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The Backseat Driver Reviews

Film analysis, recommendations and general snark.

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Coming This Week: The Great Outdoors, The Evil Dead, and Love In the Time of Monsters

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on July 3, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJuly 3, 2016

Really, 2016? You had to take Elie Wiesel too? Would you like to raid my jewelry and kick me in the shins while you’re at it? You know what, we’re not playing this game anymore. Happy thoughts. Here’s a picture of some fireworks.

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Try to find something pretty in the world.

It’s Independence Day here in the U.S. on Monday. Surprise, surprise, I’ll be posting (because not everyone has the day off, and not everyone is American). With the current state of world affairs, who knows where we’ll all be this time next year. To all of my friends in the U.K. that are still reeling from the Brexit vote, I offer this: don’t you worry, guys. In four short months, the U.S. will totally take the heat off you. So in the spirit of up and down, we’re going all over the place this week. We’ll start off with one of my favorite guilty pleasures: The Great Outdoors (because, you know, tis the season for cookouts and outdoorsy stuff). On Wednesday, we’re going to cover one of the few remakes I actually like: The Evil Dead. I’m going to finish out the week with a recommendation for Love In the Time of Monsters, which is a thing of beauty.

On a closing note… if you’re out partying this weekend, please be safe. Don’t cause any accidents, and I hope you’re not part of any accidents. Just… be good to each other. All of this is short, even when it feels long. Take some time to find something pretty this weekend, and be good, humans.

Posted in Uncategorized

Saturday Shorts: He Dies At the End

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on July 2, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJuly 2, 2016

Half the fun of really good horror is suspense. It’s waiting on bated breath for something to happen: a jump scare, gore, a shadowy figure looming in the background. It’s nice when a film knows how to build something, and equally, when to stop and give us a payoff. There’s a short film I found recently that typifies this. I present to you  Damian McCarthy’s He Dies At the End.

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Click here for He Dies At the End.

I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate a film where the actors look like normal people. Our only actor, Fintan Collins, looks like someone with whom I’d work, which makes the story more realistic and therefore more terrifying. Collins didn’t have to talk, as McCarthy made sure that the action was driven by a computer survey. This in and of itself was a huge feat, as it’s tough to get scared while someone is typing. The chills came from what was being typed, which made the process that much more scary, as it had a chat-room/surveillance type feel to it. No one likes being watched in that close of capacity, and many of us have that fear that there is something there, watching us, waiting to pounce. While the end scare could have been better done, I’m giving it a pass for the sheer level of building paranoia and discomfort that McCarthy gave us.

And with that, happy Saturday.

 

Posted in Horror, Saturday shorts

Weekend Movies: Five Reasons to Watch The Princess and the Warrior

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 30, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 30, 2016

I love Tom Tykwer movies. From Winter Sleepers to Run Lola Run to the incredible 3 (which, really, if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out on the best poly love story out there), I love the man’s work. He can get a little carried away sometimes (he can go “Full Tykwer,” as I like to put it, with his symbolism), but I forgive him with the soundtracks he’s contributed. One film of his that I adore is The Princess and the Warrior. It tells the story of Sissi (Franka Potente, an actress I can watch all day), a psychiatric nurse who is saved from death by the troubled Bodo (Benno Fürmann), and the incident changes both of their lives. Here are five reasons to find it and watch it.

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At this point, I’ll watch anything with Franka Potente.

#1 – The mental state of our vets
Being American, I can tell you right now that the way our soldiers come back to us is shameful. Anyone that goes and serves his or her country deserves to come back to adequate healthcare, whether it’s mental or physical. The character Bodo is a vet that has a whole host of mental problems, including anger and violence. It’s tough not to draw a parallel to the care our soldiers should be getting.

#2 – The soundtrack
Tykwer and Johnny Klimeck teamed again on the soundtrack for this film. Does the pairing sound familiar? That’s because our boys have done this before on Run Lola Run, which is one hell of a soundtrack for just about anything (seriously, it works on a car trip or in earphones at an event you don’t want to attend. I know this from experience.). The music they selected and created – including Potente on the song “Fly With Me” – fits very well in this piece.

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The music is a definite plus.

#3 – A cast of familiar faces
Big shock: when Potente and Tykwer were dating, she was in his films. The bad news: now that they’re broken up, that pairing is no more. The good news: they were together when she signed on for this one, and she wasn’t the only actor that Tykwer recycled. Look out for Lars Rudolph and Joachim Krol, both of whom were in Run Lola Run. All  it’s missing is Sebastian Schipper, whom I would follow to the ends of the earth.

#4 – Connecting with a stranger
After Bodo saves Sissi’s life with a tracheotomy (which is in and of itself an excellent scene), she seeks him out, feeling a sense of connection. And this is something that many of us get: that odd feeling that you know someone, and that this person should be in your life. It doesn’t even have to be romantic. Some people just feel like they’ve always been there. Which leads me to my next point…

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Oh, do I know this feeling well…

#5 – Chaos theory versus destiny
My friend Andrew Hope (of the blog At The Foothills of Madness) and I often discuss the concept of chaos theory versus destiny. Andrew is a firm believer in chaos; me, I’m more so comforted by the notion that there is no such thing as coincidence. The amazing part is that we both manage to let the other talk without getting into nasty arguments about who is right; there’s room for a differing yet respectful opinion. Much like Andrew and I, this film will make a case either way for each argument: is it all just a random incident, or part of something larger? Finally, there’s a film out there that has the potential to make us both happy.

This one is a bit of a challenge to try to find – it’s not streaming anywhere, and while you can buy it on Amazon, you may not want to. So here is an Erin Challenge for you: find it and watch it. It will get you talking at the very least.

Posted in Emotions, Foreign, Good Acting, Relationships

Modern Love: The Bullshit of Romance in What If

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 29, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 29, 2016

I went into What If thinking that it might be a good romantic comedy. Ten minutes in, I was already checking the counter. It took fucking forever to move, but once it did, it was like watching a 10-car pile up. I mean, I wanted to like it – as someone who has had friendships turn romantic, this should have spoken to me. What I saw in it, though, was a whole lot of possessiveness and bullshit. And the the worst part – aside from the horrible pacing – is the fact that this is totally realistic.

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There were maybe 20 minutes of this film I actually liked. 20.

To recap, here’s where we are with this one: Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) and Chantry (Zoe Kazan) meet cute at a party. She gives him her number before casually mentioning that she has a boyfriend. Wallace, who is still reeling from a cheating girlfriend, has feelings for her, but supresses them in a bid to maintain a friendship with someone he really likes. Throw in Chantry’s dickish boyfriend Ben (Rafe Spall), Wallace’s friend Allan (Adam Driver), and Chantry’s slightly trashy sister Dalia (Megan Park), and the whole thing is set up to be a fun, madcap story about two people that we want to be together that have to realize that they’re perfect for each other. Add a dash of Coldplay and a splash of iPhone, and this is a tale for the masses.

Problem here is that there is some really dickish behavior happening, and no one really questions it. Excuse me if I ramble, because this is messy. Chantry and Wallace start off on terms that are hazy at best: despite that she has a boyfriend, she gives him her number to hang out. He gets rid of it, thinking that it’s a bad idea. In turn, though, she runs into him at a movie theatre, then pretends to be texting so that they can start up a believable “I can’t believe I just bumped into you!” meeting (is that bump-into cute?). From there, they start emailing, despite that the friendship has some obvious attraction issues. Let’s face it, her agonizing over the wording of a dinner invitation is just as much of a struggle to contain her feelings for him as it is for him to compose notes. Worse yet? Her boyfriend Ben has to have a man-to-man conversation with Wallace to ask him his intentions. “I have no problem with Chantry having guy friends…” he starts out, and just like that, we know how this is going to end. The guy feels threatened not even five minutes after meeting him. Despite that they’ve been together for years, he still feels that Wallace is going to swoop in and steal his woman. Cut to circumstances of Ben moving away, and this paves the way for Chantry and Wallace to get even closer as they wrestle with failed set-ups and increasing companionship. By the time we get to the skinny dipping scene, we’re expecting them to go for it because it’s clear that they like each other. They stoically don’t have sex, waiting instead until the very end of the film – when she’s moving to Taiwan – to kiss and declare that they wouldn’t have done things differently.

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Awww….

I’m calling balls on all of this.

This situation is pure crap. Chantry knew goddamned well what she was getting into, from the pause in front of the movie theatre to the “close your eyes!” shrillness of getting out of her dress. Wallace isn’t a saint either; he liked her and wanted to make sure that they had a shot, hanging out with her despite that she had stated that she was in a relationship already with no intention of going anywhere. They developed a relationship without really admitting out loud that they had a relationship, and when they did admit it, they assured everyone it was just a friendship because – survey says – Chantry had a boyfriend. Bullshit, lame-ass excuses all around. On top of that, we had Ben’s oh-so-confident speech of “don’t get your penis anywhere near her,” which is such lamesauce it’s not even funny. Here’s something every man and woman alike has wanted to say to a possessive mate: WE ARE NOT GOING TO CHEAT BECAUSE THERE’S SOMEONE AVAILABLE. Believe it or not, people can indeed be left in the room with another person. They can even – GASP! – hang out together in mutual harmony without having sex. No one person is the sole dictator is “stealing” someone away. If someone leaves, it’s normally due to unhappiness in the relationship long before another person shows up. It came off as possessive and threatening, and really, we should be moving past that. It’s old, and I know more people that roll their eyes at this way of thinking.

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This whole thing feels like a pepper getting in your eye.

Thing is, though… for every person that rolls their eyes, there’s another person who nods their head in agreement. In fact, the name of this film was supposed to be The Friend Zone, which was changed when someone realized the sexist connotation of the phrase. The implication is that men are left to stew in a de-sexed category, with hope that one day the woman in question will decide that he’s totally fuckable. It’s insulting to all genders: for women, it implies that their non-existent feelings of attraction are not a valid thought, and for men, it means that they just have to work harder to get that sex. And this film totally buys into that line of thinking. Really, go back and read that plot synopsis – Wallace just has to wait it out until the end, when the boyfriend is out of the way and he’s able to make his move. Chantry just has to realize how doable Wallace really is. And it’s all presented under the guise of listening to one’s heart. It’s not listening to their hearts. These characters wait it out until the other options have fallen away. It’s cowardice.

To its credit, the film does attempt to make the point that the pair should have just had a conversation about how they felt. Maybe that’s the takeaway we should have from this: have the conversation, even if it’s sticky, and decide if you want to proceed from there. You never know until you ask (and I myself am guilty of not broaching this subject as of late). Lesson learned. I just saved you an hour and forty minutes. You’re welcome.

Posted in Bullshit, Emotions, I hate people, Love story, Relationships

MITCH! The Top Ten Quotes of Real Genius

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 27, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 27, 2016

Real Genius is a great love of mine. I watched it as a little girl, and even though I didn’t get half the jokes at the time, I knew that something fun was going on. Really, it’s got so much going right in it: Val Kilmer being a smart ass in the 80s. Tons of eyeliner (mostly on Kilmer) and bad hair. William Atherton being a snarky asshat. Science humor. God I love this movie. Seeing as how I don’t typically do top ten lists on this site, I figured what the hell. This one is special. Here are the top ten favorite quotes of mine from Real Genius, presented with commentary.

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Love ya, baby!

#10 – “This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is Kent. This is what happens to people who get too sexually frustrated.”

Ah, Kent. Robert Prescott’s Kent is one of my favorite characters of all time. He’s such a self-important, smarmy dick, and Prescott plays him to perfection. He’s smart, sure, but he’s also a kiss-ass and total crap weasel of a human being. The thing is, we all know at least one Kent – at least one. And chances are, your version of Kent has the same issue as this version of Kent: a person who cannot get laid to save his or her life. We smile at that, and we smile at every other joke that’s made at his expense. It’s nice to think that an asshole can’t get laid.

#9 –”Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?”
“Not right now.”
“A girl’s gotta have her standards.”

Each and every woman out there has had a creep hit on her when she didn’t want it. This is quite possibly one of the best responses to a pickup line out there. I don’t think I could ever top this (except for the dude that “complemented” my breasts the one time, who I told, “If you think these are great, you should see my balls.”). It’s perfect. Girls do have to have their standards.

#8 – “STOP PLAYING WITH YOURSELF!”

“… it IS God!”

Never stop whacking it, Kent. Ever.

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On an unrelated note, I never want to see Kent’s O-face.

#7 – “We need to take a step forward. No, I’m sorry, take a step back. Now take a step forward, then take a step back, and now we’re cha-cha-ing!”

Sometimes, life gets tough. Really tough. Bang-your-head-against-the-wall-and-pray-that-unconsciousness-takes-you-quickly tough. Coping is something we all do. This line is a great reminder that when life gets tough, take a step back. Then take a step forward. Then start dancing like a goofball. Life’s too short. Be a dork.

#6 – “What’s Einstein REALLY like?”
“Dead.”

William Atherton excels at playing an asshole. This one-word response to the question of an elderly woman sets the stage for most of his interactions throughout the rest of the film. He’s such a dick to everyone he meets: suggesting shock treatments, barking orders. He’s deadpan and has a superiority complex two miles wide. This really is the perfect introduction to Dr. Jerry Hathaway.

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No one quite nails smarmy dick like William Atherton.

#5 – “Would you classify that as a launch problem or a design problem?”

I have asked this question so often in my life. Usually, I ask it when something has gone wrong and I need to lighten the mood. Really, so many problems can be broken into these two categories. Again, it’s all about stepping back and looking life with your humor intact and a new perspective.

#4 –”Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you? … Why am I the only one who has that dream?”

I am a vivid, lucid dreamer. While most people dream about their teeth falling out, my brain creates strange scenarios where I’m the Ripley character from Alien and I have to save the town. That’s one of the tamer ones. So I can totally appreciate a joke about an oddball dream, because it happens to me all the damn time. It’s not just you, Chris Knight. It’s not just you.

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I have that dream too, Chris.

#3 – “Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, ‘… I drank what?'”

Heh. Socrates poisoning humor. Totally Chris Knight. Pitch-perfect foil to a moment of profound soul searching.

#2 – “So if there’s anything I can do for you, or, more to the point, to you, just let me know.”

Honestly, who hasn’t had this thought run through your head when you see someone who is insanely attractive? Maybe I’m just a giant pig, but I find myself thinking this quite a bit. Chris has no inner monologue, though. It’s all out-loud voice with him. I love him so much for that.

#1 –”You are Chris Knight, aren’t you?”
“I hope so. I’m wearing his underwear.”

The first time I pulled that gag on someone, I got a confused stare while the girl next to the asker laughed her ass off. It’s a great line – my favorite of the film. I adore it so much that I’ve used it in real life as an ice-breaker. And really, that’s the best part of this film: it presents so many opportunities for awkward people to make a joke as a way to fit in during a new social situation. It’s relatable and fun.

As a longtime viewer of this film, I love it and can quote most of it by heart. These are but ten of my favorites. Perhaps it may be time to watch it again if you haven’t seen it in a while, to pick your top ten lines. Heaven knows the film is full of them.

Posted in Brains, Comedy, Top Ten

Coming This Week: Real Genius, What If, and The Princess and the Warrior

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 26, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 26, 2016

This has been such an up and down week. Between not feeling well, my friends in the U.K. reeling from the Brexit vote, a few wins in the writing department, and then other global events leaving me appreciative of my own life, it’s been all over the map. Really, I use the phrase “I am tiny and the universe is beautiful”  to attempt to articulate this feeling from time to time. At the end of the day, sometimes, you just feel small, and you have to look at both the larger picture as well as the positive, tiny details that were put into your own being. And that’s okay.

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So very tiny.

Now that I’m done being all heavy and stuff, let’s get down to the business of what’s headed your way this week. I’m going for a Top Ten List and covering an all-time favorite (Real Genius) because, well, it’s my sight and I can. I’m also going to go off on the disastrous romantic comedy (?) What If. We’ll round out the week with a recommendation for Tom Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior. In the meantime, sit back, relax and

Posted in Uncategorized

Saturday Shorts: Great Balls of Dodge

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 25, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 25, 2016

Things have been a little tense globally. I think we could all use a good laugh. And what says unwind better than a good, old-fashioned piece of physical comedy? A piece of good, old-fashioned physical comedy that involves playing dodge ball like you’re an action hero. I humbly present William Spencer’s Great Balls of Dodge.

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Click here for Great Balls of Dodge.

I love how serious yet madcap this short film is. Cards on the table: action movies are such a good time for me. Even though I may bitch that they can be unrealistic, I love them. Half the time, you’re stuck with a leading man that can’t really act and completely implausible action sequences. So to watch Spencer take something mundane like dodge ball and turn it into an eight-minute fight sequence, well, it’s special. I love the insane backstory. I love the hammy acting. I love how the balls are sentient and have it out for this guy. And I absolutely adore the slow motion stunts  and physicality of our lead actor. Seriously, I don’t run. If I’m running, you’d better run too, because something is chasing me.

On that note, grab some Gatorade and have a happy Saturday.

 

Posted in Action, Comedy, Saturday shorts

Weekend Movies: Five Reasons to Watch Dude Where’s My Car?

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 23, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 23, 2016

So I bought Dude, Where’s My Car? when my ex-husband and I were first dating. He thought it was a joke, and a bad one at that. As his nickname was The Dude, I felt it was appropriate. I put on the film about ten minutes into one of our first dates, and he actively rolled his eyes at me. About fifteen minutes later, he told he that I was awesome and it was one of the best things I’d ever gotten him. Revisiting it years later, it’s still funny. As we could all use some humor in our lives, here’s five reasons to watch (or re-watch) it this weekend.

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SWEET

#1 – The main characters are really dumb

Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott) are not winning any academic awards any time soon. The Mensa memberships are not in the mail. Between the dude/sweet exchange and the slow piecing of logical points together, these guys are some of the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet. And they’re a complete joy to watch because you have met at least one person that really is that fucking stupid.

#2 – The most lovable cult on the planet

Zoltan (Hal Sparks) heads up what is quite possibly the most fun cult ever captured on celluloid. They’re not trying to kill people. They don’t want to blow up a bank. There’s no mass suicide plan. They want to meet aliens and have awesome space adventures. Plus, they wear bubblewrap suits (WANT) and have the best greeting. I’d want to hang out with them, if only to narrate their daily activities ala a nature show.

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Really, I want one of these suits for my birthday.

#3 – A very zen Michael Bolton

I love Office Space. I will forever love David Herman for his one quip at the beginning of that film: “Everything was fine. And then I turned 12 and that no-talent ass clown got famous and started winning Grammys.” So much rage in an everyday body. To see Michael Bolton himself all blissed out and meditating… you can’t help but think of him getting angry and bashing a fax machine with a baseball bat. It’s a strange juxtaposition, but it works.

#4 – Aliens

My take on alien life: it has to be out there. Take a look around you; there has got to be something more intelligent than the human race. Usually, we get aliens that are scary looking and/or out to make us meal time or slave labor. The aliens of Dude, Where’s My Car? are not fashioned this way. They just want to party. I can totally dig that. Especially if a few of them decide to morph into a massive, busty amazon woman. Yeah, I can totally get behind that.

#5 – And then…

I once pulled the “and then” line while on a phone call with a friend. She was so pissed by the time she hung up with me that I wound up congratulating myself on how angry she was. This is one of my favorite pieces of comedy. I am not ashamed of that.

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And thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…

Rent this one on iTunes or GooglePlay this weekend. I promise, you won’t hate yourself in the morning.

Posted in Comedy, Weekend Movies

Free To Be You and Me: A Look At Buffalo Bill

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 22, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 23, 2016

Nika Black and I had a discussion about the character Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs one day in the not-so-recent past. Nika raised an excellent point: Buffalo Bill is often used as a point of comedy for many, which translates into a joke at the expense of the trans community. I can totally understand Nika’s apprehension at any of the jokes surrounding Bill, particularly in the infamous dancing/tuck job scene. It’s easy to point and laugh, which is not fair to a group that is struggling to be treated as human beings. However, I don’t feel that Ted Lavine’s Bill is off-limits in every respect. Quite the contrary: the character has a ton of value, as Bill demonstrates the mind of a serial killer, with shades of the importance of being able to express oneself in reference to gender identity.

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I’m most likely going to piss someone off with this.

At the core, Bill is an over-reactive, fearful representation of just what can go wrong to the extreme when someone is stuck in the wrong body. Over the course of the film’s climax, we learn that a man named Jame Gumb had applied for a sex change operation, but had been denied the procedure. What did this lead to? One hell of a manhunt and a ton of death and torture for some women that didn’t deserve it. Bill’s not looking for anyone’s skin: he’s looking for female skin, something that will make him into a woman because a doctor refuses to allow him to become one. His method is calculated as well as torturous: these women are left terrified before they are butchered. One of his victims even engaged in a type of dating with Bill, demonstrating that the need for sex and companionship was used to prey upon someone in order to obtain a body part he lacked. You can’t help but wonder: would these women have been terrorized, murdered and skinned if the doctor had just signed off on the sex change operation? What if the stigma of being trangender hadn’t had been so great? Would this fictional world have been spared a murderer if Jame Gumb had been allowed the transformation into the identified gender?

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A bit of a chicken-and-egg riddle for you.

Just so we’re clear, being trans doesn’t excuse Bill’s actions by a longshot, and that’s where I think we need to take a step back from the character. Buffalo Bill is a psychopath; the majority of transgender men and women are not. I’m not going to blanketly state “all” though, because that would be a generalization, and you shouldn’t make those. All men aren’t rapists; all women aren’t manipulative social climbers; all exes aren’t stalkers; all millenials aren’t immature and entitled. You can’t wrap people into one broad description because that does a disservice to the rest of the group, no matter how well-intentioned. On the heels of that point, an entire group of people should not be deemed untouchable, because there very well may be some bad apples in there that do bad things. Case in point: most trans individuals don’t hurt a soul in any way, shape or form, but yet we’re stuck with someone like Caitlyn Jenner that has killed someone in a texting-while-driving incident and dodged the charges. Being trans doesn’t dismiss the crime; quite the contrary, it makes it even worse for the trans individuals out there that are good people. However, a member of an oppressed group shouldn’t get a free pass for true wrong-doing. We shouldn’t dodge the notion that there very well may be some not-so-nice folks out there that just happen to be transgender, or that being transgender means that you will never commit a crime, just as we can’t make that same assumption of cis folks as well. Simply put, I think that everyone has the potential to be an asshole – that goes for all races, genders and creeds. Good church goers have been known to kill people, as have seemingly normal individuals; it’s something that transcends labels, and no one is an exception to this. So the true question adds a layer of complexity to the issue of Bill being such a nasty piece of work: are we angry because this is the big, bad trans woman that goes around killing people, or are we mad because this is a murderous whack job who just happens to want to become a woman? For some, they are going to use being trans as a way to demonize the character; for me, it’s fascinating that the motivation for murder – the need to become something which medicine has denied – is an alarm toward the dangers of the fragility of an already-unstable mind. The pathology of a serial killer is what holds the interest for me; the trans nature of this particular killer is one more detail of a complex character.

On the flip side of this, though, the character does represent an extreme reaction to repeated abuse of trans rights. Buffalo Bill (note: referring to the character as “Bill” and “he” for the purpose of coherence in relationship to the analysis of a character that is identified as male; I can and do recognize and respect pronoun choices) is a murderer who acts to fulfill a need that the medical community will not fulfill; that is the motive we are given, and for most people, we look at Bill and we can’t comprehend why Bill has snapped and started killing people. We know that murder is wrong, and truthfully, it is wrong to start killing innocent people to suit a pathological need of ours. We know that Bill is the villain in all of this because the story needs one. Even then, it’s tough to wrap our heads around. Sure, we have an explanation in this plot, but most of us don’t truly get it, at least not with the intimacy of our trans siblings. I met someone once who said, “I mean, why couldn’t he have just dressed up in drag and have been happy?” Because he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body, you fucking asshat. Wearing clothing is not the same as full identity. Men, imagine for a moment that someone took your penis away from you – how badly would that damage your sense of identity? Women, let’s give you a hysterectomy and a double mastectomy, and then ask you how you define yourself as a woman (which, mind you, many women go through – thanks a lot, cancer, you fucking sneaky cunt). Both of those scenarios are mind-fucks that force the person enduring it to question what it means to be a man or a woman. For a trans individual, the process of defining manhood or womanhood means that the individual wants to match the outside to the inside; how he or she looks is not what is felt. There’s a reconciliation process that’s tough for a person to understand if he or she doesn’t have to go through it him- or herself. Make no mistake, this entire process is exceedingly difficult and deserves respect, not dismissal. The Buffalo Bill character already had something severely wrong that involved psychosis (that was not related to being trans) long before women were skinned. However, it cannot be denied that the refusal to let this trans woman complete her transition was a tipping point of the story that caused a psychotic break. Very few trans men and women would have this happen because they are mentally stable people; we don’t have to worry about them killing people because they’re not fucking wired that way. What we’re getting in The Silence of the Lambs is a type of folktale: just what can go wrong when someone who is grievously mentally ill, who feels he was born in the wrong body, is pushed to the brink and denied a fundamental identity. Back in the 1991 when this film was released, it was a different world that was even less kind to our trans siblings. It’s easy to see where someone would make an example of how this can snap the mind. No one should be pushed that far.

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I can’t joke about this. It’s not a punchline.

The simple fact, in the end, is that people laugh at Buffalo Bill now because he terrifies us. People laugh at the trans woman who just wants to be a desired woman because they know that Bill is missing some key components that most rational people possess. It’s easy (and wrong) to laugh at something you don’t understand. It’s easy to laugh at something that makes you afraid. Deep down, we don’t want to admit that Bill is, in at least some part, a monster of our own social making: the person who just wants to be who she feels she truly is, who is denied the opportunity to be who she was meant to be. We don’t want to look at this person and think that social prejudice and medical decision-making rendered a monster that’s going to come for our skin in order to become who she is on the inside.

Posted in Gender, Horror, Identity, LGBTQ

The Positive of Fear: Goosebumps and the Need For Children’s Horror

The Backseat Driver Reviews Posted on June 20, 2016 by Erin ThompsonJune 20, 2016

I have one, if not two, budding horror hounds on my hands. My eight-year-old adores Five Nights At Freddy’s. My ten-year-old has been happily consuming older horror flicks from the 1930s. I have multiple friends that have told me I’m raising my children right. Here’s the thing, though: I don’t think what I’m doing with them – fostering a love of horror – is necessarily bad nor exceptional. I mean, I was one of those horror movie nuts from a young age; the apples didn’t fall far from the tree. The simple fact is that kids love to be scared. This explains the popularity of things like FNAF, as well as the recent summer hit Goosebumps. In fact, Goosebumps typifies why kids need horror: through the lens of the fantastical, children can explore the real-life horror that await them as they age, making the faculty of imagination and combat of evil a necessary life skill.

Gotta love it.

Gotta love it.

Goosebumps starts off with a some light-hearted yet heavy material. We meet Zach (Dylan Minette), a kid who has just relocated from New York City to a small town in Delaware. Zach has not had an easy time: his father has passed away, and per his mother, he’s taking the loss rather hard: shutting himself in his room, refusing to talk about the death or how he’s feeling. Losing a parent is tough on an adult; it’s fucking horrifying for a child, especially a 16-year-old boy that is trying to navigate young adulthood without a role model. Adding to this dynamic is the fact that Zach – who already feels isolated – is not only the new kid at school, but the son of the new, dorky, trying-hard-to-be-hip vice principal. His new friend Champ (Ryan Lee) points out that she’s awkward, which says a lot considering that Champ is the resident geeky outcast. Toss in his aunt Lorraine (Jillian Bell), a woman with no mind-to-mouth filter that thinks a fun night with her nephew involves bedazzling clothing while talking about her poor excuse for a love life, and this kid’s life is an exercise in discomfort and feeling out of place. I feel for Zach; his life at the moment is a transition that no one wants to endure.

So when Zach gets to the adventurous part of the story, we perk right up because the monsters he faces are so ordinary that there’s a chance we might face them in a flight of fancy. He gets to face a fairly impressive list over the course of the film: the abominable snowman, an invisible boy, a giant preying mantis, a werewolf, and evil garden gnomes to name a few (and right now, I’m picturing an evil David the Gnome, and it’s destroying my childhood). These are all things that go bump in the night, in which most children believed in their youth. Zach isn’t that far removed from childhood, so it makes sense that the monsters are not the terror-fest that an adult would see. Zach isn’t battling a vampire whose face opens to display rows of teeth, nor is he battling Cthulhu for control of his soul. Nope. He’s slugging his way through a kitchen, dodging knives and plates thrown at him by creatures that can regenerate – garden gnomes, no less; something ordinary that has suddenly changed from benign to malicious.

goose3

The grocery store: horror at its finest.

And therein lies the beauty and meaning in horror for children: kids need to learn how to confront the ill in the world in a manner that is ordinary yet reassuring of their own abilities to perservere in the face of adversity. Stine (Jack Black) references this in his explanation of the creation of his stories: “When I was younger, I suffered from terrible allergies that kept me indoors. And all the kids threw rocks at my window and called me names. So I created my own friends. Monsters, demons, ghouls to terrorize my neighborhood and all the kids that made fun of me. And they became real to me. And then one day, they actually became real.” Allergies, people – ALLERGIES is the root cause of everything that happens in this film. One kid got made fun of for being indoors due to severe hayfever, and that managed to spawn dozens of monsters for our Everyman to fight. This lesson is two-fold: use your mind to create something when you are lonely, and use your brain and inner strength to fight back when the world around you turns monstrous. The possibility for the world to suddenly turn scary is very real in everyday life; by translating this into a scary situation for children, who then have the guts to step up and save the day, children learn that they too can have this same strength. It’s fun to think that you can battle an evil puppet and live to tell the tale; it’s fun to think that you could be that hero that saves the school. And in the end, our subtle lesson for Zach resonnates with the kids watching the film: Zach was able to defeat the monsters, and suddenly was not afraid of the new changes surrounding him. He’s proud of his mom, he’s happy to have Champ as his new best friend, and starting over in a new place isn’t so bad. He kicked the abominable snowman’s ass – a new locker and lunchroom is a piece of cake. Once you face something like that, your life isn’t so terrifying by comparison.

goose2

We’re in this together.

Horror for children accomplishes this very goal: it creates something that can be overcome, something that is sublimely scary and age-appropriate, and functions as a coping mechanism for a child undergoing a transition. It may be a move, it may be a shifting family dynamic, it may be a learning disability. The lessson, though, remains clear in films like Goosebumps: your life is not so bad, and you are good enough to be part of the solution in a scary situation. Horror teaches our kids that they’ve got this, and that makes for an adult that can handle the very real punches that life can throw.

Posted in Children, Horror, Uncategorized

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