This article discusses suicide and may be triggering for some readers. The Canadian Mental Health Association Crisis Line can be reached at 1-800-875-6213.
Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, celebrated its 25th anniversary at The Screening Room this month.
The Virgin Suicides is a film adaptation of best-selling author Jeffrey Eugenides’ book of the same name, published in 1993. The story is set in the 1970s American suburbs and follows the five beautiful and mysterious Lisbon sisters, who are obsessed over by the neighborhood teenage boys and eventually meet a bleak fate. The Screening Room, Kingston’s local indie theatre, ran the film this month from Sept. 14 to 19 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film’s release.
The Lisbon sisters are raised in a very strict, repressive, and religious household. The boys around them collect the girls’ belongings, such as their journals and lipsticks as personal souvenirs. They spend most of the film watching them from afar, until each sister dies by suicide.
Watching the film in theatres was a surreal experience. The large screen invited viewers into the misty and dreamy atmosphere. The dialogue and soundtrack’s effect are exponentially more effective and emotional in theatres, comparable to the difference between a CD and live music.
I’d seen the film twice before but watching it in theatres was an opportunity to truly immerse oneself within the life of these American youth by taking on the role of the voyeur alongside the boys.
Being placed into the perspective of the boys makes viewers question whether this story is being told by reliable narrators. After the end credits rolled and I left The Screening Room, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sisters and what they must have felt. The answer to this question is bleak, viewers will never know what the sisters experienced or the true nature of their deaths because they were never given a chance to narrate their own stories.
The feelings of awkward and lonely teenage years, as well as misunderstandings between young men and women, remains relevant today, just as the story of the sisters remains significant for the boys 25 years after their deaths.
The boys, also the narrators of the film. have aged but are still affected by the burning questions about the girls. Now in 2024, the film has aged along with its narrators, yet it continues to ask the same relevant questions about the effects of the male gaze.
The audience ingest their view of the sisters through the lens of the teenage boys. Even though the audience knows who the sisters are, the film never reveals their perspectives or feelings. Viewers are subjected completely to the male gaze—a lens where women are perceived through a heterosexual man’s eyes, often leading to hyper sexualization and objectification.
Throughout the film, the sisters are objectified by the boys for their beauty and innocence, as well as their unattainability. Coppola’s hazy, dreamy shots of the Lisbon sisters are soft, bright, and focus on their smiles and vintage dresses. The boys speak about the girls sexually, compulsively dreaming about them and their innocence.
The Lisbon sisters had no autonomy within their own lives. Their deaths marked the one choice they had in their lives—to live or to die. Stripping the girls of their autonomy allowed the sisters to become playthings and toys for the predatory boys.
Women still deal with the effects of the male gaze and objectification today, 25 years later, as the questions of gaze and autonomy remain relevant. The sisters were girls and people, but the boys disregarded this crucial fact, focusing instead on their unattainable affection.
The Lisbon sisters’ suffering was ignored and suppressed by the objectification and romanticization of those around them. The boys’ inability to see the sisters as people has been teaching audience members for over 25 years about the dangers of objectification and isolation created by the male gaze.
Tags
anniversary, Film, Review, Screening Room
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