Black + Girl + Gamer

To say I went into it not at all the demo audience that the film was being catered to is an understatement, but blame Pedro Pascal for piquing my interests in seeing it thanks to his RAVE REVIEWS and overall enthusiasm for Babygirl. I listened to the A24 podcast he did with the director of Babygirl and it sounded so unlike what I thought the movie would be, that I said "Ah, fuck it. What the hell let's see it" last night.

So I'm either the biggest PRUDE in the world next to Pedro Pascal, or this just was everything I hate about the power play, degradation trope that's so en vogue these days!

I'm curious what other Xennials, Millennials and Gen Xers think of the movie, because I know that Gen Z loves this degradation shit. I just cannot get down with it.

Ultimately while it had great performances throughout, I think my issue is I am an outcomes-focused person. If I'm presented with a scenario in which I know there is even a HINT of a possible destructive outcome, I just don't do it. And from the get go, that's all the plot is - one long, predictable, dangerously destructive outcome. Also, I think there's a fine line between consensual power play dynamics being a normal and healthy outlet versus degrading exercises in entrapment and coercion that can psychologically and emotionally damage the participants. And this movie - to me - heavily falls in the latter.

It's one thing to have the thrill of, "Oh, we could get caught and that is thrilling yet scary yet invigorating." It's another for it to be predicated on, "Well I could go report you right now and ruin your life. I could destroy your career and you'll lose everything, unless you tell me what I want to hear and do what I say."

And while it's hinted at throughout that these are two consenting adults, ultimately, who are confused and unsure and neurotic about what they're embarking and peddling in with each other, ultimately the coercive element is ALWAYS present and threatened several times by him, and the resolution at the end of the film - to me - proves he had ulterior motives the entire time. And if he didn't, then he was reckless and frivolous the way he goes about things. But worse, like Antonio Banderas' character proclaims, she is the one who jeopardizes her family and kids over her neurotic and banal sexual proclivities and can't be honest about that until she's been confronted with exposure.

There's no villain or anything like that in this (except for her power-obsessed assistant using her knowledge of their relationship to leverage a promotion over the threat of exposing her elicit affair with the dude, who was an intern AND the assistant's bf 🙈), but the mania and horny hysteria over it says a lot to me about the state of interpersonal relationships, self worth, and the need to be gratified by engaging in perilous and harmful behavior; being degraded under the threat of personal fallout in order to reel with the need to be infantilized and protected by the force that's degrading you to begin with 🤢

Also PS - the dude was not hot at all enough to justify all this shit! 😅 NOW, if Paul Mescal was her intern telling her what to do and calling her babygirl, I might've seen the appeal, even just a little. But this dude looks like he has anemia and a vitamin D deficiency! And his "Father Figure" dance was the most cringe, unsexy thing to me!