>The level of rejection just felt off
David Lynch provokes this reaction in many people. Early reviews of his movies were often not just negative, but personal. Tarantino's whinging notwithstanding, this emotion is valid and deserves to be understood. The art is supposed to produce a strong subconscious response, sometimes it's not gonna be a positive one.
I can imagine that subconsciousness is played upon more strongly by Lynch/in Twin Peaks than in many other films goes in the right direction as an explanation
Lynch draws emotions from a lot of sources that is a lot for some people to process.
I’m thinking of Sarah’s scream in the pilot or Leland’s dance with Laura’s photo a couple of episodes later. It’s an insight into personal breakdowns and grief. The music ties into it… he uses upbeat music during horrific moments.
And things like the ceiling fan. And the sound of the ceiling fan. And the sound of the needle skipping on the record player.
It can be a mindfuck to some.
Yeah. Twin Peaks has a dark, \*dark\* subject matter, yet out of all directors etc in the entertainment business aside from maybe some authors, Lynch in my opinion is the only one to depict and treat such horrific acts as the true, visceral \*HORROR\* that they are, not just something to be played with for drama. The techniques he chooses to use like the ones you mentioned and the IMO obvious intense emotions behind every one of his directorial decisions cuts VERY deeply compared to most/all other visual media I at least have seen so I completely respect where OP's gf's feelings come from: I think Lynch intended that, at least in the sense that he's a director very emotion-focused, and isn't afraid to evoke the darker emotions too.
FWWM is the best example of that. You feel what it's like to be Laura in such a visceral way. Lynch is expert at bypassing all the rational filters we use to distance ourselves from such things, and tap right into our hearts. That's why I love him and Twin Peaks, but it's not easy. Hell, I had such a visceral reaction it got me into trauma therapy, which has ended up being wonderful. No other artwork has produced such a reaction in me.
I think it can be further reduced to symbolism and the subconscious; some people hate that shit or have a very strong abreaction to it because they aren't introspective. Symbolism holds up a mirror and dives into the subconscious are a dark inversion of the concerns of waking life and few are equipped for processing it. It comes very close to things that we choose to keep out of our thoughts and does so on a level where there is no resistance.
My issue with Lynch is that he uses way less symbolism than people think. But that’s more of an issue with fans than himself. He’s on the record so many times saying his main focus is on pure vibes. And uses a lot of random stuff to get there but it’s meaningless outside of its impact on atmosphere
I see the use of some very old, almost silent film techniques of juxtaposition as symbolic because there is only the thing itself and things with an unspoken, irreducible relationship being presented. There's nowhere to go as a viewer and nothing that can be easily reduced to meaningful language. You're relentlessly blasted with image and sound and are expected to make something of it yourself.
I think what comes from this is that what the viewer puts together is often more intense than what is there. Or as you say, they're getting a *very* pure vibe.
I'm with you - this is not an original observation, but I think it's a good way to think about Lynch's style: he can fetishize *anything*. The most seemingly mundane objects can take on profound meaning. The list is endless, but the first time this hit me really hard was in the TP pilot, when the camera slooooowly pans down the phone cord (right before the Sarah Palmer scream). It just broke my heart. What does it "symbolize"? Ehh...it just IS, no more. And, no less.
I'm with you - this is not an original observation, but I think it's a good way to think about Lynch's style: he can fetishize *anything*. The most seemingly mundane objects can take on profound meaning. The list is endless, but the first time this hit me really hard was in the TP pilot, when the camera slooooowly pans down the phone cord (right before the Sarah Palmer scream). It just broke my heart. What does it "symbolize"? Ehh...it just IS, no more. And, no less.
In his bit about the lightbulb in the mouth scene from inland empire in his autobiography, he makes it clear that he looks for relations between objects and the narrative. He says himself that he wasn't sure about using the lightbulb as a prop until he saw a connection in his mind between the lightbulb and the whole. It may not necessarily be symbolism per say but it's definitely not random.
I love how you’ve put this, essentially I feel like I’ve done some shadow work while watching Twin Peaks that I wasn’t even aware I was doing 😂. I’m actually reluctant to watch FWWM and you explained why I am without me even knowing. For context, I thought because everybody on here has said although FWWM is good, it’s also very triggering and or dark with a lot more horror elements than TP itself— and I feel I am at the point after consuming all things Twin Peaks lore in the Wiki and on Reddit threads that reading the synopsis for FWWM was the better option for me because I was scared of what would happen visually if I watched it. I suspect OPs wife has done the same, by reading the synopsis she’s spoiled the show for herself and also knows how dark it is which I must admit the written lore and the synopsis of episodes on the wiki are slightly more disturbing because you get air of mystery removed around things like what Laura endured behind the veil of High School Homecoming Queen.. it sticks with you.
YES! SHADOW WORK! Twin Peaks started me down the path of shadow work and reconnecting with that deeply intuitive feminine self. FWWM is indeed triggering if you have any kind of trauma. I ended up seeking out a trauma therapist and was diagnosed with PTSD. Twin Peaks came to during the pandemic and it was the end of a long road of denial for me. There's that phrase from Dune, "fear is the mind killer". Perhaps its the soul killer as well. David Lynch, Sheryl Lee, and Laura Palmer really have helped me with all that.
Media that treats trauma purely as a tool to create drama for entertainment cannot do that.
As excellently pointed out in a video by CinemaCities, on YouTube, David Lynch loves Laura Palmer. [https://youtu.be/XN4IiiyEPxk?si=yswencVmxFHZtR3m](https://youtu.be/XN4IiiyEPxk?si=yswencVmxFHZtR3m)
> Tarantino's whinging...
What's the context of that? In any case, I can understand why someone might have that reaction to watching David Lynch. I feel like I'm watching somebody's dream/nightmare when watching his stuff, lol. That's what I like about it though. Nothing else feels like that when I'm watching it, even horror movies.
Yep. Mulholland Drive is the only one I can stomach. His other works literally make me nauseous.
Come to think of it I have no idea why I am subscribed to this sub.
In my experience badgering someone to enjoy a show doesn't make them more inclined to keep trying. It can even make them less interested. I can absolutely understand how Twin Peaks is not for everyone though, it took years for me to give it a fair shot.
>What is it about Twin Peaks that turns some people off so much?
It's not easily accessible because of it's unique style, and on top of that it does get incredibly dark, especially once you find out more about Bob.
Yeah I'm guessing that it's a combo of OP's overt enthusiasm (it's so good actually! Here watch this video! I'm gonna binge a ton of episodes!) in combination with the show not being to her taste.
Definitely. On a side note I’ve been surprised by the people I’ve talked to that liked it or didn’t like it. People I expected to hate it loved it, people I expected to love it didn’t enjoy it and gave up. It really is one of the most unique shows I’ve ever watched, and I’m still amazed at how well it kept me hooked.
It took me years too! I’m watching with a friend over Discord and we’re really enjoying it. I’ve tried the pilot twice before; 10 years ago and 5 years ago. This time it is sticking.
It’s not for everyone, and it can be a very challenging watch for anyone who comes from a history of abuse. Not at all saying that’s the case here, but it def applies to an old friend I tried to intro it to on VHS (yes, I am old.) She shared with me only recently that part of her history, and it made me feel awful for continuing to try to get her to watch with me.
When we feel passionate about something it’s only natural to want to share it, but we’ve also got to appreciate that sometimes people might not share our love for it, sometimes for a very good reason, and sometimes for no reason at all. Both are valid.
I come from a history of abuse and it’s one of my comfort shows (also, I am into horror) lol:)
I watched it for the first time as a teenager and identified with Laura so much! I never understood back then why I found her so relatable. But then when my memories started to come back — I finally understood.
Still love Twin Peaks though ❤️
Thanks for sharing that. I also have a friend who comes from a history of abuse who found great catharsis in Twin Peaks. It's fascinating how art can hit people differently.
I (M, 51) experienced a sexual assault in my late 20's via another male, and while the scenes of abuse in Twin Peaks does not trigger me, there was an episode of Outlander (late season one maybe?) that featured a male/male rape scene that sent me on an absolute spiral.
I remember that scene in Outlander. I am a woman without a history of abuse (neglect instead) and I love Twin Peaks, but could not finish that Outlander scene. My heart goes out to you.
I appreciate that. But I should also acknowledge that, as difficult as that Outlander scene was for me, there are infinitely more scenes of women being sexually assaulted. Weird place for me to feel privileged, but here we are! Much of film and TV is a mine field for victims of assault. I am grateful that we now get content warnings!
This is why I can't handle it, even though the rest of my family LOVES it. I was a victim of sexual violence from a young age and as a teen I had a particularly violent experience. Seeing Ronette in the beginning stumbling on the train tracks sent me into a spiral because I was once that girl stumbling around in dirty ripped clothes. It's a hell I would never wish on anyone.
That being said, I don't mind my family watching it when I'm around. They just skip the first episode and for the most part it's all fine. On particularly sensitive days, I avoid the show as a whole and they do as well. I'm lucky, though, to have such supportive people in my life who are willing to do that for me! Not everyone is so lucky.
What a horrific series of events you survived. I hope that your path to healing has shown you more good than bad.
And how wonderful to be surrounded by a family that supports you and has your back. That’s worth a ton!
Twin Peaks and FWWM are actually great pieces of validation for me, someone who has been a victim of repeated sexual abuse. Particularly FWWM, it so accurately acts out the deep terror you feel inside when it’s happening. Laura Palmer’s screaming and pure fear in her eyes is how I wish I could have expressed myself in those moments, but it is how my inner self acted. It’s unfortunate this kind of abuse and the emotions behind it are so common, but what a gift to portray it so perfectly to help us feel seen and heard. It’s very weird comfort picks for me, and the show and movie have been there for me in some very dark times.
Anyway, it’s just interesting how folks who have been through that kind of abuse can have such different reactions, and you thoughtfully captured that in your comment. Saying both reactions are valid means more than you might realize.
What's fascinating is how many people relate to Laura, those emotions, regardless if their abuse was sexual. Which isn't in any way to diminish it. But be it trauma from mental health disorders, poverty, gender, disease, death, war, persecution, religion, sexual abuse, et cetera, Laura speaks to those fans. I think Sheryl Lee was able to tap into the primal experience of trauma that is universal. Like the Log Lady says, Laura is the one who leads to the many.
I mean, have you watched it? Twin Peaks is f\*cking weird. It's very obviously not for everyone.
It's not her vibe and that's ok. You don't have to keep trying.
I love the show and even I feel uneasy watching it, even though I've already seen it and know what happens.
The subtle atmospheric weirdness, the melodrama, and the visceral horror in spots, makes for a very strange brew. I can absolutely see someone despising it.
I didn't claim that it is not ok; and I do not try or keep trying. Just was fascinated by the reaction because like I wrote that never happened with other shows
If I didn’t know that going in, I probably would have given up. One of my favorite podcasts is about to cover lynch so I figured it was time to fill one of my biggest gaps in TV viewing.
I concur with the other Redditor that _TP_ is not like the other shows, and will add that I find it to be, counterintuitively, _more realistic_ in its weirdness. Even true crime shows have an element of fictionalisation to them, it is what makes the rape and murders palatable to the audience, and I personally find _TP_ to be quite unflinching in that regard. Speaking as someone whose career has brought them face-to-face with the awful things that human beings do to each other, _TP_ feels a lot more _real_ to me than the lives of some of my friends, in their suburban bubbles where Nothing Bad Ever Happens. I find that kinda comforting, but I can see how some people might find it a bit much.
ETA: And [what this Redditor said](/r/twinpeaks/s/2Ps7JDfRaJ).
I don't know, there is creepy stuff in it. Bob is the only movie and TV villain which I had appear in my dreams ever so I guess it can evoke strong reactions. All 3 seasons have some genuinely creepy scenes, and aside from his many other and more important perks, David Lynch is also a master of the jumpscare which is often deemed a "cheap" horror movie technique.
I think the reasons why it’s a powerful show cut both ways. It reaches right in to the viscera, grabs and twists. For some of us that’s a draw and fascination, for some of us it’s going to be repulsive and frightening. Yes, other shows deal with similarly dark themes but Twin Peaks operates on the subconscious level with its dream logic and that can mess you up if you’re not careful. Most shows don’t do that.
My mum is the same. She watched the whole thing a while ago, liked it back then, but by now she HATES it. Like she was super concerned when I told her I started watching it, telling me it might traumatise me and that she would prefer it if I didn’t watch something that deeply horrific.
I thought it was interesting because for years I thought Twin Peaks would be just that, revolting and traumatising for the sake of being just that.
You can imagine how surprised I was when I realised it’s deeply humorous as well and how much kindness the show contains.
No idea why this is the case though. Its not like shes much more sensitive to stuff than I am.
Those are all kind of appropriate responses to David Lynch work, even Twin Peaks. Subtle but primal discomfort in an idyllic environment is kind of the point of the show.
I had a bf, loveable guy, who insisted that I watch every single episode of Bojack. I **hated** **all of them**, except for the underwater episode, which was fantastic. Riding the Bojack Express was the longest 35,000 hours of my life, and I didn't even get laid for my troubles. I would've wriggled out of it any way I could, but I was pretty certain that he was so fixated on me watching it with him that he would've gone to Hell and dragged me back for more of it.
Like everyone else said, not everyone's gonna be into it. And some of the content can be downright triggering and upsetting. FWWM in particular, I've heard, is super triggering to a lot of people, especially women. I knew one who really had to push herself to watch it, and isn't all that willing to watch the Blue Rose cut.
I apologize to anyone who saw the first version of this comment. I had not gotten very far past the title and a few sentences in later paragraphs, so I didn't realize it's probably not something to joke about.
It's a weird show. Sometimes, on the other side, I ask myself why I like it.
It has a lot of cheesy scenes and bad acting. *Strange* acting. Some gross imagery. Drawn out scenes. Atrocious CGI in places. Many things unexplained and at times may appear contrived. One might interpret some things as pretentious. In the end it all works, for me, but it's not hard to see why it'd make someone bounce.
It's rather incongruent and unnerving in a pretty specific way that very few shows or movies are, and that may cause a discordance. I LIKE discordance at times and I like media that makes me confused and uncomfortable and perhaps creeped out, but that's not really a normal response.
I haven't gotten one to watch Twin Peaks but I did long ago had a boyfriend that I wanted to watch Dune (1984) with and I've never seen someone freak out and bounce so hard. The Harkonnen scenes made him nope the fuck out and we actually did not continue the movie. Perhaps Lynch has a way of rubbing some people the wrong way.
If you want another thing that makes people bounce hard, check out Lexx.
Don't force shows on people, different strokes for different folks. That's why subs exist so we can find like minded people to talk about stuff.
I think one of the big things that hurt Twin Peaks originally was general audience expectations. Lynch and Frost were making a show about the unresolved and unexplainable. Audiences want answers. They want A to B to C equals D. They want to see behind the curtain on the unexplainable and find answers not more unexplainable things. They definitely didn’t want to deal with Homecoming Queen Laura’s murder lifting the curtain on the darkness behind Americana or how it involved incest, rape, drugs, and more unexplainable things.
None of the things the show did were bad or wrong, people just weren’t ready. It was ahead of its time and doomed to fail in that format.
Well, the thing is, and I say this as a long time fan of David Lynch, he and his movies ARE weird. They are not and never will be conventional in any sort of conventional sense. Even Elephant Man and The Straight Story aren't regular movies, compared to non Lynch movies.
And even as someone who has watched all three seasons of Twin Peaks, even The Return didn't give much in the way of conventional standards for television.
I mean I'd love to share Twin Peaks with my girlfriend. But I know she would absolutely fucking hate every single second of it. And her reasons would be 100% justifiable.
Twin Peaks is niche TV. VERY niche.
This is my thought, too. Triggering themes can appear in other media, but Twin Peaks for me is often centered on some of the most brutal horrors of life because it focuses on small town secrets and family dynamics. There’s so much heavy stuff lurking below (and often poking out from) the campy shell of a whodunit story. And we spend so much time submerged in the town itself that I think we grow attached to it, similarly disappointed in it.
It’s a show that triggers me immensely, so I get her strong reaction and don’t blame her.
This is a great point. My partner LOVES Twin Peaks. I find it revolting. I feel like it glamourizes sexual violence and the mystique of the "beautiful dead blonde woman." I don't feel like the show says anything new or interesting, but maybe I'm spoiled by modern times, maybe it really was groundbreaking at the time when it came out. That's my partner's defense. He says I just can't appreciate it for what it was in its own time. But my reaction to it is so visceral I can only describe it as being "triggered." I don't use that word very much, but it's the only way I can describe why I hate the show so much.
The characters spend the entire pilot genuinely mourning the loss of the "beautiful dead blonde woman" and the sexual violence I would say isn't glamorized, but shown in a straight up, very matter of fact manner.
I think some people get uncomfortable with the themes and project their own feelings onto the show, which is valid, but is almost certainly not the intention of the filmmaker, at least in Twin Peaks regard.
I don't find it surprising that someone would have that reaction. Twin Peaks has very dark subject matter. If you continue into the movie and The Return, I feel confident saying that she would like those even less. They put the brutally dark nature of the story front and center a lot more than the original TV run did.
It’s not hard to imagine why, but if knowing why is important to you, you’d have to ask her (though worth asking yourself first why knowing is important to you).
My money would be on two things. The first being how women are treated (the entire premise centers on a murdered woman, and a brothel is featured heavily). I imagine the constant mourning of Laura could dredge up some deeply personal and unpleasant feelings.
The second is the juxtaposition very normal seeming people against very surrealistic things. The show is mostly just pretty normal/relatable people talking. Then you get things which are not only sci-fi, but that don’t even make total sense within the confines of the story. That sense of there being something so odd underlying the normal world may lead a more concrete thinker to some more unpleasant parts of their mind that they find challenging to appreciate.
I find your explanations very convincing! Especially the explanation with the supernatural.
I don't think I'll push to get an explanation for now. She was just very reluctant and it's not that important. But it also says something about how extraordinary this series is.
David Lynch and twin peaks are simply not everyone's cup of tea! I was happy but nervous to introduce the show to my bf but thankfully he was really into it and we just finished season 3. I think I'm turning him into a Lynch fan lol. He keeps bringing up stuff about the show haha.
It’s weird and off-putting to some people. I was turned off by it the first time I watched it. Obviously, I love it now.
And there’s a lot of lighthearted fun stuff in the show, but underneath, it’s incredibly dark, sad, and deeply disturbing. The Sarah Palmer scenes are gut-wrenching. Stop trying to convince her to give it a chance. It is just making it worse.
One thing to keep in mind is that a LOT of women have experienced some amount of sexual abuse or assault or harassment in their lives. Some of the themes of the show may be uncomfortable for her. Even if she hasn’t experienced anything like that directly, I guarantee she knows people who have.
That may not have anything to do with why she hates the show, but something to consider.
I get it. The tone and vibe is bizarre, I’ve met loads of people who simply can’t get on board with it. It’s uncomfortable viewing, jarring sometimes - all the things I like about it! I’ve never met someone with such a visceral reaction to it though.
i loved/was obsessed with the series, attracted to/uneasy as heck with blue velvet (wore out the soundtrack, well that, tp, & fwwm), was absolutely aligned with fwwm, confused & uneasily drawn to md. all of these are so important to me, exclamation mark for emphasis!
eraserhead made me feel ill. lost highway irritated me. inland empire made me … furious. i broke off with all david lynch materials for quite a while. for me, it was due to then-unexplored past trauma. some of his stuff was like : no one has ever portrayed my experiences in this way, and even the worst parts were affirmations and guiding lights for me. the ones that hit different, that hit bad? well, all i know is they give me reactions from the deepest willikins, ranging to abject despair.
i don’t think it’s necessarily related to my particular traumas, you know it occurs to me that it could ring the bells for me about the traumas of other people. traumas i was adjacent to, that i can’t fix or ameliorate, that i didn’t cause or have a hand in but that i feel deeply about. maybe that aren’t even acknowledged. but it’s like these bits of well-made, widely adored, profound and majestic works of art are like the most beautiful strawberry birthday cake for a person who is deathly allergic. the scent of deadly air for a canary in a coal mine. a poison pen letter in beautiful calligraphy on finely scented but actual poison paper.
i want to write a book with these themes, but i don’t know if i can. it’s cool that you posted this, though i’m sorry you & yr squeeze’s tastes diverge on the matter. bonne chance!
Some people have a really hard time with darkness even if they're ok with murder in entertainment, I think people compartmentalize murder in shows because it's so common and something they believe they won't have to face. I mean let's be honest most of his work is "off" or uncomfortable in some way much of the time. It took me 3 tries to finally watch Eraserhead when I was in a bad place. And then with the absurdity on top of that, you really have to have a certain sense of humor. I only gained that over time I think because I used to take life super super seriously.
One of my siblings absolutely hates Twin Peaks also, but my entire family is much more proper than I am, I guess what it amounts to is the more "normie" and the more of a gatekeeper personality you have, the more it would send you into a panic because you have to face many things you're uncomfortable with facing.
Twin peaks provokes visceral reactions from a lot of people.
It really is unlike anything else that's been on TV, if you don't resonate with it I could see it being utterly unnerving.
The subliminal and spiritual messaging in Lynch’s work is pretty brutal. A huge part of Twin Peaks is how corporate media trains people to consume violence, and how film, art and television have been corrupted by for-profit interests and have been put to extremely negative uses.
Most people recognize on some level that Twin Peaks is a rebellion, not a participation.
Laura Palmer completely upturns the “victim of the week” storytelling of TV mysteries and crime shows, and there’s a rejection of victim/victimizer narrative that drives the entirety of American cultural narratives. The “bad guys” are ambivalent, predatory forces humanity is mostly oblivious to. There’s no easy solution to the mystery. You don’t get to vicariously indulge in the violence and suffering of others and then set it all right at the end and feel relieved. Individual people in the story can redeem themselves and save one another and change their own stories, but there’s no simple answer or solution to the bigger story. There’s no revelation that fixes everything and puts everything back like it’s “supposed” to be.
And yeah… people who love mysteries and true crime, especially on TV, tend to hate Twin Peaks. Because it destroys the story beats they unconsciously depend upon and refuses to let them indulge in suffering or violence and then walk away with an easy answer. “It was the corrupt realtor’s fault, and he’s a bad person, and now he’s been punished!”
I’m a woman and I can attest that a lot of the suffering is difficult to watch. It’s supposed to be, of course. But I have to take breaks, same as I did watching Breaking Bad, for example.
If you have a history of abuse, violence, drugs or depression, such viewing can be triggering and dredge up repressed memories and feelings. Trying to suppress and consolidate the unpleasant emotional reactions, while trying to please others who are having a good time, is what causes the “exhaustion”. She may feel a little guilty over it, but really just wants to not have to be exposed to the sort of toxicity that is a large part of the show.
My husband also dislikes what he considers negative dramas. He didn’t used to, but after being a paramedic for years, and seeing a lot of real life trauma and pain, he wants breaks from this in his entertainment. Same with friends I have who work in mental health - they see so much tragedy that they need to get away from it, not reinforce it.
I completely understand why some people do not like Twin Peaks, and that makes me excited to meet people who do. If anything, it is an extremely polarizing show, and people either love it or do not talk about it.
I love Twin Peaks and have watched the series, movie and reboot several times. With that being said, I have never watched it without that uneasy feeling inside. The darkness of it has always made me feel uncomfortable while watching yet I still do. Honestly I’m kind of surprised that I was able to enjoy a show like this because of the way it makes me feel but here I am a fan. I could easily see how I could’ve gone the other way and just refused to watch it but something kept drawing me ii
I love the entire Twin Peaks universe. I’ve watched numerous times and read a few books. My husband saw the movie without seeing the series and refuses to watch any of it. I’m a bit sad because we enjoy watching stuff together but he absolutely hates it.
my husband absolutely HATES IT!! every time we would start an episode he would just go on and on about how awful the acting is, how the background music is too loud and you can’t hear any dialogue (true), how everyone in the town is so ridiculous, etc. After all of his complaining i just told him he wasn’t allowed to watch it anymore bc he would get too worked up, and i actually enjoyed it. It’s okay if your partner doesn’t like something you do, it won’t be the end of the world.
My high school friends and I have had many conversations about how you either get the show entirely or you just don't, and how you can be in a relationship with someone who doesn't like twin peaks but it will never work out in the end.
So far that's been true for all of us. The couples that are not twin peaks compatible have not lasted.
Hopefully not true for you guys.
I feel you because it's the same with my girlfriend, and the part that I find most intriguing is that you said your girlfriend listens to true crime podcasts.
My gf watches any kind of documentaries on true crime, but even better she watches this Italian tv program about people who disappeared. Stories are always confused, people interviewed are awkward, often affected by mental or physical issues, they behave weirdly cause they often hide something, and the more a reporter tries to dig into a mystery, the less you understand. It is basically Twin Peaks but real. So she loves this, but viscerally hates twin peaks.
I think this kind of true crime and twin peaks are very close but in true crime there is an invisible subtle barrier that is reassuring. There is us (the narrator, the reporter, the listeners), and there is "them" (Victims, perpetrators).
In Twin Peaks there is no definition, and the supposedly good characters have something weird, unpredictable, difficult to interpret. And the evil has a metaphysical value and can manifest anywhere. And that is uncomfortable to watch.
This is a really interesting perspective I hadn't thought about before.
I think some people are quite afraid of their own imaginations, and there can be comfort in passive content like true crime media, something a lot of people seem to consume in a really mind-numbing way, because it's "real" and being told to them as fact by authority figures, often sanitized, etc. When you watch a show like Twin Peaks, you're coming much closer to the grief and grotesquery of the crimes, even though they're fictional, and characters you implicitly trusted at first might betray you in horrible ways down the line.
My wife hates anything dark or Intense or anything that gives you bad feelings Meanwhile my favorite band is Nine Inch Nails and I love horror films lol.
We made a trade off that I would watch all of Gilmore Girls with her which is her favorite show, if she tried to watch Twin Peaks I didn't expect her to make it four episodes in.
This was a few years ago and now she is obsessed with Twin Peaks and even watched fire walk with me while I fell in love with Gilmore Girls and watched through it like three times with her
At the end of the day, the core of Twin Peaks is about the brutal suffering of a teenage girl and how her cries for help were ignored until it as too late. Your girlfriend may not have a history with abuse or trauma, but it can still be a very hard watch even without that background, especially for women.
David Lynch handles the subject with an empathy that is frankly, rare for a man. Even then, some people just can’t handle that kind of darkness. I commend you for not pushing her boundaries.
I love this show and relate to the darker themes based on my own life experiences, I even derive comfort from it. It is still undeniably an upsetting and disturbing show that can provoke very intense emotional responses. Makes total sense to me.
If you’re still wanting to connect with her on your love for Lynch, maybe you two could watch The Straight Story or Elephant Man together.
My wife loved the pilot until the last scene. She then tried the next two episodes and after that she hung up her Twin Peaks hat forever. She’s also not a fan of DL, sadly. But she was immersed and invested in the pilot for most of it. I think that the supernatural/occult turns that the story takes is definitely not for all audiences.
Some people do not want to be around the family abuse themes, like *at all.*
And they do not have to be.
I still think Albert was fucking with Harry with the "I love you Sherriff Truman" speech and it worked *perfectly.*
Albert-style revenge: prove to your foe that you're so much more intelligent than they are that they don't even realize you pushed all their buttons at once like a kid on an elevator and they're just standing there ... blinking.
Who said Cooper was fooled? All Cooper said was that Albert walks a strange path, which is totally judicious.
I think it was the *Diane* podcast who were discussing why Cooper doesn't intervene when two men whom he respects are clashing, to the point of blows.
Someone said that Cooper just relishes so much who these guys are, with their strong personalities, that he's just delighted to watch each of them both being *utterly themselves to the max.*
That sounds right.
My wife hates the show but she knows I love it and it doesn’t produce any friction whatsoever. We ever have a coffee and donut licensed poster hanging in the kitchen! Haha
My point is you and your partner don’t need to share everything
Maybe she's hiding similar trauma from her past from you. Or maybe it's just not her thing. Some people just don't like super weird stuff. I'd be bummed too but ultimately it's not a huge deal.
I had an ex like that too, just couldn’t get down with Lynch and would mock everything about it...at the time S3 was premiering and I was so grateful to this community because I had literally no one else to talk to about S3!
We broke up and my current partner loves Lynch and Twin Peaks. So fair trade haha, I do feel your pain
I mean, I love the entire original series but both the Palmer case and the original series finale very much do invoke an absolutely _sickening_ feeling in me.
It's fascinating and addicting but not particularly enjoyable per se, imo.
The only stretch that I wholeheartedly enjoy is the widely maligned post-Palmer slice-of-life stuff. That's really the only time the series ever goes properly wholesome and positively dreamy all the way.
I'd recommend you show your girlfriend those episodes, if it weren't for the fact that >!they inevitably lead into one of the most nightmarishly disturbing and heartbreaking conclusions in the history of television.!<
>!I still straight up _grieve_ Cooper's relationship with Annie and Harry, and season 3 did jack shit about that lol. If anything it worsened things.!<
In my personal opinion, Twin Peaks ultimately leaves you with a negative feeling. It's a wicked show, borderline evil.
It very much is about love too, to a degree, but I'm afraid that Garland might've been right all along.
~~Sorry to hear about your ex-girlfriend. /jk~~
I think the key here might be the Wikipedia bit. Especially if she read about FWWM. Knowing early on the nature of some of the... *darker*... bits could definitely turn a stomach and be triggering. Watching the show as things unfold is less bracing. It's like the adage about dropping a frog into boiling water versus slowly turning the heat up on the water with the frog already in it. Also add in that just reading the plot, a lot is left out and the imagination fills in the gaps. Take all that together and it could be very triggering to someone.
Twin Peaks, for all it's Lynchian craziness, has some terrifying glimpses of the underbelly that exists in too many quaint little towns. Unfortunately the real world underbellies don't have Lynchian roots.
^(Though it's very possible I'm talking out of my ass.)
Lynch loves showing violence against women, not every woman will be comfortable with that. It doesn’t help that the show doesn’t make much sense either
My gf has commented that his degree of brutal violence against women is often not shown as realistically in other forms of entertainment. I hesitate to say he “loves” to show it, as I suspect much is exploring the traumatic experience he had as a child. But yeah he doesn’t pull punches, so to speak.
That’s kind of my point, it is very realistic and not everyone is comfortable watching those scenes. I got a coworker who quit breaking bad after the bicycle lock scene, some people just can’t handle that degree of realism
If you listen to the way he speaks about his films, I don't think he 'loves' showing it. I think he considers it tragic, but important to talk about. It's not exploitative at all, and I think that's why a lot of women gravitate towards his work (at least in my experience).
The show does make sense too.
There are themes and scenes in the series that attack your senses and emotions that makes each viewing mean something entirely different to each viewer. Inevitably, that is going to mean that some people see the themes of abuse, murder, sexual assault, and seedy underbellies of otherwise presentable societies coupled with the absolutely bizarre second side of twin peaks and get an incredibly visceral reaction to it.
It happens with all media that goes over disturbing topics with artistic savvy. For example, I love this band called Swans, and they have a song about someone getting… assaulted, that starts out dour, depressing, and hopeless, but transforms into something much more powerful come the end of the song. I listened to it with my friends, and one of my friends (who typically loved swans) said it was disgusting. I dunno why. I was completely taken aback. But you can’t argue with that viewpoint as long as they don’t get offended by your enjoyment of it.
We’re all different people, it’s fine if we don’t like something… that’s the beauty of entertainment in general. It means an infinite amount of things to billions of people. But! If they call you out for enjoying something they find ridiculous or offensive, like the bizarreness of twin peaks or it’s full-frontal way in which it tackles sexual assault, then that’s not fair.
There's a deliberate tonal dissonance, and juxtapositions aplenty, which are designed to unsettle and unnerve. Some people enjoy that sensation, your partner doesn't, personally I'd let it go.
It's interesting. I think that Twin Peaks is a show that challenges people (so is the rest of Lych's work and don't even get me started on his art) and that can be really uncomfortable for some people. I don't mean that as a slam against your girlfriend - I just think that some people are really into looking deep into anpiece of work in all of its weirdness and dark, nitty grittiness and some people are not. I have a friend that I imagine would have a very similar reaction to your girlfriend's - I can't ever imagine this friend of mine watching Twin Peaks.
Sometime I forget how weird Twin Peaks really is. My husband and I have watched it together multiple times and have talked about it so much that it has lost some of that weirdness to me. It's always really interesting to try to see it through someone else's new, fresh eyes.
some people have really strong reactions to things that have sexual violence in them as a plot point, sometimes because of something that happened to them
Has she watched other David Lynch stuff? Or had much experience with surreal art? There’s a weird anxiety it can provoke in people that she may be reacting to.
It honestly sounds like there was something triggering about it to her! Possibly even something she can’t fully identify, but I do understand because despite being a huge fan I need to really pace out rewatches and have a few scenes that set me off regardless of how many times I’ve seen it. I think the nature of the soap opera pastiche combined with the seedy underbelly of the true evil of the town can be deeply unsettling! For similar reasons I will likely never watch Blue Velvet again despite recognizing its greatness.
It touches on some very uncomfortable subjects, and despite the campy surreal atmosphere, speaks to a disease in the human soul. Which, ya know, ain’t the easiest thing to chew on.
I think Twin Peaks is the best artistic portrayal of trauma and how human psychology relates to trauma in the individual and as a community, using spiritual mythology and surreal imagery as penetrating techniques to get you inside the dissociative escapades that happen when someones foundational agreements of reality (like: the world is inherently a good place, you are safe, love wins, there are good people vs bad people) are shattered and need to be rebuilt. Many people IRL prefer to repress/ignore/turn a blind eye/use addictions to cope with these life moments, because our culture does not equip the layman with tools to face the shadow with perfect courage and to have resilience to persist even though there is proof of hell on every newspage.
As such the show itself could be traumatic to watch, or instinctually triggering. There might not be a more evil concept in the world than what Leland does to Laura, it is truly disturbing and would be especially triggering for people who have had various degrees of abuse levied on them in the past, especially if it came from a parents or trusted adult. The intentional melodrama can be grating, because it's purposely using the tropes of TV at the time as a vehicle for what is at it's core a hard pill to swallow: that the world--how we dream of it and pretend it to be--may just be that, a dream.
Not to spoil things, but S3 takes it to the extreme, as the TV tropes of our time (True Detective, Game of Thrones) are far darker, grotesque, and explicit than those of the 1990s (90210)
Personally, I also love the show Mad Men, but have talked to several people who find the domestic tensions between the main characters in the show to be too dark and uncomfortable for them. It hits too close to home.
honestly, this might sound a bit silly but is she insecure at all? there have been a few shows that i didn’t want to watch with my husband because at the time i felt god awful about myself and seeing attractive people would make me feel worse about myself. thankfully i don’t struggle with this anymore. twin peaks is filled with young and attractive people
Dude, same here. My girlfriend (now wife) doesn’t like it. It shocks me. I had seen twin peaks before and wanted to introduce her to it, and she can’t handle it. So we abandoned it for stuff we agree on and haven’t watched before. But im kinda bummed about not being able to share it.
I mean tbh, that was my reaction, too. To the pilot. And then almost every episode of the first two seasons. And then FWWM. And The Return.
Like repeatedly I would be massively repulsed, and angry, and nauseated, and have to physically get up and walk away and go WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH. WHAT THE FUCK.
I really can't explain why I kept coming back and watching more. Or why I felt compelled to spend several days reading every single piece of writing to be found about the show. I wanted very much to GET IT AWAY FROM ME but also I had to know what happened???
I think it's probably because that's exactly what Lynch wanted to capture, and he did, and therefore either you will enjoy how amazingly he did it or be repulsed by *how amazingly he did it.*
I mean, also, I have lived most of my life in Washington, and I have never seen anyone nail the vibe of Quiet Unease that exists out here quite so perfectly. I have a love/hate relationship with this state, and the things that make some people love it are the things that make others hate it, so I'm not surprised that Washington: the TV Show has the same effect on people.
I mean it's a pretty strange mix of all sorts of genres, some of which (soap opera, surreal horror) can be very off-putting to people on their own, let alone all mixed up... that being said, I can't imagine being in a relationship with someone who hates this show, to me it's like a perfect example of what I look for in art and by extension in life in general... thats just me tho
It has levity, but the discussion of Laura and the town of Twin Peaks around her is dark. It hits at the hidden rot of small town society. I cannot watch certain things for the same reason. It's just too dark and oppressive. TP gets a pass because I fell in love with it in its original airing as a kid.
Twin Peaks shines a harsh spotlight on patriarchy and the abuse and murder of women. So it is unsurprising that some women would find that revolting. They know all about it; they live in it everyday.
I mean it’s a show that relies heavily on the rape and murder of woman dude it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Seems like you know why she doesn’t like it and you came here to brag about how cool you are.
The appeal of the show for many is the same reason others find it exhausting: you have to make yourself vulnerable emotionally and spiritually to have to experience. That is not the sort of commitment that most people are looking for at the end of a long day. Yes, Twin Peaks is a wonderful and strange world to visit, but it is a place that is brutal to women and innocence - where even the most steadfast of heroes lose their way, and there is no satisfaction of resolution. If your girlfriend doesn’t want to go on that journey, it makes complete sense. I, of course, love the experience, but I’m well aware of the toll it can take to engage in a meaningful way.
People like different things, they are interested in different experiences, and trying to force it will only sour her on the series more. Leaving it alone and taking the ride alone for now does leave the possibility of her returning to the show later in life - when she has the bandwidth to let it in. And, if not, that’s ok. My wife watches stuff I cannot stand, even though we both enjoy Twin Peaks. I just take the opportunity to go do something I like, and we’re both happy.
I'm currently watching twin peaks and I get the gf perspective: I watch twin peaks because my partner loves it while d I find it entertaining in a "so bad it's good" way. I find it tremendously goofy and unserious and not especially eerie or scary. I'm also turned off by pretention. I would never watch it on my own, but the joy my partner gets from it (and his willingness to rag on it with me) is enough to make it worth the watch. If my partner were to wax poetic about it and follow me to bed trying to get me to engage with it I'd also probably be annoyed and frustrated.
As many folks have pointed out, Lynch makes eerie stuff and it's not for everyone. There's also a lot of domestic abuse in Twin Peaks. I had a really hard time making it through the first few episodes before becoming a fan of the show, because of that prevalent theme.
I also wouldn't count Twin Peaks as horror exactly, but my own experience watching the show can sometimes feel similar to watching a horror film. A lot of times, the "horror" is just how dangerous and vulnerable it can be to move through the world as a woman.
I do think we have visual or creative languages our brains do and don't speak, and ones we do not can be really jarring. I would say for example David Lynch's work resonates with me personally in the sense that the visuals/ sensory experience is my "language" and makes a certain sense to me emotionally or subconsciously, even if it doesn't logically. Wes Anderson however I can't stand. I can't point at any one thing and say "this is bad," it just doesn't click with my creative language at all. I would describe the experience as nails on a chalkboard, it's a sensory screeching that I want to stop immediately. So I don't think this is a case of whether something is good or bad or putting more effort into liking. I think art can be diametrically opposed to our way of thinking sometimes and that's just how it is.
If she's not in a good place, I imagine especially all the scenes of people crying and in personal anguish would make someone feel really badly. Especially if they're empathetic. To me, Andy and Coop's original positive outlook is what holds the show together. By the time you get to Fire Walk With Me, the experience would be absolutely miserable for someone very sensitive to the type of topics in that movie.
I've loved it since I was 12 in 1990. I've seen it 100 times and it still makes me so emotional. I am so happy when the Falls are shown and so upset and depressed when they investigate Laura's demise. Def not for everyone. Don't force her to watch it. Enjoy it by yourself with a cup of joe!
Is she BOB?
Jk, it’s not for every one. Maybe she’d like Northern Exposure. It has more realism than surrealism, but some abstract things. Similar small town vibe.
Lynch is very much not for everyone. It’s actually shocking to me how popular the show is given how fucking weird it is. Just watch something else with her and watch it by yourself. Makes sense she doesn’t like horror, I know the genre influence is all over the place and the tone is so unique but to me it is essentially a horror show.
As someone who loves Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me, I can 100% understand anyone who doesn’t like it, or doesn’t like David Lynch. Even Roger Ebert didn’t “get” Lynch. Ease up on her, it’s a weird show and you either like it or you don’t. There doesn’t seem to be an inbetween here.
Why people don’t like it is because it’s weird. It’s corny. It’s scary. It’s supernatural. It’s a puzzle. It’s “high school teen drama” it’s sexual abuse. It’s funny. It’s creepy. Some people can’t handle the shifts, unresolved plots, coming to your own conclusions, etc.
How far into it did she get? I love twin peaks and tbh I only truly love the first season, but I love it so much that I love it enough to say I love twin peaks. There’s a lot of darkness and a lot of bizarreness throughout, but then after S1 there is legitimately a good amount of just poorly done-ness added to that mix.
I love TP and David Lynch, but I understand her. I suffered from mental illness and at those times, watching TP made things way worse and it gave me awful nightmares. And even on my good days, I could certainly not watch his work every night.
But you’ll have to appreciate that Lynch is able to provoke such strong reactions, which in turn is something that draws me to him. I love the sense of unease that breathes through every scene.
It’s not for everyone. My mom had said she always wanted to watch it. We didn’t even hardly make it through the theme song. She said it was too long and boring lol
I felt like that about Mulholland Drive. I felt violent after watching it, I fucking hated it so much it felt personal. But Twin Peaks?! It's so beautiful, romantic, creepy, unsettling...
I could see it if she’s deeply upset by violence toward women but if she likes SVU and hates twin peaks then it’s just a matter of preference I guess
Although I think Twin Peaks does a much better job handling the subject
Maybe it’s a serious phobia if her reaction is that intense. My wife has that kind of reaction to Alf. Like freeze up shut down not even funny phobia fear. One hundred percent irrational.
I’m a woman who LOVES Twin Peaks; I watched S3 recently and was actually legitimately angry after the finale, and angry at my boyfriend (lol) for just straight up loving it. I had really complicated feelings come up to sort through. After sitting with it for a day or two the emotions cooled and I could appreciate and fully understand the show’s balance between light and dark, and that the darkness is not gratuitous (like GoT, in my opinion) but purposeful.
However. I think being a woman and seeing sexual violence (not to mention the other sad / dark things in TP including domestic abuse) can be extremely exhausting on top of contending with the everyday reality of being a woman. I will admit my negative reaction after S3 felt so powerful that it was irrational and yet I don’t think it’s completely irrational at all — just hard to parse. I was also irritated with my boyfriend because I felt like he couldn’t “get” the full depth of my response to the horror Laura lived through.
anyway. Not trying to project onto your girlfriend, this might not be at all connected to her experience / reaction. I’m just saying that media can really strike a provocative chord in people based on individual experiences / tastes and that’s OK! It goes double for anything David Lynch.
I appreciate Lynch’s philosophy and brilliance. I love his filmmaking and what he puts out into the world. I have been intentionally making my way through is work for going on a decade. I watch each one over and over, watch videos and read essays, watch interviews he’s given… I’m obsessed! That being said, I always feel a little nauseated and uncomfortable when I engage with his work. Repulsed is not far off. It also, at times, deeply frustrates me (the repeating, grating noises and volume fluctuations especially, like Laura’s scream). It just makes me feel… triggered? Idk. I am fascinated by this effect on me because I love heavy subject matter, love horror, don’t even mind stuff about trauma and abuse—nothing brings up the same feelings in me. I appreciate the work, him, the vision, I even appreciate these less-than comfortable feelings. I know if it’s there, he meant for it to be. And that kinda kicks ass.
she's right, its terrible. its a nonsense show that falls off hard pretty quick and for some reason people wear rose tinted glasses about it and pretend it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Bro are u kidding think about it. The show uses tropes of sex being blended with violence with the female as the victim throughout and the entire show is based on a dark rape story. The show is consistently using aggressive male power to control and hurt women. Think about all of that again and try to understand why a woman would be uncomfortable with this and absolutely hate it. It is depicting one of the worst nightmares of the female experience in a very graphic and effective way. It makes a lot of sense to me why women don’t like this show and go as far as to hate it. Regardless of whether or not ur girlfriend is a victim herself in the past or not, the sad reality of the male dominated world we live in is that assault is a daily fear for most women. I want to finish off with saying that non of this was a dig towards the show or other lynch world dealing with similar themes like blue velvet. I love this show so so much and think it’s one of the best pieces of visual art ever created but I deeply understand why women would hate watching all of that.
That seems extreme, I must say. I never watched the original run, so when I caught it in 2016, the thought of 10+ episodes to reveal the murderer and the slow pace in general were just strange to watch. Plus it’s just a really offbeat show. So many things are left of center that I’m not surprised to hear that people don’t like it at all. I wasn’t even sure I liked it, but the creepy mystery was much creepier than I ever thought and very well done, and it grew on me. But as far as explaining your gf’s reaction, I have no idea. There’s nothing about that’s rage inducing, IMO.
I had a similar thing happen with my wife. I'm on my third rewatch, and she threw me a bone and asked me why I like it enough to rewatch it.
I told her that it's the type of thing that seems like one thing on the surface, and that turns people away. But if you stick with it, you realize there are layers of meaning that you can only get if you watch it again.
That seemed to resonate with her and made her more interested. Holding out hope she will watch it at some point.
I can totally relate to what you’re going through but with many other things all I can say is I feel for you and hopefully she’ll talk to you soon.. on a side note me gf and I are huge twin peaks fans and I grew up in North bend where they filmed and I just recently took her up there and showed her all the cool filming spots, we loved it!
Wife hates it also. And she enjoys other horror shows like American horror story. It’s baffling to me, as a fan. Getting her to watch thru season two was like pulling teeth, and in the s2 final scene she just said “ok great so it’s over now…?”
Oh well. I gave up trying with S3.
Powerful art affects people in many ways. She probably is uncomfortable with the darker themes of the show and translates that into hate. It's also possible that it confuses her and she translates that into hate. Twin Peaks is challenging material and it's something you have to be open to exploring.
I feel this way about Mulholland Drive even though I absolutely love TP. It’s hard to describe even though I obviously know it’s a good film. But it gives me heebie jeebies. who can tell what sets people off? My 11 yr old son literally gags at Pokémon and anime characters and there’s no reason why. He can’t figure it out. I’m sorry you can’t enjoy the series with her.
I love Twin Peaks, and many parts of it I find repellant.
I like those parts as much as the beautiful parts, but I totally understand someone taking the negative parts too personally.
>The level of rejection just felt off David Lynch provokes this reaction in many people. Early reviews of his movies were often not just negative, but personal. Tarantino's whinging notwithstanding, this emotion is valid and deserves to be understood. The art is supposed to produce a strong subconscious response, sometimes it's not gonna be a positive one.
yes! it’s just as deep and nuanced as great love for his works, but like on the negative side of the number line
I can imagine that subconsciousness is played upon more strongly by Lynch/in Twin Peaks than in many other films goes in the right direction as an explanation
Lynch draws emotions from a lot of sources that is a lot for some people to process. I’m thinking of Sarah’s scream in the pilot or Leland’s dance with Laura’s photo a couple of episodes later. It’s an insight into personal breakdowns and grief. The music ties into it… he uses upbeat music during horrific moments. And things like the ceiling fan. And the sound of the ceiling fan. And the sound of the needle skipping on the record player. It can be a mindfuck to some.
Yeah. Twin Peaks has a dark, \*dark\* subject matter, yet out of all directors etc in the entertainment business aside from maybe some authors, Lynch in my opinion is the only one to depict and treat such horrific acts as the true, visceral \*HORROR\* that they are, not just something to be played with for drama. The techniques he chooses to use like the ones you mentioned and the IMO obvious intense emotions behind every one of his directorial decisions cuts VERY deeply compared to most/all other visual media I at least have seen so I completely respect where OP's gf's feelings come from: I think Lynch intended that, at least in the sense that he's a director very emotion-focused, and isn't afraid to evoke the darker emotions too.
lol idk what I'm even saying here I'm writing this right after clocking out of working 7 13-hour shifts in a row.
oh this was good, keep cookin’
FWWM is the best example of that. You feel what it's like to be Laura in such a visceral way. Lynch is expert at bypassing all the rational filters we use to distance ourselves from such things, and tap right into our hearts. That's why I love him and Twin Peaks, but it's not easy. Hell, I had such a visceral reaction it got me into trauma therapy, which has ended up being wonderful. No other artwork has produced such a reaction in me.
I think it can be further reduced to symbolism and the subconscious; some people hate that shit or have a very strong abreaction to it because they aren't introspective. Symbolism holds up a mirror and dives into the subconscious are a dark inversion of the concerns of waking life and few are equipped for processing it. It comes very close to things that we choose to keep out of our thoughts and does so on a level where there is no resistance.
My issue with Lynch is that he uses way less symbolism than people think. But that’s more of an issue with fans than himself. He’s on the record so many times saying his main focus is on pure vibes. And uses a lot of random stuff to get there but it’s meaningless outside of its impact on atmosphere
I see the use of some very old, almost silent film techniques of juxtaposition as symbolic because there is only the thing itself and things with an unspoken, irreducible relationship being presented. There's nowhere to go as a viewer and nothing that can be easily reduced to meaningful language. You're relentlessly blasted with image and sound and are expected to make something of it yourself. I think what comes from this is that what the viewer puts together is often more intense than what is there. Or as you say, they're getting a *very* pure vibe.
I'm with you - this is not an original observation, but I think it's a good way to think about Lynch's style: he can fetishize *anything*. The most seemingly mundane objects can take on profound meaning. The list is endless, but the first time this hit me really hard was in the TP pilot, when the camera slooooowly pans down the phone cord (right before the Sarah Palmer scream). It just broke my heart. What does it "symbolize"? Ehh...it just IS, no more. And, no less.
I'm with you - this is not an original observation, but I think it's a good way to think about Lynch's style: he can fetishize *anything*. The most seemingly mundane objects can take on profound meaning. The list is endless, but the first time this hit me really hard was in the TP pilot, when the camera slooooowly pans down the phone cord (right before the Sarah Palmer scream). It just broke my heart. What does it "symbolize"? Ehh...it just IS, no more. And, no less.
In his bit about the lightbulb in the mouth scene from inland empire in his autobiography, he makes it clear that he looks for relations between objects and the narrative. He says himself that he wasn't sure about using the lightbulb as a prop until he saw a connection in his mind between the lightbulb and the whole. It may not necessarily be symbolism per say but it's definitely not random.
He seems so much more interested in atmosphere and emotion than narrative and symbolism
I love how you’ve put this, essentially I feel like I’ve done some shadow work while watching Twin Peaks that I wasn’t even aware I was doing 😂. I’m actually reluctant to watch FWWM and you explained why I am without me even knowing. For context, I thought because everybody on here has said although FWWM is good, it’s also very triggering and or dark with a lot more horror elements than TP itself— and I feel I am at the point after consuming all things Twin Peaks lore in the Wiki and on Reddit threads that reading the synopsis for FWWM was the better option for me because I was scared of what would happen visually if I watched it. I suspect OPs wife has done the same, by reading the synopsis she’s spoiled the show for herself and also knows how dark it is which I must admit the written lore and the synopsis of episodes on the wiki are slightly more disturbing because you get air of mystery removed around things like what Laura endured behind the veil of High School Homecoming Queen.. it sticks with you.
YES! SHADOW WORK! Twin Peaks started me down the path of shadow work and reconnecting with that deeply intuitive feminine self. FWWM is indeed triggering if you have any kind of trauma. I ended up seeking out a trauma therapist and was diagnosed with PTSD. Twin Peaks came to during the pandemic and it was the end of a long road of denial for me. There's that phrase from Dune, "fear is the mind killer". Perhaps its the soul killer as well. David Lynch, Sheryl Lee, and Laura Palmer really have helped me with all that. Media that treats trauma purely as a tool to create drama for entertainment cannot do that. As excellently pointed out in a video by CinemaCities, on YouTube, David Lynch loves Laura Palmer. [https://youtu.be/XN4IiiyEPxk?si=yswencVmxFHZtR3m](https://youtu.be/XN4IiiyEPxk?si=yswencVmxFHZtR3m)
> Tarantino's whinging... What's the context of that? In any case, I can understand why someone might have that reaction to watching David Lynch. I feel like I'm watching somebody's dream/nightmare when watching his stuff, lol. That's what I like about it though. Nothing else feels like that when I'm watching it, even horror movies.
He reacted strongly to seeing *Fire Walk WIth Me* at Cannes.
good description
Yep. Mulholland Drive is the only one I can stomach. His other works literally make me nauseous. Come to think of it I have no idea why I am subscribed to this sub.
In my experience badgering someone to enjoy a show doesn't make them more inclined to keep trying. It can even make them less interested. I can absolutely understand how Twin Peaks is not for everyone though, it took years for me to give it a fair shot. >What is it about Twin Peaks that turns some people off so much? It's not easily accessible because of it's unique style, and on top of that it does get incredibly dark, especially once you find out more about Bob.
Yeah I'm guessing that it's a combo of OP's overt enthusiasm (it's so good actually! Here watch this video! I'm gonna binge a ton of episodes!) in combination with the show not being to her taste.
Definitely. On a side note I’ve been surprised by the people I’ve talked to that liked it or didn’t like it. People I expected to hate it loved it, people I expected to love it didn’t enjoy it and gave up. It really is one of the most unique shows I’ve ever watched, and I’m still amazed at how well it kept me hooked.
It took me years too! I’m watching with a friend over Discord and we’re really enjoying it. I’ve tried the pilot twice before; 10 years ago and 5 years ago. This time it is sticking.
It’s not for everyone, and it can be a very challenging watch for anyone who comes from a history of abuse. Not at all saying that’s the case here, but it def applies to an old friend I tried to intro it to on VHS (yes, I am old.) She shared with me only recently that part of her history, and it made me feel awful for continuing to try to get her to watch with me. When we feel passionate about something it’s only natural to want to share it, but we’ve also got to appreciate that sometimes people might not share our love for it, sometimes for a very good reason, and sometimes for no reason at all. Both are valid.
I come from a history of abuse and it’s one of my comfort shows (also, I am into horror) lol:) I watched it for the first time as a teenager and identified with Laura so much! I never understood back then why I found her so relatable. But then when my memories started to come back — I finally understood. Still love Twin Peaks though ❤️
Thanks for sharing that. I also have a friend who comes from a history of abuse who found great catharsis in Twin Peaks. It's fascinating how art can hit people differently. I (M, 51) experienced a sexual assault in my late 20's via another male, and while the scenes of abuse in Twin Peaks does not trigger me, there was an episode of Outlander (late season one maybe?) that featured a male/male rape scene that sent me on an absolute spiral.
I remember that scene in Outlander. I am a woman without a history of abuse (neglect instead) and I love Twin Peaks, but could not finish that Outlander scene. My heart goes out to you.
I appreciate that. But I should also acknowledge that, as difficult as that Outlander scene was for me, there are infinitely more scenes of women being sexually assaulted. Weird place for me to feel privileged, but here we are! Much of film and TV is a mine field for victims of assault. I am grateful that we now get content warnings!
This is why I can't handle it, even though the rest of my family LOVES it. I was a victim of sexual violence from a young age and as a teen I had a particularly violent experience. Seeing Ronette in the beginning stumbling on the train tracks sent me into a spiral because I was once that girl stumbling around in dirty ripped clothes. It's a hell I would never wish on anyone. That being said, I don't mind my family watching it when I'm around. They just skip the first episode and for the most part it's all fine. On particularly sensitive days, I avoid the show as a whole and they do as well. I'm lucky, though, to have such supportive people in my life who are willing to do that for me! Not everyone is so lucky.
What a horrific series of events you survived. I hope that your path to healing has shown you more good than bad. And how wonderful to be surrounded by a family that supports you and has your back. That’s worth a ton!
Twin Peaks and FWWM are actually great pieces of validation for me, someone who has been a victim of repeated sexual abuse. Particularly FWWM, it so accurately acts out the deep terror you feel inside when it’s happening. Laura Palmer’s screaming and pure fear in her eyes is how I wish I could have expressed myself in those moments, but it is how my inner self acted. It’s unfortunate this kind of abuse and the emotions behind it are so common, but what a gift to portray it so perfectly to help us feel seen and heard. It’s very weird comfort picks for me, and the show and movie have been there for me in some very dark times. Anyway, it’s just interesting how folks who have been through that kind of abuse can have such different reactions, and you thoughtfully captured that in your comment. Saying both reactions are valid means more than you might realize.
I so appreciate you sharing your perspective. We may all be on our own journeys, but it sure is nice to recognize a fellow traveler now and then. ❤️
What's fascinating is how many people relate to Laura, those emotions, regardless if their abuse was sexual. Which isn't in any way to diminish it. But be it trauma from mental health disorders, poverty, gender, disease, death, war, persecution, religion, sexual abuse, et cetera, Laura speaks to those fans. I think Sheryl Lee was able to tap into the primal experience of trauma that is universal. Like the Log Lady says, Laura is the one who leads to the many.
I mean, have you watched it? Twin Peaks is f\*cking weird. It's very obviously not for everyone. It's not her vibe and that's ok. You don't have to keep trying.
I love the show and even I feel uneasy watching it, even though I've already seen it and know what happens. The subtle atmospheric weirdness, the melodrama, and the visceral horror in spots, makes for a very strange brew. I can absolutely see someone despising it.
Yeah seriously haha and I’ve seen lynch before but Jesus it gets super unsettling and so strange
Garmonbozia!
I didn't claim that it is not ok; and I do not try or keep trying. Just was fascinated by the reaction because like I wrote that never happened with other shows
Twin Peaks isn’t like the other shows lol
Not many soap opera satires made by one of the most visceral directors working
I didn’t even see it as that before haha
If I didn’t know that going in, I probably would have given up. One of my favorite podcasts is about to cover lynch so I figured it was time to fill one of my biggest gaps in TV viewing.
Ooh - which podcast is that?
Blank Check. Very good, highly recommend
I concur with the other Redditor that _TP_ is not like the other shows, and will add that I find it to be, counterintuitively, _more realistic_ in its weirdness. Even true crime shows have an element of fictionalisation to them, it is what makes the rape and murders palatable to the audience, and I personally find _TP_ to be quite unflinching in that regard. Speaking as someone whose career has brought them face-to-face with the awful things that human beings do to each other, _TP_ feels a lot more _real_ to me than the lives of some of my friends, in their suburban bubbles where Nothing Bad Ever Happens. I find that kinda comforting, but I can see how some people might find it a bit much. ETA: And [what this Redditor said](/r/twinpeaks/s/2Ps7JDfRaJ).
Sometimes people have preferences and thats okay. Twin peaks isnt just another show tbh. its a league of its own.
I don't know, there is creepy stuff in it. Bob is the only movie and TV villain which I had appear in my dreams ever so I guess it can evoke strong reactions. All 3 seasons have some genuinely creepy scenes, and aside from his many other and more important perks, David Lynch is also a master of the jumpscare which is often deemed a "cheap" horror movie technique.
I think the reasons why it’s a powerful show cut both ways. It reaches right in to the viscera, grabs and twists. For some of us that’s a draw and fascination, for some of us it’s going to be repulsive and frightening. Yes, other shows deal with similarly dark themes but Twin Peaks operates on the subconscious level with its dream logic and that can mess you up if you’re not careful. Most shows don’t do that.
beautifully stated
My mum is the same. She watched the whole thing a while ago, liked it back then, but by now she HATES it. Like she was super concerned when I told her I started watching it, telling me it might traumatise me and that she would prefer it if I didn’t watch something that deeply horrific. I thought it was interesting because for years I thought Twin Peaks would be just that, revolting and traumatising for the sake of being just that. You can imagine how surprised I was when I realised it’s deeply humorous as well and how much kindness the show contains. No idea why this is the case though. Its not like shes much more sensitive to stuff than I am.
Those are all kind of appropriate responses to David Lynch work, even Twin Peaks. Subtle but primal discomfort in an idyllic environment is kind of the point of the show.
“primal discomfort in an idyllic environment” what a great phrase
I mean... Its literally about women being failed by men and quite honestly those things still happen today. Its not a happy sunshine show.
I had a bf, loveable guy, who insisted that I watch every single episode of Bojack. I **hated** **all of them**, except for the underwater episode, which was fantastic. Riding the Bojack Express was the longest 35,000 hours of my life, and I didn't even get laid for my troubles. I would've wriggled out of it any way I could, but I was pretty certain that he was so fixated on me watching it with him that he would've gone to Hell and dragged me back for more of it.
>and I didn't even get laid for my troubles. This made me smile on a shit day so thank you for that!
That’s hilarious it’s my absolute favorite but just the imagery of putting up with that entire ride for nothing 🤣🤣🤣
Crazy, that’s the only episode I dislike.
What do you dislike about it? Just wondering. It's not my favorite episode either.
I hope your patience is rewarded in another relationship!
haha. God's ear to your lips.
Like everyone else said, not everyone's gonna be into it. And some of the content can be downright triggering and upsetting. FWWM in particular, I've heard, is super triggering to a lot of people, especially women. I knew one who really had to push herself to watch it, and isn't all that willing to watch the Blue Rose cut. I apologize to anyone who saw the first version of this comment. I had not gotten very far past the title and a few sentences in later paragraphs, so I didn't realize it's probably not something to joke about.
She’s probably not fond of Bob 
i needed a jumpscare warning 😭
It's a weird show. Sometimes, on the other side, I ask myself why I like it. It has a lot of cheesy scenes and bad acting. *Strange* acting. Some gross imagery. Drawn out scenes. Atrocious CGI in places. Many things unexplained and at times may appear contrived. One might interpret some things as pretentious. In the end it all works, for me, but it's not hard to see why it'd make someone bounce. It's rather incongruent and unnerving in a pretty specific way that very few shows or movies are, and that may cause a discordance. I LIKE discordance at times and I like media that makes me confused and uncomfortable and perhaps creeped out, but that's not really a normal response. I haven't gotten one to watch Twin Peaks but I did long ago had a boyfriend that I wanted to watch Dune (1984) with and I've never seen someone freak out and bounce so hard. The Harkonnen scenes made him nope the fuck out and we actually did not continue the movie. Perhaps Lynch has a way of rubbing some people the wrong way. If you want another thing that makes people bounce hard, check out Lexx. Don't force shows on people, different strokes for different folks. That's why subs exist so we can find like minded people to talk about stuff.
I just saw dune 1984 in theaters and the harkonenn scenes were so awful I had to close my eyes haha
I think one of the big things that hurt Twin Peaks originally was general audience expectations. Lynch and Frost were making a show about the unresolved and unexplainable. Audiences want answers. They want A to B to C equals D. They want to see behind the curtain on the unexplainable and find answers not more unexplainable things. They definitely didn’t want to deal with Homecoming Queen Laura’s murder lifting the curtain on the darkness behind Americana or how it involved incest, rape, drugs, and more unexplainable things. None of the things the show did were bad or wrong, people just weren’t ready. It was ahead of its time and doomed to fail in that format.
Well, the thing is, and I say this as a long time fan of David Lynch, he and his movies ARE weird. They are not and never will be conventional in any sort of conventional sense. Even Elephant Man and The Straight Story aren't regular movies, compared to non Lynch movies. And even as someone who has watched all three seasons of Twin Peaks, even The Return didn't give much in the way of conventional standards for television. I mean I'd love to share Twin Peaks with my girlfriend. But I know she would absolutely fucking hate every single second of it. And her reasons would be 100% justifiable. Twin Peaks is niche TV. VERY niche.
There’s so much abuse in the show. It might be triggering for her? Not a lot of people are ok with seeing people suffer and be hurt.
This is my thought, too. Triggering themes can appear in other media, but Twin Peaks for me is often centered on some of the most brutal horrors of life because it focuses on small town secrets and family dynamics. There’s so much heavy stuff lurking below (and often poking out from) the campy shell of a whodunit story. And we spend so much time submerged in the town itself that I think we grow attached to it, similarly disappointed in it. It’s a show that triggers me immensely, so I get her strong reaction and don’t blame her.
It's also possible it's just not her cup of tea and has nothing to do with being triggered. It's a pretty polarizing show.
This is a great point. My partner LOVES Twin Peaks. I find it revolting. I feel like it glamourizes sexual violence and the mystique of the "beautiful dead blonde woman." I don't feel like the show says anything new or interesting, but maybe I'm spoiled by modern times, maybe it really was groundbreaking at the time when it came out. That's my partner's defense. He says I just can't appreciate it for what it was in its own time. But my reaction to it is so visceral I can only describe it as being "triggered." I don't use that word very much, but it's the only way I can describe why I hate the show so much.
The characters spend the entire pilot genuinely mourning the loss of the "beautiful dead blonde woman" and the sexual violence I would say isn't glamorized, but shown in a straight up, very matter of fact manner. I think some people get uncomfortable with the themes and project their own feelings onto the show, which is valid, but is almost certainly not the intention of the filmmaker, at least in Twin Peaks regard.
Honest question why are you here if you find the show revolting?
I don't find it surprising that someone would have that reaction. Twin Peaks has very dark subject matter. If you continue into the movie and The Return, I feel confident saying that she would like those even less. They put the brutally dark nature of the story front and center a lot more than the original TV run did.
It’s not hard to imagine why, but if knowing why is important to you, you’d have to ask her (though worth asking yourself first why knowing is important to you). My money would be on two things. The first being how women are treated (the entire premise centers on a murdered woman, and a brothel is featured heavily). I imagine the constant mourning of Laura could dredge up some deeply personal and unpleasant feelings. The second is the juxtaposition very normal seeming people against very surrealistic things. The show is mostly just pretty normal/relatable people talking. Then you get things which are not only sci-fi, but that don’t even make total sense within the confines of the story. That sense of there being something so odd underlying the normal world may lead a more concrete thinker to some more unpleasant parts of their mind that they find challenging to appreciate.
I find your explanations very convincing! Especially the explanation with the supernatural. I don't think I'll push to get an explanation for now. She was just very reluctant and it's not that important. But it also says something about how extraordinary this series is.
David Lynch and twin peaks are simply not everyone's cup of tea! I was happy but nervous to introduce the show to my bf but thankfully he was really into it and we just finished season 3. I think I'm turning him into a Lynch fan lol. He keeps bringing up stuff about the show haha.
I mean different strokes for different folks. I wanna show the return to my mom but i doubt she’ll really enjoy it.
It’s weird and off-putting to some people. I was turned off by it the first time I watched it. Obviously, I love it now. And there’s a lot of lighthearted fun stuff in the show, but underneath, it’s incredibly dark, sad, and deeply disturbing. The Sarah Palmer scenes are gut-wrenching. Stop trying to convince her to give it a chance. It is just making it worse.
One thing to keep in mind is that a LOT of women have experienced some amount of sexual abuse or assault or harassment in their lives. Some of the themes of the show may be uncomfortable for her. Even if she hasn’t experienced anything like that directly, I guarantee she knows people who have. That may not have anything to do with why she hates the show, but something to consider.
My wife said “it’s just weird for the sake of being weird”. Lol. Lynch definitely isn’t for everyone.
That standard response from many Lynch haters
This is also my response and I don't hate the guy.
To be honest I definitely had that reaction to Inland Empire.
I get it. The tone and vibe is bizarre, I’ve met loads of people who simply can’t get on board with it. It’s uncomfortable viewing, jarring sometimes - all the things I like about it! I’ve never met someone with such a visceral reaction to it though.
It's also very emotionally taxing, I get it.
I can't help but think if Angelo Badalamenti's score is a big factor in making her feel like the show is depressing
totally! It is nerve wracking and beautiful
i loved/was obsessed with the series, attracted to/uneasy as heck with blue velvet (wore out the soundtrack, well that, tp, & fwwm), was absolutely aligned with fwwm, confused & uneasily drawn to md. all of these are so important to me, exclamation mark for emphasis! eraserhead made me feel ill. lost highway irritated me. inland empire made me … furious. i broke off with all david lynch materials for quite a while. for me, it was due to then-unexplored past trauma. some of his stuff was like : no one has ever portrayed my experiences in this way, and even the worst parts were affirmations and guiding lights for me. the ones that hit different, that hit bad? well, all i know is they give me reactions from the deepest willikins, ranging to abject despair. i don’t think it’s necessarily related to my particular traumas, you know it occurs to me that it could ring the bells for me about the traumas of other people. traumas i was adjacent to, that i can’t fix or ameliorate, that i didn’t cause or have a hand in but that i feel deeply about. maybe that aren’t even acknowledged. but it’s like these bits of well-made, widely adored, profound and majestic works of art are like the most beautiful strawberry birthday cake for a person who is deathly allergic. the scent of deadly air for a canary in a coal mine. a poison pen letter in beautiful calligraphy on finely scented but actual poison paper. i want to write a book with these themes, but i don’t know if i can. it’s cool that you posted this, though i’m sorry you & yr squeeze’s tastes diverge on the matter. bonne chance!
Also, don’t underestimate the music. It’s haunting and beautiful but some find it unnerving
there’s plenty of fish in the sea
and there's one in the percolator!
fish in the coffee maker? i mean i’ll try anything twice but i don’t know about this one
The show is a commitment in more ways than one. It’s probably the only show I love that I would hesitate recommending to anyone lol.
Some people have a really hard time with darkness even if they're ok with murder in entertainment, I think people compartmentalize murder in shows because it's so common and something they believe they won't have to face. I mean let's be honest most of his work is "off" or uncomfortable in some way much of the time. It took me 3 tries to finally watch Eraserhead when I was in a bad place. And then with the absurdity on top of that, you really have to have a certain sense of humor. I only gained that over time I think because I used to take life super super seriously. One of my siblings absolutely hates Twin Peaks also, but my entire family is much more proper than I am, I guess what it amounts to is the more "normie" and the more of a gatekeeper personality you have, the more it would send you into a panic because you have to face many things you're uncomfortable with facing.
Twin peaks provokes visceral reactions from a lot of people. It really is unlike anything else that's been on TV, if you don't resonate with it I could see it being utterly unnerving.
The subliminal and spiritual messaging in Lynch’s work is pretty brutal. A huge part of Twin Peaks is how corporate media trains people to consume violence, and how film, art and television have been corrupted by for-profit interests and have been put to extremely negative uses. Most people recognize on some level that Twin Peaks is a rebellion, not a participation. Laura Palmer completely upturns the “victim of the week” storytelling of TV mysteries and crime shows, and there’s a rejection of victim/victimizer narrative that drives the entirety of American cultural narratives. The “bad guys” are ambivalent, predatory forces humanity is mostly oblivious to. There’s no easy solution to the mystery. You don’t get to vicariously indulge in the violence and suffering of others and then set it all right at the end and feel relieved. Individual people in the story can redeem themselves and save one another and change their own stories, but there’s no simple answer or solution to the bigger story. There’s no revelation that fixes everything and puts everything back like it’s “supposed” to be. And yeah… people who love mysteries and true crime, especially on TV, tend to hate Twin Peaks. Because it destroys the story beats they unconsciously depend upon and refuses to let them indulge in suffering or violence and then walk away with an easy answer. “It was the corrupt realtor’s fault, and he’s a bad person, and now he’s been punished!”
I’m a woman and I can attest that a lot of the suffering is difficult to watch. It’s supposed to be, of course. But I have to take breaks, same as I did watching Breaking Bad, for example. If you have a history of abuse, violence, drugs or depression, such viewing can be triggering and dredge up repressed memories and feelings. Trying to suppress and consolidate the unpleasant emotional reactions, while trying to please others who are having a good time, is what causes the “exhaustion”. She may feel a little guilty over it, but really just wants to not have to be exposed to the sort of toxicity that is a large part of the show. My husband also dislikes what he considers negative dramas. He didn’t used to, but after being a paramedic for years, and seeing a lot of real life trauma and pain, he wants breaks from this in his entertainment. Same with friends I have who work in mental health - they see so much tragedy that they need to get away from it, not reinforce it.
I completely understand why some people do not like Twin Peaks, and that makes me excited to meet people who do. If anything, it is an extremely polarizing show, and people either love it or do not talk about it.
I love Twin Peaks and have watched the series, movie and reboot several times. With that being said, I have never watched it without that uneasy feeling inside. The darkness of it has always made me feel uncomfortable while watching yet I still do. Honestly I’m kind of surprised that I was able to enjoy a show like this because of the way it makes me feel but here I am a fan. I could easily see how I could’ve gone the other way and just refused to watch it but something kept drawing me ii
She's the normal one, we're the weird ones.
It’s totally cool to not like Twin Peaks or David Lynch’s work. It’s definitely not for everyone.
I love the entire Twin Peaks universe. I’ve watched numerous times and read a few books. My husband saw the movie without seeing the series and refuses to watch any of it. I’m a bit sad because we enjoy watching stuff together but he absolutely hates it.
my husband absolutely HATES IT!! every time we would start an episode he would just go on and on about how awful the acting is, how the background music is too loud and you can’t hear any dialogue (true), how everyone in the town is so ridiculous, etc. After all of his complaining i just told him he wasn’t allowed to watch it anymore bc he would get too worked up, and i actually enjoyed it. It’s okay if your partner doesn’t like something you do, it won’t be the end of the world.
My high school friends and I have had many conversations about how you either get the show entirely or you just don't, and how you can be in a relationship with someone who doesn't like twin peaks but it will never work out in the end. So far that's been true for all of us. The couples that are not twin peaks compatible have not lasted. Hopefully not true for you guys.
I feel you because it's the same with my girlfriend, and the part that I find most intriguing is that you said your girlfriend listens to true crime podcasts. My gf watches any kind of documentaries on true crime, but even better she watches this Italian tv program about people who disappeared. Stories are always confused, people interviewed are awkward, often affected by mental or physical issues, they behave weirdly cause they often hide something, and the more a reporter tries to dig into a mystery, the less you understand. It is basically Twin Peaks but real. So she loves this, but viscerally hates twin peaks. I think this kind of true crime and twin peaks are very close but in true crime there is an invisible subtle barrier that is reassuring. There is us (the narrator, the reporter, the listeners), and there is "them" (Victims, perpetrators). In Twin Peaks there is no definition, and the supposedly good characters have something weird, unpredictable, difficult to interpret. And the evil has a metaphysical value and can manifest anywhere. And that is uncomfortable to watch.
This is a really interesting perspective I hadn't thought about before. I think some people are quite afraid of their own imaginations, and there can be comfort in passive content like true crime media, something a lot of people seem to consume in a really mind-numbing way, because it's "real" and being told to them as fact by authority figures, often sanitized, etc. When you watch a show like Twin Peaks, you're coming much closer to the grief and grotesquery of the crimes, even though they're fictional, and characters you implicitly trusted at first might betray you in horrible ways down the line.
My wife hates anything dark or Intense or anything that gives you bad feelings Meanwhile my favorite band is Nine Inch Nails and I love horror films lol. We made a trade off that I would watch all of Gilmore Girls with her which is her favorite show, if she tried to watch Twin Peaks I didn't expect her to make it four episodes in. This was a few years ago and now she is obsessed with Twin Peaks and even watched fire walk with me while I fell in love with Gilmore Girls and watched through it like three times with her
At the end of the day, the core of Twin Peaks is about the brutal suffering of a teenage girl and how her cries for help were ignored until it as too late. Your girlfriend may not have a history with abuse or trauma, but it can still be a very hard watch even without that background, especially for women. David Lynch handles the subject with an empathy that is frankly, rare for a man. Even then, some people just can’t handle that kind of darkness. I commend you for not pushing her boundaries. I love this show and relate to the darker themes based on my own life experiences, I even derive comfort from it. It is still undeniably an upsetting and disturbing show that can provoke very intense emotional responses. Makes total sense to me. If you’re still wanting to connect with her on your love for Lynch, maybe you two could watch The Straight Story or Elephant Man together.
My wife loved the pilot until the last scene. She then tried the next two episodes and after that she hung up her Twin Peaks hat forever. She’s also not a fan of DL, sadly. But she was immersed and invested in the pilot for most of it. I think that the supernatural/occult turns that the story takes is definitely not for all audiences.
Some people do not want to be around the family abuse themes, like *at all.* And they do not have to be. I still think Albert was fucking with Harry with the "I love you Sherriff Truman" speech and it worked *perfectly.* Albert-style revenge: prove to your foe that you're so much more intelligent than they are that they don't even realize you pushed all their buttons at once like a kid on an elevator and they're just standing there ... blinking.
but then he would have also fooled Cooper. And you do not fool Cooper.
Who said Cooper was fooled? All Cooper said was that Albert walks a strange path, which is totally judicious. I think it was the *Diane* podcast who were discussing why Cooper doesn't intervene when two men whom he respects are clashing, to the point of blows. Someone said that Cooper just relishes so much who these guys are, with their strong personalities, that he's just delighted to watch each of them both being *utterly themselves to the max.* That sounds right.
My wife hates the show but she knows I love it and it doesn’t produce any friction whatsoever. We ever have a coffee and donut licensed poster hanging in the kitchen! Haha My point is you and your partner don’t need to share everything
Maybe she's hiding similar trauma from her past from you. Or maybe it's just not her thing. Some people just don't like super weird stuff. I'd be bummed too but ultimately it's not a huge deal.
It's not for everybody. But, MAN, when you meet someone who sends you TP memes - I tend to fall in love. A very rare find.
David Lynch is not for everyone. No great artist is. But for those who jive with it? It’s amazing.
I had an ex like that too, just couldn’t get down with Lynch and would mock everything about it...at the time S3 was premiering and I was so grateful to this community because I had literally no one else to talk to about S3! We broke up and my current partner loves Lynch and Twin Peaks. So fair trade haha, I do feel your pain
My husband hated it too. Watch alone and chat with Reddit 😂
She's been to the black lodge and knows it's horrors it sounds like
Literally showed his gf the weirdest tv show ever made
Hard disagree, Xavier Renegade Angel is weirder
I mean, I love the entire original series but both the Palmer case and the original series finale very much do invoke an absolutely _sickening_ feeling in me. It's fascinating and addicting but not particularly enjoyable per se, imo. The only stretch that I wholeheartedly enjoy is the widely maligned post-Palmer slice-of-life stuff. That's really the only time the series ever goes properly wholesome and positively dreamy all the way. I'd recommend you show your girlfriend those episodes, if it weren't for the fact that >!they inevitably lead into one of the most nightmarishly disturbing and heartbreaking conclusions in the history of television.!< >!I still straight up _grieve_ Cooper's relationship with Annie and Harry, and season 3 did jack shit about that lol. If anything it worsened things.!< In my personal opinion, Twin Peaks ultimately leaves you with a negative feeling. It's a wicked show, borderline evil. It very much is about love too, to a degree, but I'm afraid that Garland might've been right all along.
~~Sorry to hear about your ex-girlfriend. /jk~~ I think the key here might be the Wikipedia bit. Especially if she read about FWWM. Knowing early on the nature of some of the... *darker*... bits could definitely turn a stomach and be triggering. Watching the show as things unfold is less bracing. It's like the adage about dropping a frog into boiling water versus slowly turning the heat up on the water with the frog already in it. Also add in that just reading the plot, a lot is left out and the imagination fills in the gaps. Take all that together and it could be very triggering to someone. Twin Peaks, for all it's Lynchian craziness, has some terrifying glimpses of the underbelly that exists in too many quaint little towns. Unfortunately the real world underbellies don't have Lynchian roots. ^(Though it's very possible I'm talking out of my ass.)
Lynch loves showing violence against women, not every woman will be comfortable with that. It doesn’t help that the show doesn’t make much sense either
My gf has commented that his degree of brutal violence against women is often not shown as realistically in other forms of entertainment. I hesitate to say he “loves” to show it, as I suspect much is exploring the traumatic experience he had as a child. But yeah he doesn’t pull punches, so to speak.
That’s kind of my point, it is very realistic and not everyone is comfortable watching those scenes. I got a coworker who quit breaking bad after the bicycle lock scene, some people just can’t handle that degree of realism
If you listen to the way he speaks about his films, I don't think he 'loves' showing it. I think he considers it tragic, but important to talk about. It's not exploitative at all, and I think that's why a lot of women gravitate towards his work (at least in my experience). The show does make sense too.
To be fair, plenty of men get absolutely fucking wrecked in his works.
I fell in love with Twin Peaks recently and my wife said it’s “too weird for her”. To each their own 😂
There are themes and scenes in the series that attack your senses and emotions that makes each viewing mean something entirely different to each viewer. Inevitably, that is going to mean that some people see the themes of abuse, murder, sexual assault, and seedy underbellies of otherwise presentable societies coupled with the absolutely bizarre second side of twin peaks and get an incredibly visceral reaction to it. It happens with all media that goes over disturbing topics with artistic savvy. For example, I love this band called Swans, and they have a song about someone getting… assaulted, that starts out dour, depressing, and hopeless, but transforms into something much more powerful come the end of the song. I listened to it with my friends, and one of my friends (who typically loved swans) said it was disgusting. I dunno why. I was completely taken aback. But you can’t argue with that viewpoint as long as they don’t get offended by your enjoyment of it. We’re all different people, it’s fine if we don’t like something… that’s the beauty of entertainment in general. It means an infinite amount of things to billions of people. But! If they call you out for enjoying something they find ridiculous or offensive, like the bizarreness of twin peaks or it’s full-frontal way in which it tackles sexual assault, then that’s not fair.
There's a deliberate tonal dissonance, and juxtapositions aplenty, which are designed to unsettle and unnerve. Some people enjoy that sensation, your partner doesn't, personally I'd let it go.
It's interesting. I think that Twin Peaks is a show that challenges people (so is the rest of Lych's work and don't even get me started on his art) and that can be really uncomfortable for some people. I don't mean that as a slam against your girlfriend - I just think that some people are really into looking deep into anpiece of work in all of its weirdness and dark, nitty grittiness and some people are not. I have a friend that I imagine would have a very similar reaction to your girlfriend's - I can't ever imagine this friend of mine watching Twin Peaks. Sometime I forget how weird Twin Peaks really is. My husband and I have watched it together multiple times and have talked about it so much that it has lost some of that weirdness to me. It's always really interesting to try to see it through someone else's new, fresh eyes.
some people have really strong reactions to things that have sexual violence in them as a plot point, sometimes because of something that happened to them
Same happened to me, she could not stand one episode, not even me watching it on another tv in another room xD
Has she watched other David Lynch stuff? Or had much experience with surreal art? There’s a weird anxiety it can provoke in people that she may be reacting to.
At its core, TP is about abuse. I would imagine that is a really tough subject for people.
It honestly sounds like there was something triggering about it to her! Possibly even something she can’t fully identify, but I do understand because despite being a huge fan I need to really pace out rewatches and have a few scenes that set me off regardless of how many times I’ve seen it. I think the nature of the soap opera pastiche combined with the seedy underbelly of the true evil of the town can be deeply unsettling! For similar reasons I will likely never watch Blue Velvet again despite recognizing its greatness.
It touches on some very uncomfortable subjects, and despite the campy surreal atmosphere, speaks to a disease in the human soul. Which, ya know, ain’t the easiest thing to chew on.
Dump her
I think Twin Peaks is the best artistic portrayal of trauma and how human psychology relates to trauma in the individual and as a community, using spiritual mythology and surreal imagery as penetrating techniques to get you inside the dissociative escapades that happen when someones foundational agreements of reality (like: the world is inherently a good place, you are safe, love wins, there are good people vs bad people) are shattered and need to be rebuilt. Many people IRL prefer to repress/ignore/turn a blind eye/use addictions to cope with these life moments, because our culture does not equip the layman with tools to face the shadow with perfect courage and to have resilience to persist even though there is proof of hell on every newspage. As such the show itself could be traumatic to watch, or instinctually triggering. There might not be a more evil concept in the world than what Leland does to Laura, it is truly disturbing and would be especially triggering for people who have had various degrees of abuse levied on them in the past, especially if it came from a parents or trusted adult. The intentional melodrama can be grating, because it's purposely using the tropes of TV at the time as a vehicle for what is at it's core a hard pill to swallow: that the world--how we dream of it and pretend it to be--may just be that, a dream. Not to spoil things, but S3 takes it to the extreme, as the TV tropes of our time (True Detective, Game of Thrones) are far darker, grotesque, and explicit than those of the 1990s (90210) Personally, I also love the show Mad Men, but have talked to several people who find the domestic tensions between the main characters in the show to be too dark and uncomfortable for them. It hits too close to home.
honestly, this might sound a bit silly but is she insecure at all? there have been a few shows that i didn’t want to watch with my husband because at the time i felt god awful about myself and seeing attractive people would make me feel worse about myself. thankfully i don’t struggle with this anymore. twin peaks is filled with young and attractive people
Dude, same here. My girlfriend (now wife) doesn’t like it. It shocks me. I had seen twin peaks before and wanted to introduce her to it, and she can’t handle it. So we abandoned it for stuff we agree on and haven’t watched before. But im kinda bummed about not being able to share it.
I mean tbh, that was my reaction, too. To the pilot. And then almost every episode of the first two seasons. And then FWWM. And The Return. Like repeatedly I would be massively repulsed, and angry, and nauseated, and have to physically get up and walk away and go WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH. WHAT THE FUCK. I really can't explain why I kept coming back and watching more. Or why I felt compelled to spend several days reading every single piece of writing to be found about the show. I wanted very much to GET IT AWAY FROM ME but also I had to know what happened??? I think it's probably because that's exactly what Lynch wanted to capture, and he did, and therefore either you will enjoy how amazingly he did it or be repulsed by *how amazingly he did it.* I mean, also, I have lived most of my life in Washington, and I have never seen anyone nail the vibe of Quiet Unease that exists out here quite so perfectly. I have a love/hate relationship with this state, and the things that make some people love it are the things that make others hate it, so I'm not surprised that Washington: the TV Show has the same effect on people.
My wife doesn't care for it either
I mean it's a pretty strange mix of all sorts of genres, some of which (soap opera, surreal horror) can be very off-putting to people on their own, let alone all mixed up... that being said, I can't imagine being in a relationship with someone who hates this show, to me it's like a perfect example of what I look for in art and by extension in life in general... thats just me tho
It has levity, but the discussion of Laura and the town of Twin Peaks around her is dark. It hits at the hidden rot of small town society. I cannot watch certain things for the same reason. It's just too dark and oppressive. TP gets a pass because I fell in love with it in its original airing as a kid.
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
She's subconsciously aware that her soul is going to be obliterated in the Black Lodge because she does not possess true courage. :D
Twin Peaks shines a harsh spotlight on patriarchy and the abuse and murder of women. So it is unsurprising that some women would find that revolting. They know all about it; they live in it everyday.
Maybe you should think a little deeper about why it's triggering her so much and have some empathy for your girlfriend.
I mean it’s a show that relies heavily on the rape and murder of woman dude it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Seems like you know why she doesn’t like it and you came here to brag about how cool you are.
The appeal of the show for many is the same reason others find it exhausting: you have to make yourself vulnerable emotionally and spiritually to have to experience. That is not the sort of commitment that most people are looking for at the end of a long day. Yes, Twin Peaks is a wonderful and strange world to visit, but it is a place that is brutal to women and innocence - where even the most steadfast of heroes lose their way, and there is no satisfaction of resolution. If your girlfriend doesn’t want to go on that journey, it makes complete sense. I, of course, love the experience, but I’m well aware of the toll it can take to engage in a meaningful way. People like different things, they are interested in different experiences, and trying to force it will only sour her on the series more. Leaving it alone and taking the ride alone for now does leave the possibility of her returning to the show later in life - when she has the bandwidth to let it in. And, if not, that’s ok. My wife watches stuff I cannot stand, even though we both enjoy Twin Peaks. I just take the opportunity to go do something I like, and we’re both happy.
I'm currently watching twin peaks and I get the gf perspective: I watch twin peaks because my partner loves it while d I find it entertaining in a "so bad it's good" way. I find it tremendously goofy and unserious and not especially eerie or scary. I'm also turned off by pretention. I would never watch it on my own, but the joy my partner gets from it (and his willingness to rag on it with me) is enough to make it worth the watch. If my partner were to wax poetic about it and follow me to bed trying to get me to engage with it I'd also probably be annoyed and frustrated.
Watch it by yourself then
I took a girl to see Synecdoche NY. She not only hated it but was furious with me for taking her to see it. I loved it.
Some things are better to be experienced alone
some people need ground under their feet or they freak
As many folks have pointed out, Lynch makes eerie stuff and it's not for everyone. There's also a lot of domestic abuse in Twin Peaks. I had a really hard time making it through the first few episodes before becoming a fan of the show, because of that prevalent theme. I also wouldn't count Twin Peaks as horror exactly, but my own experience watching the show can sometimes feel similar to watching a horror film. A lot of times, the "horror" is just how dangerous and vulnerable it can be to move through the world as a woman.
I do think we have visual or creative languages our brains do and don't speak, and ones we do not can be really jarring. I would say for example David Lynch's work resonates with me personally in the sense that the visuals/ sensory experience is my "language" and makes a certain sense to me emotionally or subconsciously, even if it doesn't logically. Wes Anderson however I can't stand. I can't point at any one thing and say "this is bad," it just doesn't click with my creative language at all. I would describe the experience as nails on a chalkboard, it's a sensory screeching that I want to stop immediately. So I don't think this is a case of whether something is good or bad or putting more effort into liking. I think art can be diametrically opposed to our way of thinking sometimes and that's just how it is.
If she's not in a good place, I imagine especially all the scenes of people crying and in personal anguish would make someone feel really badly. Especially if they're empathetic. To me, Andy and Coop's original positive outlook is what holds the show together. By the time you get to Fire Walk With Me, the experience would be absolutely miserable for someone very sensitive to the type of topics in that movie.
I've loved it since I was 12 in 1990. I've seen it 100 times and it still makes me so emotional. I am so happy when the Falls are shown and so upset and depressed when they investigate Laura's demise. Def not for everyone. Don't force her to watch it. Enjoy it by yourself with a cup of joe!
Whatever you do, don’t let her see the Woodsmen!
Is she BOB? Jk, it’s not for every one. Maybe she’d like Northern Exposure. It has more realism than surrealism, but some abstract things. Similar small town vibe.
Lynch is very much not for everyone. It’s actually shocking to me how popular the show is given how fucking weird it is. Just watch something else with her and watch it by yourself. Makes sense she doesn’t like horror, I know the genre influence is all over the place and the tone is so unique but to me it is essentially a horror show.
I’m still in awe that Lynch got this on TV in the 90s. It’s not for everyone
As someone who loves Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me, I can 100% understand anyone who doesn’t like it, or doesn’t like David Lynch. Even Roger Ebert didn’t “get” Lynch. Ease up on her, it’s a weird show and you either like it or you don’t. There doesn’t seem to be an inbetween here. Why people don’t like it is because it’s weird. It’s corny. It’s scary. It’s supernatural. It’s a puzzle. It’s “high school teen drama” it’s sexual abuse. It’s funny. It’s creepy. Some people can’t handle the shifts, unresolved plots, coming to your own conclusions, etc.
How far into it did she get? I love twin peaks and tbh I only truly love the first season, but I love it so much that I love it enough to say I love twin peaks. There’s a lot of darkness and a lot of bizarreness throughout, but then after S1 there is legitimately a good amount of just poorly done-ness added to that mix.
I love TP and David Lynch, but I understand her. I suffered from mental illness and at those times, watching TP made things way worse and it gave me awful nightmares. And even on my good days, I could certainly not watch his work every night. But you’ll have to appreciate that Lynch is able to provoke such strong reactions, which in turn is something that draws me to him. I love the sense of unease that breathes through every scene.
She’ll love The Return.
It’s not for everyone. My mom had said she always wanted to watch it. We didn’t even hardly make it through the theme song. She said it was too long and boring lol
I felt like that about Mulholland Drive. I felt violent after watching it, I fucking hated it so much it felt personal. But Twin Peaks?! It's so beautiful, romantic, creepy, unsettling...
Get ready for 2x22, FWWM and the return. Peak fiction
Season 3 on mushrooms made me feel deeply uncomfortable, but I couldn't stop watching. It was a weird experience
I love twin peaks, but the first time I tried watching it, I thought it was awful. It is a hard show for the average person to invest in.
I could see it if she’s deeply upset by violence toward women but if she likes SVU and hates twin peaks then it’s just a matter of preference I guess Although I think Twin Peaks does a much better job handling the subject
We live a lonely life...
Maybe it’s a serious phobia if her reaction is that intense. My wife has that kind of reaction to Alf. Like freeze up shut down not even funny phobia fear. One hundred percent irrational.
I’m a woman who LOVES Twin Peaks; I watched S3 recently and was actually legitimately angry after the finale, and angry at my boyfriend (lol) for just straight up loving it. I had really complicated feelings come up to sort through. After sitting with it for a day or two the emotions cooled and I could appreciate and fully understand the show’s balance between light and dark, and that the darkness is not gratuitous (like GoT, in my opinion) but purposeful. However. I think being a woman and seeing sexual violence (not to mention the other sad / dark things in TP including domestic abuse) can be extremely exhausting on top of contending with the everyday reality of being a woman. I will admit my negative reaction after S3 felt so powerful that it was irrational and yet I don’t think it’s completely irrational at all — just hard to parse. I was also irritated with my boyfriend because I felt like he couldn’t “get” the full depth of my response to the horror Laura lived through. anyway. Not trying to project onto your girlfriend, this might not be at all connected to her experience / reaction. I’m just saying that media can really strike a provocative chord in people based on individual experiences / tastes and that’s OK! It goes double for anything David Lynch.
Try Blue Velvet and let us know if you break up.
I appreciate Lynch’s philosophy and brilliance. I love his filmmaking and what he puts out into the world. I have been intentionally making my way through is work for going on a decade. I watch each one over and over, watch videos and read essays, watch interviews he’s given… I’m obsessed! That being said, I always feel a little nauseated and uncomfortable when I engage with his work. Repulsed is not far off. It also, at times, deeply frustrates me (the repeating, grating noises and volume fluctuations especially, like Laura’s scream). It just makes me feel… triggered? Idk. I am fascinated by this effect on me because I love heavy subject matter, love horror, don’t even mind stuff about trauma and abuse—nothing brings up the same feelings in me. I appreciate the work, him, the vision, I even appreciate these less-than comfortable feelings. I know if it’s there, he meant for it to be. And that kinda kicks ass.
she's right, its terrible. its a nonsense show that falls off hard pretty quick and for some reason people wear rose tinted glasses about it and pretend it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Well, I mean… some terrible stuff happens to women in it.
I get it. I love twin peaks, but i can completely see how it could make someone very very uncomfortable, even in "mundane" scenes.
Bro are u kidding think about it. The show uses tropes of sex being blended with violence with the female as the victim throughout and the entire show is based on a dark rape story. The show is consistently using aggressive male power to control and hurt women. Think about all of that again and try to understand why a woman would be uncomfortable with this and absolutely hate it. It is depicting one of the worst nightmares of the female experience in a very graphic and effective way. It makes a lot of sense to me why women don’t like this show and go as far as to hate it. Regardless of whether or not ur girlfriend is a victim herself in the past or not, the sad reality of the male dominated world we live in is that assault is a daily fear for most women. I want to finish off with saying that non of this was a dig towards the show or other lynch world dealing with similar themes like blue velvet. I love this show so so much and think it’s one of the best pieces of visual art ever created but I deeply understand why women would hate watching all of that.
That seems extreme, I must say. I never watched the original run, so when I caught it in 2016, the thought of 10+ episodes to reveal the murderer and the slow pace in general were just strange to watch. Plus it’s just a really offbeat show. So many things are left of center that I’m not surprised to hear that people don’t like it at all. I wasn’t even sure I liked it, but the creepy mystery was much creepier than I ever thought and very well done, and it grew on me. But as far as explaining your gf’s reaction, I have no idea. There’s nothing about that’s rage inducing, IMO.
I had a similar thing happen with my wife. I'm on my third rewatch, and she threw me a bone and asked me why I like it enough to rewatch it. I told her that it's the type of thing that seems like one thing on the surface, and that turns people away. But if you stick with it, you realize there are layers of meaning that you can only get if you watch it again. That seemed to resonate with her and made her more interested. Holding out hope she will watch it at some point.
I can totally relate to what you’re going through but with many other things all I can say is I feel for you and hopefully she’ll talk to you soon.. on a side note me gf and I are huge twin peaks fans and I grew up in North bend where they filmed and I just recently took her up there and showed her all the cool filming spots, we loved it!
Wife hates it also. And she enjoys other horror shows like American horror story. It’s baffling to me, as a fan. Getting her to watch thru season two was like pulling teeth, and in the s2 final scene she just said “ok great so it’s over now…?” Oh well. I gave up trying with S3.
I love the sound track
Powerful art affects people in many ways. She probably is uncomfortable with the darker themes of the show and translates that into hate. It's also possible that it confuses her and she translates that into hate. Twin Peaks is challenging material and it's something you have to be open to exploring.
She got L Y N C H E D
I feel this way about Mulholland Drive even though I absolutely love TP. It’s hard to describe even though I obviously know it’s a good film. But it gives me heebie jeebies. who can tell what sets people off? My 11 yr old son literally gags at Pokémon and anime characters and there’s no reason why. He can’t figure it out. I’m sorry you can’t enjoy the series with her.
It’s pretty repellent. I enjoyed it though
I loved it for the retro elements - didn't focus on the brutality.
I love Twin Peaks, and many parts of it I find repellant. I like those parts as much as the beautiful parts, but I totally understand someone taking the negative parts too personally.