Midsommar and the “Good for Her” Trope

This was written by Tishitha, one of our student interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.

Midsommar is a wonderfully gory movie. With absolutely horrific scenes that float throughout the movie’s duration and the brilliant storytelling, it is (in my opinion) an amazing example of how intricate horror can be. The film does a great job at making the audience slightly uncomfortable at all times and downright horrified at others. It also makes brilliant use of foreshadowing. But, it is often interpreted in a very unique way after the first watch. And the second watch makes you rethink the way you interpreted the film the first time you watched it.

Midsommar is often said to fit into the “good for her” trope. This trope refers to a belittled or traumatized woman in media gaining her autonomy back through horrific acts of vengeance that leave the audience feeling a twisted sense of vindication. Midsommar ends showing Dani, the main character, being crowned the Mayflower Queen and smiling the smile of someone who has “surrendered to a joy only known by the insane”, according to director Ari Aster. We first met Dani soon after her parents and sister died in a tragic murder-suicide committed by said sister. Dani, her emotionally unavailable and unsupportive boyfriend, and two of her boyfriend’s (Christian) friends accept an invite from their Swedish friend Pelle to attend a midsummer celebration at his ancestral commune, the Harga. Throughout the movie, Dani’s friends are picked off one by one, until she is the last outsider left alive. The cult in the film is clearly manipulating Dani and slowly tearing her down, convincing her that they are her new family, so much so that she condones her friends’ and boyfriend’s deaths happily. Ultimately, she is forced to join the commune (cult) through bloodshed and manipulation; the ending is not a show of vengeance but rather a show of the manipulative power of the cult. Yet, many still see it as a “good for her” moment, saying Dani was right to approve the death of her boyfriend and accept the role of Mayflower Queen. And sure, Christian was a very bad partner. He gaslights Dani constantly and ignores her emotions; he clearly does not care about her in the same way she cares about him. He was the embodiment of male entitlement, but does that make burning alive a worthy fate? Was he horrible enough to deserve being drugged into oblivion, placed inside the corpse of a grizzly bear, and endure an excruciating public death? The audience usually ends up thinking he does. 

Ultimately, this is because Midsommar brainwashes you as you watch Dani get brainwashed by the Harga. The film serves as a great representation of how effective cult indoctrination tactics can be. 

The defining moment when the Hagra start to infect the audience and make us believe in their goodness, I believe, is right after the attestupa the group witnesses. An attestupa was a prehistoric Nordic practice in which elderly people threw themselves, or were thrown, to their deaths when they became unable to support themselves or assist in a household. Members of the Hagra do this when they turn 72. The attestupa the group witnesses culminates in one member of the elderly couple that jumped surviving, so the commune members mimic his scream of agony before crushing his skull with a mallet and putting him out of his misery. The group was unsettled after this, but ended up staying to help Josh, one of Christian’s friends, finish his thesis on the Hagra. Shortly after, Christian decides he also wants to write his thesis on the Hagra, angering Josh and splitting up the group. This is when Dani attempts to leave, but she is intercepted by Pelle. Pelle sits with Dani and explains to her his connection to the Hagra after he was orphaned. He also questions whether Christian loves Dani. Pelle is the opposite of Christian. Where Christian evades Dani’s gaze and doesn’t engage in conversation, Pelle looks at her like she is the only person in the world and expresses a genuine interest in talking to her. This moment, this single conversation adheres Pelle as a “good guy” in the audience’s minds. Pelle is the first one to truly acknowledge how horrible Christian is to Dani. And Pelle is intrinsically connected to the Hagra. Thus, at this point the Hagra are good in our eyes. They are telling Dani the truth and offering her comfort. And watching Dani, who has just suffered an unimaginable loss with virtually no support system, finally have someone comfort her, someone to provide a shoulder to lean on, is incredibly cathartic and validating. 

But even here, there are subtleties. Dani has just seen a couple violently die. She watched heads being bashed open and body parts exploding as they hit the ground. After witnessing this incredible violence, Dani understandably is horrified and wants to leave as soon as possible. Pelle essentially tells her that her feelings here are wrong. He twists the conversation away from that entirely and focuses on Dani’s loneliness. 

The biggest way in which the Hagra earn our trust is through their aesthetic. We know that we’re watching a horror movie, so we do have some distrust in the Hagra all along. We know they are supposed to be up to no good. But it is so difficult to hold onto such negativity when they approach us with such sunshine. The Hagra are bright and cheerful. They decorate with joyful colors and are always shown being friendly. The effort of trying to stay suspicious of them for two and a half hours wears on the audience. The Hagra are so clearly pure and heavenly, almost. They always wear white, and the color correction makes the film almost blindingly bright. And while Dani’s friends are picked off one by one, the Hagra only get brighter and kinder. We eventually realize that they are helping the girl we are rooting for and hurting the guy we are against, which makes it so much easier to let go and go with the current. To accept everything the Hagra do because they are helping Dani get rid of her problem and making her happy. Then, once Dani is crowned Mayflower Queen, she is the center of attention and Christian is suddenly the one who is ignored. They lift her up, literally. 

This is a common theme in cults, they smother you with love during the indoctrination process. They show so much niceness that the person getting indoctrinated will never want to leave. After all, who would want to give up that seemingly unconditional love? In the movie, we also see Dani face her first consequence when she runs from the cult’s instructions. They show her nothing but love and when she disobeys, she ends up seeing Christian participating in a very staged orgy. Dani becomes heartbroken, but the cheating was clearly not Christian’s fault. He was drugged and coerced into it, besides, the Hagra had to have known how much noise the orgy was making. And they let Dani slip away, even though they have been keeping a very close eye on her for the entirety of the movie thus far. They let Dani think she snuck away only to lure her into seeing a scene that requires heavy context with no context. The moment was clearly heavily choreographed, and it drives Dani straight into the arms of the Hagra to be held and comforted. But even if one recognizes this, we are still prone to being happy for Dani and supporting the Hagra just because they finally showed Dani how much of a horrible person Christian could be.

The film also keeps the audience and the characters stressed out constantly, which is another way it brainwashes us. Brainwashing often relies on mental exhaustion. Ari Aster keeps us on our toes throughout this entire movie for this reason. He lets us mull over all of the little unsettling details. The jump scenes in the movie are scary, but the slow and ominous admissions of guilt get at the audience more. The film also has a funny way of introducing little mysteries but never actually solving them. It prefers to answer difficult questions with answers to easy questions. For example, in the very beginning of the film, Pelle’s brother gives them a tour around the commune. When asked why there is a bear in a cage he responds with “It’s a bear”. He changed the question from a difficult one (“Why is there a bear here?”) to an easier one (“What is that?”) in order to stave off the question but still provide an answer so no one pushes him. This comes into play right after Dani has her big breakdown. Suddenly we are being given answers left and right. We find out what happened to everyone that disappeared throughout the movie. We find out what happened to Simon, to Josh, to Mark, to Connie. This creates an incredible rush of dopamine in our brains. We’re finally given answers after being stressed out for so long. The movie puts this rush of dopamine right before the climax. And we ride that high into the big final scene, which lets us ignore all of the horrible implications and instead focus only on the joy that Dani is feeling and the joy we feel after getting all of our questions answered and seeing Christian, an obvious antagonist, be defeated. We are allowed to ignore the difficult question (“What is going to happen to Dani?”) in favor of an easier question (“What happened to everyone else?”). 

And at this point in the movie, Dani is completely consumed by the Hagra. We can see this even in her Mayflower Queen dress. She is covered in flowers and lurching around like a beautiful and vibrant monster. But she’s finally expressing herself. She’s finally being comforted. For the first time, she is crying in public, she’s not hiding her emotions any longer. Dani is going through a cathartic moment; she is getting over her trauma in a roundabout way. But this catharsis is manufactured. The Hagra have helped her process her trauma, but they have also turned her into something else, someone else, entirely. She has gone from one codependent relationship to another. And we, the audience, have cheered her on throughout it.