The term “queer”In the past few decades, has seen an explosion in popularity: It was once a synonym for “strange,” “queer”According to some,Used as homophobic slurstarting in the late 19th century. Although the word was popularized in activist circles throughout 20th century, widespread adoption of the term has been rapid and unprecedented. Where “queer”This is used to give the works a biting edgeavant-garde artistsorradical protestors, now you’re just as likely to see it describethe CEO of Land O’Lakes butter.
These days, the word “queer” does a lot of heavy lifting, and it certainly encompasses more than homosexuality. Depending what academic theory you read, “queer” can be used as a noun, adjectiveOr verb, or as an identity label or a descriptor for any non-normative person or behavior. It could be called an umbrella term, by optimists. It could be referred to as meaningless by pessimists.
Perhaps because “queerness”It has lost its meaning because it is so broad, At least that is what it is prompted to feel. “Please Baby Please,”A satire experiment from Amanda Kramer and Noel David Taylor. It is described as a “genderqueer extravaganza”Awash in “silk, sweat, andbisexual lighting,” “Please Baby Please”It may pay tribute to queer aesthetics but fails to make coherent points about gender and sexuality.
“Please Baby Please”Eye-popping set pieces are more important than narrative cohesion. However, the plot of this movie is similar: In 1950s New York, heteros Arthur (Harry Melling), from “The Queen’s Gambit”And the “Harry Potter”Films) and Suze(Andrea Riseborough). “Mandy”Reexamine their relationships to each other, gender, and eroticism. A crew of flamboyant-yet-menacing leather daddies called the Young Gents beguile both of them. Arthur is attracted to Teddy (Karl Glusman), a doe-eyed gangster. “Watcher”Suze seems more attracted to the large-scale leather life, She admires Maureen (DemiMoore), a wealthy housewife who lives a laissez-faire lifestyle.
While this film is stacked with talent — namely the chameleonic Riseborough, who also gets an executive producer credit — that only highlights its limitations. Riseborough is determined to go big as Suze, adopting a gruff affect and bellowing her lines as she tries to mimic the Young Gents’ masculinity. Glusman and Melling have electric chemistry, and Melling pulls off Arthur’s wide-eyed neuroticism with impressive charm.
These pros have only so much to eat. Suze is initially intriguing as she struggles to find her sexual place. But her tough-guy attitude quickly leaps the shark. Arthur soon feels overwhelmed by his sensitive-boy slang and it becomes exhausting. Arthur hears several speeches about his disconnection from masculinity in a film lacking any cohesive dialogue. One would have been enough.
At least Arthur’s motivations make sense — it must be destabilizing to be in a heterosexual marriage in the 1950s and suddenly feel homosexual attraction. Suze is more puzzler than a puzzler. Arthur asks Suze to be less puzzler after she has seen the Young Gents kill two civilians. “precious”He sat down with her and told him that she wanted to be “beneath” him. Maureen, Maureen’s upstairs neighbor, fascinates her by asking questions about female empowerment.
Suze grapples with her role as a wife, unsure how to please her husband in this brave new world. “How do I give it to him the way he wants to get it?”Mary Lynn Rajskub plays Mary Lynn Rajskub, and she asks her a random guy in a movie theater.“24”).
In some ways, it’s a subversive question, as 1950s housewives were hardly encouraged to “give it”To their husbands. Suze is determined to please her husbands. Arthur may have a rendezvous in leather with his leather-clad lover, but Suze is steadfast in her marriage. If her new love of leather is meant to signify some latent lesbianism — the theatergoer calls her a “butchie”; A gay man calls him a a “dyke” — she certainly never walks the walk.
Indeed, the film is so obsessive about gay eroticism that it seems almost comical. “Please Baby Please”It is shockingly sexually inept. Only in the final scene does Arthur and Teddy end their relationship with a makeout session. Suze appears to fantasize about submission and dominance, but her real desires are frustratingly ambiguous. Although she has a few fantasies about BDSM play with Young Gents, these desires are confined to her head. It is undoubtedly cheeky to show a Tom of Finland–esque leather daddy branding a 1950s beatnik housewife with a clothing iron, but if these shocking ideas actually impact Suze’s sex life, we don’t see it happen. Instead, she displays a domineering attitude in order to complement her sissy husband.
There have been many movies about homosexual desire and female sexual ambivalence. “Please Baby Please”This film may draw inspiration from both but it lacks any irony beyond its hifalutin themes. This Kenneth Anger film is 95 minutes long and a Gregg Araki horror without any sex. “But I’m a Cheerleader”With all the oversaturated production design, but no urgency.“Babysitter”by Monia Chokri, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is just as sumptuous and strange, while actually giving its female lead something to do.
Perhaps this is a true portrait of queerness today. “Queer,”The word “strenuous” is now an all-purpose marketing term. A film can be described as:Lookssubversive, who cares what it actually has to say?
“Please Baby Please”Music Box Films will release the film in US theaters on October 28th