the love witch: femininity as a performance

Overview

The Love Witch: Femininity as a performance argues that Anna Biller’s 2016 film uses classic technicolor aesthetics, heavy symbolism, and a consciously “constructed” female character to explore feminism, the female gaze, and the effects of patriarchal expectations on women.

The video begins by warning of spoilers and frames Biller’s intent: while some viewers interpret the film as an “homage to exploitation,” Biller says she made it primarily for young women and uses its style to “cast spells over the audience.” The presenter repeatedly emphasizes the discussion as interpretive rather than a claim of one definitive “correct ideology.”

Film setup and central character as symbolic “witch femininity”

The film is set in an ambiguous era (not clearly the 1960s) and builds an overtly stylized visual world. Elaine, a Wiccan witch devoted to love magic, is presented as a “loaded” female image—embodying female power while triggering male fear of female sexuality.

Multiple film-theory references position the witch as an enemy figure within patriarchal discourse and as “wild femininity” opposed to “true womanhood” (domesticity, purity, and subordination).

Elaine’s heartbreak history anchors the analysis. She is implied to be involved in her husband’s death and is initially marked by nervousness and grief. Her identity repeatedly appears through visual motifs—especially tarot imagery—suggesting that love, pain, and danger are intertwined.

Color, tarot, and production unity as psychological worldbuilding

A central claim is that the film’s production design is extremely unified and deliberate, “like tarot imagery coming to life.” Tarot decks and cards recur to signal heartbreak and emotional violence, including the Rider–Waite Three of Swords.

The presenter highlights Biller’s direct involvement in painting/creating details, arguing this creates “psychological intimacy.”

Red as Elaine’s defining color

Red is treated as Elaine’s defining color—covering passion, anger, love, and danger. It is also interpreted as “womb/yonic” imagery and as Elaine becoming like a “wound” that spills into others.

The apartment is analyzed as tarot-like space: warm vs. cool rooms (“sun and moon”) visually represent Elaine’s internal discord—wanting love while also craving power—and how the outside world judges her mixed desires.

Makeup and the “agent of deception” trope

Elaine’s makeup is framed as central performance: glamour that can transform, lure, and deceive. The video connects this to historical moral panic about “painted faces” as “false faces” linked to witchcraft and feminine trickery.

Drawing on Biller’s comments, Elaine is described as highly constructed—layered makeup, lashes, lingerie, wig, and costumes—used as armor and weaponry.

The presenter also argues the film critiques the idea that intercourse equals love and that Elaine has been conditioned to pursue male fantasies. Yet it also describes a contradiction: she seems disgusted by the men’s neediness/sentimentality, making her both victim of expectation and controller of outcomes.

The female gaze: celebration and subversion at once

A major portion addresses whether the film is feminist. The presenter discusses an article referencing Biller’s blog post “Let’s Stop Calling Movies Feminist,” where Biller argues feminism gets emptied out once it becomes buzzword status, and that “retroactively inserting feminism” into exploitation films erases feminist discourse.

Even if Biller rejects labels, the presenter says the film appears intentionally structured from a female-oriented viewpoint.

Elaine’s hyper-feminine submission is treated as performative: designed to appear coy and submissive to men, while she ultimately dominates them. The film is argued to “play on” the male gaze only to subvert it—smashing categories often used in feminist debates (objectification vs. empowerment; victimhood vs. vengeance).

Internal/external conflict, trauma, and repeating motifs

The video emphasizes Biller’s technique of flipping the audience’s perspective—sometimes judging Elaine from the outside, sometimes aligning with her internal experience through voiceovers and intrusive thoughts. The presenter links the sun/moon contrast and repeated imagery (especially Elaine’s eyes) to this tension.

Eye-motif paintings are interpreted as literalizing feminine control: Elaine’s gaze “follows” and objectifies men without their awareness, while the men’s eyes fade as Elaine’s influence kills or empties them.

This is further connected to a claim that emotional suppression and inability to process feelings (“toxic masculinity”) becomes deadly—men cry, express emotion, and still fail to understand what’s happening to them.

Love magic as fatal “belief,” and patriarchy as a mechanism

Several scenes are read as illustrating how Elaine’s worth becomes tied to pleasing men, connected to Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas. The video also highlights Elaine’s history of abuse from her husband and father, including a flashback of sexual coercion during initiation.

Elaine is described as splitting into two responses:

• Minimizing abuse by validating perpetrators’ needs (taking ownership of the fantasy)
• Seeking revenge by giving men what they want while stripping them of control and selfhood

Her burial ritual and the “witch bottle” are interpreted not primarily as protection, but as pity—ensuring remnants of Elaine’s essence remain with the dead—suggesting her love fantasy cannot survive contact with reality.

Narrative beats used to reinforce the argument

• Wayne: Elaine seduces Wayne with potion and hallucinogens. The video reads the rainbows/lens flare and rainbow lining as symbolic of what Elaine is “willing to give.” Her gaze dominates, while men die emotionally and physically.
• Richard: Another tarot-driven fate pattern (Nine of Swords, Three of Swords, The Devil) accompanies Richard’s obsession and collapse.
• “The Sun” wedding and voiceover duels: Voiceovers dramatize competing theories of love—Elaine’s idea that “the more you know him, the more you love him” vs. Griff’s cynicism that knowing a woman reduces feeling. The mock wedding and its bright imagery are framed as Elaine’s happiest fantasy, which ultimately collapses.
• Tea rooms and color opposition: Later tea scenes are read as moral/social contrast: Trish wears black (mourning) while Elaine wears white (bride), marking their shift into opposing positions.

Ending interpretation: a deadly female fantasy shaped by misogyny

The video concludes that the film critiques eternal happiness and fulfillment as a “deadliest drug,” especially for women. In a feminist reading, Elaine is portrayed as having absorbed a version of love so deadly she doesn’t realize it’s a misogynistic lie that undermines her autonomy.

Overall, the film is interpreted as portraying femininity as performance—glamour, color, gaze, and ritual—while showing how that performance becomes both an instrument of agency and a response to trauma and patriarchal conditioning.

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Presenters / Contributors mentioned

• Anna Biller (director/writer/producer; also credited for production design and costume work)
• Emma Willis (makeup)
• Trish Manning (character; interior decorator)
• Barbara Creed (quoted/credited theorist)
• Heather Greene (quoted/credited theorist)
• Maya Kokerov (quoted/credited theorist)
• Eve Froude (quoted/credited theorist)
• Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex)
• McBride (quoted/credited source for de Beauvoir discussion)
• Eve Froude (credited in yielding to male desire framing)
• Collinson (cited on witch bottles)
• Thomas Tuke (Puritan writer cited, 1616)
• Aleister Crowley (referenced via occult speech comparison)
• Pamela Colman Smith (illustrator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck)
• Jeanne Dielman (referenced via mirror/dressing scene comparison)
• Rider–Waite tarot / Thoth tarot (tarot deck references)