The scariest thing about Obsession isn’t in the movie- it’s the conversations being had about it

As we can all probably agree, Obsession was pretty terrifying in a multitude of ways: body horror, psychological, etc

However, I’m starting to realize that the most horrifying aspect of this movie by far isn’t any of the events in the movie, but in simply witnessing society react to it.

In general, movies that require more emotional awareness and media literacy to fully grasp the message do NOT make it to this level of popularity, simply because it isn’t going to be something they connect with. As a result, the conversations had about those movies are already going to be within the demographic that seeks out films, and tend to have a higher media literacy rate and productive conversations.

Obsession was unique in that it created a situation where the rapid rise in popularity lead to the general public now engaging in the same context of conversations. And HOLY SHIT was this a wake up call.

It has been horrifying and humbling to watch the public discourse on this movie unfold since it first released. I had grossly overestimated how many people would “get” the movie simply because l was used to engaging in the types of discussions with other people who “got” it. Now that the same conversation is being had by everyone, seeing how many people are not only completely wrong about the message, but aggressively defensive and overconfident about it has been a cosmic horror of itself.

It’s essentially what Barbie did (litmus test), but not just on topics of feminism and identity, but with much more dark themes of autonomy, abuse, sexual assault etc, and this makes it much more difficult to process when people are failing to understand this movie. Many people including myself have done their absolute best to try and engage in discussions that encourage those who are misinterpreting things, just to slowly realize that a lot of people simply are not going to get it.

There is no “correct” way to enjoy a movie- we’re all allowed to take different things from it, but I hope at least the impact of the movie sparks a conversation on how we can ENCOURAGE media literacy rather than argue about it. It’s easy to get cynical witnessing the warzone of public discourse on Obsession, but just remember that the best thing we can do is try to check your facts (Curry Barker has explicitly explained the message of the movie and it’s only a google search away!), promote productive conversations, and accept that some people will simply never agree.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk 🫡