Exploring David Lynch’s obsession with ‘troubled women’
It wasn’t until 1986’s Blue Velvet that surrealist auteur David Lynch began to predominantly centre his work around ‘troubled women’ – those who suffer from abuse, addiction, violence, mental health issues, and possibly even end up dead. While the movie follows a male protagonist, Jeffrey, Blue Velvet’s main allure is really the story of Dorothy Vallens, both a woman in danger and a dangerous woman.
Plain, well-to-do Jeffrey gets sucked into Dorothy’s world after discovering a severed ear, soon embarking on a sexual relationship with the beautiful lounge singer. The world in which Dorothy is located is seedy and criminal, the inverse of the quaint American suburbia that Jeffrey occupies. Dorothy, who is played magnificently by Isabella Rossellini, is a complex character, one who is a victim of sexual violence but also a domineering and commanding woman who is partial to transgressive sex, engaging in such acts with Jeffrey.
Nothing about Dorothy is safe and secure – her husband and son have been held hostage, and she is abused by the vicious Frank Booth. She is anything but the idealised figure of womanhood associated with Jeffrey’s previously idyllic life, yet simultaneously, she subverts the helpless femme fatale trope in spite of her sultry appearance.
Blue Velvet is a movie with many interpretations, but at its core, it is about the failures of society, the fight between good and evil, and the futile nature of the American dream. As Lynch peels back the curtains of American suburbia, revealing plenty of cracks in the surface, he also exposes the oppressive nature of the patriarchy and toxic masculinity, something that significantly affects Dorothy.
At the same time, Lynch doesn’t make his female characters, like Dorothy, into mere victims. There is an intricacy to the way the filmmaker fashions his female characters as multi-dimensional beings who aren’t simply defined by the men who surround them.
As Lynch’s career continued, he often placed more troubled women at the centre of his work, such as Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks and its prequel film, Fire Walk With Me. A victim of incest, Laura is also a drug addict and underage prostitute. She endures plenty of hardship in her life, eventually reaching her early demise at the hands of her father. The depiction of Laura Palmer as the ‘ultimate victim’ has been a topic of conversation and criticism since the show began, but it would be too simple to say that Lynch’s depiction of the character is simply laced with misogyny.
Laura is the epitome of the troubled woman theme that runs through Lynch’s work, never able to rest due to incessant abuse and torment, even from her own father. But Lynch is always on Laura’s side, using her story as an indictment against the evil that lurks in the quaintest-looking towns by those who appear to stick to the status quo and abide by social norms. In reality, the American dream fails to consider the inherent evil that permeates society, much of which is perpetuated by unrealistic expectations placed on citizens, such as gender roles or the pressure to succeed.
The sad reality is that male-on-female violence is widespread; even incest and paedophilia are more common than we’d like to acknowledge. Lynch doesn’t hold back in showing us what really lies beneath the surface, and while the filmmaker is certainly guilty of objectifying his female characters throughout his oeuvre – and he may never understand women like women themselves – his obsession with troubled female characters seems to stem from a preoccupation with exposing the corruption of society.
Mulholland Drive also depicts troubled women, namely in the form of Diane, the obsessive, jealous, corrupt half of a character we are previously introduced to as the kind-hearted, bubbly Betty, who only exists in Diane’s fantasy world. Diane succumbs to her inability to achieve success in Hollywood or get the girl (Camilla), with Lynch highlighting the cruel nature of Hollywood – a star-making machine that feels like the ultimate symbol of the American dream.
However, Lynch’s final film, Inland Empire, amps up his portrayal of troubled women with Nikki Grace, played by Laura Dern. The movie follows Nikki, an actor, as her real life begins to blur with the character she is playing. It is abstract, bizarre and, at times, harrowing, with Dern truly conveying the extent of mental collapse and paranoia, presenting female suffering without a garnishing of glamourisation.
It is refreshing to see a woman looking dishevelled on screen – but not in a sexy way – and to act in a way that is grotesque, frightening and ‘unladylike’. Dern’s character violently screams in one scene, her face warping into a horror-like character – there is nothing pretty to see here.
Lynch’s obsession with troubled women seems to reflect his desire to highlight the innate brutality and oppression that is rampant in a society that likes to brush all that under a ‘welcome’ mat. It is the demands and doctrines of the patriarchy that force many women into a state of trouble, like Laura Palmer, who suffers incestual abuse or Nikki Grace, who also reveals a history of child sexual abuse.
The director’s highlighting of such potent issues, like violence against women, serves his wider thematic explorations of rampant societal evil and corruption. While Lynch’s depictions of womanhood are nowhere near flawless, his preoccupation with troubled women is a fascinating feature of his filmography. For the most part, he ensures that his female characters are complexly designed, allowing his actors to mould these women into truly special and iconic components of his cinematic world that he would be nothing without.
