When Friend Groups Become Agents of Surveillance: BODIES, BODIES, BODIES

Warning: HARK! There are spoilers here, traveler. Take the road less littered with thought.

The horror comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)Dir. Halina Reijn) is seriously so much fun. A who-done-it with a mischievous tone and a self-awareness fit for a jester. A time capsule that clowns on the current posturing of language and how such words sound ludicrous outside of the internet. Interestingly, I was not only the youngest one in the theater but also the only one laughing at the intended beats for laughter. I noticed this because the total silence that swallowed my small, quiet chuckles echoed in the dark abyss of AMC Dine-In Theaters a little louder than usual! Why? Well, one of my hunches is based on the idea that I think a majority of movie-goers (In my area it seems to skew toward more older Millennials, Gen Z, and Boomers) seem to take young people's hyperbolic language a little more seriously, mostly because they're unfamiliar with it. Similar to the way cultural sociologists will assert and create personal dictionaries for them to use when studying subcultures. While I don't necessarily think you need to be on TIK TOK, Twitter, or a raging Charli XCX and Kim Petras fan to understand the humor in this movie, I do, however, think there are jokes specifically intended for people who do participate with satirical internet phrases in the wild - one for the ones who've ever told/been told to go outside and "touch some grass."

Never has this chronically online autistic freak felt a movie be so delicious; probably some of my favorite moments included Instagram-therapy terms, delivered by Rachel Sennott who plays vapid "Hot Girl" party-friend, Alice, and how the context of them falls like sand through the fingers of conflict. Poking fun at the weaponization of both our feelings and the labels we've placed on them, given to us by the therapeutic industrial complex, that is framed as liberating terms but truthfully deflates our connected desires like balloons. Words like Gaslight and Toxic never really restore relationships but isolate people into categories of "good" and "bad". Not only making us separate and lonelier individuals but also more vulnerable to being exploited by predatory capitalistic therapy techniques.

I also really enjoyed how the movie explored the importance of mouth vs phone communications; it was fascinating to me how much phone surveillance centered around the character Sophie, played by Amandla Stenberg. How multiple times in the movie her friends reference how she "fell off the face of the earth" due to her recent rehab visits. Simultaneously asserting that Sophie has an out-of-control drug issue that needs to be assessed by professionals, yet angry with her for not answering their group chats, regardless of how much they insisted that she needed space for "healing"; the mixed signals are rather confusing. And I believe Sophie is correct to call out not only their hypocrisy with their own blatant drug use, an activity not usually encouraged to be done around a recovering addict, but also how self-serving their accusations really were. How her complex relationships (I.e. her childhood best friend dating her other friend, casual hookups with another friend, etc.) seemed to rile up the group's collective and ongoing insecurity: none of them know how close they truly are. That "time" can not serve as a self-stimulating measure of their friendship and how the history they share cannot be preserved without the lingering effects of their actions. How the consequences of their choices inevitably stamp on an expiration date.

The phones in this movie play an interesting mix of both catalyst and savior; The information that lies in them is almost deadlier than the literal deaths. Most of them, happening by accident or rather in the name of misguided self-defense, are more forgiven than the surprise havoc reeked outside of the hurricane-proof mansion. As someone who's lived/survived a socially aware self-surveillant mask, the lack of trust and knowledge shared between each of the supposed friends/partners, along with the genuine fake-out in the end, and finally, using an "internet presence" as a way to gain real-life social approval really spoke to the hopelessness I've felt In certain friend groups. That the truth of where you stand with someone is ever-changing and never permanently in your control. That the constant watching of others, how they perceive you, how they think of you, and how much monitoring is needed of your natural behavior, can become a who-done-it of the self. A killing of personality, resented and blamed on everyone other than the mask's source: You, forcing yourself to be a socially hyper-vigilant machine. Thinking that's what others want.

Of course that doesn't mean that all clues, regarding how someone feels about you, is as intricate and layered as the numbers scribbled within a source code. Sometimes people can and do tell you exactly how much they enjoy you. Sometimes they don't think about you at all, and that's okay - I think I would just encourage, from my own experiences, that if you smell blood. If you see a metallic blade, hidden and shining between your friend's rapid texting fingers. If you sense a killer rising from the left on DVD menu at a sleepover, wonder if the murderer of you lies within you, first. Waiting to roll out, like a sleeping bag.