Sophie Lewis, per her Twitter bio, “theorizes heterosexualism, antiwork, family abolition, queer care.” Here’s some more about her:
She is the author of Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family (Verso Books, 2019), which Donna Haraway hailed as “the seriously radical cry for full gestational justice that I long for.”Sophie’s scholarship operates in the spheres of trans feminist cultural criticism and queer social reproduction theory, notably around utopian critiques of the family, Marxism, and Black and abolitionist feminisms. Her research currently focuses on the etiologies of eugenic, bioconservative and imperial feminisms, including narratives of so-called white slavery past and present, femonationalism, and trans-exclusionary femocratism.
Sounds like a delightful gal, doesn’t she? Well, she recently watched the Netflix original documentary “My Octopus Teacher” and had some thoughts about it, thoughts she inexplicably decided to make public:
Well, I watched "My Octopus Teacher" on netflix: a flawed but moving documentary about a straight man who has a lifechanging erotic relationship with a female octopus. I cried, then read out loud to my friends the entirety of @amiasrinivasan's 2017 essay (https://t.co/ILun9KMlxz) pic.twitter.com/Azefm8xJjU
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
Writes Srinivasan: "The octopus threatens boundaries. … Their intelligence is like ours, and utterly unlike ours. Octopuses are the closest we can come, on earth, to knowing what it might be like to encounter intelligent aliens." pic.twitter.com/BFhcJBqWDP
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
"The octopus’s body is… itself a thinking thing."
Implicit, for me, in Srinivasan's essay – full of disgusted quotes from bros like Aristotle & Victor Hugo reacting somatophobically to the bodies of octopuses – is the intrinsic queerness of octopus epistemology-cum-embodiment. pic.twitter.com/UW9vYhKN2P
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
"Folds," "radii," openness, penetrability… the gynophobia of Hugo's take on octopi was particularly clear to me, on rereading @amiasrinivasan's piece, because I happened also to (finally) watch Eggers's 2019 maritime horror The Lighthouse, with its mermaid vulva, tentacles, etc pic.twitter.com/69fZyPRSCg
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
Recommended
Watching MOT as a trio of acid-tripping queers, it made us hoot with laughter when the ur-straight diver first encounters what (to us) is so obviously a logic of femme excess, and reports back in total perplexity: "what is she doing?!" Duh! This is a queer slut from outer space!! pic.twitter.com/35GpYmXIyZ
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
"Teacher" is about the conservationist Craig Foster's relationship with the octopus. At one point, they have a form of sex: "the boundaries between her body and mine disappear."
This is precisely what the diver says in Hokusai's famous print: "Oh! Boundaries and borders gone!" pic.twitter.com/Y4iYC69EY8
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
Foster is an amicable guy. I applaud his Sea Change project's effort to protect the kelp forest off the African coast. A Netflix doc is always going to be limited by daft narrative imperatives. Nevertheless My Octopus Teacher is often an object-lesson in scientific masculinity… pic.twitter.com/uzqMxRObNW
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
My Octopus Teacher frequently skirts the most wonderful aporias, vulnerabilities, semi-realizations of human-nonhuman interdependence & transsubjectivity. It asks sweetly curious questions about being-octopus. Unfortunately, it doesn't allow itself to dwell finally in that space. pic.twitter.com/1Gt661disj
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
e.g. The unmistakable substance of the film – the polymorphously perverse, intimate interspecies relationship – is hamfistedly, guiltily folded into an unconvincing framing narrative about Foster's human son (Tim). What is Tim doing in this movie? Reproductive futurism for days!! pic.twitter.com/JWQpPIhhua
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
Foster correctly maintains that helping her recover from the shark attack (she lost a whole limb) would be 'interfering.' He also seems intermittently aware that making the documentary is itself 'interfering in her world.' To what 'environment' do his emotions belong? Unclear… pic.twitter.com/hFNKMdGPVp
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
What *is* clear is that getting weird with the octopus must be justified in the name of becoming a better dad. She becomes "nature" again, rather than a unique being, whenever it seems necessary to account for the purpose/benefit of that relationship. It cannot stand on its own. pic.twitter.com/14LR7ibN1n
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
If you track Foster's use of she/her versus "it" to refer to the octopus, his lapses seem to correspond to the surfacing of his shame about having made, well, a documentary about the maiming (by shark) & suffering of a nonhuman person w/ whom he was in a significant relationship. pic.twitter.com/VElQzTtmF8
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
I'm not saying I am sorry the docu was made, or that he 'should have' behaved differently – only that there's something conspicuously queerphobic, repressed, about the fact that (because 'science'!) Foster doesn't permit himself to hold her (even for a moment) when she is dying. pic.twitter.com/6K2eLD9AKJ
— Sophie Lewis (@reproutopia) September 20, 2020
Her problem is that the documentary is “conspicuously queerphobic”? That’s the issue???
ok thats enough for today. https://t.co/30OhlW4W6Y
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) September 21, 2020
Wait, what? https://t.co/VOwfyDfzEV
— Cam Edwards (@CamEdwards) September 21, 2020
We, too, have questions. But first, a brief pause for jokes:
cc: Kurt Eichenwaldhttps://t.co/FeK0gie3EM
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 21, 2020
Starring Kurt Eichenwald
— Mostly Peaceful Whale (@kahlthewhale) September 21, 2020
I had no idea Kurt Eichenwald made a movie
— Judgmental Shoelace ?? ?? ?? ?? (@DocKilmer) September 21, 2020
Kurt Eichenwald helps the movie break even.
— Kaitain ?? (@Kaitain_US) September 21, 2020
Lots more Kurt Eichenwald jokes where those came from, of course.
The Shape of Water is a documentary https://t.co/08fqzDQfDU
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) September 21, 2020
OK, so now that that’s out of our system, let’s get back to the heart of the matter, shall we? Namely that this Sophie Lewis person is clearly not quite right.
Wait. Is the contention he's straight because it was a female octopus? Or does straight now mean something other than what I thought it meant? https://t.co/5hDzgBUv1v
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) September 21, 2020
What a time to be alive, huh?
kinda weird how she is careful to note “straight male” and “female octopus,” as if it mattered in a story involving a dude having an “erotic relationship” with an octopus.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) September 21, 2020
“this guy is in a steamy relationship with an octopus.”
“yes, but are they gay?”
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) September 21, 2020
just curious what the flow chart answers to “but are they gay?” look like for a story about man who is in love with an octopus.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) September 21, 2020
you know, reading through this woman’s bonkers thread, willing to bet there is no “erotic relationship” at all. man is prob mesmerized by octopus in the same way goodall was mesmerized by primates. almost certainly a pure and joyful relationship beyond normal man/beast dynamic.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) September 21, 2020
We haven’t seen the documentary ourselves, but there’s a better than excellent chance that Becket Adams is right.
Here’s some evidence for that:
I watched this documentary and it is definitely NOT how she describes it. He makes friends with an octopus. That’s it. Some of the footage he shot is worth watching for that alone
— Mrs. Steven James (@4rgrls) September 21, 2020
OK, so assuming that synopsis is the accurate one, it seems pretty safe to say that Sophie Lewis might be overdue for some therapy.
the lady posting about it, on the other hand, definitely wants to talk about octopi and sex.
— tsar becket adams (@BecketAdams) September 21, 2020
*Shudder*
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