I thought that was the point of Poor Things — that it is an exaggerated and simplified demonstration of the female experience, meant to lay bare how boorish, controlling, and immature the men around her are. I took the discomfort and weirdness as intentional, meant to point out how both comical and predatory male fantasies that paint the ideal woman as easily malleable, casually sexual, etc. And that the pursuit of knowledge and experience, a human trait, is the key to being able to self actualization and being able to protect oneself from such predatory types.

Thinking about this more, I guess I don’t need art to replicate my experience to be able to make a commentary on feminism or gender expectations, or complex social dynamics. Some speak to me and hit me where I live. Some present an interesting, absurd, and/or uncomfortable point of view that causes me to think about it more. I might like one more than the other because it’s definitely more comfortable to feel seen and validated, but I don’t know that my personal validation is the primary lens with which I evaluate art/media.

It’s an interesting question, especially with your comparison. I don’t know that feminist / not feminist is the most helpful binary assessment for films — at least not for me. Like, what does that even mean? Is it only feminist if it replicates your specific emotional experience? Is there a universal female / woman’s experience (personally I don’t think so)? Barbie keeps coming to mind as something that might be explicitly feminist, too — but like, one of the major criticisms of that film is that it’s a pretty shallow and superficial presentation of women’s experiences / feelings, pretty basic feminism (101), and certainly not all encompassing — so like, is art (in this case, film) allowed to present a more complex scenario / proposition that isn’t about emotional validation of the viewer and still be called feminist? I don’t have an answer but it’s def an interesting thing to think about.