I went to go see the film The Shape of Water this past weekend. I was astonished at the three main characters, but at the same time, I wasn’t. The film follows a mute woman, an older gay man and a black woman. Differently abled, black and LGBTQ people all on the same screen at the same time?
I had never thought of that ever being possible, but in this movie it made complete sense. I warn you, spoilers lie ahead.
Since the film is a fantasy romance between regarding a fish man and a mute woman, one would think that there wasn’t going to be social commentary.
The film does not shy away from the historical context of which it was set in, the 60s, which adds significantly to the movie. The three main protagonists save this fish man from the evils of a wealthy white man. The wealthy white man doesn’t see the fish man as a person, but it’s also very apparent that he doesn’t see the black woman and the differently abled person as people either. The gay man goes about his life and tries to be an integrated member of society and consistently gets rejected, sometimes obviously because he is gay and, other times, it is insinuated.
Even though this is a movie, an unrealistic fantasy, we see this time and time again. Marginalized people advocate and fight for marginalized people because we know what it is like to be attacked. The main fighters at the Stonewall Riots (and similar uprisings) were trans women and queer people of color; one of the cofounders of Black Lives Matter is a black queer woman. Intersectional and “othered” people always end up saving the world, and this time cinema. Thank you Guillermo Del Toro, for making this incredible film.
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