Abstract
Nosotras (female “we” in Spanish) are constantly being robbed of our female being by male discourses. Lars von Trier’s torturous existentialism in Antichrist explores this dynamic through a heterosexual couple that has suffered the loss of their child. Based on the contributions of Gloria Anzaldúa, Simone de Beauvoir, and Silvia Marcos, I reflect on a particular feminist implication from this film: terror is necessary for women to assert their identities. Anzaldúa’s conception of the “wild tongue” speaks to the language and existence of women crossing multiple borders, where keeping their tongues wild is a way of asserting their identities. Antichrist is probably Lars von Trier’s most controversial film, and while some perceive it as misogynistic, I argue, based on my experience of the film as a Latina woman, that the film is subversively feminist. It shows us the impossibility of taming women’s wild tongues by masculinity and ultimately points a finger at society’s hypocrisy in justifying women’s wild tongues as outcomes of demonic possession or neurological disorders.
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- 1.
In Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, La Frontera: The New Mestiza book chapter, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she shares an experience with a dentist’s office whose work cannot be completed because of Anzaldúa’s stubborn tongue—her tongue keeps getting in the way, exacerbating the dentist. Anzaldúa uses this as a metaphor to reflect on her mother tongue, her native language, and her identity as a Chicana woman. She reflects on memories of her growing up facing a dominant culture that deemed her tongue and her ethnicity wild. As a woman, and as a Chicana woman, she learns to own up to this conception of her tongue, her identity, and womanhood. She takes possession of her wilderness and will not be tamed.
- 2.
She and He are the names of the couple in the film. There is no proper name for She or He. As such, this chapter uses these pronouns as they are used in the film.
- 3.
In Nahua thought, the ilamatlatolli were the traditional discourses of the wise old.
- 4.
Fluidity, in Nahua thought, is conceptualized as the constant movement of duality in every being or object, including divinity and the cosmos. Everything is feminine and masculine, and the order of duality was balanced through ollin —constant motion. This fluidity leads to equilibrium, which is reached by constantly connecting to the center of the cosmos and coordinating our being in relation to it (Marcos 2000).
- 5.
Literally, mal aigre in English translates as “bad air.” But the spelling of “aigre” is not orthographically correct in Spanish. I suspect Gloria Anzaldúa uses this specific spelling to imply the use of such term in societies, which may have lacked literacy in castellan, but which were highly spiritual, and whose practices were influenced by indigenous wisdoms. As pointed out in the text, el mal aigre S meant the evil riding the winds.
- 6.
My mother has nine sisters. Although these women may have not been familiar with the Mesoamerican conceptualization of duality, or Anzaldúa’s Coatlicue state, my mother and aunts are women with magnificent ollin , always shifting between their feminine and masculine. Although still embedded in certain forms of machismo, their self-sufficiency is extremely significant for me, for it allowed me the freedom to explore so much learning.
References
Anzaldúa, G. 1999. Borderlands, la Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
Brooks, X. 2009. Antichrist: A Work of Genius or the Sickest Film in the History of Cinema? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jul/16/antichrist-lars-von-trier-feminism. Accessed 18 Oct 2018.
Butler, R., and D. Denny, eds. 2016. Lars von Trier’s Women. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
De Beauvoir, S. 2012. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage.
Honig, B., and L.J. Marso, eds. 2016. Politics, Theory, and Film: Critical Encounters with Lars von Trier. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marcos, S. 2000. Embodied Religious Thought: Gender Categories in Mesoamerica. In Gender/Bodies/Religions, ed. S. Marcos. Cuernavaca, Mexico: Aler Publications.
Marso, L.J. 2017. Politics with Beauvoir: Freedom in the Encounter. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Urgan-Sargon, B. 2014. Sometimes a Misogynist Is Just a Misogynist: Don’t Excuse Lars von Trier. Tablet. https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/167949/sometimes-a-misogynist-is-just-a-misogynist. Accessed 18 Oct 2018.
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Torres-Guevara, R. (2019). The Need of the Antichrist to Tame the Wild Tongue of Nosotras. In: Haro, J., Koch, W. (eds) The Films of Lars von Trier and Philosophy. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24918-2_6
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