By Ava Cantarella
As I’ve grown older, I’ve noticed the strange overlap with incel media and the queer community. I’d talk to guys and bond over shared love of movies, songs, shows, but soon realize that they believed I shouldn’t be able to vote. However, the more I bonded with other people in the queer community, I realized they shared the same interests. Is it just by chance, or is there something more to the story? Movies like American Psycho, The Matrix, Joker, Superbad, and Fight club, are loved by both communities. I’ve heard both incels and queer people say The Matrix was comforting to them. So what is it? Are these just simply well made films that can be appreciated by all?
The Matrix has been a sort of poster child for incels: they use the red pill in the movie as a metaphor for their beliefs. Usually, they say you need to “wake up” and “take the red pill” to see the truth about women, and how they make men weak. But is this what the movie was aiming for? Interviews with the creators reveal that the story isn’t about becoming an “alpha male”. Instead, it’s a story of the trans experience. The creator of the film, Wachowski, has talked about this several times, “We had the character of Switch – who was a character who would be a man in the real world and then a woman in the Matrix.” This never came to fruition as she feared the world wasn’t ready for it, however, that didn’t stop her from making the story be a trans allegory. Unfortunately some audience members walked away from the movie with a different idea, and I see this become more of a trend within these medias.
American Psycho is another film that has been held close to the hearts of both incels and queer people. This is actually one of my favorite movies as well. The movie is the story of a businessman who typically murders prostitutes or the homeless while he tries to accel at work. The author of the book, Bret Easton Ellis, which the movie is based on, said, “It initiated because of my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself.” He wanted to tell a story about someone who is apart of this culture, but it’s not a good thing. The majority of the movie portrays Bateman as a suave guy, but the ending portrays him as just some loser his coworkers make fun of. The movie was directed by Marry Harron, and she recruited Guinevere Turner to co-write the screenplay with her. Turner had hesitations but said, “with the right spin it could be a really subversive, feminist movie” However, again, this is another posterboy for incels, seeing Patrick Bateman as a hero rather than a creep.
As much as I’d love to write about my own opinion for the whole article, it’s important to get an outside view. Jane Kim, a junior here at LREI, agreed to sit with me and talk more about this phenomena.
Ava: “What pieces of media do you consider to be both loved by incels and queer people?”
Jane: “American psycho, Skott Pilgrim, Weezer, shit like that, Radiohead, the Smiths.”
Ava: “What media do you enjoy that you consider to be also incel media?”
Jane: “I really like Weezer, big Weezer fan. I just like the music, and my dad liked it so I’ve been conditioned to like it.”
Ava: “Why do you think these pieces of media are considered to be incel media or beloved by incels?”
Jane: “I think weezer is more of a meme that it’s an incel thing: it’s very like ‘whiney guy singing about how nobody likes him’ kinda music, which incels are. But shit like American Psycho is more like, just a lack of critical thinking and misunderstanding of a critique of white male power fantasy, but they see it as a white male power fantasy.”
The white male power fantasy is the idea that white men are above it all. They are the almost like a god themselves, they are always right and the world should be serving them. These ideas can be seen in film, literature, and art. Men, like Jane said, see American Psycho as a white mans power fantasy, when in fact it’s the opposite. It’s making fun of it.
Jane: “Also their idea of satire too is a lot of like, you just say racist things but you joke so it’s not racist, it’s satire. So they don’t actually understand what satire is and they can’t comprehend the fact that they are being made fun of.”
Ava: “Yeah- and we’ve talked about this before but, do you wanna expand on the death of critical thinking? Why do you think at least more recently there has been this ignorance of what things mean within media?”
Jane: “There was this whole phenomenon that was like “english teachers when curtains are blue?”
People just took it to mean that everything means literally what it is, and people, with the rise of what I said earlier, of satire being used as an excuse to be a bigot, has become this idea of people actually critiquing things further than it is, you know? People don’t think about anything anymore.”
Ava: “So why do you think these two groups enjoy similar pieces of media?”
Jane: “I think they both feel ostracized to some degree. I mean queer people are obviously ostracized in society, and incels feel ostracized, like, “Women don’t date me, I’m so different and nobody likes me.” So some forms of media have that similar connection. Both of the groups are trying to be very like different and cool, like, you know like, bro incels like queer people who reclaim movies like- American Psycho is so girly pop or whatever.”
Ava: “Yeah and I mean- the purpose of American Psycho, as you said earlier, is to make fun of these kinda guys.”
Jane: “They aren’t aware of that fact: they cannot physically picture themselves being critiqued, cause they think they are correct and right and the ideal person.”
So why is this? Well it’s like Jane said: there is more commonly an ignorance within consuming media. Perhaps because everything is faster and served to us, we don’t want to do the work to unpack what it means, we want it to just tell us. This feeling may even be intensified when people feel particularly alone, they want fast simple answers. However, this can lead to more problems than real answers. I find further examining meanings within media I love to be really fun, and it provides me with a more complete view of what it all means. This article isn’t made to deter you from these medias, they’re really great, and I implore you to check it out for yourself. However, this article is in the hopes to encourage those reading that there is more than what the eye sees.