Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn is—to me and our Britt Hayes—the kind of movie that you can’t quite stop thinking about, but for some reason, men around the world love to use the phrase “shit the bed” when talking about Saltburn and hate three scenes in the film in particular.
Focusing on Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) as he goes to the lavish estate home of Felix (Jacob Elordi), the film is an “eat the rich” story that twists and turns the more we learn about Oliver. Why are men so upset about it? Well, I can’t quite explain it. It is almost as if Fennell’s work seems to just infuriate men because it shines a spotlight on to their actions!
It began with Promising Young Woman, where Carey Mulligan played Cassie and gave us a glimpse into a world where women like Cassie got revenge on the men who have wronged them. The film was bold, aggressive, and men also did not like it. To be fair, there are also lots of women who don’t like Promising Young Woman, and that’s fine. We don’t all have to like the same thing, but it is funny to me that we’re now seeing a second film from Fennell where the amount of men who do not like her work largely outweighs the amount of women.
So what is it about Fennell’s work that makes it so polarizing? It seems to boil down to a lack of understanding of what Fennell is doing within her work, for the most part, that makes the general themes of movies like Saltburn seem to have such an effect on audiences—especially with male audiences—and it is starting already in an annoyingly predictable fashion, before Saltburn has even reached its wide release.
Men really don’t know how to handle Saltburn
The movie itself is not outwardly against men, which is why the response from men being so negative is honestly shocking, but there are three scenes in particular that do seem to elicit this response. One scene features Oliver drinking the bathtub water of a character he is obsessed with, another involves period sex, and there’s a third at the end of the movie where the grave of a character is defiled sexually. All of these are deranged and the kind of freakish behavior that I’ve personally come to love and expect from Fennell’s work.
Why the men who seem to hate this movie really don’t like these moments is beyond me. I could probably come up with some reasons, but that’s getting into some psychology I don’t want to unpack. What it does all boil down to is that I simply think that Fennell’s work is too “freaky” for the men who are watching it. I don’t think that means her work is beyond criticism, and the women who have issues with her work are right to criticize it. And that’s not to say that men who have more nuanced criticism of her work are not right to say so.
That being said, I have seen countless men log on to the internet to complain about the same three scenes since Saltburn’s release at Fantastic Fest, and it makes me wonder what is going on with men that they can’t enjoy the twisted? Because that is Fennell’s work.
(featured image: MGM)
