“rpf is fine” - dan and phil

✰ mac || 22 || they ✰

[jeannedarcgerard]

loud & annoying girlboy femme dyke - about. all pronouns forreal or just theythem

icon from these scans of dnp photocards

obviously i can't control what you do but if you're under 18 i'm asking that you please don't follow me.

post limit blog @jeannedarcgerardinprison + horror sideblog @killerdotmp3 + irl hockey sideblog @lowrylesbian + curated/aesthetic blog @canineteethinthesideofmyneck

aka: eyesandangels/sheetghostgerard/angelhowell

[itssquidbian]

feminist retelling shoulsnt be the woman does some girlboss shit femist retelling is she does the same stuff except u actually give a shit abt her perspective and thoughts and feelings as a human being this time

[itssquidbian]

feminist retelling shoulsnt be the woman does some girlboss shit femist retelling is she does the same stuff except u actually give a shit abt her perspective and thoughts and feelings as a human being this time

[3000s]

does any one want me or not want me or feel any particular way about me at all

[wosp-reactivated]

Christian babies have so far not found a purpose or use outside of baseball

[woodwool]

severely deficient in whatever vitamin makes u a person

[gh0stienj0yer]

i need to get off tumblr i’m at the aquarium admiring the fish and my brain goes “posts that make you want to get in the water” what are you talking about. these are live fish in the room with you. what post.

[gh0stienj0yer]

posts that make you want to get in the water

[lowpawly]

this is my impression of what it would look like if the toddlers at my job could make traumacore edits about me

[guiltfactory-moved]

this lamb keeps trying to sacrifice itself even though no one really needs or wants it to do that

[boringkate]

People get so fixated on the rehabilitation of convicted criminals. Nobody ever talks about rehabilitating law abiding citizens. This is because law abiding citizens are a lost cause. The law abiding citizen is beyond redemption.

[pancakeke]

[jerseyclown]

gonna have a crazy double feature where i watch obsession and companion and then go out and start killing men in the street

[jeannedarcgerard]

just remembered that i have a horror movie blog that i could be doing all this posting about. horror movies. on

[jeannedarcgerard]

Just watched Obsession last night and disliked it so much that I wanted to find out what makes this Curry Barker guy tick. Thus, I watched his other longform horror project, Milk & Serial. What I found out is that he likes dead cats, female characters with no personality of their own or character development beyond being the main man’s friend, people threatening to shoot themselves in the head, mens’ deaths by gun violence, women getting their faces beaten in with bricks, and sudden violence at house parties. He also likes telling stories about men stripping a primary victim of their autonomy - through gaslighting in this case - through which others are victimised. Much like in Obsession, the story is still told from the point of view of this main villain, and the primary victim of this villain’s manipulation has a horrific scene of begging the villain to kill them. Having the story told from the point of view of the villain is more effective in Milk & Serial than in Obsession, as it allows us as viewers to see more of the horror that transpires in this story. The villain is also intentionally, as part of the horror, rendering us voyeurs. Milk & Serial also lacks the same gendered primary victimisation that is the story of Obsession, but it still suffers from flat, blank female characters and a total lack of exploration of a main villain who enacts violence apparently solely against women before the start of the movie. The found-footage element of Milk & Serial also helps its case as the better of Curry’s two longer-form projects - visually, it is much more interesting and engaging than Obsession’s uninteresting constantly centred shots and flat focus on foreground images. Action is allowed to take place and information is allowed to be conveyed on the sides of the screen, not giving viewers the comfort of settling in to knowing where to look. Entirely unfocussed shots make sense with the home video vibe while also effectively evoking unease. Exposition/explanation dumps and POV shakycam shots also integrate naturally into this format. Over all, I still do not fuck with Curry Barker, but I think he is more suited to a YouTube audience than a big screen that demands more than flat characters, a script that lacks any kind of B-plot, the same thinly veiled misogyny that horror has been rife with for years, and a refusal to truly explore that horror from those victims’ perspectives, simply using them for shock value or ‘wouldn’t it be fucked up if’ despite claiming to be deeper or more progressive than the aforementioned victimisation-of-women-fuelled history of the popular films of the genre.

[jeannedarcgerard]

just watched curry barker (writer/director of obsession)’s other longform horror project milk & serial and i fear i also did not like it either

[kosmogrl]

[jeannedarcgerard]

I did not like Obsession.

It is a movie about a woman who is never really given a personality or agency before having her autonomy entirely stripped from her for the pleasure of a man and regaining it only to sob and scream as the film fades to credits. To top it off, the whole thing is framed from that man’s limited perspective.

The true horror in this film is to be Nikki. Bear has the reins the whole time: he won’t let his crush go. He makes the wish. He could have killed himself halfway through the movie. He could have killed Nikki when she asked him to. And yet, he barely even summons the moxie to kill himself once his actions have resulted in the deaths of two of his friends, because he is the one who is obsessed with the idea of a girl he thought he was in love with.

Clearly, he did not really know the true Nikki, and didn’t appreciate her either. She is framed as entirely interchangeable from the first scene bait-and-switch, and her one real spark of character - giving money and speaking to a homeless man as her friends ignore him - is met with a groan and a classless rude complaint from Bear. We’re also told that she aspires to be a writer, but Bear has never even read her writing. She acts entirely out of character, allegedly, for their whole relationship, and he’s still happy to play house and repeatedly rape her until she starts acting societally “weird,” not just weird for who she is.

Only a couple times in the movie is the true horror that the real Nikki is going through shown. Her incredibly deep suffering is given barely any screentime or discussion and its effects on her after her autonomy is returned are not explored in any way. Those are the truly horrific moments of the film, not the cheap genre-predictable jumpscares and weird movements. She has become simply a body whose existence is centred around a man’s pleasure - shown particularly in the rape scene with her stone face but noises for his enjoyment as he violates her, and when he leaves her at home and she simply stands there, entirely to her own detriment. When he arrives home, she is apologetic TO HIM that she is disgusting - he is the reason she cleans and cares for herself. She is never given back her autonomy in any meaningful way or allowed to express the true horror of her situation beyond jumpscarey screams and self-harm and her plea to “kill me” which goes ignored. Her ending does nothing to build on this, leaving her sobbing in a house full of the dead bodies of her friends with no further exploration.

Sarah, also, is baffling. Don’t get me wrong, I loved her, but she too is used only as a device for the male main character. Her art school ambitions are simply trauma fuel for his grief after she is killed - and mutilated - and her crush on him only serves as a foil to his relationship to Nikki. There is no reason for her to be brutally mutilated and displayed naked in Bear’s house besides the shock value of a woman’s trauma and exploitation. Story-wise it also makes no sense - why would not-Nikki go to the work of stripping and displaying her romantic and sexual rival like this? (and where did the tuba case go?)

The treatment of Nikki and Sarah’s bodies is particularly damning when compared to the treatment of Bear and Ian. Ian takes one shot to the head from Nikki for reasons that don’t make much sense and his corpse is never shown up close. Bear is not even allowed to be cut or injured when Nikki gets violent at any point and certainly he cannot be shot: his death comes from an overdose, leaving his face and body appearing entirely intact. The only violence enacted on a man in this movie is a single gunshot wound while both women’s faces are mutilated and their bodies are displayed like trophies alive or dead. Even the dead cat whose body is seen more than Ian or Bear’s and is cooked and eaten is a female. Additionally, the men in this movie are mostly layered up in multiple tops and pants. We don’t even see most of Bear’s body when he’s raping Nikki. Meanwhile, as stated, Sarah’s entire naked dead body is displayed, and Nikki is often shown in revealing tops and skirts or just a bra. I love cunty, skimpy, fun clothing, but in this case it is another damning comparison between how men and women are treated in this movie.

Obsession is not interested in the horror of being Nikki or of having your autonomy stripped away from you. It is interested in a man’s grief, a man’s failures, and framing him as the ultimate victim of his own actions which lead to the death or deep trauma of seemingly his only friends. He is never given his narrative comeuppance and even to the end tries to get out of being harmed by trying to reverse the only sane decision he’s made by trying to make himself throw up the pills he’s swallowed. Nikki’s wish (the thing that Bear used to rob her of everything) is not her regaining power or autonomy: the movie does not even allow us to hear her speak it, and it is not Nikki’s wish, it is the wish of the thing taking her body from her. She is framed as the source of Bear’s horror, when the true horror is what Bear has done to her. Yes, she is the only one left alive, but almost as soon as she regains her autonomy the movie itself pans away from her, cuts her off, silences her.

The bright spot in this movie that allowed me to give it one and a half stars on Letterboxd is Inde Navarrette. Though the script allows Nikki very little, Navarrette gives her so much depth in the moments that the real Nikki shines through, and Navarrette is as terrifying as she is impressive as not-Nikki. I hope to see her in many more (and better) movies.