BARBARA and the Backrooms
We don't know much about Barbara, the ex-wife of Clark. We know she have recongnizable red hair, and from Clark description, she's a law student, fat and lazy (which is a lie, she isn't fat and law student are certainly not lazy). It shows in the outfit of the still life, she look like an attorney, with a flashy and feminine power suit, as red as her hair. Barbie have good fashion! But her behavior isn't one of a empowered, confidant woman. She look like a kid in timeout, who can't even turn the light off because she is too scared of moving a finger.
She look like an attorney, behave like a dv victim still living with the abuser.
She had an ex-husband who's alcoholic, emotionally and financially abusive, and who also got physical with her (It was maybe the breaking point for her).
The broken glass first. Some pointed out that the first appearance of still life B, she have her hand to her head, like covering a wound. She is panicking when Captain Clark approaches and submissive to Clark. But another detail for me is her face.
All the entities seen until now have deformed faces, no exception. But Still life B have even features. Most have eyes all over their face, like it's made out of clay, but not B. Her face feels distorted in a slighty different way, like trought glass? The other one is the stripes shirt at the tables.
Here's what it remind me of ; Futurism, an art mouvement from Europe, from 1910 to 1920 (note that a world war happen the middle of it), inspired by the industrial revolution and the new modern era it brings, rejecting traditional art. Mouvements are one of it's focal point, with repeated patterns who create the illusion of someting moving, like trains, horses, a dog on a walkie, the city, a bicycle, light, people... It's colorful but dim, cubiste, and anchored in the urban everyday life of the working class (mainly). Humans are usually not "deformed", but it does happen.
Let's go back to her face.
The repeated and even noses, mouthes and eyes, the mouvement it create. It's like she got slaped in the face. Maybe it happen once, maybe multiple time. But the feeling of it stayed. It's looping. The memory the Backrooms have of Barbara is a woman slaped in the face, scared, ashamed, submissive.
I enjoyed the design of the still life, but it's sad that the only direct glimpse we have is her at her worst, her defined by Clark. She dresses for the job she's working so hard for and she looks so discouraged. It's her when she come back home from her own busy day and Clark insult and belittle her in the kichen.
I can only hope that Barbara is leading a better life now, succesfull in her studies and work, with an entourage that love and respect her, and that this slap, what she went throught, stays a memory of the Backrooms and doesn't define her in life.
~ I am not saying it was one of Kane's inspiration, just that it remind me of it and there is similarities between the two art mouvement.
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