Don’t get it twisted: ‘Twisters’ is a map for uniting America
What could keep an adult woman eating hot dogs and writing horny poetry in a hot bath in early August heat…? Twisters, yes, the sequel to Twister (1996). After obsessively talking about this movie to anyone who will listen, I’ve accepted, if I text my roommate about something more than 5 times and cry about themes from a fictional plot in therapy, I should just fucking write an essay about it; so, here are some undeniable reasons Twisters holds the blueprint to unite America.
**Hey, spoilers are inevitable - go see it if you haven’t already, and then read this, I beg you. It’s a psychedelic trip minus the drugs.**
It’s a love story … duh and a pansexual anthem (less duh)
The cringey straight people flirting in the beginning of the movie is deceiving because it’s really not about the chemistry between Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones’ characters; they never even kiss on screen, and I’d argue Glen Powell has more chemistry with every other character anyways. There’s someone for everyone to be attracted to in Twisters, not just the maiden or cowboy: for example, the lesbian who at first glance I thought was Adrienne Lenker, plenty of nice Irish folk, a MILF, tech bros, Anthony Ramos, etc. Ok, maybe not someone for everyone, but I’ve definitely never felt so bisexual in a movie theater experience before — unexpectedly falling for Glen Powell but also his queer coded collaborators.
But truthfully, I was most turned on by the tornados. After a few months living off-grid in the mountains, I noticed living more intimately with nature made me hornier than ever. Once I’d adjusted to this lifestyle and my pace of time slowed, just seeing the wind rustle some leaves in the sunlight was enough to make me feel hot and alive, so you can imagine how I felt when 7 different kinds of tornados blew through the screen in two hours. (Somebody please nominate these people for special effects).
What made me cry in therapy was the Fire of Love-esque romance, the obsessive love of the third thing, which fostered a togetherness in service to something much larger than themselves. Tyler (Powell) and Kate’s (Edgar-Jones) romance was rooted in a pure awe of Twisters, and they collaborated on making a Tornado diffusing technology. Ultimately, their different skill sets complimented each other, and they were able to create something they could not make alone. Kate is the source of the inspiration, but Tyler actually helps her materialize it, or in other words, energetically, the divine masculine serves the feminine vision. I cried to my therapist confessing, “this is the kind of love I want!” — the building kind — which I believe is so revolutionary because it’s the opposite of convention, which could never breed invention. Twisters reminds us love is the fertile soil from which new ideas emerge, and we are in desperate needs of new ideas.
Don’t be racist, be country!
Twisters’ portrayal of Southern culture sans scenes of any -isms or explicit conversations about inequality was surprisingly incredibly refreshing! It didn’t feel neglectful, but instead like an ancient reminder that country living is baked into our human core; living off the land is universal and goes way farther back than the relatively recent invention of race. There’s nothing about bull riding or ATVing or farming or hunting or fishing that requires racism, fear, exclusion or hierarchy of any kind to do it well — even though many of us have been subliminally taught to associate these activities with certain belief systems — it’s literally about having fucking fun outside. Witnessing southern life on screen (minus the bad parts) made me wanna get in my car and head straight south to a bar for line dancing and never look back. What the fuck are we doing up here? I’d rather go to the rodeo than a stiff, expensive bar any day.
I grew up in Chicago with all the normal biases against rural areas, especially the South. But living in rural Iowa for four years in my early 20s and learning about my own family’s history farming in the Midwest made it clear to me that our judgement was a tool to distance us from agriculture and our past. We traded land, the most precious resource on this planet, for “white collar” work, for the illusion of control, for Whole Foods and organic corn flakes. But the Twister comes for everybody, no matter your class — yeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw mother fucker!
Our distrust was really pain caused by our disconnection from real work, and therefore, severance from the earth. And in the same vein, talking to farmers today, I realized, their biases and hatreds too, were rooted in the primal fear of scarcity, of there not being enough. And of course they feared this, in less than a century they’d seen 97% of land in this country become privately, industrially owned. With monopolies like this, we are reaching a climate turning point of not enough of what there should have always been enough of: land, soil, and food. Though they never say the words ‘climate change’ in the movie, this point is driven home in Twisters when Kate simultaneously realizes Tyler uses his YouTube money to provide food for communities hit hardest by tornados, and Javi is working with investors to get rich off buying and reselling the land of people’s whose homes were destroyed.
When I write, “don’t be racist, be country,” which I absolutely intend to put on a sticker with Glen Powell’s face, I mean white people need to find a sense of collective belonging that isn’t rooted in fear, but joy, which inevitably means returning to the land. It’s literally a matter of survival, y’all. Ride your fears. Twisters humbles and reminds us of the simplicity of our animal needs and collective goal: life.
Conclusion
My only critique is that Twisters should have come out 10 years ago, and Beyonce, Adrienne and Post Malone (just to name a few) should have been on the soundtrack — what a missed opportunity to highlight the country resurgence happening across genres right now.
