Online, people are gathering to support each other through a collective trauma. They are seeking comfort. They are seeking community. They are seeking answers.
If you’ve spent the holiday weekend streaming Netflix’s number one movie, perhaps you’re among us.
Where were you when Glenn Close—bald, with razor teeth, possessed by a demon—cooed in a high-pitch voice, “I can smell your nappy p—y!”?
Lee Daniels’ The Deliverance has had everyone on social media hooting and hollering all weekend. Once people started sharing, largely in disbelief, screenshots and clips of the film, it rocket-launched to the top of the streamers’ most-viewed charts. Many people are roasting it. A lot of people are relishing its unabashed outrageousness. Others are just trying to make sense of what in God’s name they just saw.
Film still from The Deliverance
Netflix
The film, which, believe it or not (and you’d be inclined to not, based on those viral clips), is based on a true story, is a Satanic possession thriller. It centers on Ebony (Andra Day), a single mom of three who moves into a new house in Indiana with her mother, Alberta (Close), who has cancer. Ebony’s youngest son, Dre (Anthony B. Jenkins), becomes preoccupied with an invisible presence he calls Tre, who he says appears in the basement and the bedroom closet. Dre and his siblings start behaving bizarrely, having psychotic episodes.
A mysterious woman (Aunjaue Ellis-Taylor) begins following them, eventually revealing herself to be a reverend. She tells Ebony that a mother killed her family and herself in their house 20 years prior, and that the demon that possessed her is now possessing Ebony’s family. That’s when Exorcist parody levels of absolute mayhem start to unfurl.
Film still from The Deliverance
Netflix
Whether they liked the movie or thought it was ludicrous, people online have been having a blast ranting and raving about how extreme it is.
There are those who can’t get over the dialogue, whether it’s one of the cinema’s most esteemed actresses hissing about a smelly, nappy private part, or the jarringly frank discussions about race that are had between Ebony and her white mother, Alberta.
Close’s wig and wardrobe, of course, has earned a lion’s share of attention—particularly when it’s revealed that the wild look was entirely a creative choice on Lee Daniels’ part. Close’s character looks nothing like the real-life Alberta.
And the internet did what the internet does best: It took The Deliverance’s viral moment and inserted it into another of the weekend’s more popular memes, a “glow-up” side-by-side photo prompt.
For his part, Daniels seems to be delighting in the discourse, good and bad. To the viral post of Close’s infamous line captioned “Lee Daniels, you will pay for your crimes,” he cheekily responded: “Had to do it.”
