The Shape of Prejudice

Rating: 4/10 (25 September 2018)

I have to say the film was beautifully shot and reflects an artistic approach with its use of color and texture. The actors all do a superlative job in their respective roles. The film has some delightful moments, like the scene of the dancing feet of Giles and Elise (shades of the film Chaplin?). Zelda is given numerous funny lines and she delivers them just right. The period details of architecture, food, clothing, appliances, furnishings, and television entertainment were well researched and gave a real sense of time and place. The director Guillermo del Toro described his film as a "fairy tale for troubled times." To me it's the film that is troubled due to many negative elements and dark tone.
Elise is introduced as a mute, introverted and sensitive woman who loves art, music and dancing. Then in a surprising scene we see the heroine fully nude masturbating in the bathtub. (Why?) Beneath her quiet faÃ§ade is a sexually passionate woman, a woman who yearns for romance. For her romance finds its object in the Amphibian Asset. Unlike the original Beauty and the Beast story in which the beast is actually a human prince that had been cursed (and then restored), the Amphibian Asset is not human and never will be. The result is that sex between Elise and the Amphibian Asset really constitutes bestiality.
The polar opposite of Elise is Strickland who is the real "monster" from del Toro's point of view. Strickland is really a caricature of all the worst characteristics the Leftist writer can imagine for a fundamentalist Christian. He is rude and sexually crude. He makes personal and moral observations based on the Bible, which reveal prejudices. He sees himself as the image of God and the Amphibian Man, not having that image, deserves to die. He is clearly superior to the hired help. He's the head of his house, his wife a dutiful housewife, ready to service her husband to take care of his needs.
For all the effort given to make a "period film," del Toro includes many elements without any basis in reality. The Asset is taken to an aerospace research laboratory, which of course did not exist in Baltimore in 1962. The reason for taking the creature there is unclear. The film features a five-star Air Force General, which did not exist at the time. The last five-star General died in 1953. An annoying detail is that the General's military ribbons were not in the correct order. The story focuses on the space race between the U.S. and the USSR. At that time NASA, a civilian agency, was in charge of space exploration, not the military. Yet there is no mention of NASA in the movie. The writer also gives supernatural powers to the creature, who is able to stimulate hair growth in Giles and heal him, and later heals himself and Elisa, as well as creating gills in Elisa so she can breathe under water. Maybe the Asset was really extraterrestrial.
del Toro attempted to convey a certain message through the film, portraying from his point of view the lack social justice for issues like animals rights, gay rights and racial equality. He implies that nothing positive has changed in America since the 1960s while ignoring the fact that the country was run by Democrats in the 1960s. In the end he really wanted to proclaim his prejudice against traditional Christian values.