Titane w/ Heather O. Petrocelli, PhD

Queer Horror: A Film Guide creator/co-editor Sean Abley in conversation with Heather O. Petrocelli, PhD., author of Queer for Fear: Horror Film and the Queer Spectator. Sean and Heather go hard on a film Sean does not enjoy - Julia Ducournau's Titane (2021)!

Support the ongoing production of this podcast - CLICK HERE! 

Queer Horror: A Film Guide - The Podcast is a 30 minute deep(ish) dive into a classic (or not-so-classic) horror film found in the 500-page encyclopedia of genre films with LGBTQ content, Queer Horror: A Film Guide. Each episode Sean Abley, creator/co-editor of Queer Horror: A Film Guide, asks one of the contributors to pick a film they wrote about for the book that deserves even more queer analysis. Guests include co-editor Tyler Doupé, contributors Calpernia Addams, Daniel W. Kelly, Brian Kirst, Michael Varrati, and special guest Heather O. Petrocelli, PhD.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi everyone, welcome back to Queer Horror of Film Guide, the podcast, where the writers, the contributors, the editors, everybody involved with Queer Horror of Film Guide chooses one film that they wrote about to discuss a little bit more deeply for your um Queer Horror Entertainment. And we try to pack all that content into 30 minutes or less. So you get you get a bite-sized podcast that you can listen to in like Hollywood traffic. If you're trying to get from Hollywood to say Beverly Hills, this will take you that entire time. My name's Sean Abley. I'm the creator and the co-editor of Crew Horror Film Guide. And the way we do things around here is typically we'll have one contributor on, they'll choose a movie, we'll talk about that movie. I'm up in the rotation. So when it's my turn, I actually bring on a guest who didn't work on the book to pick a movie that I wrote about, and then we talk about it together. And today, that person is honestly a medical professional in the horror movie field. They have a doctor in front of their name, Dr. Heather Petricelli. Hi, Heather.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Hi, glad to be here again. Or I'm not sure if it's again. Whoops.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Right. Who knows what we're we'll hear, we'll hear these in. Uh, pretend you didn't hear that audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, yes. Sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Look into this thing from uh Men in Black. We'll wipe your memory. Heather, tell me name of your thesis for your PhD, or what what you got again? We talked about how to talk about PhDs last time, but I I don't even know. Give just give me all the information.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

I honestly could not tell you the actual name of my actual like dissertation. I don't even remember the name, but I can tell you the book that came from the dissertation is Queer for Fear, Horror Film and The Queer Spectator. It's the first empirical study of any any category of horror spectator. And at currently, 4,107 horror-loving queers answered an incredibly long survey, like 144 questions, like that kind of long survey. And it's remains to this day still the largest study in all of horror studies. So queers have that like stamp on horror studies at this point in time.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

That's amazing. And I think both that you and I can say from our you know research on our various books that we've been here the whole time. Queer people have been involved, literally from one of the FW burnouts, content-wise, everything we've been around for the whole time. So awesome. I am so glad to have you here today, or back again, depending on what order I put these up. Um, what film did you choose for us to talk about today?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Today I chose Titan, uh Julia Decornel's 2021 film. And I chose it for a very specific reason. I chose it because I read your entry on it, and I could tell that it's it's a I really love the way you wrote that entry because it in the way it you end it is like, did I enjoy it? I did not. Would I recommend it? I would. I thought if more people could encounter art in a way where you might not like jive with everything that's happening, but you can still appreciate what was created. You did it in such a like lovely, respectful way. And I was like, I want to talk to you about this film because I I fucking love this film.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Well, that makes me happy. So I I couldn't remember exactly what I said, so I have the book in front of me. Uh, did I enjoy uh how do you say I keep in my head it's Titan?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

It's Titan.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Teton. Did I enjoy Titan? I did not. Do I respect Titan? I do. Would I recommend Titan? Absolutely. And the reason I wrote that for a couple of things, a couple reasons. One, I'm late to the film criticism game. I've been a film writer for a long time, but I really resisted doing critique until basically this book. And I am not a fan of film critic, film reviewer as consumer advocate. Um, you know, I I've heard film reviewers and read film reviewers say, I'm trying to keep save people the $15 from going to the movie. And I feel like that is not our job. Um, it's not our job to tell people that our taste should be their taste. So that that's part of it. The other thing about this film, I well, I was gonna say about this film specifically, but I'm gonna but then I'm gonna make a broad statement. Uh I love a big swing, and I love even if it fails and it never fails, because that's a value judgment, that's just my perception. But but if it even if it doesn't land with me, I love a big swing. And this book is full of those movies that tried something different, tried something new, tried something edgy, and didn't land for me, but I mean yeah, but landed for me, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Right. Yeah, and that's the be like I uh I could not agree more with the your take on film criticism. I don't ever need anyone to tell me if a movie is good or bad. You don't fucking know. You really don't know. And even a movie like this, like you name a beloved movie or a beloved character who is problematic. Let's just take Angela from Sleepoid Camp because she's a very easy one. I have people who wrote in in that survey that informs my research how they fucking hate Angela and Angela is so harmful to them. And then I have uh trans women who wrote in and are like, oh my god, I fucking love Angela. Angela is everything. So it's really you have to be really careful. Even if you think you're standing up for some other group, don't try to speak for anyone, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Could not agree more. And uh part of that perspective comes with age. Also, something I love about being part of the horror film journalism and academic crowd, and even just the fans of those films, is that our queer people, our trans people, and our women by and large can look past certain things to take in the totality of a film and enjoy it for the parts that are good and and analyze the parts that maybe aren't so great, but not throw out the film, if that makes sense. Like two that I point to are the wives Calangelo, as they call themselves, BJ and Harmony Colangelo, who you know wrote a book about Sleepaway Camp and Harmony as trans, and their like deep dive into that movie. I interviewed uh Calpurnia Adams, who's one of the contributors to this book, and she loves that movie. So it's I don't know, there's just something about us I feel like that we are more willing to do the work that we have to do to find a way to love something versus hate something. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah, well, I think it's also goes to a lifetime of living in a society that is not for you, it's not built for you, the institutions aren't for you. So you have like part of the queer experience is constantly navigating what is that's not for you to find your place in it. So I think that I think that like some some kind of process happens in our actual neurochemistry that gets altered where we have an ability to find ourselves in narratives, and so when you have the ability to make something malleable, you can also it the malleability goes in all kinds of ways, extends out beyond.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So yeah, we get to we get to choose how offended we are about things, right? Like at the bottom, at the end of the day, we get to choose, and so like I see a movie like cruising. I love cruising, I love cruising. I understand that in historical context that when it first came out, it made a lot of people angry, and I understand why. And I probably would have felt the same way if I was old enough to understand, you know, have have consumed it as an adult back then. I get it, but I still love that movie.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I walked by queer people picketing basic instinct in San Francisco to go sit in the seat and be like, yay, basic instinct. So I mean, I'm probably gonna get canceled for that. But like, you know, it's like in my head, I was like, well, I understood why, but I also asked one person, like, have you seen it? They hadn't even seen it. I'm like, how do you protest something you haven't seen? Like, I when I call it scoff with authority, like at least I have to take the thing in to then rail against it. And if I'm railing against it, I'm railing against it because of how it perpetuates a really violent cycle, not because of some minutiae that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Oh 1000%. Yeah, we we don't have to rise to every piece of bait, and we did not every single thing that uh might not be good for us is poison, like you know, but but some are, you know, then the it does. I'm sure you discovered and I discovered through the research of the book that you know we're fed a lot of poison when it comes to this this genre. And if we were to reject out of hand every movie that had problems in it, like on on paper, had problems in it. I mean, my book would be a magazine, like there would be there would be nothing to it, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Uh so let's get to a let's get to a tough film. This I don't consider this one problematic, but it's a tough film, and we can talk about why. Um, so you should probably explain what Titan. I'm I'm gonna say it wrong every single time.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

You said it correct. It's just it, yeah. I was tasked with trying to kind of come up with a very short synopsis of Titan, which honestly, I mean so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm actually gonna read from a piece of paper because I I have scratched out, I like redid it 10 times. Okay. Alexia, a titanium plainted, plated serial killer with a carnal automotive, with carnal automotive desires, transforms from a murderous mechanophile to a surrogate son, proving family bonds can be forged even when you are carrying a Cadillac's baby.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Thank you for playing Queer Horror Mad Libs today, Dr. Heather Pinchelli. Yes, that's great. Oh my gosh, I love your eyeballs on that, on distilling that film. Because of course, I wrote like a plot-by-plot point for the book. Um, but that's so fascinating. That that is your your um take on it. So for the listeners who haven't seen Titan, it kicks off with car accident, where Alexi, the lead character, is a child. And and part of the reason why I did not enjoy the film, and we we're gonna get into this, is is the filmmaker has from the literally first seconds of the film have set up Alexi as like the most annoying, most difficult to love protagonist in the history of French Europeans.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Hold on, let me I gotta like stick up for her for one moment because here's the thing. Here's the thing. We catch we catch this moment between this father and this daughter, mid-action, right? What if that father had just been a fucking dick? Or what if, like, I mean, clearly he's emotionally unavailable. So maybe she just is fully acting out because she's not having her needs met.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

She's she is being um a little, she's she's in a slightly child, she's in a I would call it a meltdown.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, yeah. And so she she basically distracts her father. They have a car accident, she goes to the hospital and has a titanium plate put into her skull. And on the way out of the hospital, she sees a car and suddenly has affection, like physical romantic affection for the car. And thus begins our journey of auto-erotification and you know, this sort of science fiction horror of her her journey, by the way. We just we do spoilers here. She falls in love with cars, cut to when she's an adult. What's what's the actor's name? Do you have that at your fingertips at plays? I don't.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

It's like I know I know her first name's Adele, and I know she's a like she was plucked out of obscurity, like they found her on Instagram or something.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

She's like a journalist, also, and like a creative person, anyway. Um, she's now working this very interesting, like pumped up to 11 version of American, an American car show, where you know, we have over here in America, we have these car shows where we have like you know the booth babes and they're you know pointing at the car. Well, in this version, it's literally it's strippers like writhing around on these beautiful cars, and it's shot so beautifully. It just like uh I have to say the cinematography in this film is exquisite. And then through a series of events, after she kills a rapist, she decides she's horny for that car, and the car fucks her and impregnates her. This this is the first 15 minutes of this movie.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Yes, I mean it it is it's an adventure, and it's like it's like one of these things where it's like it's so cle to me, like there's this cleverness to this film where uh one of the beats that Julia Deconau always hits is like her the way she incorporates music. So it's not like we just see Alexia like as a and she's famous, right? Because she's signing autographs as this like sexy, erotic car dancing model, but they're doing it to the kill, like she's like her whole routine is to the kills, doing it to death, which I think is a super clever way of like having this triangle of the film, which is like sexuality, death, and technology all in there together, and then like having a weird nod to kind of Freudian thought of like this, like of the death drive while this really beautifully shot rather sexy scene is happening with the kills playing. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

I it there's so much about this movie, and I'm trying to keep my focus like honed because I could jump from one point to another. Well, I think I I think I'll bring up now at the beginning so people can have it as sort of like their filter through which they they hear our words. The stated intention of the filmmaker was to create an a protagonist that is so difficult to identify with that it repels the viewer and to like and then force try to force them back into you know empathy for this character and succeeds 10 out of 10. Um, because everything that happens that we're gonna talk about in this film, you know, is it's such a push and pull because you know, she after this car show when she establishes, you know, we establish that she's a sexy car dancer, which is a job, and you know, this fan tries to sexually assault her and she kills him, we should automatically empathize with her in that moment. But everything that's happened up to that point and much that happens after that point just makes it so, so hard. And I feel like even talking about that, like even entertaining the notion that we would not have sympathy for sexual. I'm a sexual assault survivor, so I feel like I I have a little authority to speak from this position. That we would even have like a minute where we weren't sympathetic is like antagonistic by this filmmaker in the extreme, and one of the reasons why I recommend this movie, because they are going for it with that moment and a million others in this film.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, I mean, to have that, because I mean, that's just like you said, it's like this playful push and pull, which I think is all in service for the I think that the entire film at the biggest, grandest levels is constantly breaking down binaries and showing you how they don't exist, whether it's basically the talking about gender, sexuality, life and death, human machine, all of these binder binaries are constantly being broken down. So yeah, when she kills that fucking piece of shit, you're like, fuck yeah, like this is gonna be great. And then you know, then she fucks the car, which you're like, Wait, what is happening? And then very shortly after, you know, not too far further along in the narrative, she kills the one person at that point who's actually genuinely nice to her, like you know, her romantic, you know, whatever you want to call that right the sexual encounter they were having. And then you just I just remember the very first time I saw it being like, Oh, come on, man, not her.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Right, right. And by the way, sidebar, that's some of the queer content in this film. Um, is that she's she is omnisexual, apparently, or or I don't know what you would call it, like um not predatory, but like takes advantage of the opportunities that are given to her, but who knows, but her motivation including cars, right? Preferably cars, her motivation. Nice, nice dad jokes here.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah, the breakdown of of our societal ideas of so many things in this film. Like, I'm I'm jumping way ahead, but we find out after she kills the piece of shit rapist that she is probably a serial murderer already. There's a news report that shows that people have been killed, and it is implied through the how the filmmaker shoots the scene, although it's never stated explicitly uh that she has killed before. She lives with her parents. That's the other thing. She lives with her parents, she's kind of shitty around her parents. Like it's just she's just one of those girls that you know, you're like movies build for you to hate because of just how they act. And so eventually, what she has to do, because she kills the girl that likes her, kills everybody in the house with that girl, goes home in burning the blanket that has her DNA on it from those murders, sets the house on fire. And while it's burning, she locks her parents in their bedroom, so that's killing them.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

So sorry, dad. I guess, you know, you effed around and now you found out, I guess, eventually. Yes. Oh, and by the way, there's a there's a lot of incest simmering, like incest ideation sort of simmering under a lot of stuff in this. And there was a moment with the dad where it feels weird to me, and we're gonna get to more of that later. Anyway, she her solution to hide out is to masquerade as a boy, and specifically a boy who has d who disappeared when he was like eight and now would be her age and generally sort of looks like her. So she binds her body and she's now visibly pregnant and uh insinuates herself into this gentleman, the her, the father of the boy's life.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah, I mean, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Also, halfway through the film. We're now only halfway through the film at this point.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

This is true. And it's like you said a few things that made me actually think about things a little bit differently. I when you kind of mentioned with the biological father and the kind of incestuous undertones, then I'm like, oh, so I don't find her as report. I mean, you even said Juliette de Crunal's point was to make a protagonist that you kind of can't empathize with or you don't like, or that you just don't like. I don't like her, but I actually have a weird like feeling of understanding for her home life. And like now I'm like, even when she was a kid, maybe like maybe there really was incestuous stuff going all the way back, and like that was a really troubled kid who grew up to be a really troubled adult who clearly was a serial killer, even to the point where when she kills the guy who's assaulting her, she takes his body, and then they never even bothered to show us what she did with the body, but that's how adept she is at like serial killing. It's like the body is disposed of and she's gonna keep going on her way. Yeah. So, and we are. I don't even think we're even halfway through with all the things that you just said. I I just want to like say what like one other thing I really love about how when she goes from Alexia to Adrian is it's like Judith Butler theory in practice, right? It's just all a performance, right? And those are the those are the scenes that are hard. Like when when the breaking of the nose, like I have watched so many terrible things in horror, but like I had a I like kind of have to like clinch my butt. I just like my butt gets real tight. I'm like, oh, clenching my butt cheeks.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

It's like uh that whole scene, which I'm sure trans men, if they see it, like ping um when they do, because it's about her, you know, her body's the enemy at this point. She's transforming it so she's visibly pregnant, which she has to like, and that that's almost worse than the breaking of the breaking of her own nose, but like having to like squeeze her belly under the the bandages and also her breasts, obviously, and it uh and they show it taking a lot of effort, like it's really, really difficult for her. And then the nose breaking, and I've seen that in other movies where they have to punch themselves in the face or something, but this like she has to take a couple tries at it, like it doesn't work. The first like it really, and I really thought, you know, we are literally transitioning in this film from her, you know, female presenting self to now her male presenting self. And then the second half of the film, she navigates. Well, he on the so this that's the name of the boy that was missing whose whose identity she's taking, navigates a world of men. There's barely any women in it. Um, so she or she, I'm gonna say she because she is still she's masquerading, she's not transitioning. She insinuates herself into this gentleman's life. He's a firefighter. Uh, he brings Adrian to the fire station, starts training Adrian as a firefighter. It's a very male environment. And and yet it's homoerotic in a way. Oh yeah. It's so interesting. Like talking about breaking things down. You have a person that you know is a female masquerading as a male, but in the in the scenes with the dad and and the firefighters and Adrian, it becomes so homoerotic. I I don't know. Upon second watch, I I did my my my response. Dissolve crumbled a bit on my distaste for the film because I'm because watching with that eye, like the first time I watched it, I wasn't watching with an analytical eye. It really, it really intrigues me.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Those those things.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

I I agree with you. I think it's like this constant. So so there's I think one of the things I love about this film is I think I could watch it a hundred times and still have new things to kind of analyze or piece together. But if we're just taking like the gendered component of it, it's like when it was Alexia, Alexia, as quote unquote woman, was aggressive. I mean, she was a fucking serial killer, right? She was highly unlikable. To a lot of people, I still have like a weird, maybe it's saying more about me than anybody else. Um, but she was aggressive and kind of an asshole. Then she does this like transformation to assume the persona of Ajahn. And then there's this femininity that's always at play in this incredibly masculine environment, which is so weirdly titillating in its own way, and so so queer. I I remember talking to one guy about like being a French firefighter. Because I was like, oh my god, these parties these guys have, they're so homoerotic. And he's like, Yeah, it's like The Simpsons, you know, the gay still meal, like we work hard, we play hard.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

It's just like as you say that I realize, well, first of all, sidebar the actor who plays the dad that is a piece of ass. I'm sorry, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna objectify somebody right now, like daddy fantasy, full daddy dom. Oh, I I make no apologies. In a in a movie filled with um Alexi's nudity, when we need to talk about that, you get to see most of his naked body. And I'm I'm not complaining. I'm only complaining you can get to see more. Anyway, um there it's interesting that up until that point, up until Alexi transforms into uh Adrian, she is, as you say, like violent and just kind of a pain in the ass, and you know, whatever. But for the rest of the movie, she takes to being a firefighter. She cares for the man whose house she's invaded. He has a cardiac event at some point, he's injecting steroids to keep that perfect daddy body and um has some sort of reaction. We don't really know what it is, but she becomes very much of a caretaker for him, you know. Remembering that she let her father, who had she had a troubled relationship with, burn to death in his own home. Now she's in a stranger's home and who she's fooling. And it is obvious that she has genuine affection for this person. I just thought it was interesting that the violence of the first half of the film is replaced by tenderness in a way, right? And it and you know, the violence in the beginning was sort of a means to an end, maybe. I don't know. It it was I don't know why she killed the girl that wanted to have sex with her.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

I think it's a story of so when you you had said a little like just a few minutes ago, something about well, this is part of the queer content. I'm gonna use queer in the most expansive sense now, but they're like there are just so many things that are queer about the film because you literally have like literally like same-sex stuff, you know, sexual acts going on, but you also have all of these transgressions of societal norms, even even the fact that she's a sealer killer can be argued to be a queer act. And then it's like it's the loneliness and longing of these two broken people who become found family that is like the queer, like that to me, that is the biggest queer story of this film because they are both completely broken people who just want, they crave intimacy, don't know how to get that intimacy, and then find it in this way that is so sweet and kind of skeevy at the same time because it's a father-son, but really father-daughter, father-son bond that's also got that simmering sexual component to it. I have heard a lot of people who don't like this movie because of that kind of erotic charge to a parental relationship. But I think it's really beautiful. Not that like not I don't approve incest, but you know what I'm saying. Like, I just think like there's a beauty to this relationship in this film.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

I think that it speaks to both characters' absolute desperation. Yes, that the progression of Adrian and the dad. I'm just calling calling the dad because it's it's easier.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Not daddy Dom.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

Daddy Dom. Daddy. They're so both so desperate for it that when it gets to the point, so in the plot-wise, um Daddy Dom's ex-wife shows up to see her supposed, you know, rediscovered child and pretty quickly clocks Alexi as a fraud. And it is and is and it is revealed. So she knows absolutely that Alexi is, you know, female, pregnant, and fooling her ex-husband. And her main concern is that Alexi take care of her ex-husband. She's like, be kind to him and allows the fraud to stand. And so that lets us know something about that Daddy Dom character too. That that, you know, who knows why they broke up, but there's something about him that still garners her affection and her her her care of of how he turns out. But then eventually, you know, when you get pregnant and you carry it to term, certain things happen that cannot be ignored. And before that, before the birth happens, and we get to talk about that, um, it's revealed to the daddy Tom that Alexi is Alexi and is a female. And because he's so desperate for something, he says that's okay. He he understands now that this is not his actual child, but but voluntarily says that I will still be your parents, your father. And that feels beautiful. And then and then moments after that, it starts the the incest starts bubbling underneath.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Because I uh personally I feel like if you think somebody's your child and then you find out they're not your child, if within I would say, even years, you decide that it's okay to now have sex with that person, I feel like there's some like at least like a side dish of incestual feeling in there. Am I wrong about this? Like it, like sure, technically no, I think you're totally right.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah, yeah. It's like it it even before the reveal happened, there's these moments where I'm like, oh, I don't know. That seems like maybe the French are a little bit more touchy-feely with all that stuff. I mean, there's always a simmering that's happening, you know, and then going even back to the bio father. But I think that, like, I think, you know, this is that that's the beauty of film, right? It's like you create this piece of art and then everyone starts Rorschach testing everything that they see onto it, right? So for me, I still feel like it's like Julia has all these like points or plot points in place to constantly blur and break down binaries and boundaries. So you are having to live in this world where you're like, everything is malleable and fluid, nothing is static. And the whole movie has this whole, it's all about identity, and it's all about how you're always in the process of becoming. So we're never comfortable about anything. Like you're uncomfortable if you're analyzing everything, you're kind of uncomfortable in the film when you start really deeply talking thinking about each plot point. You're like, oh, that makes me a little uncomfortable, that makes me a little uncomfortable, and you sit in that discomfort, but then you're wrapped up in this like beautiful found family story. And then and then we'll get to the very end where it kind of takes it like every time you settle in, Julia's like, oh no, you think you can get comfortable, just wait.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Right. The fluidity, I think, is what is it's so against typical storytelling that you know, we get sort of lazy and comfortable in our like Aristotelian, you know, beginning, middle, and end. And here's our, you know, our first act, you know, a plot point and all this stuff. And so it it's one of the things that sort of unsettles you when you watch this. I'm reminded, I don't know why this popped into my head, but so there's the moment before Daddy Dom figures out or is is told that Alexi is Alexi. And I'm reminded of um Victor Victoria when um James Garner, pre-finding out that um she is a woman is like struggling with you know attraction. And then when Julie Anders reveals herself, it's a relief, right? Like, oh, I can do this. And that, you know, I see that in like a more sort of twisted way here. It's like, oh, there's a like these feelings that I had for what I thought was my son and a male, it's now not my son and is a female. And now I am given the green light to like indulge in those feelings guilt-free. And you know, it's not easy in the film. I don't want to make it seem like he's just like, all right, let's do it. But you know, there's like physicality between them, and there's like a moment in bed when they're when laying on each other. And I just find that really interesting because it it I when I was watching the film, I just felt so sad at that moment because I wanted Alexi to finally have a place where she felt safe. And I think it's intimated that she feels safe with the Daddy Dom after everything is revealed. But it just feels like once again someone is asking for something from her that uh she has to decide whether or not she wants to give it. And you know, I think that can be wearing on any human being, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think that there I have never like thought of it in that terms of that there's like an unsafety to Alexia's character throughout the film. And there's like that one brief reprieve where it's basically when he kind of OD'd and she takes off into that bus, and there's that scene where those like like that terrible like pack of male teens are being like awful, and there's this like looking back and forth, back and forth between her and the other woman on the bus. And then we see that Alex uh that well, at the time, Adrian gets off the bus. And I think that like in that moment, I think Adrian realized, oh, I'm not safe out here, I'll never be safe out here. But Daddy Dom loves me, and Daddy Dom will protect me. And I think there's that moment, and then it quickly becomes unsafe again. And one of my favorite scenes of the whole movie is I don't think there's like a single line of dialogue in it. It's that dinner where you know, Daddy Dom's just trying to get like Vincent's just trying to get Audron to speak, and they're having this dinner, and then he puts on the zombies, she's not there, which again, like on point, you know, song picking. And then in this dance is like this, it's like this beautiful mix of aggression and intimacy. And it's like he it's like I feel like he can't figure out to have this intimacy he deeply fucking craves without being slightly inappropriately aggressive about it. And it's such a mix because his body is so like big and tight and muscly, and then Adrian is like so not that soft and whatever you want to say, soft and fay at that point. Um, and I think that that scene speaks so much to ideas of masculinity, ideas of gender, and to the brokenness of these two characters. That like it's like this they both crave this intimacy, and I think that they're brand like they're whatever happened, like they both clearly have lots of trauma in their life. Whatever happened to them, they don't know how to not blur the bounds of what's appropriate intimacy. And I fucking love that scene. That's why I'm curious if you like if you like that scene of that that dance scene.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

I did, and it's interesting that that dance scene ends in uh is a victor, is that or Vincent? Is that Vincent Daddy John? We should say Vincent. Um it ends with him trying to goad Adrian into fighting, into aggression, like fight like a man is what he's doing. And I think that's more for him. That's a defense. Like, show me, like, do this thing that will make me not have this affection, this physical affection for you. Like be a you know, be masculine. And you know, that doesn't, it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Oh, so funny. I think I read it kind of differently. I think well, maybe that's because when I see like when I see like really macho man stuff that's like quote unquote straight, I'm like, wow, that's like the gayest shit I've ever seen. Like it's like men, like I'm not a football person, but I have people in my family are really big football people, and I'll watch it and I'll be like, this is the gayest shit I have seen. And I thought it was Vincent wanted him to fight with him because he could get physicality, he could get some kind of physical intimacy that he needed, and he doesn't know any other way of getting it. But I mean, I mean, that's again Rorschach text. Like it's like maybe we just revealed stuff about ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Right, right. Yeah, it's interesting because I thought, and for me, he was getting that physical contact when they were dancing because it was very like intimate, you know, boy girl dancing he was doing with his son. And then I thought he started to get a little panicky. And so he's like, you know, butch it up, kid, basically.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

So did he gay panic then in that moment in that dance? I have to go watch that dance scene again now.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

I think, I think maybe maybe less gay panic and more. Well, I guess we use the word gay panic. Something, something along the way.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

I guess I yeah, I guess I meant it more in the sense that, like, as they're dancing, because it's such an intimate scene, it's the first real true intimacy we see with them. That he was like, wait a second, I'm feeling something I shouldn't feel. Let's let's kind of change the tone of this. Also, I had someone who speaks French, I do not speak French, point out to me that the film changed the translation. He doesn't say fight like a man in French, he says fight for real, which I think is a really interesting decision in the English translation to be like fight like a man when he actually said fight for real.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Oh wow, that does change it.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

I didn't fact check that person's, but that I think that I don't think that person would be lying to me.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah, um, well, we're getting close to time, so I want to Oh my god. I want I know, right? I like like this the un this onion of a movie. I could literally just do this all day long. Um, but we should reveal for our audience that in the end, yes, she does carry the car's baby to her, gives birth to a sort of a metal plated human child and dies in the process. And Vincent, Vincent, the god. Um it's intimated that he will now raise that happily raise that child. You know, again, um, you know, my dumb MFA and playwriting where I'm you know trying to like analyze this and find you because you you could the question you always ask is like, what does this add up to? What did we learn? Like why? And you know, I reject that as like a template. You know, sometimes it's just important to to go through the events of the film, and that's the why. And I but I do feel like there there that it feels like there's a moral bubbling in the background, or maybe not, or maybe the moral is there is no moral. Like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Yeah, I think that it's like completely like I don't think it's a didactic film. I think there's no moral judgment in this film at all, which is also something I really appreciate about it. I to me, the thing I constantly take away from the film is like this. I may have said it like too many times at this point, but it's like nothing exists in black and white. Like there are binaries in nature are almost non-existent. It's like all these shades in between. And so I think it's like I think Julia wants us to. I keep, I think I keep calling her Julia. I think her name's Julie. Sorry, sorry for all the wrong times I said Julia. Um, I think Julie wants us to take away that to think about how society is structured. Look at your relationships, look at how you feel about your own identity. Nothing is static. We are all in a state of becoming at all times. And that's enough for me because it makes me, it just it leaves me with like I have more questions and answers. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Uh you know, it's it's funny because I uh speaking of my MFA and playwriting, which I like to draw up as often as I can because it costs me so much money. Um, I my I don't love Shakespeare, but I love analyzing Shakespeare. Um, I can't get enough of it, line by line. Like just I love it, love it, love it. And this is uh this watching it this time to have my conversation with you has made me appreciate this film even more because it's it's it's feeding that hunger I personally have to like get really granular with things. And it makes me wonder if it's important for a film like this for the audience to understand what the director is trying to do above and beyond Unreal and narrative. Like I didn't realize until after the film what the filmmaker was trying to do with this sort of like Brechttian, you know, theater of cruelty, sort of like dispassion, like setting us apart from the experience. And so I had a negative reaction, and the academic part of me was like, but you should still see it. I wonder if it was important to know what her intentions were.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

I think it helps give context to the it's like a mental exercise that she's put into an art form. So I think it, but I don't think it's necessary in the sense that I I mean I'm learning that for the first time with you just like you taught me that that she said that I didn't actually even know that. And it didn't change the fact that I already love the film. But you know, I love movies because we change with them. Like they I mean they're technically a static thing, but they change because of us, right? So the fact that even the fact that you like it even a little bit more, but even when you quote unquote were like, do I enjoy it? I do, I did not, you still respected it and recommended it, which I think is like um says a lot about the film itself because it left you with something being like, Well, it's not for me, but it's for other people, and they should like they should go through this experience themselves and see where they land.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

I love nothing more than talking about movies. So I will always tell somebody if I've seen a terrible movie that they should also see it. And the expectation in a perfect world is then we come back around and we talk about it because to me that's that's the value of film, right? That's the value of art. Like it's one of the pieces of the puzzle of why there's art. It's to for us to like talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

So 100% and to learn and grow because you and I will never see the same movie, right? Like, we'll like we inter we internalize things differently. And so I love nothing more. If I hate a movie and you love it, like please tell me all the things you love about it, and I'll go fucking rewatch that movie I hated to try to find the thing that I missed because of something in me that was like in the wrong, wrong frame of mind, wrong experience, you know. So I agree with you. Nothing better than having your perspectives broadened.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

I had a really smart teacher, uh, Megan Gogerty is her name. She's a playwright, and we were discussing Hamilton, which I do not enjoy. And I was sort of resisting, resisting. And she said, I want you to reframe how you look at this. Consider Hamilton is a perfect musical. Now analyze it and find out how every piece of this musical adds up to it being perfect. Like, how is he employing these techniques and lyrics and you know what have you to add up to the thing that is perfect? And and I know that's a little esoteric, but I feel like looking at films like this, like going through this again and like, okay, so this is this is what I feel like the director, writer's intentions are. How do these things that maybe I didn't land with me add up to be that thing? And it's a great, I don't know, I just it's a fun, it's the part of criticism that I I wish was there. Like Siskel and Ebert, like I we need the Siskel and Eberts back because their gig, even though they were reviewing movies, is they talked about it. They talked about the movie, and if they had differing opinions, they like you know, shared them with each other. So um yeah, I will never tell people not to see a film unless it's truly, truly destructive. And I I can't even think about that film is right.

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, exactly. I'm just always like, it's it's if I don't like it, it's not for me, it might be for you. And if it's for you, tell me what you get out of it because maybe I'll revisit it.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Yeah. Well, we've gone over time, but I don't care. I can talk about the week, I could do three episodes on this film, but I made a promise. So um thank you, Dr. Petricelli, uh, for your wisdom on this film. I look forward to talking about many more with you. Um, can you tell all of us where we can find more of your wisdom?

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Well, I do exist on uh Instagram. You can DM me. I haven't been very posting very much lately just because I don't know, everything feels hard. And then I am trying to become a um I'm trying to become a blue sky person, a blue sky or is that what you call it? I don't know. I'm gonna try to be better on blue sky and share things. And so go go find me there. That's where I'm trying to do my new, my new persona.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Awesome. Uh I'm again Sean Abley, um, gay of the dead everywhere, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Blue Sky, and Patreon, where I'm rolling out my next book, and you can check that out for free. Yeah, it's absolutely true. Free. Um, and of course, the book, Queer Horror, a film guide. You can actually hold it in your hands. It's a printed piece of media, which is my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Um, it's beautiful, it's a beautiful book.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

It's so gorgeous. Brendan uh Haley uh did such a beautiful job with the cover. Oh my gosh. Um, so yeah, it's from McFarnelbooks.com. And um please get it from the publisher. Don't get it from One of the dot coms that's literally trying to run the country right now.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Like DM Sean for a code.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yes, DM me for a code. I love a good code. I give good code for a cheap book. I love reducing my own price. I'm I'm a I'm a what would that be called? Like a um a retail sub.

unknown 44:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

This is like so random. I know we are over, but I just realized we never even said that the movie was a body horror. But let's like we'll leave it, we'll leave it there. We'll totally leave it there.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Totally. I'll put it in the description. That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Autoerotic body horror. Exactly. Sorry, another dad joke.

SPEAKER_00 44:33

Boo. Um, all right. Thanks everybody. And uh hope you thank you for hanging out with us. And I hope you'll do it again on Queer Horror, a film guide, the podcast.