Slanted
In my opinion, horror is the genre best suited for political and social commentary. Comedy is built on irreverence, and drama can collapse into melodrama or mutate into a sermon. Horror's natural proclivity to push boundaries gives it a social message its best chance at getting through without getting in its own way ... but it's by no means foolproof. Nightmare On Elm Street 2's ham-fisted handling of homosexuality and being closeted almost becomes a joke, and its ending gets very close to condemning homosexuality entirely. Black Christmas 2019 screams its points at the viewer, while Initiation (from 2020) thinks merely acknowledging a thing's presence is insightful commentary.
So I will give credit to Slanted for walking the walk without lapsing into any of those pitfalls. Written and directed by Amy Wang, Slanted is the story of Joan, a senior in high school, who immigrated from China with her parents when she was 8. All around her she sees beauty represented in blonde hair and blue eyes, and that's the measuring stick by which she compares herself against and comes up woefully short. She feels her Chinese heritage holds her back and puts her under a ceiling that white Americans don't have. When she's presented with the opportunity to get an experimental surgery to become white, she jumps at it, not thinking about the impact it will have on the world around her, or even herself.
Being made by an Asian-American, Slanted obviously comes with some lived-in experiences, and anybody with half a functioning brain will be able to acknowledge some of the movie's universal truths. It is easier in America to be white than it is to be anything else. White is the beauty standard. America may be a country of immigrants, but there's a silent expectation from some that what culture immigrants had should be left on the shores and they should adapt. These are undeniable and unfortunate truths, and they're at the center of Slanted's narrative of personal shame, envy, cultural appreciation, beauty standards, and when assimilation becomes eradication. Joan sees Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift and a hundred other interchangeable pretty blonde white women in the world and feels lesser than. She walks down the hallway of her high school where 20 foot banners of past prom king and queen winners are heralded, and every one of them is white. She wants what she doesn't have because she believes it's the key to happiness. When she gets the surgery, her initial interactions validate this. A little girl mistakes her new face for one of those bikini model cardboard cutouts used to advertise beer. Guys stop and stare at her. The most popular girl in school wants her in her orbit. But it comes at the cost of abandoning close friends, offending her parents, and burying her heritage. Being a white male American, Slanted's narrative is nothing I could ever, nor would I ever pretend to, have experience dealing with. What Amy Wang does with the writing and direction is make me understand as much as I can from the outside. The mom is determined to get Joan to appreciate their cultural heritage, which is embodied by wanting to teach Joan the family recipe for dumplings, which Joan could not care less about. Later, her parents tell her that, since they grew up in China, they will always be Chinese at heart, but acknowledge that because she grew up in America with a Chinese face (their words, not mine), they now see there was some cultural dissonance for her that they've never experienced. It's little touches like that where Slanted shines the most, giving Joan and her family a beating heart, showing why she has grown up how she is, and that her initial repudiation of her family's history and heritage is the effect of having louder voices tell her that her family's history isn't as valued as MURICA.
Where Slanted stumbles, however, is in the horror department. Calling this a horror movie is a stretch in the way a taffy puller stretches taffy. Slanted's horror aspects are, at best, something it passes by on a drive through the country and points at like cows in a pasture. The physical transformation is a way to corporealize the anxieties Joan has, but even as the last act kicks in and the surgery's side effects (both physical and mental) start to assert themselves, it's not really horrific. Perhaps that's not what Wang was going for, but the problem is that's how the movie is marketed. It's the central theme of the poster. For it to be so front and center in how it's presented, it's disappointing that it's little more than window dressing for the actual movie.
The satirical elements are, at best, a mixed bag. When it's on point, it works. There's a dinner scene towards the end where Joan is over at the house of some other customers of the surgeon. Not only did they have the surgery, they've gone so far as to turn their house into a shrine to whiteness in the most literal sense. All the furniture is white, as are the walls, the table, the appliances, and they even drink milk with dinner. The painting of the American flag over their fireplace is whitewashed to the point where the red and blue are muted to near invisibility. It's a not-subtle-at-all jab, and it's on point. But then there's stuff like the names of stores; Prayers & Ammo, or a Starbucks satire called Freedom Beans. They're barely at the level of MAD Magazine parodies. It's neither insightful nor clever, serves no storyline purpose, and detracts from the authenticity of the story.
Slanted is a flawed movie, but it's not a bad one. The satire is clumsy, sure, and the horror is so low-calorie it might as well not be there. But its heart is in the right place, and the story being told comes from a place of genuine experience. And it's nice to have some new voices in movies, especially in horror. It's not as polished as it could be, but it's a good start.
So I will give credit to Slanted for walking the walk without lapsing into any of those pitfalls. Written and directed by Amy Wang, Slanted is the story of Joan, a senior in high school, who immigrated from China with her parents when she was 8. All around her she sees beauty represented in blonde hair and blue eyes, and that's the measuring stick by which she compares herself against and comes up woefully short. She feels her Chinese heritage holds her back and puts her under a ceiling that white Americans don't have. When she's presented with the opportunity to get an experimental surgery to become white, she jumps at it, not thinking about the impact it will have on the world around her, or even herself.
Being made by an Asian-American, Slanted obviously comes with some lived-in experiences, and anybody with half a functioning brain will be able to acknowledge some of the movie's universal truths. It is easier in America to be white than it is to be anything else. White is the beauty standard. America may be a country of immigrants, but there's a silent expectation from some that what culture immigrants had should be left on the shores and they should adapt. These are undeniable and unfortunate truths, and they're at the center of Slanted's narrative of personal shame, envy, cultural appreciation, beauty standards, and when assimilation becomes eradication. Joan sees Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift and a hundred other interchangeable pretty blonde white women in the world and feels lesser than. She walks down the hallway of her high school where 20 foot banners of past prom king and queen winners are heralded, and every one of them is white. She wants what she doesn't have because she believes it's the key to happiness. When she gets the surgery, her initial interactions validate this. A little girl mistakes her new face for one of those bikini model cardboard cutouts used to advertise beer. Guys stop and stare at her. The most popular girl in school wants her in her orbit. But it comes at the cost of abandoning close friends, offending her parents, and burying her heritage. Being a white male American, Slanted's narrative is nothing I could ever, nor would I ever pretend to, have experience dealing with. What Amy Wang does with the writing and direction is make me understand as much as I can from the outside. The mom is determined to get Joan to appreciate their cultural heritage, which is embodied by wanting to teach Joan the family recipe for dumplings, which Joan could not care less about. Later, her parents tell her that, since they grew up in China, they will always be Chinese at heart, but acknowledge that because she grew up in America with a Chinese face (their words, not mine), they now see there was some cultural dissonance for her that they've never experienced. It's little touches like that where Slanted shines the most, giving Joan and her family a beating heart, showing why she has grown up how she is, and that her initial repudiation of her family's history and heritage is the effect of having louder voices tell her that her family's history isn't as valued as MURICA.
Where Slanted stumbles, however, is in the horror department. Calling this a horror movie is a stretch in the way a taffy puller stretches taffy. Slanted's horror aspects are, at best, something it passes by on a drive through the country and points at like cows in a pasture. The physical transformation is a way to corporealize the anxieties Joan has, but even as the last act kicks in and the surgery's side effects (both physical and mental) start to assert themselves, it's not really horrific. Perhaps that's not what Wang was going for, but the problem is that's how the movie is marketed. It's the central theme of the poster. For it to be so front and center in how it's presented, it's disappointing that it's little more than window dressing for the actual movie.
The satirical elements are, at best, a mixed bag. When it's on point, it works. There's a dinner scene towards the end where Joan is over at the house of some other customers of the surgeon. Not only did they have the surgery, they've gone so far as to turn their house into a shrine to whiteness in the most literal sense. All the furniture is white, as are the walls, the table, the appliances, and they even drink milk with dinner. The painting of the American flag over their fireplace is whitewashed to the point where the red and blue are muted to near invisibility. It's a not-subtle-at-all jab, and it's on point. But then there's stuff like the names of stores; Prayers & Ammo, or a Starbucks satire called Freedom Beans. They're barely at the level of MAD Magazine parodies. It's neither insightful nor clever, serves no storyline purpose, and detracts from the authenticity of the story.
Slanted is a flawed movie, but it's not a bad one. The satire is clumsy, sure, and the horror is so low-calorie it might as well not be there. But its heart is in the right place, and the story being told comes from a place of genuine experience. And it's nice to have some new voices in movies, especially in horror. It's not as polished as it could be, but it's a good start.
Mini Review: In my opinion, horror is the genre best suited for political and social commentary. Comedy is built on irreverence, and drama can collapse into melodrama or mutate into a sermon. Horror's natural proclivity to push boundaries gives it a social message its best chance at getting through without getting in its own way ... but it's by no means foolproof. Nightmare On Elm Street 2's ham-fisted handling of homosexuality and being closeted almost...
