I watched the Reese Witherspoon movie Wild yesterday. As you may know, it's based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. I haven't yet read the novel, so my comments relate exclusively to the film.
I find something fascinating about these sorts of accounts of people who go into the wilderness to challenge themselves or find themselves, and am often surprised at the diverse range of morals and lessons that can be gleaned from the different ways the stories are told.
In the case of Wild, I was most struck by the treatment of women in the film. Although the primary plot seems to be Reese Witherspoon's character, Cheryl Strayed, coming to terms with the death of her mother and being able to move beyond her grief to live again, the film also functions as an exploration of how women are perceived and treated.
Cheryl's journey leads her into encounters with a number of men and women, and virtually every interaction is somewhat archetypal and her cheerfulness and passivity I think not only places the viewer in the position of the character, but forces an examination of whether it's right for Cheryl to be treated as such, solely because she's a woman. I'll number the character interactions that I can recall.
Her journey begins with her getting a room in a hotel.
1. Woman who makes assumptions about her promiscuity. The desk clerk doesn't believe Cheryl is getting a room just for herself. She (the clerk) is quite confident that Cheryl will be receiving male company. Cheryl calmly refutes this, but the clerk is unmoved in her assumption that Cheryl will of course be having male visitors.
In the morning, Cheryl hitches a ride. At a gas station she can choose between a car with a preoccupied father and teenage son, or a car whose driver is staring intently at her.
2. Staring Guy. Guy staring at her without speaking or smiling. She does not choose this car. Likely a fairly common interaction.
She chooses the father and son car.
3. Boy who ignores her existence. The son completely ignores her, buries his nose in a book and pretends she isn't there at all. Is it because he's shy? He doesn't want to have to interact with women? He's just absorbed in his own world? She doesn't know.
4. Preoccupied Dad. The father makes some attempt at small talk, but has his own concerns and is just getting his jobs done. He's appropriate in his interaction, but doesn't take any particular interest in Cheryl. He just views her as one more obligation he's fulfilling, and most of his comments are about how he is impacted by her being there, not about what she's doing. "So we'll be the last human contact you'll have for a while" is more about him than about her.
She meets a farmer on a tractor.
5. Man who wants to make decisions for her. He makes it very clear that he doesn't feel obliged to help her, and wants her to know that he has power over her. He intentionally makes her nervous about his intentions and letting her know that he is choosing her destination for her. When he takes her to his house he spends the dinner describing what he would and would not permit her to do, and what women should and should not be allowed to do. In the morning, he lets her see that he's doing it out of concern for her wellbeing, but doesn't apologize for trying to control what she can do.
6. Woman who ignores her. The farmer's wife doesn't speak a word directly to her, but treats her like a stray of some kind. She responds only to her husband, and while periodically seeming to stand up for Cheryl's right of self determination, is not prepared to actually engage with her.
She meets a hiking superstar on the trail.
7. Patronizing Man who wants to tell her how to do it. On the trail she meets Greg, an experienced hiker, who is quick to point out that he's travelling at three times her rate of speed. He has all kinds of advice for her, and wants to tell her where to go and how to go there. He acknowledges that she's doing it herself and while not directly criticizing her decisions, his patronizing attitude makes her feel inferior in each interaction. When she meets up with him again, he has talked to the whole camp about her, and is making jokes at her expense.
8. Supportive or Suffocating Husband. I'm a little unclear on the role the husband plays, but the overall sense is that he is also preventing her from self actualization. He's passive aggressive in many ways, and perhaps an enabler. He wants to help her, and rescue her but he wants to do so in a way that makes her conform to what he wants her to be. He acknowledges her accomplishments in a supportive seeming way, but injects himself into her journey, and tries to make her journey about them, rather than her. He acts like a team player, but takes over her ability to make her own decisions.
A guy at the camp tells her how to pack her backpack.
9. Overprotective Advisor. At the camp, after Greg has mocked the size of her pack, one of the hangers on wants to give her advice on what she needs and what she doesn't. For the most part he's giving advice and letting her make the ultimate decision, but he also wants to tell her she shouldn't be packing birth control for her hike.
Ultimately following Greg's advice, she hitchhikes around part of the trail.
10. Man who won't listen. In hitchhiking, she meets a writer for the Hobo Times, who believes she's a hobo, not a hiker. He won't listen to anything she says, he's already made all of the assumptions he needs about her, and doesn't even give her the opportunity to consent or refuse to consent to the interview or a picture. He gives her a hobo loot bag, which he assumes she wants, but doesn't care about what she needs or wants.
She hitches a ride with a group of three. In deciding to hitchhike, Cheryl is forced to confront the possibility that no one knows where she is, and expressly thinks to herself about the dangers of being raped and dismembered.
11. Mother. The driver is a mothering figure, who herself lost a child. She stands up for Cheryl, without doubting Cheryl's ability to look after herself. So does Cheryl's actual mother, wanting Cheryl to make her own choices for herself.
12. Man who thinks she can take it. The husband also lost his son, but despite his wife's obvious grief is oblivious, and is only concerned with how tough she is, that she doesn't need help or support. The only statement about his son that he calls to mind is that he was tough, and phrases it in a way that is at once a compliment to and a denigration of his wife, but emphasizing that he expects that she won't show any sign of weakness.
13. Men who want to comment on her looks / Potential rapists. There are several versions of these, but the backseat passenger in the car is perhaps the mildest. He keeps commenting on Cheryl's looks, perhaps to see if it will get anywhere with her, in a manner somewhat designed to make her uncomfortable. The hunters escalate this to greater levels, with one making comments about how he might like to pass the time with a good looking girl and no one around, though he insists he's "just messing with [her] head". The other one gets aggressive, accusing her of tricking him, and suggesting the woods aren't safe for little girls. The successive collection highlights the escalation, from Cheryl feeling uncomfortable and trying to change the subject, to making an excuse to leave, to running and hiding, but establishes that each of those comments are part of a range on a spectrum.
14. Woman who thinks she should care more about her looks. A drugstore clerk wants to tell her how to take care of her hygiene, and makes her feel self-conscious, rather than proud, of her accomplishments to that point, solely based on her looks.
15. Random Hookup(s). There appear to be several of these, from the guy handing out flyers for a concert, to those in her memory. The guy handing out flyers doesn't ask her anything about herself, and doesn't show any interest or concern for the wounds and injuries she's suffering on her journey. Once alone together, he doesn't speak to her again.
16. Violent Taker. A man holds a knife to her throat and takes her money. He uses physical violence, and his physical dominance to overcome her, despite him being comparatively scrawny and small himself (as shown by the cinematography). It serves to emphasize that men may try to take what they want due to their belief in physical superiority, whether or not it's justified.
17. Gradual/Continuous Taker. Cheryl set various boundaries for herself, but when she was with her dealer, he kept pushing those limits as he felt appropriate. He moved on to injecting her without asking, just moving her further to where he was or he thought she should be without seeking her consent. This may be similar to how she lost herself with her husband, one step at a time until she can't see her own goals anymore.
18. "You're not important" Man. Her therapist seems to keep emphasizing to her that she's not important, by the posters on his walls, to his lack of willingness to respond to her questions or treat her as an individual. He tells her she's not important enough to warrant Kleenex, or a couch, and when she leaves, makes a point of not even calling after her. In every aspect of their interaction, he's showing her he doesn't care about her... despite that arguably being his job.
19. Little Brother. He's there for her as a friend, he's irresponsible, and he expects women to fill a woman's role, making him meals etc. He's not there for support or to help grieve, and abandons their mother... whether it's because grief and illness support is woman's work, or he can't deal with it, and he's not heard from again.
20. Abuser. Her father physically abuses Cheryl and her mother. Though he doesn't have much role in the film, he overshadows her life, and her ability to make herself happy. At times she doesn't know how she could achieve happiness with him as her father.
21. Woman of solidarity. Cheryl meets one other woman on the trail, who affirms for her what she's doing, and mentions men who failed on the way.
22. Man with Unreasonable Expectations. When she arrives to pick up a parcel, the guy will only get it for her if she agrees to go for a drink with him.
23. Guys who Minimize her accomplishments. The guys she meets at the camp suggest that she has it much easier than them because she's a woman and guys all along the trail are helping her out. Rather than see the additional challenges, they relate it to themselves and feel hard done by because they don't get what they see as "special treatment", oblivious to the additional challenges Cheryl undergoes.
It's curious in that each person fits into a kind of archetype, and each one is almost the lone example of that type, except when highlighting a spectrum. It seems more as those Cheryl's journey on the Pacific Crest Trail gives an opportunity for her to examine her interaction with the world at large, throughout her life.
And through that lens, it's a bleaker film than I was expecting, with a characterization of men as almost uniformly out to take away a woman's sense of self and self determination, whether violently, gradually, by minimizing her or controlling her in a wide variety of ways.
I don't think it's coincidence that the body of the film does not include her future (and unnamed) husband, nor her future son. It's probably to permit a sense of optimism to suffuse the ending, but instead it does nothing to take away from the overall sense that the challenges Cheryl endured on the trail are perhaps not as great as the challenges she endures daily, just by being a woman.
