Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?

Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf is a semi-autobiographical film written, directed and starring the creative force behind the film, Anna Margarita Albelo. I do not like films like this. I am tired of seeing queer fanfiction about a specific individual and told it’s representation or subversive just because the lead is queer. In fairness, it seems like Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf came at the beginning of this cycle. Maybe this was a genuinely groundbreaking film back in 2014. But in 2024? It just feels dated, self-involved and most damning of all, not funny.

The fictional self-insert in the film is also named Anna. And like her real-life counterpart, Anna is an aspiring filmmaker currently lacking in motivation or success. Instead, she performs a show where she dresses in a large vulva costume and gives voiceover about who she is and how she can’t get a girlfriend. But then, she sees a pretty hipster named Katia. Taking inspiration not just from Katia but from a long history of male creatives making art just to impress a women, Anna gets to work. She writes an all-female adaption of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and asks Katia to be one of the leads. She fills out the cast with her supportive friends, Penelope and Chloe. But Anna’s personality flaws and questionable motive for making the film might mean that this film-within-a-film ends up as just another of Anna’s failures.

I do get that this film is meant to be satirical or parody. It has some amount of self-awareness. But these elements don’t go far enough. What is the film satirizing? Making art for pretty women? Or the whole idea of a self-insert film? The film takes a few decent shots at both concepts. What it doesn’t really do is deconstruct or subvert these concepts. This does feel like one of those films that believes by having a main queer character, that’s enough of a subversion. And maybe it was in 2014? Or maybe it is for people who haven’t seen over 500 WLW movies. But from where I’m sitting in 2024, the film doesn’t do nearly enough to comment on or destabilize the tropes it’s supposed to be mocking.

Instead, the film features the very reason I dislike most self-insert films. It feels aggressively self-centred. Anna does so little to convince us she is the protagonist. She’s not interesting or particularly funny. And she’s only an active character in her own story some of the time. Self-insert films are self-centred by design. But that specific element means that for me, this doesn’t really work as broader queer representation. It’s just Anna Margarita Albelo representation. And yeah, there’s a whole history of men doing this too. But I don’t tend to like this films either! It’s hard to care about a person’s personal growth when they’re in an environment where the universe literally does revolve around them. Whatever growth Anna experiences is less impressive as the entire universe is constructed to allow her to do that.

I’m also tired of the fictional art within a real film angle. Multiple characters tell Anna her script is great. We don’t see enough of the fake film to confirm that. So, we’re just going on everyone’s word. And a lot of what we do is is straight up dialogue from the original Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?. The only scene that isn’t that is overtly labelled as improv. So what was Anna toiling away writing? The film involves a scene where some gay male investors tell Anna lesbian films don’t sell unless they have nudity. And yes, there are structural issues that mean that fewer films by or about queer women receive funding. But this specific film of Anna’s? None of what we see of it suggests that it deserves funding. And that’s not homophobia, that’s looking at the film on its objective merits.

I really didn’t enjoy Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?. I failed to see what the line is between the film being intentionally bad as commentary or satire and when the film was just genuinely shitty. So the whole thing just seemed sort of shitty to me. Again, putting all potential artistic commentary aside, this movie isn’t funny. And it’s a comedy. So, what purpose does the film serve other than as a representation of how dated everything from the 2010s seems only ten years on?

Overall rating: 3/10

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