Jessie Earl

YouTuber/Filmmaker/Writer | Words @Gamespot @Microsoft @RottenTomatoes @TheAdvocateMag | Trekkie by birth

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

My tweets are not my final say, video essay or full thoughts on a subject.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@cher_ebooks @PopDetective I mean, to use one that @PopDetective directly compared to, Companion. In that movie, there's literally multiple scenes of sexual assault, brutalization and torture of a woman. Jack Quaid literally has a girl hold her hand over a fire until it melts.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective I’ve made this exact argument in my videos too about how when you live in a patriarchal (transphobic, homophobic, ect…) culture you need to be clear in what the point is and how to push back. But I don’t think Obsession is unclear. I think this criticism is good but misapplied.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective I really think this is a stretch tho. Like yes I 100% agree with your point here, but I do think Obsession is fairly clear on who the villian is. And I think the people who don’t understand it are telling on themselves in really interesting ways. But the movie isn’t ambiguous.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@Tim_Kepple @PopDetective Yeah 100% agreed

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

So I've been writing a vid about this argument. I love @PopDetective, the GREAT critic, but I disagree with the idea that because Obsession is rooted in a male POV in isn't aware of a woman's. I found the film cognisant of Nikki's interiority in a way say, Ex Machina was not.

[Pop Detective @PopDetective]

@jessiegender I just don’t believe that works when the film’s prospective is so firmly attached to Bear. The horror is focused on what she’s doing to him. A more interesting comparison would be last year’s Companion, which makes sure to present us with the horror of her perspective.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@strappyshoe @PopDetective Yeah. That’s kinda the point of the movie. Yes.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective All I’m saying is; I hope you talk to some women on their feelings on the film before you make a video on it, cause I related very hard to what Nikki was going through and how Bear treated her.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective But I don’t know how you can watch the scene where Bear goes “what’s so bad about loving me” after he hears real Nikki suffering and think the movie is in any way ambiguous about how culpable Bear is.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective Anyways; the fun of film I guess. That said; what I will 100% agree on is we need more movies from women by women on this sort of thing. Even Companion was written by men.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective I'll be curious to see your thoughts, but for now I'm not sure I agree. Working on my own video about it; but the way in which I think it remains constantly aware of how Nikki suffers as Bear constructs his artificial woman, I think, is self-aware in ways Alex Garland is not.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective @fuddsproxy IDK, talking to many of my fellow women friends, and as someone who has been the victim personally of men very much like Bear, I definitely don't think the movie is ambiguous at all. Indirect, sure, but not ambiguous.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective @fuddsproxy Do some men (and some women) not get it? Yeah, but I honestly thinks thats more telling about them then the movie. I don't need the movie to be so BONK on the head obvious about it. But I think its 100% non-ambigious that the film thinks Bear is 100% at fault.

[Jessie Earl @jessiegender]

@PopDetective @fuddsproxy Huh, I think that's strange read. I dont think the film is AT ALL ambiguous about whose at fault. I think Obsession is FULLY clear Bear is at fault. Nikki says at one point, "You know this is your fault.", The director of the movie has a cameo on the phone literally blaming Bear