The Shape of Water made me feel less human.
On the surface, there are many things to like about The Shape of Water. The main characters, the ones in the right, they are all outsiders. They are people like me. With the exception of Children of a Lesser God, it is the first time I have ever seen a disabled woman as an object of desire. It is the first time I have seen someone swear in sign in a mainstream film. It is one of the only films out there to address some of my feelings about my body or depict them on screen. Let’s be honest, Children of a Lesser God was made in 1986. That’s 31 years of film history. That’s my entire life.
Spoilers follow.
In one sequence: “What is she saying?” the angry (real) monster asks on the screen.
“She’s saying thank you,” the woman behind our hero translates, hurriedly and incorrectly, as Elisa patiently, slowly, and effectively signs “fuck you” to a man trying to kill someone she loves. It fills me with joy.
In another scene, a disabled woman is embraced tenderly by her lover.
In a third, an abled man threatens the disabled heroine, spitting words out that I have heard in other variations throughout my lifetime. It rings true.
But below the still waters of agreement, there is the discord of being othered.
The first time in years that I have seen a disabled woman sexually desired, and indeed, sexually active, and loved in a film is by a monster. Monsterhood and disability are inextricably linked in our genre. Characters like Snoke are barely human, their faces marred by scars which signal that they are evil. Disability and disfigurement are tied together as one. Elisa’s scars on her neck have been read as gills by some, a hint that her disability is in fact, monsterhood all on its own.
Like The Shape of Water’s Elisa, I have never known a life without a disability. Both of us live in worlds where we have to have things translated for us. Elisa needs facilitated communication with those who cannot speak her form of sign language. (Elisa does not use ASL, though she does use some standard ASL fingerspelling in the film.). For me, I need a hearing aid, likely someday I will need to sign, and I need people to read things like subtitles for me if they are too small (which was fortunately not one of the problems I had with this film).
At its core, The Shape of Water asks us to consider what a freak is. Is a monster a god? Is a disabled woman a freak? An outsider? Can she be loved or understood by her own kind, or are the monsters the only ones who can truly understand her?
Unfortunately, the answer to this movie was that no, she cannot be loved by her own kind, and yes, she is an outsider. A monster. A freak. She belongs under the water with her beloved Aquatic Monster. We don’t know this for certain, that she lives—in fact all signs point to the idea that she is dying or dead at the movie’s end. But if I accept that she is dead, then the film ends as all disabled films do: in ultimate, inevitable tragedy. So I choose to imagine the slightly less angering of two evils.
There is a moment in the film which caused me to cry. It caused me to cry because I was conflicted in my heart and soul about the moment. Elisa fights with her best friend Giles about whether or not to rescue the monster from the clutches of the government, before they vivisect him. Elisa forces Giles to repeat what she is saying, making him listen to the words that so he understands them. It is during this speech that she talks about what it is like to be disabled. For people to gaze upon her, to see her as different. This sequence both felt true, and hurt like hell to see.
That’s when she says the words. That’s when she forces Giles to say out loud (without subtitles for the sign): “He doesn’t know that I am less than whole.”
Society says that disability makes us lesser, makes us uneven humans. The worst of humanity looks at me with my one clouded eye, and my one hearing ear. It looks at me and it says I am half of what I could be. This isn’t a projection. I don’t feel less than whole. I have had people tell me that I am lesser than them. That they couldn’t imagine what it would be like to inhabit my body, that they would rather die than experience what it is like to live in a disabled body.
The conflict for me is here, that on the one hand I have always known in my soul that abled people see me as half of them, that they see me as less than whole. Which is why I hate that in media such as this, we can only be desired by those who don’t know any better.
So when Elisa ultimately dies, at the end of the film, I’m utterly unsurprised. Of course they kill her, only to have her resurrected under the water, to join the only man who has ever desired her. Of course society would rather imagine a disabled woman living under water with the only creature that has ever loved her, rather than imagining her above the waves, being loved and desired by the other humans in her life.
I wish that I could just say, “Well, it’s fantasy,” and move on. But I can’t. Not when I’ve literally never seen a movie in which a disabled woman is desired by a non-disabled partner. Not when I know that my body is seen as less than desirable. Not when I know that subconsciously this film, it means she deserves a freak like her, and not a human like her.
If desired disabled heroines were common, then I wouldn’t have a problem with them being partnered with Hot Monster Boys. But we don’t live in that world yet. Able bodied heroes can have all the Hot Monster Boys they want—to go along with all their able bodied human lovers. Until disabled heroines and their bodies are desired by the same frequency of able bodied to monster lovers, I’m not going to be comfortable with Only Monster Lovers For Disabled Women.
Science fiction, fantasy, and horror have an obligation to do better. As writers, as consumers, as creators, we have to push back and ask for better representation. We have to make better stories, and disconnect from societal bias. If we can imagine a world where a literal fish monster can be loved by a human being, we can imagine a world where a disabled woman can be loved by a fellow human being.
There’s another problem with this film that needs to be talked about, and it’s important. While the character of Elisa is disabled, the actress Sally Hawkins is not. Disabled actors are constantly passed over, disabled characters instead being presented as “challenging” roles for abled people to play. It would have been a much more powerful film had the actress been a disabled woman, especially someone whose sign was fluent and natural, a sign language that she relied upon every day to communicate, and not just for a single role.
The casting of Hawkins allows for moments like the one towards the end of the film, where—entirely out of character from the rest of the movie—we are treated to a song and dance routine in a dream sequence, as Elisa sings “You’ll Never Know How Much I Love You” in a dance routine beside her beloved Aquatic Monster. This sequence reassures the audience that they are not watching a disabled woman, but an able bodied one. Hollywood must stop undercutting the performances of disabled characters by showing us their non-disabled dreams. This only happens with physically disabled characters. It is only ever about making sure abled audiences are comfortable. I am tired of abled audiences being comfortable at the expense of my experience.
I don’t dream of seeing out of two eyes, or hearing without a hearing aid. I don’t crave many things which are out of my grasp (though a car would be lovely), and I certainly can share my love with someone without having to subvert my disability in order to express it.
Undercutting her disability broke the flow of sign language, the believability of disability, and indeed, the power of her words through sign.
I wanted so badly for this movie to disrupt the ableist, freakshow narrative which I have lived with for my entire life. It’s not a theoretical narrative, either.
Over the holidays, I attended a party where a guest told me that disabled people were cast as evil characters because evolutionary psychology says that asymmetrical people aren’t attractive. He said this, while looking into my asymmetrical eyes. He said this without apology. He said this because he believed it, with my husband not two seats away from me staring daggers at him. The thing is, this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. It probably won’t be the last. There’s nobody fighting back, except the disabled people out there who want to be loved.
I wanted to feel included in the human world. Instead, the film reinforced the narrative that I belong below the surface, to be put on display when it suits the narrative.
Elsa Sjunneson-Henry is a gimlet made from feminism and snark. She is a deafblind speculative fiction writer, editor and disability activist. She’s the Managing Editor of Fireside Magazine and the Non-Fiction Guest Editor in Chief of Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction. She writes from a dragon lair in New Jersey. You can find her @snarkbat on Twitter.
Thank you. So much of what you point out nails my distaste for this movie. What was Del Toro thinking with that dance scene? And why is the most fleshed-out character the villain?
Thank you for this!! It perfectly sums up every thought I had about the movie.
Wow. Thanks so much for writing this–it made me think about a lot that maybe I didn’t consider when I first saw it because I didn’t quite think about how my not being a disabled person, and that privilege, affected the way I felt about the movie.
@alinaSichevaya said it – thank you for writing this!
Wow- I didn’t read this movie as you did at all. I saw Elisa as an exceptionally sensitive and smart woman who wouldn’t be attracted to anyone not equally exceptional and sensitive. As for the song and dance routine— she knew how to dance-and she was always seeing those old fashioned routines on her neighbor’s television. That was her frame of reference for a romantic romp. I saw most of the OTHER characters as “ disabled.” Your reading of this film is so focused on Elisa’s physical limits that it misses the outsized grandness of her soul. So it misses the point, IMHO.
@5, she didn’t just dance, she sang.
I cringe whenever a disabled character has dream sequences negating their disability. If you see a character in a wheelchair, they’re guaranteed to walk at some point. If blind, they’ll end up seeing, etc. etc. It’s a cliche and one that harms disabled people by making people assume they must want to be “normal.”
An excellent review from a much-underappreciated perspective.
@Kelly, I believe Del Toro fleshed out the “villain” the most precisely because that’s what he does. As an artistic talent, he has always been drawn to the human aspects of the dark, the macabre, the fantastic (there are some great articles written on this). This is by no means a defense of the movie, only a defense of his art… true to his strengths, we are led to see monstrous things in humans, and humanity in “monsters” (As KT experienced). I’m sure in Del Toro’s mind by the time the dance comes around, we are supposed to be looking a little more than skin deep and just see different types of creatures/souls all on the same level finding love, being “human” and experiencing existence. But, as Elsa suggests, perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to tackle two types of “otherness” in the same stroke, thus inadvertently equating them.
@KT, it sounds like the film was read exactly as it was meant to in your case, and the target the message was intended for. The crux of the review is that it fell short for an audience that should have been more drawn to the story, and certainly identify more with, than most viewers. However, the connection to anyone in a situation similar to Elisa’s in real life was lost.
I agree with the assessment that the film was marred by ablist casting, the same way period pieces about Rome should actually have non-white people in them and that Johnny Depp playing a Native American (Lone Ranger, 2013) is a travesty that alienates audiences. My wife and I are scientists and some movies are unwatchable because it’s so hard to suspend our disbelief (Running away from volcanic eruptions? “Booms” or “pew-pews” in space? Really?).
I could see the song as cringeworthy to some, but it’s Hollywood, you get what they paid for and think you want to see. Regrettably musical numbers are trending right now.
THANK YOU. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but the synopsis of “woman with disabilities falls in love with merman monster” had me all kinds of stomach queasy, and you’ve succinctly outlined all my fears with the premise of this film.
I have not had the privilage of seeing this movie yet but anticipate getting a chance I have watched many trailers of this movie and there are plenty of parts of the movie that would leave viewers puzzled for instance the gill man they never really focus on his story such as his evolution where did he come from and there most deffinatley has to be an entire race of these beings as for the deaf girl I have been in a relationship with a deaf girl and know sign language I never look at disabled people as being any different then me as and as far as freaks go well that word underlined anyone who treats or looks at disability as a freakish thing
I would highly recommend Evil Genius by Catherine jinks. Sonja is my favorite character who also happens to be disabled.
I definitely do not want to dismiss or challenge anyone’s reaction to or interpretation of a film, but there are a couple of points about the story here that are very different from my own interpretation.
First, the idea that she can only be loved by a monster? I felt the movie was trying to show us that the “creature” was not actually a monster at all, and it was only people who made no effort to understand him who saw him that way. She saw him as a whole individual worthy of love and he saw her as the same.
The idea that he was “a god”, to me, directly related to the villain’s suggestion of what it means to be made in God’s image. The villain assumes that God would look like him, and his final realization is of how narrow his worldview had been.
And though it was platonic rather than romantic, I believe Giles grew to love her as a friend during the story as well, where at the beginning he just relied on her, and, in a non-malicious way, used her as a crutch. But her bravery and compassion were a light that moved him.
And in the end, am I the only one to take the story at face value and assume she did live at the end? The story felt very fairy-tale to me, and unlike Pan’s Labyrinth, I didn’t see anything in the movie that seemed to undercut the literal presentation. The only ambiguity comes from Giles as the narrator and only because he didn’t see what we did.
Now, I don’t want to argue with all the points in the article, or anyone’s subjective reaction. The issues raised by the casting and the singing, for example, seem valid to me. But just from a subjective story interpretation standpoint, I had some significant departures from the author here, on points that seem relevant.
Thank you for this perspective on the movie. You’ve nailed down some issues that I’ve been trying to formulate for my own review, without having the personal viewpoint you have that brings them into the foreground. I definitely read the ending as being positive, but primarily because we’ve been given the build-up of the fish-man’s miraculous healing powers. I saw the “scars = gills” motif coming from the very beginning, but the movie is ambiguous whether Elisa’s muteness is a consequence of an alternate physiology that was always there, but was scarred over, or whether her gills were an entirely new transformation.
I think the villain’s gangrenous fingers (and the body-horror scenes around them that I had to look away for) are another part of the theme of monstrosity in the movie. I interpreted the progression of the gangrene as a monstrous externalization of his evil, returning to your point that entirely too often movies use the shorthand of physical monstrosity as a signifier of evil.
Thank you so much for writing this. After seeing the film I was discomfited by a lot of the themes and subtext (and actual text) in spite of how beautifully crafted it is, and I have been wanting to read criticism/thoughts from a disabled writer to get their take. I appreciate how vulnerable you’ve made yourself here. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
I really appreciate this perspective and wondered about these points myself when I was watching it. I loved that they used so much signing and yet I feel that they purposefully othered the characters while elevating the villain.
That is a VERY unfortunate and I hope unintended message!
I read the ending quite differently. Those aren’t scars on her neck – they’re gills. She can’t talk because she’s never had a voicebox. There was some brief backstory about her being found by a river. It’s flimsy, but I was certainly pointed in the direction of her being one of the fishpeople, or at least the offspring of a fishperson and a human. This still makes her an outsider, and to both societies – she is neither fully fishperson nor fully human. But at least now she gets to try to make a life as the other half of her.
Given that, I love the little detail that she loves shoes. And indeed she still has one shoe on as the film ends.
Unfortunately if you go by what was on-screen, it does raise the problem that now it’s not a film about disability, it’s a film about being a foreigner. It’s a bait-and-switch in terms of talking about the issues, and in terms of narrative “she was a fish all along” is a very cheesy wish-fulfillment deus-ex-machina. I think it’s perfectly valid to say something like “what if the last 3 minutes is just a dream?” (just like the first 3 minutes), and she really is dead, and she really was a disabled human, not half fish. I think the film leaves open both possibilities, and both are valid, and both are interesting to talk about.
I think the point of the film is that the fishman wasn’t a freak at all, that he was just born different, like our protagonist. There is a point the film makes where the angry able-bodied antagonist says that HE was made in God’s image and those who are different are somehow lesser. It is clear to me that Del Toro is saying that this isn’t the case, that god could look like Elsa, or the fishman. No one is lesser for how they were born. I think you are viewing the film in a way that is ignoring this message.
You do make many good points, and if the find had been saying that the fishman was, in fact, a freak, then I would agree with you wholeheartedly, but I just don’t think that that’s what the film is saying.
Fascinating post! I have never seen this movie, so I can’t give much of a critique of the movie itself but I have noticed for years that disabled characters die at the end of movies and are usually played by able bodied actors so I started making films of my own in the hope of casting disabled actors in life affirming roles. You can see my latest film with open captions here http://cripvideoproductions.com/astrokeofendurance.php in case you are interested.
Forgot to mention, from an evolutionary standpoint your friend is completely wrong. “If you are here on this earth evolution wanted you here” actual quote from my science teacher. :) Humans are somewhat pre programed to look for symmetry to tell humans apart from other animals but that’s it. :)
How disappointing. I’m also blind in one eye and happen to have been excited to see this movie. I think your points sound valid and I can relate. I am, however, glad you said disabled girls can love and be loved by monsters too. Maybe it would’ve helped if she had a few human suitors too. And was played by an actress who was also disabled.
Perhaps because that’s where the greatest tragedy is, and so the most story-centric?
Anyway, this reminds me of the Ugly Duckling, who became a Swan, which is probably the most basic form of the story. I’ve never been sure what to think about it. On the one hand, both ducks and swans are normal(each beautiful in their own way?), but how many stories are about the “Ugly Duckling” actually being beautiful beyond the common creatures who know what they judge?
Guillermo Del Toro straight up said he wrote the character of Elisa for Sally Hawkins, meaning a non-disabled actress was never meant to play her. https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/the-shape-of-water-sally-hawkins-on-the-art-of-romancing-a-fish-man-w513023 It is less about that a disabled actress should be cast for a disabled character, and more about that Elisa shouldn’t be written as disabled in the first place.
I’ve watched the movie probably 20 times at this point. I have my own disability. It’s not going blind or deaf but I still agree with sadburbia. I love the movie, I think it’s the best movie I’ve seen in years. While I totally get what you’re saying, I don’t think it’s about that. I think Del Toro’s mission was to create a beautiful, moving, movie… And I think he accomplished that. I think it’s about being able to find love no matter what disabilities or wordless you might possess and finding it in bizarre places when you’re not expecting it and have been doing your own thing. I think it means that whoever you are, that is someone out there for you… You just need to be open to seeing them and embracing their appreciation for you being not perfect.
Thank you for writing this; I really appreciated your perspective.
I thought the point of the movie was that the villain was the monster, and that the rest of us disenfranchised are the humans regardless of what we look like, where we’re from, who we love or how we communicate. She didn’t fall for a monster, though one did fall for her (the villain). She fell for another being who was considered other, but was more “human” than most everyone else in the film. This is the same as the ending of The Creature from the Black Lagoon btw, but a white guy was the dead monster and the creature was the hero.
I see the movie as “two disabled people save each other.” As an autistic person who sometimes struggles with speech, I identified a lot with the fish man. Autistic people are often assumed to be unintelligent and subhuman, so seeing the fish man being loved made me believe I can be loved. I never believed that before and now I do.
Word.
Good commentary, thank you. I enjoyed the movie, but I was surprised at how little criticism I was seeing toward…all of that.
Good points, Elsa. And thanks!
I liked where Del Toro was generally going in this film, but I too was left a little cold. For me, if she had gills, then there’s the much bigger story. Is she not human? If so, where did she come from? That’s what I wanted to know.
If she IS human, however, then she wouldn’t be attracted to a water monster, even if he is a god. That’s just… gross. I thought a far better story would’ve been her trying so save the monster, not mate with it. And in the process of trying to save it, another human character falls in love with her.
Just my two cents.
I’ve been wanting to see this film, but none of the barely teaser-length spots I’ve seen for it suggested that Elisa is disabled. Certainly, one could read her scars as nascent gills, or her origins as an orphaned Deep One or whatever, and I don’t doubt that that’s what Del Toro intended, but -as presented- she’s a disabled human. That’s really going to colour my perceptions of things whenever I do get a chance to see it.
And good god, that dinner guest. If there’s anything more wretched than evo psych, it’s the assholes who bleatingly gesture to it as validation for their own prejudices.
I have not seen this film, but reading this kind of review makes me wonder if this kind of politically correct scrutiny is itself not partly responsible for discouraging the inclusion of ‘normal’ disabled people in mainstream movies. If the writer/director/etc. have to walk on eggshells to make sure that the depiction of a disabled person will satisfy all these demands, then from a simple cost/benefit standpoint it’s easier to write and cast an able-bodied character and avoid this minefield altogether.
I am disabled (paralysis and atrophy of my left arm since a brachial plexus injury at birth, so definitely asymmetric in appearance and function), and I don’t share the perception that “abled people see me as half of them”. As for your party guest, why should he apologize for simply repeating the common view that people are biologically inclined to find symmetry attractive (example: http://sites.psu.edu/evolutionofhumansexuality/2014/03/24/facial-symmetry-and-attractiveness/ )? Did he say “and that’s how it ought to be” or “someday we’ll be able to rid the world of you ugly disabled people” or something? If somebody says “physically able people are usually hired as professional basketball players because they can run and jump and throw better than people with paralysis”, that might be a trivial and obvious observation, but it’s not an offensive one.
Thank you, it’s coincidental that I was making plans to see this movie which I will now skip. I refuse to invest emotionally on something that at its core is dishonest or misrepresents. Your analysis was perfect in content and timing.
the point you make about the non-disabled fantasy is especially poignant as my partner has been rewatching glee and i was reminded that artie (also played by a non-disabled actor) has a similar fantasy scene. it’s uncomfortable to have it framed that way, that we as able-bodied audience members want “reassurance” that the actor isn’t disabled– uncomfortable but important. if we clamor for trans characters to be played by trans actors, we should demand the same of disabled characters. thanks for the perspective– i’m glad i didn’t see the movie, now.
To me this movie wasn’t about disability at all. The main character, through she couldn’t talk, was one of a minority of characters that didn’t have a crippled soul. She was the pure soul, the uncorrupted, the one who sees clearly while all others are lost. And she braved a world of monsters to save someone who had all control forcibly taken from them, a slave, abused.
This woman is a source of power and strength in the movie. The monsters are us, the disabled are us – missing a key part of our soul, and in this movie, we see that once again, humanity has focused on something special, and tried to crush it under our boot to feel a little better about ourselves.
And when at the end it is revealed that she was never really fully human, but something special all along, kin to the slave, we see that maybe it isn’t in humanity’s nature to be this pure and good, but we also see in her neighbor, that if we try, and we help each other, maybe there is still hope for us after all.
Beside all that, focusing on the heroine’s inability to talk just seems misguided.
I thought it was interesting to see the movie as a sort of exploration of the idea that disability is socially constructed – that people are disabled (kept from functioning in ways they want to function and that supposedly “normal” people get to function) not by the differences themselves but by social power structures, norms, expectations, etc. In this sense, Giles is “disabled” or handicapped by social attitudes about his homosexuality – he doesn’t get to have a romantic relationship, and he’s apparently lost his job because of it too. Zelda is African-American and faces barriers that (mostly) go without saying. Further, although she personally is strong, she’s also handicapped from being the friend she wants to be, because her husband is weak. And Dr. Hoffstetler is handicapped from being the scientist and decent human being he wants to be because (minor spoiler) he’s also a Russian spy during the Cold War. Of all the sympathetic human-world characters in the movie, Elisa is the only one not “disabled” – she is able to do what she wants and needs to do. Yes, she can’t use her voice to speak words, but that’s a difference, not a disability.
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I think you miss the point. I think the whole point of Eliza’s love for the creature (who isn’t a “creature” at all but an aquatic God) is that there IS nothing wrong with her. She is the beauty in the Beauty and the Beast scenario. She had to see beyond the physical appearance where he already knew she was beautiful and perfect. She was an outsider because of her disability, yes, but not because there is anything wrong with her but because there were many things wrong with the society she was living in. I say this as a visually impaired woman. I think I saw what was going on better than you, dear author.
I think you miss the point. I think the whole point of Eliza’s love for the creature (who isn’t a “creature” at all but an aquatic God) is that there IS nothing wrong with her. She is the beauty in the Beauty and the Beast scenario. She had to see beyond the physical appearance where he already knew she was beautiful and perfect. She was an outsider because of her disability, yes, but not because there is anything wrong with her but because there were many things wrong with the society she was living in. I say this as a visually impaired woman. I think I saw what was going on better than you, dear author.
Also contrary to some of the comments and assumptions based on the dream sequence I think she was more interested in the dance and being able to express her feelings in some new way that seemed beyond her capabilities, that’s all. She never gets “healed” because her muteness is never treated (by the film itself) as a “flaw.”
To those who think it was revealed that Eliza wasn’t human all along… no, she was. Did you watch with the volume and subtitles off? It was revealed that the Creature was a God. She was just his destined soulmate. He gav her gills where her scars was. He’s not a “race.” According to del Toro he is literally the only one like himself. Seriously, Google it if you can’t follow the movie.
If you watched Children of a Lesser God, you’ve seen the f-word in sign. Marlee Matlin tells William Hurt to f-off at one point!
I want to see this film but haven’t got round to it yet. I do have a problem with able actors taking on disabled roles and it’s more because there are so many able bodied roles available, why not use a talented actor with the actual disability? They automatically bring a knowledge and experience which deepens and expands the script without having to think about it or do the research. I was always annoyed at Artie in Glee. The actor was talented, but they always felt the need to do dream sequences where he was out of the chair and dancing away. It worked within the context of the story, but it must have been a slap in the face to anyone watching with mobility issues pulling them out of the story and reminding them it was all fake. As for this film, am I right in thinking a character must vocalise on screen at some point to get a credit? I remember years ago it caused a lot of controversy because the rules stated that only speaking parts were considered important. Anyone who didn’t have some kind of vocalisation was relegated to the status of extra no matter their importance to the plot or amount of screen time. This might explain the dream sequence.
I am not disabled, but I am glad to hear your perspective. I especially agree that casting a disabled woman as Elise would have been good for the movie. As a fan of fantasy and Guillermo del Toro, this is how I understood the story.
From the very beginning, I assumed Elise was not human. The moment they show her “scars,” knowing the director, genre, and what the movie was about, I did not see her as human. My suspicions seemed confirmed when they explained how she was found on the bank of a river as a baby. My mind quickly filled in the blanks, making her out to be some sort of water kelpie or other mythological creature.
The fact that she was mute was, to me, a separate factor. Though her “scars” were something that made her look different, it was her muteness that made people perceive her negatively. For this, she was viewed as disabled, and looked upon by many as lesser, but it was a human disability (unlike possible gills).
When she has the conversation with Giles about rescuing the amphibian man, and signs the statement “He doesn’t know that I am less than whole,” I saw that as a tragedy: the fact that by other people’s treatment of her, she had come to view herself as lesser. I felt it was commentary, not that she WAS actually less, but that our self image can be so badly damaged by the treatment of others that we can come to believe it to be true.
Additionally, despite her differences, she had human friends who loved her and wanted her to stay with them. I had not considered the aspect of sexual desirability of the disabled in entertainment before reading your article, so I thank you for making me think about that. However, even the fully human characters in this story seemed to have problems with desirability or unfulfilling relationships (Giles being spurned by the young man, Zelda living in a loveless marriage, even the real “monster” treating his wife as an object to be seen and not heard). I saw it as a sad tale of how human beings fail to empathize and value each other, especially those seen as different. See: The Twilight Zone episode, “Eye of the Beholder” for a classic example of this portrayed well in fiction.
Despite all that, I also felt a little empty at the end of the movie. Perhaps I wished for a stronger stance to be taken about humanity, with a less tragic (or accidentally happy) ending for Elise. Thanks for making me think a lot more about this movie!
I’m disabled, primarily with visual impairment. I’ve never been in a romantic or sexual relationship, partly because those seem to be initiated by nonverbal signals (e.g. eye contact) I can’t detect. I lust after all aquatic humanoids ever. I want to have one, and I really want to be one. I didn’t watch this film, having been warned that it involves romance between a human and an aquatic humanoid, because those make me miserable with envy and I try to avoid them. (Though I somehow keep reading Seanan McGuire books). Knowing the human is a disabled human, with whom I might have really identified, should make me sort of glad at the representation and the hint that such love is possible — or would be if those creatures existed — though perhaps even more miserable. Yet you say that it’s a harmful portrayal of disability, and not just because the love interest is a monster. I…have a lot of conflicted feelings now.
(My mom said I shouldn’t be jealous of such things because “It’s just a story.” Hahahahahaha since when has fictionality prevented crushes)
This movie is another reworking of that old favorite Beauty & The Beast.
The beautiful Elisa, what is not to love here.
The beast, Fishman, an immortal creature who has travelled through time eternal.
Homo naledi is an extinct species of hominin, which anthropologists first described in 2015 & have assigned genus Homo.
In 2013 fossils were found in South Africa, initial judgement based on archaic features of its anatomy favored an age of around 2 million year.
In 2017 the fossils were dated to between 335.000 to 236.000 years ago.
1. Boned do not last 2 million years.
2. Nor do they last 236.000 years.
When did we come into being?
The planet has been fertile for billions of years & we were here.
Charles Darwin wrote a fairy story & that’s fine.
All those monkey bones & then – here we are – really.
Today we cite characteristics as opposed to species of Homo sapien, but what if the real question is – how many different species of man are there on planet Earth?
And, what constitutes one species from another.
It’s an interesting interpretation but I feel it really turns the story on its head to reach its point. Guillermo del Toro did not write the movie for the woman. He wrote it for the monster. He wanted a movie in which even the most unusual among us could find love and be happy. By focusing so strongly on the woman and what happened to her, one loses sight of the fact, or forgets, that she’s a hybrid, in the family of beings that live in the sea.. We discover this in the final scenes. Because she’s a hybrid–a “monster” herself, her vocal cords are underdeveloped. She can’t speak. All of this has to be deconstructed to reach the point that the female hero of the story is lowering herself to be with our captive monster. And Guillermo del Toro’s message of total acceptance is lost. The deeper meaning is lost. This movie and it’s universal message is valid and powerful the way it is. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m sorry you couldn’t see and share in this wider interpretation of The Shape of Water. It’s such a beautiful story.
Excellent
I am sorry you saw that in the movie… my take was different. See, I am latinamerican so I identified myself with the creature (that symbolizes the other, the foreigner, the one considered as sub human) not with Elisa. I thought that Elisa who clearly was a lovely and loved person (Zelda and Giles definitely loved her), was able to see the human side of that creature because she had a big heart and because of her personal story could see herself in a creature that was outcast, hurt and rejected. The story evolves so we get to see that the “fish monster” is kind and special, and maybe even divine. Simultaneously we see that the real monster is the guy who thinks conventionally, the one that follows rule and agrees with the mindset of his time. So you see… I didn’t think that Elisa got to be loved by a monster because I thought he wasn’t one, i thought that the story told us that he was more human than other true monsters (Shanon’s character and the general) and by the end we (and Shanon’s character) see that maybe he is a god. So going back to the way you interpreted the movie, Elisa, the disabled, ended up with the best guy, a divine creature and they went on to live in a world of their own. Guillermo Del Toro has said that Water is a symbol for love that fills all the space and has no shape of its own but it takes the shape of the space is in and has the power to fill you in. So my take was that in the final scene they surrendered to that love and live forever in it. And i think this is a good guess considering the end on Pan’s Labyrinth. I am not going to spoil that for everyone who hasn’t seen it… but the ending can also mean going to live your true dream and desire. What I love about del Toro is that each one get to choose how to interpret the story. I didn’t see Elisa as disabled, I just thought she couldn’t use her voice because she was able to speak and communicate with others. And by the end I even thought that her wounds maybe have always been gills… and so what was a wound, a disability was actually an ability (to love, and to live with the man she loved). The fish man shows the same metaphor when he stands up after being shot and wipes away his wounds… wounds that can’t kill him. I get what you are saying but all I am trying to say is that the movie allows multiple interpretations and perhaps there are more than a few more positive and uplifting ways to see it.
There sure are a lot of people in these comments explaining to the author how she *should* have interpreted the movie, aren’t there?
Elsa, thank you for sharing your perspective.
Elsa, I was going to write something thanking you for the useful and interesting exploration in your review, which I would very much like to talk with you about…
… and then I read the comments. And now all I can do is look at comment #35, which seems to boil down to:
“To me this movie wasn’t about disability. The main character who was disabled was one of the few characters who was not disabled. Most everybody else in the movie was soul-disabled and that is bad. The disabled main character was a source of power and strength, and I cannot think of that as part of someone who is disabled, so her goodness and strength means her disability does not count, because disability is a minus, and being good and strong means you transcend disability. We the (presumably) non-disabled are actually the disabled here, because we do many bad things.The disabled exist primarily as a metaphor to teach us non-disabled to hope and aspire to better. So focusing on disability in a review is silly because there’s really nothing here in this movie about disability at all.”
Well, I’ve had my fill of people saying “Oh, but so-and-so (you, me, the main character of the movie) isn’t really disaaaaaaabled!” with so many different rationales, and I bet you have too, Elsa. I probably should have been braced for it in the comments. I’ll try to remember next time. It’s just that I was enjoying your review so much (even while disagreeing with some of it, which I hope we can talk about sometime when I’m not annoyed by people spraying Disability-B-Gone! all over the discussion), and I let my guard down.
I’m going to think about the movie some more — I just saw it this afternoon finally — and see if coherent thoughts assemble. Meanwhile, thank you for this review, and I am really glad you are here writing. And particularly thank you for this, which is SO IMPORTANT:
“If desired disabled heroines were common, then I wouldn’t have a problem with them being partnered with Hot Monster Boys. But we don’t live in that world yet. Able bodied heroes can have all the Hot Monster Boys they want—to go along with all their able bodied human lovers. Until disabled heroines and their bodies are desired by the same frequency of able bodied to monster lovers, I’m not going to be comfortable with Only Monster Lovers For Disabled Women.”
This. So very much this. Though I am disabled and I definitely do want my Hot Monster Boys. But still, what you said is so true.
thank-you Elsa for your post and for the other disabled commentators: interesting to see so many perspectives on the film.
As an aside, not a movie and not SSF (other than being wish fulfilment) but have you seen West Wing? The first few seasons have a deaf character Joey Lucas who is the love interest for one of the main characters. It’s not a perfect portrayal I’m sure but I always liked Joey Lucas.
Thank you for your insightful commentary regarding TSOW. I am the youngest of 4 boys and my favorite brother recently died at age 60. He died of lung disease, but the point of my comment is that he was deaf. As a child, I used to marvel at Joe’s strength, his determination, his guts, his big brain (he read billions of books I think) and his huge heart. He protected me and I protected him, never viewing him as disabled because we were raised to view him as normal. He was anything but normal in the outside world, but to us, he was beautifully normal and a mensch.
He would have liked this film, but respected your opinion and he would have treated you like a normal human.
Oh, I am a recovering alcoholic, sober for 11 years, and I often feel like an outsider, different, strange and defective. I work very hard to overcome my “disability”, hell, I can’t have a beer at a game or a glass of wine with dinner, but oh well, big deal, I carry on. I don’t begin to compare my issue with yours, it is not, I just wish you the best. Personally, the movie made me proud that I could understand her without he sub-titles and I wish the creature would have taken my brother to the ocean to keep him alive when his lungs stopped working from fibrosis. Bless you.
Elisa was actually signing thank you. right after she spelled out the swear, when the asshole got angry, she switched to thank you, and that’s what dalila was translating.
I don’t speak ASL so I’ll let ASL speakers judge, but I speak Danish sign language, which is related to ASL and has many signs in common, and I understood about 50% of what Elisa said due this. You are right that her sign wasn’t fluent at all, and it was painfully obvious the actress didn’t actually speak any kind of sign language IRL.
I can see (and agree) with many of your points, but re: the singing, she looked to me like she was miming the song, not singing it. and she was saying the exact same thing as the song did in sign language, so…she was using her voice (sign) to express her feelings, and my reading was rather: it didn’t matter if she shouted it or signed it right into his face, fish man would not know. he barely speaks sign language himself (all he manages to say in that scene is ‘eggs’!) and we don’t know how well he understands human speech. so to me that scene was an expression of not just how messy being disabled can be, after years of being seen as other that she can’t easily let it go, but that the person she found might not even understand her at all/be like her after all. (still ehhh.)
Has anybody here read Vonda McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun?
I don’t think there’s more than a very superficial similarity — sea monster to be killed by the government for its purposes, ethical woman and allies rescues it — but a compare and contrast exercise would be an interesting assignment for a class on contemporary sf/f.
And Ms McIntyre should probably go into Mr Nicoll’s list when he gets to surnames beginning with M.
I haven’t seen the movie — but I’m really sorry. I’m sorry it’s been 31 years and there haven’t been aspirational, whole, healthy deaf community stories on the big screen. That’s a huge oversight. I hope the changes in Hollywood change that.
Dear Elsa,
Thank you for your insights into the movie and I can agree with some your comments–especially the lack of disabled people in film. While I am not blind as you are, I was very myopic for almost all my adult life. I may have a learning difference as I failed high school math three times and I barely made my needed math hours in college. I also have curvature of the spine that is visible enough for my mother to tell me when I was a teenager–Lou, would be beautiful if you only stood up straight. Other adults have made comments to me about it in public. I am the only member of my family to be part of a faith community. Presently I wear hearing aids. So, yes I know about being an outsider. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The context of the story is important-1950s. Women, minorities and gays were all outsiders. However, the true outsiders in the movie are the ones who use people for their own gain. We humans need to embrace and honor the wildness of being co-creatures living on this planet. While you may not believe in the Biblical creation story, it has much to say about the movie. There two creation stories–one in which Adam was created first and the second, Adam was created last. We need both stories–pride of place and the humility of being last. The Shape of Water shows that pride of place can be our undoing.
Interesting point of view. It’s a powerful review of the film, in the sense that it both succeeded and failed for you as an audience. In one or two scenes, uplifting or empowering. In others, disappointing/deflating, or repetitiously oppressive.
I definitely agree that casting a non-disabled actress to play a disabled woman is not right. I definitely hear that depicting a disabled character as non-disabled, even in a dream sequence, is pointless and crappy. And I agree that it is tedious to depict her being shot, or any scene that connotes literal death, as a resolution to the plot. If there was one thing about the film I found hardest to forgive, it was that. There are far too many messages to disabled people that they should just die and get out of the way, in all our culture’s art. I’m very, very tired of those messages.
The only criticism I find mildly unfair is the “only loved by a monster” remark. The literal truth of this movie is that the Protagonist is desired by EVERY male entity in the movie that is not openly queer. In this sense, she is pretty much the standard protagonist of all paranormal romance, or of all romance stories in general: that Spunky, Special Girl That Everyone Wants. The only problem is that the film doesn’t develop enough male characters to establish how many guys she’s constantly saying “no” to, before the Fish Dude gets her “yes”.
There are obviously normal-looking, able-bodied human males who desire the Protagonist–the villain embodies them all, and the reason she wants nothing to do with them. The fact that a guy looks “normal” and isn’t disabled doesn’t mean he isn’t a fetishizing, dehumanizing creep.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, though I do plan to. I wanted to throw my own 2 cents in, as another disabled person, with a bit of a dissenting view.
I was born with a deformed right lower limb, which was amputated at the ankle while I was an infant. I learned to walk on a prosthetic at age 3, and have worn one for 31 years now.
You say, “I don’t dream of seeing out of two eyes, or hearing without a hearing aid. I don’t crave many things which are out of my grasp..”
But I do. I dream about walking barefoot along a beach (without worrying about the water getting into my leg), or stretching both sets of toes in the grass. Walking more than a few hundred yards without pain, let alone running or walking for miles.
In my adulthood, I’ve become something of a weightlifter. (If I’d had two good legs, I could’ve been a linebacker, or a bodybuilder/powerlifter, even!) But I can’t perform real squats, deadlifts, and I have to use seated or modified forms of many exercises that would be standing otherwise, and many things I can’t even do FOR my upper leg, because the disabled lower limb angles wrong or can’t support weight properly. (Technically the deformity extended to my femur as well, it’s slightly shorter than the left, the knee can’t fully extend, and has an outward bend which is visible in my stance.)
I wish and hope and despair for having two full legs, and I feel less than whole all the time. (And yes, I’ve spoken to therapists and counselors before, but somehow, all the OTHER junk in my life, much of which probably derives from my physical disability and how it causes others to treat me, has been even worse to eclipse that in their focus.) I cope, I live and work and love, but it’s never going away.
I’m glad for you that you feel more secure and well-adjusted in your disability. But not all of us feel as you do. Some of us are broken, and do not, nor may ever, feel whole.
Dear Elsa,
The Shape of Water is the antithesis to the harmful morality in the original and Disney versions of the Little Mermaid.
The movie shows you the place “where the people are” has been infested by monsters taking the guise of straight white American men. Evil rejects ethnicity, gender, sexuality and ultimately divinity in favour of material culture. Evil torments the heroic characters because outsiders are incomplete freaks under their monstrous standards.
To call Elisa, her lover, or her friends monsters is incorrect. They were accepted by the divine, the monster/s was not. She isn’t escaping, she is rejecting the patriarchy. A Mer maid that lost her voice but refused to become a tool for the gaze of sinners. The audience must transform to accommodate her love, and reject the Little Mermaid for the ablist/sexist/racist/sacrilegious bullcrap it is. Do not be sad for her, be sad for Ariel and any other minority doomed to live on land in the shadow of a disgusting majority. Elisa is in paradise, her friends are stuck in a world that hates black/gay/etc people.
Elisa is in paradise, her friends are stuck in a world that hates black/gay/etc people.
That’s it, though. That’s the problem for me, as an austitstic person, to accept. We shouldn’t have to die like Elisa does to live in a world that loves us. We can make that world NOW.