Hard to Watch

[hardtowatch]

The Poughkeepsie Tapes and every trope imaginable

I, like many young people both before and since, remember coming of age and being fascinated with the dark corners of our world. It started with Stephen King novels, but soon enough I came upon a copy of Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter. How does your brain reckon with sudden exposure to things from which you had previously been protected? It’s a powerful moment when you discover that the world can be truly horrible. It’s like being wounded in a new way, and for some, you keep picking at the scab. 

As adults, a massive genre has grown up around this particular scab. “Sometimes when you share an anxiety, it alleviates it a little bit,” said Karen Kilgariff on an early episode of My Favorite Murder. This podcast was an early example of the true crime genre exploding in popularity. “That shit to me is like, ‘Tell me everything so I can avoid it!’” said co-host Georgia Hardstark. 

“That’s what all of this is, really,” Kilgariff replied. “I just want to collect information and hear theories and stories, so that I can be braced.” This, of course, is an illusion. That we can fend off thoughtless danger by being prepared for it is comforting, but it’s a lie. The scab remains, begging to be picked. This is the context in which The Poughkeepsie Tapes exists: these anxieties have manifested countless media surrounding murder and crime - perhaps in an effort to control our anxieties, perhaps in an effort to cash in.

In any case, John Erick Dowdle’s little 2007 found footage-style mockumentary is easy to miss amidst a mass of horror films, thrillers, and true crime documentaries. Its eventual release was on DirectTV, meaning that unless you were searching, you may have never heard of it. It is a far from perfect film, but it is a perfect prototype. Tapes identifies every iteration of our culture’s crime and murder anxieties and builds them into a film. 

Tapes promises to terrorize you with taped evidence of violence and torture (and trust me, this movie wants you to be sure that the contents of these tapes are the WORST things you could EVER imagine). But at its core, Tapes trafficks in a very different type of scare tactic: a collection of every possible salacious trope that the true crime industrial complex has to offer. This movie is here to assure us that the monsters in our closets are real, that they are among us, and they are ready to snatch us from our beautiful, well-tended front lawns at any moment. 

The film follows one specific monster who goes through most of the movie without a name (although eventually during his spree he is called “The Water Street Butcher”). This killer is, of course, the creator of the titular tapes, noteworthy not just for their content, but for their scope - there are hundreds and hundreds dedicated to just one victim, Cheryl Dempsey. 

Cheryl’s case bookends the film. It is teased at the beginning as the quintessential, most graphic incidence of these crimes. The big sell is that these tapes upset and alarm even the most grizzled crime professionals. “I’ve NEVER seen ANYTHING so bad!” they say of the tape’s contents. The wife of an employee tasked with reviewing the tapes accidentally watched part of one. “It took a year before she let me touch her again,” he says. The hype surrounding these tapes (and their presumed content) is a big part of what sets the tone going forward. It’s an example of filmmaking telling instead of showing, but it also builds a certain tension - the viewer is allowed to imagine the worst. What could possibly astonish these veteran agents and detectives?

Law enforcement is the main character of this film. Using techniques we’re already familiar with from non-fiction crime documentaries - forensics talking heads, 911 call recordings, victim’s families interviews, coroner’s reports, crime scene photos - the film leans into the “it’s worse than you think” narrative. One profiler explicitly assures us that at any given time there are as many as 25 to 50 active serial killers. 

The risk of being murdered is painted as a big, unknowable, inexplicable problem, and it tells us a narrative we love about true crime: These monsters are not us. We need to be kept separate and protected. Only those with specialized training or expertise can save us, which is why most of Tapes is delivered to us through FBI and forensics talking heads.

The highest value talking head here is an FBI profiler. We follow him as he tries to crack the code of a fundamentally evil psyche. This ends up being the true function of the tapes - we see the crimes through the butcher’s eyes. We hear his voice and feel his breathing as he talks to a child he will kidnap or a couple who has just picked him up from hitchhiking. With the insights found on these tapes and the evidence from previous murders, our talking heads try to unravel the identity of this killer. 

There is one problem: the butcher is too inscrutable to find. We see law enforcement track his techniques of finding, kidnapping, and torturing his victims, only to find a messy hodge podge of our greatest fears about serial killers. The butcher plots and hides his crimes like an “organized” killer (detached, careful, and strategic), but he mutilates them like a “disorganized” killer (theatrical, reckless, personal). He seemingly takes great care to evade police, but he also leads them on. The evidence at some crime scenes indicate the crime of an amateur, but at other times he seems like a skilled veteran. He at times seems cold hearted and composed, but other times mentally unstable. 

The butcher is a “Greatest Hits” record of the tropes we hear about serial killers, and the more footage we see, the harder it is to see a clear picture of him. The law enforcement specialists describe him as a chameleon, suggesting that the fact that he has no distinct MO means that he is somehow a brilliant or spellbinding villain.

In presenting this narrative, Tapes is suggesting that there is something inherently interesting about murder, torture, and predatory behavior. In reality, this is simply lazy writing. It’s very easy to just throw up your hands and go “We CAN’T POSSIBLY dive into this guy’s character, because he is ALL OF THE THINGS you’re afraid of!”

This returns us to the bigger conversation about stories like this one. We are fascinated by evils that can’t possibly be understood. It makes us feel like they are so far outside of us that we don’t have to reckon with the concepts of who commits crime and why - how could we even begin to? We’re only human, after all.

The idea of an indiscriminate, purely evil killer allows us to separate the violence from aspects like race, economics, and the systems of law enforcement in our communities. In Tapes, the law enforcement is made up of people trying their best to protect us, only to be outsmarted by greater evil forces. In the event that detectives or cops do triumph, they are heroes. Good prevails. Tapes cranks these narratives up to eleven and blows them out through giant speakers: Your fears are real. We are doing our best to protect you from the unfathomable. 

This comforting myth obscures the fact that killers are human. Even the worst crimes are stories of people.

Because Tapes did not have a wide release, no one interrogated its methods. For folks who specifically seek out this particular flavor of horror, it is a serviceable addition to the found footage genre. It creates tension by treading the line between upsetting images and whatever implied horrors lie just beyond the camera. Outside of these moments, there is not enough skillful acting or writing to deliver any emotional impact. It’s neither a particularly moving or especially gruesome film. For fans who are well acquainted with murder-gore, there’s nothing new to see. It’s simply a movie that chooses its tropes, and commits fully to them.

[hardtowatch]

Cuties, and what it means to be seen

By the time you could watch it on Netflix, heated controversy had already brought notoriety to Cuties. A botched marketing poster and a viral clip had eclipsed the entire film. I watched it early, as the call to cancel Netflix subscriptions due to the film’s content was so loud that I felt there was a real chance that the platform would pull the movie (Netflix, to its credit, stood by the film and its director for the entirety of this fallout).

The claim: Netflix is promoting child pornography by showing pre-teen girls performing highly sexualized dance moves.

The counter: Cuties is a film that criticizes a culture that sexualizes children.  

It’s true that the things that upset people about this film are the same things that necessitate its message, but Cuties is much more than political shock art. It is first and foremost a personal coming of age story from director Maïmouna Doucouré, who drew from her experience as a child of Senegalese immigrant parents growing up in France. Her story is at the heart of this movie, and it’s something to keep in mind when we watch Amy, the 11-year old protagonist of Cuties, as she tries to exist in the uncomfortable realm between girlhood and womanhood. 

Like all girls this age, Amy is astute enough to perceive what’s going on with the adults around her. When she observes the purity culture in which her mother and aunt are attempting to raise her, she begins looking for other examples of what adulthood might look like. In an early scene, Amy longingly glances at her brother who is playing and horsing around while she is forced to attend women’s prayers. Later, she gives this same jealous glance to the popular girls practicing dance moves at her school. 

Cuties explores a time in childhood where becoming an adult seems to be the most freeing possibility, but you’ve yet to understand the tools you need to accomplish it. Amy in particular is seeking tools to liberate herself from what feels like an oppressive fate as she watches her mother pretend not to be in pain at the thought of her husband bringing home a new wife. The tools that Amy finds are commonplace for most children: new peers, an after-school activity, social media, and all of the pitfalls that accompany it. The first time Amy posts a photo of herself online, it feels revelatory. Showing her face in this new way is a form of ownership and autonomy she has not experienced before, and as she receives a heart reaction, it’s like watching someone take the first hit of a drug. It’s a new form of currency.

This currency - being seen, being desired, being on exhibit for the approval of others - is the crux of Cuties and a large part of what upsets people about it. Amy and her new group of friends choreograph their dance based on hip hop music videos they have seen on their phones, and they perform with the brazen fearlessness of teen girls who have just discovered a superpower. Their confidence is intoxicating, and Amy latches onto it with the desperation of someone who fears she has no other options.

The girls, of course, do not understand this superpower, only that it is powerful. Cuties is very much about using sex appeal to feel grown up despite not understanding its consequences. Similar to how boys playact war (in games and in Hollywood), girls too will look at the world we have built for them and respond in kind. What does power look like for a woman? What do we tell girls when they ask us for help? Dancing is a form of joy or play. It is not inherently sexual, just like young girls and their bodies are not inherently sexual. It is the rest of the world that thrusts sexuality upon them before they know how to use it. If you give a young girl no resources to navigate the world, then of course they are going to make do with what they have. Amy’s actual power is her quiet observation, and it’s this skill - observing the world around her - that leads to her incorporating risque dance moves into her act.

Any time we are faced with shocking or upsetting content in art we should start by asking: “Was this made in good faith?” If the answer for Cuties is yes, then we owe it to the storyteller to give it the same chance we give to countless movies that show young men engaging in violence and war. An artist must be careful when using content that could potentially be harmful to people. Doucouré, like all auteurs, is very, very intentional in her filmmaking. It’s not a coincidence that the title - “cutie” - is a word that people use for a dog they want to cuddle, but also a word they use for a person they want to fuck. 

The incongruence is jarring. Doucouré continually reminds us that these characters are just children. As they pound gummi candies into their mouths, as they shriek when they find a condom, as they accidentally humiliate themselves with language, objects, and actions they do not comprehend, their defiance is so confident. It is the opposite of what Amy has witnessed from the women in her own home, and Cuties is at its ugliest any time Amy’s newfound freedom is threatened. When the other girls try to exclude her or when someone tries to take her phone away, she lashes out. Horrified at her behavior, Amy’s mother asks at one point, “Who are you, Amy?” For the whole movie, Amy has been asking “What choices do I have?” 

How do you become a woman? How do you navigate growing up into something that is loathed, feared, put on a pedestal, and objectified? The fact is that young girls do regularly have to tackle adult issues of womanhood long before they are ready, and when they do, they have no choice but to take their cues from the adults around them. Doucouré is showing us this reckoning through the lens of a young Muslim girl, and Cuties tells her story well. 

What might it look like for a young girl to have power that isn’t pulled from a poisonous culture? The closing shot of the film shows Amy jumping rope, and the image is a bit too idyllic, giving no space for the realistic ramifications of what has just transpired in the movie. But it is a moment of relief in a movie that’s been very stressful, making Cuties less a lecture on sexualizing children than a story for young women to see themselves represented. Women who perhaps had to recognize their power only after first being harmed by the way the world sees them. This is not a film for people who think it’s OK to sexualize young women, but rather, a film for women who have suffered and who might feel validated by seeing this story told. People think the content is meant to shock you into being horrified at our culture. And sure, it is. But it is also meant for women who have encountered this story and who have been harmed by this narrative. It’s meant to recognize the stories they have lived through.