Korine Holds Our Legs for Cinema's Final Keg Stand
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1 2 3 4 5 6 Introduction by SARAH NICOLE PRICKETT No Carries, no Samanthas, no Charlottes, no Mirandas My skin is tan, my hair fine or Bonnie (The Craft); Carrie, Miranda, My hips invite you, my mouth like wine Charlotte, or Samantha Sex( and the Whose little girl am I? Anyone who has money to buy City); Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, or What do they call me? My name is Sweet Thing Jessa (Girls); Spencer, Emily, Hannah, or My name is Sweet Thing Aria (Pretty Little Liars). Enlightenment feminism never tires —Nina Simone, “Four Women” of the quirkily individuated quartet. We want to believe in this matrix. We hope to feel that making different choices—what to do with our bodies, our hair—will free IN MOST WORLDS, there are four kinds us and set us apart. In fact, it is having differ- of girls. Depending when and where and ent choices that makes one girl different from what in the West you’re watching, you can the next. In (my) reality, most babes have choose with whom to ID. You can be: Meg, such like-minded like-feathered besties that Jo, Beth, or Amy (Little Women); Dorothy, no cab driver, looking in the rear view mirror, Sophia, Rose, or Blanche (Golden Girls); can tell any real differences between us. Stacey, Kristy, Mary Anne, or Claudia (The Spring Breakers—directed by Harmony Babysitter’s Club); Sarah, Nancy, Rochelle, Korine and starring Vanessa Hudgens as 7 Brit, Ashley Benson as Candy, Rachel Ko- acters, which also include the .gif-ready, Riff- rine as Cotty, Selena Gomez as Faith—is a Raff-inspired Alien (James Franco) and his story not of a girl group, but of a gang. Take inscrutable rival (Gucci Mane), are ciphers the “all for one, one for all” motto ofFoxfire , you cannot erase. You can only draw mean- make it all for money, and bang, Korine’s ings. The meanings, mostly, are not comfort- fifth film implodes a century of fabulist four- able. They’re not even that fun. Still, it’s hard somes. All four girls wear Starburst-hued bi- to blame any interpretation on the director, kinis, drive Vespas, drink beer. Three of them Korine being a rad anti-ideologue who hasn’t want the same thing, i.e. penis. Only the su- read a book in a decade. per-Christian, semi-naive Faith stands apart, Instead we turn to our own desires. Break- and is—not coincidentally—the first to fall ers fires blanks at us; we fill them in. The un- apart. When just two girls are left, we can’t individualism of Korine’s foursome is per- tell them apart. haps exactly what allows us to have unique, This is one of the many strange accuracies wide-ranging perspectives on their world. Or of Spring Breakers. Already the most written- perhaps it’s his world, or it’s ours. about cultural product of 2013, it’s a movie Roll with us, all of us, as we remember seemingly made to beg the subtext. Its char- Spring Breakers. n 8 9 Bikini, Kill by AYESHA A. SIDDIQI Don’t hate the slayer, hate the game HARMONY KORINE’S CAMERA Mardi Gras in New Orleans, or Spring Break crooks one finger at your tongue, beckon- in Florida, is judged by how many pairs of tits ing you to follow it along the bodies of its are exposed. Nothing else adequately proves four stars. Its opening scenes feature both you’re having a good time than baring your guys and girls dancing and drinking in pure chest in ecstatic investment in the moment. abandon on a hyper saturated Florida beach, Female nudity is an accessory du fete. It sig- but linger on the (mostly white) girls. Their nals celebration for no other sake than cel- breasts, slick with Bud-spray, move in time to ebration: As holiday décor goes, boobs don’t Skrillex. The flat planes of their bellies tan in signify anything beyond “wooo!” A bodily the sun, while their mouths grip long popsi- integrity compromised by the public’s sense cles (oral fixation is a recurring motif). Later, of entitlement to it is one of the more notori- the camera closes in on its protagonists and ous aspects of patriarchy. And the bodies of the curves of their thighs, their bra cups. Brit, Candy, Cotty, and Faith—seen almost The movie operates on a standard tenet of exclusively in bikinis—are also on display. our culture: girl-flesh as measure of fun. The But as James Franco’s Alien observes, these success of a party, whether Carnival in Brazil, girls are special. They’re powerful in spite of 10 AYESHA A. SIDDIQI sex not because of it. In a rare departure from gle allusion is made to the possibility of that movie violence against women, the injury violence. Ignoring rape culture could have Cotty sustains is gender-neutral; Alien digs been naïve, but in the Skittle-lit world of the the bullet out of her arm as he would for a movie it was a power move. By not acknowl- man. Faith, the religious ingénue of the four, edging the threat of their surroundings, they bristles at Alien’s attention to her pretty face, situate themselves as the threat. Refreshingly, then buses home solo rather than tolerate a their bodies aren’t a vulnerability. The girls’ minute more on his terms. When the girls indifference to their nakedness, more than ride through town on scooters in just bikinis, their consciousness of it, keeps the film from they are simply in spring break’s uniform. being merely pornographic. When they hang out in a gas station parking They wear their sexuality like their candy lot at night in bikinis, or when Cotty writhes necklaces and stuffed-animal backpacks, and strips teasingly on the floor at a kegger, with a casual wryness. Even before spring they are challenging space by denying its break, sexuality is a grenade tossed blithely threat. back and forth. Grinning to Brit, Candy pan- These girls not only demand public space tomimes giving a blowjob in class. In the while (almost) naked—they own it. In dorm hallways, the four sing “I am getting so scenes that echo theaters of masculinity and hot I wanna take my clothes off” in breathy its accompanying sexual violence, not a sin- staccato. They mime taking sloppy bites from 11 BIKINI, KILL between each other’s legs. They arch them- lated in tandem. selves upside down between the hallway The gender-flipped fellatio gratifies be- walls—fully framed by their space, pushing cause it follows a first act dedicated to the against its boundaries. But within the film’s male gazey ogling often found between a starkly black/white race politics, the four male filmmaker and beautiful, barely clothed, leads’ bodies are distinguished from the young actresses. The camera sticks to their black female bodies that perform for men. bodies so unabashedly we notice not only Black strippers decorate the background smooth youth, but also ourselves staring at it. of Alien and Archie’s (Gucci Mane) confron- This double consciousness turns itself back tation. Thick black women undulate naked onto us when Alien submits to Brit and Can- on top of Archie, representing his power— dy’s gun penises—when that gaze, the same not the women’s. Their presence is at the be- lasciviousness Alien employed, is mocked hest of the men, and their silent acquiescence for how blind it was to the girls’ true selves. leaves them mute props. When Brit and As Britt and Candy’s giggling play turns into Candy rush Archie’s mansion—massacring a steel-nerve demand that he get on his knees every black male in sight—those same wom- there is a moment when, with their guns in en crouch fearfully in the shower where they his mouth, Alien seems to see these girls for had been rubbing each other as Archie di- the first time. His fear and trepidation dis- rected from his bath. If Spring Breakers show- solve into enthusiasm. He sucks hard, invit- cases the thrill of reclaiming patriarchy’s sex- ing both their guns deeper into his mouth ualization, then it’s an agency extended only eager to please. Alien recognizes Britt and to white girls. In contrast to Archie’s rule over Candy’s authority without resenting it. Brit the black women around them, Alien simply and Candy don’t just exercise power, they re- serves to reflect the four leads’ electric force. ceive grateful subjects. All hail the new femi- He posts their bail but his paternalism dies nist world order—spring break forever y’all. in Candy and Brit’s orbit. Spring Breakers ob- Whether walking around at night with sesses over juxtapositions, none more salient skin exposed or demanding authority while than the one between the girls’ bodies and in that same state of undress, the girls dele- the sound of guns cocking. A theme Candy gitimize patriarchal privilege. Korine’s band especially relishes in. Her hand regularly pos- of heroines saunters in front of the camera es as a gun, shooting at her friends, at herself. but give its gaze as much control over them Candy, Brit, and Alien have a swimming- as they give Alien. pool threesome, but the two girls share an That is how a film staring four young intimacy independent from him. They touch women in bikinis subverts the trope of fe- each other constantly, affectionately, and in male bodies as sites of experience for others.