The Overlooked World of Femcel Cinema
In recent years, mainstream media has extensively, if not always effectively, covered the phenomenon of "incel" culture. Television has produced documentaries like Adolescence and Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, while films have offered numerous reflections on male radicalisation, including The Beast, Manodrome, Don’t Worry Darling, Joker, and even the Kens in Barbie.
However, a significant irony persists: women are largely absent from these narratives. Despite the rise of tradwife culture and the wellness-to-alt-right pipeline, often driven by female influencers known as the womanosphere, there is a stark lack of onscreen representation for "femcels." This gap is particularly glaring given that around 50% of white US women voted for Donald Trump in 2024, highlighting the complex dynamics of female political engagement.
Understanding Femcel Culture
It is crucial to note that not all female Trump voters can be classified as femcels, and femcel culture does not mirror the aggressive tendencies often associated with male incels. Instead, women in the alt-right frequently adopt less confrontational platforms. Pink-pilled female influencers, for instance, promote more palatable versions of right-wing ideals, such as traditional lifestyles, acting as recruiters for further radicalisation.
By consistently erasing these key participants in favour of their louder male counterparts, cinema presents a limited view of the alt-right and the accessible pathways to extremism. This oversight hinders a comprehensive understanding of how radicalisation operates across genders.
Cinematic Explorations of Female Radicalisation
Historically, cinema's attempts to depict women's dark online tendencies have been confined to heavily aestheticised films like Ingrid Goes West, Not Okay, and Sick of Myself, which focus on Instagram obsessives pursuing aspirational lifestyles. However, a handful of films have ventured beyond this shallow realm to explore female online radicalisation more deeply.
Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World features Angela, played by Ilinca Manalache, whose real-life parallels align with the Dimes Square crowd capitalising on irony-laden controversy. As a production assistant in Bucharest, Angela leads a mundane daily life but creates online content where she delivers misogynistic rants using a filter that superimposes Andrew Tate’s face over her own. This juxtaposition highlights how influencer culture can draw users into flirting with controversy for profit.
Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms delves into the story of Kelly-Anne, portrayed by Juliette Gariépy, a true-crime obsessed hacker who becomes entangled in a murder trial. Her nihilism, symbolised by taking the "black pill," leads to self-destructive actions, such as attending court dressed as a victim, which ruins her modelling career. Kelly-Anne’s existence is fuelled by her online life, allowing her to disregard external morality.
Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama, the latest addition to femcel cinema, stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a couple grappling with a dark past. Emma, played by Zendaya, reveals she nearly executed a school shooting as a teenager, inspired by far-right aesthetics and real-life cases like Brenda Spencer. The film excels in depicting the lack of empathy shown towards women who emerge from dark paths, contrasting with the kid-glove treatment often afforded to men leaving extremist factions.
The Broader Implications and Challenges
Femcel culture is as varied as its male counterpart, encompassing figures from ironic controversialists to nihilistic hackers. Yet, cinema has been slow to reflect this diversity. The scarcity of such films raises a critical question: why has the media readily embraced the problem of men’s online radicalisation while neglecting women’s?
Lois Shearing’s book Pink-Pilled: Women and the Far Right argues that this denial stems partly from a "benevolent" sexist view that perceives women as inherently caring and motherly. This perspective is echoed in The Drama, where Charlie’s initial description of Emma as kind and empathic may be more a projection of societal expectations than reality.
Characters like Emma, Kelly-Anne, and Angela defy warm, well-socialised feminine cliches, preferring the dark corners of the web over peer bonding. They embody the moral ambivalence encouraged by profit-driven algorithms, influencer culture, and the attention economy. However, society often views them as anomalies, failing to depict and dissect women who participate in misogynistic realms.
Ultimately, while the looksmaxxing men of the manosphere may appear extreme, they are often aided by women in the far right who soften the movement’s image, making it more palatable. By ignoring femcel narratives, cinema misses an opportunity to explore the full spectrum of radicalisation and its impact on contemporary society.
