I like that they're showing realistic depictions of women in mainstream media. They're imperfect, don't have all the answers, and are just muddling by the best way that they can. But it's refreshing to see, and subverts the tired "Women are Wiser" trope.
Hello! I don't know who you are but I keep seeing your comments in almost all the videos I watch and like, I've seen you in videos about Bridgerton, in the Cinema therapy's comment section, in The take's comments... And I agree with your comments... haha, are you me?
i love messy and realistic women depicted in media, i just wish there were more non white women being depicted in the same light without people being grossed out.
@@elleliteracy there is also never have i ever, the mindy project, some indian movies like dear zindagi, piku and korean movies such as young adult matters
One of the best female protagonists of all time is Devi Vishwakumar. The way she’s allowed to be messy, given room to make disastrous decisions and seeing her grow and mature and learn to do better. One of the many reasons Never Have I Ever is a brilliant show.
That’s what I’m saying! They try to make Ginny (Ginny & Georgia) a realistic character but we all hate her because she is totally the opposite and does not represent normal adolescence, but with Devi you can feel the true process of adolescence and make mistakes even for someone with her intelligence.
You have no idea how much i needed to hear that you're not a failure for taking a 'practical job' as i'm retraining to become a sales associate for a big brand and pretending it won't kill my soul lol. Keep up the good work! 😊
yes more complex, nuanced black women. more non-american black women. black women who aren’t poor. introverted black women. nerdy black women. pretty black women. femme black women. neurodivergent women etc.
As a 23 year old, I feel too young and too old all at once. Everything is being thrown at me and I’m trying to keep it all together. Life feels suffocating, time is moving quickly but I feel stuck and constricted. This video has reminded me that I’m not alone, I hope we all find our true paths in life.
girl you are very young. I am 33 and I feel the same. I guess we just have to get used to all these feelings because of the world we are living in right now. Capitalism, social media and this obsession for perfection and productivity is killing us all.
maybe its not true for everyone but this is why you see a lot of people saying 30s > 20s. for me there has just been so much more stability in all parts of my life in my 30s. 20s were a lot of fun but also a lot of pain and just questioning who i was and what my life was going to be. if you went on the journey of self-discovery in your 20s then by your 30s you just get to be that person and it feels liberating.
I can relate to a lot of this. I'm 34 and have a lot of the same issues I still did when I was 20. Not enough money, no direction, feeling like a loser because I don't have a relationship or some big career like some of my friends and comparing myself to others on socials constantly. The only difference between then and now is that I'm not even remotely lonely and have a lot of friends who all like me as a person. But it still makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing and have very little worth. It sucks.
@@DianaTheLance It's my own fault, some part of me is unwilling to see anything good I've done as a positive and just sees it as something anyone could've done. Years of being told nothing I did was good enough will do that to a person. But thank you for your kind words, it did give me something to think about.
Welcome to my world and that of my friends, m/f/d, ranging from their mid-twenties to their early fifties in age. Such is life, people, we are never going to be perfect, we are always becoming. You are never grown out until you grow into a corpse. 😂
We need a messy 30-something community. Feeling like you're the only person experiencing these feelings is crippling and an honest open community of different people can have a hugely beneficial impact on the way we see ourselves. I hope that made sense 😅
Worst Person In the World and Shiva Baby were so unbelievably relatable to me as someone in their mid-late 20s who still doesn’t have their shit together
Great video! As an older woman, it is nice to see this shift in women in film. I love seeing these messy, imperfect women who are stumbling their way into realizing that no one knows what in the hell they are doing; they just get better at faking it as they get older. More of this please. I enjoy seeing women being powerful and amazing, but I also wanna see messy and directionless ladies get some love in the film world.
Idk why, but id like to recommend netflix's grace and frankie. It portrays two older women having to recreate their lives after being left by their respective husbands. They have very different personalities and are in their late seventies. We also follow the two daughters, one CEO and the other stay at home mom. And we get to see all of them being messy and confused in their own ways. Sorry if my english was bad
from a 30-year-old woman I have advice to other women in their 20s. Try to go on social media as less as possible because you inevitably end up comparing yourself to other peoples highlights and not what theyre actually going through in their daily lives. You're always going to feel lesser than if that's what you see all the time. Know that as you get older people outside of your circles don't care about what you're up to so if you need to take a while figuring it out, nobody really cares. Do what you need to do is best for you on your own timeline. use this time without pressure to figure out what you think you'd like to be doing as a career, or what you would like to see yourself doing in your adulthood. Now is the time to try different things out, without the ties of a partner or children if u ever want them. this is your decade and no one can take that away from you. It's the time to explore and it's the time to just exist in growing adulthood and figure out what that means to you ❤ you got this. it's so normal to feel lost, but know that you'll figure it out❤
I don't know if I feel validated or called out by the spotlight being put on birthdays at some point only highlighting how much your life is not following the straight and narrow path and the anxiety that comes with it. I don't hate turning 30 soon, I hate the expectations placed on that age and how I am sooo not meeting them.
I'm feeling this in my mid 30s. I got a job 3 months ago and I'm already feeling like I should quit because its already burning me out and not exactly the place where I want to work. I honestly just want to go home and read and write instead of doing payroll.
this year has felt strange for me. i'm 22, moved to a different state to my friends and family at the start of the year to pursue a masters in psychotherapy, and have had to readjust from small town living where i knew almost everyone to this bigger city lifestyle. i went from working 3 jobs with uni to afford to do this, and was also able to travel overseas for 2 weeks this year. but i feel like i'm stuck. i've always wanted to be a writer, but that's not a feasible way to live. so i'm studying to become a counsellor, and i write in my spare time. i want to travel more, but i'm unable to work a job properly to afford that due to my uni workload. i want to be with all of my friends and family, but that would mean moving back to a hometown that i hate. i hope one day i'm able to figure myself out, like so many of my old classmates seem to be doing with their engagements and their pregnancies and their new homes they bought themselves. but for now, i'll sit in my apartment with my killing eve and fleabag posters and olivia rodrigo's album on standby, searching for era's tour outfits as an illegal recording of 'bottoms' plays on my laptop
Francis Ha has been working it's way up my watch list recently but I'm not sure I can handle it after what you said about time moving faster the older you get. That might just hit home a little too much for me right now. I feel like I was 23 last year but somehow I had my 30th birthday this year?!?! You really do blink and suddenly find yourself a decade older
Its really good! First time I identified with a screen character. About being out of place and trying to find one and realizing you have to make it yourself. Love Frances Ha
Frances Ha is a beautiful movie and at 30 I'd say it's a must watch! It's not very emotional throughout the film but as the credits rolled up, I was bawling and I truly couldn't understand why. It reaches a very specific place in you and at least for me, it connected with me on a level I couldn't even understand. I know it sounds dramatic but I swear that's how it felt - I loved it so much but I couldn't really explain why. Honestly, watch it!
The way you talk about these films makes me want to rewatch Frances Ha and Shiva Baby, and I've been meaning to watch the worst person in the world but haven't gotten around to it yet
That’s the key word “you can do anything” but you can’t be anything you want. There is a huge difference between freedom of action and a deeper metaphysical freedom to choose.
The thing is, most of the problems I had in my 20's, I still have now and I just turned 31 last week. I wish there were more spaces to talk about how so many adults are expected to have gotten their stuff together over issues they had in their 20's by the time they turn 30 and not feel absolutely judged and shamed for it if they didn't. I'm a freelance artist in NYC and I don't WANT to have other "practical" jobs so I can try to make something of my art career. It really really sucks. I DO feel shameful and upset that I have to have other jobs I absolutely do not care for to pay rent and and feed myself and I hate that if I say I don't want to do that, it's seen as being an irresponsible adult who's stuck in the past of chasing delusional dreams.
Want to be friends? I am 30, have a spending problem, and am looking to get another job just to survive. I feel so stagnant and it's killing me. I live in California, but I am very much looking for a community of 30-something people who are still struggling with the same issues they faced in their twenties.
@@whits_end_I live in California and also watch playframe, can we be friends too? I'm trying out jobs and trying to find my way and I need friends so bad
I am currently very much feeling like I’m in this state of my life. I didn’t know how to explain exactly what I felt like I was going through but I feel like your analysis of these films definitely resonated with me right now.
play girl power by the cheetah girls hehe. and honestly my favorite genre rn is "unhinged woman" bc that's literally how i feel at this stage in my life.
23 and currently have 3 part-time jobs. an artist residency, teaching arts & crafts to seniors, and retail... you gotta do what you gotta do to get by.
Even before the actors and writers strikes, I was questing going into the film industry so I just wanted to do something. When I finally get a job, I get COVID within the first week on the job. In the end, I'm starting to consider going to graduate school for teaching as English and Film studies for high school are covered in the same certification, but I also just want to be able to go to Japan for the Osaka Expo in 2025, although Ireland in 2024 looks interesting too
Congrats on the 100k subscribers! Well deserved. I haven’t seen any of these films as they tend to be too relatable to me and give me serious anxiety but perhaps my life is finally in a somewhat stable place that I can watch one of these now without clawing my chest the whole way through! Any recs on which I should try first?
yes! Give me more flawed, problematic women! I think for me, one of the biggest issues around how women and mens 'bad choices' are so starkly contrasted - if a man makes a mistake, that's a story, but if a woman makes a mistake, then its unrealistic? Women need to be allowed more space to be flawed, imperfect, mistake making beings. There is so much societal pressure on women to be perfect, look perfect, act perfect, have a perfect body, run a perfect home, have a perfect family, with perfect kids and a perfect husband, hell even when women 'decide' by the end of the film that their personal wants are more important than society's/other's expectations - they have to do THAT perfectly too! Women aren't even allowed to be imperfect imperfectly.
@@elevenseven-yq4vu it's really not even remotely comparable. Sure man face pressure to get a job, but it's not even close to the same expectation or specificity. A woman who doesn't marry is a spinster, a man who doesn't marry is a Bachelor. A woman without a job is a gold digger, a man without a job is "hustling" Men are definitely negatively impacted by the patriarchy and the expectations placed on them. It's not in the same league as women though in terms of societal progress and accessibility.
@@kezia8027 Society might place a wider and more conflicting variety of expectation on women, which must be very disturbing growing up. For men, however, being held accountable to basically a single and unavoidable make-it-or-break-it standard socially, namely career success, is highly damaging and increases pressure to conform to male toxicity. I assume that a lot of male violence, be it outward aggression, self-abuse / hatred, escapism into drugs or an alienated and mechanical type of sexuality boils down to that pressure to compete. Failure or even fragility are simply not allowed, at least a mask of unbreakability and success has to become a second face never to be put down. But even that is an impossibility: Unlike outward appearance, verbal rhetoric, emotional appeal, cultural roles, etc., ... - both financial standing and job hierarchies are nothing that can be ironised, subverted or sidestepped from in everyday life. They are the sort of hard currency whose standards cannot be avoided, mitigated or navigated by role-bending. I am not saying that men have it harder to survive or to "make it" in society, far from it; but for the ones that don't "make it", there are no "weird Barbie" spaces outside the metric - no court jester benefits - because "hustlers" are unanimously despised (as losers or criminals or at least veeeery dodgy characters and social pariahs) as soon as they leave adolescence. So, the only way to get out of the treadmill / elbows-out career-competitive system for men is to denounce masculinity altogether.
@@elevenseven-yq4vu ??? what even is the point of what you're saying? Are you one of those guys that every womens day goes around complaining "WHAT ABOUT MENS DAY??" Men have it easier than women, categorically. It isn't even close. The only people 'hurting' men in even the slightest way that is comparable, are the requirements/expectations men place on other men. You don't need to 'denounce your masculinity' to survive as a man. That is moronic. Men are categorically lifted up, immortalized, deified, and given infinitely more chances, opportunities, and lifelines than women are. If you dislike how men are treated when they don't meet the expectations of the patriarchy, do something about it rather than "waa men also have it hard you know!' - complete garbage that only distracts from the conversation that was already being had, purely to put men back in the spotlight, because god forbid men aren't the centre of attention for even a moment.
@@elevenseven-yq4vu you came to the right conclusion yourself. feminism had this figured out for decades. the question is : are men going to put this knowledge into practice? unlike male suffering, women can’t make an internal descicion to change their situation. because it’s imposed on us from the outside.
this was one of the best video essays i've seen in a while!!! thank you for putting into words the connecting dots of all of these incredible movies!!!
Never feel pressured to "built a personality" so you fit into society. You are not underdeveloped when you do not share your insights with others that can't see
I'm terrified to watch Shiva Baby because it reminds me so much of how my own family acts towards me I don't want to risk retraumatizing myself. But it looks like a good movie.
I think these characters feel liberating because they are often the subjects in movies and shows written by and largely for women. Prior to the rise of girl power, women characters on tv were consistently shown as pretty messy and in need of guidance-- the assumed guidance being a man in shows written by men for men and women. I can see why the emergence of like "perfect" girl characters who didn't need any man to tell them what to do was probably read as liberating. But also for women, I think we tend to be really harsh towards ourselves and see ourselves as failures, so characters on screen who embody this come across as relatable. Aspirational type characters, characters we could look up to and aspire to be like, would feel preachy and oppressive, although men seem to like them because I think they are confident enough as a crew to accept the idea that, like, they could wake up tomorrow with super strength and become a hero.
Speaking as a man, nah, we just like them for escapism, while at the same time they are setting up unreachable standards and are basically toxic. It's like going on vacation without actually going anywhere, like staying home on a drug trip that will eventually disempower you. Just not physically, but mentally and worse: emotionally. Superhero movies are a symptom...
@@elevenseven-yq4vu why is the emotional aspect worse? the stakes of not matching up to aspiritional female characters is a lot higher for women. if you’re not superman, you’re just a mid guy. but you still have inherent value and humanity as the supposedly ‘superior’ gender under the patriarchy. women fail to live up to these standards and it upholds the idea that women are the inferior gender, that we deserve to be subjucated and that the patriarchy is valid. if we’re not gun-slinging, mensa approved, stoic geniuses, we’re not just ‘average human beings’, we’re not deserving of equal human rights. the relationship between aspirational characters and each gender is different because the consequences of not meeting the criteria of these personalities is different. you have the privilege of seeing aspirational characters as ‘an escape’. for women they are a prescription : either be this or you’re not deserving of equality. outside of being superman, you’re still considered human, regardless of how mid you are. woman aren’t even considered fully human, let alone given the luxury of just being ‘average’. we HAVE to be wonderwoman in REAL LIFE or nothing at all. the prettiest, the smartest, the kindest, the most level-headed. perfect or unworthy of humanity.
@@sainttheresetaylor2054men don't have more value than women. In fact, men are often viewed as disposable in many situations where as women's lives are viewed as more valuable. If a guy has problems, "deal with it, fend for yourself", if a woman has problems, "how can we assist you, ma'am?". We can talk Zero-Sum all day but I as a man don't live in a paradise.
I always thought being messy,unorganized,fat and not caring about my appearance was the way to win the game of avoiding the triple shift. I just hated being a woman because we had more work and less pay and having mental health issues meant i was doomed to being the butt of the joke. So if i became so undesirable I would become free.
Same, it's the 'weird Barbie' effect. i'm not that attractive and i find that I get next to no male attention as a result. at first that hurt - did nobody like me? - but when I talked to other women I realised that male attention is distracting, irritating and often really scary. so being kinda frumpy and quiet means i can go into a bar, wear what i want, talk to random people, take the Tube at night etc, and not get harassed by guys. it's bliss!!
@@sainttheresetaylor2054nooooooot necessarily. it’s best not to push that party line. if looking put together makes YOU feel good on the inside then great! but it’s ultimately a personal preference and not a solution signed someone who always is put together but feels like garbage on the inside. ps i look cute for me but it does shit for my mental health nor does it make me any more confident….tho sewing my own clothes is fun and therapeutic but I digress
I didn’t really enjoy Frances Ha, but I loved the insight about Frances' choreography focusing on falling down and using momentum to get back up again. That really clicked looking back on the film
I just rewatched „Death becomes her“ and an analysis by you would be amazing. Im annoyed how noone seems that the cheating husband was portrayed way too positive.
Ditto on how annoying to see the husband got off scot free! Objectively, it could be rated as a 3 star movie thanks to its wittiness and the acting performances, but subjectively I can’t really bring myself to like it because it just left too much of a sour taste in my mouth. I know we’re supposed to ‘hate’ the two main characters and they are meant to satirize society’s obsession with youth and beauty… but I find that the movie is way too harsh on them. It mocks women that are sucked into that hopeless cycle of wanting to be wanted… Well, i know it isn’t an unfair comparison, but I feel like all the ‘vanity obsessed older women’ movies that came after Sunset Boulevard tend to spare no compassion towards their older women characters.
so many good points! the use of social media in the worst person in the world (though it was a very small part of the film) is spot on, and your point about your career being a "defining" thing in your 20s is so real. i think i need to watch frances ha!
.... so I'm traveling right now, and I don't sleep well before I leave on a trip. I happened to be binging your videos last night right up until I headed to the bus station. And now I'm on the bus, and you have a new one. YAY!
Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends is a precursor to Frances Ha, and its influence can be felt. It’s fantastic, somewhat under-seen, and a favourite of mine (alongside Frances Ha). Highly recommend to fans of Frances. The film also was an inspiration to Lena Dunham, and she actually brought in Weill to direct an episode of Girls.
Here's the prescribed validation in re Julie: I don't know why we should have to force people into being either good or bad. She's just a person and I found her and her story interesting. This is not a story where ethics are important. Also, it's a more complex world, so it's okay to take more time to come to terms with it. There aren't clear rules anymore. You have to find your own way, so we should let people do that instead of forcing anyone into anything.
I agree. think that the fact that supports this is that nobody in the film calls Julie ”the worst person in the world”, not even Julie herself. It is actually a line that Eivind says about himself. I thought that was a clue for the viewer to not try to judge Julie as a person.
27:18 myeah I had a few arguments with my boyfriend about this kinda stuff… he kinda tends to be very explicit when he dislikes a female character (of media that he has seen before and is showing it to me for the first time) and he doesn’t really seem to do the same for unlikable male characters and he actually doesn’t realize that he does this. And I always end up defending everything those female characters do even if I would normally agree with him if he hadn’t told me he hates the character before I even got to form that opinion on my own. And then he got very defensive about it not being about gender and it definitely isn’t but he almost definitely does it unconsciously
People who villainize Julie in THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD without considering the intersection of the significance of the title of the film with how universally relatable she is, perhaps because she is a kind of blank slate, are completely missing the point. What does it say about us all that the worst person in the world in this film is someone we can all relate to, struggling with uncertainty and anxiety around those very concepts of identity and legacy?
Now I'm miffed that I didn't notice the CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 reference. I thought Baumbach was going more for Woody Allen's MANHATTAN, especially given the compositions, settings in apartments, and the static tripod shots combined with the high Gordon Willis-esque contrast in the chiaroscuro lighting.
I haven’t watched those movies yet but I did read Bridget jones Diary 1 and 2, and I can’t help but think Bridget kind of fits into this category. Despite being older, she’s well into her thirties, and with a bunch of humour she reflects on the struggles of the modern (90’s) woman with being single at 30+, finding a man one wants to marry, deciding if she wants to have children, balancing a successful and satisfying job, etc. it’s more of a mockery of the typical romcom but the fact that that this protagonist is deeply flawed and is very aware of the mistakes she and others make,was very refreshing to read. Just my point on a book/film I love😂
God i love being a woman and also thankful for having access to the internet. Thanks to these i can listen/read my sisters whose has same relatable issues that i have. To listen to these comments set me free from my loneliness and anxiety. If i were born in the middle ages presumably i would be exposed to some tortures for my treatment. Thanks girls i sent all of my love to you 😘😘😘
This trope might have gained popularity over the last decade, but earlier pieces of "messy young woman" art are the novels "Effi Briest" (1895), "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" (1964), "Citizen Girl" (2004), and "My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary" (2007) - as well as the movies "Heathers" (1988), "Single White Female" (1992), and "Gia" (1998).
Twpitw protagonist is literally me!! Not having interests no hobbies and being just completely lost that is all your 20s is about my hobbies and my interest and what defined me in my teen years has nothing to do with me right now I’m a new person and I am developing new interests and hobbies I don’t think everyone understand.
I thought it was weird the concern of liking Julia or not. The name of the movie already make clear she is not there to be liked. And I don't think the movie need to show more of who was she, the movie is about this person mishandling her romantic relationships and failing to relate even with what she wants. She is lost. And what I read from the movie she find herself more when she detached of the situation she was holding. She is more her when she is complete alone, so she finds herself when she stop looking herself from those people she have romantic relations with, when she got the patience to deal with herself alone, she find what she was looking for. Maybe is from my personal situation, I basically needed this movie, even thought I'm completely different from Julia, but I love seem a woman failing while she is trying to be somebody from someone so she can find who she is, and she finally realize, I guess, who she is when she stop looking for herself in another person. For a women finally being complete, successful and find her identity as a single woman, for the most of history of society, was being the worst person in the world. How dare a women cheat, be unattached, don't want children, don't want to give a child to her partner when he want she to: She is the worst. But of course, she is not. Think that is a misogynistic way to see women. I don't think the movie try to put her as good or bad, she was passing through a necessary journey, her journey of self discovery. I think the ideia to show Axel as a misogynistic and then dealing with cancer was just to show how imperfect humans and that most of us aren't monsters because sometimes we are assholes.
Shiva Baby was streaming on the U.S. version of HBO. Not sure if it still is because I used a family member’s account at the time. I enjoyed the film for what it was. However, as someone learning/studying to convert to Judaism… I would like to add a qualifier/disclaimer that conservative leaning Jewish circles would most likely find the film Shiva Baby to be offensive because of the s-xual content, the portrayal of how some of the characters are gossiping about each other, and etc. Because before I started this journey, I did not know that.
Could you dig into what happened with a super popular TH-cam show called "The Most Popular Girls in School"? It was made with Barbie dolls, but reached over a million subs and had a huge star cast from Tyler Oakley to Michelle Visage. The show was made for adults and full of sex jokes and profanity. Live action versions were produced by high school students, they had merch and apps, but after Season 5 they pleaded with their viewers to keep signing up and donating to their platforms so they could keep making more seasons, swore it wasn't the end and then disappeared. This was 5 years ago. They're not clarified anything, and do not answer questions. Most of the material and the Making of season 5 have been deleted quietly. But every other season making ofs are still up. Most of their patron exclusive videos have also been deleted, especially anything to do with season 5. Was this a cash grab, lie and run situation or are they really just this bad at communication? This topic hasn't been touched. I'd love if you did a deep dive on it and exposed anything that should be exposed.
It's interesting, I really didn't connect with Francis Ha when I watched it in my mid 20's. I was so ecstatic to move on from school, was working towards my goals, was immensely social, etc. Watching her drift around was frustrating. I just don't think this film was meant for me and that's okay. At the same time, I appreciate your perspective on it and glad you connected with the character and her journey.
fuck yeahhhh. i just realised the history of human womanhood has literally followed our reproductive cycle. period = the pain, the abuse, the subjugation. ‘our bleeding hurt’. pregnancy = patriarchal gender roles and the pain of fulfilling our duty. nurturing society at the loss of selfhood. menopause = the end of female sacrifice. freedom.
as a 23 year old who feels like ive never had it remotely together. this might be my favorite genre. The 3 films you mentioned as well lady bird, I watched at very crucial moments in my life-- like ladybird came out my senior year etc. this films have served as a sort of a catharsis for me. worst person in the world came out right as I graduated college. I sobbed in the street outside the theater for both of those films, because when you see a sort of imperfection that you relate to on screen it can be healing.
Does anyone know the name of a show that is similar to fleabag but the main character is a black American, it might of even came out before... I've been trying to find it but haven't yet.
It’s only endearing because it’s implied that young women will “grow out” of their messy phase and get their act together. Why not just skip it and get your act together?
There is a lot to like about this video essay (thank you for creating it), but I would like to get to a specific question that regards your close reading of how *Frances Ha* and *Shiva Baby* are filmed. I have not read all the comments here and I have not seen all of your video essays, so I may be walking over an old path you have covered before. If so, I apologize. In your analysis of *Frances Ha* you talk about how scenes are framed and filmed at times to highlight Frances' actual and personal sense of aloneness, where she/Gerwig are filmed in a room alone and at a distance to create a broad visual space to mimic this state and sense (the black and white may add to this as well) of the character for the audience. From what I have learned, in a written text, this sort of narrative presentation is called mimesis, though that term can be part of a much larger conversation. In a way it is a narrative form that shows instead of tells. Again, this may all be old hat for you, but if you would be so kind as to bear with me. With *Shiva Baby*, you demonstrate how the framing, camera lens choices and constant close-ups of/on Danielle/Sennott create a sense of claustrophobia for the audience that Danielle is feeling. The close-ups and focus on her and the other characters faces are so constant, I would also say we are made to feel the scrutiny that she feels through the technical presentation. And, again, I would call this presentation mimetic. My question, though it jumps between train cars a bit, is: do you think that this form of mimetic narrative presentation has the potential to subvert the male gaze in film in general? It is just an idea (and likely unoriginal), but it sort of seems that if the protagonist or any character is being viewed from the mimetic perspective of that character through the camera so to reveal the interiority of that character, then the audience is given an inclusively privileged view of the character, but without the alienation of the gaze, because the character and the audience are, in a sense, sharing the same gaze... I hope I am making coherent sense, and if so I would be glad to hear your response, if to do so proves of interest. Thanks again for the video-essay and taking the time to hear me out.
The second movie is sad when you realize the main character has only her career in the end. No love interest, no children, and no hope. Only work, which modern women are finding very hollow and empty. Oddly the first film follows the same ending with Francis left with only a job, and no love. The third quickly puts women in their place by concluding the only way forward is selling themselves as a sugar baby. Like the only thing good about women must be their sexuality, and not their minds. All three shine a light on social engineering leading away from traditional roles of love, marriage, and happiness. How happy none of the women look at the end of each film, A reality in the modern world with strong and independent women realizing they were sold a lie. Their future of dying alone with cats.
I think using Fleabag as an example is dangerous. The main character slept with her friends crush or bf, didn't she? And the friend offed herself(or tried to), didn't she? Messy is 1 thing. Morally destructive is a whole other side of nasty.
I didn’t like Frances Ha at all, I found her to be immature and completely lacking in self awareness to a fault. Yeah they showed her friend moving on and her eventually maturing, but I feel like real life has always been harsher and more fast paced and not willing to let you wise up in your own time, it just moves on and leaves you behind. Or maybe it just does that for certain white women? Maybe it’s the immigrant culture and mentality I grew up with, where family is probably your biggest support, but not even that is a given, and in that absence there is not much else for you. Frances is all on her own but was always given a pillow to land on by the world in general, a nice place, roommates, the job still being available, and that’s not how real life works. But i felt it was such a “white” and privileged depiction and I couldn’t find myself that depiction of messiness at all.
I am not romantic being twenty two other girls around me already married with kids and i have no interest in getting in a relationship , i graduated and stay at home life is basically shit
I find your film character personality profiling more useful than many and it doesn't take itself too solemnly and it seems debatable at a kind enough and safe enough level which is encouraging of thought and I imagine it would be more useful to someone interested in character development than say Lindsey Ellis who is overly cynical and although brilliant and extremely sexy intellectually turns everything into a mental health session for this insane world. Solution based thinking would help Lindsey Ellis as it would help the Noam Chomsky crowd. Too many people are crazy from trauma (historical, modern or personal) to be constantly in the negative or pathological or criminal, we must problem solve to truly contribute. I have myself resented the mental health system as I believe they are misused and that they rarely help heal the growing mental illness of our consumer society. They should in my opinion be used to encourage rising away from the problems of the world by becoming problem solvers Divinely in love with the potential of all life, not merely the Human race. But to my experience they rather prescribe sedatives that make some fat and only mask the mental health problem in others, but the medications do sometimes help those without enough practical wisdom to re-imprint themselves with all the concerns and traumas learnt from and defeated healthily. It is a worry though that medication does not allow the rapid growth necessary to cope with what is coming in civilisation due to overpopulation, excess consumerism, rejection of the wisdom of tradition instead of it's toxic parts and destruction of so many precious living breathing species of plant and animal on this oasis in space so big it is beyond the imagination. I mention the mental health system as many people who profile film characters or celebrities or regular people often do so at a lesser level than you. Thanks for an interesting take on the movie. Good Luck with all you do.
I like that they're showing realistic depictions of women in mainstream media. They're imperfect, don't have all the answers, and are just muddling by the best way that they can. But it's refreshing to see, and subverts the tired "Women are Wiser" trope.
women aren't wiser.. just less stupider
Hello! I don't know who you are but I keep seeing your comments in almost all the videos I watch and like, I've seen you in videos about Bridgerton, in the Cinema therapy's comment section, in The take's comments... And I agree with your comments... haha, are you me?
yall feminist are never happy ahaha
@@marvin2678 This comment literally expresses how happy they are you sasquatch
@@AugustRx i clearly meant the women are wiser trope
i love messy and realistic women depicted in media, i just wish there were more non white women being depicted in the same light without people being grossed out.
agreed!! there's High Fidelity with Zoe Kravitz but I couldn't think of many more?? if you have suggestions lmk!
@@elleliteracy there is also never have i ever, the mindy project, some indian movies like dear zindagi, piku and korean movies such as young adult matters
@@palomasaudios2676 i LOVE piku, truly deepika's magnum opus imo
Insecure is a tv show starring Issa Rae that hits that mark as well!
There is the show Twenties by Lena Waithr
One of the best female protagonists of all time is Devi Vishwakumar. The way she’s allowed to be messy, given room to make disastrous decisions and seeing her grow and mature and learn to do better. One of the many reasons Never Have I Ever is a brilliant show.
Your comment >>>>
I appreciate Devi so much tbh
That’s what I’m saying! They try to make Ginny (Ginny & Georgia) a realistic character but we all hate her because she is totally the opposite and does not represent normal adolescence, but with Devi you can feel the true process of adolescence and make mistakes even for someone with her intelligence.
You have no idea how much i needed to hear that you're not a failure for taking a 'practical job' as i'm retraining to become a sales associate for a big brand and pretending it won't kill my soul lol.
Keep up the good work! 😊
Hoping to one day see movies about messy young Black women without a stereotypical lens.
yes more complex, nuanced black women. more non-american black women. black women who aren’t poor. introverted black women. nerdy black women. pretty black women. femme black women. neurodivergent women etc.
YES!
‘Insecure’ is a good show if that’s what you’re looking for
you better wait for these ones with good writing or smth
although I haven't seen her work, Michaela Coel has written and starred in stuff like what you're describing
Can’t wait to sit myself down with my girl dinner and watch this
slay
As a 23 year old, I feel too young and too old all at once. Everything is being thrown at me and I’m trying to keep it all together. Life feels suffocating, time is moving quickly but I feel stuck and constricted. This video has reminded me that I’m not alone, I hope we all find our true paths in life.
Hey me too :~) also 23. Tough year. Wishing you luck out there
Me three! Great to know im not alone!
girl you are very young. I am 33 and I feel the same. I guess we just have to get used to all these feelings because of the world we are living in right now. Capitalism, social media and this obsession for perfection and productivity is killing us all.
maybe its not true for everyone but this is why you see a lot of people saying 30s > 20s. for me there has just been so much more stability in all parts of my life in my 30s. 20s were a lot of fun but also a lot of pain and just questioning who i was and what my life was going to be. if you went on the journey of self-discovery in your 20s then by your 30s you just get to be that person and it feels liberating.
I can relate to a lot of this. I'm 34 and have a lot of the same issues I still did when I was 20. Not enough money, no direction, feeling like a loser because I don't have a relationship or some big career like some of my friends and comparing myself to others on socials constantly. The only difference between then and now is that I'm not even remotely lonely and have a lot of friends who all like me as a person. But it still makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing and have very little worth. It sucks.
I just turned 31 and this really resonates with me....
@@DianaTheLance It's my own fault, some part of me is unwilling to see anything good I've done as a positive and just sees it as something anyone could've done. Years of being told nothing I did was good enough will do that to a person. But thank you for your kind words, it did give me something to think about.
Welcome to my world and that of my friends, m/f/d, ranging from their mid-twenties to their early fifties in age. Such is life, people, we are never going to be perfect, we are always becoming. You are never grown out until you grow into a corpse. 😂
Same. I'm turning 31 and right now unemployed childrens book illustrator freelancer 😔 I'm going back to study to make prostetics.
We need a messy 30-something community. Feeling like you're the only person experiencing these feelings is crippling and an honest open community of different people can have a hugely beneficial impact on the way we see ourselves.
I hope that made sense 😅
Worst Person In the World and Shiva Baby were so unbelievably relatable to me as someone in their mid-late 20s who still doesn’t have their shit together
I've never felt so SEEN in a film like Worst Person in the World!!! 😭
I like messy young women, because it’s past the coming of age. I’ve come of age, now what?
Great video! As an older woman, it is nice to see this shift in women in film. I love seeing these messy, imperfect women who are stumbling their way into realizing that no one knows what in the hell they are doing; they just get better at faking it as they get older. More of this please. I enjoy seeing women being powerful and amazing, but I also wanna see messy and directionless ladies get some love in the film world.
Idk why, but id like to recommend netflix's grace and frankie. It portrays two older women having to recreate their lives after being left by their respective husbands. They have very different personalities and are in their late seventies. We also follow the two daughters, one CEO and the other stay at home mom. And we get to see all of them being messy and confused in their own ways. Sorry if my english was bad
from a 30-year-old woman I have advice to other women in their 20s. Try to go on social media as less as possible because you inevitably end up comparing yourself to other peoples highlights and not what theyre actually going through in their daily lives. You're always going to feel lesser than if that's what you see all the time. Know that as you get older people outside of your circles don't care about what you're up to so if you need to take a while figuring it out, nobody really cares. Do what you need to do is best for you on your own timeline. use this time without pressure to figure out what you think you'd like to be doing as a career, or what you would like to see yourself doing in your adulthood. Now is the time to try different things out, without the ties of a partner or children if u ever want them. this is your decade and no one can take that away from you. It's the time to explore and it's the time to just exist in growing adulthood and figure out what that means to you ❤ you got this. it's so normal to feel lost, but know that you'll figure it out❤
thank you so much for this words ♥
Best advice ever.
I don't know if I feel validated or called out by the spotlight being put on birthdays at some point only highlighting how much your life is not following the straight and narrow path and the anxiety that comes with it.
I don't hate turning 30 soon, I hate the expectations placed on that age and how I am sooo not meeting them.
I'm feeling this in my mid 30s. I got a job 3 months ago and I'm already feeling like I should quit because its already burning me out and not exactly the place where I want to work. I honestly just want to go home and read and write instead of doing payroll.
okay, but i would LOVE to watch a fleabag review by you
it's on my list of video topics!!
Yess please!!
Haven't seen the video yet and yes, I agree!
this year has felt strange for me. i'm 22, moved to a different state to my friends and family at the start of the year to pursue a masters in psychotherapy, and have had to readjust from small town living where i knew almost everyone to this bigger city lifestyle. i went from working 3 jobs with uni to afford to do this, and was also able to travel overseas for 2 weeks this year.
but i feel like i'm stuck. i've always wanted to be a writer, but that's not a feasible way to live. so i'm studying to become a counsellor, and i write in my spare time. i want to travel more, but i'm unable to work a job properly to afford that due to my uni workload. i want to be with all of my friends and family, but that would mean moving back to a hometown that i hate.
i hope one day i'm able to figure myself out, like so many of my old classmates seem to be doing with their engagements and their pregnancies and their new homes they bought themselves. but for now, i'll sit in my apartment with my killing eve and fleabag posters and olivia rodrigo's album on standby, searching for era's tour outfits as an illegal recording of 'bottoms' plays on my laptop
Francis Ha has been working it's way up my watch list recently but I'm not sure I can handle it after what you said about time moving faster the older you get. That might just hit home a little too much for me right now. I feel like I was 23 last year but somehow I had my 30th birthday this year?!?! You really do blink and suddenly find yourself a decade older
Its really good! First time I identified with a screen character. About being out of place and trying to find one and realizing you have to make it yourself. Love Frances Ha
FRANCES HA is so good! You're doing yourself a disservice holding off on it!
Spoiler:
It won't get better when you start pushing fifty, so enjoy the slow pacing you have.
Frances Ha is a beautiful movie and at 30 I'd say it's a must watch! It's not very emotional throughout the film but as the credits rolled up, I was bawling and I truly couldn't understand why. It reaches a very specific place in you and at least for me, it connected with me on a level I couldn't even understand. I know it sounds dramatic but I swear that's how it felt - I loved it so much but I couldn't really explain why. Honestly, watch it!
oh i so badly wish you included issa from insecure! she is peak messy young woman
i’ve never seen it!! hbo stuff never streams in ireland but i need to watch it
@@elleliteracy aw yeah i feel u haha i watched it iLLegaLlY 🫣
and my babygirl from chewing girl! who i’m pretty sure is neurodivergent
I need depressed introverted unmotivated women so I can relate to someone in movies
There is one but in Asian drama
The way you talk about these films makes me want to rewatch Frances Ha and Shiva Baby, and I've been meaning to watch the worst person in the world but haven't gotten around to it yet
That’s the key word “you can do anything” but you can’t be anything you want. There is a huge difference between freedom of action and a deeper metaphysical freedom to choose.
The thing is, most of the problems I had in my 20's, I still have now and I just turned 31 last week. I wish there were more spaces to talk about how so many adults are expected to have gotten their stuff together over issues they had in their 20's by the time they turn 30 and not feel absolutely judged and shamed for it if they didn't. I'm a freelance artist in NYC and I don't WANT to have other "practical" jobs so I can try to make something of my art career. It really really sucks. I DO feel shameful and upset that I have to have other jobs I absolutely do not care for to pay rent and and feed myself and I hate that if I say I don't want to do that, it's seen as being an irresponsible adult who's stuck in the past of chasing delusional dreams.
Want to be friends? I am 30, have a spending problem, and am looking to get another job just to survive. I feel so stagnant and it's killing me.
I live in California, but I am very much looking for a community of 30-something people who are still struggling with the same issues they faced in their twenties.
@@whits_end_I live in California and also watch playframe, can we be friends too? I'm trying out jobs and trying to find my way and I need friends so bad
I am currently very much feeling like I’m in this state of my life. I didn’t know how to explain exactly what I felt like I was going through but I feel like your analysis of these films definitely resonated with me right now.
play girl power by the cheetah girls hehe. and honestly my favorite genre rn is "unhinged woman" bc that's literally how i feel at this stage in my life.
23 and currently have 3 part-time jobs. an artist residency, teaching arts & crafts to seniors, and retail... you gotta do what you gotta do to get by.
As someone in their mid-20's who is a self-proclaimed MESSY young woman- I am so glad this trope exists at this time in my life. 😭💗
Even before the actors and writers strikes, I was questing going into the film industry so I just wanted to do something. When I finally get a job, I get COVID within the first week on the job. In the end, I'm starting to consider going to graduate school for teaching as English and Film studies for high school are covered in the same certification, but I also just want to be able to go to Japan for the Osaka Expo in 2025, although Ireland in 2024 looks interesting too
Congrats on the 100k subscribers! Well deserved. I haven’t seen any of these films as they tend to be too relatable to me and give me serious anxiety but perhaps my life is finally in a somewhat stable place that I can watch one of these now without clawing my chest the whole way through! Any recs on which I should try first?
It reminds me of Lana's Del Rey quote 'freshman generation of degenerated beauty queens'
yes! Give me more flawed, problematic women! I think for me, one of the biggest issues around how women and mens 'bad choices' are so starkly contrasted - if a man makes a mistake, that's a story, but if a woman makes a mistake, then its unrealistic? Women need to be allowed more space to be flawed, imperfect, mistake making beings.
There is so much societal pressure on women to be perfect, look perfect, act perfect, have a perfect body, run a perfect home, have a perfect family, with perfect kids and a perfect husband, hell even when women 'decide' by the end of the film that their personal wants are more important than society's/other's expectations - they have to do THAT perfectly too!
Women aren't even allowed to be imperfect imperfectly.
I feel it's the same for men: Have a career by 30 or your life is over.
@@elevenseven-yq4vu it's really not even remotely comparable. Sure man face pressure to get a job, but it's not even close to the same expectation or specificity.
A woman who doesn't marry is a spinster, a man who doesn't marry is a Bachelor. A woman without a job is a gold digger, a man without a job is "hustling"
Men are definitely negatively impacted by the patriarchy and the expectations placed on them. It's not in the same league as women though in terms of societal progress and accessibility.
@@kezia8027 Society might place a wider and more conflicting variety of expectation on women, which must be very disturbing growing up.
For men, however, being held accountable to basically a single and unavoidable make-it-or-break-it standard socially, namely career success, is highly damaging and increases pressure to conform to male toxicity. I assume that a lot of male violence, be it outward aggression, self-abuse / hatred, escapism into drugs or an alienated and mechanical type of sexuality boils down to that pressure to compete. Failure or even fragility are simply not allowed, at least a mask of unbreakability and success has to become a second face never to be put down.
But even that is an impossibility:
Unlike outward appearance, verbal rhetoric, emotional appeal, cultural roles, etc., ... - both financial standing and job hierarchies are nothing that can be ironised, subverted or sidestepped from in everyday life.
They are the sort of hard currency whose standards cannot be avoided, mitigated or navigated by role-bending.
I am not saying that men have it harder to survive or to "make it" in society, far from it; but for the ones that don't "make it", there are no "weird Barbie" spaces outside the metric - no court jester benefits - because "hustlers" are unanimously despised (as losers or criminals or at least veeeery dodgy characters and social pariahs) as soon as they leave adolescence.
So, the only way to get out of the treadmill / elbows-out career-competitive system for men is to denounce masculinity altogether.
@@elevenseven-yq4vu ??? what even is the point of what you're saying?
Are you one of those guys that every womens day goes around complaining "WHAT ABOUT MENS DAY??"
Men have it easier than women, categorically. It isn't even close. The only people 'hurting' men in even the slightest way that is comparable, are the requirements/expectations men place on other men.
You don't need to 'denounce your masculinity' to survive as a man. That is moronic. Men are categorically lifted up, immortalized, deified, and given infinitely more chances, opportunities, and lifelines than women are.
If you dislike how men are treated when they don't meet the expectations of the patriarchy, do something about it rather than "waa men also have it hard you know!' - complete garbage that only distracts from the conversation that was already being had, purely to put men back in the spotlight, because god forbid men aren't the centre of attention for even a moment.
@@elevenseven-yq4vu you came to the right conclusion yourself. feminism had this figured out for decades.
the question is : are men going to put this knowledge into practice?
unlike male suffering, women can’t make an internal descicion to change their situation. because it’s imposed on us from the outside.
this was one of the best video essays i've seen in a while!!! thank you for putting into words the connecting dots of all of these incredible movies!!!
Never feel pressured to "built a personality" so you fit into society. You are not underdeveloped when you do not share your insights with others that can't see
I'm terrified to watch Shiva Baby because it reminds me so much of how my own family acts towards me I don't want to risk retraumatizing myself. But it looks like a good movie.
I think these characters feel liberating because they are often the subjects in movies and shows written by and largely for women. Prior to the rise of girl power, women characters on tv were consistently shown as pretty messy and in need of guidance-- the assumed guidance being a man in shows written by men for men and women. I can see why the emergence of like "perfect" girl characters who didn't need any man to tell them what to do was probably read as liberating. But also for women, I think we tend to be really harsh towards ourselves and see ourselves as failures, so characters on screen who embody this come across as relatable. Aspirational type characters, characters we could look up to and aspire to be like, would feel preachy and oppressive, although men seem to like them because I think they are confident enough as a crew to accept the idea that, like, they could wake up tomorrow with super strength and become a hero.
Speaking as a man, nah, we just like them for escapism, while at the same time they are setting up unreachable standards and are basically toxic. It's like going on vacation without actually going anywhere, like staying home on a drug trip that will eventually disempower you. Just not physically, but mentally and worse: emotionally. Superhero movies are a symptom...
@@elevenseven-yq4vu why is the emotional aspect worse?
the stakes of not matching up to aspiritional female characters is a lot higher for women. if you’re not superman, you’re just a mid guy. but you still have inherent value and humanity as the supposedly ‘superior’ gender under the patriarchy.
women fail to live up to these standards and it upholds the idea that women are the inferior gender, that we deserve to be subjucated and that the patriarchy is valid. if we’re not gun-slinging, mensa approved, stoic geniuses, we’re not just ‘average human beings’, we’re not deserving of equal human rights. the relationship between aspirational characters and each gender is different because the consequences of not meeting the criteria of these personalities is different.
you have the privilege of seeing aspirational characters as ‘an escape’. for women they are a prescription : either be this or you’re not deserving of equality. outside of being superman, you’re still considered human, regardless of how mid you are. woman aren’t even considered fully human, let alone given the luxury of just being ‘average’. we HAVE to be wonderwoman in REAL LIFE or nothing at all. the prettiest, the smartest, the kindest, the most level-headed. perfect or unworthy of humanity.
@@sainttheresetaylor2054men don't have more value than women. In fact, men are often viewed as disposable in many situations where as women's lives are viewed as more valuable. If a guy has problems, "deal with it, fend for yourself", if a woman has problems, "how can we assist you, ma'am?". We can talk Zero-Sum all day but I as a man don't live in a paradise.
I always thought being messy,unorganized,fat and not caring about my appearance was the way to win the game of avoiding the triple shift. I just hated being a woman because we had more work and less pay and having mental health issues meant i was doomed to being the butt of the joke. So if i became so undesirable I would become free.
Same, it's the 'weird Barbie' effect. i'm not that attractive and i find that I get next to no male attention as a result. at first that hurt - did nobody like me? - but when I talked to other women I realised that male attention is distracting, irritating and often really scary. so being kinda frumpy and quiet means i can go into a bar, wear what i want, talk to random people, take the Tube at night etc, and not get harassed by guys. it's bliss!!
Same! I call it the kind of fat that people ignore or gloss over and I exist so happily because of it
being beautiful and well put together is also internally empowering. your outer world reflects your inner world.
@sainttheresetaylor2054 True, it's all a matter of perceptive and what you want to do.
@@sainttheresetaylor2054nooooooot necessarily. it’s best not to push that party line. if looking put together makes YOU feel good on the inside then great! but it’s ultimately a personal preference and not a solution
signed someone who always is put together but feels like garbage on the inside.
ps i look cute for me but it does shit for my mental health nor does it make me any more confident….tho sewing my own clothes is fun and therapeutic but I digress
I didn’t really enjoy Frances Ha, but I loved the insight about Frances' choreography focusing on falling down and using momentum to get back up again. That really clicked looking back on the film
I just rewatched „Death becomes her“ and an analysis by you would be amazing. Im annoyed how noone seems that the cheating husband was portrayed way too positive.
Ditto on how annoying to see the husband got off scot free! Objectively, it could be rated as a 3 star movie thanks to its wittiness and the acting performances, but subjectively I can’t really bring myself to like it because it just left too much of a sour taste in my mouth. I know we’re supposed to ‘hate’ the two main characters and they are meant to satirize society’s obsession with youth and beauty… but I find that the movie is way too harsh on them. It mocks women that are sucked into that hopeless cycle of wanting to be wanted… Well, i know it isn’t an unfair comparison, but I feel like all the ‘vanity obsessed older women’ movies that came after Sunset Boulevard tend to spare no compassion towards their older women characters.
so many good points! the use of social media in the worst person in the world (though it was a very small part of the film) is spot on, and your point about your career being a "defining" thing in your 20s is so real. i think i need to watch frances ha!
.... so I'm traveling right now, and I don't sleep well before I leave on a trip. I happened to be binging your videos last night right up until I headed to the bus station.
And now I'm on the bus, and you have a new one. YAY!
So happy for your 100 000! Your videos are so fucking good, funny, insightful, and pretty. LOVE!!!
Confessions of a shopaholic cemented this for me being identifiable from a young age
Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends is a precursor to Frances Ha, and its influence can be felt. It’s fantastic, somewhat under-seen, and a favourite of mine (alongside Frances Ha). Highly recommend to fans of Frances.
The film also was an inspiration to Lena Dunham, and she actually brought in Weill to direct an episode of Girls.
Here's the prescribed validation in re Julie: I don't know why we should have to force people into being either good or bad. She's just a person and I found her and her story interesting. This is not a story where ethics are important. Also, it's a more complex world, so it's okay to take more time to come to terms with it. There aren't clear rules anymore. You have to find your own way, so we should let people do that instead of forcing anyone into anything.
I agree. think that the fact that supports this is that nobody in the film calls Julie ”the worst person in the world”, not even Julie herself. It is actually a line that Eivind says about himself. I thought that was a clue for the viewer to not try to judge Julie as a person.
27:18 myeah I had a few arguments with my boyfriend about this kinda stuff… he kinda tends to be very explicit when he dislikes a female character (of media that he has seen before and is showing it to me for the first time) and he doesn’t really seem to do the same for unlikable male characters and he actually doesn’t realize that he does this. And I always end up defending everything those female characters do even if I would normally agree with him if he hadn’t told me he hates the character before I even got to form that opinion on my own. And then he got very defensive about it not being about gender and it definitely isn’t but he almost definitely does it unconsciously
I shouldn’t have watched this video on a day where I’m very literally feeling all the feelings you’re describing…..it hit hard
Me, a cis guy: messy young women, just like me!
P.S. might take my lunch break at work rn so I can watch this
That's amazing. I love it.
So true! I relate to fleabag the most than a boy my age
Wonderful essay. I admire your knowledge of older films as well.
congrats for the 100k !!!! always look forward to your videos !!
messy young woman was also present early 2000s like many characters in sex and the city as well as girlfriends, etc
People who villainize Julie in THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD without considering the intersection of the significance of the title of the film with how universally relatable she is, perhaps because she is a kind of blank slate, are completely missing the point. What does it say about us all that the worst person in the world in this film is someone we can all relate to, struggling with uncertainty and anxiety around those very concepts of identity and legacy?
RJ looks so comfy chilling on the bed as we contemplate the young women characters in coming age films.
Now I'm miffed that I didn't notice the CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 reference. I thought Baumbach was going more for Woody Allen's MANHATTAN, especially given the compositions, settings in apartments, and the static tripod shots combined with the high Gordon Willis-esque contrast in the chiaroscuro lighting.
I haven’t watched those movies yet but I did read Bridget jones Diary 1 and 2, and I can’t help but think Bridget kind of fits into this category. Despite being older, she’s well into her thirties, and with a bunch of humour she reflects on the struggles of the modern (90’s) woman with being single at 30+, finding a man one wants to marry, deciding if she wants to have children, balancing a successful and satisfying job, etc. it’s more of a mockery of the typical romcom but the fact that that this protagonist is deeply flawed and is very aware of the mistakes she and others make,was very refreshing to read. Just my point on a book/film I love😂
God i love being a woman and also thankful for having access to the internet. Thanks to these i can listen/read my sisters whose has same relatable issues that i have. To listen to these comments set me free from my loneliness and anxiety. If i were born in the middle ages presumably i would be exposed to some tortures for my treatment. Thanks girls i sent all of my love to you 😘😘😘
I forgot so much about Frances Ha. I think I need to watch it again asap.
This trope might have gained popularity over the last decade, but earlier pieces of "messy young woman" art are the novels "Effi Briest" (1895), "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden" (1964), "Citizen Girl" (2004), and "My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary" (2007) - as well as the movies "Heathers" (1988), "Single White Female" (1992), and "Gia" (1998).
Twpitw protagonist is literally me!! Not having interests no hobbies and being just completely lost that is all your 20s is about my hobbies and my interest and what defined me in my teen years has nothing to do with me right now I’m a new person and I am developing new interests and hobbies I don’t think everyone understand.
I really loved Everything I Know About Love for these same reasons!!!!
Hadn't heard of Shiva Baby. Just watched it there. Best horror movie I've seen in a while. Haven't been that anxious since I saw Good Time.
I think this started with Bridget Jones'' Diary. Its been around for a while.
I thought it was weird the concern of liking Julia or not. The name of the movie already make clear she is not there to be liked. And I don't think the movie need to show more of who was she, the movie is about this person mishandling her romantic relationships and failing to relate even with what she wants. She is lost. And what I read from the movie she find herself more when she detached of the situation she was holding. She is more her when she is complete alone, so she finds herself when she stop looking herself from those people she have romantic relations with, when she got the patience to deal with herself alone, she find what she was looking for.
Maybe is from my personal situation, I basically needed this movie, even thought I'm completely different from Julia, but I love seem a woman failing while she is trying to be somebody from someone so she can find who she is, and she finally realize, I guess, who she is when she stop looking for herself in another person.
For a women finally being complete, successful and find her identity as a single woman, for the most of history of society, was being the worst person in the world. How dare a women cheat, be unattached, don't want children, don't want to give a child to her partner when he want she to: She is the worst. But of course, she is not. Think that is a misogynistic way to see women.
I don't think the movie try to put her as good or bad, she was passing through a necessary journey, her journey of self discovery.
I think the ideia to show Axel as a misogynistic and then dealing with cancer was just to show how imperfect humans and that most of us aren't monsters because sometimes we are assholes.
Shiva Baby was streaming on the U.S. version of HBO. Not sure if it still is because I used a family member’s account at the time. I enjoyed the film for what it was.
However, as someone learning/studying to convert to Judaism… I would like to add a qualifier/disclaimer that conservative leaning Jewish circles would most likely find the film Shiva Baby to be offensive because of the s-xual content, the portrayal of how some of the characters are gossiping about each other, and etc. Because before I started this journey, I did not know that.
I’VE. NEVER. CLICKED. THIS. FAST.
"You have Zero gaydar" this sounds so Gen Z
Could you dig into what happened with a super popular TH-cam show called "The Most Popular Girls in School"? It was made with Barbie dolls, but reached over a million subs and had a huge star cast from Tyler Oakley to Michelle Visage. The show was made for adults and full of sex jokes and profanity. Live action versions were produced by high school students, they had merch and apps, but after Season 5 they pleaded with their viewers to keep signing up and donating to their platforms so they could keep making more seasons, swore it wasn't the end and then disappeared. This was 5 years ago. They're not clarified anything, and do not answer questions. Most of the material and the Making of season 5 have been deleted quietly. But every other season making ofs are still up. Most of their patron exclusive videos have also been deleted, especially anything to do with season 5.
Was this a cash grab, lie and run situation or are they really just this bad at communication? This topic hasn't been touched. I'd love if you did a deep dive on it and exposed anything that should be exposed.
Frances Ha: when she swallowed her pride and took the admin job at the end hit home. All the pieces fell into place for her.
congratulations!
thank you!!
My favorite show „Crazy Ex Girlfriend“
Francis ha one of the best movies in the last 15 years
She takes up photography…. But her character isn’t really developed…. 😂 …. Got it!
It's interesting, I really didn't connect with Francis Ha when I watched it in my mid 20's. I was so ecstatic to move on from school, was working towards my goals, was immensely social, etc. Watching her drift around was frustrating. I just don't think this film was meant for me and that's okay. At the same time, I appreciate your perspective on it and glad you connected with the character and her journey.
Womanhood worldwide has entered the third act of Carrie, as nature had intended. ❤🔥🩸
May it remain so for ages to come please!💜
I loved that book!
fuck yeahhhh. i just realised the history of human womanhood has literally followed our reproductive cycle.
period = the pain, the abuse, the subjugation. ‘our bleeding hurt’.
pregnancy = patriarchal gender roles and the pain of fulfilling our duty. nurturing society at the loss of selfhood.
menopause = the end of female sacrifice. freedom.
immediately thought of "everything I know about love"
as a 23 year old who feels like ive never had it remotely together. this might be my favorite genre. The 3 films you mentioned as well lady bird, I watched at very crucial moments in my life-- like ladybird came out my senior year etc. this films have served as a sort of a catharsis for me. worst person in the world came out right as I graduated college. I sobbed in the street outside the theater for both of those films, because when you see a sort of imperfection that you relate to on screen it can be healing.
Does anyone know the name of a show that is similar to fleabag but the main character is a black American, it might of even came out before... I've been trying to find it but haven't yet.
Insecure!
insecure!!! amazing show
Thank you! This is what I love about the internet. ♡
I celebrate your casual drop of "cannibalism" as yet another appliance of the coming-of-age narrative. Let me rewind that once again... 😂🎉❤
It’s only endearing because it’s implied that young women will “grow out” of their messy phase and get their act together. Why not just skip it and get your act together?
There is a lot to like about this video essay (thank you for creating it), but I would like to get to a specific question that regards your close reading of how *Frances Ha* and *Shiva Baby* are filmed. I have not read all the comments here and I have not seen all of your video essays, so I may be walking over an old path you have covered before. If so, I apologize.
In your analysis of *Frances Ha* you talk about how scenes are framed and filmed at times to highlight Frances' actual and personal sense of aloneness, where she/Gerwig are filmed in a room alone and at a distance to create a broad visual space to mimic this state and sense (the black and white may add to this as well) of the character for the audience.
From what I have learned, in a written text, this sort of narrative presentation is called mimesis, though that term can be part of a much larger conversation. In a way it is a narrative form that shows instead of tells. Again, this may all be old hat for you, but if you would be so kind as to bear with me.
With *Shiva Baby*, you demonstrate how the framing, camera lens choices and constant close-ups of/on Danielle/Sennott create a sense of claustrophobia for the audience that Danielle is feeling. The close-ups and focus on her and the other characters faces are so constant, I would also say we are made to feel the scrutiny that she feels through the technical presentation. And, again, I would call this presentation mimetic.
My question, though it jumps between train cars a bit, is: do you think that this form of mimetic narrative presentation has the potential to subvert the male gaze in film in general? It is just an idea (and likely unoriginal), but it sort of seems that if the protagonist or any character is being viewed from the mimetic perspective of that character through the camera so to reveal the interiority of that character, then the audience is given an inclusively privileged view of the character, but without the alienation of the gaze, because the character and the audience are, in a sense, sharing the same gaze... I hope I am making coherent sense, and if so I would be glad to hear your response, if to do so proves of interest. Thanks again for the video-essay and taking the time to hear me out.
Frances ha it’s the best movie ever! Greta is a queen 🫅
Unicorn Store would make a nice addition to this list.
As a kiwi Boy is a personal fave, be prepared to cry!
The second movie is sad when you realize the main character has only her career in the end. No love interest, no children, and no hope. Only work, which modern women are finding very hollow and empty. Oddly the first film follows the same ending with Francis left with only a job, and no love. The third quickly puts women in their place by concluding the only way forward is selling themselves as a sugar baby. Like the only thing good about women must be their sexuality, and not their minds. All three shine a light on social engineering leading away from traditional roles of love, marriage, and happiness. How happy none of the women look at the end of each film, A reality in the modern world with strong and independent women realizing they were sold a lie. Their future of dying alone with cats.
thank you
I think using Fleabag as an example is dangerous. The main character slept with her friends crush or bf, didn't she? And the friend offed herself(or tried to), didn't she? Messy is 1 thing. Morally destructive is a whole other side of nasty.
Turning 24 in 2 months... going out to smoke a cigarette /By Myself/ after what you put me through with this video
i think you're going to LOVE bottoms
As a bi women in my late 20s this is exhausting
I didn’t like Frances Ha at all, I found her to be immature and completely lacking in self awareness to a fault. Yeah they showed her friend moving on and her eventually maturing, but I feel like real life has always been harsher and more fast paced and not willing to let you wise up in your own time, it just moves on and leaves you behind. Or maybe it just does that for certain white women? Maybe it’s the immigrant culture and mentality I grew up with, where family is probably your biggest support, but not even that is a given, and in that absence there is not much else for you. Frances is all on her own but was always given a pillow to land on by the world in general, a nice place, roommates, the job still being available, and that’s not how real life works. But i felt it was such a “white” and privileged depiction and I couldn’t find myself that depiction of messiness at all.
I am not romantic being twenty two other girls around me already married with kids and i have no interest in getting in a relationship , i graduated and stay at home life is basically shit
Here, have some validation. I don't really understand what to do with it when it's offered. 😂
im definitely in my fleabag area lmao. idk wtf im doing
I find your film character personality profiling more useful than many and it doesn't take itself too solemnly and it seems debatable at a kind enough and safe enough level which is encouraging of thought and I imagine it would be more useful to someone interested in character development than say Lindsey Ellis who is overly cynical and although brilliant and extremely sexy intellectually turns everything into a mental health session for this insane world. Solution based thinking would help Lindsey Ellis as it would help the Noam Chomsky crowd. Too many people are crazy from trauma (historical, modern or personal) to be constantly in the negative or pathological or criminal, we must problem solve to truly contribute. I have myself resented the mental health system as I believe they are misused and that they rarely help heal the growing mental illness of our consumer society. They should in my opinion be used to encourage rising away from the problems of the world by becoming problem solvers Divinely in love with the potential of all life, not merely the Human race. But to my experience they rather prescribe sedatives that make some fat and only mask the mental health problem in others, but the medications do sometimes help those without enough practical wisdom to re-imprint themselves with all the concerns and traumas learnt from and defeated healthily. It is a worry though that medication does not allow the rapid growth necessary to cope with what is coming in civilisation due to overpopulation, excess consumerism, rejection of the wisdom of tradition instead of it's toxic parts and destruction of so many precious living breathing species of plant and animal on this oasis in space so big it is beyond the imagination. I mention the mental health system as many people who profile film characters or celebrities or regular people often do so at a lesser level than you. Thanks for an interesting take on the movie. Good Luck with all you do.
You'll definitely love Bottoms
i clicked like omg that's mee
I think crazy ex girlfriend would also be a good example of that genre
Ah yes the turbulent 20s
The messy woman by excellence is the one and only Bridget Jones. This is not a new concept, babe
Shiva Baby gave me a literal anxiety attack watching it and I still finished it. Must see
I guessed your accent correctly 😙🎉
Watch Mistress America. A wonderful nderful movie with a same theme