The 52: Daphne

From June 2023 to June 2024 I'll be watching a lgbtqia+ film each week and coming back here with my thoughts, feelings and plenty of hopes we aren't met with the "kill your gays" trope. I call this The 52.

 Ahhhh. Ah. Well. Ah well. Ah.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Daphne was shit.

I think I complained about the experience of watching this almost as much as I actually watched it (approx 2 hours that felt like 8) and I remember going to bed after finally watching the credits roll and feeling strangely light. Lack of sleep, maybe, but there was a delirium to finishing this monolith that was undeniable. Perhaps it was just because it was so bloody awful.

So Daphne… was an odd one. Usually I find it much easier to write about the films I ~don’t~ enjoy than the ones I adore (synonyms for “incredible” run out faster than they ought) but with Daphne I feel strangely adrift. Could be that, like A Room in Rome, I was so jubilant at having finished it that stepping back into the memory and penning a review is somewhat of a hopeless feat, although far more likely it was just so ruddy strange that I don’t know what or how to say anything except for “good grief, I’m glad that’s over.”

Nothing and everything was wrong with Daphne. It wasn’t a film that commodified queers, and yet it was; surrounded by lgbtqia+ characters as we were at times, Daphne herself was the one who slated them, who constantly reviles lesbians and loathes to call herself one, rather saying “of the Venetian persuasion”. The potential for this dislike could come from the fact Daphne describes herself as being a boy, “the shy girl with a boys heart”, uncomfortable and ill at ease whenever she is made to wear a dress; when she falls in love with a woman, it is with descriptions of the boy she has always felt herself to be- and unfortunately this leads to her virtually decrying same sex attraction because it is not what she experiences.

Which, you know, made me mad.

Then we have the story itself, another uncomfortable commodification of the queers: the death of a lover. Within the first minute, I believe, we find that this narrative relies on the bury your gays trope, a fact that looms over the entire story, reminding you that we might get a movie made about us, but we don’t get to be happy if we’re lgbtqia+. You know, those fun things. And if that weren’t enough to put a bitter edge on things, the storyline, the cast, the acting… it was all just off.  TRUE, I am queer and I do write exactly as Daphne Du Marier wrote, my butt on concrete and my leg always elevated for just the best view of those ankles, but if anyone came at me with open arms and a slightly uncanny smile like Elizabeth McGovern’s Ellen Doubleday I’d be running.

Having a story about someone who loves women but does not identify as one and who does not have the words for that experience, that does not simultaneously mean a story about someone who is grossed out by lesbians. And I’m really mad that that’s what we got. 

And finally, just because this film was really weird, here’s a quote where two characters are referring to writing a character called “Peg”:

“Either way, do peg me” ... “you have to be careful with pegs, they can be quite bottomless” *insert saucy looks*

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