Velociriot!

Warning: this article contains spoilers for the film and novel Beautiful Creatures.

Last Wednesday, fellow Velociriot writer Lottie and I went to see Beautiful Creatures at the cinema. For those of you who haven’t seen the film or read the books, I strongly urge you to avoid the franchise. I mean it; do anything else but watch this godforsaken pile of cinematic crap.

The story centres around Ethan Wake (Alden Ehrenreich), who is your all-American jock stereotype — but with a name like Ethan I guess that was a given — and his relationship with Manic Pixie Dream Girl Lena Duchanne (Alice Englert). The plot takes place in the American south in a deeply religious, one horse town– a town so religious that Lena and her uncle Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons) are accused of being ‘devil worshipers’ for being a little bit odd and antisocial. Ethan and Lena, in true starcrossed lovers style, have been dreaming about each other and instantly they develop a deep connection, so deep in fact that Ethan claims he knows Lena “better than he knows himself” after a week of a relationship (which caused me to snort most unattractively). The big twist in the film is that Lena is a witch — a ‘caste’r as they prefer — and on her 16th birthday she will be claimed by the ‘light’ or the ‘dark’, which means she’ll either go evil or stay her perfect little Mary Sue self.

Ridley (Emmy Rossum) as she is claimed by the dark.

This ‘twist’ is where the movie dramatically started to go downhill. Lena explains that male casters, such as her uncle and her cousin Larkin (Kyle Gallner) get to choose whether they’re ‘light’ or ‘dark’ when they turn sixteen and that Macon was originally evil, but has changed sides in order to look after Lena after her parents’ deaths. For me, this idea is deeply disturbing; men are able to choose they’re own destinies but women are forced into theirs?

It gets worse, unfortunately. When we meet Lena’s other cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum), we learn that she was claimed by the dark. We see Ridley running away from home on her 16th birthday, apparently the paradigm of girlish innocence in her little summer dress with her little leather suitcase; then, by the light of the moon, we see a change. Ridley opens her dress slightly; her demeanor changes to something much more sexual and she makes a young man walk out in front of a train. It is explained that Ridley is a siren, which means she has a power over men and can make them bend to her will, usually for their destruction (the idea, of course, coming from Greek mythology). When we first meet Ridley, she is scantily clad and walks straight up to Ethan, kissing him seductively on the lips; she then uses her ‘power’ over him. Ridley also ‘tricks’ Ethans best friend Link (Thomas Mann) into trying to kill his friend. Naturally, she does this by having sex with him. At one point they are having sex on a barge, which is being circled by alligators– Lord, give me strength.

Later in the film, Lena explains that women are chosen for the ‘light’ or the ‘dark’ according to their true natures. I was absolutely sickened by this representation of women. To make an assumption that women can only be put into two categories, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ — whilst men are wholly more complex — is disgraceful. Furthermore, it becomes very obvious that to the filmmakers, a ‘bad’ woman is a sexual one: a woman who is proud and in control of her own sensuality. This is slut shaming at its very core. Ridley is the embodiment of the misogynistic trope of the ‘femme fatale‘- a woman who uses her body to get what she wants, usually for heinous plans of male destruction. But seriously, what a message to send to the young girls who are the target demographic of this film– female sexuality is evil.

It emerges that the reason female casters can be claimed for evil or for good is because of one mistake that happened during the American Civil War. One of Lena’s ancestors committed an act of unforgivable magical treachery when she brought her lover back from the dead after he was killed in battle. But the use of dark magic sent her bad, stripping away her humanity; she went on a murderous bender. I could not believe that this was the reason for this ‘curse’ on the women of Lena’s family; could we get anymore biblical? This ancestor is the Eve in the story; she makes one mistake and therefore all women pay for it. Honestly, can we get over this Eve complex soon and stop blaming women for everyone’s mistakes?

Considering that the target audience of the film is young girls, it is worrying how many of the female characters are nonredeemable. The main antagonist of the film is Sarafine (Emma Thompson) who is possessing the body of Link’s mother and local Bible-basher Mrs. Lincoln. Sarafine tries to kill Ethan, which will make Lena evil, so that together they will wipe the Earth of humans. Why does she want to do this? Not a clue! It’s never explained; she’s just evil, okay? Again, the filmmakers manage to make a woman completely two-dimensional. We aren’t given any reasons as to why Sarafine is evil or why she hates humans so much. It emerges that she’s Lena’s mother too, who has been alive all this time! Big twist! I wasn’t surprised — nothing like anti-feminist propaganda to demonize a mother-daughter relationship, again, without any back story or reasons given. Like I said, she’s just evil. (Plus, Thompson’s southern accent is appalling.)

Cinematic poster for Beautiful Creatures

As well as Sarafine, there are Ethan’s ex and her friend, Emily Asher (Zoey Deutch) and Savannah Snow (Tiffany Boone) who are the weakest, most undeveloped characters I had ever had the misfortune to view on a silver screen. They are presented as deeply religious Christians, who are convinced Lena is a devil worshiper. Because of this they bully her mercilessly. They decide Lena is a devil worshiper because her uncle is a hermit and she’s new to town. Moreover, they are strong hints Emily might be picking on Lena because she’s jealous of her ex’s attention being diverted away, because, you know, all women are jealous psychos and all Christians in the Bible belt are fanatics.

As for Lena, she is your stereotypical Manic Pixie Dream Girl, with extra witchiness just to make her more interesting. For those of you who don’t know what a MPDG is, the term was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin and in his words it is “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.” (You can also read Amanda’s piece on MPDG as seen in Ruby Sparks). Ethan is set up as a distressed, bored teen, who reads ‘banned books’ for kicks and has a father who isn’t interested after his mother’s death. In true ‘tortured soul’ style, he is also a writer and artist. Lena relights the fire within him – damn, in one scene she even makes it snow for him and gives him a new lease of life. Lena only exists for the purposes of Ethan; we find out absolutely nothing about her, yet we know tonnes about him. Her character only extends as far as Ethan. In fact the only things we find out about Lena are for the purposes of forwarding plot, except for one moment when we find that she collects poetry (this scene is perhaps the only redeemable scene in the film). Mostly, she just loves Ethan.

Yet all of the male characters are just great. Ethan’s a dreamboat; Link’s the poor friend that gets taken in by that evil woman and her pretty breasts; Macon is the sturdy patriarch; Larkin is the ‘good’ cousin. In fact, the only female character that is the least bit nice is friend of Ethan’s family Amma (Viola Davis). Amma is a seer/ keeper of the caster library and in comparsion to the other female characters she’s actually pretty decent  – except for the fact that she is one big walking stereotype. As a woman of colour she is pigeonholed into the role of the ‘black sidekick’, the one who does the work but doesn’t get any recognition. At one point in the film she tells Lena that she had no choice, that being a keeper was her destiny. This sat really uncomfortably with me: a black character forced to do the work for her white counterparts. How is that alright on any level? Furthermore, she is presented as a voodoo witch doctor-, mamma of the bayou-type character, which honestly couldn’t be more overdone or more offensive. Why must Hollywood constantly place black characters in the same overdone, tired roles? They could have easily mixed up Amma’s position in the film and made it more original and more interesting.

Amma in all her stereotyped glory

As the film progressed I started to have a little hope. Lena gave up Ethan to save him and I was expectant. Could the movie be on for a u-turn? Would they subvert the overdone damsel in distress ideal and let Lena be the one doing the saving? Lena realises that in order to break a curse which will cause someone she loves to die (that’s always the way with these things isn’t it?) she must make Ethan forget her. However, Ridley and Sarafine intervene, tricking Link into shooting Ethan (Ridley and those trixsy breasts of hers!) and it appears that Lena will go over all dark anyway.

But that doesn’t happen. Macon saves the day. He has used magic to make himself look like Ethan and has given his life so that the curse is broken. I was despairing; once again a man gets to save the day! Lena, despite being all powerful, is turning evil, until Macon, dying, tells her to “claim herself”, to which she hides the moon and stops herself going bad… but it is only with prompting from a man. If it was left up to her she would have let herself be overtaken, because us women can’t control our emotions! Silly girls that we are, controlled by those feminine feelings!

In the end, Ethan — still very unaware that he had a romance with Lena because of the amnesia spell — is driving off to New York with Link. Interestingly, no one appears to have told him that he was in a relationship with Lena for a few months, but you know, the plot holes in this film make the Grand Canyon look like a molehill in my back garden. But as he drives out of town, he sees the burnt up sign which he and Lena lost their virginity against (and she got excited and set fire to) and he remembers. This is probably the most realistic part of the movie, because a 17 year-old boy knows when he’s got some. Lena is the only character in the film not punished for having sex; this is probably because she’s in love and in a relationship, whilst the likes of Ridley are naughty and promiscuous and should be reviled.

In its barest terms Beautiful Creatures is misogynist propaganda. It tells young girls that their sexuality is something to be ashamed of and that as women they aren’t complex creatures — just as long as they’re beautiful ones, eh? — with thoughts or feelings of their own, that the most important thing in their lives is a man. Perhaps this is the reason why there are no gay characters in the movie at all?

It is worrying that more and more young adult films and novels are sneaking into the public mainstream that have such anti feminist agendas– can someone say Twilight? I don’t understand why, though; books such as The Hunger Games which featured Katniss Everdeen have proved that strong female protagonists do sell, so why must Hollywood insist on turning these patriarchal rags into feature films? It’s about time we had less movies about sparkly boys and their passive, demure girlfriends and more films that feature strong women. We want women that young girls can look up to, that they can idolise; hell, we want women that actually possess a shred of realism, because us woman are complex and interesting and some of us do like good looking men — but we’re way more than just that. Is that so much to ask for? I think not.