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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   2132 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 2, 2026

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I finally got around to watching Obsession (there was a discussion on it here). I’ll keep my opinion on it to myself for the time being, but I also began pondering a bit if a gender-swapped version of the movie would a) ever get made b) ever be successful as a relatable story.

I asked myself this question because I know that among feminism-adjacent normie women, especially young urban single women, it’s hugely popular to keep complaining about immature, clingy, icky, cringey, thirsty, creepy, boorish, deranged, potentially violent and even murderous manchildren, not to mention that mainstream society basically keeps egging such shrieking on. So on one hand, a movie like the one above but with the sexes reversed would obviously reinforce all these normie female prejudices and they would presumably lap it up. On the other hand it might end up cutting too close to the bone and come across as too uncomfortable and horrifying.

(I once heard the argument on the LPOTL podcast in the context of the Chicago Rippers that unlike the serial killers who have become really infamous in America, there are ones whose deeds were so horrendous and frightful that there were only scarce attempts to portray them in the media at all because they were bound to elicit extreme revulsion, disgust and anxiety, being unfit for normie exposure. I’m guessing something similar is in effect in this case. Or take the Handmaid’s Tale as another example: ‘fun horror-fiction for women who work in the American-style cubicle-world precisely because it’s so utterly unrelated to the miseries and terrors of their own lives’.)

And then it occurred to me that they whole story just…simply wouldn’t work with the sexes reversed. It would be neither plausible nor relatable. I just can't picture a woman acting and emoting plausibly like the male protagonist in the movie. What do you think?

Why couldn't you make it about the opposite? A mousy girl uses a One Wish Willow to date Chad that she's read about in all her romantasy slop and have her Disney Princess experience, and it turns out that actually being raped isn't as good as it seems even if he's the man of your dreams. Even better if she wishes a whole harem of attractive men loved her, and they kill each other to get to her.

Loser wishes they had a partner can easily be gender swapped.

As an aside. Do you think Bear was the villain or not?

Overall, I'm of two minds about it. On the one hand. You can't know that the genie you're speaking to is real, and so are you responsible for the wish afterwards? On the other hand, he has chances to do something about it, and at every step he chooses the worse option. He possibly had options to cancel the wish. He calls the Support Line for OWW and at first asks to cancel, but then to only alter it, in return the caller hangs up on him. He has other options to essentially institutionalize Nikki after the party, but instead he takes her home. Instead of staying and taking care of Nikki, like the Support says, he instead goes for another woman, clearly knowing the possibility of what would happen there. And once Nikki kills her, instead of finally calling the police, he does nothing. He tries to get his friend to use his one time exclusive wish to get rid of his wish. And finally at the end, he doesn't shoot himself, and instead tries to take pills, before trying to vomit them out afterwards. As far as a pattern goes, he starts with a selfish wish, which he doesn't regret, only the wording itself, and so I would consider him the villain.

Overall, while I see the connections with the gender war and Obsession, and I'm sure a lot of people will try and use them, I don't think that the movie itself is taking a stance of it.

I mean, Bear is a coward, that's really his defining characteristic, and while it's not a sin to be a coward, and it's something that men are judged by far more than women, overall, he's not an incel. By /r9k/ standards he's a normie. He has a job, friends, female friends at that, that he goes out with every week, a girl who likes him (that he doesn't know about), a job, his own inherited house. He is lost in life, and obsessed with his oneitis, but even when the girl he likes asks him if he has feelings for her, he says they're just friends. As an aside, the director said that Nikki would've gone out with him, had he been open with her.

As an aside. Do you think Bear was the villain or not?

Every decision he makes just worsens the situation for everyone, that is for sure.

A mousy girl uses a One Wish Willow to date Chad that she's read about in all her romantasy slop and have her Disney Princess experience, and it turns out that actually being raped isn't as good as it seems even if he's the man of your dreams.

I’m guessing this would likely unintentionally turn the story into another 50 Shades... For the scenario you describe to be workable the love interest would have to transform from an attractive Chad into a clingey, icky, dangerous incel neckbeard, basically the female version of Nikki, because he needs to be repulsive for this to work. And that would render it all unrelatable.

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