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Girl world

After Don’t Worry Darling, on Olivia Wilde’s weird feminism

by Aderet Fishbane

Movie still from Don't Worry Darling. A housewife cleans a bathtub, her reflection repeated in the mirrors in front of her.

Whose world is this??! It’s yours, it’s yours! We buckle beneath hot layers of spooky tech, everything buzzes, my eyes see only HarryStylesHarryStyles, first nice and then kind of aggressive. 
He’s so nice I feel sick telling him sorry, I’m a lesbian, and we can’t be together even though you did nothing wrong bringing me here, to this wonderland Better Place! Everything is so easy, 
I appreciate your giving spirit
, really really really-- 
He gets tired of my excuses and pulls me out of my soft simulation, he says Fuck this I have been working so hard to be Yours and you don’t 
Want me?!
I say Sorry it’s not You it’s Me!! 

We wrestle while Olivia watches in the corner excitedly like she just wrote this part and is re-reading and wants to know if we can come through For the characters, and while the three of us work gray ladies dance on the ceiling. I get confused and need to lie down; Olivia says No! Real women work A full shift, get back into it. I think, she’s right, after all she is the reincarnated feminist icon whatsername and I want to be her bestest friend or her lover or her confidante! I will execute her directorial dream perfectly and girlz everywhere will think Hey, this world is Ours! Olivia will be so grateful to me for my great groupie performance! 

Olivia tells me in a dream: Cum, cum, cum! 
The couple is happy and you can be too!
(she doesn’t say:) 
The couple is trapped in a cage built by Chris Pine,
or 
Nick Kroll plays the same guy in every version of every world. 

She tells me to concentrate on the Implicit Meaning of the Work. I struggle for it forever and just when she’s saying fine, I’ll tell you what I meant with this scene, I become girly and thin and gorgeous, and she gets distracted by the prospect of sex with me, and she calls Harry over-- 
Aderet, your future is yours and with no Man!
(Reject Hollywood! Move to the city!) 

Olivia creates ALL new femme possibilities, Olivia is the champion of new-age feminisms, Olivia has our best girly interests at heart, Olivia

makes boys: sexless, fishy, angry, lonely-- 
Benevolent, she offers them a future: brotherly and dancing! Olivia’s boys always dance. 
And she offers a brief (tender, earnest) kiss between Harry and Nick! The future is bright.

Whose world is this??! It’s yours, it’s yours! We buckle beneath hot layers of spooky tech, everything buzzes, my eyes see only HarryStylesHarryStyles, first nice and then kind of aggressive. 
He’s so nice I feel sick telling him sorry, I’m a lesbian, and we can’t be together even though you did nothing wrong bringing me here, to this wonderland Better Place! Everything is so easy, 
I appreciate your giving spirit
, really really really-- 
He gets tired of my excuses and pulls me out of my soft simulation, he says Fuck this I have been working so hard to be Yours and you don’t 
Want me?!
I say Sorry it’s not You it’s Me!! 

We wrestle while Olivia watches in the corner excitedly like she just wrote this part and is re-reading and wants to know if we can come through For the characters, and while the three of us work gray ladies dance on the ceiling. I get confused and need to lie down; Olivia says No! Real women work A full shift, get back into it. I think, she’s right, after all she is the reincarnated feminist icon whatsername and I want to be her bestest friend or her lover or her confidante! I will execute her directorial dream perfectly and girlz everywhere will think Hey, this world is Ours! Olivia will be so grateful to me for my great groupie performance! 

Olivia tells me in a dream: Cum, cum, cum! 
The couple is happy and you can be too!
(she doesn’t say:) 
The couple is trapped in a cage built by Chris Pine,
or 
Nick Kroll plays the same guy in every version of every world. 

She tells me to concentrate on the Implicit Meaning of the Work. I struggle for it forever and just when she’s saying fine, I’ll tell you what I meant with this scene, I become girly and thin and gorgeous, and she gets distracted by the prospect of sex with me, and she calls Harry over-- 
Aderet, your future is yours and with no Man!
(Reject Hollywood! Move to the city!) 

Olivia creates ALL new femme possibilities, Olivia is the champion of new-age feminisms, Olivia has our best girly interests at heart, Olivia

makes boys: sexless, fishy, angry, lonely-- 
Benevolent, she offers them a future: brotherly and dancing! Olivia’s boys always dance. 
And she offers a brief (tender, earnest) kiss between Harry and Nick! The future is bright.