You're Fucking With Me: Bodies Bodies Bodies (dir. Halina Reijn, 2022)
In which I was too busy buying avocado toast to come up with a good subhed.
At a certain point, young people started sounding like old people to me. I’ll show you what I mean: In the 2022 hit Bodies Bodies Bodies, a movie which unfortunately stars Pete Davidson, a character (Pete Davidson) gives a little speech to his girlfriend on the word “gaslighting.” It goes like this:
“Gaslight?” Shut up. It’s a fucking dumb word. Gaslight is, like, one of the most overused words ever. To, like, the point of annihilation. Okay? It doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that, like, you read the Internet. Or, like, “congrats, you have a Twitter account.” “Gaslight.” Get over it. Like, what’s next? You’re gonna call me a narcissist? Or a foot soldier of, like, the white supremacy?
Obviously, the Pete Davidson character is meant to be an asshole. For one thing, he’s played by Pete Davidson. For another, he makes his girlfriend cry. But is he supposed to be a smart asshole? Are we supposed to see some caustic truth-telling in this speech? Is this meant to be a young person’s speech, a monologue from nihilistic seen-it-all Gen Z about the ennui of growing up online amidst the cringe neoliberal SJWs of the millennial generation?
Or is it meant to be what it sounds like to me: A Dennis Leary monologue from 1997? Is it impossible to get a coffee-flavored cup of coffee any more in this country? What’s up with all the fuckin’ lattes? My girlfriend told me I was “gaslighting” her. What’s next, is she gonna call me a foot soldier of the white supremacy? WWW dot what the fuck dot com!?
Like: Okay, white man. You’re angry. You tell it like it is. I’ve never known a white man to have that personal brand before, and I’m excited to see where it’s going, and whether we’ll get a music video. But here in 2023, where I live, complaining about the word “gaslight” is possibly the only thing more worn-out and tired than accusing somebody of “gaslighting.” It is, in fact, exactly what Pete Davidson is accusing his girlfriend of: Pretending to have some new and incisive commentary, while actually just repeating something that all of your friends have already said.
So you begin to see my problem: This movie, which was pitched to me as a scathing, Jane-Austentatious black comedy of manners training its laser-guided sights on the youth of today, often feels like an avocado toast joke made by some edgelord libertarian Gen Xer.