SMILE 2: The Interplay of Female Trauma, Gender Performativity, And Nihilism

 Now I become myself. It's taken

Time, many years and places;

I have been dissolved and shaken,

Worn other people's faces...

These poignant lines, as taken from May Sarton's 'Now I Become Myself', a beautiful poem about self-discovery, also happen to be the insidious modus operandi of the demonic entity in the SMILE horror franchise and its subversion of the same process, combined with distorting its victims' perception of reality. Consisting of woman-centric strories, the plots of both feature-lemgth films in the franchise explore the ravages of trauma, the performative nature of the feminine, as well as the self-destructive nihilism that also happens to be characteristic of modern society.

The first film in the franchise revolves around a female therapist getting an unexpected visit from a woman in distress. Rambling incoherently, she insists that by virtue of someone actively engaged in academics, she is not insane and is in fact, in grave danger. As the therapist goes outside to consult the head doctor about this, the camera pans to a room where a male patient is shown sitting upright with a creepy smile on his face. Thinking the woman sleep-deprived, Rose (the therapist) comes back to find the woman dangling a shard of broken glass in front of her to protect herself, eyes wide in horror. Soon the same smile begins to creep at the edges of her mouth, as she leers at Rose. Rose, now deeply unsettled,  watches transfixed as the woman proceeds to dramatically slit her own throat using that shard of glass, all the while looking at her and smiling. The event sets forth a disturbing chain of events for Rose, now the victim of the demonic curse, as she begins to question her own sanity. Being forced to deal with unexpected troubles in her domestic paradise, culminates in her embarking on her own journey of self-discovery, reconciling past wounds with present hopelessness. However considering the nature of circumstances as so engulf her, the denouement does justice to the bleakness which as it turns out, would only be a recurring feature of interest in both films.

The second film is again, a predominantly female story. Beginning with an action-packed one-shot opener to fully close off the events of the first film, we  then focus on our new protagonist, a pop star at the margins of her career. Having her on Drew Barrymore as exposition, the audience finds out that Skye Riley has been through hell; drug addiction, back pain from a death-defying accident and scars from a possible C-section and later as we find out, the habitual tendency of pulling out one's own hair in a bid to cope with stress. The plot unfolds as it should; the entity that feeds off of insecurity finds its prey once more, the victim can't seem to know what is real and what isn't, family rifts arise, and ultimately, reconciliation exacts its horrifying, almighty toll.

The underlying feminist subject matter is made more prominent in the second film. The first is the more overt nature of gender performativity. The female pop star, aside from being a public figure, finds herself in a greater deal of scrutiny even on the home front. Her mother is a perfect stand-in for the oppressive de Beauvoir-ian societal forces perpetuating conformism, wherein the daughter is expected to submit and play second fiddle to the demands of the patriarchy, here embodied by the men in charge of curating both of Riley's private and public personas, ranging from her brother and her boyfriend, to her dance choreographer and the man in charge of the record label producing her albums.

The second is in the nihilistic nature of the society, as is the perfect hunting ground for malevolent forces; with people providing the conivincing suit of armour in which they can insulate themselves properly. One can't seem to differentiate among monster and man, as chronic insensitivity and shallow natures more than compound the threat posed by an unseen force of evil that can pretend to be anyone, anytime. Even on the individual level, the MO of the monster itself seems to be symbolize some manner of inadvertent nihilistic metamorphosis: the victim by ultimately succumbing to its will and allowing it to 'wear their face',  embraces their own darker half, as manifest in the subsequent 'smile'. That is, however, before they proceed to take their own life i.e. self-destructing that 'other'.

In many ways, the SMILE franchise does come full circle on self-discovery in its own diabolical way. Casting the veneer of political optics aside, if anything, it proves that man is actually a truly realized measure of his inner monster. Purpose and meaning is exactly the kind of existential worry that need only be smiled away as all eventuality is actually, pretty hopeless.