Not all men, right?
Odessa Young (as Lily Coulson), DRIPPING with sarcasm.
The quality of a piece of art is unquantifiable. Therefore, who’s to say something can’t be an interesting watch despite even glaring flaws? That’s where I draw the line: I think if you can draw some interesting conclusions from a movie, it’s worth your while. There’s no distinction between cinematic masterpieces and fun ‘lil romps that make you think. Just Good Movies.
CONTENT WARNINGS: misogyny, transphobia, sexual assault, violence (misogynistic and transphobic)
It’s inherently hard to make a film about intersectional feminism, because at its heart, intersectional feminism is about aligning a lot of movements. There are so many subjects that it feels like a choice a filmmaker must make: would you rather focus on trans issues? Deal with misogynoir? Slut-shaming? Sexism has always been a hydra-like beast, so ingrained in society that we still have to fight for its deeply-rooted and subtler results to be genuinely recognized past the general notions: “Women are equal! Who run the world, girls!” Every time feminists try to denounce the consequences of millenniums of female disparagement, we’re treated as conspiracy theorists. It’s too easy to reduce feminist issues to equal rights; which is why when a movie even tries to broach the broader issues of feminism, I’m shamelessly ready to give it a go.
(Incoming spoilers for Assassination Nation)
It almost seems like an episode of Black Mirror at first: a middling town called Salem’s cloud data gets leaked over the course of a few weeks; chaos ensues and blood is spilled as self-righteous violence escalates. It’s definitely not science-fiction; sure, the extreme fallout of the data leak is not something that has happened in real life (… yet), but the film successfully encapsulates our current culture. The only thing that separates its events from reality is deliberate, stylish exaggeration. But at the same time, who’s to say that the events of the movie are entirely out of the realm of imagination? More pertinently, who’s to say that the witch hunts ever stopped? The Salem we’re presented is supposedly not in Massachusetts, but the name is given to us in the first seconds: the movie wants us to make the comparison, to view everything through the prism of how 14 women were hung on hearsay and their community’s sense of doing the right thing.
Assassination Nation cuts the number of accused from two-hundred to four, and replaces witchcraft with current issues of intersectional feminism: there’s sexually liberated Lily (Odessa Young), outspoken trans teen Bex (played by actual trans actress Hari Nef, a fact still too rare not to mention!) and sisters Sarah (Suki Waterhouse) and Em (Abra). The latter two are severely underdeveloped, something they share with the rest of the characters of the movie, and it’s a shame to skip on the chance to deal directly with how Salem interacts with an interracial family. Instead, the movie uses Lily to explore how women’s bodies are sexualized, most obviously with her leaked sexts and how they make her a paria, doxxed, assaulted and thrown into the street by her parents. But that’s not the point the movie is trying to make: there’s an underlying theme that even when sexuality is not the intent, society will inherently sexualize images of women’s bodies. This is most apparent with the treatment of her principal when the leak reveals he has pictures of his five-year-old daughter taking a bath: he’s immediately labeled a pedophile. Even though, as Lily correctly points out, many parents have pictures (even framed) of their very young children naked; but with complete disregard for context, the outsider’s point of view is that the principal’s pictures must be sexual in nature. The female body is seen as inherently sexual by the community at large. Let’s not forget how some men have, visibly on social media, complained about their toddlers spreading out their legs. The film also points out this uncomfortable link between this infantilization of women and their sexualization: when Lily runs to Daddy (Joel McHale)’s home for protection from the ongoing hunt for her, he’s happy to pretend to help. She’s unaware of him being a major actor in what’s going on; she doesn’t even bat an eye when he brings her to his daughter’s room. As an audience, we’re not surprised when he starts trying to force himself on her at knife point. We have the information to know that this situation is dangerous from the start. What we can read, when Lily is sitting on a child’s bed, is that the intent of someone claiming to be a protector but not fully recognizing her as a fully-grown human being is just as detrimental as the mob outside, just more insidious.
Bex has less screen time, but she’s the second most important character in the movie. It’s refreshing to see a character whose trans status is not some cissexist self-congratulatory drama fuel; she’s just a teenager who happens to be trans. It’s a sign that maybe, just maybe, if cis writers actually put in the work, they can do it right, something that the first twenty-ish minutes of The Danish Girl (2016, Tom Hooper) almost led me to believe. But Bex’s transgender status is definitely not tokenism, since it’s the crux of her storyline and one of the main narrative arcs of the movie. There’s no reveal, no huge plot point about her coming out; she just is. There’s no scene where she looks in a mirror and cries for a full minute, which, I swear to Christ, every. Single. Time. The drama comes from the friction between being unapologetically herself and Salem’s microcosm of average America. The first sign is common pillow talk for queer people: “Don’t tell anyone about this.” Hari Nef absolutely sells how uncomfortable that situation is, and mumbles awkward reassurances to her lover. The hurt of being seen as shameful, the anger of tacit rejection, the attraction that leads you to say “Sure” and hate yourself for it afterwards: all of that comes a head when private data starts trickling onto the Internet. The illicit relationship rouses anger in Diamond (Danny Ramirez)’s friend group. Gay panic sets in as they realize they’ve shared locker rooms with someone they perceive as queer; but if at first they verbally degrade him behind his back, it’s later made clear that in their eyes, the one to blame is Bex. It’s not just female bodies that are inherently sexual, femininity itself is considered an invitation to sexualization. Bex’s femme presentation lured Diamond in, except that appearance is entrapment in the residents of Salem’s eyes. If she was previously tolerated, that comes to a stop when she corrupts a young man and leads him to have intercourse with a body all but perceived as belonging to one of the same sex. It’s a very common trope for trans women in media to be nothing more than tricking straight men into attraction to someone involved in having a penis (and a trope that, amazingly, manages to be both transphobic and homophobic). And so, when all hell breaks lose, the one with a literal noose around her head is the temptress. Diamond is asked to do it himself; implicitly, is asked to purge himself of his attraction so as to become “moral” again, completely ignoring that the reason he’s attracted to a trans woman is the same as the one his friends are attracted to any woman: he finds her hot.
This explicit hanging parallel between historical and fictional Salem leads to the rest of the movie. Which is, four young women with awesome outfits shooting up the town in a revolt against those who wish for them simply not to exist. One branded a “slut”, one only conditionally considered a woman, and… Um… The other two. This is one of the things this movie can definitely be criticized for: the build up to the group taking up arms and standing side-by-side only leads to something that feels incomplete. Em and Sarah are mostly tangential to the events, a real shame considering exploring issues of misogynoir with Em would have probably only made this movie’s message more cohesive. There is one scene where she and Sarah are being manhandled by a mob led by a police officer and forced into a police cruiser, but that perspective isn’t developed. When the movie comes to a close and the fearsome foursome is marching with a crowd of women behind them, there are women of color, but it feels more like a nod to diversity than a statement about issues of race in feminism. It does look awesome for sure, and the same can be said about the entirety of the film’s cinematography and general aesthetic; but beyond Bex and (mainly) Lily, every single character feels underdeveloped. Sarah and Em’s mom Nancy (Anika Noni Rose) gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but once she starts genuinely taking screen time, she has a countdown on her forehead leading up to her tragic death. A friend of the group is hinted to have been a member of it at some point, but she hits a cheerleader in the head with an aluminum bat, later on gets beat up by said cheerleader, and wholly disappears from the movie. Outside of Lily and Bex, the movie doesn’t have much to offer but a good script and meaningful, classy shots. What it does offer, though, is a breath of fresh air in today’s films, dealing with themes of third-wave intersectional feminism with just not a care in the world for who might make a fuss. To be fair, they’ve been warned, right at the beginning, when the movie gleefully proclaims relevant trigger warnings. Maybe they should have paid attention this time! Says right there on the tin: “Fragile male egos”.
All in all, I had a great time watching Assassination Nation. The film starts out strong and remains so all throughout; but even though the runtime is already nearly two hours at 110 minutes, I can’t help but think even that extra ten would have been nice if used to develop Sarah and Em. What exists is a movie that gets our present culture; gets trans issues in feminism and slut-shaming, and how the Internet enabled women throughout the world to communicate, organize, call out and fight back. It even gets that grey sweatpants and dicks are the sexiest thing on Earth when associated, and if that sentence is any hint to you, in a perfectly balanced tone throughout the horrific, the fun, the real and the exaggerated.
Come for: Hari Nef; a movie with deliberate feminist themes; good acting supported by stylish cinematography, sets and costumes; a great script.
Stay for: Hari Nef; a narrative showing a deeper-than-you’d-think-since-this-movie’s-made-by-a-dude understanding of the current issues of intersectional feminism; relatable female friendships; possibly one of the greatest trans characters in cinema; tension, laughter, empowerment.
Start fiddling with your phone for: anytime actual goddess Hari Nef is not on screen or heard; criminal under-use of characters and under-exploration of themes that should be central to the movie’s message; that one action scene that’s kinda janky and drags on for too long.
The Media Boudoir 