| Every week, I answer a question from the Act Four Live chat in the Wednesday edition of this newsletter. You can read the transcript of the Sept. 18 chat here, and submit questions for the Sept. 25 chat here. This week, a reader who loved Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” wonders what’s up with the people who hated it. As someone who really dug the movie, I find the intensely polarized reaction to it fascinating. With the caveat that cherry-picked quotes in the Hollywood Reporter aren’t necessarily representative of audiences as a whole, a lot of the more viscerally negative responses to the movie that I’ve seen suggest an aversion to being challenged or made to feel uncomfortable, whether due to the film’s graphic elements or the story’s allegorical nature. Obviously, it’s perfectly valid to not like “mother!” as it’s definitely not something that would appeal to everyone (then again, neither are Marvel movies), but I do feel like people can be too quick to write off or disengage with art that doesn’t immediately please them or fit their expectations. What are your thoughts on how to handle culture/entertainment that provokes discomfort? Full disclosure here: I actually walked out of a screening of “mother!” on Friday. I left for a couple of reasons: I was feeling under the weather, I didn’t have a clear plan to write about it, I could tell it wasn’t going to be for me, and I had some things to finish up for my unfolding giant project that started to feel more pressing as the movie proceeded. But I go to a lot of movies, and given that all of popular culture is my potential beat, I’ve gotten fairly accustomed to cutting bait when it seems clear that something is going to make me miserable in a way that probably won’t produce an interesting insight. But beyond my specific disinterest in “mother!” I want to make two points. First, I’m a big believer in the idea that it’s okay for everyone to know their own limits. For example, I have a severe phobia around eye damage, so within the limits of my professional obligations, I try to avoid work that features that. It’s one thing to avoid anything that makes you even marginally uncomfortable, and another to have tried multiple times to expand your horizons in a certain direction and to ultimately conclude that no matter how much you try to stretch yourself, something is still going to leave you viscerally upset and unable to be discerning in another area. Not that my issue is remotely this severe, but I would never tell someone who survived rape or sexual assault that they have any sort of obligation to watch, say, “Game of Thrones,” if it really upset them. There is a difference between staying away from material that will challenge your political worldview or your sense of who deserves your empathy, and staying away from material that you know you can’t handle for more visceral reasons. Second, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be upset about something if you walk into a movie expecting one thing and get something else entirely. Before “mother!” came out, my friend Scott Meslow predicted that it would get an F Cinemascore because the marketing campaign for the movie had been so disingenuous. There’s a huge difference between consciously going to see a movie you know is going to push you and being prepared for that, and, say, going on a date to something that turns out to be jarring, even shocking. If folks hated “mother!” not because it was inherently challenging to them, but because they hadn’t prepared to be challenged, I don’t really think that reflects poorly on them. |
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