well i was in the middle of writing this and then it all got deleted, so i guess we're starting again. last night my friend took me to a party - i thought it would be fairly quiet and it wasn't but it was fun and i met a lot of people. he introduced me to about a hundred people and walked me home at 1am and we stood outside my apartment talking for nearly an hour, and he gave me a hug and then another hug and then we said goodnight. i think it's good to have friends who take care of you like that, though in the grand scheme of things i don't know him all that well, and i think it's also good to have friends that you can harmlessly flirt with. i think he's just very deeply a sweetheart. last night i was chatting with this girl at the party, and we'd really been hitting it off until then, and she mentioned she'd interned at the state department and that she loved tony blinken, and i was just kind of taken aback. who in their right fucking mind thinks that a man who did absolutely nothing to stop an ongoing genocide and in fact enabled it is a good person? ugh. i think it's just the college they all go to. but today i saw so many people from the party last night walking around and it kind of surprised me - i'd gotten used to not recognizing anyone and to not having anyone recognize me. maybe it's for the best that it's changing, though i don't know if it'll last.
anyways, today was not at all going well for most of it (terrible weather, woke up late, didn't leave my apartment until 3:15, couldn't focus on my work, did not speak to a single soul in person all day, etc etc etc) so after i staved off a panic attack with a walk and some minor shopping (a new tealight holder and a heart-shaped lock for an upcoming trip acquired, three dresses stripped off with horror in the frankly terrifying dressing room of the local Zara) and a phone call with my sister, i made dinner and took myself off to see babygirl. i went alone - i mostly go to movies alone these days, because i have an unlimited monthly movie pass and i love the movies and i like having something to schedule my days around. also this movie kind of reminded me of an ex situationship who i was down so bad for and he literally did not give a shit about me but he called me babygirl and bonita all the time so i think i can be excused for getting a little confused.
having seen this movie now, i have terrible news: babygirl is not good. i really enjoyed the first two thirds but it falls apart completely in the last third. i think this is because it sort of fundamentally misunderstands its own erotic stakes: the thrill is that they're doing something they both know is wrong, and they're doing it anyway because the wrongness is what makes it sexy, but the tension never really rachets up to a breaking point. also the bdsm stuff is kind of weird. is romy into it because she wants to blow up her life? is she into it because she wants to cede control? is she into it because the danger is sexy? is she into it because she's exhausted by the experience of performing perfection and optimization in every facet of her life? admitting what you want is dangerous if what you want threatens the bounds of your picture-perfect life.
what interests me is that she's a tech ceo: she's overseeing the increasing mechanization of an entire industry. tech, mechanization, optimization, all of this in stark contrast to the animality she so clearly craves. she feels like her desire is wrong, dark, twisted; she is unable to express her desires to her husband, and when she tries (and fails) to do so, he refuses--it would make him "feel like a villain." his inability to do what she's asking seems to demonstrate to her that he doesn't actually know her, and how devastating must that be? your partner of nearly 20 years does not know something that feels fundamental to you, like it's eating you from the inside, and when you try to show it to him all he does it reaffirm that it's bad, it's shameful, it makes you a bad person.
so what romy's responding to is not actually samuel. it's what samuel represents: a man (an overgrown boy, really), who can see her and see what she wants and will give it to her. and the wrongness of the situation gets her off. if romy believed that her desire was acceptable, she would have just gone to a sex workshop or something. she needs to be told that she's just as dirty and depraved as she feels (though samuel doesn't actually do this, interestingly enough). my point is this: harris dickinson, charming and sleazy and sly as he might be (and he is, i would argue, the actual babygirl in this movie), does not play someone who's actually dominant. he wants to boss her around, sure, but he's unsure of himself while he's doing it. he likes the power he has over her, and part of that power is that he knows her most humiliating secret, and he knows how much she wants him, and that's humiliating in and of itself. but he's not a very convincing dom. he's just kind of hot and well versed in the language we are all currently using to describe sex.
my point is, the actual bdsm in this movie is kind of embarassing and not sexy, and that's honestly pretty realistic! what the movie gets right is that it's ultimately very embarassing if you're not good at it. if the person you're having sex with doesn't know what they're doing, it's extremely cringe! there is nothing more offputting than someone who thinks that they are cool and dominant and whatever just absolutely flubbing it. if you've given yourself over to another person, put yourself completely in their power in exchange for the blessed relief of not having to think for yourself for a few minutes, given yourself over to animal pleasure--that's vulnerable and intimate. and the thing most guaranteed to kill that vibe? the person who you've given all that power to just kind of fumbling their way through it. (also, i hated when he called her babygirl but firmly believe that him saying "good girl" to her is honestly the most erotic part of the movie). having a d/s relationship is fine, but you should both be pathetic and begging for each other maybe.
so what romy is responding to is the stakes, the danger, all the stuff that doesn't exist in her life with her family. but the movie shrinks away from any kind of actual consequences of her affair with samuel. the scenes in the car and in the office, where samuel acts like a petulant child, unreasonable and demanding and capable of actually ruining romy's life, are in some ways the most interesting. here are the consequences! and then the movie backs off. samuel moves to tokyo, to work at another tech company and presumably smoke more cigarettes. romy tells a threatening male coworker to fuck off, and (in one of the movie's worst fucking lines) that if she wants someone to humiliate her she'll pay them to do it (nevermind that the movie's internal logic actually forbids her from frequenting sex workers!). romy's husband forgives her (after samuel, embarassingly, tries to explain to him that female sadomasochism is not just a male fantasy and that he, the vaunted nice-guy-male-feminist-husband, is actually not up to date on sexual mores) and is able to make her cum just by putting his hand sort of near her eyes. the nuclear family is restored, yay. one wonders if this entire movie could have been avoided by someone purchasing a copy of the ethical slut. if romy has everything locked down so tightly that she cannot admit what she actually wants to her husband and needs to have it ferreted out by a hot and kind of unethical intern, why is she able to tell him what she wants by the end of the film? more importantly, why are we bothering to reify the conventional nuclear family et al. in what is supposed to be a sexy and illicit movie? basically, i found it kind of boringly conventional.
i think where the movie is actually most interesting is in the implicit critique of all the work / hr stuff (why is esme fucking an intern? that's also a fireable offense!) and the constraints of being a woman and a mother and a #girlboss. i think i'm going to watch secretary tomorrow. or jane eyre, the original "oh no i want to fuck my mean boss" story. lots of love.
next.
don't call me baby in that voice, you're embarassing the both of us!