The Subversion of the Pygmalion Myth in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things (2023)

Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2023 film Poor Things is regarded as a feminist reimagination of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), as the story follows a scientist who brings back to life a woman (whom he later names Bella Baxter) by replacing her brain with that of her unborn baby. Notwithstanding, the present study aims to argue that Poor Things (2023) can also be interpreted as a subversive and feminist take on Ovid’s Pygmalion myth. Drawing insight from academic works such as Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen: In Pursuit of the Perfect Woman (2011) by Paula James and others focused on sexual liberation by authors such as Judith R. Walkowitz, the study examines the way in which Bella subverts the original myth by not conforming to her creator’s (and, in a broader sense, society’s) patriarchal expectations of the perfect woman during the late Victorian era in London. In doing so, the study concludes demonstrating that although Bella was brought to life in a manner that is remindful of Pygmalion and his beloved (yet passive and obeying) statue, the film protagonist carves her own path through what is deemed as sexual deviation by the other characters but is merely an exploration of female sexuality.