FOCUS FEATURES

Bewildered, not ‘Beguiled’

This 
summer 
saw 
more 

of 
the 
academic-discourse-

permeates-pop-culture 
phenomenon 
that’s 
been 

snowballing for the past few 
years, 
especially 
on 
social 

media; one of the most obvious 
examples of how polarizing 
it can get was the discourse 
surrounding Sofia Coppola’s 
reboot of “The Beguiled.” And 
yes, I’m still thinking about it 
several months after the fact — 
now that the dust has settled 
(and I’ve wasted even more 
of my time reading frenetic 
think pieces) I have a more 
synthesized idea of why I had 
such a hard time articulating 
my irritation with both the 
film’s critics and champions.

“Beguiled” made Coppola 

the second woman ever to 
win 
best 
director 
at 
the 

Cannes 
Film 
Festival, 
and 

several people praised it as the 
feminist reboot we’ve all been 
waiting for. Others completely 
panned it. Always a sucker 
for a period piece stirring up 
contention, I walked into the 
theatre intrigued.

I 
walked 
out 
utterly 

bemused. 
Maybe 
my 

experience was ruined because 
my roommate could not stop 
giggling for the last 45 minutes 
straight. Or maybe she was 
right, and I need to look at it 
purely as if it were played for 
camp — but based on how many 
people thought it was either 
the feminist film of the year or 
the worst decision Cannes ever 
made, I don’t think so.

Coppola’s “Beguiled” takes 

us into the small world of a 
group of young women at an 
all-girls boarding school in the 
South during the Civil War. 
Within the first few moments 
of the film, one of the youngest 
of the girls stumbles upon an 
injured Union deserter, Cpl. 
John McBurney (Colin Farrell, 
“The Lobster”) and brings 
him home with her to tend to 
his wounded leg. Most of the 
girls and young women are 
fascinated with him, a couple 
of the younger ones nursing 
crushes while the oldest girl, 
Edwina (Kristen Dunst, “The 
Virgin Suicides”) appears to 
fall in love, and Alicia (Elle 
Fanning) appears to be in the 
throes of a sexual awakening. 
Both of their efforts are shut 
down 
by 
Martha 
(Nicole 

Kidman) who is also more 
interested in the soldier than 
she lets on.

There 
are 
two 
reasons, 

as far as I could tell, why 
people hailed it as one of the 
feminist films of the year. 
For one, Coppola turns the 
ending of the original slightly 
on its head, infusing it with 
a little more confusion and a 
little more castration revenge 
fantasy; the women might have 
the power, the film whispers 
at you to believe. For another 
thing, it portrays these young 
women to have a little more 
sexual 
agency 
than 
the 

original. More so-called sexual 
empowerment.

Many of the loudest critics 

of the film came at it from 
a social perspective, rather 
than a cinematic or aesthetic 
one. Many scorned the idea 
that this film chose to omit 
the one character of color that 
was in the original, arguing 
that it made no sense for 
a film about this period to 
have no characters of color, 
particularly 
slaves 
— 
this 

particular criticism has been 
responded to by those who 
argue that including a person 
of color only as a tokenized 
bearer of trauma would have 
signified 
more 
harm 
than 

good.

There is absolutely valid 

criticism 
of 
the 
Southern 

Gothic genre, as well as any 
Civil War period piece that 
could miss the mark. But “The 
Beguiled” is not “Gone with the 
Wind”; that is, it is not using 
the Civil War as an aesthetic 
backdrop to tell a different, 
romanticized story. Rather, it is 
— or shall I say, could have been 
— a microcosmic portrayal of a 
very particular group of people 
during this era. It actually 
wouldn’t be that unlikely for 
slaves to have run off from a 
property close to the end of 
the Civil War, especially if it 
was an estate without a white 
man in charge, such as this 
one. I have read about cases 
where white women in charge 
of plantations had freed slaves 
for no other reason than they 
were scared of rebellion. So the 

overall premise that these six 
young white women in this all-
women’s school would be alone 
and doing their own work isn’t 
far off the mark.

Now don’t get me wrong, 

I 
love 
the 
fulfillment 
of 

castration fantasies as much 
as the next girl, and I get 
the burning desire (no pun 
intended) to show beyond all 
measure that women, even 
young women, also feel sexual 
desire and had the agency in 
some ways to act on that, even 
in the era of the eyelash batting 
Southern belles. I understand 
the appeal of the character of 
Alicia. But that in itself, even 
if it were believable, wouldn’t 
be nearly enough to give 
validation to the idea that this 
film is feminist. Because at the 
end of the day, two, if not three, 
of the main women in the film 
are ready to throw each other 
under the bus, desperate and 
competitive to the point of 
comicality for his approval and 
attention.

This 
film 
isn’t 
feminist 

because it lacks completely 
the grounding that a true 
examination of these women’s 
relationships with each other 
would’ve looked like. Being 
alone for months, if not years, 
terrified every time Union 
or 
Confederate 
men 
came 

by, would likely have bonded 
them so closely together it 
would be nearly impossible 
for anyone to come between 
any two of them, let alone all. 
These women completely lose 
their heads over a man; some 
small sliver of so-called sexual 
agency is not nearly enough to 
gloss over that.

There 
is 
plenty 
to 

enjoy 
about 
“Beguiled”: 

Aesthetically, 
it’s 
gorgeous. 

But a reboot of a film isn’t 
feminist just because it’s less 
misogynistic than its original 
source material, or because 
it includes a weak attempt 
at sexual empowerment that 
honestly only caters to the 
men — both the man in the 
film and the male reviewers 
who think themselves open-
minded for praising it as some 
kind of feminist empower-trip. 
And there’s plenty to criticize 
too; but criticism of the film 
itself as a story based on the 
historical aspects of it only 
really works if it is predicated 
upon 
accuracy, 
not 
value 

judgements. 

SOPHIA 

KAUFMAN

GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN

SINGLE REVIEW

Annie Clark is now bicoast-
aly melancholic. Earlier this 
week, the singer, who pre-
forms under the name “St. 
Vincent,” released the sec-
ond single off Masseducation 
— which now has an Oct. 13 
release day.

“Los Ageless” is, in many 
ways, a companion track 
to the album’s first single, 
“New York.” The title is, of 
course, a riff on Los Ange-
les. Both are love songs and 
lamentations, but while the 
former deals with a love lost, 
the latter contents with a 
love never fully formed. “I 
try to tell you I love and it 
comes out all sick,” she sings 
at the end of the song.

Her relationship with the 
city is as vivid as it is compli-

cated. The city is drawn like 
an abusive lover, but she’s 
trapped there, lured in by 
the sparkle and the sunsets 
and the superstars. The sec-
ond verse paints images like 
“Girls in cages playing their 
guitars” and “In Los Ageless, 
the waves they never break 
/ They build and build until 
you don’t have no escape.”

Off the heals of Melodrama, 
producer Jack Antonoff and 
his signature sound are hav-
ing a moment in pop music. 
After “Look What You Made 
Me Do” earlier this month, I 
thought his punchy bassline 

and hand clap prechoruses 
were six feet under. But, it 
turns out Taylor Swift is 
dead and Jack Antonoff isn’t 
going anywhere. The sticky 
synth and twacking bassline 
pull the best of ’80s pop, 
while St. Vincent’s deep, 
smoky vocals feel acutely 
current.

The chorus is haunting — 
“How could anybody have 
you and lose you?” — she 
begs again and again. It is, 
in true St. Vincent fashion, 
everything that good pop 
music aspires to be. I can’t 
get it out of my head. It’s 
simple and infectious and, 
yet, I haven’t completely fig-
ured it out yet. 

- MADELEINE GAUDIN

LOMA VISTA

“Los Agleless”

St. Vincent

Loma Vista

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6A — Friday, September 8, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

