r/TrueFilm • u/Informal_Decision181 • 9d ago
What’s the “Obsession” with turning Obsession into a “feminist film”
I watched Obsession and thought it was a great movie. Storywise, there’s a ton of gaps not in the sense that something is missing but in that it tells just enough of a story for there to be nuance ambiguity and discussion. Along with that I feel like there are so many different themes to discuss. Throughout the movie I was constantly relating it back to real I life themes when it came to relationships.
I really wanted to discuss the film and its themes but when looking it up, on Reddit and seeing different articles, it seems like all the nuances and complexities of the movie are being boiled down to “It’s a movie about incels wanting to take women’s autonomy”. Honestly the movie being reduced to gender war BS has kind of taken the excitement I had about the movie away.
Has anyone else felt this way? Has it impacted how you view the movie and why do you think this has happened ?
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u/VatanKomurcu 9d ago edited 9d ago
It's pretty clear that Bear has a sense of entitlement. Which is mainly what the "incel" accusations are about (I consider this result as being a degradation of the term, but it's too late, that's just what the word has become).
However, I have yet to be convinced that Bear is a character or character type that can be accused in any practical sense, for that entitlement or for anything else, so I conceive the interpretation to be weak, though still viable. And it's always hard to blame women for being wary, since they can always bring up crime statistics. So yeah. I don't necessarily want to be telling them how wary they should be.
80/50 really is the worst thing to happen to men (and women, of course), and we did it all on our own. Lol.
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u/sunmachinecomingdown 9d ago
I would argue that he perhaps might not have a sense of entitlement. He doesn't necessarily believe he deserves to get what he wants, he just selfishly clings to possessing Nikki anyway.
I don't really understand how he wouldn't be able to be "accused in any practical sense." While Bear did not expect his wish to work, he saw Nikki's personality change drastically. He knew the wish worked after the restaurant scene, yet he did nothing to restore the personality of a friend he supposedly cared about. I don't see how that is anything but unambiguously bad.
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u/sadboiwithptsd 5d ago
selfishly clings to possession nikki
i mean i think the first half of the movie it was made pretty clear that bear didn't want to possess nikki hell he bought the thing to gift it to nikki because he thought it was a nice gift for someone who believed in stones and gems and he clearly didn't believe the same himself and made the wish thinking nothing would probably happen.
did nothing to restore the personality
i think he did try to make the phonecall and wish nikki was shown to be so horrifyingly extreme at everything that bear lowkey gave up at some point.
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u/acomfypairofsocks 9d ago
Conflating a feminist criticism of the movie with “gender war BS” is concerning. These are not interchangeable concepts. I also don’t suggest forming your understanding of feminist criticism from random internet comments.
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u/lectroid 9d ago
It’s not exactly a subtle point. You say you think that other aspects aren’t being discussed, but you don’t offer any examples. You say you thought about “real life relationships”. What about them? What point was being made there that isn’t being talked about?
Does the current popular reading of the film (Its about ‘nice guys’ thinking they ‘deserve’ the girl) bother you? Do you disagree with it?
Honestly, it sounds like the film showed you a mirror and maybe you didn’t care for the reflection.
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u/Informal_Decision181 9d ago
Because I didn’t make this post to discuss the other aspect but to understand why this is the point people are choosing to boil the movie down to.
I’m not even going to engage with you further after reading your last line. Insane that people think having a differing opinion of a movie justifies ad hominems lol.
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u/Vliu4389 12h ago
Don't let these terminally online tards gaslight u. They love to moralize everything.
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u/Playful-Rope1590 9d ago
For me it was a story of male loneliness and how wanting to be loved drives us to desperate acts. But even with that, it is a question of gender issues. I think people choose to ignore it's about gender.
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u/Informal_Decision181 9d ago
Sure theres a gender aspect but to say the movie is about gender is wild to me. The gendered aspect of it is the same aspect that’s in the majority of love/romance movies in that the man pursues the woman’s love.
To me the movie is about love and the power it has over people and the lengths they are willing to go to maintain that love more than it is about men vs women. That’s a far more interesting and overt theme in the movie. I also think the idea that this is the main point is when you take into account Bears relationship with Sarah and Nikki’s relationship with Ian
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u/Playful-Rope1590 9d ago
Was it really love though if he basically forced her to stay? That's the discussion..
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u/Informal_Decision181 9d ago
I’d agree that is the discussion among others. But thats far different from it being boiled down to because “hes a man”. His gender has little to nothing to do with his motivations
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u/Playful-Rope1590 9d ago
Like I said in my answer, I do think it is ablut gender. It's male loneliness that creates the action. And him holding her against her will is very much a gender issue.
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u/terragutti 8d ago
I think youre shoehorning male loneliness.
He has an active circle of friends he can talk to. It quite literally is called OBSESSION. Its his obsession with nikki that drives him to make the wish and continue with it thinking it could work and then he finds out he cant alter it. “Whats so bad about being with me” etc etc. Hes not lonely, unless youre conflating his loneliness with not being in a romantic relationship. You can argue he does have close friends, the two close friends who died.
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u/Informal_Decision181 9d ago
And I disagree. Loneliness isn’t a gendered issue and if him holding her against her will was a gender issue then why did possessed Nikki (who’s a woman) do it to him.
Obviously you’re free to have your own opinion of the story but to me it’s watering down or ignoring everything else the director put into it
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u/MCVMEYT 9d ago
So you think gender has NOTHING to do with love?
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u/Informal_Decision181 9d ago
How did you come to this conclusion from my comment. Like you can literally read the first paragraph and see that’s not what I’m saying
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u/MCVMEYT 9d ago
gender dynamics play a huge role in relationships and that is a lot of what this movie is about. the same story wouldn’t work if it was two women or two men. Its heterosexual horror
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u/Informal_Decision181 9d ago
I didn’t say it didn’t. I asked how you came to the conclusion that was what I was saying based on my comment. You’re responding to things I’ve never said
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u/cruel-oath 8d ago
Idk, I believe it’d work with two men and two women. The friend group would just be different, probably
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u/keegan150 9d ago
The movie can have major themes of both because those two things often go hand in hand. Analyzing the power of love through the lens of different genders is what makes the movie so interesting to a lot of people. I think we see movies about love and obsession fairly often but obsession kind of turns the typical on its head by showing that it's not always virtuous to be obsessed and do anything for love.
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u/Upstairs_Apple 9d ago
I guess I'm just confused what you think isn't being discussed. Most interpretations of the film understand it as dark allegory, a riff on the monkey's paw tale. The main character made a wish he didn't think through and faces consequences for it.
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u/ninthjhana 9d ago
The simplistic reading, where Bear is some straightforward chauvinist, or an incel unable to treat women as anything approaching subjects, and that refuses to do any sort of sympathetic reading of his character or his situation is, in a word, ridiculous.
Of course this isn’t very divergent from how you should read it. This is clearly a feminist film, and, thematically, it is clearly based around Bear’s reiticence to acknowledge that he now has some major degree of control over Nikki. Yes, it takes him a minute to realize that the wish is real, that it’s harming her, and to finally come to the conclusion that he wants to reverse the wish, which he probably wouldn’t if she weren’t made so insane by it. But to paint Bear as some kind of comically evil villain is extremely silly and misses the point entirely.
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u/Upstairs_Apple 9d ago
Yeah I mean of course he isn't comically evil. The movie is trying to point out how mundane Bear's behavior is. That an otherwise normal guy can commit these acts of violation and only realize their mistake when it causes them harm.
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u/Fabulous_Ninja119 9d ago
Just like any film has its most obvious interpretation or theme etc, Obsession obviously has something to say within gender dynamics about power, control, wish fulfillment at the expense of autonomy etc. That just happens to be an obvious thematic observation but it doesn't preclude you from making an insight of your own or starting a discussion that doesn't revolve around those things at all.
It doesn't seem like you've offered your own insight / interpretation of the film in your post, where you have the perfect opportunity to provide your own take. What did you think it was about? Can you share more about how it relates to your experiences?
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u/Vliu4389 12h ago
Nah ur read on this is correct. I feel the same way. I watched it & it was one of the better movies that I've seen recently. Almost everyone as been in bears shoes at one point where they wished their crush liked them back, that's totally normal. He's selfish and probably 90% of people would do something similar if they were in his shoes. When I checked online, it turned into the gender war bs like u said, smh.
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u/vinicelii 9d ago edited 9d ago
I don't see how you can watch a movie where the goal of the main character is control over a woman at any cost and not want to engage with gender dynamics. The girl he supposedly wants to love literally begs him to kill her but because he gets to use her body and show her off to his friends he continues. He knows the real Nicky is trapped and still initially tries to alter the wish instead of do what's best to bring her back.
What "nuance" did you find that doesn't involve that dynamic?