The Misandrists

Ironically, The Misandrists is more misogynistic or, at least sexist against women than anything. Even as a comedy, its understanding of feminism, radical or otherwise is far too shallow. Turns out, maybe a gay male director isn’t the best person to make a movie about radical feminists.

The film focuses on a radical feminist sect in Germany known as the FLA (Female Liberation Army). They masquerade as a school run by nuns for wayward girls. Their actual plans are fairly nebulous but involve creating porn as a tool of female sexual liberation. They also have secret plans for overt violence. Daily life in the FLA involves classes focused on anti-male rhetoric, a great deal of lesbianism and the occasional sexy pillow fight. Problems arise when one member, Isolde comes across an injured Marxist radical named Volker while out for a walk with her current girlfriend, Hilde. Despite the obvious dangers of the plan because he is male, Isolde hides Volker in the school. Isolde herself has secrets of her own which are revealed in the disappointing and off-mark third act.

The best part about The Misandrists is the directing and editing. Director Bruce La Bruce clearly knows how to shoot a good-looking film, even if sometimes he chooses not to show this in his work. The Misandrists has decent pacing and is fine to look at. Some of the strictly visual humour works too because again, La Bruce is a competent director who knows how to shoot. The problem with The Misandrists isn’t how it looks as a film, it’s everything contained in it.

I don’t agree with the politics of this film at all. But this is a tricky issue as it is a comedy and there’s layers of irony in addition to the regular discourse. Really, my main problem isn’t any of my moral or political disagreements; it’s the fact that The Misandrists isn’t that funny. I could forgive a lot of the politically iffy stuff in the film if the jokes landed harder. But which bits of the film were even suppose to be jokes was unclear to me. I don’t know which bits are supposed to be ridiculous and over the top for comedy and what’s just a bad take on feminism hiding behind a veneer of humour.

Certainly, the film mocks the overall beliefs of the radical feminists. As an audience, we are not supposed to agree with them. That’s fine in principle. I don’t agree with radical feminism by any means. But the sect of feminism in The Misandrists is so muddy in its political beliefs. It comes across as a critique of all feminism instead of just the radical kind. The film places perfectly rational feminist issues and beliefs alongside clearly insane, radical ideas of female supremacy and male violence. Radical feminism could be great fodder for comedy. Unfortunately, The Misandrists doesn’t have enough understanding of feminism, radical or otherwise to reach higher than the lowest hanging fruit such a concept provides.

It’s also unavoidable that Bruce La Bruce, a gay man probably wasn’t the best person to helm this narrative about radical feminism. La Bruce’s films are known for being radical and challenging. Sadly, his depiction of feminism here is neither. His take on feminism in this film has no more depth than in a wide-released, broad comedy about the same thing. Beyond the film’s highly basic understanding of feminism, the film also has a fairly basic understanding of women. Obviously, La Bruce clearly has no idea how women act in groups when they’re aren’t men around. That’s understandable. But it’s a problem if your movie is about female separatists. The film lacks so much basic sympathy and understanding for feminist and women overall. Every frame of this film makes it obvious that this film not only wasn’t made by women but lacks understanding of them as a gender.

Does La Bruce not understand the irony of any of this? A large part of the FLA’s beliefs are about reclaiming their sexuality through making their own lesbian porn. Said porn has no male involvement and is therefore a true depiction of female sexuality that will free the world or whatever. But during any of these allegedly all-female porn scenes, I couldn’t help but remember that in no way is this a depiction of female pleasure without the male point of view. A man filmed all of this! It’s all a man’s point of view!

The film gets transphobic and gender essentialist in the third act. It’s not that this is unlikely, the word TERF exists for a reason. But the characters’ opinions on gender are so basic and shitty as to not be believable. It’s revealed that Isolde is trans and still has a penis. The rest of the FLA take this poorly and call her names. However, during this same time, the FLA make a decision on what to do with Volker. They perform surgery on him to give him a vagina. After this, he can join the FLA. But Volker still identifies as male and was raised as such! Does a vagina that he received through force within the recent past really qualify him as a woman to them? Like everything else in the film, the trans politics of the characters feel inconsistent. And as usual, none of this is funny either.

I’m really mad about The Misandrists. I think there is a funny, challenging, punk film to be made about radical feminism. The Misnadrists isn’t that film. It doesn’t have anything to say about gender or feminism or anything. Mostly, it feels like a 90 minute exercise in mocking straw man depictions of what feminism is. The Misandrists is sexist, transphobic and anti-feminist and none of that feels like a joke. This is just 90 minutes of bad takes about feminism from a director who’s not remotely qualified to speak on this subject.

Overall rating: 4.1/10

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