Female Anxiety Films: Women's History Month Edition
Nothing celebrates the uniqueness of the female experience like discussing anxiety. It’s a topic we’re so fixated on we coined an entire genre for it: Female Anxiety Movies. Anxiety is what bonds us women together, even more than that sisterhood junk or whichever biological grossness, because it exists inside every type of woman there is. If you’ve spent a minute of your life as a woman, you’ve experienced female anxiety. That’s just the way it goes.
But what a rich and sticky pool of nerves and neurosis we have to delve into! So many different types of women and journeys to and through womanhood make for fertile (no pun intended) ground, and filmmakers have been quietly honing in on what makes us tick for decades now. Even in eras when film perspectives were considerably more limited, female anxiety was always present, reminding us all that being at peace with ourselves and our places in society was a distant goal. Are we closer to said goal in the twenties of the twenty-first century? Don’t ask me; I’m just a girl.
Starting with the most modern of our movie selections, we’ve got the indie drama Test Pattern (2019), directed by Shatara Michelle Ford, a subtle and naturalistic film that depicts how even enlightened men lay claim to women. The simplicity of the plot, in this case an interracial couple dealing with the aftermath of a rape, gives way to a layered and complicated examination of concern, victimization, and control.
Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) is an attractive young black woman who starts dating Evan (Will Brill) after he clumsily asks for her number at a bar, doesn’t call her then runs into her at a grocery store a few days later. After their initial courtship, the movie does us the favor of skipping ahead in time to their fully established relationship, and trusts us to fill in the blanks. Renesha and Evan appear happy together, enjoying their shared life. One night when Renesha goes out with a friend of hers, she is taken advantage of by a man they met at the bar. Returning home, Renesha tells Evan what happens, and his search for a rape kit for her turns into a mission.
The real meat of the story takes place in the third act with Evan propelling the action and Renesha just wanting this to be over. As they move from clinic to clinic and hospital to hospital, Evan becomes more enraged while Renesha becomes more detached. Like many women in this situation, Renesha seems to think this is a waste of time. Not because she doesn’t want justice for herself but because she knows justice is most likely out of reach.
The depiction of the assault helps the audience understand Renesha’s perspective: it is undeniably without her consent but with little in the way of physical force or evidence of force. She knows how hard it can be to prove her point, and the longer Evan drags her along on this odyssey, the deeper the rift between them becomes. In a poignant flashback moment, Renesha remembers Evan making a joke about designing a tattoo for her and wanting to brand her. For her and the audience, it becomes hard to see Evan’s motivation as concern when it begins to feel more and more like it’s about territorialism.
Rocketing backwards to one of the less enlightened times, we’ve got Back Row favorite (in that Jenna and I love it) All That Heaven Allows (1955) starring that pussyhound Rock Hudson. Boy, that is one straight heterosexual man right there. Anyway, like Test Pattern, this is a human drama centered on a woman struggling with the circumstances in her life. Unlike Test Pattern, this is a Douglas Sirk directed melodrama so it’s admittedly a bit more overblown than close to the bone.
Widow Cary (Jane Wyman) is a social and affluent woman who falls in love with her younger landscaper Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) to the shock and sometimes disgust of the people around her. Not only do they find it unacceptable due to the age difference, but Ron is also a simple man who doesn’t care about the expensive trappings of life. Nobody can understand what would possess Cary to throw away everything she has to live in a (lovely and well-coordinated) cabin in the woods with a gorgeous hunk of man. Makes total sense to the rest of us, Cary. I promise you that.
In All That Heaven Allows, the anxiety on display is not of helplessness but in the reaction to a woman who does in fact take control of her circumstances. Cary is told by her friends and children that she is making a mistake, and that she can’t possibly know what she’s doing. Everyone doubts her sanity, affection for Ron, and her motivations. Her sons bring her a TV, telling her this is all the company she needs, and leaves her to rattle around a huge empty house, content in her loneliness. Cary is every woman who has ever been told that she doesn’t want the things she wants, and that her desires and drives are less powerful than that of her male counterparts. A running thread in the film is people whispering about Ron taking advantage of the poor suffering widow–as if the only reason strapping young he could possibly be spending time with the likes of her is to bilk her out of her wealth.
So often women are defined by their roles and relations to others. Cary is continually referred to as a widow, making it clear that even in death her husband still has a claim on her. She is dissuaded from looking anywhere outside of her small world for happiness, and the idea of shacking up with an attractive younger man is seen as repulsive to everyone around her. Very few people ever ask Cary what she wants or needs as it is just assumed that she is fine with what she has. The whole film is oddly subversive, despite its polished and soapy exterior, in how it pays attention to the sexuality of older women–a topic that we still have trouble discussing to this very day. Cary is not believed to be in control of herself once she falls in love. The audience watches her be logical, sane, and calm yet told she is being duped and clouded by a love not returned to her.
Don’t worry though. In the end, Cary and Ron end up together in his lovely cabin, and she undoubtedly gets everything she needs.
There’s so much anxiety for both genders tangled up in sexuality but for women and especially gay women, there’s an added layer of people not taking us at our word. In our final movie Appropriate Behavior (2014), we get to witness the confusion and stumbling of a queer female relationship along with the sexual exploration of a twenty-something in New York City.
Shirin (Desiree Akhavan) is a bisexual woman from a wealthy and traditional Persian family. When her live-in girlfriend Maxine (Rebecca Henderson) breaks up with her, Shirin finds herself without a home or a job and unable to explain to her family what just happened. Her family believes she was living with a friend, and when Shirin does try to come out to her mother, her mother flatly denies this possibility.
Appropriate Behavior uses a fluid approach to time so that the audience witnesses the breakdown before the initial meeting, then snippets of the relationship as Shirin tries to get her life back on track. As a character, Shirin wants to be honest about who she is but also is unsure of who she is. She goes home with a couple for a threesome and finds herself suddenly uncomfortable in the situation and bolts. Her attraction to women is always present but she muses to friends about finding a boyfriend to make things easier. This is a movie that focuses on the stickiness of being a young adult, someone newly out in the world but still connected to childhood, and the conflict of being authentic when other people don’t want to hear about it.
In the scene where Shirin’s mother refuses to accept her daughter’s sexuality, we can see echoes of the same anxiety seared into All That Heaven Allows. People feel completely within their rights to tell women that they don’t feel or want the things they actually feel or want. Shirin confesses to her mother that she “might be a little gay,” quite possibly the least committal way to come out to a homophobic parent, and her mother replies with, “No, you’re not.” Shirin finds herself back at square one after mustering her courage to bring the topic up at all.
An interesting aspect of Appropriate Behavior is the shuttling between the two lives Shirin leads. In her element and in the city, she is still confused but curious and daring. At her parents, she is subdued and unsure. By the end of the movie, nothing is resolved with her family but she sees Maxine out the subway window, and they wave to each other in a friendly fashion. It’s a great way to close out a story without necessarily finishing it.
There are thousands of female anxiety movies available, and they range from domestic to sexual to just plain terrifiying. For more information on female anxiety movies click here and check our list on Letterboxd. Because nothing says “women can do anything” like observing how upsetting it can be for us to get there.
