The Exorcist (1973)

“Your mother sucks cocks in hell!”

The Exorcist is not only one of the rare horror films to actually win at the Oscars, it also permanently traumatized an entire generation of people who’d never before contemplated the nature of good & evil. The Exorcist, like much of William Friedkin’s work, does not justify anyone’s morals, letting the events unfold in a pseudo-natural way. We never understand the logic behind the events, we don’t learn why they start or why they end. Though Friedkin would go on to make many more films, The Exorcist became a kind of blessing and curse for him. No other film of his would ever come close to reaching the fervor sparked by this movie, which is still one of the most notorious American films of all time.

My experience with The Exorcist feels separate from its legacy. The premise that the catholic church is an arbiter of good and evil is propaganda, and the idea that they’d rally to protect a little girl is, at best, laughable (google Every Child Matters). When I watch this movie, I see the patriarchal trend of powerful men using little girls as vessels for their own vulnerability. They design a kind of “purity” & “innocence” specifically for them to “save”. To this day, it's the medical scenes that make me the most uncomfortable, way more than the possession, but for a long time I didn’t really have the words to express what exactly bothered me about this movie. I remember, as a young person, trying to explain this issue to a friend when he cut me off to pointedly ask “you’re not some kind of feminist, are you?”

This is one of many ‘classic’ movies that I’ve had to learn to appreciate on my own terms. I can appreciate all the technical ways why The Exorcist is impressive, and still express the hangups I have with the story and its themes. Now, revisiting movies like this gives me joy because I can reconnect to my younger self, and name all the feelings that have lingered for decades.