I cannot further explain the lesbotic appeal of Kristen Stewart beyond this: to a certain type of queer woman, she is the lesbian equivalent of Channing Tatum. I have nothing more to say on the matter; I will not justify myself.
I have watched the trailer for her latest film several times without the sound turned on, and I am ready to walk you through it. Breathe deeply. Let us begin.
CAMP X-RAY
Shots of an American flag and barbed wire, and so forth. War is complex, who is really being caged here, what side are you really on, what do things like right and wrong even mean, presumably.
Kristen Stewart is in uniform. Kristen Stewart is in uniform.
You poor misled things — Kristen Stewart was always her truest self in high-dandy, soft-butch form. She would, I have no doubt, make an excellent David Bowie circa his Thin White Duke era. She is not femme; to put her in women’s weeds and bedeck her honest, strong-boned face in paint was an insult to the hand of Nature. In Camp X-Ray we see Nature asserting herself.
We are fortunate indeed that we have not been punished by a vengeful god for daring to force Kristen Stewart to live disguised as a girl. Not, mind you, that girls are not wonderful, merely that Kristen Stewart never was. She was meant to walk squarely and plain-facedly down windowless hallways. Muscles were meant to twitch in her cheek. Her jaw was built to support the weight of the world.
Kristen Stewart was meant to grimace and scowl and hold her feelings in tightly until her mouth turns into a single compressed line and punch things and lean against walls. Here she has been given adequate scope for her talents. I have no idea what this movie is about.
How could any of us for even a second have been fooled into thinking that KStew was a romantic heroine. Give her the Jodie Foster roles and watch her rise. Make her a killer, make her a flustered FBI agent, make her a soldier; give her shirts square shoulders and strong cuffs. Keep her moving, keep her capable, keep her conflicted, and watch her win you over.
Shadows avaunt! Richard’s himself again.
Remember how everyone’s favorite part of Heath Ledger’s performance in Brokeback Mountain was his almost painful physical repression, his reluctance to express any emotion that wasn’t punching or SHUTTING DOWN? His voice was closed in on itself in a raspy burr — he fell to the ground rather than shed tears — his face was hooded and dark and full of twitching cheek muscles. Kristen Stewart is Heath Ledger, I assure you. She has the same handsome face, the same winsome, masculine smile, the same reluctance to make direct eye contact.
For years, everyone in the world has misunderstood Kristen Stewart’s compressed emotional range. They thought it meant she was a limited actress; it means nothing of the kind. She is John Wayne being forced to play the Maureen O’Hara character. Give her a rail to lean against during a sunset, a military jacket, a toothpick to chew on, and something to squint her eyes against lazily in the distance, and her guardedness will be transformed from unsuccessful femininity to The Great American Male.
Kristen Stewart is a goddamn cowboy.
There’s a scene where she hauls out and punches another soldier. I watched it several times but it happened too quickly to take a good screenshot. Rest assured that it is as good as it sounds.
The movie comes out on October 17. I have no desire to discuss its politics with you.
Tags: butches, camp x-ray, kristen stewart, movies, not talking about politics, watching movie trailers with the sound turned off
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“Altruism is pointless. So are dogs.”
Poker face like that, she should remake Rounders.
Kristen Stewart=Heath Ledger: I see it, I am on board.
I am here to discuss the possibilities of what this equation means in regards to Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker and what K.Stew would do in that or a similar role. She would rock the purple jacket like no other.
*sits, waits*
I think she’d do better in a film adaptation of Freakazoid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGI1bPXC65Y
She rocked a wonderful purple (iirc) outfit with stupendous shoulder pads at the end of Runaways. I’d watch pretty much any movie that brought her back with that look.
Petition for the video for Jamelia’s “See it in a boy’s eyes” to be remade with Kristen Stewart as the love interest.
You haven’t seen Kristen Stewart until you’ve seen her BLR.
(begins assembling the necessary items to build the Wicker Man)
(those who question K-Stew will be placed in the Wicker Man)
You know, I used to be one of those people who didn’t think Kristen Stewart is a good actress, but I think Mallory absolutely nailed it when you said everyone has misunderstood her compressed emotional range, and (in another article) described her as Bella in Twilight as a lion forced into the guise of a housecat (or something along those lines). It’s not that she’s such a bad actress, it’s that she has been consistently outrageously miscast – the Twilight movies and Snow White and the Huntsman are two recent examples. It’s just a symptom of the lack of real, interesting, three-dimensional roles for women in Hollywood – them trying to fit her into the mold of the romantic heroine who gets rescued by the guy because they aren’t really writing parts for young women that let them be more than that, much less let them be the “guy” (which she’s obviously better suited to). So I’m pretty much Team Kristen now thanks to Mallory.
KRISTEN STEWART AS THE HUNTSMAN WITH THE TRAGIC PAST AND CHISELED JAW AND FIRM DETERMINED EYES
chris hemsworth with flowers braided into his hair. everyone wins.
I would watch the shit outta that.
UGH YES
PERFECT.
Whoa, I am so behind this. Let’s do it.
Kristen Stewart in an adaptation of Malinda Lo’s Ash
GOD yes. I mean, yes, just so much yes. I literally squeaked in delight upon reading that. You are a genius.
VIOLENTLY NEED
Oh wow, thank you. My criticism of that film’s casting was basically “no one is prettier than Charlize Theron, the end” but Chris… hmm.
I imagine that Chris Hemsworth with flowers in his hair is about as great as pit bulls with flowers on their heads, which as it turns out is pretty great!
http://www.sophiegamand.com/#/flowerpower/
I found a rough mock-up of what Hemsworth with flowers would look like:
She was in a movie called “Speak” some years ago, and a horror movie whose name I don’t remember, but you could tell the bad guy just by looking at the names in the opening credits. She was very good in both of them. Both characters had very compressed emotions — they’d both suffered severe traumas; emotionally shutting down was very much in character for them. But she managed to get across quite a lot of emotion and personality within the limited range that the characters granted her.
Which is why I was surprised when Twilight came out and everyone criticized her acting. The little I saw of that movie, she wasn’t great, but she had nothing to work with. Bella isn’t a three-dimensional character; she’s barely a two-dimensional character. Her personality traits, as established in the books, are “is clumsy” (I don’t know why having an apparent inner-ear infection is a personality trait, but I didn’t write the books) and “gosh, isn’t Edward awesome?” (The movie, as far as I could tell, just made the book’s flaws difficult to ignore.)
Fair point. I hated “Huntsman” because it made no sense and was an awful movie, and I had wanted it to be so good. I do think it would have been much better as a silent film. Or with KS as the huntsman, although I hadn’t thought of that before. What did you guys think of her in “On the Road”? Haven’t seen it and wondering if I should.
Wasn’t she in Adventureland? Smallish movie, smallish role, but I thought her ability to deaden and retract her sexuality was really moving and made her both sympathetic *and* sexy. There wasn’t room at the table for her to bring much to it, but she pretty much hijacked the story out from under Jesse Eisenberg for me.
printing this out so i can literally co-sign at every paragraph
and i didn’t realize until just now how much i want a lesbian brokeback reboot with kristen stewart as ennis.
PERHAPS ANNE HATHAWAY CAN BE JACK.
they will win your hearts by devouring your tears!!
jennifer garner over hathaway, imho 😮
YO
ALSO GREAT
THIS IS ANOTHER THING I VIOLENTLY NEED
yes yes yes yes
YES PLEASE
It doesn’t have to be a reboot, it can be a spinoff since Anne Hathaway was already in Brokeback Mountain.
godddddddddd ur amazing. thank u for this.
I like cowboys.
I am so into this post and into Kristen Stewart herself to a degree that is probably inappropriate to experience while working in an office with an open layout. Her emotional range/general faceness is perfect as it is and indeed approaches the Platonic form of the Great American Male. So many great truths unveiled; too many things that have been hidden to me for far too long.
You know, as a straight lady who sees that Channing Tatum is both attractive and not attractive, your first sentence is exactly what I needed to understand her appeal. Thank you for explaining it in terms I can understand!
So, what is your “Pony” scene? The one you throw out for your mike-drop argument? The one where “If you don’t find her attractive here, you are obviously blind and I can not make you see.”
it’s DEFINITELY from the Runaways
is it the scene where she sings “i love playing with fire” in the middle of a roller rink? or the scene where she teaches another girl how to masturbate while playing with a switchblade?
it might be both.
waitWHAT. she teaches a who to what now
i’ll be in my bunk
i haven’t yet seen the runaways. that will be remedied TONIGHT.
it will happen tonight
Wait, I’ve watched The Runaways, when do either scenes happen?
the scene where she sings “i love playing with fire” is at their gig at a roller rink? i’m pretty sure joan kisses cherri for the first time at the end of the scene. here’s a youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFIB6GTLlN4
the scene where joan talks sandy through masturbating is when they’re on their first tour…maybe right before the roller rink, even. here’s a youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raYY0VY19F8
Her performance in The Runaways is what gave me an appreciation for and major crush on Joan Jett.
That scene with Dakota/Cherri set to I Wanna Be Your Dog? OMG HOTTEST THING EVER HOT DAMN.
I will not see this because I am on a war of terror in entertainment hiatus BUT I am here for this. In spirit.
I AM SO READY FOR K-STEW AS A COWBOY WHEN DO 20000 OF THOSE MOVIES COME OUT PLEASE.
I want to see her to grit and monosyllable her way through the prairie, coveted by many, captured by none, riding into the sunset with a tight jaw and a heavy heart.
K-Stew dusty and world-weary, leaning against a fence, grimly unmoved as an idealistic young rookie argues against her cynicism. K-Stew tending to her wounds with a cork in her teeth from a bottle of something she stole. K-Stew doing trick shots and outracing the railway.
K-Stew spits outside a nearby saloon, squinting at the ground. When she raises her head, Gillian Anderson saunters out, dust in her grey-blonde hair. She gives a solemn nod to K-Stew, and they wordlessly ride into the sunset.
I am entirely about the dudes but COSIGN THIS 100000x
Saloon interior. Chris Evans cleans the glasses slowly and also his shirt is open because the old west is very hot. There is 5 o-clock shadow that could skin a bull.
5 miles away, Channing Tatum and Idris Elba do pushups in a shallow river, slowly. For training. Brows sweat, are wiped.
Also there are many pretty ponies.
Source: That Penelope Cruz Salma Hayek “Western” where they do pushups in a river was pretty sweet. Sort of. (Bandidas)
Source 2: I am about literally every gender, no gender is safe in the Everyone Is a Hunk Western film series.
Well, now how am I supposed to get any more work done today with my head all exploded?
This here is my gender expression in art. I just didn’t have the words to explain it before now.
Also if you like the idea of grim women and Westerns, check out Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios’ “Pretty Deadly.”
I really love the idea of her as a young Bowie. Because I hadn’t noticed how AWESOME and fearsome her jawline really is. Wow.
Has anyone seen The Runaways, with KStew and Dakota Fanning?? As a big fan of the actual Runaways, I was curious but just never got around to watching it.
Yes, and I recommend it.
I have! It had definite issues, but I kind of enjoyed it.
It and that music video Mallory posted once are actually the only things I’ve seen KStew in.
I now want to see KStew in any of the “man dresses as a woman for reasons of Plot” Shakespeare plays.
Oh my godddd Kristen Stewart as Viola, somebody get on it now now now
Before turning on the computer today I was in line at Safeway. Not having a good day–lack of sleep after the earthquake, cranky about the VMAs, had to put back some of my groceries because I needed to buy non-food items too. And the line was long. So I was avoiding twenty tabloid stories about Robin Williams’ autopsy when I noticed K Stew on the cover of ELLE. She’s an unusual face to find in a glamorous context for all the reasons beautifully enumerated above, and on this cover she looked much as she does in some of these photos: Like an undernourished Edward Furlong who just chain-smoked an entire pack of Marlboros and is thinking, through a seething rage, “Just click the motherfucking shutter already you incompetent asshole!” Yet her expression is entirely neutral, maybe curious or maybe just tired. The more I looked, for the line was going nowhere and I had nothing but time, the more I wanted to fall right into her mouth, really just to see if that decimating passion was entirely my projection or a correct assessment. I’m really too old to think such things about her, but before I lock myself in the closet and sing “Aqualung” as penance, thanks for this, Mallory. It is beautiful and true.
KStew and Edward Furlong. HI HELLO HI.
There’s a girl I know who makes me feel so good
And I wouldn’t live without her, even if I could
They call her ‘Ma-a-a-a-a-a-aa-lor-ee’….
I love my Ma-a-a-a-a-a-aa-lor-ee
I need ya, Ma-a-a-a-a-a-aa-lor-ee!
Mallory! Mallory! You referenced ‘The Quiet Man,’ Mallory!
My dad likes to watch it everything Thanksgiving.
The end.
I basically feel like I *am* Kristen Stewart and enjoy basking in the glow of positive comments (sorry not as handsome! but broody and repressed!)
I’m slogging through an awful Monday with a crying office mate and a terrible cold. This post is all I’ve ever wanted and makes it all feel a little bit better.
Yes, but the real question is: Will Kristen Stewart in a Uniform every hold a candle to Kristen Stewart in a Suit of Armor?
My mind is now streaming a genderbent version of A Knight’s Tale with Kristen Stewart as the main character. THANK YOU FOR THAT.
/fans self
With the sound on: In all seriousness, I am thrilled to see that there is a movie about Guantanamo Bay that is beginning to touch on the Actual Horror of that situation.
I am so thrilled that Kristen Stewart is finally getting to be in the more apt roles– gruff, tired, internally tortured, and resisting in tiny ways against larger forces that do ill.
I love Mallory’s writings and especially the tributes to Kristen Stewart, but since I watched the trailer (with the sound off) only after I read her post, I am a little disconcerted that we are supposed to be focusing on Kristen Stewart and not the figures in orange jumpsuits, hoods, and soundproof headsets. I know, not here to discuss the politics and I really should resist the urge to make this into an analogy for what it pleases America to focus on and to ignore, but still, I’m feeling some discomfort.
I agree with you. I do wish there was at least an addendum of “Yes this is about an extremely terrible thing that happens” etc. At the very least an aside acknowledging it. I did not expect the trailer to be what it was after reading this, that’s for sure.
Yes — that note would have helped, in place of the (purposefully preposterous?) “I have no idea what this movie is about” statement, which rather makes it worse.
Thank you for this well written article about a truly gifted actress!
All I used want in this world was for “The Quiet Man” to somehow be remade with Katharine Hepburn in John Wayne’s role. Now I see that Kristen Stewart is an even better choice.
Thank you! I think, when people say Jennifer Lawrence is the Meryl Streep of her generation, Kristen Stewart is the Katherine Hepburn of same generation.
Any degree of heterosexuality I may ever have had is being slowly erased by Kristen Stewart, and I am okay with that.
I’m just making sure that everyone has seen these photos, which rolled across my dash this morning. LUMINOUS BEAUTY.
Uh oh, The Agenda is slowly tipping me over a Kristen Stewart-shaped puddle where I will be inevitably splashed with every letter in Kristen Stewart’s name, and be happy about it. Is this a Toasty Agenda? I did not sign up for this!
K-Stew as Calamity Jane. Or Annie Oakley. Or both.
I think she would also be a great Charly Chaplin, cause she moves in a very counsciously funny way
Enter text right here!Nice to see a lit of positive feedback on beautiful and talented young woman. I often ponder why people who profess to dislike her so much bother to read articles about her. Then I realize their own lives are so pitiful all they have is to spew hate and venom on someone they don`t even know and never will.
‘Flesh of ice and bones of jade’.
Despite what many of my Twi-hard (blech, I just used that word) friends say, I’ve always had a soft spot for Kristen Stewart. She’s gorgeous, sure, and she’s also spikier than a lot of her Hollywood counterparts, which I like. And Mallory has fully explained it: she’s been egregiously miscast in previous roles. I watched this trailer with the sound on and teared up at my desk. This movie looks amazing, and K-Stew looks amazing in it.
I am in love and every one of these articles make me fall in love a little more and this–
“She is John Wayne being forced to play the Maureen O’Hara character. Give her a rail to lean against during a sunset, a military jacket, a toothpick to chew on, and something to squint her eyes against lazily in the distance, and her guardedness will be transformed from unsuccessful femininity to The Great American Male.”
–this just made me wish to god we could have seen her play the Ryan Gosling role in Drive, still-faced behind the wheel in leather driving gloves, saying nothing, meaning everything.
Oh sweet jesus, give me this. If i’m never given anything again, give me this.
I am in love and every one of these articles make me fall in love a little more and this–
"She is John Wayne being forced to play the Maureen O’Hara character. Give her a rail to lean against during a sunset, a military jacket, a toothpick to chew on, and something to squint her eyes against lazily in the distance, and her guardedness will be transformed from unsuccessful femininity to The Great American Male."
–this just made me wish to god we could have seen her play the Ryan Gosling role in Drive, still-faced behind the wheel in leather driving gloves, saying nothing, meaning everything.
Brokeback Mountain remake, staring K STEW and J LA. Drops mic.
If Kristen Stewart is the lesbian equivalent of Channing Tatum, who are the lesbian equivalents of other male celebrities, e.g. Ryan Gosling, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Whishaw, Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Jackman, Henry Cavill, etc.?
Her performance in The Runaways is what gave me an appreciation for and major crush on Joan Jett.
That scene with Dakota/Cherri set to I Wanna Be Your Dog? OMG HOTTEST THING EVER HOT DAMN.
Wait, I've watched The Runaways, when do either scenes happen?
the scene where she sings "i love playing with fire" is at their gig at a roller rink? i'm pretty sure joan kisses cherri for the first time at the end of the scene. here's a youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFIB6GTLlN4
the scene where joan talks sandy through masturbating is when they're on their first tour…maybe right before the roller rink, even. here's a youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raYY0VY19F8