But the algorithm did its job, I suppose; for the next few months, I became a woman crazed with the song (yes; just the single song, I’m not sure why I didn’t listen to the rest of the musical to be honest), and incessantly badgered my parents for tickets to see the play live. As a proud theatre kid, I had begged and dragged my parents to many musicals— though I’m proud to say they enjoyed the majority— and had annoyed them with Carrie Hope Fletcher’s Beautiful and Renée Elise Goldsberry’s Satisfied through my bedroom walls long enough. This time, though, as I showed them the cheap yet still worthy seats I had expertly picked out on my phone (shoutout to TodayTix!) I swore I was going to die if I didn’t see the play.

As a child, I loved Greek mythology. It had always fascinated me. I’d spend school drop-offs stuck in traffic with my dad, listening to National Geographic Kids’ Greeking Out, and my bookshelves were filled with myths and sticker books where I had a bit of an obsession with making sure Artemis and Aphrodite were always near each other. However, even given this, I hadn’t heard of this specific couple’s fable. Perhaps since I was 9 at the time, the story didn’t appeal to me the same way the dramatic battles had, but just in case you haven’t heard of it either, allow me to briefly regale you with it.

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The story itself is one loved and retold in numerous ways. In its musical, most obviously, Hadestown, with a capitalist spin. Jean Cocteau’s classic 1950 French film Orpheus (or Orphée) is set in Paris and involves a princess who depicts Death. Even 20th Century Fox made it into a very successful kids’ movie, when director Jorge Gutierrez used it as a foundation to create The Book of Life (2014).

The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is traditionally remembered as one of the greatest tragedies of love. While there are many versions, I shall tell the most well-known, Ovid’s Metamorphoses.1

Orpheus (son of Calliope, the muse of epic poetry) is a poet and musician, often playing the kithara (a harp-like lyre) to control flora and fauna alike, with a melody so mesmerising that its rhythm causes obedience. He falls for Eurydice, a nymph, and the two are wed. During the wedding, however, the marriage god Hymen brings bad omens with a smoking, tear-inducing torch. Worried, but determined that their bond is strong, the couple do not properly heed the warning. Not long after the marriage, the newlyweds are parted when a poisonous viper bite takes Eurydice’s life.2 Filled with grief at his loss, Orpheus cannot accept the loss of his adored bride, and he decides to journey to the Underworld to bring her back. His musical gifts charm Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the gates, and allow him finally to reach the god of the Underworld, Hades, and his wife, Persephone. He beguiles them, too, with his song, and Hades tells Orpheus that he can take Eurydice back with him, under one condition: she must follow behind him as they emerge from the Underworld, and he must not turn to look at her.

Overjoyed at being set this seemingly simple task, Orpheus thanks the gods and begins his ascent. But, unable to hear Eurydice’s footsteps, he starts to fear that Hades has fooled him. As he nears the exit from the Underworld, he turns to see Eurydice behind him, and she is trapped forever, taken back to Hades’ clutches. Devastated by this final separation and unable to return to the Underworld himself, Orpheus plays a mourning song on his lyre and is torn to pieces by a band of Maenads (female followers of the god Dionysus). His head remains intact and continues to sing as it floats off on the waters.3

In some poetic retellings of the myth, the story differs slightly. Orpheus turning around is not due to his own doubt, but his worry when hearing a sound that she had stumbled, lagged, or fallen in the dark, misty path, making the instinctive movement just to check on her. (Heartbreaking, I know).4 Plato’s Symposium, on the other hand, condemns Orpheus as a coward for trying to cheat death instead of accepting its inevitability: He “showed no spirit ... did not dare like Alcestis to die for love, but was contriving how he might enter Hades alive; moreover, they afterwards caused him to suffer death at the hands of women, as the punishment of his cowardliness.”5 More recently, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels depict Orpheus overcome by suspicion, who concludes he’s been tricked by Hades and ultimately looks back in anger. (Someone play Wonderwall!)6

But what most agree on is that the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is traditionally remembered as one of the greatest tragedies of love: a husband loves his dead wife so profoundly that he travels into the Underworld to retrieve her, only to lose her again because, at the final moment, he lets his own doubt cause his downfall. Yes, it is love. Yes, it is sad. And, yes, I had a different take.

The conventional interpretation is therefore centred almost entirely upon Orpheus. His love is extraordinary, his grief is heroic, and his failure is tragic. Eurydice, meanwhile, is largely reduced to the object of his devotion. She dies, he mourns, he rescues her, and then he loses her again. Yet what happens if the story is viewed from Eurydice’s perspective? What if the backward glance is not simply Orpheus’s mistake? What if Eurydice did not want to return to the world of the living at all?

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This interpretation fundamentally changes the myth. Rather than presenting Eurydice as a woman tragically deprived of life by her husband’s failure, she can be imagined as a woman whose wishes have never been properly considered. Her first death is beyond her control, but her second is determined by Orpheus. Between the two, she is repeatedly treated as something to be possessed, retrieved and returned. In my honest opinion, Orpheus was more concerned with the fact that he needed his wife back, someone to care for him, rather than Eurydice herself. The token over the actual person. Was Orpheus actually rescuing Eurydice, or is he rescuing the version of Eurydice he wanted to have?

The important point to make clear, however, is that Eurydice does not make this bargain. Orpheus does. Hades does. The gods do. More simply: the men do. Eurydice herself is almost absent from the decision concerning her own existence.

The common theme in all versions of this tale is that Eurydice is treated as an object rather than a subject. She becomes the reward for Orpheus’s artistic achievement; because his music is beautiful enough to move the rulers of the dead, he is granted the woman he loves. The language surrounding her in Ovid reinforces this sense of possession. Orpheus asks for Eurydice to be returned, and the conditions of her return are imposed upon her without her consent. No matter what happens, she is always unheard.7 Furthermore, why should we automatically assume that Eurydice wants to leave the Underworld? The Underworld, although traditionally presented as a place of darkness, may also represent the only realm in which she is no longer subject to the expectations of marriage, femininity and possession. She is dead, but perhaps death is the first state in which she belongs entirely to herself.

The backward glance can therefore be reinterpreted. Instead of seeing Orpheus as the tragic victim who simply cannot resist looking at his beloved, we can imagine Eurydice deliberately allowing him to turn. Perhaps she wants him to. Perhaps she has realised, during their ascent, that returning to life means returning to a world in which her existence is defined by somebody else. Or perhaps she understands that Orpheus is not actually asking whether she wants to return; he is simply assuming that she does.

Virgil’s version makes this interpretation particularly interesting because Eurydice actually speaks when Orpheus looks back. She cries out against his action, describing it as madness and mourning the fact that the Fates are calling her back.8 At first, this appears to destroy the argument that Eurydice wanted to remain dead. She clearly expresses distress at losing Orpheus again. Yet even here, her tragedy can be interpreted differently. Her grief does not necessarily mean that she wanted the life Orpheus had chosen for her. She may love him and still resent the fact that her existence is determined by his choices.

This distinction is essential: love and liberation are not opposites. Eurydice could love Orpheus and still not want to be rescued. She could want him and still want freedom from him. The traditional myth often treats the two desires as mutually exclusive, as though accepting Orpheus’s love requires Eurydice to accept the life he has chosen for her.

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This is precisely why modern adaptations of the myth are so significant. Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown gives Eurydice considerably more agency than the ancient versions. She is no longer simply the beautiful dead wife waiting for Orpheus. She is hungry, pragmatic and frightened by the world around her. She chooses to go to Hadestown because she believes it offers security when the surface world cannot. Her decision is therefore fundamentally different from the passive death of Ovid’s Eurydice. The musical can consequently ask not simply whether Orpheus succeeds in rescuing her, but whether Eurydice ever needed to be rescued in the first place.

The contrast between Orpheus’s optimism and Eurydice’s practicality is especially important. Orpheus believes that the world can be transformed through music and love, while Eurydice is forced to think about food, shelter and survival. His idealism can therefore become another form of privilege: he can afford to believe that love will solve everything because he is not the person starving. Eurydice is the one who has to survive the consequences of his romanticism. Critics and scholars alike both agree that Hadestown gives her a voice with which to make that choice, whereas Ovid’s Eurydice barely has the opportunity to express one. Hadestown significantly expands Eurydice’s characterisation, giving her a backstory, personality and capacity to make decisions that influence the narrative. 9

The final journey out of Hadestown is therefore more complicated than the traditional story. Hades tells Orpheus that he may take Eurydice back to the surface, but only if he walks ahead of her and refuses to look back. The condition transforms Eurydice into a test of Orpheus’s trust. He must believe that she is there without being able to see her. In “Doubt Comes In”, however, Orpheus begins to question everything. He wonders whether Hades has deceived him and whether Eurydice is actually following him. Eurydice reassures him, but he cannot hear her clearly enough to overcome his doubt. He turns. She disappears.10

At first, this appears to be another story about male failure. But there is another possibility. Eurydice’s silence behind Orpheus can itself be interpreted as deliberate. If she knows that he cannot trust her presence without seeing her, perhaps the tragedy is not simply that Orpheus turns around. It is that he cannot imagine Eurydice as an independent person capable of choosing to follow him. He needs visual confirmation. He needs proof. His love requires possession. He is, simply once again, a man.

The feminist significance of this is enormous. The entire journey becomes a test of whether Orpheus can accept Eurydice’s existence outside his immediate perception. He cannot. He must see her. He must know where she is. He must know that she is choosing him. And the instant he turns around, he destroys the possibility of her choice.

This makes the idea that Eurydice wanted him to turn around particularly compelling. Perhaps she understood something Orpheus did not: that his obsession with certainty was incompatible with genuine freedom. Perhaps she realised that if he needed to look at her to believe in her, then he was never truly trusting her.

The idea is not entirely without precedent. Feminist reinterpretations of the myth have repeatedly attempted to give Eurydice agency. Margaret Fuller famously imagined a reversal in which “Eurydice” becomes the active figure rather than the rescued woman, while writers such as H.D. and Margaret Atwood have rewritten the story from Eurydice’s perspective to challenge the male-centred literary tradition surrounding Orpheus.11 Most radically, Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Eurydice” allows Eurydice to deliberately manipulate the situation so that Orpheus looks back, permitting her to remain in the Underworld.12 Feminist revision therefore does not merely ask what happened to Eurydice; it asks what she might have wanted if she had been allowed to speak.

Like in most religions and myths, there are similarities and lots of overlap. When I first began to plan to write this essay, I was reminded of the Hindu story of Savitri and Satyavan. While the story itself is strikingly similar to the Greek myth, the gender roles are completely reversed.

In the Mahabharata, Savitri’s husband Satyavan is destined to die. When Yama, the god of death, comes to claim Satyavan’s soul, Savitri follows him. Like Orpheus, she enters the territory of death and attempts to negotiate for the return of the person she loves. She is eventually granted a series of boons, and through her intelligence she constructs a request that makes the restoration of Satyavan’s life necessary.13

The difference is striking. Orpheus uses music; Savitri uses language. Orpheus attempts to persuade the rulers of death through artistic beauty; Savitri persuades Yama through intelligence, patience, morality and strategic reasoning. Most importantly, Savitri is the active subject of the story. She is not waiting somewhere to be rescued. She follows death itself.

This reversal exposes how gendered the Greek myth actually is. When a man descends into the Underworld for his wife, Western mythology traditionally presents him as heroic. When a woman follows death to retrieve her husband, the narrative can become a celebration of her intelligence, loyalty and determination. Savitri does not simply love Satyavan; she acts because of that love. Her agency is what produces the happy ending.

The contrast also reveals something important about the idea of choice. Savitri chooses Satyavan even though she knows of the premonition predicting his death. She enters the story already aware of the consequences of her decision. Eurydice, by comparison, is never given a comparable opportunity to choose. She dies. Orpheus retrieves her. Hades imposes a condition. Orpheus turns. She dies again. Her entire narrative consists of decisions made around her.

That is why the feminist reinterpretation of Eurydice is so powerful. The most radical thing she could do is simply refuse to participate in the narrative that has been constructed for her.

Perhaps she did not want to return. Perhaps she had already understood that Orpheus’s descent was not necessarily salvation. Perhaps when she followed him out of the Underworld, she was not following him because she wanted the life he promised, but because she loved him enough to try.
And perhaps, when Orpheus turned, she was relieved.

In Hadestown, this possibility becomes especially poignant because the story is deliberately cyclical. Hermes tells us that the tale has happened before and will happen again. The musical ends with the story beginning again, meaning that Orpheus and Eurydice are trapped within a narrative that repeatedly produces the same tragedy. The repetition allows the audience to reconsider what exactly is tragic. 14

But is the tragedy that Orpheus cannot save Eurydice? Or is it that Eurydice can never escape being the woman whom Orpheus must save?

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Greeking Out (childish, but hella fun)

I say it the way you used to,
that small, careless rise at the end,
the pause you never knew you made,
like the sentence was a door you left ajar.

It stops me.
Mid-breath.
Mid-word.

Because for a second
I am not alone in the room.
Your voice echoes through mine
and I don’t know whether to apologize
or thank you.

How strange,
to outlive a love
but still speak in its accent.

I didn’t mean to keep you.
You just stayed.
In the rhythm of my mouth,
in the way I soften certain words
like they might bruise if handled wrong.

I hear it then,
the quiet proof
that I am a patchwork of ghosts,
a quilt stitched from people
who once touched my life deeply enough
to leave fingerprints on my tongue.

Some left gently.
Some tore their way out.
Some slammed doors so hard
the echo learned my name.

And still,
I carry them.

In the way I laugh at the wrong moment.
In the phrases I say when I’m tired.
In the tone I use when I’m afraid
and pretending I’m not.

This is what survival sounds like:
not forgetting,
but transforming.

Not absence,
but inheritance.

I pause;
not in grief,
not in regret,
but recognition.

I am not fractured.
I am composed.

Built from love and loss alike,
from voices that stayed
and voices that didn’t earn the right to.

I speak,
and hear the past breathing through me,
not as a wound,
but as proof
that I was once known,
once changed,
once brave enough
to let someone leave their voice behind.

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Even when I sit at my desk, fully intending to finally write out all the scenes that I had formulated in my mind, I stray away from it. Instead, I search for a lighter. Any will do, but not those damned matches that waste an obscene amount of time to actually strike; no, time-wasters will not be tolerated right now.

Then, the expedition for the perfect scented candle. From my obsession of 2024, there’s a multitude to choose from. The vanilla Yankee I spent my month’s allowance on? Or the pumpkin spice (what?) I bought from TKMax that smells far too sweet and gives me a headache if it’s lit too long, but its container is a ceramic milk carton, and it’s far too cute to throw away. Or the jasmine one I impulsively bought from Ikea, just as they intend for you to do.

Once I eventually settle, the candle flickering against the small fan residing on my bookshelf because the heatwave is growing unbearable and it’s needed for survival, I somehow only sit for a moment before remembering another thing I need to do. Turning off my lamp next to me, since the Big Light shall never be flicked on, I instead fiddle with the buttons for my fairy lights until the room is washed in a light glow. It’s not relevant that the lack of light makes it exceedingly difficult to actually write. But, oh, how appealing does it look?! A few quick pictures of the setup, shifting around objects and the lighting, make it perfect for Pinterest.

Needing the optimum focus environment, what had been my Word doc is discarded to open YouTube, while I scour for ambience videos and the noises of rainfall, or the sounds of a forest. Bonus points if it’s a chic European cafe.

But how arduous this was! The time slipped through my fingers before I could even recollect how it left me.
And by the time I actually begin, I realise my time is up, and that now reality, of work, house chores and other tasks, awaits. What’s even worse: the brewed cuppa (let’s all admit it, to be slightly performative) has gone cold.

It’s a system we’ve all fallen for many times before. The preference to be performative over practical.

And while I love the app to death, Pinterest propaganda pushes this further, with boards and Whispers. Writer YouTubers aren’t much better; while most teach how to actually write a novel, a fair few favour ‘romanticising’ the story before it’s even written.

Not only that, but algorithms are screwing us over too. Uttering the word manuscript or novel a bit too close to the iPhone speaker invokes a flood of reels, almost all nonsensical. As these pins churn out horribly cringey content (“Are you drunk?” “I’m a poet.” Oh, okay, I’m going to die), with a feed full of ‘poet core’.

This normalcy, while it is fun to make playlists and Pinterest boards, is damaging us. How can anyone be expected to create literature when the author is more interested in creating mood boards and character profiles?

Being aesthetic is costing us art.

Before my research, I believed this aesthetic’s origins were rooted in Tumblr, which then leaked into Pinterest, where it dominated. Back in the bliss of early COVID, when the lockdown still hadn’t become unbearable, we got collages of thin-framed glasses, thick sweaters, notebooks, teacups, and, for some reason, a constant fungi/frog theme. It developed further into something more cinematic and mature; old books, vintage typewriters, coffee beside a novel, candles, overall dark academia. But truly, after some extensive research, I have found that this didn’t actually begin just a few years ago, but centuries ago.

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Origins

Let’s travel back to the 19th Century. This is where the aesthetic we know today evolved from. Like most things, philosophy played a key role in development, along with Romanticism and French ideology.

Art for Art’s Sake.

The slogan, if you will, of this movement was translated from the original French (“l’art pour l’art”); it means that art has its own inherent value.1 Thinkers such as the German Philosopher, Immanuel Kant argued that beauty and aesthetic judgement could be considered independently of practical usefulness or morality.
But, to further understand why this was significant, we need to understand Victorian society.

Victorian Era

Aestheticism became particularly important in Britain (after spreading across Europe) during the 1860s–1890s. As it was the Victorian era, society often placed considerable importance on morality, status, religion and stoicism.

However, Aestheticism was revolutionary, as it challenged some of these values. The key members of the movement essentially asked why art had to teach, and why it couldn’t just exist for beauty’s sake. This made the movement particularly controversial; most Victorian critics believed literature should improve people’s morals or contribute something useful to society. Aestheticism, instead of conforming, emphasised personal taste, beauty, pleasure, and artistic freedom.2

Individuals: Pater and Wilde

One of the most important figures in the development of British Aestheticism was Walter Pater, and, of course, Oscar Wilde.

Pater was a writer, critic, and academic at Oxford. Published in February 1873 as Studies in the History of the Renaissance (and later retitled The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry), Walter Pater’s influential collection of essays became the manifesto for the British Aesthetic movement, urging readers to prioritise beauty, art, and intense sensuous experience over Victorian morality. His target audience came to be the younger generation, as his ideas helped establish the idea of the aesthetic personality: someone who consciously surrounds themselves with beautiful objects, art, literature, music, clothing, and experiences.

Then, enter (through the attic door— ha! Get it?) Oscar Wilde.
Wilde became perhaps the most famous representative of Aestheticism, and is the figure most people come to think of first. He was famous not only for his writing but also for his appearance, clothing, personality, and public image. He deliberately presented himself as an artistic and unconventional figure.
His novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) is particularly important to Aestheticism because it explores beauty, morality and decadence, all key elements of the era.

Wilde also famously argued that: “All art is quite useless.”

The statement was deliberately provocative, suggesting that art does not need to justify itself by being morally or practically useful (much like the French’s l’art pour l’art). Wilde therefore helped turn Aestheticism into not just a literary philosophy but also a lifestyle and public identity. Wilde’s clothing, appearance, personality, public performances and writing all contributed to the image of the artistic individual. In doing so, the base of the ‘writer aesthetic’ we know in our modern day is formed.3

This is where we can begin to see the connection between nineteenth-century Aestheticism and the modern “writer aesthetic.”

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Today, social media has transformed writers into something that can be photographed and displayed.
The writer is no longer simply someone who writes literature. The writer can become an aesthetic; an idealistic, unrealistic image. We see pictures of annotated novels, antique desks, fountain pens, typewriters, coffee shops, candles, bookshelves, manuscripts and carefully arranged notebooks.

Now, I must admit: there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. In fact, creating an environment of ambience and calm focus can genuinely help someone feel comfortable and inspired.
The problem begins when the aesthetic becomes more important than the writing.

And this is why I would argue that the modern writer aesthetic is not always beneficial to writers. Firstly, it can create an unrealistic image of what writing actually looks like.
Writing is often presented as beautiful, peaceful and romantic. (If your own personal experience is this, then I beg to read your manuscript; it must be incredible). Actual writing can be repetitive. It can involve staring at a blank document for an hour, deleting thousands of words, then rewriting it all with that 3 am adrenaline rush. It can involve terrible first drafts, writer’s block, and plot holes that make the entire already fragile base collapse.

None of that looks particularly aesthetic. The danger is that young writers can begin to associate being a writer with possessing the right objects rather than developing the right skills.
Having a beautiful bookshelf does not make somebody a writer. Owning a vintage typewriter does not make somebody a writer. Buying another notebook does not make somebody a writer.
Writing does.

Secondly, the writer aesthetic can encourage the idea that creativity has to look a certain way. In most cases, this is misleading and gives beginners a false idea of what they’re getting into. I, for one, fell for this when I first started.

There is a very specific image of the “ideal writer”: someone sitting alone in a beautiful room, surrounded by books, listening to classical music and writing profound sentences by hand. But writers do not actually have to look like this. Some work in noisy cafés. Some write on their phones. Most, in my experience, use laptops. Some scribble not yet fully fledged ideas in a notebook using favourite lucky pens. Creativity does not need a particular outfit, room, colour palette or lifestyle.

If we turn writing into an aesthetic formula, we risk making creative people feel as though they are doing something wrong simply because their creative process does not look beautiful.

Thirdly, the aesthetic can encourage consumerism. This is particularly interesting because Aestheticism itself eventually became commercialised.

As the nineteenth-century movement became popular, businesses began selling furniture, decorations and objects designed around the aesthetic lifestyle.4

The same thing can happen today, and most definitely will, given our nature. A person can be persuaded that they need a new notebook, a new pen, a new bookshelf, a new reading lamp, a new edition of a classic novel or a new decoration before they can properly begin writing.

But creativity cannot be purchased. The tools can help, but they are not the source of creativity. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the writer aesthetic can turn writing from an activity into an identity.

There is nothing wrong with taking pride in being a writer. There is nothing wrong with enjoying books, beautiful stationery or literary spaces.
But the aesthetic should exist around the writing, rather than replace it.

Interestingly, this problem has a historical precedent.
The nineteenth-century Aesthetes (an Ancient Greek term, in this context used to define people who have a deep love, understanding, and appreciation of art, nature, and beauty) themselves became famous for their appearance and lifestyles. The figure of the Aesthete was mocked in popular culture for their clothing, mannerisms and obsession with decorative objects. Oscar Wilde became perhaps the most famous example of an artist whose public image became inseparable from his artistic identity.5

And eventually, Aestheticism itself became associated with decadence and excess. After Wilde’s imprisonment in 1895, the movement lost much of its popularity with the general public, although its artistic influence continued into the twentieth century.6

So perhaps the most important lesson we can take from Aestheticism is not that beauty is bad. It is that beauty should not become a substitute for substance.
A beautiful writing desk cannot write a novel.
A bookshelf cannot create a character.
A vintage typewriter cannot produce an original idea.
And an aesthetic photograph cannot replace the difficult, messy and often unglamorous process of actually creating something.

Aestheticism originally challenged the idea that art needed to be useful.
But ironically, the modern writer aesthetic can create another kind of pressure: the idea that the writer themselves needs to be aesthetically pleasing, interesting or recognisable.

And when that happens, we need to remember what actually matters.
Not how a writer looks. Not what their desk looks like. Not how many books they own. But what they create.

The year is 2063,
and your name is written somewhere
between forgotten passwords
and photographs nobody remembers taking.

The world has invented machines
that can recreate a heartbeat,
translate a thousand languages,
and predict the shape of tomorrow,
but it still cannot find
the person you buried beneath
everything you tried to become.

You spent years collecting versions of yourself
like clothes from strangers’ wardrobes.
You wore the laugh that made them laugh,
the opinions that made them stay,
the dreams that sounded impressive, 
when spoken out loud.

You painted over your own colours
until even you forgot
there was ever a canvas underneath.

You became fluent in everyone else’s expectations,
but a stranger to your own voice.
You knew exactly how to be loved,
but never learned
how to exist when nobody was watching.

They called you ordinary.

Not because you had nothing to offer,
but because you spent your entire life
trying to look like everyone else.

You were so afraid of being rejected
that you never gave the world
the chance to know you.

And maybe that was the tragedy:
not that you were never interesting,
but that you were born
with entire galaxies inside you
and spent your years apologising
for the stars being too bright.

The year is 2063,
and the records say
you were never extraordinary.

But somewhere, hidden beneath
the copies and corrections,
there was a person who loved strange songs,
who had unfinished stories in their head,
who looked at the moon and wondered
if it looked back.

A person who was never boring.
Only undiscovered.

And perhaps the saddest thing
about a life spent becoming someone else
is that nobody ever got to meet
the person you were meant to be.

Your phone somehow gravitates into your hand again. Ten minutes pass. The protagonists are already introduced. 20 minutes bring along a romantic subplot, just enough to entice us for the hour and a half to follow. Yet, you don’t bring yourself to pull your eyes away from the small screen in your palm that washes your skin in blue light. And, as you continue to do so, looking up at the odd interval, you realise the plot is surprisingly easy to follow. You don’t miss much, what with the characters subtly reminding you of the events past and to come.

At some point, you’re barely paying attention anymore, too focused on that one influencer’s vacation photos (how’d she get that tanned?!), and with slight shock, you’ve realised the movie playing in the background is still going. What’s more, within a few seconds, you can figure out the entire, predictable plot. Cinema used to demand your attention. Streaming increasingly assumes it doesn’t have it. This raises questions. Is modern cinema becoming easier to ignore? Has cinema started expecting us not to pay attention? And, most worrying of all, how the hell did we let it happen?

The Golden Age of the Silver Screen

The Golden Age of Cinema, more specifically Hollywood, began in 1927 and continued until the early 1960s. This thrilling period was marked by the rise of the studio system, the birth of “talkies,” and a huge international cultural influence. It gave us legendary stars and innovative cinematic techniques that still inspire today's filmmakers. However, despite this, one integral part of cinema that ultimately earned it its esteemed title was not the films themselves but the culture created.

This era didn’t demand the audience’s attention; it claimed it from the moment darkness fell over the plush seats of the theatre. This is where the main difference between classic and modern cinema is found. In this era, cinema was a shared experience. As an activity all could enjoy, families made a day of it, rushing to buy tickets for whatever they could, indulging in snacks, losing themselves in the experience. Because, for an hour and a half, in the complete darkness of a theatre, focused on a large screen of flickering scenes expertly crafted, with no other distractions (like those of phones we have now), we were all equal. And yes, I am aware I sound slightly cringy, but I stand by it. Movies unite us, with the power of change woven through intricate dialogue and facial expressions. Back when movies were made for greatness, and not just because Sofia Carson needed yet another Netflix deal. This is what truly defined this era.

Decline of Quality

So, what changed? Why have movies suddenly transformed? Why have people begun to care more about PR and press tours than the actual product itself? The answer is simple and clear: people now crave fleeting, simple consumption. Directors don’t compete with others of the same sphere; they fight against tech. The battle of attention versus second screens, dinner that needs to be cooked, and that pile of leftover ironing from last week that you decided needed entertainment to lazily pair with. The fight is daily life. Since the purpose of cinema has changed, so has the content. Now, all people generally need are simple pastimes to entertain while they juggle other responsibilities and tasks. Streaming knows viewers pause. Streaming knows viewers multitask. Streaming knows viewers leave halfway through. Streaming knows viewers need simplicity, big moments to draw attention back (which will ebb away soon enough) and conventionally attractive actors that audiences will fawn over later on with TikTok edits to take away from the fact that the movie, in itself, was crap. As a result, filmmaking changes to fit our new expectations.

Roughly 20.6 million UK households (nearly 70%) have access to at least one subscription streaming service. Netflix dominates with over 18 million UK households subscribed, followed by Amazon Prime Video (13.8 million) and Disney+ (7.6 million).1 If so many of us are doing so, then what is left of true cinema?

Dear Viewers

Given our needs have changed, of course these services will cater to them, like love letters perfectly compiled with enough sweet-nothings to keep us coming back.

Modern films display a greater reliance on repetitive dialogue compared to classic films, frequently reusing emotional cues, key themes, and character traits to guarantee clear understanding across international audiences. In comparison, classic films produced between the 1930s and the 1950s embraced more diverse vocabularies, extensive monologues, and a method of thematic repetition that placed faith in the audience to make connections independently.2 Contemporary films frequently rely on lexical repetition (repeating word inflexions and thematic stems) to anchor meaning within smaller, character-driven narratives. No longer are there the long stares of yearning and silent junctures of created tension. For example, in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), the film mainly used visual imagery instead of dialogue. Much of the film’s tension comes from L.B. Jefferies (played by James Stewart) simply staring through his camera lens into the windows of his neighbours. This voyeuristic, silent observation builds intense dread as he watches clues unfold. In present cinema, scenes (let alone an entire plot) mainly utilising visual storytelling are unheard of, as a concept like this requires the audience’s full attention, which is unattainable. Likewise, in modern films, the scenes are cut together quite fast, almost as if a moment of nothingness can cause Armageddon. These constant cuts, and the natural fast pace we have grown accustomed to, are simply streaming services accommodating our decreasing attention spans.

Modern screenplays tend to spell out motivations and backstories directly, repeating core plot points. Because today's films compete for global distribution, dialogue is designed to be highly concise, straightforward, and easy to translate. In general, dialogue used to be an art, a descendant of theatre, and over time, this was lost to laziness through attrition and the expansion of zero-dialogue scenes (action sequences, suspense scenes, slow-burn movies starting in the 60s/70s, etc).3 Furthermore, franchises like the MCU rely on a recognisable rhythm of comedic relief, employing similar conversational tropes and repetitive snarky banter from film to film.4

Netflix Look

The scripts are not where the differences end. The "Netflix Look" describes a widely discussed visual aesthetic in streaming cinema characterised by flat lighting, a clean, high-resolution digital sheen, and an absence of deep shadows.

While 4K cameras (the type most often used in these productions) ensure archival quality, they can produce an ultra-sharp, sterile image that lacks the natural warmth and grain of traditional 35mm film. Netflix movies are typically filmed in a standard cinematic format (often 2.00:1 or 16:9) designed to be viewed across multiple devices without jarring black bars. Filmmakers "centre-cut protect" their shots, ensuring essential action, characters, and text remain safely in the middle of the screen so they translate well to smaller mobile displays.5 This limits creative freedom, and as most of the film’s elements remain in the foreground, its complexity is not only literally, but also figuratively lost.

Additionally, often on strict time restriants, cinematographers use soft, diffuse lighting that evenly illuminates the entire frame rather than using high-contrast, dramatic shadows to tell a story.6 Instead of hard, directional tungsten lighting used in older cinema, many modern streaming films rely on soft, omnidirectional LED panels that bathe actors in even light from every angle.

To suit algorithms, creators often shoot and light with thumbnails in mind. Since dark, moody compositions don't survive aggressive compression or translate well to smaller mobile screens, frames are deliberately lit brighter and flatter to ensure "clickability".

In contrast to all this, old cinema embodies tactile film grain, deep shadows, and rich colour contrast. Vintage cinema prioritised physical celluloid texture. Instead of soft, flat LEDs, cinematographers operated directional lighting (like chiaroscuro) to create mystery, define character arcs, and add three-dimensional depth. Moreover, shot on physical 35mm or 70mm celluloid, the traditional medium produces an organic grain, rich colour saturation, and physical tactility that naturally immerses the viewer.7 (This is why, in older films, solely when using 35mm, grains and slight imperfections are seen, as the resolution is poorer. However, 70mm has a far higher resolution, providing double the negative width of 35mm).8 Colours were baked into the physical film emulsion, resulting in warmer, more natural skin tones and stable, film-specific colour palettes (like Technicolour) that represented light authentically.

In the years, we’ve lost the quintessential art of cinema. Without the flushes of colour, long moments between characters to depict the true meanings, and decoding the background of a scene you’ve noted so many times before, the film reel might as well lie untouched, for what is the point?

The Real Enemy

Algorithms. If I wished to, I could leave this section as this, and simply continue onto my conclusion (god knows my energy is dwindling; it’s almost 4 am, I’ve been working on this for so long!) and my point will still come across the same.

In the era we will live in now, it is no surprise to anyone that websites, companies, and pretty much whatever else we’ve entered our personal information onto collects data. Netflix collects immense amounts of viewing data from its clients, and churns the information before spitting it back out in forms of TV shows or movies they believe will be most viral. Not loved, not celebrated, but what will get them the most likes on social media, and as a result, the most viewership. Unfortunately, they hit the target (audience— ha, see what I did there?) every time.

Chasing the high of simplicity, executives apply this data and are given the elementary role of making content easier to digest. Seemingly basic notes given like: “Increase the pace,” “Clarify the plot, “Reveal this earlier,” or “Shorten this scene.” are given with clear reasoning and carefully compiled research to back it up. Something once so beautiful and artistic has been reduced to equations.

Rarities of defiance in our era

Let’s look instead to films that defy what was wanted by audiences, and instead proudly presented their work with a flourish, and a slight ‘if-you-don’t-like-it-f-off!’ Taking an example of a recent film (since as I’ve been writing this, I realise I sound like I despise all contemporary cinema, and a lot like a film snob who only watches niche classics— I swear I’m not, 13 Going on 30 made its way onto my Letterboxd Top 4 last month), examine Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (2025).

At nearly three-and-a-half hours long, the movie completely rejects the shorter, tightly paced structures of modern mainstream releases. It leans into older "epic" styles by actively utilising a mid-film intermission to divide the narrative into distinct movements. Instead of shooting on digital cinema cameras standard today, Corbet filmed on bulky, 1950s-era 70mm VistaVision cameras. If you remember from earlier (if not: really? You definitely won’t remember my comment on attention spans then), you will be aware that this gave the film an intensely textured, historically authentic look that contrasts sharply with the glossy, digital aesthetic of most contemporary films. Additionally, rather than neatly resolving storylines in a traditional three-act structure, the film unfolds in harsh narrative fragments. It refuses to provide neat conclusions, intentionally leaving unanswered questions for the audience.910

Deliberately defying modern cinematic conventions, The Brutalist is a perfect model of the point I am attempting to make. Not all modern cinema is poor. Lazy content, exclusively to earn profit and not to tell a story, is. Unfortunately, however, this has somehow become the standard for most films now, which makes the rare gems that withstand this so special.

However, I must admit a flaw in my argument. This discussion has plagued the cinephile community for years, just in different contexts. The shock when going from VHS to DVD. Then DVD to cable. Cable to streaming. And now somehow some of us are even trying to shift back to physical media as we crave that nostalgic comfort. The struggle I write about is not unique, but frankly shared instead. So, maybe the problem itself is not the way we consume this entertainment, but it’s how we understand it. In an ever-changing landscape of tech and innovations, it’s difficult to keep up. One outdated reference that was only very topical last week is enough to earn sneers. In a time like this, it’s no wonder we can’t keep up and are so fickle— it’s how we’re being conditioned. That does not mean we cannot try to rewrite this, though.

The next time you decide to watch a movie, be more conscious of your choices. Instead of finding the first item in your recommended-for-you list, do a bit of research. Find a film with a plot you think you will genuinely enjoy. Take a risk with that film full of unheard-of actors all searching for their big break. Try a film from that independent, underfunded yet efficient and effective company just wanting to create art to be seen.

Who knows? You might just find your new favourite movie. And please, for the love of god: Put. That. Damn. Phone. Down.

We used to wish on fire
that fell from the mouth of heaven,
small deaths, burning beautiful,
silent promises stitched into the dark.

Now the sky hums.
Now it blinks in scheduled rhythms,
metal prayers circling the planet
like obedient ghosts.

The stars still move,
but they move because we told them to.

A plane cuts the night in two,
its lights stitched red and white
like a heartbeat that forgot how to stop.
Somewhere inside, strangers sleep
with their mouths open,
dreaming of places they haven’t loved yet.

From the ground,
they look like falling wishes.
From the inside,
they are just seats and turbulence
and the quiet fear of landing.

Above them, satellites drift,
cold-eyed gods made of code,
watching us scroll through loneliness,
mapping our storms,
tracking our mistakes,
counting the seconds we pretend don’t matter.

They don’t burn.
They don’t fade.
They just keep watching.

We taught the sky how to move
and forgot how to look at it.

Once, a shooting star meant something.
It meant chance.
It meant accident.
It meant the universe
had briefly remembered we existed.

Now it means a flight path.
A launch schedule.
A signal bouncing off steel.

We replaced wonder with precision,
mystery with machinery,
magic with maintenance.

Even our miracles come with instructions.

Still, sometimes, 
when a plane glides low
and the clouds swallow its light,
my chest tightens the way it used to.

For half a second,
I let myself believe
it’s something ancient,
something wild,
something not built by hands
that also know how to break.

For half a second,
I wish on it.

Not for wealth.
Not for love.
Not for escape.

Just for the sky
to belong to the sky again.

Because all the shooting stars
are manmade now,
and somehow,
that makes the night
feel lonelier
than ever.

i wonder how icarus felt when he was falling.
did the sky taste different when it betrayed him?
did the sun whisper apologies as it burned his back,
or did it laugh,
like the cruel kind of love
that never promised to stay?

maybe he wasn’t afraid.
maybe the air felt like freedom,
the kind he had always been starved of.
after all, it wasn’t death he reached for,
it was warmth,
a touch,
a brightness too big for his fragile body.
what a terrible thing,
to be punished for wanting more.

i wonder if he thought of his father,
his careful hands building wings out of wax and warning,
saying do not fly too high, son,
stay where it’s safe.
but how could he?
how could anyone
see the wide blue open its arms
and choose to crawl?

perhaps he smiled,
as the sea came rushing to meet him.
perhaps he knew
that even in his ending,
he had lived a moment so golden
that eternity could never take it back.

icarus did not fall.
icarus reached.
and isn’t that what it means to be human?
to hunger for a fire
that will always burn us,
to love even when it ruins us,
to leap even when we know
we will not land?

i wonder how icarus felt when he was falling.
maybe the real tragedy
isn’t that he died,
but that the rest of us
are too afraid to even fly.

my poetry tumblr! (if you're interested)

But cinema has become far more complicated than that.

Today, some of the most unforgettable characters in film are not heroes at all, but villains. And strangely, they are often the ones we empathise with the most.

So the question is not why are villains evil?

The real question is: why do we understand them so deeply, even when we know we shouldn’t?

One of the most powerful explanations comes from psychology.

Carl Jung described this as the shadow self: the parts of ourselves we suppress because they are socially unacceptable. According to Jung, every human contains both light and darkness. Villains in film often represent that darkness, externalised on screen for our entertainment.

Similarly, Freud’s theory of the psyche introduces the id, the instinctive part of the mind driven by emotion, desire, and aggression. Villains often act on this raw instinct without restraint, doing what many people secretly feel but would never act upon. This is why we recognise them.

Examine Darth Vader, who is not born a monster, but shaped by fear, grief, and emotional suppression. His transformation into the antagonist he is known to be shows us how pain, when left unresolved, can completely reshape identity.

Psychologically, we empathise with villains because they are not “other” to us. They are exaggerated versions of human emotion (anger, fear, loss, and desire) reflected at us on the silver screen.

And what we recognise, we begin to understand. According to a 2022 YouGov survey, over 60% of audiences admitted they found villains “more interesting” than heroes, and nearly half confessed they had felt sympathy for a villain at some point.

Yet, empathy does not come from psychology alone. It comes from understanding why a villain becomes what they are. Modern film often shows us that villains are not simply evil; they are constructed. They are formed through trauma, injustice, and experience.

Again, look at the example of Erik Killmonger from Marvel’s Black Panther. He is not driven by cruelty, but by abandonment and racial injustice. His ideology is extreme, but his pain is understandable.

Even Don Vito Corleone, of The Godfather trilogy, complicates our moral judgment. He commits violence, yet sees himself as a protector of family and the epitome of loyalty. His actions force us into moral grey areas: when does protection become corruption?

This is where empathy becomes powerful and uncomfortable.

We begin to realise that villains are not asking us to excuse them. They are asking us to understand the path that led them there.

Nonetheless, there is a strong counter-argument.

Some critics argue that empathising with villains risks blurring moral boundaries. If audiences begin to understand too deeply, romanticising villainy, does evil begin to feel acceptable?

A 2021 media study found that younger audiences were increasingly likely to describe villains as “misunderstood” rather than “wrong,” suggesting a shift in moral perception. This concern is valid. 

But this is where the argument must be clarified: empathy is not endorsement.

To understand a villain is not to agree with them. It is to recognise that actions have causes, and that morality is often shaped by environment, trauma, and perspective.

Villains like Kingpin or the Joker are not excuses for violence; they are warnings. They expose what happens when society fails individuals, when pain is ignored, and when identity is shaped by suffering.

They are not glorifications of evil. They are reflections of consequence.

And perhaps more importantly, they challenge us to ask whether “good” and “evil” are always as clear as we believe.

So why do we empathise with villains in film? They are not simply obstacles for heroes to defeat. They are psychological, distorted mirrors, moulded by Freud’s instincts, Jung’s shadow self, and the realities of human experience.

We empathise with them because they are not alien to us. They are human; fractured, shaped by pain, and driven by emotion in ways we recognise, even when we fear them.

And perhaps that is the most uncomfortable truth cinema reveals: We do not empathise with villains because they are good. We empathise with them because, in some way, they are us.

Dear reader,

Written originally as a school assignment, this article of mine grew into something I tirelessly edited and rewrote until I was satisfied. I personally am very proud of it, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Yours, a thought daughter