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octalove · 4 years

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II: Blood and Ghosts

(Batgirl/Red Hood)

Description: Reader tries getting a clue. part one

“Typically, they steer clear of the Village, but that doesn’t appear to be the case as of recent. Oracle found out about an operation out of a Hadley’s Deli there- standard money laundering, but it also could’ve been linked to the shipment of cocaine that we found at the Yacht Basin.”

“Right. So what changed?”

“A better question would be what didn’t?”

A beat. The contrasting silence that followed jarred me from my thoughts as I glanced over and realized that Bruce was prompting me for an answer. Tim looked expectant and inquisitive, but that was sort of his default expression.

“Oh. Sorry. What?” I said apologetically.

“Maroni.” He said simply. Nothing came to mind. He didn’t express verbal disappointment as he turned back to Tim, but I knew it was there.

“Red Hood has been operating out of The Bowery. Maroni and Falcone are stubborn, but they’re losing. He’s pushing them north.”

“So moving to the Village isn’t expansion. It’s desperation.” Tim muttered thoughtfully.

“I believe so.”

“May I be excused?” I asked. Bruce glanced back to me, studying a moment. Scrutinizing every detail; not deciding whether or not to let me leave- rather, deciding why I wanted to. Then, he nodded. Seems he wasn’t in the mood to ask.

I swept up my laptop and phone, and ascended the stairs from the cave to the manor quickly, trying to escape the eyes boring into my back. Only when the cool, lemon-scented air of the manor filled my lungs did I breathe a sigh of relief. Alone. All I needed was few minutes alone. I scaled the marble steps to my room and shut the door.

I hadn’t told anyone that I saw him three nights ago. That I watched him murder a man in retribution for me. My alter ego, anyway. I don’t know why. Maybe because it would mean having to tell them I snuck away. Having to walk through every detail again; sights, sounds, smells. What Red Hood was wearing and what he sounded like, what gun he was holding and how he held it, what prompted him to fire, how many shots and how he acted when he did.

But if ever there was a time to be high-strung and anxious, it was when you were keeping secrets from Batman. And Oracle. And Nightwing. And Red Robin. And Robin. Damian in particular could smell a lie like blood in the water, and he wasn’t too polite to hold your gaze until he was certain you weren’t hiding anything. That, and the art of solidarity was still foreign to him- even if I did tell him in confidence, he would take it right to Bruce. Possibly the police. Maybe a news outlet or two just because it soothed his vindictive nature. I’d been avoiding him.

Evening bled into night, and I was barred from masked business on school nights, so I couldn’t even patrol to ease the anxious energy. Still, that meant less opportunity for Bruce to analyze my musculoskeletal ticks or whatever the hell he did to tell when I was nervous, so I decided it was a worthy trade-off and resigned myself to independent research.

Who the hell was Red Hood, anyway? Half of Gotham was looking for him, the other half was running from him. I opened my laptop.

His debut was The Viper House, a strip club in Little Italy that also functioned as a human trafficking hub when the owner, Renaldo, needed to buy his wife (or handful of mistresses) a new Blue Nile diamond. By the end, the building had to be gutted. There’s only so much crime scene clean-up can do with carpet.

Next came the kingpins. Blowing open a trafficking operation had a short grace period if you didn’t cut out the source. Italian mobsters, the Romani families, the crews that had built empires on drug and sex trade dropped like flies until they found that their numbers dwindled for the first time since Joker finally bit it. The dozens of loyal men on their payroll decided that empty pockets were better than a full grave, and when it came to the business of death, Red Hood was very persuasive. It went on like that for six months; he amassed men, power, weapons, and tech. Most importantly, a potent reputation. This was due in no small part to his creative footwork; he liked to send messages. One file covered an incident where Alphonso Kuznetsov decided to write Gotham’s new player an open letter in the evening column suggesting that if he decided to bring his business to Port Adams, he might find himself in a ‘watery grave’. Kuznetsov was found a week later when a fishing vessel drug an entire coffin from the bottom of the harbor, padlocked and full of water. He was bound, drowned, and gagged with a copy of the very paper that featured his message. Red Hood must have been in touch with his artistic sensibilities; it was all very Shakespearean.

Of course, these were all just words. Rumors and hearsay. All I knew of the Red Hood from my intimate encounter was that he had a quick hand, an incendiary temper, and he didn’t fucking like creeps. All the makings of vigilante, if you chose to see it like that.

I sighed. Two hours and none of my research gave me any indication of why me. Why the hell should Red 57-kill-count Hood care if some goon told me he like the way I looked in my suit? I may has well have been the veiled threats of Kuznetsov’s evening column for all my inconsequence to him.

But it all kept running through my mind. Backwards and forwards. The vitriol in his voice preluding the barbarity of his reprimand. The way he said little Batgirl, like the crime was that I’d been engaged at all. More than the memory, something was telling me to keep digging. Something dragging me back to Crime Alley with the current of the running blood through Little Italy’s gutters.

I had to do something. And if that something wasn’t going to Bruce, then school tomorrow would have to wait.

The morning went along as per usual. I woke up at six, dawned my Gotham Academy uniform, grabbed a muffin and coffee, completed a complicated and well-practiced secret handshake with Tim (that Dick was secretly jealous of), and was out the door at 6:30, keys jingling in Alfred’s hand.

He dropped me off outside the ornate gothic academy, and I waved goodbye as I skipped backward along the cobblestone walkway. Once his black Mercedes was a pinpoint on the horizon, I promptly turned heel from the front doors, heading East toward the Narrows. Catching the subway there would take me as far as the Knight’s Stadium, and from there it was a short distance to the Alley. I wasn’t exactly inconspicuous in my academy uniform- anyone who gave a shit could pretty confidently deduce that school was in session at 8am on a Tuesday, and no student native to the Alley could afford a private education, so I was bound to draw eyes. I hadn’t packed an extra outfit incase Tim or Alfred got suspicious- that was paranoia puppeteering. I wasn’t used to skipping school. I’d have to make due.

Crime Alley in broad daylight was a brand new experience. At night, at least the smoke unfurling from the sewer grates hit the flickering streetlights and offered an unconventional charm. During the day, it was like shedding light on a foul sin. I was starkly out of place, and even the lapdog-sized rats seemed to know it, scurrying back across gritty concrete when I passed by. I looked for familiar things I’d seen the other night- a run-down apartment complex, a gated liquor shop, a meager but menacing corner-store, busy with glaring laymen reluctantly dragging out their wallets for a pack of cigarettes. I caught the eye of a woman sitting on the curb with a paper-bag bottle for company, and she scowled.

Spurned by the rats, and now by the people, I was running out of options. Sticking close to the buildings that perimetered the square, I moved in tandem with the motion of the locals, so as not to draw any eyes by looking lost. It was an unnerving scape; too quiet for my liking, but just empty enough to feel safely underseen. I made my way past familiar landmarks until I finally stood before the warehouse where I’d been.

I listened; no sound from inside. Even henchmen have day jobs. Jimmying the rusty padlock was just a matter of brandishing a bobby-pin from my hair, and the heavy metal door swung open without much resistance. I cautiously picked my way around crates and boxes, unsure of what I was looking for. Clues, maybe. Proof that he was here and dropped a body in my name, amen.

There was a dark, daunting stain on the floor where Hoffman’s body was. A phantom gunshot echoed in my ears, along with a nauseating sound of flat-back weight slapping concrete.

“Ain’t school in session?” I spun on my heel, meeting the red helm of a towering man draped in leather and armor. My mouth went dry. My right foot slipped back into a fighting stance before I remembered I was in cashmere and plaid, not kevlar. Not that I even stood a chance either way; but at least he seemed to harbor good will toward Batgirl. Wordlessly, I took a few steps back until I was standing over the blood and ghosts of Hoffman’s demise.

“P-please. Don’t- don’t hurt me.” I rasped.

I could play the rebellious, morose teenager and come up with something like it was a dare, or I could offer no explanation and simply cry.

Red Hood’s head tipped one way. His hands were empty- for now. Two heavy-looking glocks hung on his waist. I didn’t want to die on top of Hoffman’s blood stain. There was a level of symbolism there I was deeply unprepared to spend my final moments analyzing.

“Lookin’ for something, darlin’?” I swallowed- unable to say you.

“Wh-What do you want?” I asked.

He laughed, but it was humorless. Lacking whatever key component made laughs so appealing. As though the sound rung off the gravestones of uncanny valley before reaching my ears. “I think we’re both asking stupid questions.” He said. I was fucked. He outweighed me by a hundred pounds, and could out-draw me even if I had a weapon. I had no explanation for my being here that suited a civilian, and my phone was in my bag, meaning help was a world away.

But just as soon as he advanced a few paces, he stopped, and gestured to the crimson beneath my feet.

“Enjoy the show the other night?” He asked, before pulling something out of his jacket pocket and twirling it between his fingers with practiced ease. A batarang.

“You forgot somethin’.”

Cold, knife-like fear erupted in my spine, driven to the hilt. He knew. How did he know? What the hell was I supposed to do? My terror must have shown on my face, because he stopped fidgeting.

“It’s okay, babydoll. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“H-how-“

He moved again, slow, lazy strides until he was no more than an inch from me.

“Who are you?” I asked, figuring if I was gonna die, I should at least know that much.

His hands grabbed mine. The leather of his gloves was cool on my skin, but it barely registered for the closeness of him. I stared at the red bat symbol on his chest, jagged and angry looking. I blinked and looked down slowly as he closed my fingers around the cold metal of the batarang.

“Go home, little bird.” It was a cold, seething demand, his voice snagging on the scrambler to make it sound like a low growl.

“Tell Batman when he’s ready to stop sending his toy soldiers,” His hand went under my chin, tilting my head upward. My breath shook as I drew it, hitching, even though the man before me was faceless. Clean, red monochrome, glinting in the light.

“I’m getting impatient.” *

I walked through the manor door in a daze, the cold steel batarang searing my palm.

Bruce and Damian were in the living room, each invested in their own reading material. The grandfather clock ticked his steady tempo, and I inconspicuously adjusted the bag on my shoulder. Bruce had a steaming cup of coffee on the glass side table beside his leather chair.

“How was school?” He asked, not looking up. My paranoia convinced me it sounded rhetorical, but I shrugged anyway.

“Same old.” A glance, to see if my lie had landed.

Damian was the spitting image of his father. He, along with Tim, operated in the wake of being an only child, so he never did care about how I did in school, or much of anything else in my orbit. If at any point he did, he never thought to ask. Father and son looked like a matching set of dolls sitting there, cross-legged, with dark hair and gaunt eyes, both leanly muscular, and habitually poised; a consequence of being from the upper echelon of each of their respective backgrounds.

“Hey, um, are you going out tonight?” I asked.

“I am.”

“Can I come?”

“Are you certain you want to?” He still didn’t look up.

I blinked. “Um… yeah. Why?”

“You’ve been distracted since the last outing.”

Damian visibly tuned in.

“Oh. Sorry. I had a big paper I was worried about for school, but I turned it in today, so I’m good to go.” I threw him a thumbs up, even though he wasn’t looking.

A beat.

“Very well, then. Nine o’clock.”

I nodded, and headed toward the stairs.

“Y/N,” I stopped, and turned around. He was looking at me now, eyes blue and steady.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think you did well?”

“…”

“On the paper.”

I threw him a smile. “The best.”

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slash-me-please · 3 years

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The review of Spiral that nobody asked for.

Spoilers ahead!!

Three days ago I went to see spiral, these are my overall notes. If you just want to know if you should go see it- heres a straight up answer. If you're a die-hard saw fan, yes. Go see the movie. If you're just into horror and wanna see it because its a saw movie and saw is iconic, wait until its free on something because it will be. Btw a lot of people liked this movie, I just didn't think it was all that compared to 80's horror. Im probably biased.

THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, IF THIS IS YOUR NEW FAVORITE MOVIE THEN THAT IS WONDERFUL AND I'M HAPPY THAT YOU ENJOYED IT.

First of all, the casting.

1. It felt less of a saw movie and more of a celebrity get together honestly. While they did have big names like Marisol Nichols, Chris Rock, and Samuel L. Jackson- It seemed as if Samuel L. Jackson was the only one who did their part, even if they were only a total of 3 scenes.

2. Its no shocker that Chris Rock wasn't the best for the movie. He added a large comedy aspect, one that couldn't be found in the original franchise.

3. No cameos, none at all. While not necessary, could've make me enjoy this movie a lot more. (There's one scene where there's pictures of John Kramer's autopsy but that's about it.)

Second, The weird shit

1. I know this sounds picky, yet they had the weirdest camera angles. At one point Chris Rock got his own Billy Hargrove on a sunny day gif . ifykyk

2. Random snippets of music play at random times, this is a horror movie, not a drama.

3. Billy wasn't a thing I guess??? Like there was no mention of him

Third, nit picking horror shit.

1. The consequences of the traps were too brutal. One mans fingers were torn off, one woman had to sever her spinal cord, another had to rip out his tongue. You wouldn't want to live with these consequences. This is nothing like two scars on your titties.

2. Nobody lived?? I wanted at least one person to live besides the main character.

3. This took place after the final chapter, Lawrence is still alive and possibly Hoffman. And they just did not care that Officer William was impersonating John Kramer the whole time?

4. Supposedly the cops were being punished because of the killing of officer William's dad being allowed under article 8. Its never clarified what article 8 is exactly, but if I use common sense- I'm guessing article 8 is "Kill everybody to avoid a court case and a possible mugging" and nobody caught on except this ten year old little boy. The public didn't bat an eyelash when the cops were going around killing all the civilians caught in a twist or catching a charge??

4. Since there's no Billy, Officer William uses a pig mask on the tv and decides to cut the inconvenience of using a voice modulater of any sort and alternatively tries to imitate the voice of a nine year old girl instead..

5. At the end, Zeke's dad is suspended in a trap, a swat team raids the building and finds him. Its so obvious that he can't attack, but there's a gun taped (?) To his hand which is lifted up by strings and pointed at the wall. The swat team proceeds to shoot the shit out of him even though he is the chief of police, mr savior, creator of article 8. I still don't know why they killed him even tho he so obviously was wound up in a trap and too loopy to even shoot.

Bright Sides

1. Awesome beginning scene, starts off with a death scene like the Saw movies do.

2. You do NOT expect the killer to be Officer William. At least I didn't, the only give away is that his family picture looks like a stock photo and he didn't have any reason to be killed apparently.

3. Suspense, I was very anxious to see who'd get snatched up next- even though the consequences were too harsh for me to even want them to live.

4. Left it open for a sequel, maybe they can fix it.

5. I do enjoy the torture porn.

6. Short reference to the original Saw. Very appreciated..

7. The "riddles" were a very clever part of the movie. I enjoyed them.

DISCLAIMER!

i know this comes across as I don't like Chris Rock, I'm actually a big fan so I was excited to see his take on the role. I don't think he did bad, I just think this wasn't his thing.

I do know that this was supposed to be different from Saw, but the whole franchise has been done and loved by many people. Some hints to it would've been great. And even if they didn't want to, it could've been better than this if there was more thought put into this movie.

Even if this is a spin off- you can't ignore the universe it came from entirely. I don't think things truly would've gone like this.

Why Billy isn't here.

#Spiral #Saw #Jigsaw #Zeke Banks #Chris Rock #Samuel L Jackson

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iampaulywalnuts · 7 years

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Casting “Obstruction”, the Inevitable HBO Original Film on All This Shit

Perhaps it’s because reality has felt very much like a prestige drama recently that I have started wondering “who’s going to play these guys in the HBO version of these guys?”

Methodology: VERY SCIENTIFIC!

First I chose who I believe are the ten most important players in the real life obstruction, between the time Trump won the election and his future indictments.

It was tempting to try to capture the whole 2016 election, and other GOP cowards, but then we’d be here all day, and the New York Times already did that sort of. So no Bannon. No Stephen Miller. No Jaime Foxx...I mean Ben Carson. I also didn’t include Sean Spicer or Sarah Sanders, because they might as well not even be there they know so little.

I tried to select from actors that I knew offhand, but when that well dried up after about three minutes, I reached out to some trusted friends, Wikipedia, etc. I asked myself:

1) Does it look like their real life counterpart?

2) Could they pull off the role as a lead?

So let’s get started! ACTION!

Group 1: The Obstructed

1) James Comey

The now former FBI director, once hated by every liberal in America, now holding the torch to guide America out of the darkness I guess. Election manipulating dickhead.

Bryan Cranston

Rationale: Originally I was overthinking the height issue; for a while all I could come up with was Adrien Brody and I thought for a second “now I’ll never make it as a casting director”. Cranston is a boring selection but it’s the right one to play the careful, calculated Comey. Make him seem taller like in the other one. Can’t go wrong.

2) Sally Yates

Former deputy US Attorney General. Holdover from the Obama administration who informed the Trump White House that Michael Flynn was compromised before being fired for, basically, being a competent woman.

Amy Sedaris

Rationale: I really think I nailed this one. The first time and pretty sure only time I have ever seen Amy Sedaris was in that scene in Louis CK’s Horace and Pete, and I was totally blown away like everyone else. She was a light in the darkness of that miserable place.. When I think of Yates my mind goes to how she handled Ted Cruz like a 6th grader who thinks he knows shit in that Senate meeting. I get that same feeling! She’s unflappable, so obviously smarter than you, a light in the darkness! Plus, Yates and Sedaris could be sisters. Genius!

3) Preet Bharara

Former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Led investigations into Trump finances before being removed from his position by Trump. Revered by his peers and those who worked for him. We don’t hear as much about him but in a movie called “Obstruction” you can’t leave him out.

Erick Avari

Rationale: Surprise! I don’t know many Indian actors :( I do recognize this guy from everywhere, however. Avari’s mostly in sci-fi films and television, although he’s also been in classics like The Mummy, Independence Day, Mr. Deeds, and whatever’s on TNT right now. This is the best I could do sorry Indian people don’t hate me!

Group Two: The Complicit Enablers

4) Paul Ryan

Speaker of the House and Representative from Wisconsin. Backed a monster because he wanted to cut taxes and take health insurance away from poor people. Embarrassment to Pauls everywhere.

Jeremy Renner

Rationale: The key to a good Paul Ryan performance is capturing his enthusiasm for allowing people to die. Paul Ryan smiles when he talks, not because he wants to give Americans “more choice” on health insurance, but because he knows if you support what he says you will die, and is excited by the prospect. Anyway, Renner’s pretty good and they kinda look the same.

5) Mitch McConnell

Senator from Kentucky, majority leader. Everything that is wrong with politics. Currently awaiting his stay in hell.

Tim Robbins

Rationale: Recreating the ugliness, on the inside and out, of Mitch McConnell, requires the combined craftsmanship of a master actor and make up team (perhaps enlisting the experts on Game of Thrones would be wise). I know this casting is unduly generous to Mitch McConnell. I can’t imagine a bigger gulf between how much I enjoy looking at two different men. But Robbins does have the height, and could nail McConnell’s gravelly, unfeeling Kentucky accent. And Robbins is the definition of PRESTIGE.

GROUP 3: The Spy

6) Sergey Lavrov

Russian foreign minister and spy. Fooled Trump into giving away highly sensitive information and compromising intelligence partnerships. A shark swimming with really dumb fish.

Boris Lee Krutonog

Rationale: I reached out to my only Russian friend about this casting. You look at Krutonog and think “oh he’s the bad guy in that one movie” (side note: “that one movie” is always The Italian Job), which is ultimately all we’re going to need for this story. I’d probably know of more Russian actors if I watched The Americans --he’s in the The Americans--but there are way too many shows. If he can say nice things in English followed by mean things in Russian in front of whoever is playing Trump for a scene we’ll be ok!

Group 4: The Criminals

7) Michael Flynn

Retired General and former National Security Adviser. Winner of Russian medals. Failed to register as a foreign agent after taking money from the foreign governments. Chanter of “Lock Her Up”. Soon to be locked up.

Christopher Waltz

Rationale: Waltz seems to always play eccentrics, and Flynn certainly would qualify in a conspiracy theory peddling Islamaphobe kind of way. We of course have seen Waltz in military attire in Inglorious Basterds, and Nazi-garb aside it suits him. The key moment for Flynn will be as he’s listening to his sentence read aloud, staring into the void, finally discovering that he was the bad guy all long. Can’t wait!

8) Jeff Sessions

Middle name is Beauregard, yeah ok. Attorney General. Lied to Congress about connections to Russia. Recused himself from Russian investigation only to be interviewing new FBI directors weeks later. So much awfulness outside of this scandal but we have to press on.

Chris Cooper

Rationale: We know Chris Cooper from many of his films and performances, the most memorable to me in American Beauty as a bitter man stuck in his ways, afraid of the future as the world progresses around him. Jeff Sessions plays that role in his normal life every day, the only differences being he has terrifying power, and we don’t know he’s a closeted homosexual. He could be!

9) Jared Kushner

Senior (lol) Adviser. Delegated by Trump to perform all duties of the presidency. Likely suggested and encouraged the firing of James Comey. Failed to disclose financial ties to Russia before entering White House. Proof that nothing matters.

Paul Dano

Rationale: In Little Miss Sunshine, Paul Dano played a kid who couldn’t become a fighter pilot because he was colorblind, and so took a vow of silence for some reason I forget. Maybe Jared Kushner has taken a vow of silence, because as it’s been noted elsewhere, I don’t think we’ve ever heard him actually speak! Don’t even give Dano any lines. He can just occasionally throw on a pair of black Ray Bans and look dumb.

10) Donald Trump

CEO of Trump Steaks. Vessel of ignorance and hatred. President of the United States.

Hologram of Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Rationale: PSH was too talented to play someone as widely parodied as Trump, but as the scandal rages on, and reports come out of Trump summoning his communications staff and going off on epic tantrums I think he’d be perfect.

youtube

Hoffman also played a misogynistic, lying con artist in The Master; specifically a cult leader in the vein of L. Ron Hubbard. One of my favorite scenes is when he’s confronted by a persistent skeptic during a session with a wealthy patron. This is the first time in the movie Hoffman’s character, The Master, is questioned at length, and you can see him slowly losing composure before blowing up in an angry “PIG FUCK”. It’s an awesome scene and demonstrates why, among many other reasons, Hoffman would have made a great Trump. We have plenty of “TV Trump” impressions; the catchphrases, bloviating, etc. I would want an actor could tap into his boundless anger and fear as he slowly wilts under the pressure of his own incompetence and senility. Hoffman could bring a level of nuance to such a shallow figure.

Great job, everyone! Less than six months into Donald Trump’s presidency and we already have AT LEAST one HBO-ready prestige scandal, so for that let’s give ourselves a round of applause, America. Our ratings are going to be SICK...and so is everyone with a pre-existing condition!

No one knows what the future will bring, but we’ll be watching. Not TV. HBO.

#russia #trump #justice #comey #yates #sessions #ryan #hbo #drama

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771lljosephkwesiasemnor · 5 years

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New post on Longreads

The View From 5-Foot-3 (and a Half)

by Soraya Roberts

Soraya Roberts | Longreads | June 2019 | 9 minutes (2,497 words)

Okay, I’m not even that short, but I just watched Reese Witherspoon get called “untrustworthy” on Big Little Lies for being 5-foot-1 so I have to talk about it. I’m actually 2.5 inches taller than she is — I’m aware that insisting on that half inch makes me sound like a pedantic asshole — but that’s still short enough that when I lost half an inch it felt like a betrayal. I don’t know where that half inch went; all I know is that one day I was 5-foot-4, and the next I was 5-foot-3-and-a-half. Who cares, right? Terry Gross is 4-foot-11 and recently interviewed Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is 5-foot-9 and asked the Fresh Air host if being short affected her. I could basically hear Gross’s shrug through the microphone. And same. But now that I think about it, that's a heavy shrug.

Witherspoon was disparaged by Meryl Streep, who was playing the mother of a man who abused his wife. In a sense, the former was representing feminism; the latter internalized misogyny — that unpleasant habit we have of acting out sexism despite ourselves. What’s interesting is that most of us don’t actually need a Streep to do it. We're pretty good at hacking away at our own self confidence, conjuring imaginary competitions with other women, isolating ourselves from them, all of which has the self-sabotaging effect of perpetuating the behavior that keeps us down. It’s not really about height, but height is as good a marker as any for how the world sees us and how we see the world (and ourselves in it) — in other words, for how trustworthy 5-foot-3-and-a-half becomes.

* * *

In the Big Little Lies scene in question, Madeline (Witherspoon) is at a coffee shop and notices Mary Louise (Streep), the mother of the guy she saw getting pushed to his death last season (it’s a soap). The way Madeline’s holding her muffin, that blush-pink blouse with the bow and the matching makeup and the black cardigan — she looks like such a lady who lunches. A small lady. While she is phonily consoling the older woman, Mary Louise suddenly exclaims, “You’re very short.” The face Witherspoon makes is perfect. She says, “Excuse me?” but with her head a little down so it looks like her entire face is puckered and she’s time traveled back to eighth grade when she was a 13-year-old girl saying, “What did you say, bitch?” to some bitch. Mary Louise kind of backtracks but not really: “I find” — somehow Streep manages here to look down at Witherspoon while looking up at her — “little people to be” — at this Streep ever so slightly toggles her head back and forth like she’s not tossing off a total insult — “untrustworthy.”

There’s a lot going on here, chiefly the clashing of present and past: Madeline is now, Mary Louise is then. You’ve got this younger woman who watched as her best friend’s abusive husband was killed, then covered it up without losing much sleep because he was a piece of shit and the (fictional) world is better off without him. Then you’ve got this older woman, the mother of the abuser, who believes her son was done wrong, not realizing that he was the one doing all the wrong. So, really, if you want to be Feminism 101 about it, this is the patriarchy confronting feminist progress and trying to subvert it. But it’s a lot easier to fight that when you’ve got Streep right in front of you than when she’s in your head.

I don’t think I’ve ever been reduced to my height like this, but it often defines how I think of myself. As a child I was often one of the smallest in my class, and while I would’ve preferred to be one of the tallest, at least I wasn’t one of the kids you don’t even mention. Like being short meant being original. Like at least I owned one superlative — if not the smartest or prettiest — and it wasn’t one that was obviously bad, like being the dumbest or the meanest (although the latter I kind of liked too). I think that all came less from my actual stature and more from wherever my shoddy self-esteem did. I saw my shortness as a stand-in for the interesting personality I was pretty sure I didn’t have. It was like a flipped Napoleon complex, which isn’t about his height — he was 5-foot-7! — but about being compelled by what you perceive as a disadvantage to overcompensate by being outsize in some other way. My perceived disability was that I was invisible, so I outsized the meaning of my shortness. (By the time I grew out of my height defining my originality, I was memorable for other things. Like my sparkling personality.)

We aren’t a very tall family, but it’s always made sense to me that the men are bigger than the women, like that’s how it’s supposed to be, Darwin-style. The women are dainty and elegant and the men can be whatever the fuck they want — they’re taller, just like they’re smarter. So from the start, height was a moral issue, and if there was a discrepancy between mine and any other girl’s, there was a problem with one of us. Every time I’d see a much taller girl I’d think, Jesus Christ, thank God I’m doing one thing right. As if it were a conscious decision I’d made, as if I had anything to do with how I looked. It’s gone the opposite way in adulthood; whenever I’m in a room with a taller woman, I feel way less visible. Actually, that’s a nice way of saying I feel like shit. I feel like a farmhand from the Middle Ages or like some dumpy nursemaid from *waves absently* that same era — an uneducated unsophisticated plebe. The best women — richer, smarter, prettier ‚ are all tall and thin and long-limbed and I’m a runt.

Knowing that all of this has to do with historic myths about gender and health and beauty — not to mention that I literally cannot find a pair of pants I don’t have to hem — creates the shoe paradox, which is a thing I just made up but which is also very real. It’s the feeling of being very riot grrrl when you wear any sort of flat “unfeminine” shoe like a Converse or a Doc, like you are embracing your deficiency of not performing femininity appropriately (come to think of it, this is kind of an addendum to that short-being-original thing). The paradox comes in when you suddenly decide to wear heels, which don’t make you feel like a traitor but, on the contrary, imbue you with even more power because you are no longer suffering from that nonexistent deficiency. It makes no sense to me either, but then neither do the rules of a patriarchal society.

I’m not sure how much my outspokenness has to do with how I look as opposed to how I feel, but my size appears to affect how people react to it and, sort of, how I do too. Basically, I have this idea of myself as a bulldog-chihuahua, some small, pugnacious cartoon animal — growing up, my aunt called me chooha, or mouse, because I squeaked — like a fightercock with no real power. Scrappy. It seems like a lot of guys see me that way too, as endearingly mouthy but ultimately unthreatening. It has the dual effect of being simultaneously flattering and demeaning. That extends to my perceived helplessness, too. On planes I’ll be reaching for my bag in the overhead compartment and some dude will stretch over me and grab it, then smile like I’m an adorable idiot in a losing battle that he would’ve just as happily laughed at but decided on chivalry instead. I know that’s what some of them think, because it’s sometimes what I think when I’m helping someone smaller than me. When I have to ask for some item in a store that’s on an unreachable shelf, I hear myself invariably flirting with the clerk and it feels triumphant that there’s a reason to allow a (preferably hotter) person to help me. And I hate myself for it.

When I’m alone with a guy who’s bigger than me, regardless of how he looks or even how stupid he might be, I’m instinctually deferential. I thought this was weird until my editor just noted that it’s “a pretty understandable safety mechanism, no?” YES (although now I am actually questioning how stupid I am). (Ed. note: not remotely stupid.) But I think it also has to do with my even more problematic ingrained belief that most men are smarter than me (I know, I know) as well as being stronger than me (generally true). So height, regardless of the other person’s agency, becomes this zone of self-reflection where ultimately the shorter I am the less substantial I am. But then there’s the boyfriend paradox, which is not unlike the shoe paradox. I’m dating a guy right now who’s 5-foot-10, which means that when we hold hands, I can only really comfortably grab his last two fingers — yeah, it’s cute — but that also means that hugging him, because he can envelope me, feels more secure. The paradox here is finding comfort in belittling myself, which, magically, works no matter the height. I dated a guy who was 5-foot-6 and thinner than me — “I’m indie thin!” — and while hugging him felt more equal, the fact that he was thinner than me was more noticeable because we were basically the same size, which was like facing a constant living reminder that I’m unable to not be fat. The point being that internalized misogyny ensures that YOU WILL NEVER WIN.

Being a short woman in a group of women can make me as self-conscious as being a short woman in a group of men. With men I’m always struggling to be heard, although I don’t know how much that has to do with being short and how much that has to do with just being a woman. It’s fucking annoying and either makes me louder than usual or more quiet. Women don’t have to do anything to diminish me, they just have to be standing there. Most of my friends are about the same height as me, but when I’m with one who’s much taller I always feel like Ratso Rizzo from Midnight Cowboy — you know, the con man greaser who wheels and deals. I have no idea why I think I look like Dustin Hoffman. No, I do; it’s because I have this conception of myself as small and savvy and naughty and taller women generally as a bit more, well, Jon Voight as naive gigolo. It’s funny because when I’m with someone the same height as me, I’m less conscious of how I look; I’m not an outlier, so it’s a nonissue.

None of this has literally anything to do with who any of us actually are. It has to do with the false ideas I (we) have of myself in the presence of men and other women and the false ideas I (we) have of men and other women and how those things work together to make me (us) self-destruct.

Ironically, the Ratso Rizzo thing probably also comes from my unwillingness to be overlooked. I’m very much “I’m walkin’ here!” when someone taller stands in front of me at a concert or sits right in front of my face at a movie theater. It’s usually a man and I usually want to stab him for being inconsiderate even if he isn’t aware. BE AWARE! Speaking of stabbing, I’m not actually short enough for my height to determine how safe I feel. I think I would feel as unsafe alone at night with a man walking behind me even if I were 6 feet tall, because I assume men are stronger than me regardless of their size. What I do notice is that I have intense anxiety in a crowd that I might not have if I were able to see over everyone’s head. I remember this psychologist relating my anxiety to my size. She said that she commonly got small women coming in and she compared us to small birds or squirrels — you know, how they’re skittish and their hearts beat really fast? Because they’ll basically be trampled or eaten if they don’t have hyperawareness. Maybe that’s what reads as untrustworthy in shorties, their lack of trust in not being stomped.

* * *

A few scenes after the “untrustworthy” one in Big Little Lies, Madeline bumps into Mary Louise again in her real estate office because this is a soap and everyone’s always bumping into everyone else. Madeline has since exchanged her black flats for a pair of grapefruit stilettos, and Mary Louise notices: “I see you’re wearing heels.” At that Madeline confronts her about being an asshole and Mary Louise apologizes and explains that she had some shitty best friend in boarding school (of course) who made her this way: “She was just an itty-bitty little thing with a big bubbly personality that was designed to hide that she was utterly vapid inside. You remind me so much of her and I suppose I punish you for that.” Witherspoon’s face, again. And Streep, again, does this great thing, where, when Witherspoon basically tells her to eff off and walks away, Streep gives her shoes another look and chuckles, with an “Oh, sweetie” cock of the head. Like the idea that Madeline could transcend who she is is endearingly pathetic.

At the risk of playing into the sexist tradition of pitting women against one another, there’s a frustrating feeling that Mary Louise — who is only five inches taller, by the way — has won. That her misogyny has insinuated itself into Madeline to the point that she has actually changed the way she looks in order to appease it. But it’s only a short (ha) stay. Madeline later comes to the rescue of her best friend, Celeste, who is Mary Louise’s daughter-in-law, who vaguely gestures to some kind of emergency. Mary Louise, distraught, asks, “What kind of an emergency?” To which Madeline shruggingly replies, “The kind short people have?” As Madeline walks away you notice she’s wearing running shoes. I love how the connection between two women — Madeline and Celeste — can act as a shield against sexism (in this case, Mary Louise’s). Would that we could all be that strong. Which makes me think of the poll I tweeted asking how tall everyone thought I was. The majority answered 5-foot-5, almost the same height as Streep. I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t make me feel better, but I’m working on it.

* * *

Soraya Roberts is a culture columnist at Longreads.

Soraya Roberts | June 14, 2019 at 6:00 am | Tags: Big Little Lies, feminism, Height, identity, Internalized misogyny, Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Soraya Roberts | Categories: Arts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Story | URL: https://wp.me/p4KhvY-wKE

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