Worry Darling. Trust Your Knowing.

I left the movie theatre last week feeling unsatisfied, emptied initially. I love movies, solo particularly, and partnered, I used to frequent with my late Grandmother Honey, who would've identified with the era depicted in Don’t Worry Darling, the newish film by Olivia Wilde, which she both directs and stars alongside Florence Pugh, Chris Pine and her new beau, Harry Styles (Jason Sudekis is more my style).

Smart PR no doubt, the film garnered lots of press pre-release, but it didn’t immediately sit with me. I dismissed my sentiment naturally, until realizing the following morning how easily I dismiss what discomforts me. And so, rather than shy away, I leaned in with self inquiry.  Snuggling into those strong reactions, disapproval, or otherwise, is where my learning is. So quick to shove this film aside,I declared it “over-hyped, under delivering, with cinematography similar to Requiem For a Dream, but  less poignant, reaching …” It wasn't until my run the next morning, the ground meeting my feet, that I realized I needed time for processing. Movement after stillness helps for integrating. 

My reaction was ironic given the film depicts a 50's era society that allows no room for feeling or thinking — where media is centralized and feelings are demonized. Feelings can’t be controlled, but they can be silenced  — women's feelings, particularly. The theme I dismissed initially, is what I’m most sensitive to, and it feels like I'm not alone, in my knowing. There is a societal shift happening, the pro-women movement is gaining global steam, women initially biting their tongues, in fear,  now screaming. “Stop trying to control us, stuffed in our little boxes, tending house, cooking, cleaning, carrying babies, lending a vessel for you to get off in.” Yep, I said it. “We want to uncover our heads, let down our hair. We’re tired of gender roles, our lack of independence, the glass ceiling, of You, controlling our bodies. We’re tired of role playing.” 

Maybe it’s me. It’s not me. It’s everywhere — pop culture, politics, everyday life, on the big screen.

Spoiler Alert: Don't Worry Darling depicts The Victory Project, a patriarchal society where wives clean, cook eggs, bacon and black coffee for breakfast before all the men jet off, simultaneously in their sports cars to provide for them. Ballet class, pool time and scrubbing baths are the women’s daily activities, before preparing multi-coursed meals before multi-coursed sexcapades when their men return in the evening. Everything, in fact, feels like it could be a "stereotypical" man’s fantasy: sex served voraciously, social engagements with burlesque dancing, potatoes and meat, topless women by the pool, cocktails early — and lack of questioning about what they’re actually doing every day, when they leave. Days are the same, more simulation than living, until one of the women gets tired of the hamster wheel she feels stuck spinning. 

Florence Pugh’s character plays the game initially — she loves taking care of her man, her life is ordered, provided for, pretty — conformity feels easy. Until she can’t help but hear the whisper that builds into a scream, her internal knowing, is too loud to be quiet. Her intuition can't be silenced. After “troublemaking,” Pugh eventually  confronts the “Man,” played by Chris Pine who replies, “I’ve been waiting for someone smart like you to challenge me.”

What is more powerful than a woman’s intuition? Nothing. And Pine knows it, sees Florence for her bravery and then proceeds to publicly shame her in front of the rest of her community. Shame. Pine exemplifies Pugh’s decision to crack the system and break the silence, by silencing her intuition, literally, creating fear in the rest of the society. She is promptly admonished, punished with shock therapy to clear her of memory to erase her of intellect entirely, so that she can continue her role as servicing, arm candy. Control. 

Unfortunately, for the men in control, Florence doesn’t give up easily, another example of a woman’s knowing, which can be suppressed, but never erased completely. Trust yourself. Equality isn’t something that should be earned. I won’t spoil the movie entirely, but suffice it to say that the Victory Project is no more than a very violent game of virtual reality. In reality, Florence’s character is dominant. And Wilde's character is content, choosing the role she is portrayed in, dependent, caretaking. Choice. 

I left the theatre numb to my own reality —- that the issue of Patriarchy, the suppression of women’s rights’ is not just fodder for the big screen, but a reality: Women are more educated than ever, more present in the workplace, rising personally and professionally, no longer pandering to past gender roles, challenging what was “normalcy” in the workplace, at home, in government positions, and yet are still suppressed by ultimate control, globally. Controlling a woman’s body is the ultimate form of defamation. 

In America, the “Free World,” our culture is prided on independence and sovereignty — the same culture that constantly sells us things to exasperate our lack of feeling. No, not shock therapy, but not so different actually: longer, more drawn out, consistent numbing: from the news we watch to social media scrolling to spark insecurity, and only show what skewed versions of what we are meant to see? Distraction comes in all shapes and sizes: endless hours working, to afford lifestyles that look fancy, highly processed foods, prescription meds, alcohol and caffeine…God Forbid we feel something — there is a prescription for everything. We live in a society where trauma is so prevalent and numbing is so normalized — operating like machines on autopilot so we don’t have to face, to feel anything. So we drown out the voice all of us were born with inside, our internal knowing. And so, we stop trusting, our own sovereignty. And so the conditioning is normalized: the gender roles, inequality — we are all on a hamster wheel, spinning, right where they want us to be. If we trust others more than self, we are exactly where they want us to be. Autopilot, machine, just do your work, follow the rules, keep going … It sounds eerily like shock therapy, but in an IV, constantly — more consistently, less shocking. 

I had to let this one sit for a bit, bake in me before writing, a good amount of reading before sharing. I long have desired finding balance, more polarity, masculine and feminine energy independently and in relationship. I love serving the man I love and also love to receive — but have often simultaneously see-sawed between I CAN DO IT ALONE and Please Take Care of Me. I crave balance in my knowing that I can trust me. Don’t Worry Darling was further evidence that regardless of gender, No One knows better about you — than you, about me, than me. No one should have control over another’s sovereignty, because we are ALL worthy of choosing independently how we use: our time, resources, language, skills, knowledge, stories. Our free world doesn’t feel so free, really. Isn’t ultimate independence the ability to choose our own choices?

Leaning into the discomfort of what the movie portrayed for me made me realize how important it is to actively choose what I consume daily, as opposed to what is fed to me: media, sustenance, advice, too. I realize the importance of how I show up as a woman in society, and how I must use my platform to share recipes, stories, and also speak truth into what speaks to me, pro-Human rights, undoubtedly and more than anything, that we ALL have the ability to listen to our heart speak — our intuition, void of condition, what is true for you and true for me. I’ve learned that In a life filled with noise, be your own quiet. In our quiet mind is where we start trusting, Like Florence Pugh — everything we need is inside.

Worry, darling. Trust your knowing. 

Love Always,
Olivia