Under Our Skin: Feminist Representation in Genre Indies
Warning: Some minor spoilers are revealed in discussing the themes of “It Follows,” “Ex Machina,” and “Under the Skin.”
Genre films have always filled a niche to discuss serious topics while still entertaining their audiences. Horror films and science fiction in particular have been platforms for real political and social discourse. Don Siegel explored red-scare paranoia with his 1956 alien thriller “Invasion of the Body Snatchers, ” in 1972 Doug Trumbull discussed environmentalism with his directorial debut “Silent Running,” and John Carpenter articulated a scathing indictment of Reaganomics and what he perceived as a political attack on the working class with his 1987 action sci-fi “They Live” (seriously, the movie now reads like Bernie Sanders’ Campaign mantra). These genres, though often sold as novelty and rarely adorned with awards prestige, have been planted in fertile ground where smart and insightful allegory can grow.
With that in mind, given the growing awareness of and fight against gender inequality and systemic sexism, certain independent filmmakers have reflected this moment with a handful of exciting, artful and subtle movies within the horror and science fiction genres. Films such as last year’s enigmatic “Under the Skin,” and this year’s “It Follows” and “Ex Machina” infuse their narratives with subtextual themes of female objectification, victimization and patriarchal domain. Though never outright stated in the dialogue of these films, and thankfully never too on-the-nose, these themes still bubble through the familiar genre expectations and special effects of these films.
“It Follows” mimics some of the trappings of the teenage-stalker films of the 70s and 80s, such as (and specifically) John Carpenter’s “Halloween.” In fact, in terms of its subjective camera work and its synth-heavy score, Carpenter’s influence is prevalent throughout , but rather than exploring the masculine themes of Carpenter’s early work or simply indulging in the exploitation of female victimhood — as was the tradition of much of the slasher horror — David Robert Mitchell’s film reexamines the trope of the helpless female protagonist and transforms it into an allegory about how the effects of sexual trauma ripples through a community and how young women are all too rarely taken seriously when reporting an attack. By using an invisible entity who can appear as anyone instead of the static image of a masked stalker, Mitchell drives home the idea that this problem can’t be solved by avoiding a single enemy in the woods. Instead he argues that an entire culture has allowed this kind of insidious abuse based on unhealthy sexual expectations.
Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” explores the recent shift in power dynamics between men and women and how that manifests within the exchange of sexual politics. We are first lulled into the slinky thriller by watching an alien-like Scarlett Johansson coldly hunt for male victims with her sensuality. The movie dares to ask the audience ‘what man wouldn’t follow this women into an abandoned dark space if asked,’ but when a chance encounter with a deformed Glasgow resident softens her heart, the second half of the film confronts the character with the consequences of rejecting the power of her own objectification.
This trio is capped off by Alex Garland’s debut feature “Ex Machina,” in which two male programmers spend the whole of the movie arguing about what personality traits makes someone convincingly human, and, more specifically, what traits make a woman desirably female. Garland reveals mid-way through the film that the secretive billionaire Nathan (Oscar Isaac) designed his most recent A.I. experiment Ava (Alicia Vikander) using the protagonist Caleb’s (Domhnall Gleeson) online search history and porn preferences. Maybe this detail is underlining the fact that sites like Amazon and Facebook directly advertise to us now based on how we google, but in the context of the plot — especially in terms of its ending — also seems to speak to the expectations of fantasy that many women are often pressured into fulfilling for their male counterparts.
The most remarkable thing about all of these films, if we’re to accept the premise that they are in-fact feminist allegories, is that they were all written and directed by men. Things have certainly progressed in recent decades and luckily the realms of genre fiction have begun to represent more diversity than it did before, but horror and science fiction are still generally associated with a mostly-male audience — thus where we get the term ‘fanboy.’ Intentionally or not Glazer, Mitchell, and Garland have transformed the familiar trappings of these genres and informed them with a sense of gender-awareness and in some cases an activist slant.
In an interview with Salon Alex Garland was apprehensive to fully confirm the feminist interpretation but didn’t deny that the film has political edge. “Oh there’s always something I’m trying to say. There’s always an agenda. I mean, the thing that’s being said, on a subjective level, person-to-person or just anyway — it may or may not be insightful or interesting, but it’s definitely there […] And so it is with ‘Ex Machina.’ There are political issues embedded within this, and for some people that can lead to exactly the opposite of what my intention was. So I feel that I have to draw attention to the subjective way in which narratives and the themes are received, and responded to.”
Like the best genre movies, these films accurately report the cultural atmosphere they were created in, and unlike the films they mined for aesthetic purposes, these stories can potentially cross the barrier between the male-oriented world of seasoned horror and sci-fi geeks to the ever-growing female fiction enthusiasts. These films also have the potential to reach for an older, slightly more erudite audience than recent female-driven, young-adult adaptations like “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games” because of their nostalgic bend and artful, mood-based presentations.
Frugal filmmakers can evoke strong imagery and engage their audiences with confrontational themes, and if they market the project correctly, they can even eke out a profit with an audience who may be indifferent or opposed to their ideologies. Social change is only possible if a message if spread outside the boundaries of those who are sympathetic to the cause. That’s why these particular films are interesting; they both reflect a shift in the western zeitgeist and they repurpose the patriarchal tropes within their genres, while still maintaining enough visceral/visual shock and wonder to entertain. In other words, it’s a lot easier to make the kids eat their veggies if you promise them dessert.
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