- The Mysteries of Dorothy Vallens: On Isabella Rossellini in “Blue Velvet” (March 3, 2026)
Isabella Rossellini’s legacy is primarily tied to her role as Dorothy Vallens in “Blue Velvet.” Vallens is deliciously captivating and elusive, like the best characters in film noir, and she eschews rational, clear interpretations as we delve further into her mystery. Rossellini remains proud of what she accomplished as Vallens, and considers it the most complex performance of her career, but when “Blue Velvet” was released in 1986, it scandalized audiences and critics alike.
It even struck a chord with the namesake of this website, and Roger Ebert took David Lynch to task for perceived misogyny. While he admired her bravery, he wrote that Rossellini was “degraded, slapped around, humiliated, and undressed in front of the camera,” but she has always argued against that line of thought. In a recent interview on the Ladies of Lynch podcast, she stated, “There’s a myth that directors manipulate actors and take young virginal women and make them do things they don’t want to do, and it perpetuates this idea that diminishes the role of acting, and of women in general.”
As critics and cinephiles, we sometimes ascribe too much legitimacy to the auteur theory, and it robs actresses of their agency as creatives in films made by male geniuses. Rossellini was not acting in submission to Lynch’s vision but aligned with him as an equal partner. He welcomed the perspectives of his fellow artists, and Rossellini described the atmosphere of a Lynch set as one of great trust and kindness, which allowed everyone to experiment. It is a credit to her intelligence, her risk-taking, and the depths that she plumbs that Vallens is not merely an object or a fulcrum to channel the surrealism of Lynch’s moody worlds; she is a complex figure who evades easy categorization or psychological interrogation. She is a mystery, because she was conceived as one, not only by Lynch, but also by Rossellini.
Rossellini initially sought to carve a path for herself away from the cinematic legacies of her parents–actress of Hollywood royalty Ingrid Bergman and Italian neo-realist director Roberto Rossellini. She was a television reporter and then a model before becoming an actress, and while modelling, she began to understand that she had abilities suited to the screen. She considered the act of modelling to be a stylized form of acting that wasn’t separate from what the silent film stars were doing.
She was in a few pictures before meeting Lynch, and they met each other by happenstance over dinner one evening. The two struck up a conversation about the ups and downs of their ongoing film careers, and she became interested in one of his scripts, “Blue Velvet.” Rossellini found the script unusual and tantalizing, and after she read it, she asked him if he would be willing to give her a screen test with costar Kyle MacLachlan, who was set to play Jeffrey Beaumont, an amateur sleuth and excitable voyeur.
The test wound up being the pivotal moment of the film, when Dorothy finds Jeffrey in her closet, and she and Lynch quickly realized they had the same ideas for this desperate but not helpless character.
“Blue Velvet” follows Jeffrey returning from college to the town of Lumberton after his father falls ill. He discovers a severed ear in an open field that leads him to an ouroboros of pain hidden underneath his idyllic homestead. He burrows deeper and deeper into the microscopic details of a criminal underworld that brings him to the apartment of torch singer Dorothy Vallens, whose husband and child are being held hostage by the maniac Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
Lynch’s film remains vital and vibrant because it still elicits discomfort, and much of this is filtered through the shifting dynamics of vulnerability and sensuality in Rossellini’s performance. In that pivotal scene of discovery, the film takes us to the center of the mystery when Jeffrey’s investigation leaves him stranded behind a closet inside Dorothy’s apartment. Lynch occasionally shows his filmic influences, and through a rhyming shot, he evokes peeping Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) as he stares at Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in “Psycho” (1960), and like in that proto-slasher, our voyeurism doesn’t feel safe. Jeffrey watches Dorothy undress, and with the opening of the closet door, he is exposed as a pervert. She brandishes a knife and threatens him, but ushers him back into the closet when she hears Frank coming up the stairs.
It is then that Jeffrey witnesses something truly shocking. For the next few minutes, Frank commands Dorothy through the motions of a ritualistic rape, and the lines blur between her disgust and her enjoyment of the scenario. We later learn that Frank has been visiting her continuously for some time, demanding the same perverse scenario from her.
After Frank leaves, Jeffrey consoles Dorothy, and her own sadomasochistic sexual relationship with her peeper begins to take shape when she asks him to stay. It would be cliché if Jeffrey only watched her undress, or if it was only the fear of being caught that was powering the dramatic tension, but the scene keeps going, and with each new revelation, the power balance between Jeffrey and Dorothy keeps evolving until it is difficult to get a clear perspective on how we should feel about it. This is in large part due to Rossellini’s atypical choices of showing us Dorothy’s pleasure within the mayhem of her private life.
Her relationship with Jeffrey becomes stranger, as the mystery unravels further. He intends to free her husband and child, and reveal Frank to the local police department, but nested inside the mystery are their continued encounters in the bedroom. Lynch uses slow-motion and close-ups to show both of them degrading into a Freudian muck of sadomasochistic roles. In one of their sex scenes, there is a close-up of Dorothy after she has begged Jeffrey to hit her. He has reluctantly acquiesced, and Rossellini composes a reaction that looks positively radiant and satisfied by the violence. We know it’s wrong, but because we bring our morals to the picture, the repulsion of the act actually has the power to deepen the oblique psychology of the character in a way that is fully integrated with how Rossellini wants us to see her.
Lynch prioritized mystery above all else, but Rossellini needed something to anchor her performance and give her a portrait of the character she was playing. On the Ladies of Lynch podcast, she elaborated that she used her imagination to create a backstory, and she felt that Dorothy was especially vulnerable because she was a foreigner and didn’t have a mother to run to with her problems.
During production, she also read several books on the psychological effects of Stockholm Syndrome. When she brought that information to Lynch, he wasn’t interested in the specifics of what it meant for her relationship with Frank or Jeffrey, but he was open to exploring it. He quickly saw that the way she approached the character was in sync with how he was thinking of Dorothy as someone trapped in a very dark place.
Rossellini obviously took that description to heart and endowed the character with choices to embody that darkness through an expressionistic body language that was dazed, yet nervy, and indebted to what she learned as a model. “Blue Velvet” circles down the drain, ever further into the abyss, and the black hole that a viewer enters when watching this picture emanates from Dorothy’s experiences. She is the eye of the mystery; a creature of desperation, and her arms seem to always be outstretched in protest, or in want. She has been turned inside out by love for her husband and her son, and their kidnapping has made the shape of her world very morbid. She has welcomed that darkness into her sensuality as a way to cope, but it has confused her ability to feel pleasure, and she has begun to hurt herself in response.
There is a distinction between movies about sexism and movies that are sexist, and “Blue Velvet” remains shocking because it is honest about misogyny and the power dynamics of rape. There are people like Frank, and it is a credit to all involved that they do not flinch from the ramifications of his behaviour and its effect on others. It would be dishonest to the experiences of those who have felt what Dorothy has to soften the portrait. A movie like Blue Velvet and a performance like Rossellini’s have to make us feel uncomfortable in order for it to be honorable. They hold true to her experiences by showing us that Vallens is a woman with no protection from her emotions and her exposed vulnerability. This is crystalized in the scene of her when she is roaming around confused, while nude on Jeffrey’s lawn. The shape of her situation and Rossellini’s performance couldn’t be more exposed in that scene, and it is difficult to take in this image without wanting to look away.
In his memoir Room to Dream, Lynch said that this image was lifted from Lynch’s own childhood when he and a close friend of his saw a battered and naked woman walking around the neighborhood. It was the first time he had seen a naked woman, and the helpless feelings that it brought out in him made him and his friend cry. They knew something was wrong, and we know it when we look at Dorothy Vallens. Lynch strives for a contrast between the grace that he often affords his women in trouble and the darkness they experience. This quality has always made me feel like he was on our side. In the case of Vallens, it makes the beauty of her reunion with her child seem that much brighter. The blinding light of love seen in so many of his twisted but sincere happy endings can only be understood if there is a time when the glow can’t be felt.
Dorothy Vallens was the first of Lynch’s many “women in trouble”, but she remains strange even refracted in that canon. She isn’t as easy to empathize with as the martyred teenage prom queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me” (1992), and she doesn’t have an ounce of the optimism of Hollywood dreamer Betty (Naomi Watts) in “Mulholland Drive” (2001). Rossellini’s Vallens has a beguiling quality that remains as nightmarish and curious as anything in a Lynch film. She can be inviting and intoxicatingly lovely, like when her voice carefully goes up a half-step when she purrs through Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” at The Slow Club, and she can also be ruinous as a post-modern femme fatale when we are swept up in the sexual wreckage inside of her apartment.
For this role, Rossellini took risks with her image as a poised, dignified young beauty she had cultivated as a model and as the child of Ingrid Bergman. She brought all the torments and pleasures of Lynch’s small-town American id to life with the forbidden textures of her sensuality and with the magnitude of her ambiguity. Rossellini’s extraordinary performance set the stage for all the actresses who would venture into those dark, mysterious places we call Lynchian.
- An Anatomy of a Fleece: Why ‘Heated Rivalry’ Fans Have Latched Onto its Very Canadian Jacket (March 3, 2026)
“Heated Rivalry” has pretty much had us in a collective chokehold over the past few months. Series leads Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams have quickly shot to superstardom. We’re still scratching the surface at what a show like “Heated Rivalry” could do to address professional sports’ culture of toxicity in an environment where pro athletes publicly coming out is still a rare occurrence (even as the National Hockey League hopes to capitalize on both the series’ popularity and its creation of new hockey fans). Rachel Reid’s Game Changers books (the basis for the Crave adaptation) have topped bestsellers’ charts for weeks.
We simply can’t get enough of Shane Hollander (Williams) and Ilya Rozanov’s (Storrie) love story, no matter how many times we’ve seen it or what future seasons (and books) have in store for us. But as much as “Heated Rivalry” has expertly built its characters from the ground up, often through sex (and often without them wearing much at all), the show’s breakout look is one that solidly stays on: a pure Canadian fleece.
The garment—a white fleece with “CANADA” displayed across the back in red, red trim at the collar, and a red maple leaf on each arm—is briefly seen in the second and third episodes of “Heated Rivalry” (“Olympians” and “Hunter,” respectively) when Shane is at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Ilya and the Russian men’s hockey team already flamed out, whereas Canada and USA, represented in the episode by the New York Admirals’ Scott Hunter (François Arnaud) and Carter Vaughn (Kolton Stewart), both still have a shot at winning gold; like in Milan, the US men’s hockey team in “Heated Rivalry” would win it all after beating Canada (at least in the books).
Shane is still wearing the fleece when the three of them watch Shane’s friend perform in the men’s figure skating short program, and also when he later confronts Ilya (already in a bad mood and entirely garbed in black) about ignoring him.
We don’t see the jacket again after Sochi, although Shane wears plenty of casual athletic wear when he’s not on the ice before eventually hiring a stylist. But the jacket still made its mark. In the three months since the premiere of “Heated Rivalry,” the fleece sparked fan-made knockoffs (including some requests from multiple players on the Canadian women’s hockey team), a Change.org petition, notice from Team Canada, a team up between Province of Canada and “Heated Rivalry” that will (eventually) allow us to have a jacket of our own, and Williams delivering the fleece onto the literal shoulders of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Not bad for a jacket that gets maybe about four minutes of screentime in the entire first season, huh?
Shows and films often use costumes to tell audiences stories almost as much as character development and plot all the time; it can be a visual shorthand, a nod to someone’s state of mind, or hint at bigger blowups to come. “Heated Rivalry” is no different—even when the costume is something as self-explanatory to the plot as an athlete wearing his country’s official jacket during the Winter Olympics.
Shane’s Team Canada fleece, a creation by costume designer Hanna Puley, isn’t a flashy piece of Olympic athleisure wear by any means. The outfits that these athletes wear to compete against the best in the world and lounge in while representing their countries (including last month’s Winter Olympics in Milan) can be flashy and more stylized as well as comfortable; Team Canada’s actual 2014 Winter Olympics uniform, designed by Canadian apparel company Hudson’s Bay, included a fitted sweater, flourish variations beyond the maple leaf, and even Ilya’s “stupid Canadian wolf bird” on some of the accessories. The patriotic fleece we’ve gotten for Shane and the rest of the Canadian team (conveniently off-camera for this episode) is downright simplistic in comparison. There are hints of red, but it doesn’t overwhelm the jacket.
The fleece looks warm, especially compared to the thin navy star-laden jackets Scott and Carter wear with white hoodies, and the white material makes it looks like a fluffy cloud you could rest your head on, a platonic ideal for a work outfit; even if we don’t ever see Shane wearing it while lounging around in Montreal or at the cottage after Sochi, you could imagine it. And when official Olympic outfits—some of which are designed by higher-end brands and companies like Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, and Lululemon—can put you back hundreds of dollars, Shane’s fleece is approachable. In the reality of “Heated Rivalry,” it might possibly even be affordable.
“I really wanted to make Olympic gear that actually felt wearable and cozy,” Puley wrote on Instagram in a breakdown of the show’s costumes. “The idea of approachability and comfort was really important for me here. As well as showcasing Canadian identity—which to me feels like quiet confidence. Tough, self-aware, and a little understated. But, ultimately COZY.”
The fleece stands in even greater contrast (by design, according to Puley) to Ilya’s ensemble when Shane later goes up to Ilya on the upper level. Shane still has on his Team Canada jacket, a detail taken directly from the Heated Rivalry novel. But Ilya is dressed with not a hint of Team Russia gear on him and in a foul mood from a family who sees any outcome less than winning gold to be a disappointment. (And with the Russian men’s hockey team getting knocked out after losing to Latvia just four days in, his father likely sees him as the ultimate disappointment.)
Even without Sochi and Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies hanging in the air making anything between them impossible in that moment, neither of them are yet at a place where they can be honest with each other or themselves about who they are or what they could mean to one another. But Shane, with full support from his parents back home and a friendly rivalry with the Americans that probably gets a fraction of the in-universe screentime that his with Ilya does, is more sure of himself and his place, while Ilya is still finding his footing.
Throughout the first season of “Heated Rivalry,” Shane and Ilya continue to switch between who’s got it figured out and who’s internally flailing. But with that fleece in Sochi, in its Canadian pride and coziness, Shane is the one on solid ground.
- Skill and Dedication: Nelson Pressley on Fonda on Film: The Political Movies of Jane Fonda (March 3, 2026)
Nelson Pressley’s Fonda on Film: The Political Movies of Jane Fonda is a meticulously researched and insightful examination of a performer who, despite decades of respect and awards for the quality of her work as an actress and filmmaker, her films were still too often eclipsed in the public eye by her political activism. While the book, per the subtitle, centers on the “message” films she made about Vietnam, gender and race equality, and the environment, always with a focus on the underpaid and underappreciated, it is a comprehensive look at her entire career.
Those films reflected and influenced her eras. She began as a virginal ingenue, then moved to ’60s sex comedies, French sex fantasies, dramas based on books and plays, and comedies with pointed commentary, working with some of the biggest stars and most talented directors in Hollywood history. And it’s a delight to read, with historical context, behind-the-scenes details, and thoughtful observations. In an interview with rogerebert.com, Pressley talked about Fonda’s approach to roles, her best collaborations, and the Fonda movies everyone should see.
Early in the book, you describe Jane Fonda as having “colossal malleability and never-ending controversy.” How do you think those two elements show up in her performances?
The arc of the career certainly shows it. Just how quick is the transition from “Barbarella,” you know, where she’s this intergalactic love being, and the utter despair of “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” And at that point, she’s about a decade into her career. It’s just a tremendous amount of experience, even in that first decade of the ’60s.
I mean, you talk about malleability, you go from being an ingenue on campus, toppling over on your bicycle and falling in love, looking for a tall guy to marry in the “The Tall Story” with Anthony Perkins, and then within a few short years, you’re acting in French-made thrillers, these very arty thriller things, or romantic intrigues. So the malleability comes across really quickly, and it serves her extremely well.
Then we get to these very, very coolly, very professionally made things that she does politically in the late ’70s. That’s part of the story of the book: how she was forged in controversy, how she gradually sought out activism, and then became a flashpoint with the Hanoi Jane incident and the Vietnam protests. The other side of the malleability is how quickly she learned from that mistake, which she’d labeled as a mistake for years and years, but pivoted and was very careful to make sure the pro-soldier aspect of her message got through. It’s very clear in “Coming Home.”
You have her story about a conversation with Katharine Hepburn, who asked her about how she presented herself. Jane Fonda said she was still lacking consciousness about her persona.
She told that story in her autobiography, My Life So Far, so that’s her grappling with that very fact. Is that a weakness or is that a strength? I think in her case, she’s parlayed it into a strength. Early on, as I was looking through material about her, I came across the 1962 documentary “Jane.” The uncertainty is really striking, but you can also see her grappling with it. It’s like, “Okay, what’s going on here? What’s not working? How do I make it work?”
Her preparation for roles varies by era and part. With “Klute,” she met with women who were working as call girls and prostitutes, so she had firsthand knowledge, and she really tried to absorb that. With “Coming Home,” she spoke to military spouses, trying to take on board firsthand information. With a lot of those later movies in the ’70s, she’s having a hand in shaping the scripts, too.
She played Kimberly Wells, the reporter in “The China Syndrome.” That script went through many iterations. Originally, it was thought that the reporter would be a man, so when she became involved, she helped actually shape the character. She insisted that her character’s therapist be a woman in “Klute.” But for something like a Neil Simon character in “Barefoot in the Park” or “California Suite,” which is more traditional, the script is set, and she is a super acute analyst.
One of the keys to her strength is how comfortable she became as a performer. And again, I think a lot of that work was done in the ’60s, how comfortable she became in a lot of different modes. There’s such strength in that. And I think she derives a lot of authority just from skill and dedication and being able to bear down and, again, pivot from “Barbarella” to “Shoot Horses.”
It’s a spin to go from those ingenue ’60s roles like “Sunday in New York” to “Barbarella.”
Yes, but do you know what else? The whole country did. The whole world was doing it right then.
Which director do you think understood her the best?
You might want to say Alan Pakula, because he made three movies, but they ended with “Rollover,” which I think is so admirable in terms of trying to make a movie and attracting people’s attention, but it doesn’t naturally come to mind when you’re thinking about what to see on a Friday night in 1981. Oh, yeah, Fred Zinnemann did amazing work in “Julia.” I still think that that’s an astonishing piece of moviemaking and movie acting on her part. That cast is so perfect with Jason Robards and Vanessa Redgrave around her. And she just holds that screen in such a classical way that it becomes kind of an archetype for the next five to six years, even though the movie is set in the ’30s.
You know, as she pivots towards her own era, a lot of those fingerprints are still there. So Zimmermann. And then there’s Hal Ashby, for “Coming Home.” That was not her story specifically, but she needed that Vietnam story. And Ashby is the perfect director for that project because he has such a feel for the era. A hippie himself, so he’s gentle with people and super aware of the time for the country, you know?
Which of her co-stars brought out the best in her?
Her final scene with Redgrave in “Julia” is just shimmering. It’s remarkable. And Redford, of course. Even in “Our Souls at Night,” they are both so supple and so fabulous together. And Lily Tomlin! In “Moving On” and “Grace and Frankie.”
I was surprised when you pointed out how many times Jane Fonda played a journalist. Why do you think she was so drawn to those roles?
Reporters ask questions about the world and try to get the clues. The closing scene in “The China Syndrome”—to me, these are almost her defining moments on film. She grows into the reporter she needs to be and the one the story needs her to be, as this crisis, this tragedy, and this scandal play out. And the truth is not going to be squarely into the light without that reporter doing her work.
In her message movies, what we can call her message movies, including “The China Syndrome,” “Rollover,” and “9 to 5,” or in “Coming Home” too, she tends to cast herself as a naïve… somebody who has not interrogated the world very much and who grows and learns about that.
Is there a less well-remembered movie of all the ones that you looked at that you really want to urge people to watch?
I think “Joy House” with Alain Delon is just a cool movie, and she’s very good in it. It’s not a change-your-life sort of experience, but I admire so much about it. I admire a lot of the moviemaking in “Walk on the Wild Side,” and she’s still so young there. But you can see her confidence kind of really beginning to brim, and she’s with terrific people there, Barbara Stanwyck and Laurence Harvey. And “The Chase.” It’s a big, fat, huge mess, but at the same time, it’s a good mirror on 1966–1967 America. The story went through many hands, from Horton Foote to Lillian Hellman, but it’s fascinating to watch because you’ve got Marlon Brando in the middle of it, and it’s a great movie on kind of mob rule, ultimately. It’s Redford and Fonda, so it’s worth it.
- Long Live Bonnie Bennett, the Real Star of “The Vampire Diaries” (March 3, 2026)
The phenomenon of the Beloved Side Character is one that I’ve always had a great time with. While the main characters anchor a TV show, the side characters who surround them add color, context, and conflict to the story. Frequently, side characters end up being the fan favorites, elevating them to a main character by sheer force of will. And oftentimes, that pure love they’re shown is a shield between character development and fading into the background, collecting dust aside from when they’re useful to the plot.
One of the mid-2000s’ most iconic side characters who became main characters is Bonnie Bennett from “The Vampire Diaries” (played by Kat Graham). She’s the über-powerful Black witch and best friend of the main character, Elena Gilbert. Almost two decades after the show’s end, we still talk about her. Bonnie was a literal force of nature, and whether you’re someone doing your first watch on TikTok right now or an OG rewatching for the millionth time, Bonnie is one of those characters who sticks with you, especially if you’re a Black woman.
Bonnie begins the series as the skeptical best friend of the love-blind Elena, and, despite her own journey to discover her witchy gifts, Bonnie is often at the whim and will of the three main characters. As a classic in 2008, Elena, Stefan Salvatore, and Damon Salvatore’s love triangle anchored the show, and its sometimes convoluted plot always comes back to their individual and collective emotions and motivations. Bonnie, despite constantly trying to maintain distance from the vampires about town in season one, is drawn into their drama and quickly becomes a fixture.
It’s hard to pinpoint when Bonnie became a main character, both in the eyes of the public and the eyes of the producers (The Vampire Diaries universe was always swirling with rumors of tension between creators and the fans over how they treated the character). I just know that one moment you wouldn’t see her for several episodes and then, suddenly, Graham was bumped up to a series regular, and Bonnie was constantly in the mix. Moving forward, we see Bonnie play an ever-present and crucial role in our tangled three and the rest of the ensemble.
Bonnie is often used as the solution to, or the fixer of, their problems throughout the eight-season series. She’s casting or breaking spells that can make or break their ill-fated plans; she’s consulting her grimoire to dispense crucial wisdom she barely understands herself. She also serves as a moral compass in the morally gray world of the supernatural, as well as a sympathetic ear for human companions. She really embodies what witches tend to represent in this universe: nature’s balance. Whether she’s consulting the human members of the community or the supernatural contingent, she is forever maintaining their humanity.
Humanity is something that “The Vampire Diaries” centers itself around, whether characters are rediscovering it or trying desperately to hold onto it. Bonnie really is one of the show’s true moral compasses, though some would say it’s Matt Donovan, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, poor white kid who’s the beloved high school quarterback. However, while Matt is allowed to enter and exit the plot as he wishes, due to his useless humanness, Bonnie is forever putting others first, whether she likes it or not. Like many Black women, she’s seen by her counterparts as a superwoman beyond human limits. Bonnie is always seen as larger than life, above it all, even when she’s mentally and emotionally crumbling before her friends. We rarely see her take a step back or find time for herself through eight seasons, and when she does, it’s met with complaints and gripes from those around her who are all wondering, “Where is Bonnie? We need her to fix this!”
As many Black women are, Bonnie is also the perpetual noble sacrifice. One thing Bonnie Bennett, as a character, will do is sacrifice her peace, dignity, and even her life (on multiple occasions) for the sake of other, more selfish people. The examples are endless: setting aside her own discomfort about being physically assaulted by Damon in season one to assist Elena in one of her first hairbrained schemes; when her grandmother dies after overexerting herself for one of the Salvatore brothers vendettas; when her mother is unceremoniously turned into a vampire to save Elena; when she herself is expected to sacrifice herself in order to save another one of the main cast. She is always the martyr, sometimes of her own accord and sometimes because the plot puts her back against the wall.
It was clear from a very early time to both critics and fans alike that the writers truly saw Bonnie as a means to an end, her character’s woes be damned. Do they need someone raised from the dead? Let’s get Bonnie in there. Do they need a spell that will save the season? Have them call Bonnie. There’s an all-powerful immortal being who can’t be killed? No worries; we made it so that Bonnie’s bloodline is the only one that could possibly be of any help. Oftentimes, the trials and tribulations that resulted were swiftly settled or swept under the rug, labeled “plot hole.” When a character’s entire arc is one of sacrifice and service time and time and time again, you begin to wonder why that is.
For Black women especially, Bonnie can be a hard watch. While I see white fans, both new and old, praising Bonnie for always saving everyone, no matter the consequences, for always being the voice of reason, and always putting others before herself, I cannot help but see so many real-life Black women who have been forced to do the same. The writers configure her into almost every stereotype of a Black woman possible while still making her palatable for a white audience. Our first real introduction to her, she’s the overly difficult Black woman who’s “making things harder than they need to be” in season one. Sometimes she fits into the classic Mammy trope, often for Elena and Caroline, where she’s like a comfort blanket to them, despite their disregarding every sound piece of advice she tries to give them until the circumstances are dire enough.
On the other hand, she is frequently the tough-hearted, no-nonsense voice of reason for everyone from Damon to Matt to Alaric Saltzman, their slightly creepy English teacher-turned-friend. She’s even been the disposable Black girlfriend for Elena’s frankly annoying younger brother, Jeremy. Bonnie Bennett, while being a truly spectacular character thanks to Graham’s portrayal, is a painful reminder of the few boxes that modern television thinks Black women can fit into. We’re powerful and smart and cunning and loving, but only on certain terms and only at our own expense.
This brings us to the “modern” day interpretation and love for Bonnie. Almost twenty years after the premiere of “The Vampire Diaries,” people are still calling for “justice for Bonnie Bennett” and acknowledging that the girl suffered more than Jesus for the sake of her stupid white friends, just like we were lamenting in 2011.
While Bonnie remains standing still in time, the audiences that love her don’t. Upon my first watch as a young college student, I looked up to Bonnie. Many I see watching now are awed by the grace she has while enduring the never-ending stupidity of her friends and the selflessness with which she helps and protects them. Further into my life—post fully formed frontal cortex—Bonnie enraged me. I found myself yelling at the TV when rewatching. How could she just let them trample over her like this when she’s right? Why is she saying yes to this stupid plan, which she told them wouldn’t work? Why on earth is she doing this spell she knows will kill her for the sake of people who never see her as anything more than a means to an end?
As I found myself, Bonnie has challenged me, and many other Black women. Like any form of media, whether it’s a beloved, well-worn book or a TV show or movie you’ve rewatched one million times, Bonnie is a character I experience differently every time I witness her journey. Some of it is still extremely painful to see. The one time she really gets to experience a true love interest who gets her, he’s carelessly ripped away for the sake of the plot in the poorly done final season of “The Vampire Diaries.” Watching Bonnie die for the first time, sacrificing herself in order for Jeremy to come back to life and for Elena to be happy, is another. In the end, Bonnie Bennett is just another Black girl who’s also been the catalyst for others’ growth at her own expense. It’s a painful dose of reality that a relatively silly show like “The Vampire Diaries” doesn’t often bring.
Bonnie Bennett’s staying power is a hilarious and sad twist of fate. It’s often been reported that showrunners wanted to kill Bonnie after season one, but the love she received from fans stopped them; then the same happened after her first real death at the end of season four. Bonnie was often used as a plot device and driver for the writers, without care. The rumors of Kat Graham’s own struggle and mistreatment on set are infamous and speak to the larger treatment of Bonnie as well. Many beloved side characters face such fates; they may last through a show that loves to kill its darlings, but at what cost? For Bonnie, it ends up costing her almost everything. But, in the end, Bonnie, like many of us, perseveres and survives against all odds. I just wish she—and we—didn’t have to fight so hard.
- Reflections on Nuremberg: Lessons on Evil (March 3, 2026)
“What if we could dissect evil? I mean, what sets these men apart from all others? What enabled them to commit the crimes that they did?” Those are the questions posed in James Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg” by Rami Malek’s character, Dr. Douglas Kelley, as he sets out to psychoanalyze Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) and other captured Nazi leaders at the behest of the US Army ahead of the Nuremberg Trials. Unfortunately, despite superb writing from Vanderbilt and praiseworthy performances from Malek, Crowe, and Leo Woodall as Sergeant Howie Triest, Kelley’s interpreter, since its release, “Nuremberg”, though a box office hit for Sony Pictures Classics, received no nominations for any major awards.
Granted, “Nuremberg” is perhaps not as groundbreaking or powerful as Stanley Kramer’s 1965 epic, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” with its cast of heavyweights including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, and Marlene Dietrich, nor does it try to be. Rather than try to improve on its predecessor, it sets out to address a different fundamental question. Where “Judgment at Nuremberg” asks how a whole nation could have stood by and allowed such monumental evil to occur, the question at the core of “Nuremberg” is whether we are capable of recognizing evil.
Over the course of the film, the audience joins Dr. Kelley on his odyssey to try to identify what made Göring and his captured coconspirators distinctly capable of committing such evil as was carried out by the Nazi regime. Perhaps inevitably, Kelley discovers that there is nothing unique or incredible about Göring. Though narcissistic, Göring is shown to be an intelligent, amiable, good-humored man who slowly charms Kelley into something akin to friendship until Kelley is confronted with footage of the atrocities of the Holocaust in the Nuremberg courtroom. Following the conclusion of his work for the army, Kelley tries in vain to warn the world of his conclusions regarding evil’s ability to exist within even the most average and superficially likable individuals.
There is a sad, poetic irony in the lack of recognition given to “Nuremberg.” In the final scene, intertitles appear onscreen to inform the audience about the rest of Douglas Kelley’s life and the reception of his book, 22 Cells in Nuremberg, which detailed his findings from his sessions with Göring and other Nazi leaders. The text reads, “Douglas Kelley’s book failed. He never wrote another. He became increasingly agitated that no one would heed his warnings. In 1958, after a long struggle with depression, Kelley committed suicide.” In failing to recognize “Nuremberg” as one of the most important films of this year, we continue to dishonor Dr. Kelley’s efforts to warn humanity of the common and congenial face that evil wears.
In many ways, “Nuremberg” is the most relevant and fitting film released this year for the current moment. Not only is antisemitism once again at historically high levels, but we are confronted with a near-constant tide of unpunished wrongdoing in society. One may think it excessive to liken any of the events of the present to the level of evil carried out by the Nazis in their state-sponsored and organized slaughtering of an entire race of people. But as “Nuremberg” demonstrates, it is the accumulation of smaller evils committed by otherwise unremarkable people, so easily excused, isolated, and disregarded, that ultimately leads to the corruption of the entire soul of a nation and the total erosion of its humanity.
By disregarding the value of a film like “Nuremberg” and leaving it out of the popular film zeitgeist, we harm ourselves and our own ability to succeed where others in the past failed. This film does not provide us with a roadmap for recognizing the monsters in our midst, and it does not comfort its viewers by identifying a trait exclusive to those capable of carrying out crimes against humanity. Rather, it warns us against our own intellectual and moral arrogance, which allows us to convince ourselves that we are different, better, or incapable of supporting or tolerating such depravity.
“Nuremberg” reminds us that the devil appears, not with a sneer, but with a smile. In the final scene of the film, Malek’s Kelley yells with an almost fanatical desperation at the moderator of a radio program, insisting that the Nazis “are not unique people. There are people like the Nazis in every country in the world today … And if you think the next time it happens we’re going to recognize it because they’re wearing scary uniforms, you’re out of your damn mind.”
“Nuremberg” is now on VOD and on Netflix on March 7th, 2026.
