ok but listen guillermo del toro is just so fucking good
so the shape of water was clearly about minorities stepping up to the man and shit right?
but it wasn’t just plot-wise and dialogue driven it was also visually. And yes it’s pretentious of me to assume people won’t get these because they’re not super subtle visual cues and very basic college film class 101, but I wanna talk about it anyway bear with me
so the story being set in 1962 makes the plot a lot easier to go about. Cold war, experiments, usa vs russia and the rest of the world can go fuck itself. It just makes sense, tense times. But more than that, it was a fantastic opportunity to highlight human hypocrisy at its most obvious (woof that sure was some alliteration right there). The early 60s wasn’t drastically different from its preceding decades. A lot of its culture was basically just everything back until the 30s but with a new stamp on it. And when I say that what I specifically have in mind is what my man del toro decided to focus on here: ideals vs reality
you thought I was gonna say minorities again, right? well hold on, children, I’m getting there
we’ve all heard it before. “Boy, I sure wish I could go back in time. I’d love the 40s/50s/60s, wouldn’t you? Apple pies, milkshakes, tight hairdos and pretty polka dot dresses to the sound of some jazz, nothing like it, don’t you think?” And while my answer is usually nervous laughter it’s not just because those people often fail to realise my developing country did not exactly have the same americanised culture. It’s also because no I wouldn’t love it. Sure there’s some nice aesthetics that we associate with the time periods but I’d much rather enjoy them in modern times which we absolutely can. Why? Because life would suck for me as a poor, queer latina. And I know people who are all sorts of categories that don’t exactly thrive in these conditions (non-white, non-rich, non-straight, disabled, etc) who would and have said the same. We don’t romanticise those times because they wouldn’t be kind to us unlike the often clueless upper middle class abled straight white person posing the question. And you know what, I think it’s ok some don’t realise! It’s not their fault, guys, they grew up hearing about how awesome it was from people like them. They never saw or heard it from another pair of eyes.
And that’s precisely what the film does. But it doesn’t just say it, it shows it too.
Mr of the Bull presents us with the glorified ideals of the time. The whole shebang, from the stereotypical family Giles has to paint for an ad and the real life examples of it, Strickland’s family
to peak 40s/50s/60s culture: an all-smiles blond man tending to a colourful diner full of sweet treats
and all of it emphasised by the sounds of Vera Lynn and Carmen Miranda through scratched vinyls and old TVs (the latter which is, probably intentionally and ironically chosen for the soundtrack because it’s a white woman who’s often seen to represent brazilian culture despite being portuguese so as to be more mass marketable than the exotic but too foreign actual brazilian culture - but hey that doesn’t sound as nice or printable as “the brazilian bombshell”, huh?)
it all sounds nice and cosy though, doesn’t it? Pop me open a cold glass bottle of cola and we’re good to go…but woah there, only if you’re a privileged straight abled white man, of course. That’s right it’s exclusive to a very specific group and it’s irregardless of your personality! In fact, both examples above are assholes but who still get their ego boosted by a submissive wife, adoring clients or a salesman. Who cares about having things because you earned them or simply treating people the way you wanna be treated, right?
Meanwhile the minorities suffer but differently, because despite all of them being marginalised groups they present different layers of experiences and social positions in the hierarchy. What do I mean by that? Eliza and Giles are both white but are discriminated over something unseen. Eliza is disabled and Giles is queer. Zelda and the couple who show up at the diner during one scene are discriminated over something visible. They’re black. And on top of that a bunch of these characters are not well off and gotta struggle in such undermined jobs.
And once again, all these power layers are told to us but also shown.
With privileged characters being positioned upfront at the camera, all big and untouchable, while minorities…
are sheepishly hidden in the back.
And yet it takes a character like Giles being discriminated for showing his true colours to finally open his eyes and see other marginalised groups’ suffering which he previously ignored.
He who, just like Eliza in comparison to Zelda, was previously closer to the camera to seemingly represent the second layer at the social positioning - aka they were benefited by their appearance but held back by their unseen “problems”. But Giles finally takes a step forward, and after subtly defending the couple’s mistreatment (could have been a lil bit firmer buddy but ok) quite literally rises above the unkind privileged man showing that in the end he’s not the real loser here, he’s not “lesser”. And again the camera play shows the change with perspective and character size. Intimidated -> determined
He then comes out braver and ready to kick some ass! Kinda..he helps rather gently, as himself, which is accepted by Eliza because accepting your friends as they are is super badass. And just as he does this the visuals of the dreamy 60s begins to seem darker and darker in saturation and our knowledge of how cruel the world can be taints every idealised scenario we step in.
While also being a more optimistic metaphor for leaving outdated concepts behind and moving on - note the cutesy old fashioned font washed in darkness, but it’s on the back of a van being driven by a scared gay man helping a mute female janitor take the weirdest member of the squad (it’s ok nobody judges anymore, acceptance rules) back home. This is a love mission dammit.
As for our two girls? Our help-people, shit-cleaners and piss-wipers as Mr Cutthoseoffalready put it? They were always strong. And when the time came to help each other they fucking stepped up to the task alright.
Whether it was in the simple but incredibly difficult act of not submitting to the abuse of someone who knows fully well their privilege allows them to get away with it (ew look at that creepy smile, christ dude, it’s darker than your fingers)
- which Del Totoro portrayed by having the villain taking over all the upper space on screen, never respecting others’ space and just keeps taking up more. He’s so in your face that the mirror in the scene where Zelda is threatened reinforces this manmade claustrophobia of our heroines’ enemy being everywhere. Much like the challenges minorities face everyday… -
to some aggressive action taking. They came, they saw, they took frogman to the docks. And all these characters quite literally crushed the repressive society represented here by the male ego, in turn represented by stricklame’s teal car getting rekt (cry, bitch, cry those repressed feelings out)
And they did it all despite the obstacles of their underprivileged positions because in the end, my lambs, it was their social setbacks that made them stronger, more caring and more resilient. All until they were finally the bigger person on camera, standing above their oppressors and becoming the (literal lens) focus of the story to the privileged character’s eyes.
And just like the Amazon Merman God showed us minorities: you can do it too. Guillie is using this dark, but uplifting fairytale to say that he believes in you.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk, have a nice day
