Dude

[osprey_archer]

I wanted something relaxing to watch after an evening of hard-core cooking, so I started watching the Netflix original movie Dude. The preview pictures led me to believe it would be a fairly light-hearted look at four girls’ friendship during the last weeks of high school. HA. In the first, Lily's boyfriend Thomas (who is the brother of Lily's best friend, Chloe) dies in a car crash.

Fast forward a year. Lily is now in charge of senior prom. Multiple characters tell her that she needs to let go of her need for control, delegate, loosen up, etc. There’s an execrable sequence where one of her fellow student council members asks her to prom by singing her a song, accompanied by ukulele, during a student council meeting, with the connivance of the teacher. Lily, horrified, ends the meeting and flees.

But then! But then! Later on, Lily apologizes to him: “I was such a bitch,” she says. HOW DARE SHE HAVE NOT INSTANTLY SAY YES WHEN A GUY SHE DOESN’T WANT TO DATE SINGS TO HER ON A UKULELE IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE STUDENT COUNCIL. HOW VERY DARE. What a manipulative bullshit move on his part. He’s arranged it so she HAS to say yes or she’ll look mean.

Just to drive this point home, when Lily tells her best friend Chloe about it, Chloe is all, “That’s so sweet!” Thanks for nothing, Chloe. (Chloe secretly wants to go to prom with a guy rather than together with Lily as friends, not that she’s told Lily this. Chloe’s main character note seems to be “vaguely resenting Lily for not knowing things that Chloe hasn’t told her.” I loathe Chloe.)

At this point I decided to look up reviews online to see if this story was going the way that I thought it was going, viz, Lily is going to learn some Very Important Lessons about not being bossy a control freak, probably by having the prom she has labored so hard for go terribly wrong, and also by having her best friend Chloe sneakily back out on their plans to go to college close to each other.

I did not learn if either of those two things happen. My money’s on yes, but I’m not watching the rest to find out, because in the course of checking out reviews I discovered Lily gets raped. This strikes me so hard as “this narrative is punishing a female character for wanting too much control of her life by taking all control away from her.” UGH.

Someday I want to read a book or watch a movie or just in general experience a piece of media about a woman who is a complete control freak and the narrative never tries to teach her a lesson about it at all even slightly.

So I stopped half an hour into the movie. Did not enjoy, do not recommend.

Comments

[staranise]

YIKES.

And yes. I want a movie where a woman is the secret mastermind who engineers an important plot, and there's a part with cool music where all her plans come to fruition interspersed with footage of a Rube Goldberg machine slowly working its way to a satisfying close. And the character who got told a million times NOT to move the thing on her desk moved the thing on her desk and gets totally squashed as a consequence. The thing was keeping them safe.

[asakiyume]

Ugh. Ugh.

Manipulative arm-twisting public declarations or proposals are AWFUL and all ought to be turned down just on principle.

That sounds like a terrible movie.

[conuly]

Ugh, gross :(

[thisbluespirit]

Argh. I don't blame you for switching off! If someone asked me out via public ukelele session, I'd run too! Who wouldn't?

Someday I want to read a book or watch a movie or just in general experience a piece of media about a woman who is a complete control freak and the narrative never tries to teach her a lesson about it at all even slightly.

Also, I don't know how closely it fits (it has issues, Lynda has issues), and it's a UK teen drama from the 1990s, and it may depend on if you're a Moffat hater, but... can I introduce you to Lynda Day and Press Gang here?

Sarah: "Can you explain to me how I have just argued myself into doing exactly what you wanted me to do in the first place? You are a devious, unfeeling, calculating, manipulative bitch."

Lynda: "Well, you were asking what made me a better choice for editor."

There's not all that much of it, but for five years growing up, it was the most fabulous thing to have on TV and I wanted to be her. I'm not, and it really is just as well, but it was great, and so was/is Julia Sawalha.

(I mean, it was made over 20 years ago, and knew better than anything else I've ever come across how to take a running joke and stab you through the heart with it, so it's not precisely lesson-free and it can be surprisingly dark - warnings may be needed, but Lynda is everything you've asked for. There are some eps up on YT, although not the greatest quality. This is a bit of a random clip, but the best non-spoilery Lynda I can find on a brief search: https://youtu.be/2Z-a11MjdDY)

There probably have been others since, but Lynda was the first, so I forget the rest.

ETA: I'm now trying to imagine what Lynda would do in response to the ukelele thing and I may not stop laughing for some hours yet.

[amaebi]

That indeed sounds utterly disgusting. :(