Did I Just Make Donnie Darko for the Girls? (/.\)
DONNIE DARKO: an over- analysis where I make you question if the film is just a sad ode to feminine martyrdom...and other things
This was suppose to come out on Halloween, but time isn’t real so…whatever, here’s a little long overdue rant on everyone’s fav film: Donnie Darko!
So, you may think that the scariest part of this film is its creepy, giant bunny man named Frank, or possibly the dark existentialism, when actually it’s the subtle representation of how clean, unadulterated, American patriarchal values force everyone into a creepy binary cage. The circumstances and experiences of my last four months mostly spent traveling and spending time in my small, hyper-masculine, post-conflict town, as well as the director’s cut edition I watched for the first time, gave birth to a new perspective of the film for me, and I would like to dissect this with a little analysis of the predominantly female cast.
Throughout the film there is a battle between a fully instilled reality with social roles of a small, rich, white town and those that see beyond the illusion of this idea of reality. For example, Kitty Farmer (the God-loving dance and “behavioral” teacher), represents someone completely led by ideas of the social structure in this reality (which we can refer to as a dimension). Kitty upholds people like pedophile Jim Cunnigham, who enforce this structure because it benefits people like him best. Through his teachings, she promotes the basic ideas of “fear” and “love.” They do not go beyond the binary of the two emotions. They simplify and categorize everything within these two ideas to give an illusion of optimistic freedom. This limits everything in their reality to a binary, and I think the movie points out the different ways each character copes and is aware of this reality.
Donnie, being a schizophrenic, can see things beyond this reality. He is the one to point out that people are much more intersectional and complicated than just ideas of fear and love. He sees beyond the binary and beyond social structures, and ultimately beyond the fabric of that reality in terms of time, space, perception etc.. Now, the way I interpret schizophrenia is from a very theoretical and observational understanding that minds are vastly open to every door of perception, and not only do they have abilities to create and interpret the energies needed for the structure of reality, they can also reach into different emotions beyond the comprehension of those bound to the physical reality around them.
Now that that’s out of the way, I wanna tackle how Donnie is literally tone-deaf to the super powers that his schizophrenia provides him (thanks to Western ideals and medicines). And this little rant is mostly that of his denial and abuse of feminine energies. So, besides Donnie literally saying “What’s the point of living if you don’t have a dick,” I think this movie does an amazing job of presenting the subtle demise of feminine energy. I feel like most of the women behind the scenes were spawns of Joan Didion’s characters. So let’s point out some of the strong female characters who can possibly tell us what the meaning is of living without a dick. To me, these characters made more of a statement about him and the harm of binary social roles in a patriarchal dimension as well as it’s limitation on human expression— especially feminine energy, than he did. The characters that make most of an impact in terms of subtle shots and commentary in the movie include, his girlfriend (Gretchen), his mother (Rose), the old woman (Roberta Sparrow), his teacher (Karen), and his fellow classmate (Cherita Chen).
Starting with his girlfriend Gretchen, who has experienced first-hand trauma and lives in fear of her life because of men, she still remains empathic and optimistic especially in her relationship with Donnie.
She sees that he is “not like other guys,” and though he sees she’s “not like other girls,” his idea of the feelings he has for her are constrained in sexualization because he is still benefiting from a masculine society within their town. A town, might I add, that is called “Middlesex,” which represents a suburban borough where social roles are often more heavily enforced. However, I think the name can also be symbolic to what Donnie has the potential to represent: an intersectional balance of feminine and masculine energies, except that he is still confined in this dimension to ideas of masculinity. Gretchen is able to cope with this oppressive reality because I believe she also understands the catastrophe that is their dimension, but she has the feminine energy to continue in a tragic softness run by an idea of love based on emotional connection rather than his idea of love based on sexualization. His sexualization of Gretchen is seen throughout their relationship as he gets impatient with still having not kissed her and expressing his emotions solely through voyeuristic fantasies.
His disrespect of Gretchen also coincides with the disrespect we see with his mother. This is most significant when he calls Rose a bitch.
Though Rose is hurt, the dad makes a very dismissive and disgusting comment that is suppose to be to him, idk being funny and helpful?, saying that she isn’t a bitch, but she’s “bitchin!” — another example on how patriarchal beliefs are subtly upheld in these spaces and generationally. The dad also shows this by just being a passive character, an oblivious observer, as he enjoys his time golfing and watching TV neutrally while the mother receives backlash and is often handling the situations Donnie gets into, even commenting at the meeting about the Graham Greene story.
Regardless, in the scene where he does call Rose a bitch, it was a moment where I believe he actually wanted something deeper and more intimate with his mother, but he was, again, choked up by ideas of masculinity, and the comfort and material/sexual power they bring him in his dimension (like, look at his father). We also see this upheld symbolically at the end of the movie where Gretchen and Rose seem to exchange a look of solidarity in the dimension where Donnie is struck by the jet engine. Rose, though sad, is not distraught. She seems to understand and is almost relieved by his loss, while Gretchen is spared by never having to meet Donnie. This is the final scene and I’ll get into this a little later.
This underlying feminine energy to acknowledging the fabrics of this dimension yet continuing to suffer in it because you can only ride your own fate, is seen with Roberta Sparrow as well.
Roberta wrote an entire book and is clearly aware of the fabrics of reality, especially through time and physics. Her book is titled “The Philosophy of Time and Space.” Now, if you’ve read some of my other Substack posts, I often find inspiration and am always in some way involving time and space into my own understanding of self and the world around me. I think Roberta along with Karen (the English teacher), can represent the disregarded feminine knowledge that can advance sciences beyond an analytical, masculine, destructive standpoint by bringing in ideas of empathy and magic that I believe all of those who think beyond binary systems have. Even though she is a former teacher and wrote an entire book, she lives on the outside of their borough and is stamped as crazy “Grandma Death.” This mimics the way women who aren’t the representation of the binary (i.e. Kitty Farmer), and they dare to interpret the world outside “fear” and “love” are dismissed especially with age as they lose the ability to sexually stimulate through ridiculous and creepy visual standards (also why that dude was a pedophile).
Now onto Karen. She is the perfect example of our English teacher we all came out to. This queen gets fired because she is accused of motivating the school vandalism by teaching Graham Greene’s short-story “The Destructors.”
Donnie is the one who subconsciously mimics the violence in one of his episodes (guided by Frank), and of course, Karen is punished for his actions. She is responsible for his behavior simply because he understood Greene’s story in a very masculine, nihilistic, pubescent, privileged way just like the boys in the story itself. The goal of the gang of boys was simply fueled by the idea that they can destroy one form of reality physically because they can’t fathom a form of empathy and interpretation of the representation of past that the home symbolizes. I think Karen praises him because she believes Donnie understands the secret of reality, but I don’t think she can see that he is fueled by masculine annihilation. I also believe that the clip of her and the physics teacher laughing when they mention Donnie is because they also symbolize people who know the secrets of dimension and reality, but they, having been older adults not crippled by hallucinations, laugh at Donnie’s outlook of the world because he seeks an annihilation of a world’s social structure that oppresses and binds everyone; yet, he sits in a place of privilege that also gives him the opportunity to create and contribute to that world if only he would understand and break free from his masculine comfort.
Someone who I think symbolizes an unrepresented and discredited person of their social structure, something completely opposite of Donnie social ranking, was Cherita.
Though really terribly represented in the movie as possibly an immigrant, I think she is one of the dearest characters in the film. She is bullied and simply overlooked by everyone until the end when she performs her theatrical dance/drama and we find out that she has a crush on Donnie. She is bullied, misunderstood and overlooked; yet, we see her forms of creative expression. Cherita doesn’t seem to care about being outcasted and actually seems to prefer not being in the spotlight as long as she stays true to her own creative energy. For Donnie, there is something constantly missing for him. He can’t muster up his softer energies to express himself in a manner like Cherita.
Just like Cherita has a crush on him, I think all the women I mention above see something in Donnie that they don’t see in the other male characters they’re surrounded by. He’s not so passive. They see that he, like them, understands the cruelty and blatant stupidity of their dimension, and he can see beyond the boundaries of the structures imposed by patriarchal standards; yet, his privilege inhibits him from understanding a struggle of creation or existence so he submits to an idea of annihilation. It’s the perfect transmutation of the “I can save him” ideology that women often fall into. In the end, I don’t think he destroys his reality to save another, I think he unknowingly sacrifices himself so the women in his life can breathe a sigh of relief. Donnie is fueled by his hyper-masculine, depressive ideology to save something by annihilation even if it’s his own because he understands he has the power to do so, but the world also has the power to save itself in it’s end because the “end” is inevitable in any universe as the end doesn’t really exist. Besides, I think both worlds go on with or without Donnie Darko and I think Donnie just blasted himself into another beginning to learn all the lessons he had in that dimension just differently (rebirth, if you would).
And I feel for him, I really do— being guided around by another lost teenage boy somewhere in the meta magic of it all, but I think this lack of empathy and respect for his surroundings (his material world, relationships, his own body, etc.) is all represented through the women and feminine energies in the movie. The way he speaks to his friends about women, the way he views his girlfriend, what he tells his psychologist, the way he interacts with his mother, the way his sisters are treated compared to him etc.— these aspects are all dismissed due to the fact that he is a teenage boy with a violent mental illness. It’s something very misunderstood but coddled because boys from those families are “just boys.”
Donnie’s diagnosis is actually an enlightenment and has ideas and callings of reality (callings that come from another masculine entity, Frank) that are drenched and diluted by his idea of masculinity. Even with his own understanding of how intersectional humans are, his social condition and inability to attain or understand his own femininity also make him a victim of the binary systems. Just like the gang of boys from Greene’s short-story lack a feminine energy needed to create and compromise as well as value what can sustain (like the 200 year old Victorian home that survived the Blitz), Donnie’s depression caused by social, masculine expectation leaves him a victim of his own idea of polarity.
AN AFTER- NEVER AN END:
With that, I want to add that often in our Westernized, colonized white history— in this dimension we have categorized the fuck out of everything and have pushed and analyzed feminine energy, indigenous spiritual beliefs, mystical and magical understandings all into a tragedy of its own to benefit…bullshit? I often wonder how we can revive that in our relationships with the victims and upholders of this system such as Donnie. How do we navigate? Often, it’s in silence, like Cherita. In the last couple years I have been exploring my own secrets and understandings of the world and my transcendent identity, and the last four months traveling, especially back to my hometown, I have found artifacts I feel that are planted by a past me for me. Just like the movie plays with time and space, I find myself doing the same through a world of symbolic interpretation.
Recently I was in Barcelona, and I found myself at the International Art Museum of Catalonia where there was an exhibit entitled “The Guided Hand” curated by Pilar Bonet Julve. It showcased sketches, journals, letters, and art by Madge Gill and Josefa Tolrá, two women who were recognized long after they passed. They experienced great grief in their lives with the loss of children, but they used their esoteric and feminine knowledge and empathy to let spirits guide their creations. It seemed to answer some questions for me that I have seemed to plant for myself through generations it feels like. And I wonder, what does a world with a compromise between this esoteric, feminine, ancient, undefinable understanding would look like? What wombs have sacrificed just for an annihilation or worse, dismissal? One thing is true, whoever/ whatever we choose to follow, we follow through different eternities. It’s our job to seek, create and have a conversation with everything. To find a magic and use the word “magic” in confidence. Below are my pictures from the exhibit, enjoy!
☆ s from north of space
you've outdone yourself with this one sej
and i haven't even seen donnie darko