Impressions from Watching Wicked Little Letters

When I was about seven, I wrote down all the curse words I knew on little pieces of paper and carried them with me in my tiny purse. I’d pull them out and share them with my friends, and we’d laugh hysterically. We knew it was forbidden to say them, which made it all the more thrilling.

One day, though, my dad found them. I denied they were mine, saying, "I'm holding them for a friend" (I wasn't secret-agent material, that's for sure). He called them shameful and, understandably, threw them out.

Still, I remember the excitement of writing them down, sneaking glances, and whispering them behind closed doors while sharing a laugh with my friends. I didn’t realize at the time that this was a way for me to grasp some control as a child. And, of course, there was the thrill of doing something forbidden.

The movie Wicked Little Letters touches on this and so much more. Even as a middle-aged woman, Edith has to endure her father's control—because she lives with him and cannot does not earn her own keep. He constantly tells her she needs to act like a proper Christian lady and punishes her by making her write Bible verses hundreds of times.

Her mother, too, never stands up to her husband and lives in quiet resignation, oppressed by her conditioning in a patriarchal society and, implicitly, by her lack of financial independence. Oppression is almost always tolerated due to a lack of financial independence.

Stuck in the 'good girl' double bind

Edith is trapped in what Kasia Urbaniak calls the "good girl double bind." That undefined space between being a good girl and a bad one, sometimes neither or both at the same time. Edith feels pressure from her family and society to behave like a proper Christian lady.

But in her violent attempts to suppress her “shadow” (the part of ourselves we hide, repress, or deny, often carrying our most rejected qualities), the shadow overpowers her, emerging in the form of crude letters she sends around town.

In our society, this effect is much more subtle. Every woman feels constraints and expectations from all sides, and at some point, she freezes, unable to move in any direction. She watches life pass her by while stuck in a gray area, unable to fully step into her personal power and birthright to experience life deeply and authentically.

Maybe she stays with a man even though she feels she can't be her full self in the relationship, but she's afraid she'll never find another love.

Maybe she lets go of her deeply buried desire to be a painter, travel the world, or experience a threesome.

Maybe she’s just gotten used to accommodating everyone else and has stopped voicing even her smallest preferences, like whether she likes a certain song or cocktail. The small betrayals don’t even matter anymore when you know you've already betrayed your deepest desires.

'You don’t know what you like'

This is what Edith’s father says when she confronts him about sending her former fiancé away. I think many women hear this, at least from their inner critic. We stop ourselves from wanting things because we’re told, or tell ourselves, that we don’t really know what we like.

Not having the time or space to explore what you truly like as a woman creates a vicious cycle. Preferences and desires seem fickle, and thus, they’re deemed unworthy. But they’re not.

Being a woman is challenging in so many seen and unseen ways. We often talk about equal pay and access to top jobs, but there are also subtle ways of self-sabotage that need to be brought to light and deconstructed.

We stop ourselves from dreaming too big, assume our deepest desires are wrong, and fear making mistakes or ruffling feathers. We worry about what our family or friends would think if we ever let any of our true colors show.

I believe we should push ourselves to be “bad girls” once in a while, in small or big ways. Because when we do, at least we’ll have lived. Mistakes are part of life, too. What we often discover is that the desires we deemed inappropriate or improper weren’t that at all and that those around us didn’t judge us as harshly as we thought.

Some may even be impressed and inspired by our boldness. In the end, the only real regret is not acting on those desires sooner.