7. Voice Over (Christopher Monger, 1983)

I'm not particularly proud to say this, but I've got an aunt who, when taking family pictures, deliberately situates in-law family members at the very edges of the composition. When I asked her about this she replied, without batting an eye, she did this because this way it would be easier to cut them off the pictures in the case of some future breakup. I always thought this to be something peculiar to my aunt (and 'Mommie, Dearest') but as fate would have it, within 24 hours I would see not one, but two movies where exactly the same thing occurred: first the little horror movie 'Julie, Darling' and later 'Voice Over'. In both movies, it's nothing but an extremely brief moment and both are without emphasis, but to me they are quite exemplary. There is something quite unsettling about all this, because it strongly suggests that people are being blind to certain problematic facts and they simply block out that which seems unpleasant. Clearly, these problems are not going to go away even if you close yourself off from them, and quite a big chunk of the problems plaguing Western society is people not facing these facts, making their whole lives nothing more than some childish game of hide and seek, basically retreating to a fantasy world and refusing the come to terms with certain realities. 

This clash between reality and fantasy is potently conveyed at the very beginning of 'Voice Over': after some depressing scenes in a dingy radio studio, an overweight, half-undressed man is seen delivering florid prose in an utterly despairing excuse for an apartment. It’s all very uneasy, because it already suggests this man’s fundamental imbalance, something that the rest of the movie will so hauntingly explore. As will be typical of the elliptical nature of 'Voice Over' (which is a somewhat ironic name, as the voice over in movies is typically used to explain everything to the audience, while such an easy comfort is emphatically denied the viewer here), we are kept guessing as to the exact nature of the situation, but as will become clear gradually, it focuses on a radio personality by the name of Fats Bannerman who hosts some anachronistic radio show called 'Thus Engaged'. The show apparently is a great success, but things start to go really wrong when a female interviewer exposes Fats and his show as basically nothing more than a rip-off of Jane Austin which is only popular with poor kids instead of the educated crowd, as Fats seemed to think. It is also made clear during the interview that Fats clearly has flown into his fairy tale territory because he couldn't deal with the problematic break-up with his wife and just when the interviewer is trying to break this bubble, Fats does that which he apparently has always done and will do in the rest of the movie: he flees both literally and figuratively. 

After drinking himself to a stupor, Fats is seen entering an apartment with two much younger girls who are obviously flirting with him. Most people could already sense something's wrong here, because the chances two beautiful young girls like that would go for a not particularly attractive overweight older man are very slim indeed, but as the movie leaves so much room for interpretation, you could still chalk it up to Fats' new-found celebrity. When the girls start taking compromising pictures, things obviously start going really wrong, to everyone but Fats that is, as he is so firmly entrenched in his own delusions he remains blind to all the signs. While it's clear the girls are rather mean-spirited, they should've also served as Fats's wake-up call, as they puncture the  mistaken fantasies of his radio show at every turn: when they comment nobody on his show ever screws, he answers rather foolishly they didn't do that in the 19^th century – obvious nonsense to anyone but Fats who apparently has a strong psychological need for such fantastic ideas. What this moment portrays then, is not so much some misogynistic comment on the viciousness of the gals, but the rupturing of Fats' dream world where all females have to be pure virgins. Because he has lost himself so completely into the supposedly chivalrous 19^th century values of his show, Fats has lost all contact with reality, until he is brutally awakened by the girls.

Unfortunately for Fats though, it isn't exactly the wake-up call to the road of sanity, because instead of opening himself up to reality he retreats even more into his fantasy world than before, even though at precisely that point he starts incorporating reality into his anachronistic show. This is the point: even though fantasy and reality begin intruding on each other, as would be necessary for his wholeness, they never meet and in fact go opposite routes: his show becomes more real and more attuned to the real demands of his youth audience with vampires, gore and sex invading his once so 'pure' show and at one point he even begins to use his real childhood stutter (it becomes more you, it's very modern, one person says to him ironically). His real personal life on the other hand becomes utter fantasy and withdrawal: at one point he suddenly drags one of his former girl attackers – heavily bleeding – into his apartment, claiming he found her like that on the street, although the movie leaves open the possibility of this being the work of Fats. Now he appears to have completely lost the little sense he had, and despite the strong objections of some friendly doctor, he insists on caring for her in his own home instead of giving her the proper medical care. As his show becomes more successful at every turn, he eventually is able to leave his horrible old living quarters and move to a much larger and more comfortable apartment, where he is ironically better equipped to care for the barely recovering girl. Even though its more luxurious surroundings almost give the illusion of a well-adjusted family life, director Monger immediately destroys this illusion with a beautiful pan across the house showing Fats and the girl in separating rooms and obliquely commenting on the impossibility of any true communication between them. 

What the movie chronicles then is the lack of balance, between proper alignment between reality and fantasy, a relation that seems heightened by the imbalance between sound and image, as it often feels more like a radio play with its emphasis and sound instead of visuals. It wasn't until I read the booklet though, that I realized the movie had been interpreted very different upon its release and was in fact heavily attacked by feminists for its apparent misogyny. The fact I've never even entertained such a notion throughout the movie could mean I'm just totally oblivious to everything around me, but could also point to the fact I just see things really different from most people. Whatever the case, it does introduce the idea of the difference between men and women, which clearly is something 'Voice Over' deals with and which cannot be ignored when discussing this film but which seems something those feminist attacks did in fact do. I’m not at all against feminism, yet at the same time I can’t say I feel much affinity with the movement, probably because the crucial differences between men and woman are so often glossed over. I’m all for equal rights, but treating both men and women on equal ground doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to treat them as if they were the same. Because not matter how you look at it, they are and always will be differences between men and women and those should always be recognized instead of ignored.  

One of the great joys of recognizing life as the web of interconnectedness that it is, lies in the unexpected connections that can be made between movies you just happen to see after one another.   Because I not only saw 'Julie Darling' right before 'Voice Over', but also the amazing 'Steel Magnolias', a movie that can be seen as the yin to 'Voice Over's' yang. 'Steel Magnolias' is all about the female spirit, its openness and resilience; men on the other hand are good at getting things organized and done, yet they are also closed-off and unable to deal as resourcefully with situations of change. ‘Steel Magnolias’ hits hard at the difference between the male and female core, something that still hasn't been acknowledged enough. Everybody has either a male or a female core, which will define their basic qualities: people with a male core are usually definite and fixed in their ways, firm with a clear goal. A female core on the other hand is always more attentive and open to change and those who are blessed with it are better to deal with change than their male counterparts. Gay men and women are nature's glorious reminder these male and female cores not necessarily have to be limited to either males or females, so there can be males with a female core and vice versa. This becomes evident throughout 'Steel Magnolias', but especially in moments of crisis, when the men are simply unable to deal with it and the women constantly show themselves to be both tender and though, hence explaining the title: the men cannot bend without breaking and so their only resolution to problems they cannot face is denial, while the women are always able to deal with all the situations head-on, always bending without ever breaking.

With this in mind, the scene which has been singled out most for its supposed hatred of women, the vicious attack on Fats by the girls, can now be seen in quite the different light: because instead of the girls being merely there to throw some bad light on the female species, it seems to me abundantly clear that instead it's the other way around and if any attack has been perpetrated by the movie, it's not on women but on men. Fats is just a disturbed and blind man, who lives in a world of fantasy and his attackers were really only doing him a favor by trying to yank him out of his self-imposed fantasy world. This fundamental difference between female openness en male withdrawal is never spelled out (nothing is in this film), but is repeatedly hinted upon throughout the movie: all male characters retreat in fantasy with female characters trying to get them out of it. Next to Fats, the only other male character of any consequence is FX, his special effects assistant and he too is not too adept at facing situations. When Fats quizzes him about the changes the show has been going through, he not only can never give a straight answer, he also rather superficially blames the female interviewer for it, thereby childishly clinging to that which is familiar. In sharp contrast to the male’s inability to deal with situations, all the female characters are always facing the problems up front: besides the already discussed female teasers, there's also the nagging interviewer and the woman radio boss – all are very different from each other but share this same character treat. The case of the radio boss is especially revealing, as she does complain about the impossibility of changing the show, which could indicate a failure to adapt, but this is just misleading. Because in the end, she does face the problems up front and is directly handling the new situation, while Fats just numbly escapes into pure fiction as he only keeps repeating he doesn’t think the show is tripe. Fats does change the show around, but only selfishly without any thought about the consequences, which is exactly what the woman does do. Her not wanting to change the show is grounded in commercial motivations, which one may or may not agree with, but at least she is able to take in the whole picture.

If these female characters look and feel so much more negative next to their counterparts from 'Steel Magnolias' it's not because of some malicious intentions on the part of the makers of 'Voice Over', but only because the former is told entirely through the eyes of the women and the latter is seen through its male protagonist. This would already make any misogynistic charge groundless, as it's hard to see how any movie that focuses on such an obviously deranged male could have such contempt for women. What makes the movie difficult for some, I suppose, is it's almost complete lack of judgment and the fact it refuses to idealize the women, ultimately leaving the responsibility up to the viewer. So that after Fats has killed the girl, the camera just moves away from him in a cold non-manipulative manner before fading to the credits. If any firm interpretation has to be given, it would seem more likely to say the film condemns the fact women are so often victimized by men.

Available on blu-ray/DVD from BFI Flipside