The Witch Who Builds Her Own Ladder

*Spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie.*

Hey witches,

I thought that I’d start a discussion about the things that you can’t do. As I said in my first post, you can learn a lot of things from unexpected places. As we learned from Maxine, we can learn from Pearl as well. Besides not fucking scarecrows —you’ll get splinters and fleas! That’s like the STD of the farm world.

Pearl is definitely a victim of circumstance and her mental illness, but I want to remind you that it’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility. She should have done something for her urges, ultimately it may have been better for society that she didn’t leave the farm. I could imagine an alternative reality of her leaving and becoming a serial killer like Aileen Wuornos. Honestly though, would she enjoy that source of fame? I would think so, she wouldn’t last that long without getting caught though. Part of it is the remoteness of the farm that allows her to get away with things. I feel like she’d get caught easily if she was in another environment.

Speaking of environment, she doesn’t change her environment or fully work to change it. She gives up after the first try, this one is a hard lesson to learn but that audition for the church dance group wasn’t an end all be all for her destiny. She made it one. She also depends on various men to get her out of her situation, first her husband, then the projectionist. 

When those dreams don’t come to fruition, she mourns the life she has but when you think about it, she didn’t make tangible plans on actually leaving, which is something she could have done. She could have stolen some money or jewelry and ran off to another town and slowly made her way to Europe. She didn’t take the time to explore things she knew or go into the unknown, she just lived in the daydream instead of her reality. Which we can all understand, we’ve all done some maladaptive daydreaming, but after a certain point, you must take part in your own journey if you want to change your situation. 

I would also like to point out we don’t really see her practice her dancing at all, it’s something she just assumes that she’s a natural at until the moment. It doesn’t feel that her dancing was bad, but she ultimately didn’t get picked and needed to find another way to leave if she wanted to.

Let’s go back to how Maxine dealt with things, and compare the two. After the horrific events of X, Maxine decides to move to Hollywood and pursue her dream. She decides to go for it, putting herself in the environment she needs to for her niche dreams. In the first thirty minutes of Maxxxine, you hear that she didn’t get the Lizzie Borden music video (sidenote: can we please take some time to imagine what that music video was like? Was she Lizzie Borden? What kind of band was it? I imagine it was a hair metal group). 

Maxine takes her losses with acceptance but she didn’t let it get her down. Pearl lets her failure consume her. She was so ready to get off the farm, she could have planned more than one way to do it. Instead, she lets the pain take home and stay there. People with healthy mindsets don’t react to failure like that. It’s something that alludes to something darker, something that we would have suggested to see a mental health individual. Which is a shame, part of it is that Pearl is a product of her time. Maxine too, but less so and it helps she’s strong enough to break the societal chains that were preventing her from being a star.

I know it’s understandable to be upset about not getting something, but if your life sucks, you’re already used to losing, so use it to your advantage. Take it with an acceptance but keep trying, take those as a learning opportunity. You’ve dealt with so much shit in your life already, what’s one more no? I imagine you’ve dealt with harder and more dangerous situations. 

You’re more immune than someone who had it easy and has never had to struggle for anything; you have a stronger inner strength that’s kept you here that they can’t even imagine. 

Ultimately, Pearl depends more on others than she does on herself and it hinders her ability to actually leave. I don’t want us to share a fate that’s similar to Pearl’s. A fate where we’re stunted flowers that never got to bloom into our full beauty and instead have a life filled with bitterness and hatred. Together, we’re going to build our own ladders to get to our dreams and goals. We’ll get to new heights together to see what we can do at the witch’s ladder.

Take care of yourself and look out for each other.

Erika,