Director Julia Ducournau has become
synonymous with the “feminist body horror” genre. By pioneering the idea of the
horrors of femininity, without the loss of agency and autonomy for her subjects,
has elevated Ducournau as a premiere auteur of indie filmmaking. Each of her
three films to date have pushed the boundaries of expectation, understanding
and taste. Boundary breaking, and at times, culturally caustic, Ducournau’s
filmography challenges cinephiles through a lack of narrative conventions and a
simultaneous allegorical richness, which requires repeat viewing. Whether her subjects
be a vegetarian vet with a penchant for cannibalism, a nonbinary, gender-fluid
serial killer with objectophilia for automobiles, or a self-destructive teen during
a postapocalyptic future brought on by a pandemic with statuesque virulence,
there is absurdity, and an unconventional construction of tone, plot and
character to Ducournau’s films that is as refreshing as it is grotesque. Therefore,
Julia Ducournau is the subject of my next director series that is sure to push
the boundaries of conventional cinematic language into something beyond.
BREIF BACKGROUND
Birthed
from a gynecologist mother and a dermatologist father, on November 18th
1983, it is unsurprising that Julia Ducournau’s filmmaking trajectory is both
within and guided by the body horror subgenre. While not “in her blood” as many
who would use a biologically deterministic argument to explain how the award-winning
director got her initial inspiration, it stands to sociologically reason that her
parent’s careers, through the process of socialization, would have an indelible
impact on their daughter. Given Ducournau’s films, the similarities between
what is often the film’s subject and the expertise of her parents, there is
little denying their influence. Ducournau cites their candid and direct
discussions about the body and death led her to be fascinated with the flesh, consciousness,
and the way that the body could be manipulated. This fascination became
crystalized when Ducournau went to film school.
Studying
film and screenwriting at the prestigious La Femis, Durcournau’s auteristic
tenure has been met with wide acclaim and critical success. The second female
(cis or trans) to win the directing Palme d’Or at the CANNES film festival
(behind Jane Campion for The Piano) her work has been described as
revelatory, uncompromising, thrillingly provocative, with visuals that many
find disturbingly erotic. Durcournau’s richly sparse trilogy of films has
always been something to watch. Given the general acceptance of her films by cinephile
critics, Durcournau’s latest venture, Alpha, has become one of the more anticipated films
screened at Cannes in 2025,
to the point of myths arising around the film that are akin to Freidkin’s The Exorcist. Yet, as of this writing, early
reviews out of the festival seem to be the harbinger of mediocrity for Ducournau;
the most scathing coming from artistically anarchic auteur apologist and cinephile
champion critic David Ehrlich of Indiewire calling the film both “dour and dismal”. Thus, with her most recent feature,
Ducournau may be beginning to experience the missteps and disparagement that inevitably
accompanies artistic expression.
Ducournau’s inspirations have been cited as Lynchingly
Cronenbergian with a sprinkling of Shelly and Poe. Ducournau uses both a
command of the camera, including an eclectic series of shots, techniques and
storyboards to crystalize this amalgamistic aesthetic of tone and style.The body horror aspects of Ducournau’s feature
length directorial triptych: Raw, Titane, and Alpha, can easily be
laid at the feet of early Cronenberg (VideoDrome, The Fly) while the twisting
reveals, and often radical shifts in composition, lighting, narrative and tone
are positively Lynchian; specifically, The Elephant Man. Because of these influences, Ducournau’s films
are difficult to describe, but easy to spot, given the audience reactions to
them out of context. “She ate him?” (Raw) “Did she just fuck a car?” (Titane) “Is
she turning to stone?” (Alpha). Allegorically artistic, Ducournau channels those
influences into a consistent expression of the horrors of the female body.
THEMES
In looking at Ducournau’s brief filmography there is a
level of thematic consistency in her work. Coming from a desire to make genre
films that blossom from reality, Ducournau understands that we draw from the
world around us for inspiration and to say something about our everyday lives.
However, she has also indicated that her films should not be pigeonholed into a
political
pamphlet.
This
apolitical stance of filmmakers is common. It is often born out of a desire to
maximize revenue and profit the most off of their art by a reluctance to produce
anything that would be perceived as politically polarizing, or more
artistically, allows the audience the freedom to interpret the filmmaker’s art
independently, in their own way. This is understandable, even refreshing, but
ultimately impossible, and often perceived as a cop out. Because film is a social
and cultural product, it reflects both the time-period and the individuals that
the film is telling stories about. This relatability is key. So, that even films
set in the most fantastical world can still say something about the world we live
in today.The personal is political, as
film is socio-cultural, regardless of the filmmaker’s economic or artistic
intensions. Thus, if a socio-cultural and political stance is going to be presumably
applied to the film anyway, filmmakers should make their intensions known, so
that they are not misconstrued and their art is not misinterpreted and used in
ways that do not align with the artist’s beliefs. However, intension is not a requirement
for thematic embodiment, as with Ducournau’s filmography, there is an audience
projection of themes that are present when consuming her art; specifically, those
of feminism and body autonomy.
Feminism and body autonomy
One of the many struggles that female
directors face, in addition to the consistent misogyny brought on by the
historical patriarchal exclusion and invisibility of women in such a creative
and authoritative position, is the assumption that everything that director produces
is perceived as feminist. A person’s genitalia, their sex assignment at birth,
or their gender identity should never assume a political ideology, even as one
as generalized and tepid as equity and equality for all women. Yet, unfortunately,
anything a female director produces, there are attempts to politically
commodify it and use their work to make a broader point[1], regardless of if it fits.
Ducournau’s trilogy of films,
carries with it a clear fascination and understanding of the female body. In an
interview with The
Independent, Ducournau has stated that women “… have to accept some parts of us that are hard
to watch, hard to acknowledge because it’s in us, because it’s scary.”. For her,
from the embrace of the monstrous can result in emancipatory liberation, whether
that be through cannibalism, objectophelic gender fluidity, or statuesque
virulence. This is because of the contrast of the female monstrous body in
comparison to its often-misogynistic sexualization, and a deification of the
female body through the process of childbirth often projects a reference for
the female body that has been mythologized. For Ducournau, by rejecting this understanding
of the female body is to also reject a heavenly invoked gilded cage of
patriarchy’s design. Instead, by embracing the utility and practicality of
female bodies we can see their central power that is often obfuscated by the soft
aesthetic that is applied to them. Ducournau’s films tear away at that façade
and embraces the grimy grotesqueries of girlhood as their emotional prism of empowerment
outside of the patriarchal structures that seek to control them.
Because of Ducournau’s focus on depicting
the often-literal deconstruction of the female body, much of the forthcoming
analysis will be pulled from many post structural philosophers, feminists and sociological
scholars. The central works of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Julia Kristeva,
bell hooks, and Nancy Frasier may be used or make an appearance in the reference
list of each film’s criticism. The link between body and identity, their mutual
transformation and expression that Ducournau depicts on screen, shall be peered
through this academic lens.
CONCLUSION
The
modern body horror genre would not be as rich and vibrant without the work of Julia Ducournau. She challenges the way that we see and understand
the female form. Through the embrace of the grotesque and its application to
the female body, we can help to break out of the cultural misogyny of the near innate
sexualization that objectifies and strips girls from the transformative power
that they hold within themselves.
The fifth film in my analysis of The films of Celine Sciamma is the childhood fable, Petite
Maman. Sciamma shows complete command of the medium as she unfolds a
fantasy about coping with grief, the human fallibility of our parents, and the
importance of cultivating relationships based on equal power and authority.
This short paper will look at the creative wake after Sciamma’s previous film: Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and the impact of COVID-19 on the
development of this story of familial friendship between mother and daughter;
before subsequently breaking down and applying the specific Sociological idea
of Socialization, and the rites of passage experienced through one’s family and
peer groups; social mechanisms which shape our understanding of the world and
help us foster a sense of self-identity that carries us through into adulthood.
PLOT
After the death of her grandmother, 8-year-old Nelly (Josephine
Sanz) accompanies her parents to her mother’s childhood home to remove her grandmother’s
belongings and settle affairs. The morning after their arrival, Nelly’s mother
abruptly vanishes leaving her father in charge. That same day, as she is
walking in the woods, Nelly comes upon a young girl named Marion (Gabrielle
Sanz) who is building a fort between a small grove of trees. Nelly quickly
deduces Marion to be her mother’s 8-year-old self. Over the next three days, both girls have
interactions and adventures in the past and present. Through these adventures
they grow closer, learning about and from one another, until the magic that
brought them together dissipates, returning to their own time; happy, accepting,
and more contemplative.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
The two most significant historical events that impacted
the expression, interpretation and craft of Petite Maman were the
COVID-19 pandemic, its lockdown, and the dissipation of the acclaim and success
of Sciamma’s previous venture. The combination of the critical financial and
populist wave for Portrait climaxing at the end of the award season
circuit, and immediately after, the world transitioning into lockdown due to
the COVID-19 global pandemic, for Sciamma, was the creative equivalent of a high-speed
car crash. The film at once speeding down this highway of accolades, which abruptly
ceased when the world shut down. However, with that time, Sciamma crafted what
some have called a necessary pandemic picture.
Production
When Portrait of a Lady on Fire was released in
2019, it sent Sciamma on an unexpected whirlwind media tour that continued to
build with each viewing. Her sapphic period romance struck a chord with critics
and fans alike. The raw emotion and devastation of Portrait[1]
spoke to the audience as it pulverized their collective metaphoric hearts. Soon,
an
entire fan culture
was built up around the film bringing together those with an affinity for the
period drama. People began to share memes, engage in cosplay, and get a variety
of tattoos to commemorate the film. In true death of the author fashion,
Sciamma’s quasi-biographical revisionist story of an artist falling in love
with the subject of her painting became owned by the public. It was a community
that had formed around the enjoyment of the film. Fans would immortalize their
favorite scenes in paint, as they reproduced specific shots from the film. Additionally,
critics heaved high critical praise
on the film. These
lauding accolades launched the film into one of the best of 2019 with Sight and Soundranking it one of the 30th greatest film of
all time. Never had Sciamma experienced this level of success and acclaim,
discussing it makes her feel outside herself. In an interview with Director Joachim
Trier for the Petite Maman Criterion edition Blu-Ray, Sciamma described
this experience as “the best most intense years of her life” even if she was
overwhelmed by the response (Criterion Collection 2023). While the festival
circuit and press junkets certainly feel like their own siloed cyclone of self-indulgent
propaganda for a director; they do taper off and eventually expel their energy
upon the shore. Yet, after March 2020, around when all of the production
advertising for the film was ending, the world shut down. There was no other
wave to ride. However, it turned out to be the perfect recipe for Sciamma’s
next venture.
The period of the COVID-19 lockdown
was devastating. Uncertainty and mass death loomed as collective interaction
became literally toxic. With almost 1.2 million people dead in the US by March
2022, those of us who survived (either the virus, lockdown or both) became
accustom to social distancing (6 ft) washing our hands consistently,
repeatedly, for at least 28 seconds (everyone had a different song in their
head), having “driveway” meet ups and greeting each other with our elbows. For
those lucky enough to get through relatively unscathed, it was a very weird
time. The culture shift was immediate and encompassing. The sociological study
and analysis of this period will be forever a rich window into human behavior
under stressful conditions that ran the gamut of: holding an introverted secret
that some people liked the pandemic excuse to not have to go places or see
people, to the right-wing “libertarian” political caricatures who protested
state and federal buildings with guns over having to wear a mask. For films and
the industry, it was equally challenging and overwhelming for all involved.
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown also
meant that movie theaters were shuttered, barring a short window of
ill-advised reopening, from March 2020 until April 2021. This left a lot of
people in the industry scrambling. Most films had some type of delay (as in the beginning few people
knew how long restrictions and lockdown were going to last). Drive-ins became popular again, and helped indie theaters stay
afloat, Streaming Services were launched with the promise of new release
movies directly to customers homes, and Christopher Nolan thought he could
single handedly save the theatrical experience with Tenet. Like the social programs put in
place during the great depression, no one single fix for the industry worked to
stave off massive financial losses, and inadvertently created a culture of
anti-theater going that theater-owners are still trying to correct today. Yet,
under these conditions, art was still being made, and Petite Maman, from
its inception to its premiere is a paragon of pandemic filmmaking.
Land locked in France in March of
2020, Sciamma went to sleep and dreamt of two young girls building a fort in
the forest; one of those girls was the mother, and the other was her daughter.
When she awoke, she knew that she had the idea for her next feature. As Sciamma
developed the script, the pandemic raged: no vaccines, and not a lot of hope on
the horizon. Some of the real-world loss began to bleed into the script. The
story’s inciting incident of the loss of an elderly loved one who you “didn’t
have a good goodbye” with, became practically prescient given how many loved
ones expressed last words through alienating
cell phone communication
because of the risk of infection. Those same loved ones would eventually be piled
into refrigerated trucks because the death toll was so high
they could not process all of the bodies quick enough. A poor ‘goodbye’ indeed.
Still, in this context, Sciamma wanted to show us a way forward, and this is
often easily done through the eyes of a child.
Principal Photography on Petite
Maman began in November 2020 and shot for 25 days, ending in December 2020 just
around the time that the first COVID-19 vaccines were released, and well before
the federal mandate. At the time, heavy restrictions were placed on film
productions in order to maintain the spread, before the number of inoculated reached
parity. According to the European Film Commissions at the
time, a film
production operating during COVID (but after the lockdown order was lifted)
required:
·Test
for Actors and Related Professionals-
Everyone needed to test negative before filming.
·The
Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)- face mask, respirators and latex gloves for everyone
on the crew
·Personal
Disinfectant- For
extensive and long takes. Crew members must carry disinfectant wipes or a 30
ml. bottle of personal disinfectant to wipe areas clean during filming set ups.
·Onsite
Organization- There
needs to be larger spaces made available to maintain safe distances when crews
work and eat; to maintain a 6-foot distance.
·Temperature management- Everyone on the
crew must have their temperature checked before the start of the shooting day.
·Catering-
All the food
needed to be packaged for take-away so that they could eat it while engaging in
social distancing.
·Securing
the Location- When
scouting locations assume the place is infected; and cleaning crews should go
ahead of time and clean everything.
·Necessary
Documentation- In
contracts there needs to be an expression of the risk of exposure, so that if
anyone contracts COVID-19 they cannot sue the studio.
·Management
during Filming There
needs to be a coordinating and supervising of anti- contagion measures by a
safety specialist
·Focus
on Waste Management-All
possibly infected equipment needs to be properly disposed.
These were
the strict conditions under which Petite Maman was filmed. According to
the Criterion (2023) interview, Sciamma mentioned that there was so much
distance and protocol keeping the crew and the actors apart that it felt very
alienating at times, especially considering the French child actor labor laws,
that only let child actors work for three hours a day. These restrictions, both
in European countries and around the world, created a collective experience
that linked all films in production at that time; whether they decided to
continue principal photography, shutter production, or wait it out and come
back when normalcy was thrust upon us.
COVID era filmmaking had some surprising
similarities because of these parallel restrictions. Regardless of plot, genre,
and style that might make them seem more diverse, many films were structured in
a similar way
Films shot entirely during COVID, often:
·Were
shot in a single location or multiple isolated locations.
·Involved
few actors
·Blocked
scenes with three or fewer people interacting at a time
·Had
a limited crew
·Included
camera techniques to try to make up for the production difficulties
These
similarities point to the fact that shooting under the Pandemic restrictions lend
to a certain type of genre filmmaking, specifically Dramas, that can be
introspective and thoughtful rather than bombastic because that added risk. The
films that did not fit this criterion that were being shot during COVID were most
likely the films that were already in production prior to lockdown, which
resumed once restrictions were lifted.[3] Some of the films mentioned
the pandemic, while most others ignored it.
For
Petite Maman, since Sciamma conceived it just prior to lockdown, when they
were allowed to begin principal photography, she knew how and where she wanted
to shoot the film. It has two primary locations: The woods and the grandmother’s
house (set dressed to look like the past and the present). The set had few
rooms and there were no more than three actors in a scene together at any one
time; and only 5 total actors in the main cast. The story moves back and forth
from the house, with each room having scenes in both the present and the past.
It is economical, terse and brilliant for the conditions the world was under;
and gives credence to the arts’ ability to thrive even in the worst circumstances.
SOCIAL
ANALYSIS
According to Sciamma, one of the major
influences on the development and style of Petite Maman was Hayao Miyazaki, more specifically My Neighbor Totoro[4]. The Ghibli-esque childhood whimsy
while experiencing hardship is fully embodied by Sciamma’s 2021 film. Its
circumstances and casual acceptance of the extraordinary with little
interrogation mirror Miyazaki’s work in beautiful way.Both films provide some amount of magical realism,
and both films deal expertly with the themes of fear, grief and loss.
Grief and Loss
Sociologically,
grief and loss are rarely touched upon, as these subjects are often monopolized
by Psychology, and its derivative variants. Yet, grief and loss are something we
all collectively deal with, it is a feature of all cultures and life in
general. There are aspects of collective grief that create and bind
communities, cults and collectives together. Empathy allows for a clearer
understanding of others regardless of cultural, generational, economic or other
identity barriers. We all grieve. We all experience loss. And yet, we often, by
choice or by circumstance, endure grief alone.
The
Sociological theoretical perspective that is often used to talk about the more
social psychological aspects of life is symbolic Interactionism (SI) and more
specifically the social construction of reality. Briefly, symbolic
interactionism is a sociological conceptual framework which emphasizes the
creation, meaning and application of various symbols (usually language and
gestures) through social interaction and observation. Constructionism, a
derivative of SI, understands that meaning is conditional to the historical,
cultural and social context that is present. So, through these lenses, by
living in society we understand grief and loss by how we interact and react to
people experiencing it; while recognizing that other cultures, societies and
nations throughout time have a different but equally respectful (usually)
process for dealing with death.
According
to Maciejewski, Falzarano, She, Lichtenthal, and Prigerson (2021) there are
three basic principles of bereavement: Void in the Social State, Void Filling, and
collective acceptance. The “Void in the Social State” refers to the monumental
shift that happens micro socially to individual lives when experiencing loss. There
is a massive context shift for the individual(s) who are left behind. In the
case of spousal loss, the bereaved has to content with being single again,
adopting the roles and responsibilities that were once shared with the deceased
partner. Additionally, they also have to reconfigure their position in the
various external relationships that they are a part of. This restructuring may
increase in difficulty depending on how those relationships were established,
which may also cause disruption (Maciejewski et.al.
2021).
Continuing
the bereavement process requires a “filling of the void” left by the departed.
Typically, this is understood as a mental distraction, and people throw
themselves into work, hobbies or home projects as a form of avoidance from
dealing with grief and processing the loss. However, this urge to avoid and
process, while common, leads to isolation which creates a self-destructive
spiral of internalized blame. While more difficult, it is much healthier to do
the opposite and not only lean on already established relationships but do best
to create new ones which will develop new roles for the bereaved and challenge
them to reconfigure their relationships (Maciejewski et.al. 2021).
Collective
acceptance is achieved through the understanding that while specific grief and
loss is unique to the individuals involved, the general experience of grief is
socially shared. Life exists and therefore also death. It exists every day,
even if we are not its current target, either directly or indirectly we all
will know death. This collective acceptance of death can be comforting. This is
unfortunately hindered by our cultural individualism, which reinforces the
uniqueness of persons rather than all of the overlapping experiences we all
share.
Petite
Maman sees Nelly
and her family go through these bereavement stages. The first shot of the film is
of an empty hospital bed. The camera then follows Nelly as she walks through
all of the rooms of the Nursing home saying “Goodbye” to all the residents
there. It will later be revealed the greater significance of this moment, but
in the film’s opening, it is showing us a visual representation of “the void in
social state” by showing us the wake of what the dead leave behind; and as it
is removed, the emptiness that is left. This continues through the establishment
of the grandmother’s house in the present; it too is emptying throughout the
film’s run time. Nelly and her parents also seek to fill the void by understanding
their roles after their loss. While Nelly’s parents are direct and extremely
candid with her about their lives and what they can remember from their
childhood, it is the establishing of Nelly’s relationship with Marion that allows
Nelly to process not only her own grief but understand her mother’s process through
loss as well. Thus, by the end of the film, both Nelly and the adult Marion understand
each other as they have come out of this process, filling the empty space left
by their loved one.
Socialization-
The Family and Peer Groups
Socialization, the process of social
learning that begins prior to birth and continues throughout a person’s life,
is guided by individuals, groups and institutions that break up this necessary
information into digestible and “age appropriate” pieces. This process is divided
for better comprehension and scaffolding through childhood into adulthood by
using cultural rites of passage that provide a smoother transition into more
responsibility and give greater amounts of freedom.Two of these mechanisms that assist in this
process of socialization are the family and peer groups.
As
a mechanism of socialization, the family provides a filtered glimpse of the
social world. It does not give the children a complete and full picture of reality
out of a sense of protectionism. It is through the family that a child’s world
first gains structure- one that is fluidly designed by the parents’ values, choices
and experiences; to give their children a since of creativity through fostering
their imagination and exposing them to the broader social world to prepare them
for adulthood. One particularly difficult part of this process is the slow
relinquishing of control that results in both parents and children recognizing
each other, both outside of the roles they were originally given, and seeing
each other as a person. By befriending Marion (the younger version of her
mother), Nelly begins to see her mother as a person outside of her familial role.
Marion reveals to her future daughter that she wanted to be an actress but
eventually gave up on that dream. Nelly also comes to realize that the bouts of
depression that overtake her mother were never her fault. Marion assuages her daughter’s
guilt by saying “It is not about you... I can’t stop thinking about you...I
can’t wait to meet you. But sadness is something that is always there.” Setting
aside the magical realism that allowed this friendship to blossom, many
children come to these realizations, that their parents are also flawed
fallible people from either a crystalized moment of disappointment through therapy,
or both. Sciamma just contextualizes through the power of cinema the
realization that all parents are people and not the center of anyone’s
universe.
Peer
groups are another mechanism of socialization that is integral to the social learning
process of socialization. The fundamental importance of friends, colleagues and
others in the same age group in understanding the social world can be explained
through the difference between sympathy and empathy. While often used as
synonyms, these terms have a fundamental difference that highlights the value
of peer groups to the overall process of deciphering the ordered chaos of any
social reality. Often, when sympathy is invoked, there is a lack of similar
context involved. A person who sympathizes has likely been through a similar/same
experience, but not within the current context, with the same pressures and
demands levied on a person. Additionally, when someone is being sympathetic,
there is likely an air of judgement or sense of superiority built from feelings
of pity and privilege. Their emotional or social investment is miniscule, or
contaminated by classist, racist, sexist or ethnocentric pedestaled posturing. Empathy is generated when individuals either experience
the same context as another person or can accurately place themselves in the
emotional and social state of others. Out of all the mechanisms of socialization,
peer groups lend themselves to empathy more easily than other groups.There is power in the solidarity of experiencing
the world in the same place and time as other people. Collective experiences
allow us to form bonds and have a collective conscience for how the world is interpreted
and known.
Nelly
and Marion have their first meet cute in the forest and strike up a quick friendship
over the building of a fort in the woods. The forming of this peer group, and
the comradery that is built from it, allows for an understanding of each other
and a grounding in an acceptance of personhood beyond the roles they were
assigned in their original familial relationship. Over the three days they are
together, they are able to connect in ways that were not possible with Nelly
and adult Marion. Both children see the world similarly. Through play, cooking,
and conversations they talk through fears, long held desires, and experiences
in the future. Because of their similar age, this can be done without criticism,
providing a strong support system. Marion is worried about a surgical procedure
that she must endure to eliminate the chances of a hereditary disease. Nelly helps
her talk through these fears and is supportive of her until she leaves for the
hospital.Nelly, getting over the loss
of her grandmother and the feelings of alienation from her mother, is assuaged by
young Marion that neither are her fault.Knowing Marion as her 8-year-old self contextualizes for Nelly her
mother’s experiences. This empathy results in a nontoxic sympathy at the end of
the film when mother and daughter are reunited in their own time. Each character
is richer with understanding and a sense of gratitude from the other; both for the
roles that they inhabit, and their individual personalities that illuminate
them.
CONCLUSION
Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman is a masterpiece.
A condensed whimsical magically realist minimalism in the style of early Hayao
Miyazaki, this film embraces feelings of hope and familial bonds at a time when
the eminent and immediate threat of a global pandemic siloed individuals into
bubbles to stop the spread of a virus. Sciamma is the first director in my director
analysis series where I did not like their earlier work, but they managed to
win me over with the latter half of their filmography. Regardless, their contribution
to cinema, especially the focus of the non-objectifying camera through “the
female gaze” needs to be heralded as the cultural shift needed to encourage
more cis/transgendered females and nonbinary people of every fluid sexual disabled
and neurodivergent identity to become writers and directors to tell their own
stories.
The Criterion Collection 2023. “ A
Conversation with director Celine Sciamma and filmmaker Joachim Trier” in Petite
Maman Blu-Ray (Spine 1181) Dir Celine Sciamma.
[1]
Seconded only by the work of Wong Kar Wai and Linklighter’s Before Trilogy
[2] It
needs to be mentioned that COVID is still around and continues to be a
persistent threat.
[3]
The one notable exception to this is Dev Patel’s “Monkey Man” a revenge action
film that was able to be filmed because production were incarcerated ina strict 500 person COVID- bubble.
The development of Sociology as a
discipline has always run parallel to the rise of western Capitalism; both
being born out of industrial revolutions that spanned between 1760-1850 and
gained prominence through the social changes those revolutions created. These
ideas also coincided with the independence of British colonies that would
become the United States. These fraught fraternal fledglings became fatefully
intertwined. Whereas Sociology would use historical events, and
political/economic analysis to criticize capitalism; the United States,
primarily built by white wealthy landowning men seeking a regress of taxation,
would embrace it. This began our propagandistic and irrational fetishizing of
Capitalism for over two millennia, creating one of the more corrosive spurious correlations
between wealth and intelligence. This is because in a capitalist system,
economic success has become a chief indicator of intellect[1]. Colloquially, people
state: “How’d they make so much money if they weren’t smart?” without factoring
in a variety of social factors like family inheritance and opportunities born
out of an overabundance of intersecting privileges (class status, Whiteness,
cisgendered maleness, sexuality and ablebodiedness). Popular culture has been
one of the most effective tools to spread this false claim into every crevice
of our social order and thereby germinating this insidious amalgamation between
one’s bank account and their IQ[2]. One of the more
understated examples of this, that has collectively had the wildest impact
recently, is the deification of Elon Musk through the lens of The Marvel
Cinematic Universe’s portrayal of Tony Stark by Robert Downey Jr. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate
the power of this comparison on public perception and examine the dangers of
manufacturing the myth of the ‘benevolent billionaire’ which has contributed to
our current socio-political (constitutional) crisis in the US.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
The histories of Elon Musk and Marvel Studio’s
representation of Tony Stark embodied by Robert Downey Jr. have orbited one
another, each intersecting the other’s trajectory at a variety of points
throughout Musk’s and the character of Tony Stark’s life course. However, the
impact of these intersections has unfortunately had grave real-world
consequences that are difficult to disentangle.
Concurrently with his education and
work experience, Musk began a history of corporate virulence. With money lent
to him by his father, Musk and his siblings created Zip2, an online yellow
pages in the early days of the internet. Zip2 was acquired by Compaq in 1999.
Musk took his 22-million-dollar buyout and spun it into an online financial
services and e-mail payment company called X.com. X would eventually become
PayPal when it merged with Confinity. When Musk became CEO, technological
problems and a poor business model led to the board ousting Musk and replacing
him with Peter Thiel. When PayPal was eventually sold to Ebay, Musk being the majority
shareholder was paid 175.8 million dollars. This began a pattern of Musk
buying/acquiring companies or organizations, gutting them of personnel and
regulation and then hoping to sell the pieces into his next venture.[3] Musk took his PayPal
payout to the Mars Society and founded Space X in 2002.
The founding of Space X marks the
time when Elon Musk begins to orbit US politics. At the time, President Obama
both increased NASA’s budget (by $ 6 billion) but decided to cancel the Constellation program, its Ares 1 and Ares
V rockets, and the Orion spacecraft while committing to the privatization of launch
vehicles to the Orbiting Space stations under the COTS program. Space X got the contracts. Space
X continued its relationship with the government through their next venture
“Starlink” a consumer internet business that sends batches of internet-beaming
satellites into orbit. Since 2022, Space X has had the Federal Communications
Commission contract for 13,500 satellites that would make up the Starlink Internet Network which pulled Musk deeper into the
political sphere.[4]
In
addition to an alignment of ideologies, Musk’s political interest is mostly
financial. This is because
the companies that he helms would be in constant financial jeopardy without government
contracts. Musk thereby ideologically shifts towards whichever political
wind will net him the most revenue. Yet, since aligning with Donald Trump, he
has seemed emboldened to express various levels and varieties of hate speech:
from misinformation, general technocratic dehumanization
(Eugenics) , Trans
discrimination, sexism, antisemitism, and white pride that culminated in Musk
giving a “Roman Salute” at Trump’s Second Inauguration that was interpreted by White Power Groups,
and most of the general public,
as the Nazi Zig Heil. At the time of this writing, The Department of Government
Efficiency (DOGE) the Agency tasked with reining in Government bureaucracy and
spending that Musk (sort of, but not really, only actually) leads, is dismantling the regulatory agencies
of the government that were directly overseeing his
companies. Yet, even
with all this veiled history, to the pain he is currently inflicting on
millions, there are those that still see him as a savior and a genius,
including himself. To understand where that comes from, we need to investigate
the MCU portrayal of Tony Stark.
The
MCU’s Tony Stark
In the
early 2000’s, there was a fraction at Marvel Comics regarding the adaptation of
their characters to TV and Film. In the years prior, to stave off bankruptcy,
Marvel Comics had sold the adaptation rights to some of their biggest
characters. The X-Men were at Fox, The Incredible Hulk was at
Paramount and Spider-Man was at Sony, each with their own complicated legal
entanglements of where, when, and how these characters can appear on screen. In
2002, upon the landmark success of the Fox Studios produced X-Men and Sony’s
Spider-man, executive David
Masiel met with the President of Marvel, Ike Perlmutter (at Mar-a-lago of all
places), to try and convince him that Marvel was leaving money on the table by
licensing their characters rather than producing their own films (Robinson,
Gonzales and Edwards, 2024). However, since selling off their best assets,
which in the early 2000’s were way too profitable to let go,[5] Marvel had to start with
lesser known, C and D-list heroes at the time.
Originally
conceived by Stan Lee in the early 1960’s and modeled after Howard Hughes, the
comic book portrayal of Tony Stark was, at its inception, a hard drinking, war-mongering
misogynist.
According
to DiPaolo (2011)
“[Lee] deliberately designed
Iron Man to be everything the readership hated as a creative challenge to see
if he could convince a liberal reader to find a “Military Industrial Complex”
billionaire protagonist likeable despite his conservative politics…Lee said
that he was not trying to change his readership’s politics, but to see if…[an]
inventor and munitions maker could be successfully presented as a redeemed
anti-hero.”
It is
unclear if Stan Lee knew the indelible cultural impact this would have. His
whimsical wager against writers’ block contributed to the chipping away of the public’s
disdainful animosity for the wealthy elite, and convinced readers that wealth,
weapons and womanizing can make a hero. This unfortunately laid a problematic
foundation for how Tony Stark would be portrayed on-screen.
Another problem came in November
2001 when Karl Rove had a meeting with the head of the Motion Picture
Association of America, Jack Valenti. The Bush Administration needed a unified
response to terrorism for the purposes of national security:
1.The
US campaign in Afghanistan was a war against terrorism, not Islam
2.People
can serve in the war effort and in their communities.
3.US
troops and their families need support
4.9/11
requires a global response.
5.This
is a fight against evil
6.Children
should be assured that they will be safe
While not
stating this as propaganda, Rove did declare that leaders of the industry have ideas
about how they want to contribute to the war effort. (Robinson et al, 2024:
61).
Rove’s
actions speak to the way the media is used by the government to shape public
perception. But, instead of news reels and cartoons playing before films as
they did during WWII, the mechanism of propaganda has become far more incestuous
in years since. Regularly, film production and video game developers are
provided with military consultants that control the depiction of the government
and the military in that medium. For film, this means a lower production budget
in exchange for script approval and distribution access. Therefore, during “The
War on Terror.” the undercurrent of major studio productions was to encourage
support for US foreign policy.
During
the development of what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the
United States was in two wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) and had a former weapons
manufacturer as a Vice president (Robinson et al 2024). With the Bush Administration’s approval
ratings on a steep and steady decline,
Tony Stark was the perfect choice to be propped up as the propagandic paragon
of US military efforts to show that “[even a merchant of death]…has a heart”. Thus,
the writers for Iron Man (2008) recentered Tony’s backstory around being
captured in Afghanistan rather than Vietnam and had him be injured by his own munitions;
thereby centering him in the current moment and fulfilling the criteria set by
Rove. However, they still needed to make him likeable. Enter: Robert Downey Jr.
At
the time of his casting, Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ) seemed to have just come out
of auditioning for Tony Stark in real life. Considered a commercial failure and
substance abuser, RDJ had been recently fired off of Ally McBeal, and
even though he was clean and sober in 2007, he was on probation as early as 2005,
and that made the producers nervous (Robinson et al 2024). Director Jon Favreau
went to bat for Downey. When it was clear that the studio had no intention of
hiring Downy, Favreau leaked the news of RDJ’s casting to the press which was
met with fan enthusiasm (art was imitating life after all). Once he was cast,
both Downey and the writers went to work on fleshing out who Tony Stark was
going to be for the MCU.
“Stark was as if “Musk
took the brilliance of [Steve] Jobs with the showmanship of [Donald] Trump,”
adding: “He was the only one who had the fun factor and the celebrity vibe and
actual business substance.”
For his part, RDJ was encouraged by
Favreau and others to draw upon personal experiences, and producers would hope
that his face would be “a visual shorthand for the character.” (Robinson et al
2024). Thus, the MCU’s Tony Stark has the wealth and social awkwardness of Elon
Musk, Showmanship of Donald Trump, the charisma and humor of Robert Downey, all
wrapped up in a personification of US Militarism. Unfortunately, as this
version of Tony Stark grew in popularity, so did the lines between the
character, actor and their inspiration (Musk).
When
Art imitates life, and back again
Pop Culture and film are always used as a
truncated reference and explanation for the social world around us. We compare individuals,
people, and social situations to characters and plots of film and TV;
especially when those situations are hard to explain. When Iron Man exploded
onto the screen, RDJ’s portrayal of Tony Stark as a brilliant wisecracking do-it
yourself superhero who flouts international laws and commits war crimes by
murdering brown terrorists with precision and prejudice was a smashing success.
This annihilation of blatant terrorism was the cinematic wish fulfillment that
the public thirsted for after 9/11. Tony Stark/Iron Man was the white male savior
that was using weapons and militarization to make the world a better place. Whom,
in future installments, would quip that he “wanted to put a suit of armor
around the world” and “privatize world peace.” Sentiments that have henceforth
been reiterated by various people in power.[6] This is because superheroes
like Tony Stark “constitute an appealing form of pro-war propaganda, that
across the board, encourages a militarist view of the world and represents a form
of American Fascism.” (DiPaolo 2011: 19). We have commodified and coveted this
image enough for billionaires to use it as both rationalization and shield for
their crimes.
Tony
Stark’s popularity in the public consciousness and the overall cultural
zeitgeist, caused people to start looking for his real-world proxy. Given their
biographies were already ingredients of Tony Stark’s psyche, Musk and RDJ
started to become deified as the real Tony Stark themselves; RDJ allowing his
public persona to be taken over by the character so completely that it is
difficult to find a difference between character and actor in interviews and
public appearances. Meanwhile, Musk promoted and internalized these comparisons
to Stark which were furthered by his brief cameo in Iron Man II (2010). Musk
even went so far as to create a 3-D model of Space X
rockets similar to the way the films would depict Stark’s designs. These manufactured parallels
allowed the public to fantasize Musk to be that real life white
savior, jumping from the screen to save them, while simultaneously obfuscating the danger he poses
as a real world threat.
SOCIAL
ANALYSIS
The power of the comparison between the MCU portrayal
of Tony Stark and Elon Musk is found not only in how the popularity of the
character shapes public opinion, or in the expectation of hero worship as an
escape from the continuous monotony/occasional terror of our daily lives, but also
in the confluence of our conditioning to the myth of the benevolent billionaire
coupled with an emergence of a neurodivergent masculinity labeled in online
circles as the “Sigma” male. This
combination of traits furthers the embroglio between the image of Tony Stark
and Elon Musk.
The
Myth of the Benevolent Billionaire
In
a Capitalist system, money is a superpower. It creates opportunities and access
to resources, it whitens, masculinizes and “ables” peoples’ bodies; meaning it
minimizes the barriers that people experience for being a member of a
marginalized group. Money is the catalyst for transformation as much as various
forms of irradiation, or the mutation that follows in many superhero origin
stories. Therefore, it is not surprising then that the heroes that grace the
pages of comic books that are touted as “just human with no superpowers” are
almost always wealthy. Money bridges the chasm of physical, psychic or
supernatural abilities and puts humans on par with Gods in these stories.
The
combination of wealth and altruism was fueled through both a billionaire’s own
desire for legacy and the misinterpretation of capitalist cautionary tales that
isolate billionaires as being heroic. The savior complex for billionaires is
never built upon self-sacrifice, but trades on its belief in perpetuity. Many
of the wealthy American Families at the turn of the 20th Century had
a history of giving to charities and other “worthy causes”, not because they were
selfless and cared about “their fellow human”, but because of tax breaks
afforded to philanthropy, and the desire to maintain the legacy of their name.
Thus, names like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Wrigley, JP Morgan, and Vanderbilt
grace the side of concert halls, stadiums, office buildings, and plazas. The
founder of The Nobel Peace Prize, Alfred Nobel, made his fortune through
dynamite production. This has continued today with billionaires starting
charities, giving away millions of dollars while simultaneously hiding billions
in offshore accounts and stock dividends to avoid taxation. These practices
then combined with the popular misinterpretation of cautionary tales of
capitalism.
One
of the most common stories that manufactures this benevolence in billionaires is
the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in the Dickensian classic, A Christmas
Carol. Throughout the story, the reader rightfully is presented with the
interpersonal dangers of capitalism. Greed begets isolation, loneliness, and
bitter emotional stagnation that makes you cruel. While this anti-capitalist messaging
is important and valid; this story is one of the first that also presents
readers with the idea that the billionaire can be reformed, as every depiction
of the end of A Christmas Carol presents Scrooge as still an
economically wealthy man; his charity changing the lives of the people around
him; and they love him for it. This reinforces that money can be used for
emotional manipulation and still presents relationships as being transactional.
This
idea of benevolence is furthered in our superhero media. Comic books and their TV/Film
adaptations depicts these rich oligarchs as brilliant crime
fighters;
furthering the idea that social problems can be solved by wealth and individual
determination rather than collective action. This presents wealth as no longer
a corruptible force (as the intended message of Ebeneezer Scrooge’s plight) but
as a tool for righteousness. Iron Man and Batman are among the richest and most popular characters that parlay their wealth into an
unfathomable network of gadgets, equipment, and training for their own private war
against their understanding of injustice. Sure, at the same time they also
engage in various amounts of philanthropy; but their true work is always
outside of the system. This was astutely pointed out by Mathew Alford in his
original review of Iron man:
The Emotional appeal of
Iron Man (2008) rest on the idea that Stark, the self -confessed ‘Merchant of
Death’, has changed his carefree attitude towards arms manufacturing…These
readings of the film ignore the blatant fact that Stark actually continues to
build weapons, only now they are more hi-tech and produced covertly as a part
of his own bodily attack armor.”
(Robinson
et al 2024).
One
dangerous commonality of billionaire crimefighters in superhero fiction is their
egocentrism. The MCU’s Tony Stark always believes himself to be the smartest
person in the room and the one who will always have the right answers even
after he is blatantly proven wrong. In Iron man II, the character stands
up in front of Congress and says that he “Privatized World Peace.” because he
was the only one smart enough to come up with the arc reactor technology. After
he is proven wrong in that same film, he later believes that he can create
artificial intelligence that can act as “a suit of armor around the world” and
promptly created the AI villain Ultron. After that failure, he does submit to
government oversight and regulation in Captain America: Civil War. However,
that regulation is short lived, eventually culminating in his self-sacrifice at
the end of Endgame. Thus, through Tony Stark’s entire arc in the MCU, his
billions and bravado culminate in benevolence. Part of the appeal of Elon Musk
is that many were expecting the same trajectory. Political pundits, talk show
hosts, elected and appointed officials of the US government all have compared Elon
Musk to Tony Stark, opining on Musk’s charities and companies as if to manifest
this benevolence upon him. Yet, whenever Musk is given a chance to show the
world that he may be a hero, he turns out to be a supervillain.
In a
patriarchal system, a person’s masculinity status is perceived as royalty.
Within this [often]-binary structured set of organizations and institutions, those
that have been assigned and openly perform the status of male and masculinity
are venerated; believing that their gendered position exempts them from
behaviors, labor, and expressions they think are beneath them. Thus, in a
masculine dominant society, the ideals, presentation, and behaviors surrounding
masculinity are the first to be policed; and men, are the first to be dominated
(Bourdieu 1998).
As
a part of that mechanism of control and domination, masculinity turns inward,
and like the ouroboros, men begin consuming each other
through the building of an irrational and harmful dominance hierarchy. This
hierarchy is peddled through the unfathomably profitable popularity of “The
manosphere”: the sprawling web of groups, belief systems and lifestyle gurus
that promote these irrational, erroneous and dangerous ideas of toxic
masculinity (Bates 2021).
The
hierarchy begins with the highly contested and debunked concept of “The Alpha”
male. This group has the characteristics of a lot of traditional masculinity:
Strong, athletic, loves sports, cisgendered, sexist, emotionally vacant, and
anti-intellectual. These individuals perceive themselves to be leaders and
reinforce these claims through cherry picked biological pseudoscience and
erroneous myths about the pack mentality of animals.
The next status in this cannibalizing
hierarchy is “the beta male”
“Beta” males are defined
as men who don’t identify/ fit the toxic forms of alpha male behaviors. Some
men embrace this position as a way to show how they are morally and
intellectually superior (the qualities they are using to define their
masculinity) to the “alpha” male. This superiority impacts their views on
women. Because they believe themselves to be superior to the “alpha” male, they
should be garnering the attention of women and not them
The
attention from women here is an important detail, as regardless of where
men are on this corrosive carousel of status and identity, they all perceive
themselves above women. It is their misogyny that binds them. Recently,
there is a new emerging status of masculinity, the “Sigma” male, and it seems
to incorporate autism and neurodivergence in its assessment of masculinity.
“Sigma” coded masculinity arose
first from a 2010 blog post by Science fiction
writer, Jon Beale,
who, in addition to espousing a myriad of racist and sexist beliefs, expressed
his frustration with the generalization of the “alpha and beta” structure and
what he considered “the losers” underneath them ( Just to go down the list:
deltas gammas, lambdas and omegas). Thus, he coined the term “Sigma male” which
is collectively understood as the introverted “lone wolves” and outsiders that
seemed to be on par with Alpha males, but maybe didn’t express their level of
bravado while remaining intelligent and stoic. One characteristic of this “Sigma” type of man
that is often glossed over is their expressions of neurodivergence. Many of the character names that
are often proselytized as “Sigma males” are John Wick, Walter White, Tommy
Shelby, Jason Bourne and Tony Stark. Those unconventional Heroes/anti-heroes, that
do not exhibit hyper masculine qualities, are brilliant but are able to become
singularly focused, mission driven, obsessive, have skilled pattern
recognition, able to be a social chameleon but unable to read social cues all
the time. Thereby incorporating qualities of neurodivergence on the autism
spectrum into this questionable masculinity quagmire.
In addition to the co-opting of
neurodivergence into a masculinity latticework that reinforces misogyny and toxic
self-destructiveness, “The Sigma male” archetype is also a new form of
“supercrip” stereotype. The “Supercrip” stereotype is a type of disability
stereotype often found in action, fantasy and superhero media where a person’s
disability is the source of superpowers which negate the persons physical and
or mental disability. Clear examples of this in comic book media: Daredevil, several
of the X-men, Barbara Gordon, Cyborg, and yes, Tony Stark. With the “Sigma
Male” however, their “superpower” and what makes them a good assassin, drug
kingpin, gangster, government agent and “Genius, Billionaire, Playboy Philanthropist
Superhero” is their neurodivergence.
The
overall contradiction of the Sigma male supercrip, outside of its lack of
social and scientific evidence, is that much of the “Alpha and Beta” status
criteria are flimsily supported through a pseudo-scientific biological argument
of men’s innate nature (which also allows them to justify their frequent transphobia
and discrimination). However, a simple internet search will reveal “the sigma male grindset” a quasi-self-help guide to
becoming a sigma male. This idea of “becoming” leans more into the social
construction of gender than those arguments often used by these groups that
tend to be more based in biological determinism. Granted, the identification of
this hypocrisy should not be revelatory, many belief systems that have cultlike
qualities, as those in the misogynistic manosphere do, are both convoluted and
hypocritical. Because, having a clear set of principles, and the conviction of
those principles leads to accepting consequences for those beliefs. In short,
it takes courage, and these men and their allies have none.
Elon Musk has become the literal
posterchild for “Sigma male” masculinity, gracing the cover of a seminal text on the
subject. With the
help of the myth of the benevolent billionaire, he has been deified by “The
manosphere” as their current and most fervent paragon, and in their mind, a real life Tony Stark. Yet, when you look at the basic
comparison, it is only the sigma male archetype, and the billionaire myth that
connects them. This, as I have argued above, is more of a function of the use
of Musk in the updating and creation of the MCU’s Tony Stark. When looking
closer, they are also leagues apart. Tony is shown to be an inventor and
engineer. Meanwhile, the only thing Musk has designed, not even engineered, is
the Cyber-truck. An ugly eyesore of an automobile that has had so many flaws and recalls that even Tesla dealerships won’t take it as
a trade in. Tony
has built his company on his ingenuity, Musk is a corporate vulture that raids
and consumes companies, destabilizes them and then sells off the pieces into
his next venture, which is more akin to the corporate robber barons of 1980’s
cinema, than the Superhero populism of today.
CONCLUSION
Elon Musk is not Tony Stark.
However, the MCU’s Tony Stark being a symbol of American Militarized Fascism is
a low bar for a comparison. Regardless of the invalidity of this contrast, its repetition
online among the media illiterate masses shaped the public perception of Musk
enough for him to be elevated into the halls of political power in ways that his
billions could not give him access so expeditiously. Although, as Musk
continues to dismantle government infrastructure through these robber baron tactics,
many of his supportive public have reassessed their opinions of him. Yet, we
may be in a situation where the damage he has already done is irreparable, with
no superheroes around to save us.
REFERENCES
Bates, Laura 2021. Men Who Hate
Women: From Incels to Pickup Artists The Truth about Extreme Misogyny Naperville:
Sourcebooks.
Bourdieu Pierre 1998. Masculine
Domination Standford: Standford University Press
Dipaolo, Marc 2011. War Politics
and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film. London:
McFarland and Company.
Robinson, Joanna, Dave Gonzales and
Gavin Edwards 2024. The Reign of Marvel Studios New York: Liveright
Publishing
[1] It
should also be mentioned that this is usually invoked once someone has a lot of
money. Rarely are poor smart people given the confidence that they will have
economic success. If you are not wealthy, it is perceived that you are ‘not
that smart’ or you’re lazy.
[2] IQ
tests aren’t a measure of Intelligence either. I just wanted to not have to say
intelligence over and over.
[4]
Yes there is Tesla and Neuro-link and the purchasing of Twitter. But the
acquisition of government contracts and its leading to his nebulous political
position as the maybe Not, but actual leader of DOGE (Dept of Government
Efficiency) this is the most direct
route if I don’t want the thesis to get lost or have this essay be gargantuan
[5]Fox,
Sony and Universal would consistently put films into production just so that
the rights would not revert back to Marvel Comics. Many films were rushed, announced before they
even had a creative team, and in the “doomed” The Fantastic Four (1994) that
was never intended for release.
