It Seems To Me

That PhDs don't often mean very much...

I know, I know, you are all waiting for my friend to get to work answering questions, but if you have followed me long enough and know about the pasta salad incident, then you know not to hold your breath. I also know that I owe you a series on human darkness, and I will write it, but I think it will need to be broken up with other posts in between. If I don’t, it’s going to get dark fast.

Instead of that this week, we are going to look at an article by a dude with a PhD and the smarts of a flea. The article that we will be going over will be this one:

10 Films That Help Explain Female Psychopaths

A Personal Perspective: 10 films offer fresh takes on psychopathic manipulation.

Let’s start with his bonafides, shall we? I mean, of course, he is going to be an expert in psychopathy, or at the very least psychology, right? After all, he’s writing about psychopaths on Psychology Today, and they wouldn’t take an article from an idiot, would they?

Jonathan Doucette Ph.D.

About

Jonathan Doucette (he/him/his or they/them/theirs) received his Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at the University of California, Davis in 2022. His interdisciplinary research explores representations of dissociation in film, television, art, and war. By bridging the divide between psychoanalysis and the humanities, Jonathan aims to show how culture shapes psychological theories and assumptions, and vice-versa. Through his research, Jonathan found that dissociation is not only a product of interpersonal terrorism, like the kind found in domestic violence and child abuse situations, but is a tactic used by dominant cultures to disenfranchise marginalized communities. Examples of this include “non-lethal” forms of crowd control by the U.S. military and police stations, such as sonic weapons that disrupt protesters’ senses, sensations, and sense of connection with community.

He uses film and television to show what dissociation feels like on a phenomenological level. Film techniques can go a long way in depicting out-of-body experiences, derealization and depersonalization, and flashbacks to great effect. This is a benefit for practitioners and patients working with or experiencing dissociation as dissociation often strips a sufferer’s capacity to speak. Audiovisual images capture something about dissociation when language fails us. Many who dissociate also find great comfort in watching film and television to regulate their emotions.

In addition to his research, Jonathan has worked as a counselor in outreach and prevention services, first at the Sexual Information Center at Oberlin College, then as a Global Health Corps fellow in Washington, DC, for a sex worker and drug user outreach organization.

Jonathan works as a creative writing coach in Northern California. He’s accepting clients interested in creative non-fiction projects, such as memoir. When he’s not binging TV shows, he can be found writing and singing songs, cooking meals with noodles, or snuggling with his dog Bandit.

What? I’m sorry, did he pay money to have a degree in nonsense? It certainly seems to be the case to me. It also sounds like he basically paid a lot of money to be able to watch movies for a living and pretend to be an expert in… something. Personally, unless you actually have an education in psychology, and I mean an actual education, not you took psychology 101 your freshman year, or you have a Bachelor’s in basic psychology, you do not get to analyze film for anything psychologically based. I can’t imagine his opinion should matter in regard to psychopathy, but Psychology Today apparently thinks that PhD means “doesn’t have head up rear end”, and this article exists. So, here we go…

KEY POINTS

Female psychopathy may be more complex than research psychologists suggest.

Ten recent films bring nuance to discussions about gender and psychopathy.

Film can give viewers insight into what psychopathic manipulation feels like.

The best films about psychopathy behave psychopathically towards viewers.

I haven’t read almost any of this article yet, but what do you want to bet, there won’t be a singe psychopath among them?

The best films about psychopaths, female or otherwise, behave like psychopaths—that is, they actively manipulate a viewer using film techniques that cause a viewer to feel betrayed.

Already this is taking on a maligning view of psychopaths, which tells me that he knows nothing about us. Psychopaths are not more manipulative than neurotypicals. We just manipulate on a different frequency. Neurotypicals manipulate one another to get their emotional needs met. Psychopaths manipulate mostly to get our wants met, and sometimes our needs, like food or shelter. Manipulation, regardless of who is using it, is a tool. Just because psychopaths don’t have negative emotional fallout from using manipulation, that doesn’t mean that our doing so is somehow more underhanded than anyone else doing it.

A “psychopathic film,” I argue, uses film techniques like flashbacks, unreliable narrators, and mise-en-scene to give viewers a visceral experience of manipulation. These films titrate manageable feelings of betrayal for viewers so that they may recognize these feelings in the real world. When viewers know what manipulation feels like, they don’t need to rely on checklists, professional diagnoses, or gender differences to protect themselves from predacious people.

Manipulation is literally all a film is. It is a story meant to make you feel a certain way. If you think that the whole flashback, unreliable narrators, and an overly and unnecessarily verbose way of saying staging, demonstrates psychopathy, you apparently haven’t met neurotypicals. That is pretty much emotional manipulation at it’s core, and the people that relish in emotional manipulation are those it works on. That would not be the psychopath side of the fence. I am guessing that once we get into the films, this is not going to get better.

Top 10 Female Psychopaths on Film

*Some spoilers ahead*

10. "Motherly" (Craig David Wallace, 2022)

This film is best left unspoiled. While imperfect in some ways, the film does offer a final act that upends viewers' expectations about who the real psychopath is in any given situation.

Nope.

You don’t get to claim that a film supposedly shows a female psychopath, but then say, “I don’t want to spoil it”. BS. I looked up the film, and it has nothing to do with psychopathy. He didn’t describe it because he couldn’t defend it. Likely this waste of article space was made by a friend of his, and he’s trying to get eyes on it because no one wanted to watch it. Let’s see how many people bothered to review it. Fewer than fifty on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m not saying I’m right, but that is a shocking low number.

Next. Let’s see if he can be bothered to, you know, write an article.

9. "The Stylist" (Jill Gevargizian, 2020)

Claire (Najarra Townsend) is an isolated hair stylist with a killer obsession. She uses her unique skills to scalp unwitting clients, later wearing their hair in front of a mirror to boost her low self-esteem.

Claire’s psychopathy is sympathetic: she’s socially awkward, desperately lonely, and eager for belonging. Her sexuality is almost non-existent. Instead, Claire craves an idealized romantic or friendship connection in a way that aligns with recent scholarship on female psychopathy. Claire may not break the “female psychopath” mold, but she’s a memorable representative example nonetheless.

Holy lord, did I just read what I think I did? Wow, wow wow wow wow…

I thought that the first entry was crap, but no, he out does himself here by demonstrating that he doesn’t know the first thing about psychopathy. I would blockquote and review different sections of that passage, but it’s all garbage. There is literally no point. I will say this. No psychopath, female or male, ever feels or has:

A killer obsession

Low self-esteem

Is socially awkward

Is desperately lonely

Is eager for belonging

Nonexistent or almost nonexistent sexuality does not, nor has it ever had anything to do with psychopathy

Do we ever crave an idealized romantic or friendship connection

And I am going to separate this last bit of the sentence:

…in a way that aligns with recent scholarship on female psychopathy

This is that nonsense that BPD and psychopathy are somehow the same thing in a female. This is not recent scholarship. This comes from someone that needed a “breakthrough” on psychopathy to get further funding. It doesn’t stand up to the bare minimum scrutiny. The fact that he doesn’t have the knowledge about BPD or psychopathy demonstrates why he should not be writing articles about either one. It’s embarrassing for him.

8. "Sissy" (Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes, 2022)

"Sissy" is a film that will keep viewers guessing throughout its runtime. Aisha Dee’s hilarious and heartfelt portrayal of a Black wellness influencer plagued by recognizable struggles like imposter syndrome and social anxiety initially invites viewers into Sissy’s point of view. We see Sissy as a victim because Sissy sees herself as one—until, that is, she reconnects with a childhood friend.

Her friend invites Sissy to her engagement party, along with a hostile friend group filled with queers, disabled folks, and people of color, when things go awry. This film more than any other on this list takes great pleasure in challenging viewers’ expectations about wellness, race, gender, sexuality, and ability, speaking directly to the issues of our time.

…Where in any of that does he think psychopathy is in play? First of all, it sounds absolutely dreadful. It is full of social justice nonsense that no one wants to watch in a film. Second of all, there is literally no argument of who is supposedly a psychopath in this, and presents nothing but firm confirmation that there isn’t one by listing:

plagued by recognizable struggles like imposter syndrome and social anxiety initially invites viewers into Sissy’s point of view. We see Sissy as a victim because Sissy sees herself as one—until, that is, she reconnects with a childhood friend.

This is the only part where he speaks about anything in regard to the character’s functionality, and all of it specifically rules out psychopathy. Good lord, this man is not good at this.

7. "What Keeps You Alive" (Colin Minihan, 2018)

In a classic horror set-up, wives Jules (Brittany Allen) and Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) spend their wedding anniversary in a remote cabin in the woods. When Jackie’s childhood friend shows up unannounced, Jules finds herself worried about how little she seems to know about her wife. Little white lies start adding up, and soon Jules discovers the truth.

What? How are you married to someone you don’t know very well? Strike one.

Jackie’s character is a poster child for the argument that psychopaths are born, not made. Jackie even says that it's “nature, not nurture” that she behaves in such callous, violent ways. After capturing her recently escaped wife, Jackie holds Jules’ fingers to her pulse. She demands Jules count her heartbeats. Jules, drenched in sweat, tears, and blood, cries and pants as she realizes Jackie’s heartbeat is steady.

Psychopaths aren’t violent. Also, what the actual f*ck are you on about? It went from going to a cabin in the woods, to murder in like 0.2 seconds flat. None of what he describes here is an argument for psychopathy. It’s an argument for garbage writing. Strike two.

Jackie is teaching Jules (and the audience) that typical fight-or-flight responses for organisms in life-or-death scenarios can’t touch a psychopath’s nervous system. Jackie isn’t coded as psychopathic because she has unstable emotions, high anxiety, or covert forms of aggression, as research psychologists would suggest. Instead, it’s her biology that’s psychopathic.

Oh my goodness god… what? Psychopaths do not feel high anxiety or unstable emotions. We also aren’t “covertly aggressive.” Psychopathy is in the brain, and in the chemistry. If he had does five seconds of research, he would know that. Also, he is ducking behind “research psychologists”, and I can guarantee you there is only one. It’s called Google, and he found himself on Love Fraud or Psychopath Free for his “references”.

Strike three.

This film could have done more to explore the psychological and emotional manipulation that typifies psychopathy rather than relying on biology alone to account for psychopathic behavior. That said, it’s a nice surprise that Jackie’s queerness has nothing to do with her psychopathy.

What? I know I have said that a lot in this article, hell in this entry, but seriously, what is that last sentence? Her “queerness has nothing to do with her psychopathy”? I have a theory about this guy that I am going to get to in a bit, but wow, did he pretty much scream it from the high heavens that I am correct about him.

Let me be clear, being a lesbian has nothing to do with psychopathy. The fact that he wrote that sentence, that says that he thinks that it could have something to do with it. That is insane. No one, literally no one, would have watched that movie and thought to themselves, first, that anyone in that movie is a psychopath because their brain cells are holding hands, but certainly not “So, she’s a lesbian? Surely that has to do with whatever mental illness that she has. Way to totally dismiss someone’s sexual orientation.

6. "Speak No Evil" (Christian Tafdrup, 2022)

I would categorize "Speak No Evil" as “hard to watch.” The film follows a Danish couple who visits a Dutch couple they met on vacation. What follows is a black social satire about the ways face-saving social niceties can keep people trapped within the snares of psychopaths all too willing to exploit people’s inability to say “no” for fear of social rejection.

In many films with murderous couples, the male character is usually portrayed as the “true” psychopath while the woman is cast as a brainwashed victim. Here, however, the psychopathic characters are on equal footing. Take caution when watching: This film is mean (and eminently watchable).

So, murderous couples somehow mean psychopathy? Where did you get your PhD, dude, dumbasses are us? That isn’t even remotely an argument for psychopathy. He basically is saying horror movie=psychopathy. Nope, and wrong. Moving on.

5. "M3GAN" (Gerard Johnstone, 2023)

"M3GAN" was a late entry to this list, mostly because the psychopath under consideration was neither male nor female, but silicon.

The black horror comedy—and queer cultural sensation—follows a family beset by grief. A young girl loses both her parents in a car crash. Her workaholic aunt takes her in but, distracted by the demands of her job, doesn’t have the maternal skills required to help her niece heal. The aunt creates M3GAN, an AI robot toy, to protect her niece’s physical and emotional health. M3GAN takes this directive seriously, with deadly consequences.

What elevates "M3GAN" from camp to horror is the doll’s desire to manipulate her victims before death. Before a kill, M3GAN gives dispassionate evaluations of her victims that are a hallmark of psychopathic manipulation. She destroys her victims emotionally before the final visceral kill.

Good freaking lord. M3gan is about an AI doll, and it is meant to explore the dangers of AI. This one isn’t even worth debunking. His claim that this has anything to do with psychopathy is all the debunking necessary. Wow.

Side note, it is actually a good movie in the comedy horror genre if you are just looking for mindless fun.

4. "Titane" (Julia Ducournau, 2021)

This French language film from Julia Ducournau still has me scratching my head. The striking use of mise-en-scene, lighting, and dream-like sequences create a hallucinogenic atmosphere as viewers follow the exploits of a murderous psychopathic woman who enjoys having sex with muscle cars.

Dude. I get that you have some seriously f*cked up perversions, and we will get to them in a moment, but this is just… what sort of films are you watching? This list has mostly been a journey through your sex fantasies, and it’s disturbing.

Agathe Rousselle plays Alexia, a woman who goes on the run after a murder spree puts her in the crosshairs of law enforcement. To escape, she transforms her appearance to look like a young boy that went missing a decade earlier.

This is stolen from a real case, not the murder spree part, that’s just basic uninteresting writing from someone that can’t be bothered to do something original, and I back up that claim by pointing you to the documentary, The Imposter. Watch it, it’s messed up, but note that it’s a documentary.

This gender swap is less about Alexia dismantling gender norms by living life as a man and more about how she views her body as a hunk of matter that must be molded like clay. She tapes down her breasts, bloodies and breaks her nose, and hides her pregnancy belly to survive, not to say anything political about how gender is a social construct. Her psychopathy overrides her gender at every stage.

What about this crap writing is supposed to have anything to do with psychopathy? Firstly, psychopaths don’t go on murder sprees. That is like saying that neurotypicals go on murder sprees. Some do, but most don’t. Same for psychopaths. It has nothing to do with psychopathy. This guy with his singular perverted brain cell apparently needs them to be related, but that is a ‘him’ problem.

3. "Pearl" (Ti West, 2022)

There’s a final scene in the film where Pearl (played by the ferocious Mia Goth, who co-wrote the film) stares directly into the camera. We’ve seen her commit atrocities for the past two hours, yet Goth’s emotional range compels us to feel sympathy and understanding for Pearl’s actions.

Again, he thinks atrocities equate psychopathy.

The scene is a long take. Goth’s face transforms into several deranged expressions that almost look human. I read this final scene as a beautiful articulation of the psychopathic “mask,” that is, the image psychopaths present to those in their orbit.

Seriously? He literally knows nothing about psychopathy.

A psychopathic mask is used to blend in.

Psychopaths are not deranged

What Goth so powerfully shows is that a psychopathic individual is a chameleon in social situations. If a neighbor wants to believe she’s a helpless victim, that’s the role Pearl plays. If a love interest sees her as an innocent lamb, that’s the role Pearl plays.

Uh-huh, and? That’s just being able to act. You know, like an actress, in a movie. Unless his ferocious what’s her name is a psychopath, he has no argument. An actress did that, which means, anyone can. Again, not psychopathy.

This final scene shows what happens when there’s no one left for Pearl to mimic. She’s a series of surface emotions that glide across her face but aren’t anchored to anything below.

Sigh… psychopaths are not unmoored buoys in the ocean. We know exactly who we are. This notion that we don’t have any substance or understanding of self is frankly insulting and infantilizing.

All right, there are two more, and they are both as equally gray matter killing as the previous entries, so I am skipping them. If you want to read them, go ahead. Instead, I am going to speak about my theory regarding this guy.

He has a lot of very perverse fetishes, and one of them is psychopathy. Not real psychopathy, but this fantasy version where the females are all fitting into his perversions. Notice how many of his entries had to do with their sexuality. That is very telling to me. I am aware that universities focus on these nonsense “studies” about gender blah blah bullsh*t blah, and this is what it turns out.

Sexually perverse people who live out their fantasies through these rather ridiculous narratives. He doesn’t know anything about psychopathy or female psychopaths because he doesn’t want to. He wants to paint us into this sick version that he is apparently quite attracted to. If you look at the mental image he has of psychopaths, we:

Don’t have an identity (we all have a very clear and unwavering identity)

Are all killers (Nope, not even a little)

Are gender confused or fluid (Not a thing with a psychopath. Remember, clear and unwavering identity)

Have unstable emotions (Ha! And no)

Have high anxiety (Again, no. Not ever)

Has a killer obsession (again, no.)

Has low self-esteem (Nope, not possible)

Is socially awkward (Literally impossible)

Is desperately lonely (Good lord no)

Is eager for belonging (Sigh, this guy is truly an idiot)

Now, the last part of my argument is his statement about M3gan.

The black horror comedy—and queer cultural sensation

This movie is about an eight-year-old girl whose parents die in a car accident. She is taken in by her aunt, who happens to be working on a child-sized humanoid robot doll powered by artificial intelligence, designed to be the ultimate companion for children. Her aunt is not good at being a parent because she has no experience, so she gives her niece M3gan. M3gan’s directive is to be there for her niece, and the AI takes that to a dangerous extreme.

There is nothing about this film that is a “queer cultural sensation”. It’s a fun little horror movie, but at it’s core it is about an eight-year-old and her doll. Nothing about that is queer. “Queer” is about sexuality in the context that he is using it:

Denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.

To apply that label to a film about an eight-year-old and her doll, that is messed up. Couple that with the rest of his evaluations, and it is easy to see that he has some extremely deviant views of psychopathy and likely many other things as well. Reading his articles reminds me of the sort of person that assumes that everyone sees the world the way that they do, so they will write something, or film something, and expect everyone else to be on board while everyone else reading or watching it are baffled. I don’t think that he has spoken to many people outside of academia and believes that everyone is seeing the world through his distorted lens.

He should never be hired again to write about anything psychological. He will apply the same perspective to whatever it is that he is writing about, and it will do a great deal of damage to whatever psychological topic he writes on.

Final Words

These films ask viewers to look beneath surface appearances of how someone presents to reflect on what they feel when in the presence of a predator. Personally, the moment I begin to feel chronic confusion, dissociation, nausea, shock, or betrayal, I know it’s time to walk away, gender be damned.

He has no idea what it’s like to be around a psychopath, because any psychopath that hears him open his mouth is going to go the other way immediately. None of us have time for this type of drivel.

Hopefully, Psychology Today will reject further submissions from him. His previous offerings are just as dreadful, and I cannot imagine who they think that they are helping by publishing him.