Poor Things

The opening of Bradley Cooper's film, Maestro, is a title card with a quote from Leonard Bernstein:  

“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”

Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things prompted me to ask quite a few questions, mostly consisting of a certain euphemistic initialism, but some were more specific, like "why am I here?", or "this can't get any more disturbing, right?", and "how is an actress subjecting herself to this kind of degradation in a movie directed by a man in this day and age?".  So clearly, Lanthimos has created something that meets Bernstein's definition of a 'work of art', but he's also proven that art by that standard doesn't have to bring anything good or beautiful into the world, and thus the flaw in the definition is revealed.

I am not so naïve as to be unaware of the answer to the question about an actress degrading herself in a movie directed by a man.  Let me suggest that human history consists of a series of schemes, in which men have used increasingly devious methods to seduce women, with the most insidious of these schemes being the ones in which women are convinced that they are being empowered, when in fact they are the prey.  For the postmodernists who embrace the ideology presented in Lanthimos' Poor Things, this film must be a breath of fresh air, in a world that is oversaturated with Puritanical constrains, such as when and where it's socially acceptable to go to town on oneself.  What is tragically comical about this concept of men manipulating women under the guise of enlightenment, is that not only are they getting away with it, but it's being celebrated by everyone involved.  I wouldn't be surprised if Emma Stone (the actress/subject) of this film, gets the award for Best Actress for her performance, and if she does, she will most assuredly applaud the director, and make claims regarding how empowered she has become, and her desire to influence little girls around the world.  I was going to go a step further, and suggest that it's also likely that Harvey Weinstein will be watching the Academy Awards from his jail cell, just kicking himself for not keeping up with the times.  But I decided against it, having felt that I already pushed the boundaries of decorum with my "going to town" comment.