My Controversial Take on Variety’s Review of Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman
By the messy optimist
Sorry.
Uhh…NOT SORRY.
So continuing with the theme of Promising Young Woman from the last two days – another extremely controversial off-shoot of the film came from a Variety review of the film that Carey Mulligan called out as being extremely sexist. Let me quote from the review the lines that became so controversial. Dennis Harvey wrote the following:
“Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale — Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her.”
You can read the rest of Harvey’s review here:
https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/promising-young-woman-review-1203480660/
Essentially, what Harvey said is that Carey Mulligan is not as drop-dead gorgeous attractive for the role that she plays in the movie to be convincing. And, perhaps, Margot Robbie, would probably be a better fit for the role. Mulligan took offense to Harvey’s comment and in an interview with The New York Times responded with,
“Since the Emerald Fennell film specifically skewers womanhood-as performance, writing critically about Mulligan’s appearance in “Promising Young Woman” struck her as a particularly absurd movie to be so tone deaf about. “It drove me so crazy,” Mulligan said to the Times. “I was like, ‘Really? For this film, you’re going to write something that is so transparent? Now? In 2020?’ I just couldn’t believe it.’”
Variety then came back with an apology of sorts and if you look at the very top of Harvey’s review in the link I’ve posted you’ll find the following statement that was added to the review after Mulligan’s comments in The New York Times. It says, “EDITOR’S NOTE: Variety sincerely apologizes to Carey Mulligan and regrets the insensitive language and insinuation in our review of “Promising Young Woman” that minimized her daring performance.“
There is NO question that I’m a feminist and it really pisses me off (like I talked about in my musings on January 31, 2021) when a lot of female-driven movie often miss the bus, the boat and the airplane when it comes to how womanhood is portrayed on film because most of them are directed by MEN and they often look at women through the male gaze. And that f…ing drives me crazy. Mulligan makes a similar point since the entire movie that Harvey is reviewing is about how men ‘see’ women and the disturbing ways in which they justify masculine and toxic behavior with the ridiculous and oft-quoted “men will be men” argument.
So, I GET THAT. TRUST ME…I GET THAT.
But playing Devil’s Advocate – I do want to take one quick second and think about what’s being argued here. The key argument here that – I think – Harvey was trying to say is that the kind of super-success that Carey Mulligan’s character Cassie has with men in the movie (drunk or otherwise) seems a little far-fetched given that while attractive, she is not quite the Margot Robbie attractive. And that, perhaps, in real life, Cassie would not quite get the kind of attention that she gets in the movie. And as much of an insanely incredible actress that Mulligan is – I have to – grudgingly agree.
I think – if even an averagely attractive woman is Cassie-drunk in a bar and is completely shit-faced – then, yes. Chances are most men will try and take advantage of her. BUT – if she is the same-level of attractive as Carey Mulligan and not drunk and shit-faced – she would probably not get 1/10th the attention that the movie will have us believe that Cassie does and will. I think – that’s what Harvey was trying to say but it all gets lost in translation.
As puerile and awful as that argument is – fact is, in the real life, Mulligan will not get 1/10th the attention that Margot Robbie will and does. That’s just how it is. Does that mean that Mulligan is any less of an actor than Robbie – absolutely not. And I genuinely think that’s what Harvey was trying to get at, albeit in a clumsy sort of way.
And very soon, I’ll talk about another TV show that depicted relationships that are so far off reality that it’s almost comical – The Mindy Project.
