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Tag: Dagmara Domińczyk

  • Priscilla: The Marie Antoinette of the 1960s

    Priscilla: The Marie Antoinette of the 1960s

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    It’s a story that becomes harder and harder to tell in the present epoch. That of Priscilla’s overt grooming by Elvis in order to eventually make her his virgin bride. Of course, that’s not really the story Sofia Coppola wants to focus on with her eighth film, Priscilla. Just as the 1988 TV movie (or “miniseries,” to make it sound more elegant) called Elvis and Me, so, too is Priscilla based on that autobiography of the same name. And yes, the title of it should be telling of the fact that Priscilla continued to view herself as being forever stuck inside the towering shadow of Elvis. Why not Me and Elvis, after all? That her autobiography should have to include Elvis’ name in it was also indicative of the already publicly-held belief that she really was “no one” without him. Had no identity of her own. And a large part of that, as we see in Priscilla (which remains largely faithful to Presley’s book), stemmed from Elvis “getting her” while she was young. Worming his way into her mindspace and heart before she ever had a chance to fully form. 

    This reality is one that many still don’t want to acknowledge or look at too closely. Including none other than Elvis’ only daughter, Lisa Marie. Indeed, a leaked email that Lisa Marie wrote to Coppola shortly before her death stated, “My father only comes across as a predator and manipulative [in your movie]. As his daughter, I don’t read this and see any of my father in this character. I don’t read this and see my mother’s perspective of my father. I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?” This form of denial about the type of man her father was is perhaps to be expected. Even questioning her mother’s “awareness” of what she hath wrought in letting Coppola go through with filming this script. So it was that she added, “I am worried that my mother isn’t seeing the nuance here or realizing the way in which Elvis will be perceived when this movie comes out. I feel protective over my mother who has spent her whole life elevating my father’s legacy. I am worried she doesn’t understand the intentions behind this film or the outcome it will have.”

    But isn’t it long overdue to look at Elvis’ “dark side” (read: creep factor) with a less flattering microscope than has been done in the past? Hell, even the celebrated Baz Luhrmann biopic, Elvis, chooses to sidestep detailing much of his domestic life with Priscilla, instead focusing on his artistry and the exploitation he suffered at the hands of the Colonel. Some might even say that being exploited so blatantly was what made Elvis want to do it to someone else. That someone else being, most of the time, Priscilla. Subject to his whims and mood swings, Coppola’s adaptation of Elvis and Me shows “Satnin” slowly adjusting to the life she thought she wanted, because that’s what it would take to be with Elvis. The man she pined for from the moment they separated in March of 1960, after Elvis completed his tour of duty in the Army and went back to the U.S.

    Being an impressionable young teenager prone to easy attachment and tending to amplify everything more than it actually should be, Priscilla continued to yearn for Elvis as almost two years went by. Years during which she was tortured by published accounts of Elvis’ sexual exploits with his costars. In 1960, that co-star was Julie Prowse, the fiancée of Frank Sinatra (ergo, Elvis “stuck it” to a fellow musical titan while “sticking it in” Prowse). Forced to watch Elvis’ career and personal life unfold from the sidelines, Priscilla almost gives up hope entirely that their year spent getting to know one another on the Army base meant anything at all. And then, out of the blue, just like that, Elvis calls her and invites her to Graceland. This after Coppola shows us the bittersweet passage of time through the girlhood ephemera of Priscilla’s room. For example, a string of pearls hung over a birthday card that reads, “To My Granddaughter Happy Sweet 16”—the words positioned around a blooming rose with two hummingbirds hovering over it. Symbolism indeed. But men don’t tend to have much interest in girls once they “bloom past a certain age.” Maybe, in that sense, it was best for Priscilla to leave Elvis before she turned thirty. 

    Priscilla’s “Sofian” foil, Marie Antoinette, on the other hand, never had such a choice. Even though she, too, was leading a life largely separate from Louis XVI. A life she made the most of by “being frivolous.” Decorating the palace, overseeing the construction of the Hamlet at Trianon and, needless to say, buying plenty of clothes and shoes. That latter “hobby” being something Priscilla was well-trained in by Elvis himself as he remade her in his image. Not like a god (though Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” is based on Priscilla’s worshipful dynamic with Elvis), but more like a man playing with a Barbie doll. One he could dress up and style however he wanted. And he did, telling her what and what not to wear (patterns were an absolute no-no). Despite having gotten what she wanted when her parents concede to letting her live with Elvis full-time while she finishes high school (a Catholic one chosen by Elvis), Priscilla finds that the “real relationship” she was hoping to achieve by moving in is largely impossible to get in that Elvis is perennially absent (often mentally, as well as physically), blowing in whenever he wants with the same whimsy as a breeze. Worse still, he continues to avert any sexual consummation with her (one supposes at least he had some limits, but that was more about his own fucked-up psychology than anything resembling a moral code). 

    Priscilla’s privileged girlhood connection to Marie is a motif Coppola established from the outset of her career, with The Virgin Suicides. Its star, Kirsten Dunst, would go from Lux Lisbon to Marie Antoinette in a pinch. And, although mostly panned at the time, 2006’s Marie Antoinette has evolved into being something of a Coppola favorite—one of the most shining gems in her still scant canon. And, of course, it speaks to all the themes Coppola is so fond of: a teen girl’s loneliness and isolation despite living in a gilded world of privilege. One that’s ultimately a prison where she can be abused under the guise of being “taken care of.” Both Marie and Priscilla experienced this in different centuries and places, but the feeling Coppola evokes about what each woman goes through remains entirely similar. In point of fact, Coppola herself remarked of her attraction to the project, “I was just so interested in Priscilla’s story and her perspective on what it all felt like to grow up as a teenager in Graceland. She was going through all the stages of young womanhood in such an amplified world—kinda similar to Marie Antoinette.”

    What’s also “similar” is the idea that both women were basically sold off to a suitor. With Antoinette, that reality was obviously more glaring and straightforward. With Priscilla, it was done with more “subtlety.” In this regard, Coppola is certain to include Priscilla’s (whose last name was then Beaulieu) parents’ initial hesitancy about succumbing to Elvis’ overtures. But, in the end, of course, no one ever says no to power. They didn’t call Elvis “The King” for nothing (a modern-day Louis XVI to Priscilla’s Marie). Which is why he had “little minions” to do his bidding for him…like, say, scouting young “talent” for his bedroom. That’s essentially what Elvis’ “Army buddy,” Currie Grant (not to be confused with Cary), did when he spotted Priscilla at the Wiesbaden, Germany “malt shop,” if you will. Seeing something that he knew Elvis would like, he invited her to a party at the house Elvis was renting. Over the course of that year, things remained decidedly Rated G (though Coppola does leave out a scene from Elvis and Me where Elvis comes up to his room to join Priscilla by lying in bed with her). As they did for Marie’s own sex life with Louis, who has the very French male problem of impotency during the beginning of their marriage. 

    A girl living in a beautiful location with a beautiful man who 1) does not give her any attention and 2) cannot sexually satisfy her seems to be the name of Coppola’s thematic game. To boot, Coppola “was initially drawn towards the character of Marie Antoinette as an innocent and caring character who found herself in a situation outside of her control, and that rather than creating a historical representation, she wanted to create a more intimate look into the world of the heroine.” The same goes for Priscilla Beaulieu. Who never went back to that surname after taking Elvis’—almost like she couldn’t admit that she wasn’t ever a “whole person” without him. In this sense, Priscilla focuses very little on the “transformational” period of “Cilla’s” life (packed in for a few minutes at the end of the movie), which began in the early 70s when she started taking martial arts lessons with Mike Stone. The instructor she would have an affair with (vaguely alluded to by Coppola) and who Elvis would want to have murdered upon finding out. Because, duh, only a husband can have his affairs, not a wife. One who is mostly responding to the lack of emotional and physical attention from her husband. But even when Priscilla started to talk about the sense of independence karate was giving her, she couldn’t help but relate it back to Elvis by saying, “I think he was really proud of me; very few women were doing karate at that time.” 

    That wouldn’t exactly track, though, considering Elvis didn’t like “his” woman to display any signs of masculine energy. So it is that Priscilla falls into her role as “trophy wife,” though often with no one to “display herself” to. To convey this type of rudderlessness—this emotional vacancy—Coppola provides so many scenes that echo the decadence-drenched loneliness of Marie Antoinette, like Priscilla sitting in isolation on a massive couch at Graceland holding her only companion, Honey. The dog Elvis gave her right when she moved in (likely in anticipation that it would be the only being in her life she could call loyal and constant). Or sitting alone (and pregnant) in the morning at the kitchen table, furnished with lavish fruits and fresh orange juice, in addition to her breakfast, only to further sink into despair upon encountering yet another gossipy headline about Elvis and Nancy Sinatra “canoodling” on the set of Speedway. 

    Already well-acquainted with Elvis’ affairs after the highly publicized one involving Ann-Margaret during the production of Viva Las Vegas!, Priscilla “learns her lesson” about bothering to confront him. “I need a woman who understands things like this might happen,” Elvis has the gall to scold her after she brings up his affair with Ann-Margaret. But eventually, she knows that nothing will change. Elvis “is who he is.” And “boys will be boys.” 

    So it is that Priscilla keeps wandering Graceland like the empty palace that it is, her bereftness enveloping the viewer. As does the emptiness of her life in contrast to the abode she haunts, so chock full of opulent furniture and decor. Seeing her life unfold under Elvis’ specter, most audience members of today would ask why and how she could stay with him for so long before realizing how toxic the relationship was. Granted, the TV movie version of Elvis and Me is way more on blast than Priscilla about that toxicity (side note: Priscilla served as an executive producer on both films). Which makes one wonder why Lisa Marie was so scandalized by Coppola’s rendering. It’s far more generous than past presentations have been, doing its best to uphold the myth that this is a love story and not a story of perverse grooming followed by a master-slave dynamic. Even the rape scene in Elvis and Me is much more direct than the one merely inferred in Priscilla. It happens at the very end, with Coppola making it the catalyst for Priscilla’s final decision to leave him the next morning. 

    And yet, despite all the abusiveness, all the cruelty, Coppola has the “reverence” to conclude the film with Priscilla driving away from Graceland to the tune of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” which comes across as altogether sick after witnessing what we just did. Nonetheless, it’s another classic case in point of Coppola’s acumen with musical selections, especially as she was forced to get creative after being denied use of Elvis’ music by his Estate. Though it was technically allowed to be used in Elvis and Me (even if “rendered” by another singer named Ronnie McDowell), an equally unflattering portrayal. But maybe that just goes to show how much public tastes have changed to reflect that the Estate wouldn’t want to be part of any project that makes Elvis look like the abusive predator he was (what’s more, even Lana “Daddy Lover” Del Rey didn’t make the time to contribute a song to a biopic about a woman she’s often been aesthetically compared to). 

    As for Coppola’s casting choices, Cailee Spaeny looks like a mashup of Carey Mulligan in An Education (a film that also deals with a teen girl-older man romance) and Natalie Portman circa Closer (with her vocal inflection also mirroring Portman’s), while Jacob Elordi sounds more like Elvis than he looks like him. But Coppola assessed, “I thought nobody was gonna look quite like Elvis, but Jacob has that same type of magnetism. He’s so charismatic, and girls go crazy around him, so I knew he could pull off playing this type of romantic icon.” Though “romantic” doesn’t feel like quite the right word for Elvis anymore. 

    To that end, while the story it tells is increasingly difficult to stomach in the modern era (Lisa Marie was right about that), Priscilla is a return to form for Coppola after she veered horrendously off course with 2020’s On the Rocks. Perhaps an indication that she’s better at telling stories about daughters and “Daddies” rather than daughters and daddies.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Meaning of Lana Del Rey Snubbing the Priscilla Soundtrack

    The Meaning of Lana Del Rey Snubbing the Priscilla Soundtrack

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    Practically since the “dawn of Lana Del Rey,” a.k.a. the Tumblr era, there’s been that image circulating around that features her head Photoshopped (this was before AI manipulation as we currently know it, after all) over Priscilla Preseley’s. Specifically, the image of her wedding photo with Elvis. Where they’re sitting down and he’s holding her hand. The aesthetic connection between Del Rey and Beaulieu (lest anyone forget that was her maiden name) is not a coincidence. Like most of the iconography Del Rey has pulled from, it’s very calculated. Plus, it’s no secret that Del Rey is an Elvis stan, even writing a song called “Elvis” at one point that eventually served as part of the soundtrack for 2017’s The King. Then, of course, there was her 2012 declaration on “Body Electric” announcing, “Elvis is my daddy.” Lisa Marie would beg to differ. 

    In fact, Lisa Marie would beg to differ with a lot of things about the “Priscilla project” in general. Maybe not least of which is a soundtrack that doesn’t offer a contribution from Del Rey (or even her father, for that matter, as Sofia Coppola wasn’t able to buy the rights). But, more than that, she was vexed with Coppola (per some recently released emails) for “making” her father “seem” like a predator when it came to his pursuit of an extremely underaged Priscilla. Except, obviously, it goes without saying that Elvis was a predator; Coppola doesn’t need to do much work to make that translate on screen. Especially since she’s using Priscilla’s own 1985 biography, Elvis and Me, as the source material. Material that covers everything from being raped by Elvis (a scene that also shows up in the 1988 TV movie adaptation) while they were married to his rampant affairs, most famously with Ann-Margaret. The book conveyed such a toxic master-slave “bond” that it inspired Depeche Mode to write the beloved single, “Personal Jesus,” a song about “how Elvis was [Priscila’s] man and her mentor and how often that happens in love relationships. How everybody’s heart is like a god in some way.”

    If there’s one chanteuse who’s an expert in creating that effect (apart from Taylor Swift), it’s Lana Del Rey. Or at least it was…when we were in the era of Ultraviolence Lana Del Rey. This being the album wherein she freely filched the controversial Crystals’ line by annoucning, “He hit me and it felt like a kiss.” Priscilla knew that feeling too. But perhaps not as well as Elvis’ final “lady friend,” Ginger Alden, who wrote her own memoir detailing the propensity Elvis had for casual gunplay as a psychological mindfuck. Indeed, everything about Elvis screams “cult leader,” of the sort Del Rey was talking about on “Ultraviolence” when she sings, “‘Cause I’m your jazz singer and you’re my cult leader/I love you forever, I love you forever.” These lyrics are just as easily envisioned coming out of the mouth of Priscilla as she roams the empty halls of Graceland in the midst of yet another one of Elvis’ extended absences. In fact, it would be completely on-brand for Sofia Coppola to feature a scene just like this using that song (see also: her implementation of The Strokes’ “What Ever Happened?” in Marie Antoinette). But, for “whatever reason,” Del Rey’s inclusion on the Priscilla Soundtrack is nonexistent. Though it wasn’t for a lack of trying on the director’s part, who reached out at least twice to try to make something happen. 

    As Coppola told E! News, “We were hoping she could do a song for it, but it didn’t work out with the timing.” This, to be sure, is always a bullshit excuse for being able to get out of something you’re not all that passionate about. Nor was Del Rey all that passionate about attending the premiere of the film, which Coppola also invited her to. Even if she was rather late to the party on apprehending the internet’s long-standing connection between Lana and Priscilla. For, as Coppola admitted, “I’m learning that people really connect Lana Del Rey and Priscilla and I didn’t realize that, but I got a lot of requests with, ‘How is she gonna be a part of the movie?’” The answer, clearly, is that she’s not. And maybe part of her overt snubbing under the guise of “schedule conflicts” has something to do with her own vague awareness of the ick factor that comes with being associated with a narrative like this in 2023. Even if Del Rey isn’t exactly known for being anything other than tone deaf about what she calls “the culture.” 

    Nonetheless, something about her willfully missing the opportunity to be part of a pop culture moment so tailor-made for her “brand” appears to indicate that maybe she’s attempting, in her own small way, to move on from the “toxic romance” label that has followed her from the outset of her career. Just as it did Amy Winehouse. The singer who more truly embodies the “Priscilla spirit” not just in her beehive coif and constant application of heavy, garish eyeliner, but in her assessments of love. One such example being, when she said of The Crystals’ “He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss),” “There’s only a certain percentage of people that would understand what that’s about. Most people would be like, ‘How dare you promote domestic violence?’ But to me, I’m like, ‘I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean.’” So did Priscilla, and so, as she herself claims, does Lana. Yet copping to that understanding has become increasingly problematic (especially in the years that have gone by since Winehouse ruled the charts, and could more effortlessly bill this rhetoric as something like “beautiful and tragic”). Even for somebody who has typically been rather blasé about her largely anti-feminist body of work. Try as many might to position her “world-building” as an “authentic” exploration of what it is to be simply: a woman in a relationship. And a “fragile” one, at that.

    But fragility has never stopped a man from roughing a “dame” up, as Priscilla found out. Incidentally, “Ultraviolence,” the song from Del Rey’s canon that most reminds one of the Priscilla and Elvis dynamic (particularly as LDR dons a wedding dress in the accompanying video), is something she’s become more averse to in recent years, telling Pitchfork in 2017, “I don’t like it. I don’t. I don’t sing it. I sing ‘Ultraviolence,’ but I don’t sing that line anymore. Having someone be aggressive in a relationship was the only relationship I knew. I’m not going to say that that [lyric] was one hundred percent true, but I do feel comfortable saying what I was used to was a difficult, tumultuous relationship, and it wasn’t because of me. It didn’t come from my end.” Though a lot of internalized misogyny still does seem to come from (and out of) Del Rey’s end. However, this “schedule conflict” of hers with regard to participating in Priscilla might mean there’s hope for her “re-pivoting” away from such “predilections” in the future. Even if Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd isn’t necessarily a harbinger of that.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Bottoms Still Can’t Top But I’m A Cheerleader When It Comes to Queer Satire

    Bottoms Still Can’t Top But I’m A Cheerleader When It Comes to Queer Satire

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    Being that the queer film canon remains shockingly scant after all this time, it goes without saying that the even more hyper-specific genre of satirical queer film is limited, in essence, to 1999’s But I’m A Cheerleader. Twenty-four years later, things haven’t gotten much more “ribald” or “perverse,” if we’re to go by what Bottoms is offering. Which is something to the effect of Fight Club meets Mean Girls with a dash of Heathers (that’s how the pitch would go, presumably). Compared to the latter movie solely because it, too, is set in high school and has a snarky, over-the-top (read: representative of reality, yet we must call it “over the top” to delude ourselves into thinking reality isn’t that grim) perspective. A.k.a. what people bill as a satire. This, of course, means caricatures of stereotypes. A stereotype, obviously, already being something of a caricature without needing to further amplify it. Unless it’s to make a point about some larger truth. Which Bottoms, in the end, fails to do.  

    In contrast, But I’m A Cheerleader makes its point from the very outset of the movie, with a title sequence that plays April March’s “Chick Habit” (long before Quentin Tarantino ever decided to use it) as quintessentially hot cheerleaders jump up and down in a manner befitting the male gaze. Except that, this time, it’s being seen through the female gaze of Jamie Babbit’s lens. And the images of those cheerleaders bobbing up and down will come back moments later, when Megan Bloomfield (Natasha Lyonne) needs to imagine them in order to seem even vaguely interested in the tongue-thrashing kisses of her football player boyfriend, Jared (Brandt Wille). When she finally makes it home for dinner, the plates prepared on the table tellingly all have meat on them, except for one, an empty space next to the peas and mashed potatoes where Megan’s mom will plop down her “vegetarian option.” Her father then engages in saying a very pointed prayer about giving people the strength to accept their “natural” roles in life. Feeling exposed by that statement, Megan does her best to sleep the lie of her life off in her room that night as a poster of Melissa Etheridge watches over her. 

    And so, within the first five minutes, But I’m A Cheerleader we’re given far more satire through visual cues than what we get at the beginning of Bottoms, directed by Emma Seligman, who co-wrote the script with her Shiva Baby star, Rachel Sennott. Going from a college-age girl to a high school girl for this role. But that can all be viewed as part of the satire (like Greta Gerwig casting a “too old” Ryan Gosling for the part of Ken, citing inspiration from Grease’s casting choices for high school students). Funnily enough, PJ (Sennott) seems to throw shade at that switch by saying, “We’re not gonna be sexy little high schoolers forever. Soon we’re gonna be old hags in college.” This said to her lifelong best friend, Josie (Ayo Edebiri, twenty-seven to Sennott’s twenty-eight), who is far less confident about being “hot” enough (according to PJ) to talk to the girls they’ve been crushing on for years. For Josie, that slow-burn pining is for a cheerleader (because, yes, the But I’m A Cheerleader connection) named Isabel (Hannah Rose Liu, no relation to Lucy, though still a nepo baby by way of being daughter to the founders of The Knot). For PJ, her more sexually-charged, less “in love” attraction is to another cheerleader named, what else, Brittany (Kaia Gerber, nepo baby nu​​méro deux). 

    Rather than commencing with anything visually, the first few minutes are pure dialogue, starting with PJ saying, “Tonight is the fucking night, okay? We’ve looked like shit for years, and we are developing.” Their back and forth continues on the way to the school carnival PJ is forcing them to go to, the one that kicks off the school year, but, more to the point, serves as a way to glorify the football team through quaint notions of “school spirit.” These quaint notions are also present for a reason in But I’m A Cheerleader, thanks to Megan’s status as, duh, a cheerleader. As though hiding behind that ultimate emblem of “all-American-ness” will throw people off the scent of her true identity. Which should mark at least one notable change between 1999 and 2023: theoretically greater acceptance of queer people in high schools (just not Floridian ones). Which is why, when Josie says, “This school has such a gay problem,” PJ replies, “Okay, no. No one hates us for being gay. Everyone hates us for being gay, untalented and ugly.” In other words, being gay has never been “chicer,” common even, if you know how to wield it to your advantage. 

    And yet, since PJ and Josie haven’t been able to make their gayness “work” for them, they decide to capitalize on a fortuitous coalescing of events: 1) the assumption that they went to juvenile hall over the summer after PJ jokingly confirms a fellow reject’s guess about why Josie has a broken arm, 2) Isabel running away from Jeff in the middle of the carnival and seeking refuge in Josie’s car before the latter slowly starts the car and drives toward him, just barely grazing his knee, 3) Jeff milking this for all its worth (even though nothing happened) by showing up to school the next day on crutches and 4) the announcement that a football player from the Vikings’ rival team, the Huntington Golden Ferrets, attacked a girl to quench some of their bloodlust. All factors conspiring to make PJ’s idea to start a fight club in order to attract their scared fellow female students and therefore possibly lose their virginity to one of them (being a satire, whether or not any of these girls are actually lesbians seems to hold no importance for PJ and Josie—especially PJ, who perhaps rightfully assumes that everyone is gay). Yes, this is the entire far-fetched crux of the movie. Nonetheless, as it said, stranger things have happened. 

    And since “weird shit” is more accepted by the mainstream than it was in 1999, it bears noting that Lionsgate Films, known at that time for distributing more “indie” fare instead of low-budget horror or high-grossing franchise movies (e.g., Twilight and The Hunger Games), was the company willing to pick up But I’m A Cheerleader. In the present, things seem to have gotten slightly friendlier toward queers in that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (more specifically, its revived Orion Pictures imprint) chose to distribute Bottoms. Then again, that studio has been queer-friendly since at least the days of Some Like It Hot. Thus, what Bottoms posits about being a lesbian in high school in the twenty-first century is that it’s so normalized now that homo girls are perhaps saddled with the worse fate of actually having to make themselves interesting and cool beyond “just” their sexuality.

    Enter the fight club, sponsored by PJ and Josie’s horrendously uneducated English (?) teacher, Mr. G (Marshawn Lynch, a former football running back himself). Who doesn’t show up until after the first meeting, where PJ takes the inaugural punch from Josie to prove they’re “legit.” Knocked to the ground, she rises up with a bloody face and an expression that mimics the sentiment behind, “One time she punched me. It was awesome.” It doesn’t take long for word about the club to travel around, and, just as PJ planned, Isabel and Brittany start to show up. Before they know it, the bonds of sisterhood are being forged—complete with “sharing trauma” time as they all sit in a circle and express themselves emotionally after already doing so physically. 

    In But I’m A Cheerleader, that form of sharing comes in the “re-orientation” meetings, the first of which prompts Megan to finally admit she’s a lesbian. After all, the film is divided into the five steps of the “recovery” program at True Directions, the first being: “Admitting You’re A Homosexual.” Megan doesn’t feel all that great after the admission, looked upon by Graham Eaton (Clea DuVall), another lesbian she shares a room with, as delusional for thinking that she can be “fixed” now that she knows. For this isn’t Graham’s first time at the rodeo, having been harshly judged by her family for years, and currently threatened with being disowned and disinherited (the ultimate power play). Hence, the jadedness…and the freedom with which she eats sushi (done for the sake of the line: “She’s just upset because the fish on her plate is the only kind she can eat”). 

    Additionally, the hyper-saturated color palette and overall “are we in the 1950s?” vibe of the movie is part of its genius. And what amplifies its ability to expose heteronormativity for its absurdity (particularly during the scenes of “Step 2: Rediscovering Your Gender Identity”). Bottoms, instead, already too easily benefits from the Gen Z assumption that being gay is “no big.” Never seeming to stop and look back at what all the homos who came before had to endure for them to be in this place of “levity.” Which is why the idea that one could “make light” of homophobia in the late 90s is automatically more powerful than any satirical slant Bottoms could ever hope to offer. With existing further in the pop culture timeline so often being a bane rather than a boon, at least where innovation is concerned. 

    And it seems like Seligman knows, on some level, that Brian Wayne Peterson’s script is the standard for satirizing what it means to be queer in a world “built for” the straights. Ergo, a subtle nod to But I’m A Cheerleader that comes in the form of a diner called But I’m A Diner, where Josie goes on her first “date” with Isabel. Who is, again, a cheerleader. One who eventually shows us that she swings her pom-poms both ways. Indeed, in the same way that But I’m A Cheerleader ends with Megan making a grand gesture to Graham, so, too, does Bottoms end with Josie (and PJ) engaging in the grand gesture of beating up the Huntington football team as a way say they’re sorry for lying about going to juvie and starting a fight club solely for the hope of getting some snatch (which, of course, makes them no better than men). And while this might be more elaborate than Megan’s simple cheer at Graham’s “I’m Straight Now” graduation ceremony, it doesn’t change the fact that But I’m A Cheerleader remains the crème de la crème of queer satire, right down to RuPaul as an “ex-gay”/True Directions employee wearing a “Straight Is Great” t-shirt.  

    This, in part, is because But I’m A Cheerleader had (and has) the advantage of being of its time. Therefore, coming across as more avant-garde and powerful than Bottoms could ever hope to. By the same token, were Bottoms not released in the present, it wouldn’t have enjoyed the undeniable value of queer ally Charli XCX scoring the entire soundtrack, in addition to adding some of her own already-in-existence tracks, like “party 4 u” from How I’m Feeling Now. That said, the But I’m A Cheerleader Soundtrack is nothing to balk at, featuring such dance floor anthems as Saint Etienne’s “We’re in the City” and Miisa’s “All or Nothing.” And so, while Bottoms is a welcome addition to the lacking and challenging genre of gay and lesbian satire, it still can’t quite hold a candle to the masterwork of the category. Coming in as a close tie with 2004’s Saved!, itself riffing on the premise of But I’m A Cheerleader via the gay boyfriend who’s also sent to a “conversion therapy” camp plotline. Whoever releases the next effort, however, will now have to at least top Bottoms.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • The Eyes Don’t Have It: Succession’s Series Finale, “With Open Eyes,” Emphasizes That Hubris Makes You Blind

    The Eyes Don’t Have It: Succession’s Series Finale, “With Open Eyes,” Emphasizes That Hubris Makes You Blind

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    If Kendall (Jeremy Strong) hugging Roman (Kieran Culkin) toward the end of the series finale of Succession reminded viewers of anything, it’s that, when it comes to the Roys, love fucking hurts—and seems to cause far more pain than it’s worth. The last episode, “With Open Eyes,” offers an ominous title in and of itself without any backstory, but taking into account that it continues the Succession season finale tradition of using lines from John Berryman’s “Dream Song 29,” it adds yet another sinister layer. Berryman himself was haunted his whole life by his father’s suicide when the poet was just eleven. With Succession being, at its core, a show about daddy issues and what they can wreak, it seems appropriate to interweave this writer into final episode titles. And oh, what a final episode “With Open Eyes” is. And yes, it’s all about eyes in this narrative. Particularly how those with sight can be so blind (see also: King Lear).

    The emphasis on eyes begins the moment Shiv (Sarah Snook) arrives in Barbados at the urging of her mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter), to come and comfort Roman after the beating he took at the end of episode nine, “Church and State.” Naturally, Shiv is only really interested in taking the trip so she can lock down another vote and really secure the GoJo deal for Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård), who has promised to make her the CEO once the merger and acquisition goes through.

    Alas, in the business realm, where misogyny reigns more supremely than anywhere else besides politics, it’s clear that Matsson actually doesn’t feel that comfortable with Shiv taking the front seat while he rides shotgun at best, and in the trunk at worst. A profile in some New Yorker-esque rag featuring a cartoon of Shiv as the puppet master pulling Matsson’s strings (even though the article is called “Is Lukas Matsson Taking Over the World?”) does little to assuage his wounded ego. After all, he’s already being forced to stand in the shadows for the sake of the deal going through with an anti-foreign business president taking the reins (or not…the finale leaves that open-ended as well). And it seems to dawn on him that it would be so much better to have someone (a man, of course) in charge that he could boss around with far more ease than he can Shiv, who easily lives up to her nickname by shiving Kendall in the back at the end of the episode. And just when it seemed like the trio was getting along so well, too. That is, back in the kitchen of Caroline’s “hellhole in paradise.” After Caroline remarked to Shiv about being unable to “tend to” Roman, “There’s something about eyes. They just kind of, ugh, revolt me.” Shiv clarifies, “Eyes? Like human eyes we all have?” “Yeah, I don’t like to think of all these blobs of jelly rolling around in your head. Just…face eggs.” To be sure, that is what they amount to when you can’t really see past the blinding nature of your own hubris.

    Something all four of the Roy children suffer from…because let’s not forget about Connor (Alan Ruck). Even if his appearance is minimal as usual, but nonetheless effective. Especially when, via a fresh home movie, he stands next to Logan (Brian Cox) and delivers a performance of “I’m a Little Teapot” “in the manner of Logan Roy.” The lyrics then, naturally, go, “I am a little teapot—fuck off! Short and stout—what did you fucking call me? Here’s my handle, here’s my fuckin’ spout. When I get steamed up, you can hear me shout—Frank Vernon is a moron, Karl Muller is a kraut!” But Karl (David Rasche) can still sing a good Scottish folk song as he regales the dinner table with his rendition of “Green Grow the Rashes, O.” The lyrical content of which hits too close to home for the Roy children as they listen to the words, “Green grow the rashes, O/The sweetest hours that e’er I spend/Are spent among the lasses, O/The war’ly race may riches chase/And riches still may fly them, O/And even though they catch ‘em fast/Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O.”

    What modicum of something resembling “hearts” the Roy children might have certainly don’t allow them to enjoy much, that’s for sure. Indeed, they all seem like masochists who actually relish torturing themselves, and reminding the other siblings of who they really are. For a brief moment in the episode, Shiv and Roman are compelled to make Kendall forget who he is at his core by obliging him in his long-standing, ceaseless desire to become Waystar Royco’s CEO. Upon Kendall informing Shiv that Matsson ousting her (per craftily-secured intel from Greg [Nicholas Braun]), the trio at last aligns to form a bloc that will stop the vote from going through. The only problem, as usual, is that none of them can agree on who should be CEO.

    With Kendall swimming out to a dock to let his siblings confer in the darkness of a Barbados beach, Shiv and Roman discuss whether or not they ought to finally just let Kendall have what he’s been dreaming of ever since this whole saga began. Roman asks, “Should we give it to him?” An annoyed Shiv says, “Yeah, we probably should.” Shiv pauses and then adds deviously. “Unless we kill him.” Although meant “in jest,” it’s ultimately exactly what Shiv decides to do by ousting her big bro at the last minute. And when she cuts him with that knife, he definitely bleeds, saying, “I feel like…if I don’t get to do this—I, I feel like, that’s it. I might, I might, uh, like I might die.” And there is that exact feeling as we watch him sink via the elevator back into the bowels of the cruel real world. Whether or not he tries to kill himself now, Kendall is already dead.

    Perhaps it’s all part of his karma for Andrew Dodds (Tom Morley), the waiter who ended up drowning at the end of season one as a result of Kendall’s insatiable search for drugs. When Kendall spots the waiter, just fired from Shiv’s wedding by Logan, he asks him for a “powder” connect. When Andrew tries to offer him some ketamine, which he does himself, Kendall insists he needs a “different vibe tonight”: coke. Thus, Kendall drives them through the darkened English countryside in search of Andrew’s connection. When he sees a deer in the road and swerves, Kendall crashes the car in the water, leaving a ket’d-out Andrew to die. In the present, when Shiv and Roman bring the murder up (which Kendall confessed to them in the season three finale, “All the Bells Say”), Kendall has lost all sense of guilt for the “incident,” immediately responding, “It did not happen. I wasn’t even there.” He then reiterates, “It did not happen!” Because when rich people say something didn’t happen, then it definitely didn’t. But this denial makes Shiv all the more disgusted by her brother, and therefore convinced they’re better off selling the company than letting him be the CEO. Blinded by her own jealousy, of course, she would rather watch the company burn in someone else’s hands than let Ken take his shot. And, talking once more of eyes and sight, when Roman reminds that, in terms of “bloodline,” Ken’s children aren’t “‘real’ real,” he escalates the eye jelly comment Caroline foreshadowed to the next level by pressing Roman’s eyeballs in (already having mushed Roman’s face into his shoulder in that previous scene of “aggressive love”).

    This gives Shiv her opportunity to go back into the meeting and cast her vote in favor of the GoJo deal despite being betrayed by Matsson. And despite the fact that the CEO position will go to, of all people, Tom fucking Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen). The one person who should have been axed ages ago both personally and professionally, but managed to shapeshift his way to the top. Indeed, it’s his “mutability” that makes him so appealing to Matsson, whose opinion of this non-person is obviously cinched when Shiv describes him as “very plausible corporate matter” and “a highly interchangeable modular part.” In other words, exactly what Matsson is looking for in his own puppet. And, being that Tom sells himself by noting of his current position, “I’m cutting heads and harvesting eyeballs,” Matsson can tell he’s got the chops to give the chop to whoever he says, whenever he says. Of course, Tom’s mention of harvesting eyeballs is yet another nod to the notion of sight and vision—or rather, lack thereof—in this episode, and in Logan’s progeny.

    Kendall obviously had no foresight about Shiv’s sudden treachery, prompting him to continue to stand in disbelief in the office where the emotional and physical altercation transpired. Roman finally lays the truth out for him: “It’s fuck-all, man. It’s bits of glue and broken shows, fuckin’ phony news, fucking come on.” Unable to see that reality, Kendall keeps urging, “We have this, we can still do this.” Himself seeing clearly for the first time, Roman balks, “Oh my god, man, it’s nothing. Okay? It’s just nothing. It’s fucking nothing. Stop it!” Kendall, who has placed his entire identity into this role of “successor” cannot believe what Roman is saying, repeating “no” over and over again until Roman interjects, “Yeah. Hey, we are bullshit… You are bullshit. You’re fucking bullshit, man. I’m fucking bullshit. She’s bullshit. It’s all fucking nothing, man. I’m telling you this because I know it, okay? We’re nothing. Okay.”

    And so it is that Roman is the one to finally admit that what Logan said at the beginning of season four was accurate, even if harsh: “You’re such fucking dopes. You’re not serious figures. I love you, but…you are not…serious people.” Only ornaments and pawns in the life of Logan, the quintessential King Lear figure of this narrative. And yet, a Cordelia never seems to manifest in any of his children. It’s nothing but Regans and Gonerils where the obsession with “winning at inheritance” is concerned.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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  • Cameron Frye and Connor Roy: “My Old Man Pushes Me Around” No More!

    Cameron Frye and Connor Roy: “My Old Man Pushes Me Around” No More!

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    Just as it is for the Roy family at large, for many viewers of Succession, Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) is pure background. It hasn’t really been until season four that he’s been permitted his moment to shine. To “take a stand,” as Ruck’s most famous character, Cameron Frye, would say. And it starts with episode two, “Rehearsal,” in which he displays the full extent of his vulnerability during a karaoke session. Not just because he opts to sing Leonard Cohen’s “Famous Blue Raincoat” but because, just as he did in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as Cameron, he decides to take a stand and defend it. And yes, singing Leonard Cohen at karaoke (even if only in a room as opposed to a more public stage) definitely counts among the ranks of taking a stand and defending it (regardless of Roman [Kieran Culkin] jibing, “This is Guantanamo-level shit”).

    It’s no coincidence that he should choose that particular song, either. Not with Cohen singing, “I hear that you’re building your little house deep in the desert/You’re living for nothing now, I hope you’re keeping some kind of record.” Lest one needs to be reminded, the early seasons of Succession find Connor living alone in the desert of New Mexico in his palatial palace. A cold place in a hot climate, where he still can’t seem to finagle something akin to love. Not even from his “girlfriend,” Willa (Justine Lupe), a call girl he pays to keep around. Eventually paying enough to make her want to be his full-time girlfriend. But back to the lyrics of “Famous Blue Raincoat,” also fitting for Connor’s sibling situation with the Cain and Abel allusion in the line, “And what can I tell you my brother, my killer?”

    Both Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman have no need of killing their half-bro, however—for he’s so irrelevant to their patriarch, Logan Roy (Brian Cox), that wasting any energy on him would be wasting much-needed focus on “securing the position.” CEO of Waystar-Royco. Something that was never going to belong to “hapless” Connor, who spent three years of his childhood without seeing his father at all. “Attachment” isn’t exactly a thing between him and Logan, nor is it between Cameron and Morris, who never appears once in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—merely looms large as a source of fear. Especially after Ferris (Matthew Broderick) gets Cam (“Con” also has a shortened version of his name) to take his dad’s Ferrari out for the day.

    Not one to be disagreeable, Cameron ultimately concedes to loaning out the car after several half-hearted attempts at protesting. Lying in bed genuinely sick (even if only in the head) as opposed to Ferris’ fake-out version of sickness, it’s clear Cam’s family doesn’t need to be played to in order for him to get out of school. They’re never around anyway. Least of all his father, off being the “provider” of the family, therefore excused from anything like involvement. Yes, it sounds a lot like Logan Roy. And Cameron, like Con, leads a privileged existence with the trade-off of never experiencing any emotional attachment or care whatsoever. With regard to “Con,” there’s one in every family, to be sure. Someone who never gets quite the same amount of attention or consideration. Whether because their personality is more demure or they don’t seem “special” enough to warrant as much care. Connor falls into both categories, with Shiv (Sarah Snook) in the Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara) role and Kendall and Roman trading off on being the overly arrogant Ferris Bueller (Roman obviously being more Ferris-y than Ken). A scene of Cameron stuffed in the back of the Ferrari that Ferris and Sloane are effectively using him for speaks volumes vis-à-vis this dynamic. The only time anyone bothers with Con is when they need him for something…so basically they never much bother with him.

    Sure, he’s there for “ceremonious” events like birthdays and family vacations, but, by and large, he’s out of the fold. Until season four rolls around and, suddenly, the “Rebel Alliance” that is Shiv, Kendall and Roman ends up prompting Con to say, “This is how it is, huh? The battle royale? Me and dad on one side, you guys on the other.” This after Willa has walked out on their wedding rehearsal dinner, leaving Con with no one to “turn to” for “comfort” but his so-called family. The trio of his siblings (all of whom show up late because Logan cut off their helicopter access) amounts to one giant Ferris Bueller, the narcissist in the dynamic constantly taking up space and demanding more from the Cameron/Connor of the outfit. Meanwhile, all Connor is asking for is a round of karaoke at Maru, one of many overpriced options within the parameters of Koreatown’s 32nd Street.

    Upon arriving to said location (under duress for most of them), Connor is quick to admit that he told Logan where they are, and he’s coming over to “talk things out”—presumably the deal that Shiv, Kendall and Roman want to fuck by asking for more money of Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) in exchange for merging his streaming company, GoJo, with Waystar. In defense of himself, Connor replies to the sibling backlash, “My life isn’t filled with secrets like some people. And I want my father to be at my wedding.”

    To everyone’s surprise, though, Logan wants to make an “apology.” Or the closest he can get to one. But with all the hemming and hawing, Kendall is quick to redirect his father’s messaging by demanding, “What are you sorry for, Dad? Fucking ignoring Connor his whole life?” He later adds, “Having Connor’s mother locked up?” This being why Connor refers to the cake at his wedding as “loony cake.” A type of dessert he apparently associates with Victoria sponge cake and doesn’t care for at all because it was what was fed to him for a week after his mother was institutionalized. So yeah, even Kendall can take a moment here and there to stand up for his older brother and acknowledge that Con might have had a more emotionally bankrupt childhood than all of them.

    In that regard, his bid for normalcy is earnest when he declares to his brothers and sister, “I would like to sing one fucking song at karaoke because I’ve seen it in the movies and nobody ever wants to go.” Perhaps he saw it in a certain form in the movie that he co-starred in with Broderick, as the latter plays the titular character lip-syncing to Wayne Newton’s “Danke Schoen” and The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” on a parade float in the middle of Chicago. Something Cameron nor Connor would ever do. Possibly because attention-seeking is a type of love-seeking. And that’s never been either character’s “game.” Though both slowly start to realize that maybe it should be. Even as Connor notes something as heart-wrenching to his siblings as, “The good thing about having a family that doesn’t love you is you learn to live without it… You’re all chasin’ after Dad saying, ‘Oh love me, please love me. I need love, I need attention.’ You’re needy love sponges, and I’m a plant that grows on rocks and lives off insects that die inside of me. If Willa doesn’t come back, that’s fine. ‘Cause I don’t need love. It’s like a superpower.”

    Cameron Frye knows that’s not entirely true. It’s also a curse that causes severe anxiety and depression, finally pushing him toward the revelation, “I’m bullshit. I put up with everything. My old man pushes me around…I never say anything! Well he’s not the problem, I’m the problem [cue a lawsuit against Taylor Swift]. I gotta take a stand. I gotta take a stand against him. I am not gonna sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I’m gonna take a stand. I’m gonna defend it. Right or wrong, I’m gonna defend it.” Something Connor must decide to do in “Connor’s Wedding,” easily the most landmark episode of Succession ever aired. And yet, as usual, just because his name is in the title doesn’t mean he gets the theoretical spotlight. No, this is all about his father. Just as it always is. The same geos for Cameron and Morris, inciting the former to finally lose it and kick the shit out of the Ferrari as he screams, “I’m so sick of his shit. I can’t stand him and I hate this goddamn car! Who do ya love? Who do ya love? You love a car!”

    To this, Logan Roy might placate, “I love you…but you are not serious people.” These are his final sentiments directed at his children. Though no one is aware of it until the next day, when Logan’s heart fails (ironically appropriate) while on a private jet to negotiate the deal again with Matsson…thanks to his own kids painting him in a corner to do so. It was the previous night at karaoke that Logan understood the scope of his disgust with them. For here he is, the affluent, distant father figure (like Cameron’s) being unclear what more his children could “take” or want from him after everything he’s already given. Back out on the street with his latest “right-hand woman,” Kerry (Zoe Winters), he clocks a homeless man digging through the trash and seethes, “Look at this prick. They should get out here. Some cunt doing the tin cans for his supper, take a sip of that medicine. This city…the rats are as fat as skunks. They hardly care to run anymore.” Obviously taking a swipe at his lazy, greedy children. Except for Con, who really just wants it all to be over. Unfortunately, it’s only just getting started now that Logan is dead. And as usual, Con is the last to know about it, gently informed by Kendall only to instantly reply, “Oh man, he never even liked me,” trying to smooth that statement over with, “I never got the chance to make him proud of me.”

    Of course, that was never going to happen. Because there is no “pleasing” a man like Logan or Morris. And Connor always getting the short end of the stick from his father reaches a poetic peak with him dying on Connor’s wedding day, casting a dark, attention-stealing pall over the event. All Con can finally assess about it to Willa is: “My father’s dead and I feel old.” Cameron probably would have said the same thing. And he, too, probably would have soon after carried out his intended plans for the day. After all, he’s not one to let his old man push him around anymore, especially not now that he’s dead. He’s going to take a stand (for “love”) and defend it. Right or wrong.

    That’s why, in the end, he goes through with the wedding, not bothering to join his three half-siblings as they go to deal with their father’s body and make a statement to the press. In this sense, Connor has always been the freest, learning long ago not to bother chasing down the love of a patriarch who was incapable of it. Perhaps learning that from the person he was in another life: Cameron Frye. Meanwhile, Connor’s siblings will continue to volley for Logan’s invisible favor in not-so-subtle ways even after he’s gone.

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    Genna Rivieccio

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