Blue Velvet – Bitch Flicks

This guest post by Marcela De Vivo appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

What does it mean to change cinematic history? Is it The Wizard of Oz with its use of technicolor? Pulp Fiction with its refreshingly out-of-order timeline? Rashomon with its three POV’s? All of the above, and then some. Here are some game-changing cult classics, divided into handy genre sections. And while we’re looking at the influence of these cult films, why not check out how they portray and treat women? Almost entirely coincidentally, they’re all from the ‘80s. What can I say? It was a culturally rich period.

Film Noir: Blade Runner & Blue Velvet

Almost 70 years after its heydey, film noir is still a popular genre that continues to influence and revolutionize modern cinema. It’s everywhere — from the Keanu Reeves-helmed Matrix series to the femme fatale Black Widow in Joss Whedon’s blockbuster The Avengers. It’s touched many films over the last 70-odd years, including Blade Runner and Blue Velvet.

While at a first glance, Blade Runner seems like something of a misogynist film — two out of the film’s three major female characters die horribly violent and sexualized deaths — upon closer inspection, it reads more as a commentary on the outdated femme fatale trope. All three women in the film embody the femme fatale in some way — Pris convinces J.F. Sebastian to take her in with her sexuality and Zhora is able to disarm Deckard with her naked body before dressing in that infamous post-Star Wars metal bikini and clear rain coat.

Rachael, perhaps, fills the role to the fullest — acting as the morally questionable love interest. And though she’s the only one who makes it out of the film alive, she’s even treated to some violence at the hands of Deckard — their love scene is cringe-worthy: he throws her against the wall, bringing her almost to the point of tears, and orders her around in a sketchily S&M fashion.

While all of these strong women losing their agency to men may seem misogynist, we’re forgetting the setting: completely dystopic 2019. The mistreatment of women instead goes hand in hand with the mise en scéne: a world where a woman can fall through multiple plate glass windows after being brutally shot down in the street and no one bats an eye. Ridley Scott subverts the now-outdated femme fatale trope by making it a part of a post-apocalyptic world.

Blade Runner definitely made its mark on film history; it was one of the harbingers of the cyberpunk genre that emerged in the early 1980s. We can see its influences in everywhere from modern architecture to TV — in fact, it reportedly influenced the cult TV show Battlestar Galactica, and the architecture at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, most recently seen as Starfleet Academy in Star Trek Into Darkness. It was also notably listed as the second most influential visual effects films of all time — if you have an interest in photography or cinematography, you should definitely check this film out.

Blue Velvet, too, is a veritable can of worms when it comes to the treatment of women — it has some pretty serious virgin-whore dichotomy going on. Sandy and Dorothy? Blonde, cheerleader-adjacent daughter of the sheriff vs. French nightclub singer? Come on, Jeffery. However, unlike Blade Runner subverting femme fatale stereotypes all over the place, Blue Velvet has a decidedly more Freudian twist on its gender relationships. Dorothy/Frank/Jeffrey? It’s so creepily Oedipal and sado-masochistic that I don’t even want to go there. That’s not to say the film’s not worth watching; what it does with the concepts of voyeurism is fascinating, and of course, visually it’s spectacular.

Like Blade Runner, this was the work of an ultra-auteur, playing homage to a smorgasbord of genres. Noir, surrealism, horror? Check, check, and check. David Lynch’s famous cinematic style still has an influence on movies — the dreamy, nightmarish quality of his work is still majorly in play today. His famous and groundbreaking TV show Twin Peaks still has a huge influence as well — this mysterious TV show paved the way for shows like Lost and The X-Files.

And now for something completely different…

High School: Pretty in Pink & Heathers

Say what you will about Pretty in Pink — I still think Andie, played by Molly Ringwald, should have ended up with Duckie (Jon Cryer). I mean, that “Try a Little Tenderness” lip-sync? Pure gold. John Hughes’ oeuvre pretty much revolutionized the teen film genre. He was one of the first filmmakers to give the problems of teens actual weight. Instead of creating straight-up comedies and farces, his characters faced real problems, chief among them class. Pretty in Pink’s whole plot revolves around such issues — Andie’s dad has fallen into something of a depression after being left by his wife, and now Andie can barely get him out of bed, let alone to report to a real job. By treating teens like adults, Hughes created a crop of cult classics that teens and adults alike still enjoy nearly 30 years later.

Pretty in Pink was also somewhat ahead of its time in the Strong Female Character department, especially within its genre — Andie Walsh knows what she wants and she’s going to do her best to get it, no matter if she falters along the way. She lines up job interviews with for her dad, rebuffs her friend Duckie’s advances — she’s even not afraid to tell off the school’s resident asshole, Steff and she gets a lot of life advice from her awesome role model/friend/boss/fashion inspiration, Iona. She’s not the perfect character, but her authentic and genuine personality made her a role model to many young girls.

And what about the infamous Heathers? Sociopaths, nihilism, and bombs? Dark stuff. Released in 1988, this film is very much a contemporary of Pretty in Pink, and aside from being set in high schools, they’re about as different as two films could be. Heathers was interesting on many levels — the issues it dealt with in varying degrees of satire are still in play today. Plus, it featured a murderous anti-heroine, Winona Ryder, as Veronica Sawyer, who, at the end of the film, leaves her suicidal, sociopathic boyfriend to die, saving the whole school in the process.

What are your thoughts on the above films? What are some of your favorite cult films? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Marcela De Vivo is a freelance writer from Los Angeles and has written on a wide variety of topics from her favorite films to interior design tips. She loves watching her favorite female empowering films with her young daughter, Izzy, for a great girls’ only movie night and some much needed mom-and-daughter bonding time.

The director David Lynch likes playing with dichotomies. His director’s fetish is portraying opposite worlds that coexist. He carries us from happy-go-lucky settings to dark depths with embarrassingly sincere dialogue, awkward props and too-blunt-to-be-ignored sound design. When writing about Lynch one must incorporate phrases like “seedy underbelly” and “seemingly pleasant.”

While a world of starkly presented binaries is a great place to explore gender roles, this does not always appeal to audiences and critics.

Roger Ebert, for instance, was not pleased with Lynch’s Blue Velvet. He was particularly disturbed by how Lynch presented the character of a woman experiencing abuse. He felt that the contrast between the absurd and evil lent a disingenuous tone to scenes in the film that should have been poignant.

“Either this material is funny, in which case you don’t take advantage of your stars, or it isn’t funny, in which case it shouldn’t have so much campy and adolescent dialogue along with a really powerful sexual scene,” Ebert said in his review of the film.

Blue Velvet movie poster

His argument is a thoughtful one, but it doesn’t fairly represent the message of the film. It doesn’t look like Lynch is trying to be screwy. He’s not trying to make us laugh at the pain others. Instead it seems he is trying to evoke deep sympathy for the foolish-but-kind characters who use “campy and adolescent dialogue.” If Lynch is manipulating the viewer, it is to turn our cynical snark against us and make us respond empathetically.

Lynch is not a master of a feminist message – and while there are good intentions between each line – we are hung up in prescribed roles and never released. His frustration isn’t with the constructs that create a violent world, but simply with the violence itself.

Blue Velvet, released in 1986, is a surreal noir film about a college boy, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), who returns to his cheery suburban hometown to tend to an ailing father. He gets mixed up in the dark and violent aspects of his town after discovering a de-bodied ear. He enters this world at his own volition because of his almost-innocent voyeurism. Jeffrey comes by this dubiously ethical curiosity honestly when his friend and romantic interest Sandy (Laura Dern) says, “I don’t know if you’re a detective or a pervert.”

His inappropriate cliché-of-choice response: “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

This is directed at the audience as well. But, we don’t get much of an answer. Lynch portrays Jeffrey as a well-meaning voyeur. But, clearly (and rightfully so), that’s not a culturally accepted characteristic in heroes. Jeffrey treats the discovered ear as if it was an exciting clue instead of evidence to severe criminality. His watching of the following events satiates a selfish desire – however well-meaning.

Through Sandy’s help (her father is the local detective) Jeffrey finds that the ear is somehow connected to a local singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini). He decides his next step is to break into Dorothy’s apartment to find more clues.

What Jeffrey encounters is ultimately a brutal scene. His detective adventure swiftly plunges into twisted horror. He doesn’t panic, though, but just takes it in.

Dorothy first finds Jeffrey hiding in her closet and assumes – reasonably – that he was spying on her undressing. She turns the male gaze back on him by making him undress. This is not a moment of female empowerment – nor is it really the living-out of a male fantasy. Instead it is the disturbing result of naïve curiosity clashing with Dorothy’s own sexual dysfunction and delusion. She is masochistic. But Jeffrey views his subsequent sexual interaction with her as an expression of his caring for her. This mismatch in attitudes makes for clumsy moments with troubling demonstrations of affection. Jeffrey never consents to undressing, so their initial meeting and introduction to their sexual relationship is even more unsettling.

Kyle MacLachlan and Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet

After this brief encounter, we meet Frank (Dennis Hopper). He knocks on the door and Dorothy rushes Jeffrey into the closet. Frank threatens, abuses and manipulates Dorothy. He has kidnapped her husband and child as a way force her to be sexually compliant. Jeffrey watches as Frank slaps, pokes and mounts Dorothy.

Jeffrey regularly visits Dorothy after the first night, and while maintaining a boyish tone and outward sweetness, ends up slapping Dorothy somewhat in response to her request. It’s “somewhat” because while she begs him to hit her, he doesn’t seem to do so because she asks, but because he is angry at her asking. Because he spends his nights in the ugly side of the world, he has taken on hateful aspects of it. He has seen Frank’s violence and has unwillingly absorbed it. It the morning, as he wakes up in his childhood bed, Jeffrey cries remorsefully. The evil he saw in Frank had changed him.

Frank is the hyper-violent and dominating side of masculinity. Dorothy was forced to be a submissive woman, broken and tormented by being used as a sexual object. Jeffrey and Sandy instead fit into gender roles in a sunny and nostalgic way. Jeffrey is Hardy Boys curious; amiable, but also direct and flirty. Sandy is kind, demure and willing to play a support role to her male lead. They meet their dark and brutal alternatives in Dorothy and Frank.

A particularly controversial scene takes place when Sandy meets Dorothy. Sandy and Jeffrey return from a date and stumble upon Dorothy walking slowly through the neighborhood – arms outstretched – naked. She has bruises on her body and her face is blank. Sandy’s old boyfriend, who had been jealously chasing the couple, retreats and begins apologizing as Dorothy collapses in Jeffrey’s arms.

Ebert said about this scene: “[Lynch] asked Isabella Rossellini to be undressed and humiliated on the screen as few actresses ever have been, certainly in non-porno roles… That’s painful for me to see a woman treated like that and I want to know that if I’m feeling that pain it’s for a reason that the movie has other than to simply cause pain to her.”

He said that because of the “smarmy” dialogue, it was unfair to include such provocative scenes.

Ebert had a point in that provocative imagery should not be used simply for shock value. But, juxtaposing hilarity and tragedy does not necessarily trivialize violence. When using violence and sex, directors should be wary of gratuity and insensitivity. But, this scene forced us into awareness. We can’t choose a tragedy one day and a comedy on the other in Lynch’s world (or the real one). We can’t chose nostalgic gender roles one day, and violent destructive the other. We have to accept that these things feed into each other. We have to address the destructive aspects.

While Lynch isn’t necessarily challenging prescribed roles, he is challenging our perception of them and the resulting violence. He forces us to acknowledge the ugly side. And then also presents us with surprisingly poignant absurdity. The campiness in Blue Velvet isn’t cruel, but touching. These worlds do coexist and it is funny and heartbreaking and beautiful and ugly.

—

Erin Fenner grew up in small-town Idaho where she took solace in cult cinema. Her burgeoning feminist ideals didn’t dampen her enjoyment in viewing even the most obviously gender-norm-dependent films, but created another angle of intrigue. She went to the University of Idaho where she nabbed a Journalism degree. There she was a student blogger, radio show producer and self-described feminist activist. Now she lives in Portland, Oregon, and works remotely for the reproductive rights organization Trust Women where she writes about the state of pro-choice politics for their blog. She also says she is a poet, but refuses to publish, perform or share lest someone offer constructive critiques.

Tag: Blue Velvet

Cult Films that Changed Cinematic History

David Lynch’s "Good" Guy vs. Bad Guy in ‘Blue Velvet’