Death Becomes Her (VIDEO SCRIPT)
Added 2021-10-15 20:00:03 +0000 UTCToday on Film Friday, I’ll be looking at the 90’s cult classic, Death Becomes Her. Let’s begin.
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/Death Becomes Her is a black comedy written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, and directed by Robert Zemeckis. It tells the story of long-time frenemies Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp, who's at the time fiance Ernest Menville leaves her for back in the late 70’s. Now in the 90’s, Helen is a successful bestselling author still in her youth while Madeline is obsessed with preserving her youth to the point where she’s willing to take a magic potion in order to regain her beauty and live forever. However, it turns out Helen took the same potion back in the 80’s and has been plotting her demise out of revenge, and the two run into a dilemma when they find out the hard way what happens when their now immortal bodies have a sudden run-in with death./ (En garde, BITCH)
Death Becomes Her was a movie that as a 4-year-old child I always wanted to see, but never had the opportunity to actually watch.
I remember being four and five years old catching trailers and snippets of the movie on like...HBO and finding the special effects absolutely astonishing, which was rightfully one of the selling points.
Of course, my mom wouldn’t let me watch the whole movie outside of trailers that would appear on TV or previews on HBO previews that aired before what we were originally gonna watch. So over time, all I really had reference to the film were memory images of the women Madeline and Helen.
Soon, it was ONLY that. Because it was so far back in my memory that I would always remember that it was a movie I’ve never seen but always wanted to, but couldn’t remember the name of it to save my life.
Like, if you showed me a clip or an image from the movie, I’d go “Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about! I’ve been wanting to watch it ever since I was like...5! What is it called?”
And then you’d be like “Death Becomes Her” and I’d go “Oh, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Spoiler alert, I NEVER keep it in mind.
However, I recently made an active decision to not only remember what the movie is called, but to actually watch it!
Which means at the tender age of 33, I will be watching this 1992 film for the first time. No sense of nostalgia to hinder my judgement, or spark any biases.
And the result of that is...Eh; it’s alright.
Don’t get me wrong, Readers; I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular or any groundbreaking commentary on 90’s society when I decided to watch this film for the first time. I had NO expectations for Death Becomes Her at all.
But I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t have a few questions about things I’ve heard about the movie regarding the cult classic status it gained over time. And the overall buildup to finally seeing it after all these years and deciding to dig a bit deeper afterwards kinda... satisfied my curiosity.
Basically, Death Becomes Her according to what I’ve seen...is camp. And I mean the aesthetic style of camp. It’s described as ostentatious, exaggerated, affected and theatrical, and this was DEFINITELY that.
/What helps the camp translate so well is that the movie is a dark comedy with a sense of macabre. Especially when it comes to Helen and Madeline after their deaths./
/It’s also in that campiness that a lot of its comedy works for me as well. Like the deadpan transition scenes/ (wedding transition)
/And the sudden appearance of the spa owner that recommends Lisle to Madeline, even though he was NOWHERE in the room when discussions first started/
And because the movie can be classified as camp, this allows the main characters Madeline and Helen to be looked at as satirical depictions of certain types of women themselves. Especially considering satire and camp usually play off very well with each other in how it also uses exaggeration in order to expose flaws in people, governments, societies and corporations.
In the case of Death Becomes Her, because the movie is written by two men in the early 90’s, the satire in the film is highlighting the lengths some women will go to one-up each other and stay relevant
/On Helen’s end, this is represented in the blatant fatphobia present in the movie -- both the fatsuit used for Helen’s depression seven years after Madeline seduced Ernest into marrying her instead and the doctor assigned to her in the psychiatric hospital
/And the way she weaponizes both feminist solidarity against Madeline...and internalized misogyny against Ernest...after she drinks the potion as part of phase 1 of her plans of revenge against Madeline with her rejuvenated looks and success and try to win Ernest back/
Madeline on the other end struggles with relevancy and validation, more specifically through her beauty.
/She covets Helen’s weight loss and youth, reflecting back when they were both in their 30’s in 1978 before learning about and she knew Helen took Lisle’s potion./ (how old is she? 50)
/She resents Ernest now that he’s no longer a renowned plastic surgeon./(Oh, it’s YOU)
/She’s a cradle robber, which if she were a man would be acceptable. But because she’s a woman, the act is shown as one of desperation./ (find someone your age)
/She’s a very satirical take on the ideology of “beauty is only skin deep” in which the obsession of her obsession to reclaim her youth because she can’t cope with her current aging process reflecting her mean-spiritedness and backstabbing ways./
Madeline and Helen are both terrible people -- and so is Ernest, real talk; we’re not gonna let him off the hook that easily just because he had a change of heart...
/But it’s only when they end up immortal corpses after all the scheming, kniving and fighting that they decided to actually just sit down and talk things out./
However, because of the campiness applied to both the setting and time period, and because of the satirical exaggeration Helen and Madeline represent...
The combination of both when the movie is looked at with either eyes that have matured since the last time it's been seen, or eyes that haven’t had the privilege to be shielded with Nostalgia Goggles...
Allows this specific mix of camp and satire to be easily translated as social commentary regarding how women were forced to interact with both society and each other in a world that will easily write them and their femininity off if they’re no longer vibrant or marketable and take extreme chances in order to remain as such
And while I can definitely see that being a clever, yet absolutely unintentional social commentary Death Becomes Her ends up making in its narrative...
Thanks to me being (black) and the two main characters who do so much whack shit and get away with it thanks to them being (white), all I was able to think about while watching them is how accurate the saying is about how quickly problematic snow sisters age physically.
I also think that’s what initially got in my way from being able to COMPLETELY resonate with how this is such a cult classic within the LGBT community; another factor I couldn’t wait to witness about this film once I initially learned about it.
While Drag queer culture is not necessarily MY queer culture, Drag queer culture LOVES Death Becomes Her, and I can kinda understand why.
They saw the unintentional social commentary about how women and femininity are treated overall, and are forced to act and utilize it in the patriarchy and went with it, while visually attracted to the Old Hollywood glam Helen and Madeline constantly show off and pay homage to.
/And even though they acknowledge that Madeline and Helen are clearly villains, they also see them as queer icons in the way a lot of queer-coded Disney villains are thanks to the way they scheme against each other, fight with each other, and end up with each other./
I completely understand that angle of queer relatability when it comes to Madeline and Helen in Death Becomes Her. And if you want more resources regarding understanding the queer-coded Disney villain angle, I’ll have links to both Rowan Ellis and Matt Baume’s videos on the subject in the description below.
However, outside of how everyone who enjoys this movie has been able to pick up on the hidden commentary it makes, I cannot for the life of me -- refuse to, even -- believe y’all when you tell me that these women are oppressed.
Upon researching the LGBT attraction to the movie, I came across a piece Vanity Fair published in 2017 to celebrate its 25th anniversary and saw this quote from long-time executive producer of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, Tom Campbell regarding Helen and Madeline
/He said, “They’re fighting for beauty. They’re against the system. They’re also villains, but we understand their complexity. We root for the undead divas because they’re trying to win a game that’s rigged against them, and -- to borrow an apocryphal quote from Ginger Rogers -- they sort of have to do it ‘backwards and in high heels’.”/
That...sure is a way...to interpret their plight.
Okay, no. No, I-I can’t hold my tongue here. AGAINST THE SYSTEM? The game is RIGGED against them? These rich white women?
/Yes, Madeline is a fading star. But she still lives in a mansion in Beverly Hills, and is CLEARLY still handsomely living off her film royalties in order to afford both regular and spontaneous spa treatments./
I mean, she’s not making over $600K a year like Mariah Carey is everytime “All I Want For Christmas Is You” plays on the radio during the holiday season, but it sure the fuck don’t look like she’s WANTING for anything!
And sure, the potion initially cost Helen everything she had when she got it in the 80’s.
/But look at her now! In the 90’s! Where the initial story of the movie takes place! She’s a bestselling author who ALSO lives in Beverly Hills and can talk about casually firing her assistant just for speaking the truth about anticipating how someone would react to receiving an invitation!/
Like, why would Tom Campbell even THINK this if we saw the same movie? What does he even- (looks at phone and immediately shuts up when sees that he’s white, and begins to gently adjust and put the phone down) ...Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright.
So, Tom Campbell, 12-year producer of RuPaul’s Drag Race and various spinoffs, and 4-year producer of “Million Dollar Listing: New York”...?
Has every right to his opinion, just like I do. And MY opinion is that HIS opinion comes from a very privileged place.
I don’t know his story, I don’t know his journey. It could be 100% rags to riches for all I know
But considering the quote that I read and how it's supposed to be applied to the movie I just watched...
It tells me, a 33 year old black queer male living in America who IS trying to fight the system and actually knows what its like to have the game rigged against him...
That he -- like other ghastly gay men before him -- couldn’t help but take the opportunity to play “The White That Cried Oppressed” in this instance.
There are plenty of movies that give off the same social commentary Death Becomes Her does -- some of them on purpose -- and actually illustrate what Tom Campbell and queer folk like him THINK they see when they think of Death Becomes Her according to the statement he gave in this article.
But in order for them to do that, they have to be prepared to not see themselves -- and by themselves, I mean their skin tone -- be front and center in the narrative
Despite the queer relatability to the initial commentary it accidentally makes, Death Becomes Her does NOT allow you to experience that...
/Because the movie first and foremost presented as a piece featuring iconic yet horrible porcelain people basking in their privilege and falling apart -- literally -- when things don’t work out the way they need them to in order for them to benefit from it./
And if you need more proof within the movie that the white gaze is the MAIN gaze for it, JUST LOOK AT WHO MAKES UP THE MAJORITY OF LISLE’S CLIENTELE FROM THE PARTY SHE THREW THEM AT THE END OF THE MOVIE!
/There are only like seven-ish specks of pepper in a sea of fucking salt!/
Oh my God! (pause) Oh my GOD!
Now am I saying that this movie isn’t worth watching? Absolutely not.
/Outside of the hot messes that are Madelilne and Helen, watching Bruce Willis play someone not action-oriented or tough and grizzled was actually refreshing./
Also the very feel of the movie -- from the camera angles, the set design, and even the visual warmth from the very film itself -- just immediately visually told me that I was watching a Universal Studios movie from the 1990’s
And while Robert Zimeckis’s direction for this film was -- in my opinion -- a bit generic compared to how he handled the Back to the Future Trilogy and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” I was IMMEDIATELY able to recognize Alan Silvestri’s mark for the film’s score.
I know a lot of the kids nowadays ONLY know him as the composer who made the theme for the Avengers
But thanks to Back to the Future, Predator, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and yes, even Super Mario Brothers, my ears are easily able to pick up a soundtrack of his just as well as hearing Danny Elfman and John Williams from a crowd.
Thankfully, Alan Silvestri’s music is the ONLY thing about Death Becomes Her that I let nostalgia take hold of when I watched this movie, because I don’t think I would’ve been able to be as unbiased as I was watching the movie if I were revisiting it. Even if it played a part in my queer development like a lot of other individuals.
So with that being said, I feel I must repeat this. Death Becomes Her is a movie that I’ve always wanted to watch in its entirety ever since I was around 4 or 5 years old.
Now that I’ve seen it in its entirety for the first time as a 33 year old man...I’m fine with never having to see it again.
It’s not that I don’t like or appreciate the campiness of it or the satire that compliments it when it comes to Helen and Madeline’s dynamic. And it’s definitely not because I didn’t find it funny in most places.
/I think that because I’ve seen movies that better combine camp and satire in ways that are less dated according to the decade and INTENTIONALLY give off the social commentary that this movie delivered since this was release, I think the ship has sailed for me to truly appreciate Death Becomes Her on the level that a lot of others do./
And honestly, I’m fine with that.
Right now you can rent Death Becomes Her for as little as $4 anywhere that allows digital rental streams.
But if you want to own it and also help financially support the channel, I’ll have an affiliate link for you in the description down below.
So with that being said Readers, YOUR homework assignment for the day:
Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of Death Becomes Her if you’ve seen it.
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But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed.
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