'We Need To Talk About Kevin' as horror

Spoiler alert: We Need to Talk About Kevin is a straight-up horror movie.

I resent things that pose as art but are actually easy films, but I love horror movies because they are decidedly lowbrow. In a conversation I had today with Nikolai, he pointed out one thing: I like horror movies because I am allowed - nay, expected - to fall for schlock in order to believe in the world of the horror movie. So I am going to treat this film as the horror flick it is.

Once I recognized this, I realized that yes - in fact, the plot of We Need To Talk About Kevin is the exact same as the plot of the recent (horrible, horribly engaging) flick Orphan (see art below). Only Kevin is a psychologically disturbed child (in "reality") where Ester is an Estonian serial killer or whatever (in a horror movie closed system). But Kevin might as well be an Estonian serial killer. The movie doesn't let him be anything BUT evil, from his colicky beginnings to the bloodshed in the end.

In both movies, the mother is being secretly alienated by her off-putting child; in both movies, nobody else believes her when she tries to blame the child. In both movies, a fed-up father figure gets more and more protective of the evil baby and grows more and more distant from the mother/protagonist. In both movies, the mother is completely right. Wow! That child was up to no good all along!

I am tired of things that are easy, that are obvious, posing as art. Dr. Seuss is art; the world of Dr. Seuss is beautifully comprehensible and logical in only the way that art that someone has thought about, and then thoughtfully arranged, could be. In other words, it takes careful crafting to make things seem easy.

WNTTAK was not art. It was all searingly emotional close-ups of upset people; it was all obvious visual cues - target practice! The evil child narrows his eyes! - and so forth; it was all red BLOOD ANALOGS - tomatoes, paint, gross splashing jelly, Kevin constantly wearing shirts that looked like blood spatters - and it was all an exhausted Tilda Swinton washing her hands to get rid of every red thing she has ever touched.

If this movie admitted it was a horror flick, we wouldn't have to get exhausted with her. We would have had a Vera Farmiga running around, banging people's kneecaps out with a baseball bat, revenge-defending the family she has left. We would have had a hotter husband (Peter Sarsgaard for example). And most importantly, we wouldn't have been left without a shred of fucking hope at the end. Jesus Christ, Lynne Ramsay. Even Shelley Duvall's character had a tiny little twinkle of hope at the end of The Shining. You are just torturing Eva Katchadourian.

The reason this movie failed so miserably, I think, is that Lionel Shriver's original book is told in letters. The fact that it is told in letters explains why all the experiences are so very colored by Eva's observations - Kevin is "evil" because she probably suffered from postpartum depression, at least at first. And then after that it's all pattern recognition. Humans are programmed to seek out patterns, so everything that ever happens wrong is automatically lumped in together. But the film version drops the first-person, and assumes this odd third person omniscient perspective that makes the audience feel like it's supposed to be an objective story. And as an objective story, it robs its viewer. It robs every character of his or her well-roundedness and arc of development. It makes everyone dead-eyed and unlearning, just like in a horror movie! Don't go up those stairs, there's a killer in there. Or, holy shit, an evil child.

I closed my eyes in the climax of this movie. I never close my eyes at horror; I have a stomach of steel, and I am not squeamish about gore. No. I closed my eyes in protest of blatant emotional manipulation. If this film had owned up to being the horror movie it actually was, I would have watched the disgusting climax with glee. But as it was, sorry - I did not want to see the torture of Eva Katchadourian reach its pointed, stabbingly evocative, heartstring-severing, artfully arranged peak.

call for submissions: feminists talk about loving misogynist art

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

It's Complicated: Feminists Write About the Misogynist Art We Love
ed. Judy Berman and Niina Pollari

"Listening to the Sex Pistols, trying to figure out if 'Bodies' was really an antiabortion song, I discovered that it was something even worse. It was an outburst of loathing for human physicality, a loathing projected onto women because they are babies and have abortions and are 'a fucking bloody mess,'but finally recoiling against the singer himself: 'I'm not an animal!' he bellowed in useless protest, his own animal sounds giving him the lie. It was an outrageous song, yet I could not simply dismiss it with outrage. The extremity of its disgust forced me to admit that I was no stranger to such feelings -- though unlike Johnny Rotten I recognized that the disgust, not the body, was the enemy. And there lay the paradox: music that boldly and aggressively laid out what the singer wanted, loved, hated -- as good rock-and-roll did -- challenged me to do the same, and so, even when the content was antiwoman, antisexual, in a sense antihuman, the form encouraged my struggle for liberation. -- Ellen Willis, 1977

Feminists have never hesitated to dissect and attack art whose misogyny offends and repulses us. But what happens when we fall in love with the work of a musician, writer, or painter we see as anti-female? Do we rationalize our cognitive dissonance away, turn our back on the offending artist, or find a way to embrace the film or story that moves us while acknowledging what disturbs us about it? How does our attraction to misogynist art complicate our relationship to both the artist and to feminism itself?

It's Complicated: Feminists Write About the Misogynist Art We Love is project that seeks contributions by self-identified feminists. Essays of 1500-2000 words should analyze the writer's appreciation for an author, musician, artist, filmmaker, or other cultural figure -- of any gender -- who the writer also views as somehow misogynist. Glam rock, John Milton, Drake and Egon Schiele are among the topics that have already been approved, which should give a good idea of the project's breadth. As this anthology is intended for a general readership, academic papers will not be considered, and contributors should avoid field-specific jargon of all kinds. Proposals for non-essay contributions will also be considered.

If you are interested in contributing to the project, please email a short pitch no later than February 29, 2012 to itscomplicatedbook@gmail.com proposing a subject and briefly summarizing the content of your essay. We encourage writers of all genders, backgrounds and experience levels to submit ideas.

the old factory

Since I have nothing awesome to write today, I'll say this: for mothers' day two years ago, I made this video for my mom. It features Rohin as a really cool guy, and my butt as a co-star.

selections from my work notebook from 2010

P. xx. Everyone gets so sarcastic and aggressive.

P. xx. WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF

P. xx. [ a sketch of a pair of scissors with legs ]

P. xx. [ a sketch of a hypnotized-looking duck with "2% Productivity" written next to it ]

P. xx. Having a long distance boyfriend is like losing your mind. You make me so tired and happy. Why can't I talk to my own body? Your question is stupider than ever and it lounges around being a total weirdo. We spent a long time laughing at a phone which is an object, and then we published a video of it! Put a hand to your heart and laugh at an object, feel the veins in your legs coming to a standstill. Make a series of videos of you laughing at objects. A dishrag. A hedgehog skeleton. A tampon in a wrapper. This is the beginning of the explanation of your life. A spaghetti bag. A great magnet with a sophisticated visual joke on it. Now you can begin to understand. What will fix your problems? Electricity. Love. A's. Good skin. When you move the borders it will change everything. You get on a plane, you smell like Tabac Blond, your chest is one solid eraser with nothing inside.

P. xx. [ A series of sentences written in backwards cursive ]

P. xx. My life, 2 or 3 feet at a time. Regular stuff. My own office, cowboy landing. How can lake water make a wave?

P. xx. Snap out of your beautiful corporate snap-pants. You are the truest endless NIINA in this room. Points for teeth, nails.

P. xx. [ A picture of a man petting a dog ]

P. xx. How much do you think I know about Pokemon?

P. xx. Towards clawless