When I said I wanted more difficult movies, I’m not sure if this is what I meant.

Make no mistake that all the golden lace curtains and flashing lights are a masque for what is effectively a platinum blonde black hole of problematica. It is inseparable from how simultaneously gross and flavorful it is, and if it wasn’t for the PR nightmare that devolved from tone deaf into blatantly wrong/sexist, it would be rousing and inflammatory. Now, we have a *statement* on our hands, and it is a complete mystery what that is because this is a production obviously made by people who were ignorant, ambitious, and deeply, woefully unprepared. Professor X fetuses, daddy kinks, and so much physical/mental/sexual/cosmic(?) abuse that it ceases to be shocking. This is an exercise in destroying an ego that Norma never had, boasted as the vindication she never got. Intensely off-base to most things about her life, but unassailably beautiful in stretches and sprints, so much olden Hollywood glam and distorted fantasy that it’s difficult to not admire it. I hate it and I like it. Everyone will fight over it. The only truth is that Norma is rolling in her grave because, yet again, she is misrepresented. What a chaotic time to watch movies.