Female Trouble: New Standard of Beauty

 Jacquelyn Heinen

Matt Wisniewski

ENGL 280

October 30, 2020

Female Trouble: New Standard of Beauty

I first wanted to start out by saying that the film “Female Trouble” directed by John Waters, was a film unlike any other I have seen before.  In my opinion this film was very obscure and covered subjects that I wasn’t quite ready for it to be about based on the title.  I really understand why the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” is so well known.  The title being “Female Trouble” led me to believe that the film was going to be about the struggles that a typical woman would face growing up in this time period, but that was not the route that Waters chose to take with this particular film, or for that matter most of his films.

In this film the main character Dawn Davenport was actually the actor Divine in drag.  Throughout the film Dawn had a horrible growing up getting fat shamed in front of her whole class, then running into trouble at home on Christmas and running away.  She then got pregnant on the side of the road, and life for her was very different.  She found odd jobs by being a thief and working with her so-called friends.  She had a daughter who was intellectually challenged, got married to a man, and worked towards the delusional beauty standard that she believed was important in life.

This filmed in my opinion mocked the typical ways the media pressures fame and beauty.  Throughout this film Dawn kept always trying to be famous and beautiful, but her career wasn’t going anywhere, and she wasn’t beautiful.  I thought that by having drag makeup and an actor being the star of a film that was making jokes about standards the industries have made was a strong choice by Waters.  The film did a very good job in making it clear that beauty is unrealistic for so many people.  For example, the injections of liquid eyeliner to have makeup in the bloodstream, or the idea that a face dissolved by acid is beautiful clearly demonstrate how crazy and unrealistic beauty standards were and have become.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 29, 2020 at 5:29 PM

    Hey Jacquelyn!

    I also felt that the scene with the acid was crazy, and that they wanted to put makeup on a fresh wound right after removing the bandages. I also thought that Waters showcases really strong themes, and did not shy away from making obscure scenes.

    - Chloe Kowalyk

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rachel GilesOctober 30, 2020 at 7:19 AM

    Hi Jacquelyn!

    I agree with you on the title. When I first heard the title Female Trouble, it sounded like a romcom where the male lead had to pick between two girls or something. Definitely not the film we got haha!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Julianne CarterOctober 30, 2020 at 12:18 PM

    Hey Jacquelyn! I liked your blog post and liked what you said about how it mocks the typical way the media pressures fame, and beauty. I think you described this film very well.

    ReplyDelete

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