Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sat January 10, 2026 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The cops responding to the SMS of the video by showing up at the wedding and arresting the guy without an investigation. It felt bolted on after the fact to make sure she wins.
My interpretation of the movie was a giant, blaring "times up" siren aimed at society telling them to look at themselves, their actions, and be better. No excuses. Don't let the motivating event happen. Ever. Her post-death triumph over the patriarchy rings hollow in that sense because it puts the weight back on women to act, to threaten and inspire fear in these men and their enablers, instead of making it clear that it's everyone's moral responsibility to not create this situation in the first place.
"The fatal flaw of all revolutionaries is that they know how to tear things down but don't have a f**king clue about how to build anything."
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sat January 10, 2026 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The cops responding to the SMS of the video by showing up at the wedding and arresting the guy without an investigation. It felt bolted on after the fact to make sure she wins.
My interpretation of the movie was a giant, blaring "times up" siren aimed at society telling them to look at themselves, their actions, and be better. No excuses. Don't let the motivating event happen. Ever. Her post-death triumph over the patriarchy rings hollow in that sense because it puts the weight back on women to act, to threaten and inspire fear in these men and their enablers, instead of making it clear that it's everyone's moral responsibility to not create this situation in the first place.
LOVE this reading of it, and I can see why that ending doesn't work for you in that regard. FWIW, the ending WAS tacked on, after the studio gave the writer/director notes.
I personally liked the ending, but I wasn't reading too deeply into the real-world ramifications; as a narrative yarn, it worked perfectly for me.
I've heard this critique of the ending, or others which are similar:
i.e. that the movie problematically reinscribes state power/the cops as the arbiters of and solution to sexual violence
I don't disagree, I guess, but I also felt like the ending was a fantasy--not one as emphatically signaled as, say, that of BlackKklansman, but certainly one that highlights the implausibility of the entire scenario. I don't think the ending was a triumph, not really, so in that sense I thought it did put the pressure back on the broader social order.
VinylGuy wrote:its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.
The fantasy that PYW sells itself on is, what if you could actually get revenge on the specific people who have ruined the lives of others by way of sexual violence (keeping in mind the critique, of course, that this movie centers only one way that victims respond to sexual violence)? What if you could localize systemic problems in individuals and eliminate them? And so in my reading, the ending says, sure, okay, you can do that, but only through the magic of film where you get narrative resolution after death.
VinylGuy wrote:its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sat January 10, 2026 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The fantasy that PYW sells itself on is, what if you could actually get revenge on the specific people who have ruined the lives of others by way of sexual violence (keeping in mind the critique, of course, that this movie centers only one way that victims respond to sexual violence)? What if you could localize systemic problems in individuals and eliminate them? And so in my reading, the ending says, sure, okay, you can do that, but only through the magic of film where you get narrative resolution after death.
Again, I think all this is totally there to be read from the film. But I am skeptical the writer/director was trying to make any sort of concrete commentary about sexual violence rather than just trying to tell a provocative story.
...so?
VinylGuy wrote:its really tiresome to see these ¨good guys¨ talking about any political stuff in tv while also being kinda funny and hip and cool....its just...please enough of this shit.
Steve Albini wrote:Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.
Last edited by tragabigzanda on Sat January 10, 2026 8:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
