"We are the night"-the end of radical feminism

Luciano 2022-01-23 08:04:09

After reflecting on the origins of Nazis and dictatorship in the movie "The Wave", Dennis Gansell set his sights on radical feminism in "We Are the Night". "We are the night" is a feminist film wrapped in a vampire shell. Such a background setting cleverly creates a world of confrontation between men and women. Although the story is purely fictional, it provides a real gun and live ammunition between the sexes. The focus has also broken the reality of the existence of women as an interest group. Gansell reproduced the birth of the Nazis in a classroom, and performed the end of radical feminism on a group of female vampires. The director constructs a virtual world where women are supreme and reveals the inevitability of its collapse from the perspective of human nature.

Eisenstein once wanted to make "Das Kapital" into a movie. In a sense, Dennis's career in film was for the purpose of filming fascism. When radical feminism denies the male nature, affirms the female nature, and clearly puts forward the "female superiority theory", this inverse essentialism does not get rid of sexism and fascism. This is also the theme that Dennis has been working on. The movie is about the female vampire team led by Louise transforming the human girl Lena into a new member, becoming a four-person team including Charlotte and Nora. Lena reconsidered this legendary magical species with her own eyes, and was deeply afraid and confused about her identity. Their unscrupulous killings eventually evoked encirclement and suppression operations by the human police, and Nora and Charlotte died one after another. In order to protect the human man Tom Nora loves, she has to push Louise, who loves and hates herself, into the sunshine of death, and starts an escape life with Tom with an unknown future.

In the movie, the kingdom of vampires is made up entirely of women, with members distributed all over the world. The lack of male characters in the vampire world is due to their own inferiority. To borrow the original words of Louise in the film, "men are all extinct, they are too noisy, too greedy, too stupid, some were killed by humans, some committed suicide." This naked depreciation of the value of men explains why the remnants of female vampires vowed not to convert men into vampires and become a group that excludes and breaks away from men. Such a setting is very interesting, because radical feminism proposes that under patriarchy, women as a group are opposed to male interests. This interest should enable women to unite on the basis of sisterhood and transcend class and race. Boundaries, fight together for the liberation of all women.

Although human society is composed of men and women, the representative of humanity in the movie is the male police team where Tom belongs. The final gender battle also broke out between the vampire gang led by Louise and the police team. The police force, as the defender of human security, that is, the defender of patriarchal rule, relies on guns and ammunition. But these metal weapons are harmless to vampires, so vampires at the higher end of the food chain are watching the struggle of human beings with an overhead attitude. Such a group of female vampires surpasses fragile human beings by virtue of their supernatural ability of immortality and injury, which is an alien outside of human society.

Apart from disdain for death, another characteristic of vampires is sexual freedom. To fight for the central position of women in a male-centered society, they rely on sexual abilities. Female vampires use sex as a means of temptation to collect life-sustaining human blood and a passport to human society—money. The life of the vampire in the movie is the definition of success in the secular sense. There is a detail in the film that Lena first saw the sports car for her and left scratches at will. The hidden meaning is that this is not the value Lena values. The early radical feminists believed that the inequality between men and women was caused by gender, and advocated eliminating and reducing the physiological differences between the sexes, hoping to use scientific and technological advances such as contraceptive technology, test tube baby, artificial insemination and asexual reproduction. To liberate women from childbirth, thereby improving their oppressed social status. In such a world of duality between men and women, female vampires go more thoroughly on this road. Those who cannot get pregnant use bite transformation as a means of reproduction, and there is no blood relationship between them, and they are more like a gang. Faction.

The other three converts in this team are Louise, she always chooses people with beautiful eyes, and the converted will remain youthful forever. The final transformation of Lena's water rebirth process is a non-erotic display of female ketone bodies. Her body is restored to the most authentic and intact state, and she breeds lush long hair that represents feminine femininity. When Lena wore a charming black evening dress, she changed her previous stubborn and blunt tomboy style. This hymn-like passage is the director's affirmation and appreciation of female characteristics as a male.

It needs to be pointed out that it is not accidental to show women in the image of a vampire. In Judaism Adam’s first wife was not Eve, but a woman named Lilith. Lilith refused to lie under Adam during sex and insisted that "We are equal because we are all from the earth." During the argument, Lilith confided in the "name of God to be avoided" and flew away and refused to return. By Adam's side, even in the face of God's punishment of dying a hundred children every day, she never compromised. The rabbi demonized Lilith as a demon that killed women and destroyed newborn babies during childbirth. This earliest feminist is also one of the sources of the literary image of vampires in later generations. The practice of demonizing women who resist patriarchal rule and resist orthodoxy into images of witches coexists in both the East and the West. The movie re-applies the image of vampires to fit this cultural tradition, but what vampires carry is the director's reflection on radical feminism. .

So far, a female vampire world based on "man is the enemy" has been established, but its foundation is not strong. On the one hand, extreme hostility cannot attract and unite all women. The identity of a vampire lies between men and women living in harmony, becoming a concrete radical feminism. In the film, Charlotte had her own husband and daughter before being transformed. The identity of a vampire separates her from her family life. Nora, who seems to be passionate about the life of a vampire, uses social status and identity as a shield to reject the courtship of human men. In the end, the man also lost his life under the bloodthirsty that Nora could not control. The emotional Nora regretted it. Lena is the object of love of Louise, her transformer. She is closely monitored and controlled by Louise, unable to fly with her favorite human man Tom, and finally chooses to resist Louise. Female vampires live a sensual life on the surface. In fact, they are confined to their identities, do not have the right to pursue themselves freely, and still have no right to choose their own lives. The pleasure they enjoy, like a virtual sun bath, is just an illusion of self-paralysis. This ideological advancement is not based on the interests of female vampires, but a self-protection method based on the group. There is nothing wrong with women’s pursuit of love and family life. If a group regards it as a taboo, rigidly stipulates that collective interests are higher than personal values, and promotes emotional and life hegemony, then there is bound to be splitters with different opinions within the group, and the group exists The foundation of the country is in jeopardy.

On the other hand, radical attitudes exacerbated the antagonism between the sexes and led to the eventual conflict. Female vampires use sex as a weapon to wander through the male world. Their openly hostile attitude of slaughter and looting has led to the chasing and interception of the police, defenders of the patriarchal order. Vampires cannot survive in the sun. This is also a metaphor for the patriarchal environment. Even if female vampires have an arrogant attitude, they can only act in the dark as a minority force. When Lena first experienced the murderous and bloodthirsty scene in the film, she tried to save the victims and was reprimanded by Charlotte, "Don't pretend to be kind, hurry up and accept your identity!". Lena, who was hit hard in her heart, was covered in blood and fled the scene, bewildered and streaked on the road. Her confusion is because the heart of the people has not yet disappeared. The practice of being hostile to all men is mutual harm among human beings, and it cannot be a way of fighting radical feminism. The extreme practice of vampires openly challenging the moral order of society will only lead to the pursuit and counterattack of police forces. The female vampire who is outnumbered and seized by internal divisions has a stunning opening, but can only be wiped out in the sun. Female vampires were eliminated as aliens, and society returned to its original track. At the end of the film, Lena and Tom withdrew from the orthodox society. Whether they can reduce the social identity imposed on them as marginal people and re-tracing the beauty of Adam and Eve's short life together in the Garden of Eden outside the world. The director did not answer, but only borrowed from the old policeman. Blessings from the mouth.

In "We Are the Night", Gansell virtualizes a world where women are supreme. However, this sexist politics in which one sex oppresses the other sex finally "seems to death." Bell Hooks said in "The Politics of Passion", "Anything radical is often pushed to the ground in our society. We must do everything possible to bring feminism to the ground and spread our message. Because of feminism It is a movement to end sexism, to end gender domination and oppression, to end sex discrimination and to create equality. In essence, feminism is a radical movement." But radical feminism is essentialism. Starting from the difference, women in all cultures are regarded as passive victims and oppressed, and all men are regarded as oppressors. These lack of analytical descriptions cannot explain the roots of male power, and it is difficult to provide a strategy to end its rule. At the same time, according to their logic, since the differences between the two sexes always exist, the conflict between the two sexes is always inevitable and never reconcilable. So "We Are the Night" staged a radical feminist end.

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Extended Reading
  • Horacio 2022-01-23 08:04:09

    The picture is very beautiful, and the soundtrack is very German, but it fails to explore the connotation of immortality and desire, but the fear of loneliness and loneliness, and the desire for emotions, are somewhat. The protagonists are all women, but still fragile and sad under beauty and strength.

  • Garfield 2022-04-23 07:04:22

    It is said that the female version of "Interview with the Vampire" was shot by Germans, but the clever trick of the cottage is not only a little bit of lace complex, but also a reflection on human nature.

We Are the Night quotes

  • Nora: We eat, drink, snort cocaine and fuck as much as we want, and we don't get fat, pregnant, or addicted. Come on, smile. Millions of girls would kill for that.

  • Louise: You brought them to us!

    Lena: That's not true I didn't say anything to him!

    Louise: How did they find us then?

    Lena: You kill people every night! Do you think this goes unnoticed?

    Charlotte: She's right Louise. Cleaning up has never been our strong point.