obsessiondirected by YouTuber and filmmaker Curry Barker, has taken the box office by storm. The indie horror film has already grossed more than $200 million worldwide against an initial budget of just $750,000. While audiences applauded the film, Obsession’s message about consent, coercion and violence in modern dating is perhaps most laudable.
The “nice guy” and the desire
The film’s protagonist is Baron “Bear” Bailey (Michael Johnston), a music store employee who is grieving the death of his cat. American writer and educator Kate Millett argued in Sexual Politics that patriarchy often manifests itself in banal, everyday ways rather than through spectacular acts of violence. Bear’s character in Obsession embodies this idea: his violence is neither grotesque nor spectacular; it’s subtle, banal and all the more disturbing.
Apparently, Bear resembles many men we know and have encountered in our daily lives – the shy, sweet, awkward “nice guy” who is hopelessly in love but doesn’t have the confidence to express it. When we first meet Bear, we sympathize with him. Until Bear uses a One Wish Willow, an enchanted object that promises to make wishes come true. Bear wants Nikki (Inde Navarrette), his colleague in the music business for whom he has long had feelings, to fall “more in love with him than anyone else in the whole world.”
Bear (Michael Johnston) in a scene from Obsession. Image source: Blumhouse Productions
It’s clear that Bear doesn’t expect this wish to come true, but his decision to wish for Nikki to fall in love with him reveals something far more disturbing. Just before she makes the wish, Nikki specifically asks Bear if he likes her, but he can’t muster the courage to tell her how he feels and she walks away. At that moment, Bear, frustrated with himself, wishes that Nikki loved him.
Baer’s choice of wish already shows his careless attitude towards Nikki’s autonomy. Given what had just happened, it would have been easy for him to have the courage to confess his feelings. Instead, he asks for Nikki’s submission to make her fall in love with him, without regard to how she actually feels or whether she even wants to be with him.
American legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon’s theory of desire as power is at work here. MacKinnon argues that male desire is not neutral but is structured by relationships of dominance. Bear’s wish realizes this dynamic: his wish not only reflects a power imbalance; it creates one.
American legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon’s theory of desire as power is at work here. MacKinnon argues that male desire is not neutral but is structured by relationships of dominance. Bear’s wish realizes this dynamic: his wish not only reflects a power imbalance; it creates one.
Nikki (Inde Navarrette) in a scene from Obsession. Image source: Blumhouse Productions
His wish deprives Nikki of her freedom of choice and gives her a fate she never would have chosen: becoming Bear’s girlfriend. From the moment he makes the wish, Nikki stops being herself and turns into someone who exists solely to please Bear. Her identity as a vibrant young woman disappears and in her place is Wish Nikki – an obsessive, insecure woman who will do anything to secure Bear’s love. There are rare moments in the film when the real Nikki flashes before us, but these moments are rare.
Obsession belongs to a subgenre of horror known as body horror, which considers the loss of control over one’s body as a source of terror. In other words, “Obsession” forces the audience to experience for two hours what many women experience as a lived reality every day.
Obsession belongs to a subgenre of horror known as Body horrorwhich sees the loss of control over one’s own body as a source of terror. In other words, “Obsession” forces the audience to experience for two hours what many women experience as a lived reality every day. Simone de Beauvoir argued in The Second Sex that women are constituted by male desire as “others,” defined not by their own subjectivity but by their relationship to men. Wish Nikki is the logical, nightmarish culmination of this process. She is a woman whose essence and existence revolves around Bear, who has become so completely different that she no longer has access to herself.
Coercion, consent and the body in obsession
As the film progresses, Nikki’s behavior becomes increasingly disturbing, a fact not lost on Bear. He begins to suspect that Nikki’s behavior is a direct result of his wish. More disturbing than Nikki’s unraveling, however, is the way Bear reacts to it. When his colleague Ian asked if they had slept together, Bear simply replied that Nikki was “acting strange”. Ian brings up the idea of drugs as an explanation for Nikki’s bizarre behavior. Bear, knowing full well that drugs have nothing to do with it, agrees.
It’s a familiar, quiet and insidious maneuver: the kind of narrative twisting that happens in locker rooms, where a woman’s behavior seems like “madness” and the man’s role in creating that “madness” is quietly buried. Drugs here provide a convenient justification for Nikki’s behavior, which stems from Bear taking control and autonomy away from her and allowing him to evade responsibility for her emotional and mental state.
Obsession proves beyond a doubt that the version of Nikki we see on screen is not the real Nikki at all. In a photo of her and Bear that she includes with his lunch, she refers to them as “Bear” and “not me,” which Bear notices but promptly ignores.
Nikki (Inde Navarrette) and Bear (Michael Johnston) in a scene from Obsession. Image source: Blumhouse Productions
Even when it is clear beyond doubt that Nikki is under the influence of this desire and not acting of her own free will, Bear continues to have sex with her. However, he refuses to look at her during sex. She is not a person to be seen, but a body to be controlled. The film explicitly presents this as a metaphor for sexual assault: Bear uses Nikki for sexual gratification, knowing full well that she is incapable of consent. Nikki is deprived of autonomy over her own body and has no agency in this situation, a fact that Bear is aware of but remains dismissive of.
Bear uses Nikki for sexual gratification, knowing full well that she is incapable of consent. Nikki is deprived of autonomy over her own body and has no agency in this situation, a fact that Bear is aware of but remains dismissive of.
At one point in the film, the real Nikki begs Bear to kill her because she is no longer herself and is overwhelmed by Wish Nikki. In that moment, instead of responding with introspection and regret, Bear asks, “What’s so bad about being with me?” Bear’s fragile male ego is hurt because, in his opinion, the real Nikki would choose death rather than be his girlfriend.
Nikki (Inde Navarrette) in a scene from Obsession. Image source: Blumhouse Productions
Bear is unable to realize the horror he has inflicted on Nikki by forcing her to give up control of her mind and body just so he can be with her. This is what MacKinnon means when she argues that male desire is structured by dominance: Bear cannot imagine a version of this situation in which Nikki’s agency matters. For him, their suffering is a problem of optics, not ethics.
The film makes it abundantly clear that Nikki would not have reciprocated Bear’s feelings if she had followed her own will and will. During a party, Nikki recites a deeply disturbing poem about a sexual relationship between siblings Hansel and Gretel, a direct reference to Ian, who had previously told Bear that Nikki viewed him as a brother. A brother with whom she was now forced to have sex, with whom she had to be in love – “a love that only the branch of a willow tree could conjure.” The poem is almost like a film that speaks directly to the audience: This love was summoned, not chosen.
A scene from Obsession. Image source: Blumhouse Productions
Only when Nikki’s behavior makes her more difficult to control does Bear come up with the idea of reversing his wish. He calls the One Wish Willow box hotline number. He first asks to “change” his wish and only when he is told that this is not possible does he ask to cancel it. Despite everything that’s happened, Bear’s priority is for Nikki to fall in love with him in a way that benefits him and on his terms. He doesn’t see Nikki as a victim and prisoner of his desire. Bear’s claim to Nikki’s body is obvious and clear.
The film poses a quiet but devastating hypothesis: What would Bear ask for if the wish could actually be changed? Not Nikki’s freedom, but a tamer version of the same desire – a Nikki who was still in love with him, but less visibly unhinged and more manageable.
Nikki (Inde Navarrette) in a scene from Obsession. Image source: Blumhouse Productions
At no point in the film does Bear acknowledge that Nikki’s agency and autonomy are important. Although Bear already knows at this point that Nikki had previously referred to him as her “brother,” she shows no inclination to respect her decision or respect her freedom of choice. He would rather be with someone who was forced to be with him than with someone who really liked him and chose him of their own free will, namely Sarah, his other colleague. This reveals something sinister about Bear: he has no interest in being chosen, only in choosing. It is in this distinction between a partner and a target that the film locates its true horror.
Feminist theory has long held that desire is never just personal. It’s political; It is based on existing power hierarchies. And when it acts without consent or consideration for the subjectivity of its object, it becomes violent.
Which brings us back to the title – who actually has obsession? Is it Nikki, the victim of Bear’s rape? A woman who had no choice and whose feelings for Bear were created without her consent. Or is it bear? A man who was so afraid of rejection and so consumed by his desire for a woman that he took away her autonomy and choice, forced her into submission, raped her and called it love.
Feminist theory has long held that desire is never just personal. It’s political; It is based on existing power hierarchies. And when it acts without consent or consideration for the subjectivity of its object, it becomes violent. Nikki never chose Bear; He made a decision for both of them. That’s not love. This is obsession in its most dangerous form.
Kashish is a policy expert currently working with DMEO and NITI Aayog. Her areas of interest include gender, climate and social justice. She enjoys reading, watching contemporary films and taking a feminist look at the art she consumes.