When I first saw the trailer for the film Promising Young Woman (2020) dir. Emerald Fennell, I was intrigued and very interested. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see it until recently. But I am so glad I did because I really liked it and what it was saying about sexism, rape culture, and the “nice guy” phenomenon. I chose this film to review because I thought I would be able to relate it to a feminist reading of Near Dark (1988), directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and while I still could do this, I think the campy effects of this film offer a much more interesting analysis.
I wouldn’t describe the entire film as campy, but there is a lot of it in there. I will be discussing some of the later plot twists and the ending, so spoiler warnings ahead! The film follows Cassie, a thirty year old woman who works at a coffee shop after dropping out of medical school seven years before the events of the movie. Every weekend she goes out to a club, acts like she’s blacked-out drunk and waits for a “nice guy” to take her home. Every time, the nice guy ends up trying to sexually assault her and she stops acting drunk. They freak out, and she leaves. These scenes in particular, where the guys try to take advantage of her, are the scenes I want to focus on.
One of the best examples of this is the scene with Neil (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). The scene feels like it’s being exaggerated. Neil seems like too much of a jerk for it to be realistic while also feeling so real at the same time. It's a parody that isn't really an exaggeration at all. The irony in this scene is that it’s shot and treated like a hyperbole to get the point across, but it really isn’t. I know there are so many guys like that out there. Casually doing lines of cocaine while talking about his idea for a novel about how hard it is to be a man in today’s society. It’s just so ridiculous but also so realistic, and that’s where I think camp comes into play.
Camp, as a style, inverts traditional standards of high art for ironic appeal, and I do think this film does that. Or at least, it employs aesthetic qualities of cinematography popular today while using them to exaggerate the scenes and actions of the characters themselves. The scenes with the various men who try to take advantage of her are good examples of this, but the best example comes at the end of the film. The scene between Al and Joe, when Joe comes into the bedroom the morning after, is such a brilliant scene and discovers the dead “stripper”. It perfectly parallels what a conversation between two women might look like after one of them was sexually assaulted. Joe immediately starts comforting Al, repeatedly telling him “it’s not your fault” and other words of reassurance. The scene ends with the two men hugging, Joe cradling Al’s head like he just went through a terrible ordeal that was out of his control. This is the best instance of camp in this film because of the way it sounds just like someone comforting their friend after they’ve been assaulted, not after they’ve assaulted (or in this case murdered) someone else.
I could honestly say so much more about the irony in this film, but this one scene represents the crux of the movie’s commentary. It is very well written and performed, and is so ironic. The acting is over the top for both of them, especially for the situation itself. Al is handcuffed to the bed, being comforted by Joe after he killed a woman, who is still laying on the bed next to him. It is just so absurd and ridiculous for them to be acting this way, but it serves to show how absurd men act in situations like this, or even in conversations about sexual assault and sexism in general. It serves to show the absurdity, ridiculousness, and injustice of rape culture as a whole
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