ANNIHILATION: the Cultural Moment that Nobody Saw

Ghostbusters (2016). Captain Marvel. Black Panther. Wonder Woman 1984. Films, among others, that all had articles written about them being the "movie we need right now", championing race and gender diversity. Without commenting on the quality of these film, which I have varying opinions of, these are films that, while obviously popular, play to the widest popular audience, and if I'm being honest are only important in the sense that little kids can watch them and see themselves in them. While it is certainly important for these films to exist within a wide cultural spectrum for a whole range of audiences, none of them enter the conversation about films engaging in questions of diversity with any real depth or nuance. You're not going to go see Ghostbuster (2016) to think about and appreciate adult concepts with deep roots in culture and diversity, you're going to go see Ghostbusters (2016) to laugh at the bumbling heroes - of which it is fantastic that they are all female - and release endorphins. 

Bear in mind, none of what I'm saying is coming from a place of criticism towards these films and others like them, but rather I am commenting on their place in the larger cultural conversation surrounding race and gender in film. This is the time of females throwing aside any barriers placed in front of them and taking part in cinema in a way that hasn't been seen before, which is a fantastic thing. This is why I was originally confused as to why Annihilation wasn't more of a smash hit, and then later just depressed about it. 

Let me explain what I mean. Alex Garland's follow up to his 2014 directorial debut Ex Machina looked to me like exactly what the media were championing and was served to them on a platter. A big, exciting science fiction film led entirely by women, including both women of colour and sexual minorities. They are all badass warriors taking on a frightening extra-terrestrial threat in a big-budget, complex, ideas-driven science fiction film, but they are all also broken and complex - why wasn't this swept up with all the other films being championed as "the movie we need right now"? I think the answer to that question actually lies in the first half of the sentence.

Annihilation is a dense, complex science fiction film driven by concepts and ideas, not action set-pieces. It asks the viewer to keep up and extrapolate their own meaning from the film, supplying the pieces but not showing the viewer the finished picture. It's also a film that, while firmly placed in the science fiction genre, takes left turns into the realm of horror and body horror, a combination that, when done well, has produced some of my all-time favourite films (Cronenberg and Cronenberg Jr. both do this incredibly well). So I was forced to ask myself - what is it that the people actually want when they are starting petitions and writing articles and sharing clips of Brie Larson? Because it clearly isn't adult, complex and rich cinema with leads of both gender and sexual minorities, or this would have been swept up in the media storm and praised as the next big moment in film diversity. Perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that the studio got cold feet on Annihilation and decided to drop it on Netflix instead of the wide theatrical release it was made for. Regardless, it is a clear sign to me as exactly what was going in culturally a few years ago with the increased focus on gender equality and representation in film. It is less to do with the quality and depth of the filmmaking and the characters minority actors are portraying, and more to do with the wide appeal of these movies that they are appearing in. Forget about the fact that Captain Marvel is a bland, structural mess of a film - it's an MCU film starring a woman! That's great, and I'm all for this push for diversity in major film roles - there are plenty more stories to be told other than white guys learning to work together with other white guys to stop an ugly CGI monster - but it's my hope that we get more films like Annihilation alongside the big tentpole blockbusters that play to the widest possible audience.