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Absolutely loved this, I really love how you emphasized the dismemberment of women as a way of objectifying them, and keeping themselves at a safe distance. The girls were treated as if they were a mystery, but they didn't have to be, if the boys had actually cared to learn about them as people. Instead they are turned into something poetic, artful. Because girls can't just be people, they have to be things, concepts. Ahhh I loved this essay!
What a crock, they had a dominant mother that was a major gate keeper. Also when Trip approaches Lux with her sisters, they act like he's not there. Also when one of the guys tries to talk to Mary at the lockers she basically tells him to sod off.
I honestly see many people complain about the male gaze in the virgin suicides, but I actually think it’s important thing. Usually I don’t like male gaze but I feel like the male gaze in this movie really shows that no one ever understood the girls and that’s what it was explaining that’s what to me I think but I see a lot of people complaining about it and I just like think that’s the whole point 😭
hiiii !! i'm stating here that it's essential to the plot. that's the whole point of this essay :) sofia coppola exhibited well the dangers of the male gaze & objectifying women.
Well, the novel is written by a man (Jeffrey Eugenides)and his point was to portray the girls like distant, mystified beautiful creatures. Sofia just directed the film faithfully respecting the book 🤷🏻♀️
I like the detail that the Lisbon sisters' deaths remain a mystery because the narrators are incapable of viewing them as anything other than a poetic concept. They can't be normal girls in their eyes, but art pieces who are being suppressed by their parents. Even when the narrators manage to get ahold of evidence relating to the Lisbon sisters' true characters, they fail to acknowledge the truth and only look for what they want to find. As you mentioned, the narrators get ahold of Ceceilia's diary and choose to gloss over most of the entries in favor of focusing on Lux's developing sexuality. It really echoes how women's suffering is often lost to a male audience if it isn't something they can glorify or sexualize, and it challenges that gaze by posing the question: "why would these perfect, angelic-looking girls want to commit suicide?" Truly a clever work.
When he left her in the football field he didn’t even bother to leave his jacket to AT LEAST keep her warm while he leaves her idk its small detail but it just shows more of his horrible personality
The bit when he left her broke my heart. I was 14 watching and felt so badly for her. He made out he liked her so much and then just left her. It's been over twenty years and that part still gets to me.
He walked away so carelessly and stranded Lux on that field, Demonstrating his true awful and depraved intentions, subtle form of negligence, and lack of empathy for lux after finally taking away her virginity and getting what he wanted from her. He saw desolation and impureness in Lux because she’s “not so pure” anymore and finally got what he wanted. Basically treating her as a stop along the way, only courting her because of his intrusive nature when Lux came to mind.
@@orphicccmess how do you think they (or anyone, at this point) could help? I watched this movie 10+ years ago and it's still weighing so heavily on me, the seemingly inevitable tragedy of it all. Imagining how things could turn out for the better for the girls gives me katharsis
@@Li_Tobler hello. i think giving spaces for young girls & women to be themselves and explore is so important. remember during quarantine when we all lost our minds? we at least had the comfort of knowing everyone else was going through the same thing. the first time i watched the movie i was really hoping the boys could help them, ask them how they really were without any caveat. even the neighbors who kept gossiping about them, i wish they could have called authorities to get the girls out of that house because it's still a form of abuse to isolate your children :(.
@@orphicccmess fr, they were objectified to the point of symbols and escapism that even their very real pain was commodified as an item of pleasure for these boys who dehumanised them
After I got S/A at 12 years old, I started to act really sef destructive, I did drugs, went to sus places with sus people to do sus things. And I had this boy that I started talking one time, he was kinda "in love" with me, and said that I was like a movie, that I was misterious and this kinda of stuff, like a manic pixie dream girl. I had to look him in the eyes and say that I was like that 'cause I was in pain, all the time. Because everytime I closed my eyes I went back to that day, and I was being "misterious and sponteneous" because I hated myself so much, that I could do anything to get end up dead on a random street. The fact is that men love when we act "crazy" and "careless", but they do not really want to see what made us like that, 'cause it's normally something so disturbind and ugly, that living on ignorance is just better than face the cruel reallity that horrible things actually happens outside the news on tv, and to people they know.
yh they ignore it because they'd have to accept that most men are actually trash, because one thing has remained constant throughout human history. is that, when a man doesn't feel like "the man" amongst women he always brings his BS to women, because that's were he'll feel the most manly by default.
@@lol_youre_madthat’s a toxic mindset to have. I understand there are some terrible men out there, I honestly feel bad for women but the majority of us aren’t bad. We have mothers and sisters that we love with all our hearts
@@fantasywizard4831 you're aware men can be selective right??? Same way a woman can say "men are trash" but have a good father and it still be true. Because sure her father is a good man, but majority men are still horrible people. Honestly, right now as we speak there are little girls everywhere around this world getting abused by men, I could care less about men's mental health.
@@fantasywizard4831 your words added nothing to the conversation/comfort of women and girls suffering from violence at the hands of men and boys. your comment was so selfishly self-serving it's disgusting. "not all men!! we love our mommies and our ittby bitty sisters." okay and? what does that do for women and girls? nothing. your comment is only to comfort men and make men feel better as if women and girls all over the fucking world aren't suffering. not all men, but almost every girl/woman has a fucking story. but who cares about that right? you just had to interject and make sure that men's reputation is still intact, even if its at the expense of a woman telling her story and trying to shed light on misogyny. you are apart of the problem, you sick fuck
Right those boys were stalking and trying to prey on them at their lowest and most vulnerable points 😢. I've heard other content creators say the boys were sooo sweet ... WHAT?! Hell no. Thoys boys were voyeuristic and disgusting imo
Stalking isn’t accurate AT ALL - they exchanged messages through records across the street. They had one-sided crushes, that’s not exactly criminal behavior. The girls asked them to come help them break out of their home after they’d been locked down for months and kept out of school, which is usually a tell-tale first sign of parental abuse - the boys fantasized they’d begin some romantic road-trip with girls they had crushes on, and they were traumatized at what they actually found there.
@@alexwintercast1381 he never spoke on that… so stop putting words in peoples mouth, rat. What “problem” are you referring to exactly? Or do you even know? Elaborate… don’t back down now
I love films that could have gone terribly wrong, yet evade every possible trap and come out triumphant. The Virgin Suicides could have so easily been a romanticization of women suffering, a fetishization even. Especially considering the dreamy-like aesthetics of the film. Instead, it’s a masterfully crafted piece of storytelling, in which the emphasis on aesthetics only adds to the film’s value, than take away from it. The Lisbon girls are five sisters living under a strict religious upbringing. We see their story through the eyes of four boys, all neighbours and classmates to them, obsessed with the out of reach girls, who to them, are more of mysterious ghosts and riddles to be deciphered, than humans. They try to collect every bit of information on them, they make all sorts of speculations in an attempt to feel closer to them, to catch a glimpse of the thoughts of these otherworldly creatures. As the teenage boys fail to see the Lisbon sisters as human beings, so do their parents. To be more accurate, they don’t fail, because a failure requires a preceded attempt. The self proclaimed “loving” parents never make an effort to understand their daughters, because they are terrified at what they might have to face: humans; Young women; Sexual beings. Religion is the shield they use to protect themselves from the very nature of their daughters. While the boys desperately try to understand who these girls are (in every wrong way possible), their parents do everything within their power so that the girls themselves don’t. It’s not without thought that the title is “the virgin suicides”. This is a film about the terror of a society when it comes to female sexuality. Sexuality is something girls must be protected from, since it’s something boys are expected to claim. The Lisbon girls’ parents are afraid that their daughters will be used in a sexual situation, that they will be dishonored and ashamed. Why? Because girls are not expected or allowed to want sex. Not at that age at least. They can only give into it. They cannot be trusted when it comes to the discovery of their sexual self. The desire to have sex, to date, to flirt, to listen to rock music, to dance all night long…What does that say about a girl? Even though both the boys and the girls’ parents have been “blinded” in one way or another and can’t see the girls as humans, the viewer can see them as nothing but. That’s where the success and relatability (especially among young women) of the film rely. Though the girls are often portrayed as characters of dreams and fantasies, we never fail to feel for their tragedy. The tragedy of being imprisoned, deprived of nearly every quality that makes life worth living, and the tragedy of being intelligent enough to not hate your parents for it. The Lisbon girls don’t hate their parents, because they see them as humans, something their own parents are unable to do for them. At first glance, they don’t even seem to revolt against them. But boy, do they… Not only through their meticulously planned escapism through magazines, clothes, make-up and the most beautiful music one could possibly choose for that movie (Carole King and Gilbert O’Sullivan, that goes for you), but through their refusal to give up that flicker of freedom they all experienced the night of the high school prom. They refused to settle for life as they knew it before that taste of freedom. Once you’ve tried freedom, even if for only a few brief moments, you can never go back. And that’s exactly what the girls did. They fought for their moment of freedom, which was all they longed for their entire lives, and held onto it until the end. The direction of the -couldn’t be more perfect- casting was nothing short of sublime. The colour palette, the stunning frames, the close-ups, the dreamy aesthetics, the emphasis on stylistic detail and the unforgettable music by Air, all contribute to a grasping atmosphere that grabs you and holds you “captive” from the first to the last minute - an atmosphere dark, yet light; tragic, yet hopeful; suffocating, yet empowering. The feelings of empathy, relatability and warmth Coppola manages to create within the viewer towards the Lisbon girls add up to an astounding achievement, especially considering, as I have already mentioned, that the story is told through the eyes of external observers who view the girls as objects of desire and mystery. The film could have been made in a way that would result in us seeing the girls from an almost anthropological point of view, devoid of any empathy and attachment to the characters. But that doesn’t happen. We feel for them, we imagine ourselves in their situation, we recall the countless times we ourselves have felt imprisoned, reduced to mere stereotypes and objects for observation, misunderstood and underappreciated, only because we were girls, only because we were teenagers… The Virgin Suicides is a masterpiece in every filmmaking aspect and whoever cannot see it “obviously has never been a thirteen year old girl”.
I love the contrast of religion and femininity you show. It really adds to the reason the boys see the girls as "angels." Even how "Cecilia was the first to go" is said. It's informational, if not a little reverent. There's no sadness in his tone. Of course they'd die. People who are not made for this world do that.
The football field scene broke me. Her not trying to pursue him is what made her interesting to him, once he got what he wanted, he just left her. Alone in the cold. Breaks my heart, and it hits too close to home.
Oh god someone finally told something about this movie. This movie is my hyperfixation and I could talk about womanhood and girlhood and it's potrayal in media. I love your video sm
i absolutely love this and the virgin suicides. you really should read the book- i think jefferey wrote this book and made the boys this way intentionally; i think it's a perfect portrait of the way most men think of and treat women. i think this was the message him and sophia were both looking to portray through this work of art i just went through a horrible tragedy where the father of my child (i am 19) objectified me by telling me he was sorry for everything he'd done and he'd come back and be with me and he loved me and wanted our family together etc whatever. he comes here, spends the night, goes to our son's 1st birthday party (didn't bring a gift) has sex with me, then leaves. this was very comforting and also brought me to tears lol! this is the sixth time he's done this to me. so i needed girlpower and strangely this gave me some :))) excellent job and thank you for making this
I'm nineteen as well and while I do not have a child, I have been in a similar abusive relationship before. It's crazy how one man can break your defenses down so much. I finally found the strength after 2 and a 1/2 years with him (I was 16 when it started, and he was 32), and I hope you can find your strength too. You and your son deserve the world.
I've been in the same situation, I was 19 when I had my son, his father has done the same to me and is now a dead beat, it will get better, you need self discipline, don't answer his calls, ignore him focus on yourself and your son, I promise you, you will get through this and look back oneday and realize how much happier you are by protecting your peace, my ex eventually got married, he abuses his wife, cheats on her gave her stds, just 2 weeks ago, he was infront of my house at 2am looking for me, I just ignored him, I moved on and I'm so much more content with my life, I wish the same for you and your son, peace and happiness, Goodluck 😊
Fxck these boys...boys continue to do what you allow..As long you keep sleeping with him he's never gonna change . And worse you have a kid with him so he thinks it's a free for all..been there... save yourself heartache and keep him as your child's father ONLY. And than maybe friends if he can learn to respect you enough...❤ cheers darling❤❤
I went to the high school when it was filmed. I remember being hyper aware of this when I was walking around the school and found that the movie and the actual building were so different, but the themes I experienced were the same.
i feel like malena handled this too, we follow through the gaze of the boy who thinks he's a "good boy" but judges malena just as much as everyone else, as a result, we never learn of the real malena (tho we can infer from relativity)
When Trip asked Lux's father to take her out on a date, I was actually moved. The narrator made me believe that he is a sincere guy but after he had her, he just left with no words and he didn't even wake her up. He doesn't like HER, he just likes the challenge because as he said, she's not like the other girls who are interested in him. Getting her is more like a reward that he could brag about
I really enjoyed your video essay on this movie. I was 15 when this movie came out, it has always been in my top favorite movies of all time. The story, the casting, the wordrobe, the lighting, the set design and locations all came together perfectly in this movie. VERY few movies make me feel this way.
Lovely analysis. This film was so well made and to me is one of the best adaptations ever. There were only two small things in the book that were omitted from the film. Have also always loved the romantic fantasy style Sophia uses with the way everything is filmed. It just adds to the idea of how the boys, despite waxing poetry of the haunting love they hold for the Lisben sisters, never really knew them. The chance is gone, no matter how many belongings of the girls' they dig from the trash, interviews they do with the people who ever came into contact with them, or how often they comb over it all extensively. The Lisbon sisters will always be a mystery. The Lisben sisters are much like the Romanov daughters - young forever, beautiful, every aspect of them romanticized, yet so isolated it left little known about them. They become almost one person, some fantasy girl to be fawned over forever, yet never actually known or understood.
Really great analysis. I would love to see a remake, not from any specific perspective, instead an omnipotent one. Seeing the girls experiences with an objective eye through visual themes, and the boys as a part of that; how young girls are the subject of the male gaze, how girls' privacy is disregarded, how young girls are not taught to understand intimacy when isolated from the world. It's such a beautiful movie, and I could definitely see how a movie (not from the boys perspective) could do wonders to bring this to a more modern audience
If you only see a person as how you want to see them as, how you think they are, you're never really seeing them as they are, only your idea of them. We, as people, make assumptions of others based on how they act, dress, talk, etc. but an important lesson from this movie is to realize that all human beings are just that human beings, not objects or playthings to be used as in fantasies.
Also want to say that the book is way more male-gazey and if Coppola didn't write and direct for the film it could have gone in a VERY creepy direction. The scenes with Lux especially show this because the boys compare her to a "succubus" and state that even 20 years later they still fantasise about her.
I like the detail of dismembering womens bodies in order to view them, in the book the boys notice how Cecilia's chest looks after she is impaled on the fence. In the face of a horrible death this girl is *still* a sexual object and a sad piece of poetry to these boys before a human being.
What's interesting and creepy is that in the book, 04:56, one of the boys finds the tampon and he sniffs it and imagines which sister will place it inside herself. This movie was my anthem when I was 13 and I didn't realize how depressed I truly was until I was reminded of the movie last year.
Jeffrey Eugenides seems to have a really weird memory of teen sexuality. Idk any of my friends, boy or girl, who would have done that as a teenager. Weird weird weird
I can't agree with your analysis of Mrs Lisbon. Yes, she was afraid for their daughters, but my parents were strict, afraid for my sister and I, but never to that point. She forbid them to go to school, burn their music, who does that?!
you'd be surprised, some parents only view their kids as extensions of themselves, property to do what they wish with, if they learned to be independent, she's afraid of becoming redundant
@@KawaiiStars I understand that, but I can't agree with what she's doing, she's destroing her family (even her husband seems crazy at the end when he speeks with a plant)... I don't understand how she can't see that !
@@bulbasaurtheboss4420 because her potential redundancy is more important than her children getting to live, she probably comes from an environment where it's either childbirth or you're worthless, i don't excuse it, but people from these environments tend to be wildly self centered because without their gendered purpose, they and their worldview crumbles, and they're ill-prepared to deal with the aftermath, so if they're going, they'll drag you too
I've never cared about being understood, however i've always cared about relating to others; to know that there are others out there going through the same problems i am. It brings peace to know the experiences ive been through are experiences others have been through. It gives me the strength to overcome obstacles. I think our society puts too much emphasis on being understood (theres 8 billion people on earth, all living individual lives; it's impossible to understand everyone) and not enough emphasis on relating to others; real connection. I know we are all hurting in some way, but instead of festering in that pain and loneliness, we should be reaching out ourselves to others. I think if the people in the film did more of that then gossiping behind closed doors or obsessive behavior and treating people less than human just because they were in pain, fear, etc, there would have been a better outcome.
The moment those boys glossed over Cecelia's diary, and one of them said im context that girls understand everything boys do and are, and yet they could not fathom girl, i was like:" bro, it's literally between yours hands".
Insecure men fear what they don’t understand or cannot control. That’s what toxic masculinity is. It makes complete sense if you think about it. As a woman it is hard to comprehend. And I dislike Freud, because he’s a pussy who ruined society, but he’s not far off on that point.
Castration anxiety is not being afraid of someone not having a penis, it is being afraid of losing ones own penis as a reaction to women not having a penis (best to wiki it tbh). This is seriously dumb imo, but the interpretation in which it can make most sense again imo is as a male fear of dominant males undermining another males ability to maintain reproductive agency on the basis of the dominant males self interest in maximising his amount/quality of sxual partners at the expense of the other male. To lose reproductive agency as a man while still engaging in the sxual marketplace in freuds interpretation would be to take on the role of a woman - the "bottom".
hiii u guys ! been reading ur comments and appreciate the kind words and constructive criticisms. been working on new essays but my laptop is still broken so it's difficult to make videos, but trust that if you're expecting more, i will be posting again. love & gratitude
watched this when i was 11, its weird how many things like this I LOVED as a child and then growing up and being in my 20s i see so many things that i loved so much and giggle sometimes at how i saw them when i was” too young” is all stuff that made me feel like i was surrounded by people like me
I’m quite late to seeing this.. this film brings out so much for any young woman to see it or man - especially to understand it. All the points you made minus defending the mom is why i loved this film. It showed how much pressure is on us and projected onto us. You talk about this purity brigade but I was raised in a very creepy medieval culture that makes it extremely clear how/when/where and who owns our virginity. When i watched this film.. it reminded me of all that horror on top of a culture that is always controlling women making it even worse for them to just live their lives. This movie was subtle and most of my peers rounded it up saying it’s about attention, obsession and wanting it from guys. Very few saw the guys actions as creepy or abnormal. If you trace it back or read the book, this is based on a true story. Although i couldn’t find the sources because the internet has been scrubbed I guess. All of this happened in gross pointe michigan. I love everything you’ve said and it reminds me of another video about jennifer’s body and how much we expect from women, project onto them and use them. It’s not surprising that many feel like they’re better off being a different gender.. I felt that way too even though i enjoyed my femininity- i hated everything it came with. The one part I can’t get behind is that there is no silver lining to Mrs. Lisbon- she treated her daughters worse than whatever she was trying to “protect” them from. We all understand her anxiety but she refused to have a single ounce of compassion for them and no matter what you say- there is nothing motherly about it. She completely isolated them- everyone including the father saw it and couldn’t help or stop her. There is no understanding for her.. it’s one thing to have curfews and punishments but she eventually pulls them out of school, they’re have no social life even with their own gender. She is just as controlling as the men and I refuse to give her an ounce of sympathy that she couldn’t give to her daughters. These are the women that add to the dumpster fire of a teenage girl’s life and they have to be called out just as much as the toxic men. They are fueling the fire just as much. I totally get it if she went off kilter for a bit and then gave them a bit more autonomy.. but she was extreme as extreme religious groups go. Talk to anyone from these families and you’ll see how messed up it is. Sure the mother doesn’t know any better but there’s plenty of women that have ten times more compassion for their daughters even in religious groups than Mrs. Lisbon ever did. I do see her as the main villain but not the only one ofc. Bottom line is the girls are forced into these ideals and the people forcing them? They’re just as blinded and brainwashed into thinking that this is how it’s supposed to be. However i still won’t say this gives Mrs. Lisbon a pass because again.. these are her daughters- She knew they were suffering and didn’t care.. her strict beliefs mattered more.
The mother was a narcissistic mother, I know because my mother was like her! She was using her daughters as a proxy for living, she never cared about their safety or life, they were toys for her.
@@lenoremisosoup4107 she was controlling before the Cecilia suicide, she treated the older girls like 6 years old kids, she infantilizated the girls since the start, even Therese was treated like a little child. She wanted to preserve her daughters like "bonsais". In the book is more evident that the mother was suffocating the girls before the suicide attempt. She choosed their clothes, the music they could listen...
The movie kind of redeemed the book for me personally, the books narrator feels too detached from an ignorant teenage boy and just seemed borderline ped*phillic (for me it didn't get the point of the male gaze across too well and if the predatory remarks were intentionally there to get the point across and instead just made me feel sick) , the movie thankfully gave us more of the girls and more of the sober moments which I loved in the book.
Nice essay! I would just like to say to those who may have missed it, that while I can see wanting a version of the girls perspective, that actually defeats the purpose. Telling it from the boys point of view, with their limited knowledge and warped perceptions of the girls, is an extremely intentional storytelling choice that serves to illustrate exactly what is being criticized about the male gaze. It is holding up a mirror for the non-female audience, and while doing so, allows the female/female leaning audience to take refuge in the display of a fundamentally universal experience that is the misunderstanding, taboo, alienation of what it is to come of age as someone who is not a male in a patriarchal world. The setting and the characters are white, middle-upper class americans, but the actual meat and themes of the story are absolutely not limited or unique to those groups. I find this misconception to be pretty similar to the misinterpretations of American Psycho, and extremely feminist piece of work that often gets written off as misogynistic because people do not look past the surface level.
I watched this movie when I was in high school and it creeped me out. It came out around the same time as American Beauty. It was an era where movies and media were unapologetically about the male story and called it "pushing the envelope for the sake of art" in terms of how over the top the male perspectives were in terms of obsession with girls and young women. These perspectives influenced young men and women.
I think the audience wasn’t taken into consideration and media literacy is still not great til this day so that’s why. But an art student would understand it completely I believe. I see how it negatively impacted society though. Life imitates art.
Their symbiose as sisters can be seen as resistance of the outside world they never break free from dat "oneness" The suicide of the four sisters is a collectief action of the effect of their powerful emotional and psychological connection and response to parents behaviour at that fase of their age. Solidarity becomes a silent rebellion.
One of my favorite movies, hands down. I do wish it had been told from the pov of a distant cousin or something then maybe it wouldn't have been so "mysterious"
I really like the ideas that you put in the video, keep sharing thoughts and ideas that helps young generation of women about the world we live in. Thank you
This movie haunts me. It's the most well portraited movie I've ever seen about this subject. I believe most of the girls that have watched it saw themselves too. I'm 18. My dad always wanted a son. Instead, he got me and my sister. He doesn't let us walk in the streets at night unless he/my boyfriend goes with us. He complains when my skirts or shorts are too far from my knees, he complains when I let my nails grow and when I paint them. He doesn't let me sleep with my boyfriend, or travel, and he actually believes that we never made sex. He believes that I never drank, never smoked. He sometimes even says I'm just a child that can't make decisions by myself. It's creepy how at the same time that he does all this due to knowing how threatening men can be, he is replicating the exact objectification and sexualization that he fears. How can a woman grow and live like a human being when surrounded by men that always want them to be who they want? Thank you, Sofia Coppola. And thanks for the video!
This just kind of brought me to another curiosity, whilst it’s not completely related to this, the fact that the boys basically had an obsession, without fully concepting why seems crazy to me, because I know myself and other females who have also maxed a man’s potential, and romanticized them who understand and have acknowledged that they ARE like that.. and idk I just found that interesting, and it makes me wonder if some people or even boys/men are or aren’t able to fully understand that they’re making up something about someone in their head. Idk if that made sense but yeah just had me thinking, this was a great video ❤!
having read the book a couple times I've always felt the main theme of the story was more about dealing with grief at a young age and our warped memories of our dead loved ones. having such a traumatic event happen to those boys at such a young age left them in part unable to grow up, and this desperate need to understand them is a symptom of the inability to process grief when we're young, and an inability they carry into adulthood. more than the male gaze, I think the story highlights the danger of playing up to societal expectations, and the even bigger danger of sheltering your children so immensely that they become unable to deal with the inevitability of grief; for the girls, the death of their younger sister, and for the boys, the death of the girls.
or maybe that's all metaphor for the death of genuine connection and fulfillment because of pressures of gender culture? The utter grief and stunting that causes boys and men, and destruction it brings to girls and women? Feeding into the destruction and grief of each other's disposition... idk. eta: or even that the pact the girls made is a representative of the pact all girls learn to make to destroy themselves to either cater toward or protect themselves against predatory culture, their deaths just showing the logical end of this endeavor.
It is so interesting how the girls are an object of observation and infatuation troughout the story yet in reality their true selves and the world they live in remains unseen. It always saddens me how we as the reader never get to know them altough I know that is the point this story is making.
This wass reccomended to me and I enjoyed every minute, you're very good at talking about the themes! I'd love for you to keep doing this as a series, there are so many movies that just objectify and create such a horrible way of what men think women want, or deserve. This was really well put together, keep up the good work my dear ❤
This is so good! Such a great analysis of this movie. I'm currently writing a paper on the male gaze in Ancient Greece, and found myself rewatching this video for some inspiration while trying workshop my thesis.
9:39. In my eyes, the purpose of having the dynamic of the overprotective mother, enabling father, and the children at their mercy was to show how the naive approach of not letting your children make mistakes results in them being resentful and depressed. This part of the movie isn't unique to men or women, pretty much every teenager experiences this to varying degrees (parents not letting you go to a party etc.). This movie was about a subset of the teenage experience in white, upper class, suburban America. To chalk so much of the movie as a commentary on the male gaze seems a shame as I got so much more out of it.
In a sense, a good piece of art is like a lake, each person casts their own net in their own way in hopes of pulling out their own haul (their own opinion/interpretation). Reading this comment after listening to the essay reminds me just how many different ideas/interpretations/opinions can a single piece of art evoke in different people (I personally lean towards your interpretation)
I feel like you got a lot less out of it, tbh, because you're actively dismissing the feminine experience despite it objectively being the focus of the film and sofia coppola's entire ouvre. I mean, what you're talking about is definitely a part of it, but an incredibly small part of what is talked about and presented.
@@GodheadNee I agree its a huge part of the film. I just found a lot of this essay seems to attribute the male gaze to scenarios where it didn't seem very relevant or made the film out to be solely about the male gaze. It felt like 70/30 in favor of the feminine teenage experience compared to the masculine teenage experience.
@@rigba7627in a society where the masculine teenage experience takes precedent over the female one in media and irl the portrayal of the boys and girls in the movie is most definitely male gaze thats like the entire point 💀
@@miabortion ok lol. I think you should watch the paris review's interview for author of the book. If you still come away with that opinion, I don't know what to say.
The movie was pretty loyal to the book. The book was told from the boys perspective. I think Sofia Coppola was the perfect director for this film. It is such a beautiful film with lovely shots.
women hold the power within themselves to be or not to be, the film in question is focused on children. Innocence & purity and what comes with it, virginity and child bearing. If you are living in a poverty state or a wealthy bloodline it makes no difference, the decision is your own to make if you want to invite another human existance into our small over populated planet.
I think we can accept that the male gaze and male characters in this film are selfish, without perpetuating anti-male sentiment’s. We don’t need to hate men to protect women.
Very eye opening. This video makes me realize that we shouldn’t treat them as sex objects and instead care about their well being and help them get through it. Be a very good friend to them. Read the signs of what they are struggling and catch it and save them before it’s too late. Love, sex and are not the things that help peoples mental wellbeing of suicidal thoughts and depression to go away. Love, care and support is the way to help them to get to the root of the problem of what they feel inside of the brain of what they are going through and talking about it. But in a caring and supporting helping way, not in a romantic way. the struggles and a way of being their for them and ask them what’s on their mind and getting the help they need and make them talk about it. But then again can they be saved no matter how hard you try to do this for them. 😢I wonder. The thought of them not wanting to be helped and saved is truly awful and that people want to exit out of their own life is horrible.😭 We can’t understand what pain they were going through. Depression is a very scary thing I bet and I can’t imagine what it does to people. Who’s ever going through it all. You are important. 😢 They saw them as sexy women and not caring respectful and loving women. I think that’s what the narrator of this video is talking about.
[1:40]: Yep, exactly heck even youtuber who doing recap say they same thing like why did boys ask they girl what's up stuff like ...... "How's going" or "Is something wrong?" or "Are you hurt?". But sadly, never say stuff like this, sadly. 💔.
A curious little essay. While I disagreed with a number of points brought up here, it truly was an interesting experience to see a different interpretation of the film that caught me so off guard. The best pieces of art elude a singular explanation, correct?
The Lisbon girls were just as equally fascinated with the boys and the attention they received from them. The Lisbon girls had two overprotective Catholic parents. When one of the sisters commits suicide, the mother goes into overdrive with the need to protect and preserve the family she has. The teenage girls want so badly to be like their peers but they are denied the sense of “normalcy”. At first they may have been seen as objects by the boys because they had so much mystery surrounding them that all they could do is fantasize about the Lisbon girls’ life. The boys did sincerely want something deeper and intimate with them, they wanted to know them as people. These weren’t innocent little girls being exposed to horned-up boys. The sisters were wanting to assert their independence, explore their sexuality and make connections to the outside world. They were given life by their parents, only for them to control it. They took their lives so they could no longer be controlled, they made their lives their own, for once. They took the power away from their parents.
I appreciate the effort of this, but you are actually missing the intention of the book and film. Both the source material and the film adaptation are highlighting the central female characters loss of identity by viewing them through the lens of the teenage boys who lusted after them, saw them only as their outward personas, as beautiful otherworldly creatures who have been denied any real expression of their own individuality. It is a criticism of the repressive nature of the white middle-class, religion and the misogyny. They are "ghosts" not because Jeffrey Eugenides or Sophia Coppola thinks they aren't worthy of their own stories, but because not being heard or understood is precisely what lead to their deaths. It's a breathtaking debut novel and film. I'd add that a lot of these sources have been discredited, Freud has been widely panned by the psychological community for nearly a century, so please don't use them as fact.
i hope u finished the video because that is exactly what i talked about in this essay. eugenides and coppola highlight the harm of the male gaze (viewing the girls as shells to whom they could project their fantasies, mythologizing them and therefore stripping them of their identities) through their works. this essay is a critique on their critique of the male gaze. hope it helps.
do u think that "white middle-class" is massive double story houses with back and front yards in the suburbs? Violin lessons, debutants in mansions... I could go on.
@@rigba7627 I'm not the OP, but yes. The Lisbons are middle class and live in a middle-class neighborhood. Their father is a high-school teacher and their mother is a stay-at-home mom. They're living in a three-bedroom home with seven people. The other homes on their block are representative of a typical midwest suburb in the 70s. It's clear that some of the kids/families have a bit more money than the Lisbons and are probably considered upper middle class, but they're not wealthy. ETA: I'm not sure if the shrinking middle class is part of the issue, but it seems like people view having financial stability along with the ability to afford a few "extras" as being wealthy these days. It really is not uncommon for middle class people to put their kid in music lessons or to have homes that have a front and backyard in the suburbs especially around that time period. Also, debutant balls are pretty common in the south and midwest among the middle/upper-middle class.
@@haute03 This seems pretty plausible. That being said, A middle class neighbourhood would have some representation of lower- and upper-class families sprinkled about. In this movie, the neighbourhood seems to consist almost solely of upper- and middle-class families suggesting it's probably upper or upper-middle class. Also, music lessons being cheap is a very very recent luxury. Private violin lessons in the 70's must have cost a fortune in todays money. Either way it seems conflicting. Could just be down to a lack of detail in the plot.
I really like this movie and i don't want to watch a movie from the girls' perspective. I think it's important that the movie leaves the viewer feeling like something is missing because it is! Their story is done and no one helped and that's it. Their secrets are their own. I would, however, like a movie inspired by this one to center the main girl or girls in its story. It would be very validating to see a girl or woman go through whatever she's going through and clearly see how others do not care and how they project these ideas onto her.
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Absolutely loved this, I really love how you emphasized the dismemberment of women as a way of objectifying them, and keeping themselves at a safe distance. The girls were treated as if they were a mystery, but they didn't have to be, if the boys had actually cared to learn about them as people. Instead they are turned into something poetic, artful. Because girls can't just be people, they have to be things, concepts. Ahhh I loved this essay!
thank u for the love
The Diary of Anne Frank, maybe?
@@loanicastillo3327 is this a book recommendation?
What a crock, they had a dominant mother that was a major gate keeper. Also when Trip approaches Lux with her sisters, they act like he's not there. Also when one of the guys tries to talk to Mary at the lockers she basically tells him to sod off.
@@orphicccmess - Yes, when Cecilia says "obviously doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl." That's brutal.
I honestly see many people complain about the male gaze in the virgin suicides, but I actually think it’s important thing. Usually I don’t like male gaze but I feel like the male gaze in this movie really shows that no one ever understood the girls and that’s what it was explaining that’s what to me I think but I see a lot of people complaining about it and I just like think that’s the whole point 😭
exactly! it was necessary here and kinda the whole plot
Why does your comment have 50 likes yet all the other comments calling the video horseshit get no engagement?
hiiii !! i'm stating here that it's essential to the plot. that's the whole point of this essay :) sofia coppola exhibited well the dangers of the male gaze & objectifying women.
@@winstonwolf5706i wasn’t calling the video bad
Well, the novel is written by a man (Jeffrey Eugenides)and his point was to portray the girls like distant, mystified beautiful creatures. Sofia just directed the film faithfully respecting the book 🤷🏻♀️
I like the detail that the Lisbon sisters' deaths remain a mystery because the narrators are incapable of viewing them as anything other than a poetic concept. They can't be normal girls in their eyes, but art pieces who are being suppressed by their parents. Even when the narrators manage to get ahold of evidence relating to the Lisbon sisters' true characters, they fail to acknowledge the truth and only look for what they want to find. As you mentioned, the narrators get ahold of Ceceilia's diary and choose to gloss over most of the entries in favor of focusing on Lux's developing sexuality. It really echoes how women's suffering is often lost to a male audience if it isn't something they can glorify or sexualize, and it challenges that gaze by posing the question: "why would these perfect, angelic-looking girls want to commit suicide?" Truly a clever work.
When he left her in the football field he didn’t even bother to leave his jacket to AT LEAST keep her warm while he leaves her idk its small detail but it just shows more of his horrible personality
Absolutely... subtleties tell so much
he didnt have to. you must be a feminist that is why you are watching this dumb video. if you are then chivalry is no more.
The bit when he left her broke my heart. I was 14 watching and felt so badly for her. He made out he liked her so much and then just left her. It's been over twenty years and that part still gets to me.
bruh bring your own coat lmao, what's your point? he should freeze to cold for her?
@@brute4236 oh my god , thank you.
He walked away so carelessly and stranded Lux on that field, Demonstrating his true awful and depraved intentions, subtle form of negligence, and lack of empathy for lux after finally taking away her virginity and getting what he wanted from her. He saw desolation and impureness in Lux because she’s “not so pure” anymore and finally got what he wanted. Basically treating her as a stop along the way, only courting her because of his intrusive nature when Lux came to mind.
Them playing 'Alone Again Naturally' while on a phone call after making notes asking for help broke me
omg yes !! it was a cry for help and the boys thought it was just a cute little moment they could share 😭
@@orphicccmess how do you think they (or anyone, at this point) could help? I watched this movie 10+ years ago and it's still weighing so heavily on me, the seemingly inevitable tragedy of it all. Imagining how things could turn out for the better for the girls gives me katharsis
@@Li_Tobler hello. i think giving spaces for young girls & women to be themselves and explore is so important. remember during quarantine when we all lost our minds? we at least had the comfort of knowing everyone else was going through the same thing. the first time i watched the movie i was really hoping the boys could help them, ask them how they really were without any caveat. even the neighbors who kept gossiping about them, i wish they could have called authorities to get the girls out of that house because it's still a form of abuse to isolate your children :(.
@@orphicccmess fr, they were objectified to the point of symbols and escapism that even their very real pain was commodified as an item of pleasure for these boys who dehumanised them
@@orphicccmessugh! That’s a big no. That’s So sad 😢😭
After I got S/A at 12 years old, I started to act really sef destructive, I did drugs, went to sus places with sus people to do sus things. And I had this boy that I started talking one time, he was kinda "in love" with me, and said that I was like a movie, that I was misterious and this kinda of stuff, like a manic pixie dream girl. I had to look him in the eyes and say that I was like that 'cause I was in pain, all the time. Because everytime I closed my eyes I went back to that day, and I was being "misterious and sponteneous" because I hated myself so much, that I could do anything to get end up dead on a random street.
The fact is that men love when we act "crazy" and "careless", but they do not really want to see what made us like that, 'cause it's normally something so disturbind and ugly, that living on ignorance is just better than face the cruel reallity that horrible things actually happens outside the news on tv, and to people they know.
yh they ignore it because they'd have to accept that most men are actually trash, because one thing has remained constant throughout human history. is that, when a man doesn't feel like "the man" amongst women he always brings his BS to women, because that's were he'll feel the most manly by default.
@@lol_youre_madthat’s a toxic mindset to have. I understand there are some terrible men out there, I honestly feel bad for women but the majority of us aren’t bad. We have mothers and sisters that we love with all our hearts
@@fantasywizard4831 you're aware men can be selective right??? Same way a woman can say "men are trash" but have a good father and it still be true. Because sure her father is a good man, but majority men are still horrible people. Honestly, right now as we speak there are little girls everywhere around this world getting abused by men, I could care less about men's mental health.
@@fantasywizard4831 women don't want their trauma responses mansplained to us.
@@fantasywizard4831
your words added nothing to the conversation/comfort of women and girls suffering from violence at the hands of men and boys. your comment was so selfishly self-serving it's disgusting. "not all men!! we love our mommies and our ittby bitty sisters." okay and? what does that do for women and girls? nothing. your comment is only to comfort men and make men feel better as if women and girls all over the fucking world aren't suffering. not all men, but almost every girl/woman has a fucking story. but who cares about that right? you just had to interject and make sure that men's reputation is still intact, even if its at the expense of a woman telling her story and trying to shed light on misogyny. you are apart of the problem, you sick fuck
Right those boys were stalking and trying to prey on them at their lowest and most vulnerable points 😢. I've heard other content creators say the boys were sooo sweet ... WHAT?! Hell no. Thoys boys were voyeuristic and disgusting imo
they not mind readers dip shit
Stalking isn’t accurate AT ALL - they exchanged messages through records across the street. They had one-sided crushes, that’s not exactly criminal behavior. The girls asked them to come help them break out of their home after they’d been locked down for months and kept out of school, which is usually a tell-tale first sign of parental abuse - the boys fantasized they’d begin some romantic road-trip with girls they had crushes on, and they were traumatized at what they actually found there.
@@realSimoneCherieso you think looking at their window with a telescope isn’t criminal behavior, you are part of the issue
@@alexwintercast1381 he never spoke on that… so stop putting words in peoples mouth, rat. What “problem” are you referring to exactly? Or do you even know? Elaborate… don’t back down now
I'm going through this rn
I love films that could have gone terribly wrong, yet evade every possible trap and come out triumphant. The Virgin Suicides could have so easily been a romanticization of women suffering, a fetishization even. Especially considering the dreamy-like aesthetics of the film. Instead, it’s a masterfully crafted piece of storytelling, in which the emphasis on aesthetics only adds to the film’s value, than take away from it.
The Lisbon girls are five sisters living under a strict religious upbringing. We see their story through the eyes of four boys, all neighbours and classmates to them, obsessed with the out of reach girls, who to them, are more of mysterious ghosts and riddles to be deciphered, than humans. They try to collect every bit of information on them, they make all sorts of speculations in an attempt to feel closer to them, to catch a glimpse of the thoughts of these otherworldly creatures. As the teenage boys fail to see the Lisbon sisters as human beings, so do their parents. To be more accurate, they don’t fail, because a failure requires a preceded attempt. The self proclaimed “loving” parents never make an effort to understand their daughters, because they are terrified at what they might have to face: humans; Young women; Sexual beings. Religion is the shield they use to protect themselves from the very nature of their daughters. While the boys desperately try to understand who these girls are (in every wrong way possible), their parents do everything within their power so that the girls themselves don’t. It’s not without thought that the title is “the virgin suicides”. This is a film about the terror of a society when it comes to female sexuality. Sexuality is something girls must be protected from, since it’s something boys are expected to claim. The Lisbon girls’ parents are afraid that their daughters will be used in a sexual situation, that they will be dishonored and ashamed. Why? Because girls are not expected or allowed to want sex. Not at that age at least. They can only give into it. They cannot be trusted when it comes to the discovery of their sexual self. The desire to have sex, to date, to flirt, to listen to rock music, to dance all night long…What does that say about a girl?
Even though both the boys and the girls’ parents have been “blinded” in one way or another and can’t see the girls as humans, the viewer can see them as nothing but. That’s where the success and relatability (especially among young women) of the film rely. Though the girls are often portrayed as characters of dreams and fantasies, we never fail to feel for their tragedy. The tragedy of being imprisoned, deprived of nearly every quality that makes life worth living, and the tragedy of being intelligent enough to not hate your parents for it. The Lisbon girls don’t hate their parents, because they see them as humans, something their own parents are unable to do for them. At first glance, they don’t even seem to revolt against them. But boy, do they… Not only through their meticulously planned escapism through magazines, clothes, make-up and the most beautiful music one could possibly choose for that movie (Carole King and Gilbert O’Sullivan, that goes for you), but through their refusal to give up that flicker of freedom they all experienced the night of the high school prom. They refused to settle for life as they knew it before that taste of freedom. Once you’ve tried freedom, even if for only a few brief moments, you can never go back. And that’s exactly what the girls did. They fought for their moment of freedom, which was all they longed for their entire lives, and held onto it until the end.
The direction of the -couldn’t be more perfect- casting was nothing short of sublime. The colour palette, the stunning frames, the close-ups, the dreamy aesthetics, the emphasis on stylistic detail and the unforgettable music by Air, all contribute to a grasping atmosphere that grabs you and holds you “captive” from the first to the last minute - an atmosphere dark, yet light; tragic, yet hopeful; suffocating, yet empowering. The feelings of empathy, relatability and warmth Coppola manages to create within the viewer towards the Lisbon girls add up to an astounding achievement, especially considering, as I have already mentioned, that the story is told through the eyes of external observers who view the girls as objects of desire and mystery. The film could have been made in a way that would result in us seeing the girls from an almost anthropological point of view, devoid of any empathy and attachment to the characters. But that doesn’t happen. We feel for them, we imagine ourselves in their situation, we recall the countless times we ourselves have felt imprisoned, reduced to mere stereotypes and objects for observation, misunderstood and underappreciated, only because we were girls, only because we were teenagers… The Virgin Suicides is a masterpiece in every filmmaking aspect and whoever cannot see it “obviously has never been a thirteen year old girl”.
Tldr
yo you fr have nothinbetter to do than roght a whole ass essay in a youtube comment section?
@@izzyash2031 cause maybe that's more realistic
I love your profile picture 💖 have a nice day
@@gellybean3698 thank you, you too
I love the contrast of religion and femininity you show. It really adds to the reason the boys see the girls as "angels." Even how "Cecilia was the first to go" is said. It's informational, if not a little reverent. There's no sadness in his tone. Of course they'd die. People who are not made for this world do that.
Believe me or not, the curtain was just blue.
@@goodboi42
The curtain isn't just blue. It is a navy blue veil. A smokescreen.
The football field scene broke me. Her not trying to pursue him is what made her interesting to him, once he got what he wanted, he just left her. Alone in the cold.
Breaks my heart, and it hits too close to home.
Oh god someone finally told something about this movie. This movie is my hyperfixation and I could talk about womanhood and girlhood and it's potrayal in media. I love your video sm
i absolutely love this and the virgin suicides.
you really should read the book- i think jefferey wrote this book and made the boys this way intentionally; i think it's a perfect portrait of the way most men think of and treat women. i think this was the message him and sophia were both looking to portray through this work of art
i just went through a horrible tragedy where the father of my child (i am 19) objectified me by telling me he was sorry for everything he'd done and he'd come back and be with me and he loved me and wanted our family together etc whatever. he comes here, spends the night, goes to our son's 1st birthday party (didn't bring a gift) has sex with me, then leaves. this was very comforting and also brought me to tears lol! this is the sixth time he's done this to me. so i needed girlpower and strangely this gave me some :)))
excellent job and thank you for making this
girl you are so much better than his musty crusty ass!
I'm nineteen as well and while I do not have a child, I have been in a similar abusive relationship before. It's crazy how one man can break your defenses down so much. I finally found the strength after 2 and a 1/2 years with him (I was 16 when it started, and he was 32), and I hope you can find your strength too. You and your son deserve the world.
I think the book is great. And you deserve someone amazing who treats you great.
I've been in the same situation, I was 19 when I had my son, his father has done the same to me and is now a dead beat, it will get better, you need self discipline, don't answer his calls, ignore him focus on yourself and your son, I promise you, you will get through this and look back oneday and realize how much happier you are by protecting your peace, my ex eventually got married, he abuses his wife, cheats on her gave her stds, just 2 weeks ago, he was infront of my house at 2am looking for me, I just ignored him, I moved on and I'm so much more content with my life, I wish the same for you and your son, peace and happiness, Goodluck 😊
Fxck these boys...boys continue to do what you allow..As long you keep sleeping with him he's never gonna change . And worse you have a kid with him so he thinks it's a free for all..been there... save yourself heartache and keep him as your child's father ONLY. And than maybe friends if he can learn to respect you enough...❤ cheers darling❤❤
I went to the high school when it was filmed. I remember being hyper aware of this when I was walking around the school and found that the movie and the actual building were so different, but the themes I experienced were the same.
i feel like malena handled this too, we follow through the gaze of the boy who thinks he's a "good boy" but judges malena just as much as everyone else, as a result, we never learn of the real malena (tho we can infer from relativity)
Did Malena ever have a political platform or write a great novel?
@@winstonwolf5706”Malena” is the name of the movie 💀
@@winstonwolf5706 Do moids ever shut the f up?
@@Yourmom_yI know. The character.
When Trip asked Lux's father to take her out on a date, I was actually moved. The narrator made me believe that he is a sincere guy but after he had her, he just left with no words and he didn't even wake her up.
He doesn't like HER, he just likes the challenge because as he said, she's not like the other girls who are interested in him. Getting her is more like a reward that he could brag about
I really enjoyed your video essay on this movie. I was 15 when this movie came out, it has always been in my top favorite movies of all time. The story, the casting, the wordrobe, the lighting, the set design and locations all came together perfectly in this movie. VERY few movies make me feel this way.
I loved the way you talked about this film, there’s so many layers to this story.
Lovely analysis. This film was so well made and to me is one of the best adaptations ever. There were only two small things in the book that were omitted from the film.
Have also always loved the romantic fantasy style Sophia uses with the way everything is filmed. It just adds to the idea of how the boys, despite waxing poetry of the haunting love they hold for the Lisben sisters, never really knew them. The chance is gone, no matter how many belongings of the girls' they dig from the trash, interviews they do with the people who ever came into contact with them, or how often they comb over it all extensively. The Lisbon sisters will always be a mystery.
The Lisben sisters are much like the Romanov daughters - young forever, beautiful, every aspect of them romanticized, yet so isolated it left little known about them. They become almost one person, some fantasy girl to be fawned over forever, yet never actually known or understood.
Really great analysis. I would love to see a remake, not from any specific perspective, instead an omnipotent one. Seeing the girls experiences with an objective eye through visual themes, and the boys as a part of that; how young girls are the subject of the male gaze, how girls' privacy is disregarded, how young girls are not taught to understand intimacy when isolated from the world. It's such a beautiful movie, and I could definitely see how a movie (not from the boys perspective) could do wonders to bring this to a more modern audience
If you only see a person as how you want to see them as, how you think they are, you're never really seeing them as they are, only your idea of them. We, as people, make assumptions of others based on how they act, dress, talk, etc. but an important lesson from this movie is to realize that all human beings are just that human beings, not objects or playthings to be used as in fantasies.
Also want to say that the book is way more male-gazey and if Coppola didn't write and direct for the film it could have gone in a VERY creepy direction. The scenes with Lux especially show this because the boys compare her to a "succubus" and state that even 20 years later they still fantasise about her.
the love of my life loves this movie so i just had to watch it. no idea wtf was going on throughout the movie so thank you for explaining!
Sweetest thing. She will appreciate the small details.
I like the detail of dismembering womens bodies in order to view them, in the book the boys notice how Cecilia's chest looks after she is impaled on the fence. In the face of a horrible death this girl is *still* a sexual object and a sad piece of poetry to these boys before a human being.
This video, the person who created it with such intelligent deep insight, the comments everything is pure gold.
What's interesting and creepy is that in the book, 04:56, one of the boys finds the tampon and he sniffs it and imagines which sister will place it inside herself. This movie was my anthem when I was 13 and I didn't realize how depressed I truly was until I was reminded of the movie last year.
I thought in the book he took the used one out of the bin and imagined it inside Lux
@asahdo You are correct. I just didn't want to add that horrible fact in. 😭
out of the gene pool please
Jeffrey Eugenides seems to have a really weird memory of teen sexuality. Idk any of my friends, boy or girl, who would have done that as a teenager.
Weird weird weird
i accidentally pressed on this video, and i still sat through 13 minutes to listen. this was beautiful, thank you❤️
thank u, too !! the universe just keeps sending sweet angels my way
I can't agree with your analysis of Mrs Lisbon. Yes, she was afraid for their daughters, but my parents were strict, afraid for my sister and I, but never to that point. She forbid them to go to school, burn their music, who does that?!
My mom did that it just made things worse
you'd be surprised, some parents only view their kids as extensions of themselves, property to do what they wish with, if they learned to be independent, she's afraid of becoming redundant
@@KawaiiStars I understand that, but I can't agree with what she's doing, she's destroing her family (even her husband seems crazy at the end when he speeks with a plant)... I don't understand how she can't see that !
@@bulbasaurtheboss4420 because her potential redundancy is more important than her children getting to live, she probably comes from an environment where it's either childbirth or you're worthless, i don't excuse it, but people from these environments tend to be wildly self centered because without their gendered purpose, they and their worldview crumbles, and they're ill-prepared to deal with the aftermath, so if they're going, they'll drag you too
When you get older, you realize how impressionable you were.
I'm so happy people are finally talking about this movie, this was one of my favorite movies a few years back.
I've never cared about being understood, however i've always cared about relating to others; to know that there are others out there going through the same problems i am. It brings peace to know the experiences ive been through are experiences others have been through. It gives me the strength to overcome obstacles. I think our society puts too much emphasis on being understood (theres 8 billion people on earth, all living individual lives; it's impossible to understand everyone) and not enough emphasis on relating to others; real connection. I know we are all hurting in some way, but instead of festering in that pain and loneliness, we should be reaching out ourselves to others. I think if the people in the film did more of that then gossiping behind closed doors or obsessive behavior and treating people less than human just because they were in pain, fear, etc, there would have been a better outcome.
omg, i loved your analysis about the film and perspective of the boys, it was so profound and well redacted. keep up the good work 🩷
🕊️💌👐🏼💗
Your video was perfect and surgical, every word was perfectly placed. I don't think there is a better definition for this film than this
Yeah, if you're a mindless, indoctrinated socially engineered progressive.
This was a beautiful analysis . ❤ girlhood is hard young ladies .... be strong and stand up for yourselves
this means a lot to me 💌
@@orphicccmess ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I love this movie sm
Sofia is such a great filmmaker
I resonated with this movie so much when I first watched it at 14 and I never could put into words just why.
the virigin suicides is so wonderfully made
Just watched this movie and needed more of a deep dive, great video!
Never seen this movie, but I always thought this movie was extremely introspective and thoughtful about the male gaze.
How do you know when you’ve never seen it?
@@nolamedgirl I’ve seen small clips of it.
@spiderpig1029 Haha, Ikr! Anything to shame men.
The moment those boys glossed over Cecelia's diary, and one of them said im context that girls understand everything boys do and are, and yet they could not fathom girl, i was like:" bro, it's literally between yours hands".
24 years later, it still haunts me. Beautiful, it captures a time and place gone.
My older sister's middle school teacher gave her this book when she was 14. It was a good book and movie, but I think he was a little creepy.
freud was so bonkers. saying men are afraid that someone doesnt have a penis is bonkers.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense!
Insecure men fear what they don’t understand or cannot control. That’s what toxic masculinity is. It makes complete sense if you think about it. As a woman it is hard to comprehend. And I dislike Freud, because he’s a pussy who ruined society, but he’s not far off on that point.
Castration anxiety is not being afraid of someone not having a penis, it is being afraid of losing ones own penis as a reaction to women not having a penis (best to wiki it tbh).
This is seriously dumb imo, but the interpretation in which it can make most sense again imo is as a male fear of dominant males undermining another males ability to maintain reproductive agency on the basis of the dominant males self interest in maximising his amount/quality of sxual partners at the expense of the other male.
To lose reproductive agency as a man while still engaging in the sxual marketplace in freuds interpretation would be to take on the role of a woman - the "bottom".
and you get the impression of freud from a youtube video made by a low iq woman? you must be american
LMAOOO, actually sometimes i hate having one, like, dude i don't want to be horny now just let me do my sh*t for fk sake
This just popped up in my 'recommendations'. I must say it's brilliant. Very to the point and all too common even to this day. Thank you ❤
hiii u guys ! been reading ur comments and appreciate the kind words and constructive criticisms. been working on new essays but my laptop is still broken so it's difficult to make videos, but trust that if you're expecting more, i will be posting again. love & gratitude
please do not buy another laptop. your feminist bs is not appreciated.
@@susanwjoh0re735 i hope u heal
im good sweetie. it's the feminists that need help. im fine and dandy.@@orphicccmess
seriously you are deleting my replies now? how old are you?
I agree with MOST of your points but what about men. Its also the same for men too. There's also the "female gaze" as well.
watched this when i was 11, its weird how many things like this I LOVED as a child and then growing up and being in my 20s i see so many things that i loved so much and giggle sometimes at how i saw them when i was” too young” is all stuff that made me feel like i was surrounded by people like me
this is so well done !!! thank u for this
I completely forgot about this movie, thank you for bringing it back to mind and for your in depth input ❤
what's the movie called?
I’m quite late to seeing this.. this film brings out so much for any young woman to see it or man - especially to understand it. All the points you made minus defending the mom is why i loved this film.
It showed how much pressure is on us and projected onto us. You talk about this purity brigade but I was raised in a very creepy medieval culture that makes it extremely clear how/when/where and who owns our virginity. When i watched this film.. it reminded me of all that horror on top of a culture that is always controlling women making it even worse for them to just live their lives.
This movie was subtle and most of my peers rounded it up saying it’s about attention, obsession and wanting it from guys. Very few saw the guys actions as creepy or abnormal. If you trace it back or read the book, this is based on a true story. Although i couldn’t find the sources because the internet has been scrubbed I guess. All of this happened in gross pointe michigan.
I love everything you’ve said and it reminds me of another video about jennifer’s body and how much we expect from women, project onto them and use them. It’s not surprising that many feel like they’re better off being a different gender.. I felt that way too even though i enjoyed my femininity- i hated everything it came with.
The one part I can’t get behind is that there is no silver lining to Mrs. Lisbon- she treated her daughters worse than whatever she was trying to “protect” them from. We all understand her anxiety but she refused to have a single ounce of compassion for them and no matter what you say- there is nothing motherly about it. She completely isolated them- everyone including the father saw it and couldn’t help or stop her. There is no understanding for her.. it’s one thing to have curfews and punishments but she eventually pulls them out of school, they’re have no social life even with their own gender. She is just as controlling as the men and I refuse to give her an ounce of sympathy that she couldn’t give to her daughters.
These are the women that add to the dumpster fire of a teenage girl’s life and they have to be called out just as much as the toxic men. They are fueling the fire just as much. I totally get it if she went off kilter for a bit and then gave them a bit more autonomy.. but she was extreme as extreme religious groups go. Talk to anyone from these families and you’ll see how messed up it is.
Sure the mother doesn’t know any better but there’s plenty of women that have ten times more compassion for their daughters even in religious groups than Mrs. Lisbon ever did. I do see her as the main villain but not the only one ofc.
Bottom line is the girls are forced into these ideals and the people forcing them? They’re just as blinded and brainwashed into thinking that this is how it’s supposed to be.
However i still won’t say this gives Mrs. Lisbon a pass because again.. these are her daughters- She knew they were suffering and didn’t care.. her strict beliefs mattered more.
The mother was a narcissistic mother, I know because my mother was like her! She was using her daughters as a proxy for living, she never cared about their safety or life, they were toys for her.
I think the mother was motivated by fear more than narcissism.
@@lenoremisosoup4107 she was controlling before the Cecilia suicide, she treated the older girls like 6 years old kids, she infantilizated the girls since the start, even Therese was treated like a little child. She wanted to preserve her daughters like "bonsais". In the book is more evident that the mother was suffocating the girls before the suicide attempt. She choosed their clothes, the music they could listen...
@@lenoremisosoup4107that’s insecure narcissism.
@@claireskies2428 - She wasn't a narcissist.
Is that your professional diagnosis?
The movie kind of redeemed the book for me personally, the books narrator feels too detached from an ignorant teenage boy and just seemed borderline ped*phillic (for me it didn't get the point of the male gaze across too well and if the predatory remarks were intentionally there to get the point across and instead just made me feel sick) , the movie thankfully gave us more of the girls and more of the sober moments which I loved in the book.
Nice essay! I would just like to say to those who may have missed it, that while I can see wanting a version of the girls perspective, that actually defeats the purpose. Telling it from the boys point of view, with their limited knowledge and warped perceptions of the girls, is an extremely intentional storytelling choice that serves to illustrate exactly what is being criticized about the male gaze. It is holding up a mirror for the non-female audience, and while doing so, allows the female/female leaning audience to take refuge in the display of a fundamentally universal experience that is the misunderstanding, taboo, alienation of what it is to come of age as someone who is not a male in a patriarchal world. The setting and the characters are white, middle-upper class americans, but the actual meat and themes of the story are absolutely not limited or unique to those groups.
I find this misconception to be pretty similar to the misinterpretations of American Psycho, and extremely feminist piece of work that often gets written off as misogynistic because people do not look past the surface level.
I watched this movie when I was in high school and it creeped me out. It came out around the same time as American Beauty. It was an era where movies and media were unapologetically about the male story and called it "pushing the envelope for the sake of art" in terms of how over the top the male perspectives were in terms of obsession with girls and young women. These perspectives influenced young men and women.
I think the audience wasn’t taken into consideration and media literacy is still not great til this day so that’s why. But an art student would understand it completely I believe.
I see how it negatively impacted society though. Life imitates art.
Brilliantly and eloquently explained
Their symbiose as sisters can be seen as resistance of the outside world they never break free from dat "oneness" The suicide of the four sisters is a collectief action of the effect of their powerful emotional and psychological connection and response to parents behaviour at that fase of their age. Solidarity becomes a silent rebellion.
unfortunately, this point of view towards women is present in majority of movies and books :[ nice analysis 🌻
EASILY one of the best videos on the internet
One of my favorite movies, hands down. I do wish it had been told from the pov of a distant cousin or something then maybe it wouldn't have been so "mysterious"
I really like the ideas that you put in the video, keep sharing thoughts and ideas that helps young generation of women about the world we live in. Thank you
You are very talented at video essays and I’m surprised you don’t have more subscribers!
This movie haunts me. It's the most well portraited movie I've ever seen about this subject. I believe most of the girls that have watched it saw themselves too.
I'm 18. My dad always wanted a son. Instead, he got me and my sister. He doesn't let us walk in the streets at night unless he/my boyfriend goes with us. He complains when my skirts or shorts are too far from my knees, he complains when I let my nails grow and when I paint them. He doesn't let me sleep with my boyfriend, or travel, and he actually believes that we never made sex. He believes that I never drank, never smoked. He sometimes even says I'm just a child that can't make decisions by myself.
It's creepy how at the same time that he does all this due to knowing how threatening men can be, he is replicating the exact objectification and sexualization that he fears. How can a woman grow and live like a human being when surrounded by men that always want them to be who they want?
Thank you, Sofia Coppola.
And thanks for the video!
This just kind of brought me to another curiosity, whilst it’s not completely related to this, the fact that the boys basically had an obsession, without fully concepting why seems crazy to me, because I know myself and other females who have also maxed a man’s potential, and romanticized them who understand and have acknowledged that they ARE like that.. and idk I just found that interesting, and it makes me wonder if some people or even boys/men are or aren’t able to fully understand that they’re making up something about someone in their head. Idk if that made sense but yeah just had me thinking, this was a great video ❤!
Great video. Opened my eyes up to a lot of my own shortcomings. Thank you.
having read the book a couple times I've always felt the main theme of the story was more about dealing with grief at a young age and our warped memories of our dead loved ones. having such a traumatic event happen to those boys at such a young age left them in part unable to grow up, and this desperate need to understand them is a symptom of the inability to process grief when we're young, and an inability they carry into adulthood. more than the male gaze, I think the story highlights the danger of playing up to societal expectations, and the even bigger danger of sheltering your children so immensely that they become unable to deal with the inevitability of grief; for the girls, the death of their younger sister, and for the boys, the death of the girls.
or maybe that's all metaphor for the death of genuine connection and fulfillment because of pressures of gender culture? The utter grief and stunting that causes boys and men, and destruction it brings to girls and women? Feeding into the destruction and grief of each other's disposition... idk.
eta: or even that the pact the girls made is a representative of the pact all girls learn to make to destroy themselves to either cater toward or protect themselves against predatory culture, their deaths just showing the logical end of this endeavor.
It is so interesting how the girls are an object of observation and infatuation troughout the story yet in reality their true selves and the world they live in remains unseen. It always saddens me how we as the reader never get to know them altough I know that is the point this story is making.
This wass reccomended to me and I enjoyed every minute, you're very good at talking about the themes!
I'd love for you to keep doing this as a series, there are so many movies that just objectify and create such a horrible way of what men think women want, or deserve.
This was really well put together, keep up the good work my dear ❤
This is so good! Such a great analysis of this movie. I'm currently writing a paper on the male gaze in Ancient Greece, and found myself rewatching this video for some inspiration while trying workshop my thesis.
Is this for college or is someone paying you for this?
@@winstonwolf5706 Highschool paper :) I wish I was being payed
why men are so mad in the comment sec?
This was a heartbreaking movie
They were examined but never really understood or cared for so they chose to escape this thru suicide
That was a very clever essay :) thank you!
well done, recently picked up the Sofia Coppola Archive coffee table book, insightful on this film.
lol I have never worried about losing my thing
9:39. In my eyes, the purpose of having the dynamic of the overprotective mother, enabling father, and the children at their mercy was to show how the naive approach of not letting your children make mistakes results in them being resentful and depressed. This part of the movie isn't unique to men or women, pretty much every teenager experiences this to varying degrees (parents not letting you go to a party etc.).
This movie was about a subset of the teenage experience in white, upper class, suburban America. To chalk so much of the movie as a commentary on the male gaze seems a shame as I got so much more out of it.
In a sense, a good piece of art is like a lake, each person casts their own net in their own way in hopes of pulling out their own haul (their own opinion/interpretation).
Reading this comment after listening to the essay reminds me just how many different ideas/interpretations/opinions can a single piece of art evoke in different people (I personally lean towards your interpretation)
I feel like you got a lot less out of it, tbh, because you're actively dismissing the feminine experience despite it objectively being the focus of the film and sofia coppola's entire ouvre. I mean, what you're talking about is definitely a part of it, but an incredibly small part of what is talked about and presented.
@@GodheadNee I agree its a huge part of the film. I just found a lot of this essay seems to attribute the male gaze to scenarios where it didn't seem very relevant or made the film out to be solely about the male gaze. It felt like 70/30 in favor of the feminine teenage experience compared to the masculine teenage experience.
@@rigba7627in a society where the masculine teenage experience takes precedent over the female one in media and irl the portrayal of the boys and girls in the movie is most definitely male gaze thats like the entire point 💀
@@miabortion ok lol. I think you should watch the paris review's interview for author of the book. If you still come away with that opinion, I don't know what to say.
The movie was pretty loyal to the book. The book was told from the boys perspective. I think Sofia Coppola was the perfect director for this film. It is such a beautiful film with lovely shots.
i love this video and commentary so much
women hold the power within themselves to be or not to be, the film in question is focused on children. Innocence & purity and what comes with it, virginity and child bearing. If you are living in a poverty state or a wealthy bloodline it makes no difference, the decision is your own to make if you want to invite another human existance into our small over populated planet.
Such a beautiful and thoughtful video :) i dont usually comment but i felt like leaving a compliment because of how good the video is
In the book he found the tampon in the trash and took it with him, almost as a holy relic simply because it had been used by one of the girls.
I think we can accept that the male gaze and male characters in this film are selfish, without perpetuating anti-male sentiment’s. We don’t need to hate men to protect women.
i fall asleep to this video now
Great essay... keep up the good work
Very eye opening. This video makes me realize that we shouldn’t treat them as sex objects and instead care about their well being and help them get through it. Be a very good friend to them. Read the signs of what they are struggling and catch it and save them before it’s too late.
Love, sex and are not the things that help peoples mental wellbeing of suicidal thoughts and depression to go away. Love, care and support is the way to help them to get to the root of the problem of what they feel inside of the brain of what they are going through and talking about it. But in a caring and supporting helping way, not in a romantic way. the struggles and a way of being their for them and ask them what’s on their mind and getting the help they need and make them talk about it. But then again can they be saved no matter how hard you try to do this for them. 😢I wonder. The thought of them not wanting to be helped and saved is truly awful and that people want to exit out of their own life is horrible.😭
We can’t understand what pain they were going through. Depression is a very scary thing I bet and I can’t imagine what it does to people. Who’s ever going through it all. You are important. 😢
They saw them as sexy women and not caring respectful and loving women. I think that’s what the narrator of this video is talking about.
It’s weird how some guys view women like this. I mean-we’re all human. Not that much different.
Yeah, CRAZY how heterosexual men feel sexual attracted to women they're into.
For teenage boys all females are objects. They are ideals.
*most
can we leave the male gays out of this? (i tried so hard not to make this joke but i just kept hearing it the whole video)
The coquette girls today didn’t learn from the lolita girls of 2016
[1:40]: Yep, exactly heck even youtuber who doing recap say they same thing like why did boys ask they girl what's up stuff like ......
"How's going" or
"Is something wrong?" or
"Are you hurt?".
But sadly, never say stuff like this, sadly. 💔.
LOVE THIS! thank u
“Freud says“ lmao almost watched the thing
Bro what a beautiful movie and video to see in my recommendations :D
I have no interest in men in this lifetime in this present moment that i am
Slay. I’m 38 and this is a new perspective. Bravo to the art and bravo to the critique
This is from tumblr circa 2011. Very far from "new."
Not all teenage girls are troubled and depressed. Many of us were very happy and satisfied with ourselves during that time.
It actually started with John Berger in 1972 in "Ways of Seeing."
A curious little essay.
While I disagreed with a number of points brought up here, it truly was an interesting experience to see a different interpretation of
the film that caught me so off guard.
The best pieces of art elude a singular explanation, correct?
"A curious little essay,'' patronizing much?
@@sashatheelf fools like you are always circulating, waiting to get offended at anything. Just shut up next time.
What a weird condescending remark to begin with lol
The Lisbon girls were just as equally fascinated with the boys and the attention they received from them. The Lisbon girls had two overprotective Catholic parents. When one of the sisters commits suicide, the mother goes into overdrive with the need to protect and preserve the family she has. The teenage girls want so badly to be like their peers but they are denied the sense of “normalcy”.
At first they may have been seen as objects by the boys because they had so much mystery surrounding them that all they could do is fantasize about the Lisbon girls’ life. The boys did sincerely want something deeper and intimate with them, they wanted to know them as people.
These weren’t innocent little girls being exposed to horned-up boys. The sisters were wanting to assert their independence, explore their sexuality and make connections to the outside world. They were given life by their parents, only for them to control it. They took their lives so they could no longer be controlled, they made their lives their own, for once. They took the power away from their parents.
Out of spite
I appreciate the effort of this, but you are actually missing the intention of the book and film. Both the source material and the film adaptation are highlighting the central female characters loss of identity by viewing them through the lens of the teenage boys who lusted after them, saw them only as their outward personas, as beautiful otherworldly creatures who have been denied any real expression of their own individuality. It is a criticism of the repressive nature of the white middle-class, religion and the misogyny. They are "ghosts" not because Jeffrey Eugenides or Sophia Coppola thinks they aren't worthy of their own stories, but because not being heard or understood is precisely what lead to their deaths. It's a breathtaking debut novel and film. I'd add that a lot of these sources have been discredited, Freud has been widely panned by the psychological community for nearly a century, so please don't use them as fact.
i hope u finished the video because that is exactly what i talked about in this essay. eugenides and coppola highlight the harm of the male gaze (viewing the girls as shells to whom they could project their fantasies, mythologizing them and therefore stripping them of their identities) through their works. this essay is a critique on their critique of the male gaze. hope it helps.
do u think that "white middle-class" is massive double story houses with back and front yards in the suburbs? Violin lessons, debutants in mansions... I could go on.
@@rigba7627 I'm not the OP, but yes. The Lisbons are middle class and live in a middle-class neighborhood. Their father is a high-school teacher and their mother is a stay-at-home mom. They're living in a three-bedroom home with seven people. The other homes on their block are representative of a typical midwest suburb in the 70s. It's clear that some of the kids/families have a bit more money than the Lisbons and are probably considered upper middle class, but they're not wealthy. ETA: I'm not sure if the shrinking middle class is part of the issue, but it seems like people view having financial stability along with the ability to afford a few "extras" as being wealthy these days. It really is not uncommon for middle class people to put their kid in music lessons or to have homes that have a front and backyard in the suburbs especially around that time period. Also, debutant balls are pretty common in the south and midwest among the middle/upper-middle class.
@@haute03 This seems pretty plausible. That being said, A middle class neighbourhood would have some representation of lower- and upper-class families sprinkled about. In this movie, the neighbourhood seems to consist almost solely of upper- and middle-class families suggesting it's probably upper or upper-middle class. Also, music lessons being cheap is a very very recent luxury. Private violin lessons in the 70's must have cost a fortune in todays money.
Either way it seems conflicting. Could just be down to a lack of detail in the plot.
Great analysis
I always wanted a Black version. I’ve never been in this way. Worshipped and reviled as a goddess.
I really like this movie and i don't want to watch a movie from the girls' perspective. I think it's important that the movie leaves the viewer feeling like something is missing because it is! Their story is done and no one helped and that's it. Their secrets are their own.
I would, however, like a movie inspired by this one to center the main girl or girls in its story. It would be very validating to see a girl or woman go through whatever she's going through and clearly see how others do not care and how they project these ideas onto her.