saw obsession for the third time tonight. greatest score of the decade, i cried this go around. my golden rule of horror is that if you want it to be scary, it has to be sad, and cast and crew nailed it. i love movies.
Just realizing rn that Taylor Swift's "Fate of Ophelia" and Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" have the exact same energy and I mean this in the most derogatory way possible
(vibes/ pinterest-aesthetic based adaptations that fundamentally misunderstand the themes and plot of their source material, partially because the creator wants to use it as a self insert vehicle; also made by rich blonde women whose artistic work has lowkey fallen off)
I love Wuthering Heights. Genuinely love it. It's one of my favorite books. So you'd think that Emerald Fennell's "Wuthering Heights" would inspire me to write something, either out of anger or annoyance or a backhanded compliment, but it is so shallow, so baby-brained, that any feelings it engendered in me have already passed through my fingers like sand.
If this movie was an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, if it actually wanted to be an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, there would be plenty to be offended by: deleting Heathcliff's status as a racialized outsider, having Isabella be a consenting party to her own brutal marital abuse, casting all the non-white actors in antagonistic roles, removing Hindley and all the class tension he brings with him, and on and on. I guess I am offended by all of that, but it seems like a waste of energy. Emerald Fennell is a rich dunce who is clueless and clumsy about race, and seems to possess genuinely retrograde ideas about the poor. These qualities are evident in all of her work.
Let's be honest though. "Wuthering Heights" really doesn't want to be Wuthering Heights. I don't think it's even interested in being a iconoclastic adaptation. It's mostly interested in taking the genre cliches people envision when they hear the title and finding reasons for Robbie and Elordi's characters to find themselves within those cliches. Unfortunately the movie is so strangely calibrated in its tone and casting, so flinching in its engagement with sexuality, that even the hoary classics of romantasy-adjacent Gothic Romanceā¢ end up diluted and watery.
Our leads have no chemistry, first and foremost, but even if they did, they'd be fighting an uphill battle for a chance to display it. Margot Robbie's age puts such an odd, camp-gesturing spin on the relationship: we're to understand that this thirty-five year old woman is undergoing her sexual awakening? That her flailing slaps and cross-armed pouts and her "go away no come closer" posturing with the object of her desires is a genuine outpouring of her character's conflicted spirit? And to be clear, this is not a case of an older actor who is meant to be portraying a younger woman. As far as I can tell, she is meant to be her actual age in this movie. So when Heathcliff puts her up in a tree (one of his many Tall Actions - we'll return to this), we get a grown woman tantruming about how she's meant to get down in her skirts. Her performance is so outlandishly out of place that she never settles down into a character. This movie's Cathy doesn't feel like someone with a rich inner life. Her job is to get turned on, and have fits, and to learn what sex is (wet) over and over again.
Jacob Elordi (also wet) is less damaging to the film on the whole, mostly because he's less a character than he is a sexual special effect. This is because he is Tall. Never mind that he's initially styled with a beard and wig that brings to mind the sort of mad hermit who would emerge from the hedges to warn King Charles VI of an imminent betrayal. Never mind that his almost endearing effort at Yorkshire accent is so marblemouthed that you can't understand a word he says. He is Tall. He can perform the requisite actions of a large gothic boyfriend.
He can lift Cathy off the ground by the front of her bodice.
He can throw her over his shoulder.
He can chop wood shirtless, and throw around hay bales.
He can crowd her against all sorts of household furniture, and grasp her wrist commandingly.
Now, you and I both know that none of these actions make him a brute or a fiend, no matter how many times Cathy calls him one. This Heathcliff seems like a pretty good guy, honestly. The girl he likes gives him the runaround for a decade because she can't seem to figure out how to fuck, but he's loyal and stands stoically in the face of her juvenile posturing. When he returns from making his fortune he and Cathy fall into one another's arms almost immediately, and he doesn't take any vengeful action until she breaks off their affair months later. That vengeance takes the form of marrying silly Isabella, but he gets her explicit consent at every step of the process. Are you good with me doing this to spite Cathy? Are you good with me ravishing you? Are you good with a little light doggie roleplay? Awesome, so glad we talked. He says something to Cathy about killing Edgar, but it's in the middle of sex, he never actually tries anything, and of course intimates that he'd only do it if Cathy asked him.
I guess what I'm saying is that if a friend of mine was dating Emerald Fennell's Heathcliff, I'd be okay with it. He loves consent, and as I've mentioned, is Tall.
I think it should be pretty obvious at this point that the central romance is denuded of real interpersonal conflict. She slaps at him, he manfully restrains her. I don't know what they talk about. I don't know how they experience the world together. There's no lived-in intimacy between them, except for one moment when he uses his hands as a visor to shield her from the rain. I liked that, I thought it was sweet. But it was mostly notable for its singularity.
So without any real push and pull between them, we're mostly stuck with bad things happening to our lovers, but it's not their fault. (It's the help's fault, obviously, in classic Fennell mode.) Their separation is tragic, though. So tragic. The movie rests its hand over ours, stares meaningfully into our eyes, and demands that we mourn the fact that a love so heavingly passionate was never allowed to thrive.
Speaking of heavingly passionate. Let's talk about the reason we're all here.
This was sold to audiences as an erotic movie. A sexy, subtext-made-throbbing-text take on a gothic novel. Not a bad idea in and of itself. I think moviegoers are starved for sex, generally, and there's real money to be made off our desire to watch two hot people get after it. (see: the recent success of those hockey boys.) Unfortunately for "Wuthering Heights"'s sensual ambitions, there is a terrible flaw baked into it that cannot be overcome:
Emerald Fennell does not have the soul of a true pervert. She doesn't even have the soul of a true horndog. This movie is one of the most sexually inert things I've seen in a while, and I'm fascinated by that.
Because it wants to be sexy! It as expressly written to be sexy! It was meant to be titillating and give you a little frisson of excitement in your movie theatre chair. And it fails over and over again.
Some critics are calling this movie disappointingly vanilla, but that's not exactly right. I don't like to use "vanilla" as a synonym for "unerotic"; some of the best and hottest sex scenes I've ever encountered happened in standard locations and positions, with pretty standard acts on display. I think what people are grasping for is that this movie fails to be transgressive.
I'm trying not to spend too much time discussing this movie as an adaptation, but before we move on, I do want to briefly say that when you are this divorced from Wuthering Heights' source material, you have basically none of the inherent tensions of that text in your sexy toolbox anymore. There are no racial lines to cross, the feral essence of the land disappears, gender means very little beyond what you'd find in like. Bridgerton.
In Andrea Arnold's spare, primitive 2011 Wuthering Heights, there's a scene where the child Cathy comforts Heathcliff out on the moors after a whipping, and she licks the wounds on his back like a cat. It's shot in a tight close up, and there's this extremely haptic, textured few seconds where we just watch the contrast of her white skin against his dark skin, the wetness of the blood, and the way the grass is blowing in the background. It's intimate and sensual and a little shocking, and lends a powerful eroticism to the characters' relationship as they grow up.
However, due to various creative choices, Emerald Fennell doesn't have access to that heavily-laden, source based imagery, so she has to build her erotic, forbidden world from the ground up.
Take my hand. Join me in her world of desire.
So first of all, Fennell wants you to know that sex is like death. Have you guys heard of this? That sex and death are similar, and perhaps even the same, when you really think about it? The Chaotic, Filthy Poor watch a man be hanged a the start of the film, and his orgasmic gasping death throes and erection are front and center. We watch a nun be aroused by this, and the crowd fall to celebration and ribaldry in the aftermath. This is how she opens the movie. Stupid and obvious, sure, her trademark, but you know. A gothic theme to end all gothic themes. Anyway, it never comes up again. This isn't a movie about hauntings, or getting handsy with your lover's corpse. Heathcliff lies chastely beside Cathy's body when she finally dies, they don't seek oblivion or disintegration in one another's arms. People die later on, but their deaths aren't eroticized. At best they're aestheticized, at worst, just blown past. This is the first half-eaten bird the script lays proudly in our lap.
Next in the garden of delights: I don't think Fennell actually knows how to construct or shoot an sexual encounter. When Heathcliff and Cathy finally hook up, we see them fuck a lot, in like a half dozen different zones, in various states of wetness, but one thing is consistent: the details of the sex. We always encounter them midway through the act, mostly-clothed, with Cathy on top (I hesitate to say riding him, this is a sedate pony trot at best), gripping his head, as they gasp "I love you" over and over again. That's it. That's the sex. It varies once, I think, and that's because they need to have actual dialogue, so we get a little exotic and have him fuck her on her back on a totally cleared table. I cannot overstate to you how comfortably you could be a teenager and watch the sex scenes in this movie with your parents sitting next to you on the couch. There is not a tit to be seen in this movie, or an ass, certainly not a dick.
People climb on one another, people masturbate, people even engage in awkward ponyplay, but everything is so disembodied (we see quickly edited images of arms moving, mouths gasping, fisheye lenses of horse bridles being lowered onto characters' heads) that none of it feels like anything. No sex acts build, nothing feels tactile, there's no edging and there's certainly no release. Music video editing and zero sensuality. I have seen looping gifs of Fortnite pornography that were more exciting than this.
In another brief exception that proves the rule, Cathy and Heathcliff steal a kiss at a funeral; he lifts up her veil to reach her and they make out for a bit before he lowers it again. Then, briefly, she kisses him through her veil.
It's good! Tactile, romantic, the visuals echo the themes at work. But we just blaze past it. It's one single kiss after yet another blah liplocking session, and the movie cuts away almost immediately. It doesn't seem to realize that this is its whole stupid Wattpad gothic romance pitch. Bitch you had it! For a given value of "it", but you did. Unbelievable.
(Also this being at a funeral is not engaged with beyond it being another location for Cathy and Heathcliff to unwisely get busy. In case you were keeping track of the sex and death thing.)
Emerald Fennell, self-styled provocateur, is not doing great thus far, but she still has what she clearly thinks is her secret weapon: this is an extremely slimy, viscous, damp movie. Cathy (again, at age 35) puts eggs in Heathcliff's bed to express her pique and when he accidentally crushes them, he runs his fingers slowly through the yolk. It's constantly raining. A snail moves wetly across a window, someone pounds bread with oil. Once or twice its played for laughs, but mostly it's quite sincere. Passion is gooey.
And yet, this visual theme gives us a scene which functions as the single best encapsulation of the movie's erotic limitations.
So Cathy gets crazy turned on by Heathcliff, and heads to the moors to get herself off. She's got a hand going furiously under her skirts but then Heathcliff appears, having followed her there. Of course, because it's This Kind of corset movie, she's embarrassed and tries to run back to the house, but he catches her by the wrist and holds up her hand to himself and to the audience.
Her fingers are dry as a bone.
All that slippery, slick set dressing, but when we arrive at the moment to tie that to an erotic beat between the characters, to stick the landing, the movie flinches. Because of course it does. To have Heathcliff do what he does next (put her very clean fingers into his mouth, along with some grass that she shoves in there awkwardly, which confuses the sexual charge of the act but whatever) with Cathy's visibly pussy-wet fingers would be a genuinely transgressive moment in a big movie like this. It would require Fennell to imagine the erotic not as something that can be pinterest-board gestured at, but as something with taste, with texture. I truly don't think she's capable of that.
Lots of filmmakers are dumb. Some of those dumb filmmakers make great art. Because they're dumb but libidinal, or dumb but exciting, or dumb but funny. Fennell is none of those things. She's just dumb, and she's asking us to be dumb with her.
She moves dolls around onscreen, but won't let them be people. She clacks their pelvises together, but won't let them fuck. And if they don't have hearts, and they don't have urges, what are they? What's the point of any of this?
Other notes:
The room wallpapered in Cathy's skin was such a weird, interesting idea, but then we had to have the characters explicitly say that's what it was, in universe, and all the verve just went out of the concept like air out of a balloon.
I laughed out loud when I saw the old ladies knitting at the side of the scaffold in the opening. This is a visual trope tied almost exclusively to the French Revolution (and the Terror specifically) in popular culture. What does their anachronistic placement at a rural English hanging suggest? If I was being kind, I'd say that Fennell, a dope, thinks that it's just the sort of thing that happens at ye olde public execution. If I was being less generous, I'd say that it's perhaps another unflattering look into her anxieties around the lower classes, subconsciously expressed. Madame Defarge you will always be famous.
Great stupid costumes and set design, totally wasted; I don't know if it was a failure of the lighting or the cinematography, but this movie looked like it was shot with an old shoe.
I can't fucking believe I watched Gone With The Wind to prepare for this nonsense, but I do think it was informative in that Gone With The Wind simply does not think about race. It can be absolutely and brilliantly read to be about race by academics and the viewer, but the movie does not concern itself with race. Emerald Fennell, circa 2026, thinks about race exactly as much as Gone With The Wind thinks about race. So make of that what you will.
The Charlie XCX album absolutely rules, and is SUCH a better adaptation of the book than this misbegotten movie.
Lady Gaga shared her opinion on the use of AI within the music industry in new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music
"Being a human being I don't think is going to go out of style anytime soon. I certainly hope it's not. That's at the core of, I think, the way we understand each other, the way we communicate."
things i like about medea that have nothing to do with her violence:
-she was the OG little girl with a pet dragon. she was asked to kill the colchian dragon and she didn't, she just put him to sleep long enough to take the fleece with jason. in some sources this is how she flees iolcus, riding on her dragon.
-she kissed her furniture goodbye when she was about to leave her home with the argonauts.
-dionysus asked her to restore the youth of the nymphs who nursed him and she did, as a gift.
-convinced her father to let her rescue strangers who came to the shores, unlike both her father and circe
-she vanishes from athens in a dark mist that she created. she just vanishes. where did she go?
I am interested in texts that are pure voice or deal with difficult experience using a tone that does not offer relief or stop for comfort. Sometimes, the power in the text comes from powerlessness, whether personal or political. Sometimes, death is close or danger beckons or violence is threatened or enacted. Sometimes, there is a sense of real personal risk in the textās revelations. Sometimes, there is little left to lose. All the time, the tone is incantatory or staccato or filled with melancholy recognitions.
The thing to understand about Hinako is that she is not against feminity. From what we can take from the memories and records, she enjoyed playing with girls. she enjoyed playing with dolls, she enjoyed girly activities and having friendships with the other girls just as much as she enjoyed playing with boys and doing boy-ish activities.
it is the other girls who rejected her, who ostracized her. who made her abandon her doll.
And this is important to understand part of the game's themes: Hinako had been teared apart into two a long time ago.
It's not just that she is being forced to choose between obeying society's expectations of her as a woman and abandoning them outright to reach her freedom. It's that choosing either will also private Hinako of a half of herself.
it's only by rejecting the notions that a woman has to be either/or and giving her the freedom to choose her path while being able to be herself as a whole when she can begin a path towards a happy future.
And whether that future might include a marriage or not. it is a marriage done if, and only if, that is the marriage both sides legitimately want and if it is done as a choice between equals.
But the important part is that she is able to be herself. Truly and fully.
i can't believe kotoyuki is considered a groomer and a pedophile when it's said in the story that he and hinako are the same age and also like each other. and also, it is stated that kotoyuki was groomed to be the perfect husband and head of the clan since he was a child.
both hinako and kotoyuki were victims of the patriarchal system. hinako was the one who free them both from it, and changed kotoyuki's views and his way of living.
people saying "illierate," "you didn't get it," "not the main point of the story" are crazy or just go with their moral panic and don't want to dig deeper (which is strange as hell because this is a silent hill game?). silent hill f has many themes that we can also pay attention to.
silent hill f is a game about the expectations of women to marry and that marriage is a hell worse than dying that destroys your autonomy as a person to simply become "his wife"
Occult Themes in āNosferatuā (2024): Aleister Crowley Thelema (Sex Magick; Dove vs. Serpent; Babalon and the Beast)
The presence of Aleister Crowley occult system Thelema in āNosferatuā (2024) is aĀ tribute to Albin Grau, the producer and production designer of the originalĀ 1922 version; as Robert Eggers said he wanted to understand Grauās beliefs and how to incorporate them in his story.
Albin GrauĀ was an occultist and a member of theĀ Fraternitas SaturniĀ (German magical order devoted to Saturnian doctrines) under the magical name Master Pacitius. Within the occult leaders, in the early 20th century, there was tension due to their beliefs, and Grau eventually sided with Aleister Crowley Thelema, and, later in life, he was briefly an initiate of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis.
āI dedicate myself wholly to the great work. I will work for wickedness. I will kill my heart. I will be shameless before all men, I will freely prostitute my body to all creatures.ā
Leah Hirsig; āThe Magical Record of the Scarlet Womanā; 1924) | In the photo Scarlett Woman Leila Waddell āLaylaā
Sex Magick
EveryĀ SolomonariĀ ritual in "Nosferatu" (2024) is aĀ Sex Magick ritual,Ā and they areĀ three.Ā
Sex magic is far older than Aleister Crowley, but he gave it a theorical corpus.Ā According to Crowley, Sex Magick was the key to unlock theĀ secrets of the universe and of self, and, probably, his most (in)famous theory/practice, due to his open engagement in all sorts of sexual activity during the Victorian era, which earned him the nickname "the wickedest man alive", and he fully embraced the title "the Beast".Ā
"Sex Magick"; as described by Aleister Crowley, is the pratice ofĀ using sexual energy (orgasm) towards magical and spiritual goals. It's ritualistic, and it's purpose is not carnal pleasure for its own sake, but toĀ harvest the potency of sexual acts to manifest willĀ (visualization and focus on the desire outcome or goal of the ritual) and transform consciousness. Crowley believedĀ sex is a sacramentĀ in itself, and thatĀ sexual energy was transmutated into spiritual energyĀ (energetic transmutation). Every sexual act in Sex Magick has meaning, and represents spiritual and mystical truths.Ā
Ellenās conjurings of Count Orlok (āhysteriaā)Ā can also be considered Sex Magick, since she's using her sexual energy to call him to her, for them to communicate, and, in Crowley beliefs orgasmic energy can be used to conjure deities. These communications areĀ spiritual, not physical; they talk with each other,Ā telepathically.Ā
1) Herr Knock summons Orlok
Herr Knock uses sexual energy (masturbation) toĀ summonĀ Orlok andĀ communicateĀ with him. Which gives the audience two bits of information: (1) it's sexual energy that conjures Orlok; (2) he has to be conjured (invited) for these spiritual communications to happen.Ā
2) Orlok feeds on Thomas
Robert Eggersā Count Orlok solely motivation in this story is merge souls with Ellen (āyou shall be one with me, ever-eternallyā), and thatās what drives his every action in the plot. He commands his servant, Herr Knock, to send Thomas Hutter to his castle in Transylvania toĀ divorce him from Ellen, both physically and spiritually.Ā He tricks Thomas into the signing theĀ covenant papersĀ (which are, in fact, divorce papers, where Thomas offers Ellen to Orlok), and Orlok pays for Ellen dowry by giving him a sack of gold.
Then, he uses Thomas as hisĀ masturbation assistantĀ (sexuality assaults him by dry humping on him) as part of hisĀ Sex Magick ritual to divorce him from Ellen, in the spiritual realm, as he drinks from his blood/soul. Orlok, then, confirms āyour husband is lost to youā which translates into āyou are divorced, nowā
3) Breaking of the Nosferatu curse
āAnd so the maiden fair did offer up her love unto the beast, and with him lay in close embrace until first cock crow, her willing sacrifice thus broke the curse and freed them from the plague of Nosferatu.ā
The ābreaking of the Nosferatu curseā is, also, aĀ Sex Magick ritual:Ā āwith him lay in close embrace until first cockcrowā indicates sex (which is what we see happening in the actual scene, because the first penetration can be heard in the sound design, so the audience has no doubts about whatās happening). Orlok drink Ellenās blood (soul), asĀ their spirits are merging together inside of his rotten corpse. At dawn, when its destroyed,Ā their united souls are set free as the blood comes out of itĀ (āfreed them from the plague of Nosferatuā). The "willing sacrifice" is Ellen allowing Orlok to kill her, obviously.Ā
What breaks the curse isĀ sexual energy, and thatās theĀ powerĀ Ellen and Orlok are harvesting toĀ manifest their will into being (break the curse). Near the end of the ritual, Ellen has anĀ orgasmĀ as the dawn begins to remove the decay from Count Orlokās face, and he starts to resemble his human-self, indicating the Nosferatu curse on him is being broken. At the end, the ritual is confirmed to have been successful (according to the Solomonari instructions), by Professor Von Franz, as he places theirĀ symbolic lilacsĀ around their bodies.Ā
Dove vs. Serpent Laws
āLove is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well!ā
Aleister Crowley,Ā āBook of the Lawā, 1904
āHe is Infinityā¦ Eyes shining like a jewelled diadem. Putrescence. Asphyxience. Devourance.ā
(Pigeons and doves are from the same family bird)
Herr Knock eats the head of the pigeon/dove in a very graphic way. Dr. Sievers asks him why he does this. Thereās no verbal explanation. The occult explanation itāsĀ him not choosing the ādoveāĀ in this Thelemic dichotomy of dove/serpent (āchoose ye well!ā).
The āDoveā isĀ religionĀ and itsĀ worship. Crowley saw theĀ ālaw of the doveāĀ as repressed Christian love: pure and divine. ItāsĀ blind and obedient love, taught in religious circles.Ā This is whatĀ Herr Knock rejects, and what Ellen has with Thomas Hutter. Thomas and Ellen share Christian love, sanctified by church marriage, as they made a holy oath before God (sacrament).
The āSerpentā isĀ Spirit with its devotion, wisdom and delight.Ā While the āDoveā descends; the āSerpentā rises.Ā Itās the fire from below,Ā kundaliniĀ (divine feminine energyĀ from Hindu tantrism) ascending, itāsĀ Eros: erotic sexual love.Ā Itās physical and animalistic expression of love. ItāsĀ ecstasy, passionate and hungry love.Ā ItāsĀ spiritual and transformative love, the circle of life and death, and rebirth (immortality).
āMy vocation is the Serpentā, saysĀ BabalonĀ (the deity Ellen is a earthly manifestation of). Which is why Orlok says āloveā (as in ālaw of the doveā) is inferior to Ellen. The ālaw of the serpentā is the love Ellen and Orlok share, itās beastly, sexual and ravishing love. As she tells Thomas: āYou could never please me as heĀ [Orlok]Ā could.ā
But āloveā, according toĀ Aleister Crowley, is āharshā as well, as he defines it as ālove may best be defined as the passion of Hatred inflamed to the point of madness, when it takes refuge in self-destruction.ā
Orlok cannot love as in the ālaw of doveā, he loves as in the ālaw of serpentāĀ Ellen, as a manifestation of Babalon,Ā loves both ways, because the Dove (Thomas and Anna) is love, and the Serpent (Orlok) is love, too. But like Crowley demands: āChoose ye well!āĀ And Ellen chooses theĀ "law of the serpent", because that's her vocation.
Babalon and the Beast
TheĀ birth of the New AquariusĀ was already the occult meaning of the original 1922 āNosferatuā. While Stoker saw Count Dracula as pure evil,Ā Grau reinterpreted the vampire as a symbol of transformation through confrontation with darkness.Ā Saturn, in esoteric tradition, representsĀ restriction, death, and rebirthĀ (forces that initiate profound spiritual change). Grau viewed the vampire as a reflection of these principles, a shadowy force that compels the aspirant to face mortality, fear, and their own inner darkness. And his death symbolized the birth of the New Age of Aquarius (Saturn as the traditional ruler of Aquarius), a new era of collective awakening and innovation.
Robert Eggers included theĀ divine feminineĀ (Babalon), his heroine is already aĀ dark character, as he describes his Ellen as ādark chthonic female heroineā, whoĀ makes the ultimate sacrifice to "reclaim this power through death".Ā Chthonic are gods or spirits who inhabit the Underworld; and, in his version,Ā Orlok gifts Ellen with immortality and rebirthĀ (not death like the āvirgin sacrificeā in the original āNosferatuā).
When Ellen and Thomas are returning home, thereās a man in the streets rambling bits from theĀ āBook of Revelationsā (Apocalipse) from the Bible: āAnd I saw a beast rising out of the sea, owith ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.ā (Revelations, 13:1).
This passage is about Count Orlok arrival and his "blood plague", but there's a character (also from the "Book of Revelations") connected to this beast: theĀ Whore of Babylon, the āMother of Prostitutes and All Abominations of the Earthā, and she rides this Beast,Ā which is the same as Crowleyās Babalon.Ā
Revelations 17:
āOne of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, āCome, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.ā
"Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness.Ā There I saw aĀ woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman wasĀ dressed in purple and scarlet,Ā and wasĀ glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held aĀ golden cupĀ in her hand,Ā filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.The name written on her forehead was a mystery: Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth."
"Scarlet Beast with seven heads" = Orlok and his heptagram (seven-pointed star) sigil;
"Ten horns" = ten lilac flowers;
"Dressed in purple and scarlet" = lilacs and blood;
"glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls"Ā = sunlight
"golden cup" = womb
"filled with abominable things" = sex with undead Orlok (necrophilia)
"filth of her adulteries"Ā = church marriage to Thomas
"I saw thatĀ the woman was drunk with the blood of Godās holy people, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished. Then the angel said to me: āWhy are you astonished? I will explain to you theĀ mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides, which has the seven heads and ten horns.
TheĀ beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction.Ā The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the worldĀ will be astonished when they see the beast, because it once was, now is not, and yet will come."
āThis calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; but when he does come, he must remain for only a little while.Ā The beast who once was, and now is not, is an eighth king. He belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction. The ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast.They have one purpose and will give their power and authority to the beast.They will wage war against the Lamb, but the Lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of lords and King of kingsāand with him will be his called, chosen and faithful followers.ā
Then the angel said to me, āThe waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages.Ā The beast and the ten horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked; they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.Ā For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish his purpose by agreeing to hand over to the beast their royal authority, until Godās words are fulfilleld. The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.ā
Aleister Crowley did a positive reinterpretation of this biblical figure, symbolizingĀ liberated female sexuality by embracing the powers of the Divine Harlot.Ā Also known as the āScarlet Womanā and āGreat Motherā, this complex and mysterious figure was established in 1904 in āTheĀ Book of Lawā, however her origin is far older, and can be found in theĀ EnochianĀ tradition, a magical system byĀ John Dee and Edward Kelly, dated from the late 16th century.
Initiatrix, Creator and Destroyer, Babalon is the āGreat Motherā because she representsĀ Mother Earth. Like Isis, sheās the Archetypical Mother, the Womb, the Great Sea and the Divine Blood itself. According to Crowley, the āwhore/harlotā facet is about enjoying sex without the burden of reproduction; and the āmother of abominationsā connects with destruction like natural catastrophes, plagues, etc. Sheās the ruler of the cosmological sphere and aĀ dual-spirit entity, both good and evilĀ (as evil as elemental forces can be or are considered as). Babalon is the guardian of the Seven Principles of theĀ Underworld, a place of darkness and transformation. Babalon is also the goddess of theĀ liminal point,Ā who can access other realms. As Goddess ofĀ vengeance, Babalon punishes when life is out of balance, and exerts violence and corruption upon those who are in the wrong. Ellen ("mother of abominations") unleashes Orlok onto the world, and we can interpretĀ him bringing plague into Wisburg as Ellenās reckoning against Victorian society, which ostracizes her and will never accept her.
InĀ Ophidian Thelema, Babalon is, also, the Goddess of magick (āHekaā), of the Liberation of the Spirit (ecstasy), and of theĀ Principles of Life. Their priestesses use the female body (vulva and womb) to channel their power during their magic rituals. This is similar to Ellenās āhysterical fitsā when sheās summoning and communicating with Orlok in the spiritual world (āhysteriaā was considered a disease caused by āwandering wombā). The āliberation of spiritā is in the form of aĀ Serpent, which manifests in the flesh. Priestesses of Babalon are alsoĀ in control of their ātrancesāĀ when they access the spiritual world; which we also see with Ellen duringĀ the āpossession sceneā with Thomas.
According to the Thelema, Babalon is the āSacred Whoreā, and her primary symbol is the Chalice or Graal (symbolicĀ womb).Ā Sheās the consort to the Beast,Ā who has seven heads, which is symbolically represented in her heptagram sigil (parallelling Orlok's heptagram). To Crowley these are archetypes in hisĀ Sex Magick beliefs: the āScarlet Womanā is theĀ High Priestess, and the āBeastā is theĀ Hierophant: Ellen (the priestess, enchantress) and Orlok (priest-shamam; enchanter); the witch/wizard archetypes. Orlok is described as a ābeastā several times in the film, and he says Ellenās passion is bound to him, likeĀ Babalonās passion is united with the Beast.
All rites and initiations of the Underworld Goddesses include rites of sex and death. Which is what we see with Ellen at the end of āNosferatuā (2024). By Thelemic occult tradition, she (Babalon) has sex with the Beast (Orlok), ārepresenting the passion which unites themā and her womb (Holy Grail; cup) is āaflame with love and deathā (sexual climax, orgasm, with an un-dead vampire), toĀ give birth to the New Age of Aquarius ("sacrament of the Aeonā).Ā Crowley described Babalon:Ā
āShe rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing theĀ passionĀ which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, theĀ Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of theĀ sacrament of the Aeonā.
Girl, I'm telling you Gen Z is extremely sex negative, but it's always interpreted as the death of hookup culture or changing sexual norms. No. It's much worse. They project their own social anxieties about their bodies onto other people's behaviors and say it's too uncomfortable for them otherwise. Because of the cultural shift towards empathic considerations of people's unknown histories/traumas/etc. (which is great for society when pointed toward restorative agendas), people are getting a pass to shame anyone who expresses their sexuality outside of online communities dedicated to sexual practice. It's becoming abnormal to not enjoy fan fiction erotica more than actual sex, to not accept a life devoid of public sexual expression like the opposite is deviant and "weird" (Gen Z's most commonly used word used to socially shame someone for a disagreement on personal choices), or that it is also abnormal to enjoy being an openly horny bitch. It's an anti-intimacy agenda rooted in collective cultural fears that our systems of managing the interrelations between our bodies, sex, and the policies (spoken and unspoken) that "govern" them are simply too much and too dangerous to take on with our culture's limited self-worth and shallow depth of internal validation. But if we dug even deeper, we would see that it's all about the fear of being wrong with our bodies or not good enough as a kind of puritannical exercise. I don't want to be shamed or judged on my body or my sexuality, therefore, Goody Lorde showing her vague pussy is absolutely bizarre and gross and inappropriate and etc.
So, when there's not a non-virtual outlet by which to healthily express our sexualities, because of our own insecurities and a shame culture appropriated, extrapolated, and exploited from anti-violence movements, we all turn back to private sexual expressions for safety otherwise known as sexual repression, which I guess could be said was the norm if also violently unhealthy. The internet has turned people into mentally ill prudes and perverts. There's no middle of the road I'm-just-a-normal-nasty-whore in this country anymore. (They laugh in our face about this overseas. Very different sexual norms abroad.)
In conclusion, y'all need to get fucked in empty back alleys again, because the psychological journey it would put you on would force you to unravel your thinly-veiled self-hatred and stop projecting it onto others who are embracing their self-empowerment.
Now, in regards to Lorde's new album...
Review of Virgin by Lorde. Gideon rated the album 5.0 / 5 stars. Lorde's Frou Frou's Details. Soft and tender like Melodrama at its most vio
Persolaise, fragrance critic and author of Le Snob: Perfume Guide, tends to experience the pleasures of perfumes differently. Read on and you will realise how ādifferentlyā
I canĀ think of plenty of fragrances which induce boiling anger within me (Taj Sunset, Pink Friday, most things by Creedā¦) but very few which, in themselves, convey vexation. Of course, this isnāt exactly surprising. When theyāre trying to balance artistic expression with commercial viability, perfumers tend to reach for those emotional states which are o en labelled āpositiveā: love, joy, happiness, liberation, optimism et al.
Wrath would probably be seen as a PR nightmare by marketing departments, hence the fact that itās conspicuous by its absence on department store shelves. Nevertheless, the list Iāve come up with is quite thought-provoking: it seems to indicate that āangryā perfumes are those which we currently perceive as being di cult or challenging (dare I say: avant garde?) in some way. Perhaps, in years to come, our tastes will change and these temper- lled terrors will turn into cuddly teddies.
Interlude Woman
Karine Vinchon Spehner (Amouage)
Designed at least in part to convey chaotic destructiveness, Interlude Woman uses kiwi, grapefruit, leather and honey to whip up a storm of fury. It does eventually calm down, but its fuse is never anything more than minuscule.
Synthetic Series
Tar ( Comme Des GarƧons)
Burning smells seem to connote anger, which explains whyTar comes across as particularly irate. Melting plastic, scorched metal and noxious gas feature prominently in this bizarre creation, which somehow manages the feat of being both inaccessible and compelling.
This oneāsĀ an example of cold, calculating anger. Using an overload of chilly aldehydes, Nagel has produced a scent which the Snow Queen would have been pleased to spray upon herself whilst she plotted to freeze the soul of the entire world!
Lord Of Goathorn
Simon Constantine & Mark Constantine (Gorilla Perfume)
The combination of herbs with metal is as hate-filled as it sounds. Iām still not entirely clear what the Constantines were hoping to achieve with this conceptual oddity, but they certainly managed to convince me that a perfume can be as rancorous as a fifteen-year-old on a Monday morning.
RĆŖverie Au Jardin
Andy Tauer (Tauer Perfumes)
Lavender is by no means an ingredient normally associated with bubbling blood, but Andy has altered its personality here to create a strange, discom ting walk through a garden, which seems to glare with resentment even as it shows o the pretty hues of its summer blooms.
Black Orchid
(Tom Ford)
It may open with a chocolate note, but Mr Fordās nocturnal orchid just gets more and more moithered as it goes along, before nally deciding that everyone around will be treated to a hissy t, complete with watery fruit, gummy sweets and a bellowing amber.
Womanity Fabrice Pellegrin
(Thierry Mugler)
Not the most obvious choice for this list ā it is pretty sweet, after all ā but Iād assert that one of the reasons Womanity wasnāt an instant hit with buyers, is that its leathery, shy, g-like oddness conveys a sense of outrage at odds with its more approachable facets. Hell hath no furyā¦?
from ParfumPlus Magazine http://parfumplusmag.fourplusmedia.com/wrath-in-a-bottle-seven-sinfully-angry-perfumes/
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