BY: vanessa crespo, summer 2021 collaborator at power in place
Shiva Baby (2020) is Emma Seligman’s debut film following Danielle, a recent college graduate as she attends a Shiva reception. Shiva is a seven-day Jewish mourning period following the burial, but the movie only takes place in the reception right after the funeral. Danielle is soon found in a home surrounded with family and family friends which becomes a claustrophobic place when they start asking questions about her future and personal aspirations. For Danielle, there’s nothing more scary than facing graduation and not knowing exactly what’s out there waiting for her. But even worse, not being able to fulfill her family’s expectations and the fear of being a disappointment in front of her tight-knit religious community is Danielle’s worst fear. Shiva Baby tells a deeper story where Danielle is secretly a sugar baby trying to exert some control over her life and gain validation from her part-time job, but this is contrasted by her confusion and fear of facing the real world after graduation.
The film is a comedy and horror, but the director chose a score that gives the movie a horror ambiance rather than a comedy. This is an artistic decision made to incite the anxiety our main character is feeling when she is placed in a room with her demanding parents, her ex-girlfriend (Danielle is openly bi-sexual in the film), and her sugar daddy Max. Everything escalates when Danielle finds out her sugar daddy has a wife and a baby, who joined the Shiva not long after. Danielle is faced with a dilemma when her secret relationship is at risk of being exposed to her family: either she gives up her only source of empowerment and doesn’t need to keep secrets anymore or she keeps exerting this control but continues to lie to the people in her life.
The film juxtaposes the psychology of female exerting power through sex and what is actually lost when this belief is shattered by rejection and prejudices. Although Danielle is confident in her sexuality and believes her liberal arts major makes her more knowledgeable than the people around her, she is clueless when it comes to controlling her own life. The director loves to explore the hook-up culture in NYC by depicting Danielle as someone who shouldn’t show her emotions publicly, but who is able to perform sexual acts without taboos. In an interview with Shondaland, Emma Seligman describes the behavior and mentality of people in Danielle’s age as “to be sexual and empowered and independent but not to be attached or have feelings”. But this is soon dismantled as Danielle is found in the same room with her sugar daddy and her ex from high school. Deep inside Danielle is still vulnerable and weak around her ex, but she attempts to look independent and emotionless in front of her and everyone else.
I think this movie reaches its peak when Danielle’s phone is lost, and somehow it lands in the hands of Max’s wife. His wife finds out about Danielle’s side hustle, and sees some explicit messages sent from Danielle to her husband. Max’s wife tries to confront her passive-aggressively in the living room where the Shiva is taking place. Our main character not only realizes how her shenanigans escalated, but also recognizes how her multiple failed attempts to exert power over her sugar daddy led her to be seen as the villain of her own life story. As I dived deeper into this type of reasoning from our main character, I found Suzannah Weiss a blogger for Everyday Feminism sharing her opinion on empowerment through sex. She lists various stereotypes we find in pop-culture of women granting or denying sex to control the behavior of their male counterparts. However, Weiss disagrees that this type of behavior is empowering because “We could do better to empower women. We could teach them to view sex as a mutually enjoyed activity, not a pursuit of men that women may choose to indulge or reject.” Instead, we should teach women to explore and respond to our own desires over other people’s as a form of empowerment.
Although Danielle believes she’s clear on what she wants and desires, she is rejected whenever she expresses this. So where does this place us? Where are we positioned whenever we’re put down or feel rejected by others even when we’re true to ourselves? Well, everything seems to finally run kind of smoother for Danielle when she breaks down in tears in front of everyone at the Shiva, exposing her most vulnerable self. Only there, she finds peace with her ex-partner and her parents, leaving behind the stressful life of her sugar daddy and his family. Perhaps this is telling us something about women and our attempt to hide our emotions in public and using sex as a tool rather than a “love act”. Patriarchy has positioned us in a way, that apparently men are the only ones allowed to keep using sex without any emotions attached, or without bearing the consequences of having a sugar baby, or keep exerting power through sex.
I’m not advocating for women being heartless and objectifying men, but this film showed me that when a woman decides to act in a similar manner, at least in her sexual life, she is humiliated and shattered. I think this hook-up culture should be reconsidered, taking more into consideration feelings and mental-health. About sugar relationships? Let people explore what works for them. But I think that we should take out the idea that sex has power, it should not be about exerting power but rather it should be looked as a journey of finding oneself. Ultimately, it should be about being true to yourself, fulfilling your own desires, and learning to say and accept noes from others.
References
[1] Risker, Paul. “DIRECTOR EMMA SELIGMAN ON SEX AND INSECURITY IN HER DARK COMEDY, ‘SHIVA BABY’” Pop Matters. https://www.popmatters.com/emma-seligman-interview Published June 10, 2021.
[2] Valentini, Valentina. “In ‘Shiva Baby,’ Debut Filmmaker Emma Seligman Melds Sex and Family in a Jewish Comedy” Shondaland. https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/a36015771/shiva-baby-emma-seligman/ Published April 2, 2021.
[3] Weiss, Suzannah. “6 Reasons Telling Women Their Power Is in Their Sexuality Is Not Empowering” Everyday Feminism. https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/12/power-in-sexuality-problem/ Published December 14, 2015.
Vanessa Crespo is an upcoming senior at the University of Texas at Austin double majoring in Political Science and Philosophy. She is interested in women’s rights, feminist theory, and Latin American politics. In the future, she is aiming at a career in Law but also sees herself as an advocate of women’s rights and human rights in Latin American.