The Censorship Virus
How the Soska Sisters went from feminist icons to being championed by the alt-right in a matter of days
I met one of my best friends in the world through our mutual fandom of horror movies. We constantly message each other to talk about what’s new, what’s different, and what’s disgusting (in a good way) in the modern film world. She’s even got a couple of tattoos based on the films she loves — one of them is an homage to Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End).The other one is in reference to American Mary, written and directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska, identical twin filmmakers from Canada.
Recently, this particular friend of mine messaged me something along the lines of “I have tattoo regret, lmao.”
Looking at what’s going on with the Soskas lately, it’s not hard to see why.
Jen and Sylvia, who started their film career with a movie they made on a budget of $2,500, have risen through the ranks in the past few years, teaming up with WWE Studios for a slasher flick (See No Evil 2) and a prison action drama (Vendetta) before writing a run of Marvel’s Black Widow and, most recently and relevantly, scoring the gig of a lifetime: directing a remake of fellow Canadian horror icon David Cronenberg’s Rabid. This movie is no stranger to controversy — the original, released in 1977, starred pornographic actress Marilyn Chambers as Rose, a woman who undergoes experimental surgery after a horrible motorcycle accident and becomes the carrier for a virus that turns people into bloodthirsty, zombie-like creatures.
The Soskas’ own take on the film, starring Smallville’s Laura Vandervoort as Rose, has been subject to controversy of a different nature. After sharing and promoting images from the 2019 Rabid, which features practical gore by Masters FX, Jen and Sylvia found themselves suspended from Twitter.
They are far from happy about this.
“First directors to remake a Cronenberg film,” Sylvia posted on July 11. “Also, the first directors to put suspended from Twitter for promoting their film with an image featuring makeup and prosthetics from Masters FX Toronto — the makeup graced the covers of both Rue Morgue and FANGORIA.
“Wish y’all didn’t do it right as we dropped our first trailer and are advertising the premiere, but we’re not a huge studio movie — this kind of weird stuff happens. If you could be #Rabid on Twitter in our absence, we would appreciate it.”
After filing an appeal seven days after their suspension, things only got worse for the sisters when they received a response informing them their suspension had become permanent.
This is not where the problem is. People get suspended from Twitter for arbitrary reasons every day. Horror content is shared on almost a constant basis. I haven’t heard of anything like this happening, especially in the last few years since I became a horror fan, so I agree with them that this kind of sucks a lot.
The problem began when, in their efforts to get reinstated, Jen and Sylvia, champions of female autonomy and anti-pedophile advocates for life, began allying themselves with the alt-right.
I know, right?
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, the alt-right are a sect of politically active conservatives who most people (myself included) consider equivalent to neo-Nazis. They’re the ones behind the Charlottesville rally that resulted in the death of a protester. They’re the ones who came up with the totally made-up Pizzagate conspiracy over a theoretical Democratic child sex ring. They’re the ones who say racist things on social media, then complain about censorship when they get called out for it.
When that last point comes into play, that’s where the Soskas’ new allies stop seeming like that much of a stretch.
July 15th was where it all started to go downhill. Jack Posobiec tweeted out a video from One America News covering the sisters’ suspension, and the sisters responded thanking him on Instagram. If Posobiec sounds familiar, it’s because he’s the one who promoted Pizzagate and got James Gunn fired by digging up his old offensive tweets. Even a cursory google of Posobiec’s name is enough to find his history of straight-up lying to promote far-right causes. And yet, his “freedom of speech” stance was enough for the sisters to jump right on board his train.
Since then, I’ve seen all kinds of conservative fans of the sisters’ work come out to show their support, comparing their suspension to the “censorship” they’ve faced for expressing their frankly backwards views. And the sisters are just eating it up.
It’s enough to make my friend start losing respect for who she once considered her favorite filmmakers. She put it much better than I ever could: “They’re making some weird point and caring way too much about this and making it a “freedom of speech” thing which the alt right people are eating up and because they’re getting support they’re forgetting all their morals and being like “well, different opinions I guess”.”
If I might get personal for a minute, Jen and Sylvia Soska have always been inspirations for me as a filmmaker. (I’m not gonna self-promote my own work here, it’s not about me. It’s about them.) Their first film, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, was made for $2500. I made my first film for $550, inspired by their own work. I’ve been a huge fan and I’ve enjoyed watching them get more and more recognition through their work for WWE Studios. So to see this, to see two of my favorite filmmakers of all time align themselves with a culture based around hate and outrage over being silenced, is disheartening to no end.
And here’s the thing: this culture isn’t being silenced for no reason. They’re being silenced because the things they say and the things they do hurt other people. A lot. This isn’t the case with the Soskas by a long shot. They didn’t deserve their Twitter suspension, obviously, but to push back against it by letting people who are at best problematic and at worst normalizing hatred champion them as anti-censorship icons is not the way to go.
I really hope they see the error they made in these new “friends” they’re letting lift them up. But until then, since they only seem to read the comments that agree with them, all we can do is sit back and be disappointed. Do better, Jen and Sylvia. Please.
