Just the Ticket #115: Pronoun Trouble

Article by Sean WilkinSon,

a.k.a. tHe TicketMaster

That was a very unsubtle hint that I go by masculine pronouns. And also, by my name. Perfect strangers even address me as Asshole sometimes. 

I never got on that particular social bandwagon of announcing and asserting my personal pronouns. I never felt a need to. I'm male, inside and out. I've never felt medically or spiritually otherwise. I may have been raised somewhat traditionally (that is, to prefer heterosexual, non-plural relationships with someone of a similar age to myself), but there was always that leeway and acceptance amongst my family to make my own social choices (so long as I didn't "do anything stupid" like hang out with delinquents, commit crimes, or rack up massive credit card debt on mobile games...ahem). If anything, I am a non-violent incel, in that I have been screwed over by women enough times that I question my ability (and sometimes, my desire) to find a woman who will screw me in the way a woman should screw a man, instead of her pitting me against another guy or having her boyfriend drive us to prom...just as hypotheticals. But anyway, as a self-identified male of conventional sexuality, I always saw the whole pronoun thing as being akin to the "American freedom to not be American because America isn't free anymore" train of thought, and the hipster tendency to be cool by hating or being indifferent to what they like and dressing like Amish jazz musicians. Like, how can someone define themselves by being undefined? How does someone eschew labels by labeling themselves? What is the point of existence and showing you're unique if you're going to fight so hard to be nothing? And most importantly, would you like to shoot me now, or wait 'til you get home?

SHOOT HIM NOW! SHOOT HIM NOW!

You keep out of this; they don't have to shoot you now.

Oh! Pronoun trouble!

It's not "they don't have to shoot you now;" it's "they don't have to shoot me now."

Well I say they do have to shoot me now! SO SHOOT ME NOW!

Yes, it's wrong to devalue gender issues by boiling pronoun distinctions down to an old Bugs & Daffy skit that features cross-dressing, gun violence against animals, and explosion-face. But to be fair, today's film selection puts pronoun distinction in its title, addresses gender issues in a half-competent way, and features cross-dressing, gun violence against animals, and symbolic facial disfigurement. So go check out They/Them (read as "They Slash Them" because horror movie), now streaming on Peacock, while my inner twelve-year-old struggles not to make a dirty joke out of the words "streaming" and "peacock." Here's the image break:

In Friday the 13th, Kevin Bacon and a group of mostly disposable, horny teenagers are terrorized by a masked killer at a summer camp.

In They/Them, Kevin Bacon and a group of mostly disposable, horny adults spend most of the film using their summer camp to terrorize a mostly disposable group of horny adults-cast-as-teenagers, and there's a masked killer there, too.

That's right; aside from the opening kill sequence, one go-nowhere stalking scene early on, and a rush of late-second- to early-third-act kills, there is barely a slasher villain in this purported slasher movie. They/Them is first and foremost a gender-fluidity representation piece about a sadistic conversion camp that uses hate therapy, antiquated gender role enforcement, animal cruelty, and Clockwork Orange-inspired aversion torture (among other, more sensationalized, twist-driven acts of evil that turn common, Reefer Madness-like misconceptions of the gay lifestyle against our "teen" leads) to "normalize" young adults into society and grow its staff of twisted counselors for the next batch of LGBTQ+ youths to come along. This aspect, the film handles admirably well (from this ignorant normie's point of view, anyway), focusing as much on the campers' personal empowerment, self-satisfaction, and interpersonal dynamics as it does on its Hollywood horror interpretation of homophobia, showing that, even among those who "don't fit in," there can still be those who don't fit in (the protagonist, bottom-center on the poster, played by 4400's Theo Germaine, is a tom-ish, gender-neutral, "they picked the wrong victim this time" badass who is immediately made to stand out on such grounds), and it shows little reservation in depicting physical homosexual relationships (with the glaring exception that the lesbian and bisexual relationships are played for audience stimulation, and one half of the gay male relationship--which is de-legitimized for the sake of a plot twist--is extremely feminine--played by Brazilian triple-threat Darwin del Fabro, top left on the poster).

The sensational, psychological horror elements do their disquieting best, with fisheye closeups on too-kind faces, string-heavy background music, torture-porn theatrics, matter-of-fact statements of evil intent, and adequately concocted jump-scare buildup.

But like the pronoun/gender representation movement itself (social movements of all kinds, really), They/Them's focus wants to be many things at once and gets lost in nothingness in its execution. It's mostly a commentary piece, as I said, and it does that as well as society is comfortable with being uncomfortable with. But amidst that, it tries to do the Friday the 13th homage because Kevin Bacon and horror (Bacon's character death should look familiar to Friday the 13th fans, and I appreciated it as one myself), hints at being a Most Dangerous Game ripoff (the marksmanship/animal cruelty scene especially) but never goes there, tries to have a Scream-like whodunnit aspect with zero character participation in the mystery or any established motive behind the barely active killer, and ends with an unmasking so obvious and smothered by meaningless exposition that it might have been more effective to go the Texas Chainsaw route by pitting the teens against the counselors and leaving it at that. I will say that the killer's mask (shown below) looks really cool, though.

Message received, I guess?

C-

As a food service employee, I constantly hear customers end their orders with "I guess," and it bugs me more shitless than a bored dung beetle. As the people who know what they want, they shouldn't be guessing! Do they not know themselves? Do they not care what they put in their bodies? Do they think they're on a game show? Do they think they're going to get their food for free if they correctly guess what they want? How is that balanced in any way as a game show concept? Are we as a society so fucked up by over-reliance on technology and the insanity of the last six years of American history that we've begun to doubt the veracity of our own senses, preferences, and needs? All I can say is that I hope we're guessing correctly, because we're all going to get what we asked for.

Did you get what you asked for with this post? Like and/or comment below, and now that I'm in a neutral space academically, stay tuned for next week's Anime Spotlight on the Made In Abyss franchise.

Ticket/Master,

Out.