NEW RELEASE — ABIGAIL OSWALD
/That summer Hollywood hits us with a horror movie so repulsive people pass out in their seats during festival screenings. I groan aloud scrolling early reviews in the box office, words like intestine and viscera—I know what’s coming. I become reattuned to the plop of the mop in its timeworn yellow bucket, already reaching for it when someone hurries out halfway through the runtime, their eyes watery and apologetic. It’s probably good that people can still find it within themselves to be disgusted, I remind myself as I clean puke off the bathroom tile again. It’d be worse if no one was reacting. If they all drained out of the theater looking unamused and vaguely bored after the credits rolled.
*
Another action flick premieres. Usually I’ll watch anything—and I have a soft spot for the genre as a whole, the poetic choreography of a climactic one-on-one fight scene, the beauty of a roundhouse kick unfolding in slow motion—but this one I actively avoid. I can already tell what kind of story it is and who it was made for; needless to say, I am not the target audience. In the end, I’m subjected to it in pieces, the way I always am, but still never manage to suss out a connecting thread from the fragments. It seems like a montage of women being murdered, slowly and brutally, to a soundtrack of dated nu-metal. Every time the hero and his gun arrive just a little too late. When I drop in there are never more than a few men scattered throughout, hands moving mechanically from popcorn bucket to mouth as the women scream.
*
A new romance features a sex scene so explicit that it just barely scrapes by with an R rating. The director vehemently protests any further edits; surprisingly, her efforts pay off. I overhear two of my coworkers arguing about whether it’s really any more pornographic than the average sex scene, if the sticking point might instead be the unabashed focus on the female participant’s pleasure. When I can, I try to pop in around the time the scene begins. Most people are aware of the hype before even purchasing their ticket; any discussion of quality in the writing or acting has been drowned out by in-depth analysis and outcry about a scene that makes up a mere fraction of the runtime. Occasionally, though, there are mothers who have missed the memo, who begin to squirm, wince, even try to cover up their girl’s eyes. And every girl I see pushes that hand away, embarrassed and eager.
*
Once you’ve seen a movie enough times—once you’ve memorized its scares and twists and fractures, beat for beat—it becomes infinitely more interesting to watch the audience instead of the screen. A true spectrum of human emotion, illuminated only just by the dim theater lights.
Abigail Oswald is a writer whose work predominantly examines themes of celebrity, crime, and girlhood. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and currently resides in Connecticut. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Wigleaf, Matchbook, Hobart, Necessary Fiction, Split Lip, and elsewhere. You can find her online at abigailwashere.com.
