We Love a Little Freak
originally published on april 6th 2023 in ragtag cinema’s monthly newsletter
A few weeks back, my friends and I devised a thought experiment: There are only four types of movies: boy movies, girl movies, and gay movies. Michael Mann’s Heat? Boy movie. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird? Girl movie. My Fair Lady? Gay movie.
When nothing else seems right, turn to the fourth category—Freak movies. 1997's Batman & Robin, Under the Skin, David Cronenberg’s entire filmography? All movies for freaks.
Freak-ness is not simply weird or countercultural. While strange to some, freaks represent the familiar. To quote People Magazine, they’re just like us. Using everything from sex and violence to hallucinations and dreams, films for freaks speak to the recognizable wrong lurking inside all of us.
On April Fool’s Day 2023 one such freak by the name of Ari Aster had a surprise early screening of his third feature film, Beau is Afraid. Early reactions described it as “Freudian” and “phantasmagoric.” Writer Emma Stefanksy referred to it as “an acid trip slathered in meth.” Actress Emma Stone pronounced Aster as “sick in the head.” “He’s not well,” she quipped. Everybody had a good time.
Loving movies leads you to some seriously fucked up shit. Even stranger, loving movies means finding joy in that seriously fucked up shit.
The details of Beau is Afraid have been kept vague; we know Joaquin Phoenix stars as the titular Beau who, following his mother’s death, goes on an epic odyssey which forces him to confront his darkest fears. Aster’s two previous features—2018’s Hereditary and 2019’s Midsommar—immediately struck a nerve with audiences. Horror fandom maintains a paradoxically niche and ubiquitous place in moviegoing, but Aster broke through genre trappings, fighting reductive terms like “elevated horror” along the way. His films are horrific and deeply cathartic. They succeed by appealing to the dark and wounded experiences we bury deep within our psyches. They’re also quite funny. In other words, Aster knows everyone can be a bit of a freak sometimes.
While Marvel and Disney films have dominated the box office throughout the last decade, we are seeing a resurgence of Hollywood’s freaky side. Scream queens like Mia Goth are headlining movies, building a rabid fan base along the way. Yes, she’s beautiful but shave off her eyebrows and give her a pickaxe or a gun and you’ve got yourself a freak.
Star vehicles are starting to look more like clown cars.
But cinema has a history of loving the freak. David Cronenberg’s films were heavily scrutinized, facing condemnation and moral outrage—all the while making millions. Some swaths of white bread America are like homophobic Senators; turns out, they were gay the whole time. Film theorist Siegfried Kracauer believed that, by nature of being collaborative, film mirrored existing social and political realities while also propelling new ideas forward—like a feedback loop on wheels. Many have attributed much of Marvel’s success to the political climate of the 2010s. Watching superheroes beat the bad guy shelters us from our fears. But with Marvel’s recent box office bombs and horror and genre film’s renewed popularity, maybe audiences don’t want to hide from reality anymore.
Covid obviously changed us. Society’s levees broke and it became near-impossible to ignore the floods. Escape has proved increasingly less viable. But the freak presents us with an alternative: Facing the darkness isn’t all dour. It’s often funny. When the world is too absurd for mainstream escapism, maybe it’s time to go to the movies and learn to love your inner little freak.