Postfeminism That Isn't Pink: “Lost In Translation” Twenty Years On

Make it stand out

In the late nineties and early noughties, women-centric films were decidedly postfeminist: flicks like The Princess Diaries, Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Devil Wears Prada presented a vision of womanhood that was unburdened from the challenges previously faced by women. As a result, the women at the core of the films were free to live life to the fullest, while indulging in all of their girliest pleasures. But what if this newfound emancipated existence wasn’t liberating, but stifling? That’s the concept at the core of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Twenty years on, it remains as a seminal exploration of a more quiet vision of postfeminism. 

The term postfeminism is a contentious one: for some, adding that prefix both undermines the work of feminism and implies it’s effectively over. But when it comes to the films and popular culture that emerged around the time of Lost in Translation’s release, postfeminist feels like the perfect descriptor. Scholar Fiona Handyside emphasises that postfeminism is defined by “obsessive self-surveillance” and “a focus on individualism, choice and empowerment”. For Stéphanie Genz and Benjamin A. Brabon, it’s all about “feminine fun”, “female friendship” and the “celebration of (mostly pink coloured) commodities”. They’re not describing Legally Blonde, but they might as well be.

What’s often neglected, however, is the other side of the coin: the overwhelming boredom and suffocating listlessness that emerges from (apparently) having the world in the palm of your hand. For Lost in Translation’s Charlotte, played by a seventeen year old Scarlett Johansson, that’s the truest postfeminist experience. The film introduces Charlotte in its opening shot: a close-up of her wearing sheer, pink underpants, with the title overlaid. It’s with this that Coppola begins carving out her unique vision of postfeminism. While the rosy hue of Charlotte’s pants and Johansson’s bare bottom might have had you fooled, Coppola is asserting that what’s truly going to be “lost” in Lost in Translation, is typical renditions of on-screen femininity. 

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

If the conventional postfeminist woman is something of a consumerist girlie - hello Cher Horowitz - then Charlotte is decidedly the opposite. Between moody shots of Johansson roaming Tokyo and Kyoto, in those pertinent moments in Lost in Translation where someone’s not thinking or pondering but talking, Charlotte is explaining the existential dread brought on by her husband John’s purchase and use of “these hair products”. 

Charlotte doesn't like that John’s preening is a kind of self-surveillance: something that’s at complete odds with the absence of physical labour gone into Charlotte’s appearance. This becomes a kind of throughline to Charlotte’s subjectivity in Lost in Translation. When we meet Kelly, an actress that Charlotte and John run into at their hotel, Charlotte’s expressions are one of disdain, and it’s clear that she simply doesn’t understand Kelly’s meticulously beautified existence. 

Again, it’s at odds with Charlotte’s disregard for how she looks, and that space she occupies at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to postfeminist “obsessive self-surveillance”. Though that message gets a little confused with Johansson in the role, it’s pertinent that Charlotte is only really seen in frumpy sweater vests, cardigans and those big pink briefs. Coppola even draws our attention to Charlotte’s smoking habit, something she doesn’t plan to give up just because, as John points out, it’s “bad” for her. Charlotte doesn’t care that she might get a few wrinkles, and that sits in stark contrast to Kelly’s love of yoga and how proud she is that so many people thinks an anorexic: “I have a really high metabolism!” she says with palpable glee. 

When we view Lost in Translation through these kinds of lenses, there’s something subtly subversive about everything Charlotte spends her free time doing. She idly wanders Kyoto, takes part in a flower-arranging class, knits, and fiddles with the paper sculptures that hang in the hotel room: activities all unified by the fact that they have no discernible point to them. At least not if productivity or presenting oneself is concerned. And Charlotte enjoys these activities in her characteristically subdued way because they act as a kind of respite; not only from all the superficiality which affronts Charlotte, but the alienation of her postfeminist existence.

Twenty years on, it’s clear a large part of Lost in Translation’s legacy lies in the nuanced portrayals of female subjectivity that it clearly inspired: Lena Dunham's Girls, Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, and Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World. All of these follow suit of Coppola’s 2003 masterpiece by exploring the existential dread of being a liberated woman, while dwelling more and more (whether by choice or obligation) on the privileges that have allowed it. Charlotte has even found her way into pockets of online culture, where she’s the perfect avatar for the sad girl aesthetic. 

“Twenty years on, it’s clear a large part of Lost in Translation’s legacy lies in the nuanced portrayals of female subjectivity that it clearly inspired.”

That said, a rewatch of Lost in Translation won’t just reveal how seminal it is. There are things about Lost in Translation - things indebted to Coppola’s artful exploration of the postfeminist condition - that don’t age so gracefully. Though it’s Charlotte’s first interaction with Kelly that aligns the viewer of Lost in Translation with her subdued world of observation, for modern viewers it could also make for a slightly uneasy watch. Coppola’s endeavour to create a more complex feminine subjectivity has resulted in the unfortunate by-products of solipsism and a subtle internalised misogyny. Charlotte could be construed as what some people would call a “pick me girl”. In this sense, Coppola is engaging in her own form of self-surveillance: the director takes pleasure in the fact that, despite the industry she’s grown up in, she is not like Kelly. This is one of the most pertinent things about Lost in Translation: that Charlotte functions as a kind of stand-in for the director. Her struggle to fit within the reductive boxes given to postfeminist women is mirrored outside the film, in the reductive boxes given to women filmmakers like Coppola - it’s because of this that I tend to forgive Coppola when things err on being that teeny weeny bit sexist. 

Lost in Translation is by no means Coppola’s only offering when it comes to taking on the postfeminist condition. If anything, it’s an undercurrent to all of her films, interwoven into their tapestry, informing formal choices, the sensibilities of her characters, and sometimes even taking centre stage, a-la The Bling Ring. But what’s so special about Lost in Translation is that it evokes the sensorial experience of postfeminist alienation; that it dissects the contradictory nature of postfeminism without depending on the explicit representation of the excesses it is trying to condemn.

Words: Amber Rawlings