Olivia Wilde’s off-the-rails press tour for “Don’t Worry Darling” started with the “Booksmart” helmer praising the film for being a beacon of female pleasure (spoiler: lead star Florence Pugh’s character is repeatedly raped in retrospect and cannot consent since she is chained to a bed and held captive unconscious). In a splashy pre-release cover story, Wilde made what seemed to be a sex-positive statement to Variety: “Men don’t come in this film. … Only women here!”
A source revealed to IndieWire that the highly controversial set was without an intimacy coordinator at the request of director Wilde, all while off-set she emphasized just how sexy and Adrian Lyne-y the sex scenes between Pugh and Styles were on her year-long press tour. “Why isn’t there any good sex in film anymore?” Wilde infamously asked, promising that “Don’t Worry Darling” would rectify that.
“I think the idea that just because you have a female lead character, that instantly makes the film feminist, is a bit naïve. bell hooks said it best. She said, ‘Patriarchy has no gender,'” Menkes said. “As women, we have internalized a lot of these concepts on a very, very deep level to the point that they’re just reproduced. When women directors reproduce these tropes, you wonder how much is just automatic. I ask the same question of women that I ask of men: How do you think that reproducing the same shit is supposed to be revolutionary or commenting on it? Because we have had 120 years of the male gaze on our backs, because we have had 96 percent of films directed by men that objectify women all throughout history. It’s so ingrained, it’s so deep.”
While Menkes credited Wilde for employing a feminist shot design and use of visual language, especially when filming lead star Pugh’s nudity, Menkes noted that on a script level, “Don’t Worry Darling” is decidedly anti-feminist. Why?
Well, mainly because none of that hot sex Wilde boasted about is consensual. Spoiler alert: The ending of “Don’t Worry Darling” is that Pugh’s character is actually being held hostage by her abusive incel partner (Styles) and literally chained to a bed as they live out their “ideal” lives in a virtual reality simulation called Victory. Pugh eventually escapes, but there is no redemption. It’s a rape fantasy without the rape-revenge.
The plot of “Don’t Worry Darling” is hardly feminist when examined more closely, but behind-the-scenes issues are troubling as well: A source told IndieWire that more than half of the production assistants were not included in the film’s credits, despite being listed on IMDb. The production assistants left out, including COVID compliance officers, are all women. (IndieWire has reached out to representatives for the “Don’t Worry Darling” production for comment.)
🗣🗣🗣
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Just rewatched SVU 8x18 Responsible and I had forgotten how that episode ended. Completely forgotten.
Just. What. The. Fuck. Elliot. You can't just burn your daughters ID. She needs that for more than driving or buying alcohol!
what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck
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Olivia Wilde: Writers channel the human condition into content that brings us together, teaches us things, and makes us feel things. Pushing them into poverty and replacing them with robots is utterly dystopic.
Collective worker power through unions is the only way to keep the voracious appetite of corporations in check. They are designed to grow at the cost of everything else starving around them. Even if their CEOs dont agree, that's what they owe their share holders. Or if they're privately held, they are competing along those lines.
I stand in solidarity with the WG and hope the producers make the decision to end this soon.
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i'm watching house and i just read 'olivia wilde' and it took moment for my brain to click that olivia actually plays 13. fucking hell. how do i cope with this information now.
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And that’s all I’m gonna say
I literally just pointed this out to a friend. She’s doing the same pose and acting routine she does when she plays the role of “Harry’s devoted girlfriend watching his concert”.
She’s pretending and playing a part.
LOOK AT HER FAKE ASS “fond face”
She is LITERALLY showing how it’s all just a role she’s acting for 💀
Fake ass shallow bitch
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Do you think Harry and Taylor were really together? Before these vault tracks I believed it was a 3 month pr stunt but now I'm not sure. And some fans are saying they were on off for a year or 2. She sure did write a lot of songs about him i could believe it
Personally, no, I don't, and I have seen some timelines from the non-harr faction, non-this fandom faction, full stop (heh) give it more legs than 3 months, but that said, I don't think the length of time really matters, it served what it had to serve! Everyone got what they needed! I'm in the camp that thinks it was a mutual bearding sitch, she had her lady with the green eyes, accent, dimps, etc., and the under relationship synched up with the over one (my god, the whole In Style Dianna cover shoot with the sly boots lyrics/timing to Style, WHEW). I need to check in with that camp to see how they're reading these new tealeaves, but even if they aren't connecting dots, the whole thing gave some good grist for a particular mill if you're a creative writer, and my god, she is!
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