Obsession

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone, and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple, and today we are talking about the movie Obsession because we watched it recently. For the most part, I really liked it.

Courtney: And much like other discourse circulating on the internet right now, it has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody’s on the same page about what consent even is, or what it looks like.

Royce: Yeah, is this movie one of these cultural litmus tests that comes out every now and then, where it gives some insight into how a lot of people think?

Courtney: Yeah, it’s— well, it’s so interesting, because you just start skimming the discourse, and there are some people who are like, oh, the Guy was wrong, here’s how he was violating consent and not being a good guy. And everyone’s like, no, but he was being a good guy because look at all these things he said and did.

Courtney: And then there’s always like a third wave of people that are like, you’re all wrong, this movie actually isn’t even about consent at all, you’re just reading something into it that isn’t there. But I actually did, uh, quite enjoy the movie. I thought it did do a few unique things that I wasn’t necessarily expecting. to see when I sat down to watch a movie last week.

Courtney: So we’re gonna talk about the movie, some of our thoughts on it, and I suppose we’ll begin this conversation of consent, which has already been a long time coming since we’ve got this discourse. We’ve also got voice note guy discourse. I think we’re probably just gonna go ahead and make the month of August Consent Month over here at the Ace Couple Pod, because I feel like we have not even properly dedicated an entire episode to something that I have thought about. I’ve talked a little bit toward and mentioned here and there, but never gone as in-depth as this deserves.

Courtney: But I think the general social concept of enthusiastic consent—

Royce: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: which is often thrown around in places like this as the gold standard. Consent should be enthusiastic, and no one can agree necessarily about what that looks like, but I think as a framework, just a blanket enthusiastic consent is not enough. It’s not nuanced enough.

Courtney: I don’t think it serves The ace community especially, and in fact the community has over the course of many years developed our own sort of unique frameworks for what consent looks like and can work in the context of ace relationships, in the context of ace-allo relationships. But obviously consent is something that impacts everybody regardless of what your orientation is. And I think because our community has had to think and analyze these concepts so much deeper than the surface-level, broader social narrative, I do think we have some unique insights that will also help allosexual people if they would actually take a step back and listen. But of course, consent’s, for very good reason, a very muddy topic. So if someone in their mind has become comfortable with, you know, enthusiastic consent is the end-all be-all, it’s the gold standard, anything less is is not okay, then any challenge to that framework by saying enthusiastic consent is not going to be the gold standard for everyone, there are other ways, everyone’s hackles are going to come up because everyone’s gonna be like, ahh, now we’re talking about things like coercion, sexual assault, and— I wanna be very clear before we get into a big series of episodes on consent, That even if we start to challenge traditional frameworks or currently popular frameworks of consent, it’s all in the service of finding more nuanced ways to keep a wider variety of people safe.

Courtney: That said, Royce, go ahead and give us a breakdown of this movie and we will get into all the reasons why consent was— An incredibly important topic.

Royce: Okay, so Obsession is considered a supernatural horror film. It does borrow from a lot of well-known, well-established tropes. It has a similar vibe to some sort of like monkey’s paw sort of folktale stories. The creator said that it was initially inspired by a little short in a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, which is funny to me.

Courtney: I have still not watched Simpsons.

Royce: Around Halloween time, The Simpsons would usually do an annual horror-y episode where it was just several little shorts, horror shorts inside of the episode. And I haven’t seen a ton of Simpsons, but I do remember some of those episodes.

Royce: Anyway, Obsession’s protagonist is a young man named Baron. He goes by Bear, who has unrequited romantic feelings for a longtime friend and coworker of his, Nikki. I believe the movie opens up to Bear sort of rehearsing a confession to— is it just like a, um, an employee in a restaurant or something like that?

Courtney: Yeah, and that was the first red flag, to be honest, because At first, it opens up, maybe he’s actually confessing his love to the person right now. Then you realize it’s all a skit and he’s getting coached by his friend. So I’m thinking the other woman is also a friend for like half a second until you realize she’s literally just a waiter here.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: And she’s very clearly just trying to say what she thinks he wants her to say, like playing along. And then it’s like, okay, I gotta get back to work now. So that is what opens up. And I see people missing that. in this conversation where like, right off the bat, he was treating a service worker extremely poorly and putting her in an uncomfortable, awkward situation above and beyond what her job is actually to do.

Courtney: It’s almost as if that’s foreshadowing.

Royce: These early scenes are Bear trying to work himself up to a confession, and his friend Ian sort of Not necessarily blowing him off, but trying to push him to choose the right time and place. Specifically not at group trivia hangout.

Courtney: Don’t ruin the group hang, man.

Royce: Don’t ruin the group hang. But Barry gets really in his head about it. He’s not in a great place in general because his cat just died through a mistake that was probably his own. He’s living at his grandmother’s house and there’s a lot of old medication and somehow a cat The cat got into a, like, childproof pill bottle.

Courtney: Yeah, the cat didn’t do that alone.

Royce: Right.

Courtney: Those pills were left somewhere negligent for sure.

Royce: But you see the— in the opening of this movie, Bear is clearly struggling a bit, and upon hearing that Nicky lost an important necklace, goes into a shop to get something similar to it, like the crystal that was a setting in the necklace. And ends up finding these novelty toys called One Wish Willows. And it’s a little willow tree stick branch in a box with a bunch of warnings on it about it granting one wish.

Royce: The interaction with the shopkeeper is a little odd, sort of setting the grounds for this horror story. I believe she says on the way out, like, Whatever, if you’re gonna buy this, just don’t come back and complain. A lot of people who use these either end up dead or wishing they were or something like that.

Royce: So not long after that, Bear ends up doing exactly what his friend told him not to do and ruining the group hang and then confessing to Nikki on the way home. She is not into him in the way that he is into her, and in sort of a moment of frustration, he breaks the one-wish willow and says— I wish you would love me more than anything. And in a moment, she had like just, I think, entered her house, exits the house, and just stands in the shadow of the doorstep.

Courtney: Yeah, prior to this, she made it abundantly clear that she knew he was tiptoeing closer to confessing feelings, and she was shutting it down before it even got to that point. And like, Obviously read the room, dude. But he’s like, I’ve got a gift for you. And she’s like, oh, that scares me.

Courtney: Don’t. Maybe. Like, she was not subtle about, oh, I know where this is going and let’s just cut it off here.

Courtney: But yeah, the turnaround time was instantaneous. He hadn’t even driven away yet and all of a sudden she’s coming back.

Royce: Right. And she comes back out to the car and is clearly acting differently. Bear himself is confused and flustered and is asking what is going on. Nikki is suddenly saying that she wants to stay with Bear for the night, that her father is dying of cancer, which is something that had never been mentioned or anything like that before.

Courtney: Actually, what has been mentioned is that she hates her father and they’re either little or no contact.

Royce: Right. And during the remainder of that night, we get a moment or two where she seems to snap out of this and For a moment will scream or look visibly confused at what’s going on before reverting back to this new personality that we’re seeing. As this continues, we see Bear clearly, like, again, flustered, confused as to what’s going on. This is obviously a very sudden change. He knows there was a change. He hasn’t quite put it together that, oh, this little novelty toy I bought actually worked. But when she does spend the night, I believe he insists that they like sleep in different places, gets up in the night and starts searching for information on One Wish Willows.

Royce: I believe he goes to a fake Reddit site— what was it, ThreadIt?

Courtney: ThreadIt!

Royce: And sees some posts with some people swearing that they’re real, that they knew someone who made a wish and it came true, and other people saying it’s a hoax.

Courtney: It’s— People talking about like the Mandela effect.

Royce: Right.

Courtney: Like, people remember this existed, but it wasn’t actually a real toy.

Royce: No one can find any records of it.

Courtney: Which, I gotta say, that really works for me. Because as we were watching this movie, obviously, with technology being so ever-present in our lives, Google being relatively, like, Google being accessible like 24/seven in our pockets, now people using AI chatbots as search engines and things like Reddit, it makes sense that more and more TV shows and movies are showing people doing internet searches as part of the plot. And one thing we’ve seen a fair bit of in like, young adult queer representation in very drastically different genres is like, identity searching.

Royce: Like...

Courtney: Am I gay? Am I bisexual?

Courtney: We saw that in Heartstopper, which was a show that we talked about. Or searching, like, what does asexual mean? We actually saw that in Kuisenu Futari, which is one of the best pieces of aroace rep out there still to this day, if you ask my opinion.

Courtney: But I like this so much better than just actually using that as a method to, like, spoon-feed people information. Like, this is sort of the modern version of narration. Like, you don’t literally have a narrator telling you the information you need, but you’re reading it on the screen. And if it’s literally just finding definitions, that can be a quick, efficient way. I’m not against it entirely, but I do worry that it’s going to get overused, especially when we’re looking at, like, definitions of things. But trying to search for something that you think would be straightforward and seeing all these weird, like, no, this is the Mandela effect, this doesn’t actually exist, or this does exist, but here’s a, like, horror story I have from this. Like, that really, really worked for me in a way that I don’t think internet searches in media have yet.

Royce: Yeah, it does present a less reliable answer source too than someone coming out of the woodwork who has experienced all this before and is, like, trying to help the protagonist, because There’s a lot of things that are wrong on Reddit, and you would be right to disbelieve some of them.

Courtney: It kind of reminded me of that Haunted Clover song that we heard years and years ago.

Royce: Oh, right, right. We were at, um, a little festival downtown near one of the rivers.

Courtney: And there was a song that played that got so heavily stuck in my brain, and for years We could not find any record of this song. I remembered the lyrics. I was Googling the lyrics to this haunted-ass song, and the only things I found were other people doing the same thing. And one person’s like, I heard this song in like the Chicago area on the radio on a local station. X number of years ago, this song haunts me, here are the lyrics, can anyone tell me what this song is? And those were the only search results, were a few other people who are like, here’s this weird place where I heard this song and I’ve never been able to find it.

Courtney: So that was giving me very, like, very that vibes.

Royce: So back to the plot of the movie, things start accelerating pretty quickly here. Nikki tries to explain the sudden change of behavior and everything from the night before to drug use, MDMA, which seems odd. Bear, still seemingly somewhat conflicted or confused about what’s going on, just goes along with all of this, and the two of them start dating. She’s acting really weird at work. Their friends are confused and alarmed and are wondering what’s going on.

Courtney: And one of the excuses people give for this guy is the next day at work he is going to his friend being like, hey, something’s weird with her.

Royce: Yeah, but then—

Courtney: And it’s like, well, he noticed it, he mentioned it, he tried to tell people.

Royce: But he still went along with it the whole time.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: There are a few weird moments. At one point in time, Bear wakes up in the middle of the night and Nikki’s not in bed with him. She’s actually standing in the corner in the shadows staring at him.

Courtney: Which I thought was really funny because he’s obviously extremely startled by this and he’s like, what are you doing? And she’s like, I’m watching you sleep. Like, you’re so cute when you sleep.

Courtney: And that’s one of those things where it’s like, in other real-life contexts, a lot of people do consider that to be a very sweet thing, a very loving thing. And maybe it even can be in some situations, but completely removed from any mutual, like, reciprocal emotions, like, I’m just watching you sleep because I love you so much. I’m just watching you. while you are powerless to do anything about it is actually very, very creepy when you take out any chance of a reciprocal love amongst those people.

Royce: There’s a, a morning where Bear’s about to go to work, Nikki is staying home. At first it seems like a, a more tame, more normal interaction between the two, and then as Nikki says Like, goodbye.

Royce: The camera pans and the entire— the door has just been covered in duct tape. And Bear slowly, like, goes over to the door and tries to wrench it open through all the duct tape, slowly.

Courtney: Oh, same scene, I think, as the watching you sleep, because I said this line out loud with her because I knew exactly where they were going. He was like, is that my sweater you’re wearing? And I said, Aloud, in unison with her, having not seen this movie yet, it smells like you.

Courtney: ’Cause that is such an allo thing. And again, in a situation where there is mutual love and respect here, not the worst thing in the world.

Courtney: I understand theoretically, do pheromones exist or whatever, but that’s another thing just right up there with, I was watching you sleep and I took your sweater ’cause it smells like you. Like, those are things devoid of all consensual relationships. Extremely creepy. But I knew where they were going with it. It really, really is, uh, a social commentary on relationship norms just as much as it is consent and horror and all that fun stuff.

Royce: The first thing to push Bear to try to actually figure out what is happening is that he goes to work with a, like, boxed lunch that Nicki made and finds out that it is the remains of his dead cat.

Courtney: Yeah, I don’t know why she thought that was a good idea.

Royce: I think he asks and she tries to explain and is like, well, your cat was something you loved.

Courtney: It was very interesting because that, among other behaviors, it really was like you took a completely non-human entity who has never actually felt these emotions Mm-hmm. Before and just given every, like, romantic stereotype possible, like, downloaded it into her and said, go forth and do this. And without actually inherently feeling or understanding why things might be done or said, she just plays the part poorly, and it’s extremely creepy.

Royce: Yeah, I, I have some opinions on that because the creator of the movie intentionally did not go into details about what was actually happening here. There are a lot of fan theories out there, but the creator did state that this is not a simple possession script, like something else is happening. But soon after this, after being served a lunch of their former pet, Bear finds the, like, customer service number for the One Wish Willow and calls it and gets this guy on the other end of the line who is just completely over it and tired and not wanting to deal with someone who made a wish and is unhappy with the results.

Royce: And at one point in time—

Courtney: Which is also a commentary on the state of our customer service these days.

Royce: He, uh, tells Bear that, like, About the only way to undo the wish is for Bear to die, because the wish will stop at that point. And when Bear keeps pushing, like, the customer service rep asks, like, do you actually want to talk to Nikki?

Royce: Like, the real Nikki? And, like, connects the phone line, and Bear just hears, like, Nikki screaming.

Courtney: Yup.

Royce: And then hangs up the phone, and then goes back to continue dating a person who he’s gotta be sure at this point is, like, not actually—

Courtney: Oh, for sure he knows.

Royce: He should have clearly known before this point, but like after that point, there’s no—

Courtney: There were things that happened prior to this where like there’s no justifiable reason that he didn’t already know. He was just very much in denial and trying not to think about it, because there have been moments where for just like a minute the facade drops and you see her and she’s terrified.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: And Like, those things are happening. He’s very aware it is wrong. He’s already expressed to his friends that things are wrong. He has seen things escalate in inhuman behaviors.

Royce: Right. And so before getting into, I guess, theorizing about what’s— what the magic of this is and what’s actually happening here, I did want to note that customer service call because that very clearly demonstrates that there are two separate entities Occasionally vying for control of this one body. There’s the original Nicki, who is— who knows what’s happening. If, if this is like a Get Out sort of body possession thing where the original host of the body is just kind of trapped underneath and can see and hear everything but doesn’t have control over the body, or if it’s like, you know, some sort of spiritual purgatory.

Royce: Like, nothing is ever stated, but there are clearly two Nickis. One of them is the original Nikki, and the other one, my interpretation is, like you said, a completely new being who doesn’t really understand what it is to be human, doesn’t understand social norms or boundaries or anything like that, but is dominated by this, this extremely powerful feeling of love, obsessive love that came from this wish. And in that, she feels almost like a force of nature. Like, she’s doing very bad things, but she has like no concept of what bad even is, which is kind of what’s shown.

Royce: Like, well, I served your dead cat for lunch because I know you love your cat, and I thought you would love this because it’s your cat. And like, there’s just no— there’s no emotional response, there’s no human social logic there.

Royce: This is like a completely different entity.

Courtney: She also like completely shuts down when he’s gone. Like, when he does leave to go to work, she stands there all day smiling and waiting at the door and is still like having human bodily functions while standing there completely still grinning.

Royce: Yeah, she, she tries to describe this to Bear later and basically says that when he is not in her periphery, her whole body basically goes numb and it’s like she doesn’t exist. Which goes back to the wish, which was something like I wish that you love me more than anything in the world, which kind of includes self-preservation and, you know, bodily autonomy and, you know, all of the things that have to happen for a person to take care of themselves.

Courtney: But then she starts getting like, you know, if he ever tries to pull back, there are moments where she starts yelling and screaming at him, or there are times where she starts like threatening him or lying to him. And there are moments where he’s even telling his friends, like, there are some times where his friends are like, you know what, there’s something clearly wrong and weird going on with her, and it kind of looks like maybe you’re taking advantage. And he’s like, no, she’s taking advantage of me, she’s the problem.

Royce: But this pattern of behavior continues, it escalates. There’s a scene where Nikki asserts that she has to go with Bear to a group party setting that their friend Ian didn’t want her to be at because of all of the strange behavior that had been seen, and very clearly like acts erratically in front of the whole group of people. We keep seeing these little moments where the real Nikki is breaking through before being, you know, forced out of control of her own body, oftentimes through some sort of violent measure like grabbing a bottle and hitting themselves with it suddenly.

Royce: Some more drama comes out of the friend group. Another friend, Sarah, mentions that Ian and Nicki had been hooking up for a while now, and ends up confessing her own feelings to Bear, thinking that, like, the two of them would, would have been in a, you know, better-for-a relationship than Bear and Nicki, which in a horror movie raises a quick death flag.

Courtney: Yeah.

Royce: Ian’s sneaking out to go meet with Sarah, Bear kind of slips out of bed while Nikki is asleep, and as he’s leaving, he hears Nikki’s voice, and it’s the actual Nikki speaking, saying that the other one is asleep and that it’s important to, like, not wake her. But she asks Bear to kill her, and he gets emotional and says, what is it?

Courtney: What’s so bad about being with me? That is the number one Even though yes, he does in a way feel trapped by whatever this entity is. This is all in the middle of that.

Courtney: And that is my number one frustration with anyone who says that he is not the bad guy here. She is literally so miserable that in a moment of clarity she says, kill me. And he’s like, why don’t you like me?

Royce: And yeah, at this point in the movie, he has about as full of an understanding of what’s happening here as he could, given the magic of the universe. Bear huffs off after hearing that, leaves Nicky on the bed, and goes out to talk to Sarah, hears the confession I mentioned, and like clockwork, Nicky runs up and violently kills Sarah in the front of the car, and then asks for Bear to help Deal with the body. The next day, Bear tries to go back to the shop and get another One-Wish Willow to try to reverse his wish, but finds that he’s unable to break one.

Royce: You only get one. That’s why it’s a One-Wish Willow. So he runs over to his friend Ian’s house to try to explain the situation and instruct him to break the One-Wish Willow and undo the wish. Ian doesn’t buy it, grabs it, breaks it, and wishes for a billion dollars, and a ton of money just rains from their ceiling.

Courtney: I do think it’s funny because this kind of also proves that this isn’t a situation where every single wish you make is going to go wrong, because we even hear him outside the door later be like, dude, I got a million dollars. Like, his wish was just to acquire an object and not to fundamentally change another person and infringe on their own bodily autonomy, and he just got it. So it’s not every single wish goes wrong, it’s just like, maybe don’t wish for someone to be something they’re not, right?

Royce: And there are clearly some boundaries to this. I mean, there may have been some trouble from having a billion dollars just show up in your house. Like, is that money counterfeit? Did it get transported from somewhere else?

Royce: Is it not a part of the Treasury? Is He going to get arrested for having that money.

Royce: But it still isn’t the, like, blatant, you know, unsettling thing that Bear’s wish did to Nicky, which was— it seems like the magic isn’t capable of actually changing a person’s behavior, so instead it implanted a new person. But Bear, frustrated, returns home with the last One-Wish Willow, hoping to get Nicky to reverse the wish, and discovers Sarah’s corpse. Nicky has dressed like Sarah.

Royce: And threatens Bear and herself. Ian shows up to see what’s going on and gets shot immediately.

Courtney: RIP.

Royce: And Bear runs to the bathroom, locks himself in, and prepares to shoot himself, and then doesn’t, and then takes a bunch of his grandmother’s pills, and then—

Courtney: Changes his mind.

Royce: Changes his mind, tries to induce vomiting, and then we hear the musical opening of the One Wish Willow box. And his personality shifts.

Courtney: Yeah, she clearly made a similar kind of wish. I wish he loved me, or I wish he felt the way I do about him, and—

Royce: It happens off screen, so we only see the effect, but yeah.

Courtney: And the last thing he ever does is go to her completely against his will, I suppose, but has forgotten about the pills. And that’s kind of that.

Royce: Bear dies from an overdose, and real Nicki snaps back into her body, which is what we are told would happen if Bear died, because that would destroy the wish, and sees three dead people in a room around her. And that’s the scene we’re left with.

Courtney: So my take is that Bear has the original obsession, and—

Royce: That’s what the title of the movie was describing, yes.

Courtney: I think the title of the movie is describing Bear, not this entity that he wished into existence. Because the thing that makes me so sad too is that this friend and coworker of his who died, we had very early signs that she has a crush on him. And he is just so blinded by his love for Nicky that he doesn’t see it or he doesn’t care about it. But in that moment after Nicky is long gone and they’re sitting in a car together, like they have this really almost sweet moment where it seems like if he had Actually just explored this and given it a chance, they might have actually had something real there.

Royce: And then she’s killed immediately after.

Courtney: Oh, and then she’s killed immediately after. But the point really being, he never took Nicky’s lack of romantic interest as a sign that it wasn’t gonna happen and he should maybe move on or explore other options, sad though he may be. Instead, he pined and he wished and he fixated.

Courtney: And it kind of also shows at the end of the day that— I mean, I used the word love, the love he has for her, but I don’t even think that is an accurate word to describe the situation here. I’m sure it’s the word he would have used.

Courtney: But if he says, oh, I love Nicky, I want her to be mine, but Nicky as she genuinely inherently is, If she does not love him, if she does not think they are compatible, if she is not ever going to explore this as anything more than a friendship, then what he’s wishing for is inherently not real. It doesn’t exist. The Nicky he is fantasizing about is not real. It is just that. It is a fantasy. And there’s a surface level layer of truth where people say like, oh well, you know, he didn’t know the wish was actually going to come true, so just, you know, wishing out into the void that someone loves you is innocent, it’s not a problem.

Courtney: And like, yeah, to a certain extent. To a certain extent that can be innocent.

Courtney: Like—

Royce: It— the, the actual snapping of the wish, yeah. But there was Problematic behavior before the wish was even made, and there was problematic behavior after the wish was made, a lot of it.

Courtney: Correct. But I think a lot of people in the conversations I’ve been, uh, privy to surrounding this movie say like, well, he didn’t know, so that was like— the wish itself was inherently innocent. And like, I was a bit of a witchy child. I was also an asexual, probably aro-spectrum child who didn’t have that language yet, who was like Constantly being harassed by people to tell them who I have a crush on, ’cause people did that to kids and probably still do. So I’ve told the story before about how I did just pick like, the safest boy in the classroom and be like, him.

Courtney: That one. That’s the one I have a crush on. But like, based on media depictions of what crushes are supposed to be, a lot of them in media do skew obsessive, and they skew problematic. So yeah, was I like a 3rd, 4th grader, like, performing witchcraft love spells and mixing love potions for this boy that I didn’t actually like in that way because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do? Yeah, absolutely.

Courtney: Were those little love spells and love potions innocent from a literal child?

Royce: Yes.

Courtney: From an adult who has a much more informed worldview, I do think there should be an added complex layer of if you are wishing, even if it’s just your own internal pining, you do not think this is going to actually happen, but if you’re wishing that someone outside of yourself is different than they are, In a way that serves you, that is probably something you should learn to examine and analyze that as a fundamentally problematic impulse. It’s not gonna become a problematic action until you are literally violating someone’s consent or you are doing something to actually cause harm.

Courtney: The thought itself—

Royce: Right.

Courtney: Is not going to hurt anyone. But yeah, do I think someone should probably take a step back and reexamine themselves and try to understand where something is coming from? If at the end of it, like, pull away all the details and your pining desire is something you can’t and shouldn’t be able to control, i.e., another person, Then yeah, I do think that needs an inward reflection for what can I control, what should I control, even if I am hurt, even if I have negative feelings, I can acknowledge those, I can honor those feelings, but what am I gonna do about it in a way that I can control?

Courtney: Because if people don’t do that, and I think a lot of people don’t, and I think that’s why a lot of people will look at this guy and unfortunately see themselves in it to some extent.

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: Because they’ll probably understand the feelings of heartbreak. Maybe they have had an unrequited love story of their own.

Royce: I think that bit of self-identity is a big reason why a lot of these bad takes come out for a lot of pieces of media, where Bear is a very shy, awkward person and is also the protagonist or like focal point person in the movie. And for both of those things, independently and together, people tend to give a lot more leeway than they would if the perspective was different.

Courtney: Yeah, and I’m sure a lot of people looking at this are gonna say, you know, at some point in my past, I did wish that someone loved me. So yeah, I’ve done that too.

Courtney: So that’s not inherently a problem. And he couldn’t have possibly known.

Courtney: But that’s when we get into the actual conversations about consent, because they do Before and after he sort of gets the full picture of what’s happening, they do have sex. They are sleeping together.

Courtney: That is something that is shown and called attention to. And that’s where enthusiastic consent becomes an excuse. Because they’re like, well, she was enthusiastic. She was actually incredibly enthusiastic. She was the most enthused. So he wasn’t doing consent badly. She consented enthusiastically, even.

Courtney: That’s what you— that’s what you wanted. That’s what all of you feminists want.

Courtney: That’s what the internet tells me, right? That’s all you need.

Courtney: If the one wide net blanket checkbox of enthusiastic consent is checked, then full steam ahead. We are a go.

Courtney: And that’s itself also kind of a Problem. Because, as we will get into more next week when we start talking about Voice Memo Guy, I do think there are way too many people who see consent not only as an ongoing and nuanced practice, but as a box to be ticked. And someone who wants that box to be ticked really bad Are going to find the lowest common denominator, the lowest possible baseline that technically counts.

Courtney: And that’s, that’s not what consent is. That’s not how you practice good consent. But I think that’s how a lot of people treat it.

Courtney: And so they will use the language of feminist activism, of Psychology in a lot of cases. People will throw around psychology terms like boundaries, and instead of exploring the depths and nuances of the unique situation, they’ll try to use them as, you know, evidence. Evidence that I’m doing it right.

Courtney: And although yes, this is clearly a— some type of supernatural horror fiction story, There are absolutely instances of real-life examples where these same ideas can apply. So I think everyone who says this isn’t even that deep, it’s not even about consent, it’s just a scary movie, it’s just about a wish gone wrong, it’s just about some sort of, you know, body-snatching entity, however they’re reading this magical system to be since it is left vague. But as we’ll get into more over the course of this month, there are ways that consent can technically look enthusiastic but still not be the right thing for both parties.

Courtney: And I think real deep down, if people let themselves think on it, I think a lot of people know that. I think there are a lot of people who don’t want to dig that deep because they want the lowest possible baseline to check the box. And luckily, by and large, I do think a lot of people are getting better and more educated.

Courtney: I am seeing a lot more conversations about, you know, substance use, you know, consent when alcohol is involved or other drugs. I do think there are more people now than there were a couple decades ago who who say like, you know, even though this person in front of me in the state they’re currently in do seem to be consenting, they do seem enthusiastic about it, I think there are more people who are inclined to say like, even though it looks right and I can technically check the box, there’s something else at play here and maybe this needs further examination. So no, we don’t get to get out of conversations about good consent just because it’s a horror fiction.

Royce: Horror is actually one of the genres that frequently tries to pick at very specific things that need analysis by taking them to extremes.

Courtney: Yes!

Royce: The first thing that came to mind was exploring the potential horror of pregnancy and birth through a body horror lens.

Courtney: Mm-hmm. And I know a lot of people, percentage-wise more often than not women, Myself included, who know and have encountered guys like this. Who have been stalked by guys like this. Who have been made to feel unsafe by guys like this. Who maybe even did start as a good friend. And is it inherently problematic to profess your love for someone?

Courtney: No. But once you realize that’s unrequited, it is one,000% on you to behave accordingly thereafter. And unfortunately, because over time, historically, media has not portrayed this very well. I mean, a lot of people in our generation, you know, saw the really big, you know, like golden era of rom-coms where there’s always like the third act grand gesture where very often it’s, you know, like a woman who’s saying no, she’s saying no, but secretly she really wants it actually.

Courtney: And you just have to make a big enough display or you just have to be—

Royce: Yeah.

Courtney: Tenacious enough, and you’ve gotta continue pursuing her, and then you’ll get the girl eventually, because it’s a game, right? It’s about getting the girl.

Courtney: And a lot of people have seen media like that, and they have internalized it. And much like in this situation with Bear and Nikki, the Nikki he is fantasizing about is not real. And he never came to terms with the fact that she is not real. Even when confronted in the most dramatic fashion possible, where she is saying, I’m miserable, this is not me, please kill me, I would rather die than continue this miserable existence, he’s like, but why don’t you love me? Just, just love me, dammit! I’m a good guy!

Royce: There are a couple of very heightened scenes in here that were terrible and also hilarious at the same time. Like Bear asking Nikki to please just be normal, and she’s screaming like, I can’t be normal!

Courtney: Um, that was actually so funny, the way she screamed, I can’t be normal! Um, I’ve been screaming that a lot lately, actually.

Royce: But what I was getting to, there’s— there are a couple of different scenes where the idea of not being in this relationship is just so impossible for Bear to consider. That he’s like about to go back home and is like rehearsing, like, Nicki, you can’t cook the cat.

Royce: That’s not a thing you can do. We can’t do— like, that’s not okay.

Courtney: Yeah, there’s almost some desperate moments in the middle there where once he realizes something’s wrong but hasn’t seen the full extent of it yet, he’s almost like, hmm, can I shape her into what I need her to be? Can I teach her and we’ll eventually get there?

Courtney: That some of those scenes do kind of have that vibe to me.

Courtney: But yeah, properly baffling to me because it’s more than one occasion where an outside party is like, are you sure you’re not taking advantage of her? And he gets like, viscerally upset and is like, no, no, no, absolutely not. She’s like completely obsessed with me, actually.

Courtney: And so the fact that that is in the text, that’s not even needing to do nuanced media analysis. People are already questioning that before they even know what the deeper situation is like.

Royce: Of course!

Courtney: This is a central theme in this movie. And it is devastating to me how many people give Bear a pass, either because they see themselves in it, or honestly there are a lot of women I’ve seen also who are like, this kinda is just how men are, and if there wasn’t anything paranormal going on, it wouldn’t have been a problem.

Courtney: Uh, which is also a common excuse I’m seeing around Voice Memo Guy, so I’ve I’ve thoroughly convinced myself that’s gonna be next week’s episode. But definitely for our conversation over this month, keep a pin in the notion that enthusiastic consent is not the end-all be-all framework that it’s often touted to be. And even though we’re going to critique it, it does not mean that we should have a lower threshold for what consent looks like. If anything, I think there should be a much higher standard. It’s just a lot more complicated and it’s not gonna look the same way every time.

Courtney: So that being said, uh, welcome to Consent Month. We’re going to start off light, I suppose, with this movie discussion. We’ll get a little more complicated with Voice Memo Guy, and then we’re gonna real deep in the weeds of an ace-informed theory of where the conventional models of consent maybe do not serve us appropriately. So I really hope you’ll stick around for that conversation because it’s a doozy, but I think it’s exceptionally important, not only for aces, not only for allos who may find themselves in a relationship with aces, but—

Royce: Everybody.

Courtney: And so with that being said, as always, I’m going to send you all off with today’s featured Marketplace vendor, Pixyl Terrarium, where you can find a variety of handmade items from an India-based trans ace artist. The handmade items in the shop right now are some really cute bug keychains. We’ve got like a little caterpillar, a really adorable Moth-looking creature.

Courtney: If you need a keychain, check that out. But that’s not all.

Courtney: This artist also is accepting commissions. So if you need an icon, a chibi, there are a couple of different art styles here. They’re really, really cute. So definitely check out Pixyl Terrarium.

Courtney: Links, as always, are going to be in the show notes on our website as well as the description box if you’re listening on YouTube. And hey, even if you don’t currently need a commission or a keychain, this artist also has a Ko-fi. So if you’re feeling generous, maybe tip ’em a few bucks because aces deserve it.

Courtney: And you can trust me, I’m an expert. As always, thank you all so much for being here, and we will see you next week for week two of Consent Month.