The Gothic Heroine’s Second Act
Quarantine art is marked by dread and claustrophobia, characteristics that have always been predominantly female
The future may or may not be female, but quarantine is. Six months into the global pandemic that has brought American life to a crashing halt, we can now spot a trend of seemingly era-defining works, all of them by women. There’s Fiona Apple’s long-awaited Fetch the Bolt Cutters, recorded entirely in her home, on cheap GarageBand software, which “sounds like 2020 feels.” There’s Taylor Swift’s Folklore, an album of downtempo, social-distanced piano music written and recorded miles away from her closest collaborators. To this growing canon, we can now add Amy Seimetz’s film She Dies Tomorrow, which critics have called “the most 2020 movie of 2020.”
More unites these works than just the gender of their creators, of course. They all possess a hushed and quiet tone, equal parts creeping claustrophobia and lingering sadness. It’s the mood you hear in the muffled pops and thumps behind Fiona Apple’s voice when she whispers, “I’ve been in here too long,” or the foggy black-and-white deep woods Taylor Swift wanders through in her album photography.
That spirit of melancholy also imbues She Dies Tomorrow, which premieres today on VOD. She Dies Tomorrow was…
