A Diva NEVER accepts a life they do not deserve
Maxine Minx, the woman that you are
Hi Divas,
If you’re among the lucky people whose brain has not become as rotted as mine, and you exist in a world where everything is not filtered through the latest niche meme made vaguely famous by people on the app once known as Twitter, you may have missed the ascension of the latest queen of IDGAF. A video posted to the app named after Kesha’s debut single recently cross-pollinated and gained traction on stan twitter, and it is all I can think about it. In the video, this absolute DIVA chooses between pop girls with a blatant disregard and lack of loyalty one can only aspire to reach. She rarely chooses the same pop girl from one face-off to the next and frankly, I’m obsessed.
However, her greatest utterance comes as she selects Selena Gomez, and this utterance has dominated my thoughts since I saw it. “Selena Gomez, for all she’s been through and she’s still singing”, she says, with the causality of saying something mundane. Little did she know she was making Diva history. Everything that has happened to me since has been filtered through this sentence since I saw this. I eat breakfast? This becomes “for all I’ve been through and I’m still eating”. I see someone run for the bus? This has become “for all they’ve been through and they’re still running”.
Most recently, I was struck by this marvellous turn of phrase after watching the latest installment in Ti West’s horror trilogy, Maxxxine.
Maxine Minx, the woman that you are….
*Note: this part contains spoilers for Maxxxine (2024)*
I am not a fan of highbrow horror films. Heredity was ridiculous to the point that I burst out laughing at least every five minutes from the second act onwards. Midsommer bored me beyond belief. No, when it comes to horror, I believe a Karlie Kloss level of looking camp in the eye is required for it to reach its greatest potential. The first two entries in the X trilogy came close to these heights; like when Jenna Ortega gets shot into oblivion just as she almost escapes in X or Mia Goth screeches “but I’m a starrrrrr” in Pearl.
In Maxxxine, Mia Goth’s titular character, who was X’s final girl, is taking Hollywood by storm. The final entry in the trilogy is delightful, hamming the camp up to an eleven. It’s shiny and glamorous and ridiculous and everyone in the film understands exactly what movie they’re making.
Mia Goth’s Maxine enters the upper echelon of final girls with her fried bleach blond hair and matching eyebrows. Her southern accent is even more ridiculous in this entry than the previous two and she struts around wearing stilettos, smoking cigarettes, and serving absolute cunt for an hour and a half.
The deliberately questionable accent work is done to fabulous effect by all of the cast. Halsey arrives to deliver an “AYYEEE I’M WALKING HERE” level Boston accent, while Lily Collins delivers a Yorkshire accent, which shifts with every syllable. Both girlies end up dead as a warning to the divas among us who like to put on an accent and pretend to be from somewhere we aren’t when we have had a cosmo or two.
After her fellow girlies end up dead, Maxine refuses to help the police figure out who’s doing it, even though they all know whoever is doing it is trying to fuck with her. Maxine tells them that the girlies should “save themselves like [she] did”, which is kinda diva-blaming but also kinda slay. However, once her gay bestie dies and she realises Lily Collins is on the chopping block, Maxine puts on her white stiletto boots and heads to the Hollywood Hills to confront the killer. Here, we are taught a valuable lesson, which is you’re a serial killer, hooker friends are fair game, but DO NOT come for the GBF or Emily in Paris. That’s too far.
The killer turns out to be Maxine’s father, played by Simon Prast. Prast evidently had a voucher for the butcher because this man comes on screen and hams up his role into another dimension. He makes Mia Goth’s accent work seem restrained and frankly, he is the film’s true HDIC (Head Diva in Charge). Chaos ensues, which culminates with both detectives injured or dead (including Michelle Monaghan rolling down the hill with a knife in her eye – absolute diva behaviour). Maxine ultimately shoots her ham of a father in the head, declaring “I will not accept a life I do not deserve”.
Maxxxine has many lessons to teach us. Firstly, you can’t keep a good bitch in a white stiletto boot down. Secondly, the police are useless. However, most importantly, a diva NEVER accepts a life they do not deserve. So here’s to Maxine Minx, for all she’s been through and she’s still serving.
Stay Fierce Divas!
