Opinion: ‘Doll chase’ is DeSantis’ biggest fear

Editor’s note: Noah Berlatsky (@nberlat) is a freelance writer living in Chicago. The views expressed here are his own.view more opinions On CNN.

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Heist movies are all about how fun it is to break the law. In other words, they often criticize the law to a greater or lesser extent.

Like the Oceans series, heist movies suggest that capitalism is a big scam, to say the least, so if you’re cool enough (and look like George Clooney) It’s better to get what you can get. But sometimes they’re more adventurous, like in Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s wonderful “Drive Away Dolls.” Then you will support not only those who are outside the law, but another law and another world. In this case, it’s a world where homophobic politicians in Florida are kicked out of the state with dildos (metaphorically speaking, more or less.)

Cohen is best known for his collaborations with his brother Joel, and co-wrote and co-directed Drive Away Dolls with his wife, queer filmmaker Cooke. The story is set in his early 2000s. Jamie (Margaret Qualley) has just broken up with his cop girlfriend Sookie (Beanie Feldstein). Her friend Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan) is tired of being single and working.

So they rented a car and headed to Tallahassee to play with Marian’s aunt. However, the car they picked up happened to be loaded with a suitcase of contraband and a mysterious smoking box. The suitcase and box are connected to a scandal involving conservative senator Gary Channel (Matt Damon), and he wants his things back. As the bad guys come after them, Jamie and Marian try to turn the tables and beat the criminals at their own game, like in many heist movies.

From the psychedelic interludes to Jamie’s over-the-top Texas drunkenness and libido, the film has a perky camp punch that’s unlike any classic Coen Brothers work. But even within its fun and retro setting, the script is clearly and deliberately aware of what’s going on in Florida right now.

When Jamie and Tricia see an aggressively straight billboard featuring Senator Channel’s wife and children, Jamie gasps. “Lesbians, please don’t let the sun set here.” This was a reference to the sunset towns of the American Midwest, where all-white communities faced discrimination, assault, or worse after dark. Targeting black people through their actions. It may not be an exaggeration to say that Florida was like that. that When a dangerous situation arises for homosexuals in 2000, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his minions do their best to dispel Jamie’s worst fears.

In recent years, Mr. DeSantis has passed a law that critics call “don’t say gay” that bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in many Florida schools, resulting in libraries and A large number of books were censored in the classroom, which predictably led to his resignation. Number of LGBTQ teachers. Florida also passed a bill that would allow health care providers and insurance companies to deny treatment to LGBTQ people based on “religion” and allow transgender people to use restrooms according to their gender identity. was made illegal.

Florida also prohibits residents from changing the gender on their driver’s license, meaning transgender people’s IDs do not reflect their real identities. Many transgender people are effectively outed when they present their license, making them vulnerable to further discrimination.

In other words, states are using the law to turn LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, into second-class citizens who are discriminated against in terms of health care, employment, and even which bathroom they use. As a father, I have thought twice, and more than once, about whether my transgender daughter will be able to visit her grandparents in Florida under the current administration. Traveling to places that make your presence illegal is not safe.

“Drive Away Dolls” takes place 20 years before the self-centered hate regime of the DeSantis administration was contained. But the film still gets its energy and mileage from the sense that just showing queer people driving, living, and getting excited in Florida gives it a little iridescence. Thrown into the teeth of the law.

Free-spirited Jamie and buttoned-up Marian engage in prowling, extortion, indecent use of stolen goods, and, in some cases, indecent acts, all while dodging thugs and ignoring the law. But the real robbery is stealing joy from a nation and a world that wants them to disappear, from each other, from a senator’s embezzlement, from a passing women’s soccer team.

This isn’t the first lesbian heist movie to use orthodox moralism to defy patriarchal homophobic laws and run away with cash. The Wachowskis’ Bound (1996), John McNaughton’s Wild Things (1998), also set in Florida, and the less openly LGBTQ film Ocean’s 8. (2018) is all predecessors. But “Drive Away Dolls” is the most refreshing of them all, rolling into Florida with the windows down on screen as real-world cops, governors, and senators grow increasingly sinister.

Heist movies can sometimes end in tragic disaster, such as Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), but many (like Ocean’s films) create a world in which you can game the system and win. It’s something to celebrate cheerfully. Cohen and Cooke’s film is one of the genre’s purest expressions of the utopian heist. The exhilaration of heist movies is that the rules no longer apply. It offers anarchic emancipation with full bounties for those who refuse to live by the law. Money is good in Drive Away Dolls, but it’s far removed from the true promise of queer expression, queer community, queer love, and queer desire without a judge or a congressional delegation convicting it. There is.

The heart of the film is a flashback to Marian’s younger days, with almost no dialogue. Nowadays, Marian is less adventurous than Jamie, and she is also less interested in sex. But young Marian was obsessed with her neighbor sunbathing naked and had cut a hole in her fence to keep an eye on her.

This scene is reminiscent of Norman spying on Marion in Hitchcock’s classic Psycho (1960). The film is a viciously transphobic film about a heist gone awry, in which everyone involved is punished by both karma and the military police. However, Marian (who may have been named after Hitchcock’s predecessor) is not penalized. She looks happy and is happy. And nothing happens except for her to grow and get more.

“Drive Away Dolls” reminds audiences watching over the fence and elsewhere that queer looks, queer movies, queer art, and queer people are all valuable, fun, and worthwhile heists. I’ll tell you something. Even if, or especially if, DeSantis and Florida want to make them illegal.