on the fact that „she enjoyed it“, rather than focusing on the issue of adult men being attracted to her because of her childlike features and behaviour. It’s not like the movie doesn’t acknowledge this (eg. „you’re losing some of your adorable way of speaking“), it is just that there should’ve been a clearer distinction between these earlier and later scenes, in my opinion, to actually highlight the difference in age and ability to consent. If you are going to make a statement about sex being empowering, you cannot depict and treat sexual abuse with the same kind of enthusiasm as consensual sex. Especially because it’s not discussed further, and we never really find out whether Bella ever actually does come to this realisation later on.
I am also disappointed in how this movie fails to include the other womens‘ perspectives on prostitution and trivializes the dangers that are associated with sex work. While it might’ve worked out for Bella, promoting sex work as this great opportunity to be your „own means of production“ is a very romanticizing approach and doesn’t take into account that many women don’t really have a choice or were forced into this line of work. I’m absolutely not critiquing their decision to show the reality of what sex work looks like (displaying many different types of bodies, sexual preferences and levels of cleanliness), I just would’ve expected them to go more in depth on the other workers‘ reasons for doing this kind of work and demonstrating their different social and/or economic conditions. Without including these other perspectives, the discussion of this topic just isn’t complete.
Generally, I found this movie to put an emphasis on being „shocking“ and „uncomfortable“ rather than actually empowering women or even just being informative, as it leaves out many important aspects of growing up (menstruation, hello?????). I really respect Emma Stones‘ decision to shoot and include all of these sex scenes and I don’t want to take her agency away from her, by insisting she doesn’t know what she’s doing or that she shouldn’t have done this. She also did an amazing acting job in this film, which I don’t want to leave out completely. I just don’t like that Poor Things is seen as the better Barbie, because it is a lot more explicit. Yes, Barbie was very basic in terms of feminist ideas, but so was Poor Things’ shallow conception of more serious topics.
While this movie certainly manages to bring forth different opinions, I see this as nothing more than a man‘s very basic idea of what feminism looks like, instead of this revolutionary and progressive film many claim it to be. Maybe it’s just me and i will change my mind on rewatch, but I just didn’t really take away a lot more than „sex is fun!“ from this. I also think that making the other (failed) experiment nothing more than a simple servant to respond at ones command, speaks volumes…
