inanimate objects have feelings??
Are there any inanimate objects you associate with a significant moment in your life and/or subsides, inversely, to particular moments and themes in your life?
The dinosaur figure in Fleabag; Ross Geller and his fossils; The hovering ex that permeates your subconscious—”He’ll be back.” The ever-extinct permanence of the creature, yet another symbolic view to inanimate objects and it’s ways it transpires meaning in the form of kinships we traverse and how our mental psyche approaches them in our day to day developments.
In Fleabag, the eponymous character, recalls the figures presence after a break up as a slew and temporary tantrum from her retrospective partner. The anecdote is retold with the autistic natures they both share—communicating the definite and indefinite moments where the relationship stands. “He’ll be back.”, she communicates to the audience as she breaks the occasional fourth-wall, moments before he walks in and retrieves the figure—who’s inherent nature is extinct but present in it’s tangibility to history.
Nor him, especially, nor the dinosaur figure are to ever be seen in continuity, yet in reoccurrence, just a few appearances here and there with some flashback memories. In form of speech they’ve been mentioned—the dinosaur and the ex-boyfriend, coexist as entities with tangibility. The remnants are there and full.
Now let’s take a Barbie doll, a Spiderman figure… they each symbolize characters that also exists in some kind of extinct-permanence but also remain in tangibility.
Barbie in every universe—from the satire-stereotypical personification in the animated films to the first-live action—is depicted as a bimbo blonde who contributes to everything but nothing. The beauty of Barbie’s existence is feminism in itself and imagining a world where the patriarchy allows us freedom. In Greta Gerwig’s 2024 live-action, a recurring theme as the film progressed, seemed to be the redundant decision-making; the aloof-headed doll’s approach to the unkempt world. Of course we aren’t going to assume a Barbie doll whom’s reintroduced as a human, to execute thorough thoughts and decisions; yet she is a symbolic image to women across the world, becoming first-timers in male dominated fields. Her permanence is there and never forgotten.
Now Spiderman, the local-teenage-superhero who only knows adversity and tragedy in every epoch he’s introduced to in the comics. Yes, generally, every superhero or anti-hero is transfixed with an adverse moment that alter their inherent nature, becoming an alien to the daily functions of the world. Peter Parker’s character always succumbs to an evil nature to become unknown to loved one’s; unrecognizable almost every time and as in Jon Watts, “Spider-Man No Way Home”, he undergoes a reiterated form of distinction to the world and the one’s he’s a kin to.
The focus of inanimate objects across media have often been loosely adapted or heavily analyzed like Fleabag’s encounter with foxes. The crows, a swan, the myth’s of an object; all come together in its meaning. Even music and it’s transcending message, Punch-Drunk Love’s soundtrack by Jon Brion—with it’s chimes and wood-chucking-anxious melody, progressing and altering through the film with it’s brief eeriness.
It’s clear Phoebe Waller-Bridge, was quite intentional with her choices of symbolism and allegorical depicting. None of it has a redundant role to the premise of the series. In a world of Ross’, exes and what once was important, an ex plays a pivotal role in our societal approach—contingent to the archetype’s of kinship we’re presented. An ex is someone that’ll hover in your memory and make an appearance. They can be dormant or a fuse but it’ll always be something to be viewed through the whiff of a shadow, guided by the flashlight.
Ross and his relationship to marriage. Each and everyone of them existed in a non-committal nature, on a whim, often initiated by him. Three divorces?! Ross, the paleontologist; the self-absorbed ex who can’t seem to keep a healthy relationship and his high-achieving exes. But is Rachel in some from an adjacent to Fleabag?, only being presented in muted tones by a sitcom’s array? There is much more questions to dive into and further elaborate this unorthodox analysis, cross-referencing paleontology, superhero figures and music!
In middle school, a paraprofessional entered the room with a dried rose flipped upside down. Curious enough I asked her why she held it like that—in a repulsing manner yet delicately. She gave me the run down on preserving a flowers after its prime, where her tone becomes muted and arid. Ever since i’ve loved dried flowers. Yes plants are a living thing but the flower is… dead.
I often channel the perspective of inanimate objects, either it be prose or poetry, I incorporate the lack of touch an inanimate object can attempt to imbue. It’s fascinating. Born from a childhood memory in which my mom lit the stove to the pan, I wondered if the pan is in pain, if the fork being used to flip the steak exacerbated the pain it was already experiencing—somehow totally dismissing the non-vegan approach to this curious thought.
There is so much more to explore with non-living things and the emotions you can give them. There is so much we can see ourselves in objects at times. A flower is distinguished as a living thing but a dead flower can be questioned. I find beauty in them because the sonder perceived among all humans can either be a soul that is fully ignited or just filled with sorrow, a darkness they seldom uncharted.