Beautiful Sadness Within Beautiful Women
Women’s suffering has always been a point of fascination in society. For centuries, the pain of women has been depicted as tragic, yet beautiful. It seems that whenever an unfortunate woman falls under hardship, it is always enchanting — a trainwreck you can’t look away from. This is how so many stories of women are told, their sadness only playing a worthy role when it is beautiful — when it is so classically “female.” Though many find beauty within their own sadness, this seems to be the only thing found within the sadness of these female characters — not insight, not strength, sometimes not even reality. It’s nothing more than a plot device, an entertainment, the tales of crazy women or weeping girls, of teenage wrecks and mid-life horror stories.
We can see this in countless ways: with films like “Black Swan” (2010), the story of a prima ballerina whose devotion to her craft drives her to madness, and “Blonde” (2022), an invasive and violently tragic biopic covering the life of Marilyn Monroe, and in books like “Valley of the Dolls” (1966), in which three aspiring Hollywood actresses discover the dark side of the industry. These examples serve as interesting mirrors to our society - one in which women can struggle only if it means others can look upon a cinematic, alluring display of hardship.
On Jan. 14, 1963, Sylvia Plath published what would be the only novel of her short life, “The Bell Jar.” Less than a month later, at the age of 30, she famously committed suicide by poisoning herself with a gas oven. Plath was not widely known at the time of her death. Both “The Bell Jar" and her earlier collection of poetry, “Colossus”, had received tentatively positive reviews. However, as more began to discover her work over time, Plath grew to almost mythological status: a tragic woman with a brilliantly tragic mind. Today, “The Bell Jar” is hailed as one of the best and most groundbreaking novels of the 20th century, one that tackled the topic of mental health and female experience like never before. It is a novel beloved by many women and girls: to the point where today, it’s become frequently convoluted. The rise of the internet and social media changed how people consume media, especially film and literature.
Social media is no different than many movies and books. The fascination with female pain continues, but this time it is commonly brought upon by women themselves. Most of the time it manifests itself as coping mechanisms: jokes and memes, TikTok trends, and the rise of aesthetics rich in concentrated femininity have all created a different culture in which to be a woman. In this space, suffering is always beautiful and to be a girl is to be forever cursed, to have to face the world as its muse but also as its inferior. Through this lens, “The Bell Jar” is seen not as an honest story of mental anguish but as simply a woman being a woman, a universal female experience, and as nothing more than a form of entertainment.
One could argue that there is no harm in the phenomena spawned in light humor, but when they are as prevalent as they tend to be, they begin to have a larger impact. Media depicting women in despair is the most integral part of the popular hyper-feminine “coquette” aesthetic, with many young women modeling themselves after it, whether they truly relate or just participate in self-inflicted misery to go along with the bit.
Additionally, media’s original messaging often gets lost in the hum of online discourse, as with Susanna Kaysen’s memoir, “Girl, Interrupted” (1993), also adapted into film in 1999. The book is a raw, honest description of Kaysen’s own time as a borderline personality disorder patient in a mental asylum in the 1960s. It features an array of colorful characters, such as Lisa, a sleazy yet charismatic sociopath, and Daisy, a troubled obsessive compulsive. The movie, though impactful in its own right, is often interpreted in ways that completely diminish its original meaning. A string of beautiful, iconic women portraying the severely mentally ill characters is mostly responsible for this. In the film, Kaysen’s character is played by Winona Ryder, Lisa played by Angelina Jolie, and Daisy played by Brittany Murphy. Due to this, many people online have taken the characters at face value, disregarding their mental illness and instead idolizing the actors playing them and their beauty. There is no shortage of memes expressing that Jolie’s character is “just like me” or calling her a “female joker”, when in fact Lisa has little regard for those around her and is incredibly dangerous to herself and others. Countless filter-tinted photos of Daisy’s mourning looks exist on Pinterest, saved to boards serving as shrines for gorgeous women dubbed “sad girls”.
Romanticization of mental illness is another issue on the internet, a phenomenon common with not only “Girl, Interrupted”, but many other popular forms of entertainment, such as the TV show “Euphoria” (2019). Upon its release, “Euphoria” was hit with endless criticism for its depiction of mental illness and its victimization of women and fetishization of their pain. The characters of Maddy, Cassie, Jules, Rue, and Kat, though each having widely ranging stories, all have tragic gimmicks that are demonstrated through color theory, glitter tears, and crumpling faces leading into dramatic sobs. The women of “Euphoria” are hardened yet so vulnerable, given impossible roles to fill, but the show unrealistically twists to fit them all.
This captivation with women’s sadness is endlessly multifaceted. By bringing clarity to an often muddled topic, there can be recognition of the societal expectations that can hold back many. Women should not be expected to be consistently perfect in the ways they feel their emotions, especially those difficult to process. They should not be expected to be beautiful in every aspect of their existence in order to be worthy of acknowledgement. Pain is pain, regardless of misinterpretation, depiction or futility, and there should be no special complications set in order to recognize it in others.
