#daria malek

Harry Styles fans unite!

Many of you have probably read the screenplay for Olivia Wilde’s new film in progress “Don’t Worry Darling” starring Harry Styles, Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and Dakota Johnson. Talk about a cast!

And though many of you are sweating and highly anticipating the sex scenes between Harry and his on screen wife, I have a slightly different approach as to why I think this movie is a timeless, revolutionary piece.

If you have not read the screenplay, don’t worry! I will try my hardest not to spoil anything because I really want you all to take what I tell you in this post and hold on to it when you watch the movie in 2021. Granted, it’ll all probably slip your mind in the opening scene.

There are two important things that this satire covers that make me believe its so much more than just a psychological thriller: feminism and the development of neuroscience.

Of course, I’ve talked about what satire is before when I made my post about Big Mouth (which you can read here), but just to refresh your memory: it’s a genre in which criticizes a targets stupidity or vices, normally using humour as they did on Big Mouth. However, upon the creation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and more recently Get Out by Jordan Peele, it was quite obvious that satire has breeched the concept of “only being funny” and had transferred over to horror, thriller and gothic fiction.

This story opens in the 1950′s, more specifically 1954. Science in the 1950′s was mainly focused within geology and genetics. Contraceptives play a huge part in this era as well as they were invented in the 50′s by Gregory Pincus and John Rock. This is especially important in this movie and it is a huge part of Jack and Alice’s relationship.

This new creation of contraceptives and birth control gave women a whole new stance towards freedom in terms of their sexuality as well as their freedom to choose whether or not they wanted to have a family (keep an eye out for the “Lysol” when you read). The female norm at the time was marry a man, have his baby and take care of it and the house - which is made very clear by Jack’s perception and expectation of Alice, who is not ready for a child. Already, this movie is playing with the contrast of these ideologies within the time.

Interestingly enough [SPOILER], Alice is told by a male doctor that she is in fact having a “psychotic episode” and her mental health is not great as she is hallucinating things. And fun fact, the word “hysterical” was created in the 19th century to mean over emotional or crazy. Hysteria was actually LITERALLY said to be a “female mental disorder.” So the fact that they would tell a woman she is overreacting  the day after she has an argument with her husband over the fact that she [SPOILER] says she wants to go to medical school to be a neurosurgeon and not have a baby...well, I’m just going to leave that there.

Another interesting thing is this idea of technology. Now when I first read this screenplay, the way they introduced this idea of technology made me furrow my brow and wonder if I was reading the same text. However, the over exaggeration of this not only relates back to the fact that women are hysterical and over exaggerating beings ([SPOILER] she’s the one who sees this technology) but it also is very satirical of the idea of how ridiculous science can be when put into the wrong hands.

I don’t want to say much, because it is a huge part of the film so I’ll keep it vague. The earliest video game was created in 1958. This idea of a virtual world in which you can win or lose, try your luck multiple times until it ends up your way. It sounds very progressive at the time. However, when this power of progression is put in the hands of old fashioned patriarchal squires, there’s a chance that this science will move backwards. I believe another interesting point this screenplay made was that technology is a strong thing. It’s a very powerful, revolutionary thing that could change the world. We’re taped to our phones all day idolizing men and women’s bodies, we learn using the internet, we have incognito mode, we hand in our essays through an online site that scans your paper for plagiarism?! Think of how many of those things are positive things. Yeah, I know.

“Don’t Worry Darling” brilliantly captures what it’s like when a progressive technology meets bad intentions. It creates a diversion between reality and technology. The lengths that one person will go to; creating an alternate reality using technology can influence groups, religions, genders so negatively.

Kudos to The Van Dyke brothers for this amazing satire on modern day technology and feminism. I literally read the whole thing in a day and was completely glued to my screen the whole time. Super chilling; had me on the edge of my seat this whole time. I am super excited to see what Olivia Wilde does with this screenplay, and knowing her, I can’t say it’ll be less than absolutely phenomenal.

Hello friends! I am trying a new series on this blog called “Musical Mediation,” where I intervene with different songs in order to resolve a final theme of the song; essentially I will unpack these songs based on their lyrics, background, style and elements in order to tell you what they are truly about. 

On my Instagram, I had put a poll for which song I should do for my first post between Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box” and Harry Styles’ “Sign of the Times.” Of course, as I predicted, the Harries had took over and SOTT had come in with over 90 percent. 

If you follow my Instagram, you would also know that I have been following Harry Styles quite closely the past year. I can confidently say that his success, as well as the societally challenging Vogue cover, have truly made him one of the most powerful musicians in the world. 

Sign of the Times is Style’s first solo song released upon his seperation from One Direction. I didn’t follow One Direction but, if their music was anything like this song, I understand the hype. The ballad was rumoured to be about a mother who is told, upon giving birth, that her child is fine however she was not going to make it. This was later confirmed by Harry himself in an interview with NME, in which he was quoted saying: “go forth and conquer.” 

Though this may initially be dark and sad, and you wonder why such a bright young man would write such a deeply saddening song, it actually is a brilliantly written song about “fundamentals.” 

Of course, you know the drill: here on this blog, we are all English majors. Thus, we all need a reason to think there is more to this text and lucky for us, there actually is. 

If we go into this reading with the understanding that this is about a mother who is giving up her life for her child, we will read the lyrics much differently however, I wanted to introduce a new theory that perhaps Harry himself may be intrigued to hear. 

“Sign of the Times” is a saying which refers to popular culture; it is a sign that differentiates a certain time period based on what is popular or important during that time frame. Some people see this as a way of knowing what was in fashion during that time, however us English majors are going to take it one step further. Perhaps this is a way of differentiating the values of society; understanding that the pop culture of the time defines a certain amount of the values of that society. Reading this in the case of the mother and her child, we can see that the mother values her child’s life more than her own because she believes her child can achieve greatness while she has lived a certain amount of her life; she believes that the value of life is so thick that she is rather content with giving up hers to let her child experience it. 

With that being said, we move into the most iconic lyric of the song, as well as my favourite one: “you can’t bribe the door on the way to the sky.” 

This one line speaks volumes about our current society. What Harry is suggesting is that getting into heaven, which is what society has told us is the end goal of our lives, can not be bribed into. In order to achieve goodness beyond the grave, we must do good while we are alive. Our society has become so fascinated by materialism and wealth that they had forgotten what it means to be a good person. They are so concerned with the societal norms of beauty that they would rather focus on the way they look than compliment someone who doesn’t fit the set norms of society; not to mention that bullying is still very much alive. 

Though our society is much more empathetic than our past generations, it’s the artificial values that have tainted the way we think as an easily influenced society. 

“Just stop your crying, it’s the sign of the times” is speaking to the individuals who feel excluded from these norms of society. If we read this in terms of the mother and her child, it simply refers to the fact that she shouldn’t be so sad, this is what is important: the life of her child and the fact that her child will go on to life a full life. 

If we put these two assumptions together, we get this: rather than crying about not being within the current norms of society, we should smile about the true values of what life hold. The simple fact that we are alive on this planet is a gift. 

Another one of my favourite lines in terms of our new theory is “I hope you’re wearing your best clothes.” I love this because I personally believe it’s a satirical knick on the actual values of our artificial society: our appearances. Everyone wants the nicest clothes, the nicest shoes, the nicest bodies; we forget what is underneath them. Perhaps he’s also critiquing the fact that people are so vigilant about the things we wear; our society has learnt to judge based on appearances which is why we must wear the nicest clothes. To further this, in the beginning of the song he says: “you look pretty good up here, but you ain’t really good.” This is referring to the fact that no matter how gorgeous you look to other people, you are the only person who is self aware of the depression that comes with hiding your true face with a guard of materialism. What are you afraid of?

The chorus further develops to finish with: “why are we always stuck here running from the bullets?” In order to understand this, we must understand what Harry potentially means by “bullets.” If we continue with our theory of values, perhaps “bullets” are a metaphor for our true selves? If we think about it, bullets come really fast. There’s no dodging a bullet...unless you’re Samuel L Jackson or Arnold Schwarzenegger. But in the case in which we are neither of those men, bullets will always catch up to you. 

If these bullets are a metaphor for our true selves, perhaps Harry is asking why we mask ourselves as these false personas; hiding under these materialistic things, and are always running away from the truth. “Just stop your crying have the time of your life” could be the solution for this problem; just live your life to the fullest, understand the true value of your life because according to Harry, it’s not the car you drive or the gold on your neck. And damn, he’s right. 

As if Harry Styles wasn’t done giving us a revolutionary societal critique in music form, he continues to say: “we don’t talk enough, we should open up, before it’s all too much.” The wisdom is undeniable at this point. He is directly telling us that we should open up our true selves to this society before it’s “too much” and we are wallowing in the deep rooted sorrow of these false personas based on the developed norms within society. Eventually, we will be screaming “we got to get away” like he does in the final phrases of this song. Eventually, the constant over-materialism will be too much and we will need to get away from this society because we will never be satisfied with ourselves if we don’t have these materialistic things. We lose all sense of identity; in order to understand the true value of life, we must give up these artificial values of our society. However, if we do that, we will be excluded from our society but that last line of the song is referring to the fact that we will want to be excluded; a musical rendition of “I hate it here!” 

We shouldn’t want to “get away from here.” How could we as people build a society that is so artificial when we are fighting for the things that are truly of value in the world: human rights, gender and race equality, etc. How could we ever achieve these things that are of true value to society if we are so worried about which part of town is most dangerous, who has more money, who wears counterfeit things, who has the highest education? Why must we judge eachother on these artificial things that don’t mean anything when we could be putting that energy towards solving LGBTQ hate crime or helping neighbourhoods with poverty so that they, just like us, can value their lives and feel safe within their real selves? 

Yes friends, we got all that from a song. This is the power of music and Harry Styles nailed it! This is the real definition of #TREATPEOPLEWITHKINDNESS. 

I had a lot of fun unpacking this. It was a blast and this song is a truly influential piece, especially in 2020. Tell me what songs I should do next in the comments! 

Welcome to your first lesson in the Collaborative Program Post. 

I am late, I know. 

As for the one blog post a week...I will start next week for “blogmas.” 

Before I begin this lesson, I wanted to thank everyone who participated. I didn’t have one childish answer to the question this week and the rational thinking was very interesting to see. 

I had put down a few points I wanted to discuss. There were many answers but some were quite repetitive so I will summarize what I saw.

There are three steps to this method. Define, share and discuss. Using these three methods, you’re able to put your own thoughts first and think on your own without being influenced and then further use other peoples ideas to strengthen and add to your own thoughts. The define and share will be done in this blog post and the discussion will be posted in a different post. 

Step One: Define 

In this step, I will define exactly what I meant by “flexing.” You will notice that when I introduced the weekly question, I didn’t introduce what the definition of flexing is. I just put it out there. This will show you the influence that the media and outsiders have on your definition of the word. 

Flexing is an action where you put something of pedestal standard to display to others that you own or take practice in. It is an action for attention. It already has a negative connotation towards it because it can translate very negatively given the circumstances. There can be positives to “flexing” just as there are different approaches that will be discussed. 

So the deeper question lies: why do people crave deep attention? Keep this in mind for the discussion period. 

Step Two: Share

In this step, I will introduce other people’s thoughts and what was shared on my Instagram page (if you’re not following, hop on quickly to be a part of the program @dariamalekk). Like I said, there were many of the same answers and some that were singular. If I put in every post, this blog post will be extremely long. I will summarize what I saw in a few different points which will also help broaden your mind and formulate steps to bring thoughts back to a centre rather than give you the thoughts right away. 

I also analyze these from a psychological/sociological viewpoint. This will help us understand break down the thoughts in our mind and use it towards further thinking. Having an educated viewpoint will help differentiate others thoughts in the discussion section. 

Just to remind you, the question this week was: if participated in this action: why was it done? What did you gain? Some of the popular answers were: 

“I post them in order to make people laugh/motivate others.”

This was an interesting answer. This was a somewhat positive rooted question. There is nothing wrong with using your own experiences and gains in order to motivate others to do the same. That’s what I do using this blog. However, be cautious: because “flexing” already has a negative connotation towards outsiders, hence why imitating it could be humorous to some. People could think that you are “showing off” which is unattractive and could push people away from the message you’re actually trying to convey. Be cautious with your approaches. If you want to motivate others using your gains, focus more on your motives and your “journey” rather than what you gained from it, whether it’s wealth/materialistic or a physical/emotional gain. 

“I do it to show people how far I came/I earned these things that I want to show off.”

It goes without saying that if you are crawling out of depths to have enough money to live lavish, that you want to show the people who shrugged you off when you had nothing that you could buy them if you wanted to. This specific journey I have faced. However, by doing this, you are showing people that everytime you buy a nice car or a nice watch or buy expensive bottles at the club, you are doing it merely to show them. This translates as: your success is merely due to vengeance. This might not be what you initially intended, but it’s what it translates to. Remember, an action goes back to the person. Keep in mind the “gain” question: what do you gain from this? Other people have seen your success. Is that something that truly makes you happy? Striving to show others your success will eventually take the thrill away from success in general and in no time, you will become unmotivated. People will get tired of seeing the continuous flex of materialistic success on your part and it will get old very fast. Think of the future of your flexing. Make sure if you are doing this action, it is to benefit you not only in the moment, but in the future. 

“I want to be attractive to others.” 

This specific one did stick out to me. I appreciate the honesty. This shows that these four people who had this in their answers have uncovered a deeper root problem and understand a prospect of an action, yet they have the influence all wrong. Flexing is not attractive. It will make someone turn their phone and show someone “look at this person, they have an expensive car” but, it is not attractive. Those people who do obtain relationships from this action are attracting the wrong attention. And I think those people will understand and know exactly what they’re doing. However, being a “show off” isn't attractive to someone who is trying to have a genuine connection or relationship with someone. Initially, from a woman’s perspective, you understand that this person has enough wealth to support her or her family however, materialistic “flexers” are considered selfish. This ties in again to the idea of how you’re portraying in your flex. One of the people who responded to this specific post defined their flex as a bodybuilder: “I put photos of my body on the internet to flex how far I’ve come with my health. I used to be 130 pounds heavier in high school and I got picked on for it. I wanted to show people that if I wanted to be attractive back then, I could have been but I had other things that were important to me. Now I finished my business management masters and I am healthy and have a beautiful girlfriend who saw my gain and grew with me.” This to me is a successful flex. He’s showing others that his flex isn't merely to show off his nice body-but it’s to flex priorities. Kudos to you!

If you flex things that people think: “oh maybe if I did this I could have a better specific outcome,” that’s a good flex but if you’re flexing for the sake of showing someone something they don't have, that comes off negatively and that comes off as a confidence problem. 

Now, it’s time for discussion! Sound off below or in the inbox and be featured in the collaborative discussion which is a very important part of this program. 

Sending much love to all of you. See you tomorrow for “blogmas!”

With love,