Every award season has its own story. And this year is shaping up around a handful of actresses, all in their late fifties or older, performing in films that deal with the thorny complexities of aging, acceptance and desire. “Baby Girl,” starring Nicole Kidman, spins an erotic fantasy out of a power exchange between a female executive and her much younger lover. Pamela Anderson’s rejection of beauty standards — and the subsequent reinvention of her public image — dominates coverage of “The Last Showgirl.” And Demi Moore became an Oscar front-runner when she told women to “put the scale down” in her Golden Globes acceptance speech for “The Substance.”
The back half of 2024 saw an increase in artistic interest in the inner and/or sexual lives of middle-aged (and older) women. The New York Times A trend piece ran about itleads his discussion of horned fiftysomethings in pop culture by evoking the image of Kidman’s mid-orgasm. But the appreciative, even celebratory tone of these paeans to hot actresses past Hollywood’s traditional expiration date masks the trend’s shadow side: the deified, terrifying hag.
“Hagsploitation” films, also known as “psycho-bole” horror films, go back to the 1960s, when “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” It was successful. Started a wave of exploitation films that make older actresses lose their minds in all sorts of campy ways. Today’s hags serve a different purpose, shaming old ladies — “It’s you. Really It’s like that,” she hisses—repressing her sexuality back. Just as the swinging nurses and freewheeling hippie girls of the ’60s and ’70s were their darker counterparts in the rape-revenge subgenre, so are today’s mediums. The awakenings of Omar are met with parallel images of Hogs.
What is a hog? Hog is an old woman who is not “well-preserved”, whose breasts sag and whose skin is loose and crepey due to deteriorating muscles. She wears no make-up, makes no attempt to hide her wrinkles, and is considered so deranged that her bare body is both a jump scare and a punch line. Her value to a patriarchal society, as a sex object or as a mother, is long gone. She doesn’t femininity on any level, and yet she stubbornly maintains her existence.
“Hagsploitation” films, also known as “psycho-biddy” horror pictures, date back to the 1960s, when “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” The success of , started a wave of exploitation films that were all about losing their minds over older actresses. in campy ways.
“The Substance” is notable for holding competing movements within a single film—both the imposition of beauty standards and the liberation from them. Elizabeth Sparkle (Moore) resents the male executives who have dismissed her as irrelevant, but she is so enmeshed in beauty culture that she knows no other way to exist. So she makes one last desperate bet in an attempt to retain her power. Of course it’s a loser. They always are.
But while the film ultimately comes down to rejecting these pressures, it engages in the very motivations it’s criticizing along the way. Director Coralie Forget films Moore and her “younger, prettier, more perfect self” Sue (Margaret Qualley) in extended nude scenes, and her camera dissects Qualley with butcher’s precision. Forget’s gaze is subjective, and we’re meant to understand that Elizabeth’s self-loathing and inner conflict are being projected outward in the film’s more poignant scenes.
This is especially true when Elizabeth begins to change in response to her/his/her “misuse” of the subject matter. And what form do these changes take? Thinning hair, blotchy skin, swelling and deformed joints that come from severe arthritis. A hag. This is where the theme starts to break down: respect yourself, or you might get a rotten witch finger, the film seems to caution – a message that still manages to scare the body of a hag. Makes things.
The “X” trilogy, which begins in 2022, also divides womanhood into multiple aspects, all of which are distasteful. “x” and concluded with “MaXXXine” in 2024. “X” also has a duality of female leads — here, Mia Goth plays both wannabe porn star Maxine and old farmer’s wife Pearl, the latter through layers of artificial makeup. Pearl also resents the attention her younger counterpart receives from men, and – without revealing too much – takes that resentment to extremes.
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But there are no layers. Interpretation of “X”. We’re meant to straight up hate the scene where Pearl tries to have sex with her husband, to the extent that it’s shot like any other kill scene in the movie. His sexuality and his obsession are intertwined, and both make him a monster. Do we feel sorry for him? may be Do we identify with him, or want to be like him? Of course not.
An older woman’s body is also used for shock value in “The Front Room,” the most exploitative film ever seen here, featuring a pregnant college professor (Brandi) who specializes in “goddess.” , her life is overwhelmed by her husband’s hyper. religious stepmother Solange (Katherine Hunter); The step-grandmother’s risk of lashing out against bigoted “traditional values” is fair enough. But the real horror here is the anomaly—Solange sits on the bed and often wets herself, a truly sophomoric touch from director Sam Eggers (yes, Robert’s brother).
For the first time we see Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), the elder of the two women at the center of the Danish film “The Girl with the Needle.” She is also naked. But this nefarious anti-mother has—again, without revealing too much—sinister intentions, which she hides under the angelic guise of an underground adoption agency. And while she’s a villain, she believes she’s doing the right thing. He is a bridge between the more straightforward hags and the venerable version of the archetype that appears in him “April,” the Georgian film that recently premiered at Sundance, will hit theaters on April 25.
“April” Most of these films open with this image: a naked old woman with breasts, trunk-like legs, and a bald head, portrayed by an actor in a full-body prosthetic suit. She wanders through the black void in knee-high water, evoking the darkness and wetness of the womb. The camera lingers on Hag long enough that the shock value is lost. Look a little longer, and you’ll notice a disturbing detail: its eyes have skin-like membranes. He’s a startling supernatural detail in an otherwise intimate, realistic film, and he’s clearly attached to the main character, Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili).
Nina is an OB-GYN at the hospital she works at — and a sketch artist outside of it, where it’s an open secret that Nina has abortions on the side. This puts her job in jeopardy, but Nina is dedicated to her work, and is willing to absorb her community’s hatred and violence—physical, sexual, and institutional—to protect her women. “Nobody’s going to thank you, and nobody’s going to defend you,” a colleague (who’s also her ex) tells her. “I know,” she replies.
Nina is an outsider who lives on the margins of society. Because She is providing an essential service, which no one wants or will acknowledge. This links him to centuries of witches, who also served as scapegoats for the sins of their villages. As the camera pans across the countryside, godlike and unnoticed, we hear the sound of Haig’s breathing on the soundtrack. Hag, witch, abortionist, healer, martyr—she embodies them all.
By making Nina a principled, devoted servant of society’s most helpless women, who helps free them from the servitude of motherhood—in another scene, Nina sneaks a teenage bride on birth control. Recommend pills — “April” Reinvents Hague as a figure of freedom. She is a woman who is outside the world of men and, in fact, against it. As a result, he is extremely dangerous, and extremely powerful. It may even be desired.
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