The Shape of Water (2017) - Why'd they give that fish such a great butt? Best Picture thoughts
It's so much easier to write about bad films than good ones. I am overflowing with thoughts to share about the most memorably awful movies I watched on my trip - I really, really want to talk about Geostorm - but there's very little I can say about Guillermo del Toro's newly Oscar winning film about a woman who falls in love with a fish man that has not already been said. You don't need me to tell you that del Toro makes beautiful movies, or that the creature creation in this (though no Pan's Labyrinth) is spectacular. You don't need me to tell you that the visual effects in this are phenomenal, or that the music is wonderful, or that it transported me to another world. If you're looking for reviews of The Shape of Water at this point in 2018, what you need me to tell you is that a movie featuring not only boning down with a fish-man but also a female masturbation scene and a disabled woman finding her agency. If the main playing field of this blog is feminist and LGBT discussion of film in a more casual arena than my university ramblings, then that I will deliver.
I spent a lot of The Shape of Water catching my breath and then catching it again. Initially, it was a superficial thing: I got caught up in the beauty of the piece. Of course, like with any movie, it made me think. I started thinking about the trend in Hollywood of rewarding people for playing disabled. We shouldn't be avoiding those stories, but we also need people in Hollywood for whom disability is a reality rather than a costume. I don't need to write another article about the phenomenon of "cripping up" - Sara Novic wrote an excellent piece about it in respect to this specific movie here. As someone who lives with a very different kind of disability, it didn't occur to me to consider the fluency of Hawkins' ASL, for instance. It is an all too familiar feeling, though, to watch someone shrug on the outfit of something you battle with, only to be able to take it off again and be lauded with praise for it. While Hawkins plays the emotional beats of her role with aplomb, it was incredibly difficult for me to shake that underlying discomfort.
My god, but if Hollywood didn't suck, this movie would be truly brilliant. It hinges itself on the empowerment of a women who literally embodies voicelessness. I forever wish women weren't metaphors in movies, but that's a consistent complaint. Her love interest is another species, a fish man who has been given a bizarrely good butt, exists as an outsider in every respect. We're clearly supposed to be reading an allegory of race and otherness where bonds are forged over shared difference. I prefer my commentary a little more on the nose, a little more Get Out, but I got what this was going for. It has a unifying villain, which every good allegory needs, and some truly intense moments involving that character, played by Michael Shannon.
And look: for all of its faults, it is good to see del Toro win his Oscar. He might be a little bit of an ascended fanboy, but he makes a polished movie. The Shape of Water feels like a complete experience, and I wasn't rewriting it in my head or taken out of it every ten minutes to re-assess the situation. I might not have been a big fan of how things wrapped up, especially when compared to the rest of the movie, but I begrudgingly understood why they were that way.
I wish I didn't have to set disability aside. I wish I didn't have to consider a movie apart from those things. I wish I wasn't another force of evil, adding "but it was a good movie" into the fire. In truth, though, I've learned not to expect much. I can add in comments that ASL should be given as much language coaching as an intensive accent or any other skill. I wish I was more.
Rating: 8/10 - When I initially watched this movie, I had it at a solid 9. But the more I mellowed on it, as a woman and as a disabled woman, I cannot pick and choose when to get annoyed by the use of disability as a costume. If I'm angry at it sometimes, I can't disregard it when the disability is no longer mine. If you're playing someone who's been deaf since childhood, you should sign as though that's the case; if you're playing a woman who wants to fuck a fish man then I should feel that. And for the most part, I did.
I spent a lot of The Shape of Water catching my breath and then catching it again. Initially, it was a superficial thing: I got caught up in the beauty of the piece. Of course, like with any movie, it made me think. I started thinking about the trend in Hollywood of rewarding people for playing disabled. We shouldn't be avoiding those stories, but we also need people in Hollywood for whom disability is a reality rather than a costume. I don't need to write another article about the phenomenon of "cripping up" - Sara Novic wrote an excellent piece about it in respect to this specific movie here. As someone who lives with a very different kind of disability, it didn't occur to me to consider the fluency of Hawkins' ASL, for instance. It is an all too familiar feeling, though, to watch someone shrug on the outfit of something you battle with, only to be able to take it off again and be lauded with praise for it. While Hawkins plays the emotional beats of her role with aplomb, it was incredibly difficult for me to shake that underlying discomfort.
My god, but if Hollywood didn't suck, this movie would be truly brilliant. It hinges itself on the empowerment of a women who literally embodies voicelessness. I forever wish women weren't metaphors in movies, but that's a consistent complaint. Her love interest is another species, a fish man who has been given a bizarrely good butt, exists as an outsider in every respect. We're clearly supposed to be reading an allegory of race and otherness where bonds are forged over shared difference. I prefer my commentary a little more on the nose, a little more Get Out, but I got what this was going for. It has a unifying villain, which every good allegory needs, and some truly intense moments involving that character, played by Michael Shannon.
And look: for all of its faults, it is good to see del Toro win his Oscar. He might be a little bit of an ascended fanboy, but he makes a polished movie. The Shape of Water feels like a complete experience, and I wasn't rewriting it in my head or taken out of it every ten minutes to re-assess the situation. I might not have been a big fan of how things wrapped up, especially when compared to the rest of the movie, but I begrudgingly understood why they were that way.
I wish I didn't have to set disability aside. I wish I didn't have to consider a movie apart from those things. I wish I wasn't another force of evil, adding "but it was a good movie" into the fire. In truth, though, I've learned not to expect much. I can add in comments that ASL should be given as much language coaching as an intensive accent or any other skill. I wish I was more.
Rating: 8/10 - When I initially watched this movie, I had it at a solid 9. But the more I mellowed on it, as a woman and as a disabled woman, I cannot pick and choose when to get annoyed by the use of disability as a costume. If I'm angry at it sometimes, I can't disregard it when the disability is no longer mine. If you're playing someone who's been deaf since childhood, you should sign as though that's the case; if you're playing a woman who wants to fuck a fish man then I should feel that. And for the most part, I did.
Comments
Post a Comment