#11 ‘City Lights’

2 Apr

Mime Your Feelings, But Keep the Woman Blind

Let’s dim the lights and cue the violins for City Lights—Charlie Chaplin’s 1931 silent “romantic comedy” that’s been canonized as a cinematic masterpiece and held up as proof that love needs no words. And maybe that’s true. Especially when the female lead has no lines, no agency, and literally can’t see what’s going on.

This is the story of a tramp—a dirt-smudged, bowler-hatted man-child with good intentions and boundary issues—who falls in love with a blind flower girl. Not because she’s smart, or interesting, or even particularly curious about who keeps showing up and awkwardly stalking her. No, he loves her because she’s fragile, helpless, and—this part is key—unable to perceive his socioeconomic inadequacy.

What we get is 87 minutes of the Tramp humiliating himself to earn money for an operation that might restore her sight, while she pines after a fantasy rich man she believes he is. That’s right: the entire plot hinges on a lie. A well-meaning, supposedly noble lie, but a lie nonetheless. And the film dares to treat that deception as romantic. It’s Cinderella in reverse: he wants her to love him, but only if she never sees who he really is.

We’re told this is selfless. Touching. Even heroic. But let’s call it what it is: emotional manipulation with a top hat and cane.

When she finally regains her sight and realizes the truth, the film ends with a teary, ambiguous smile. Critics swoon over this final scene. “She sees him, and she knows,” they say. But knows what? That he’s the man who gaslit her into believing he was someone else? That the love she thought she had was founded on a fantasy and a stalker in oversized shoes?

Chaplin, of course, is a genius with timing and pathos. His physical comedy is exquisite, his facial expressions devastating, his musical scoring meticulous. But technical brilliance does not excuse narrative imbalance. The blind girl isn’t a character—she’s a prop. A symbol. A damsel in literal and metaphorical darkness, so that the male protagonist can perform self-sacrifice and bask in the glow of her gratitude.

The message is clear: women are vessels for redemption. And the best ones are the ones who can’t see you coming.

2.5 out of 5 bowler hats
(One for Chaplin’s craft. One for the score. Half a star for the emotional manipulation that, yes, almost got me too. The rest belongs to the blind girl, who deserved a story—not just a savior.)

Veronica Blade

Born in Detroit in the late 70s to a unionized auto worker and a punk-rock-loving librarian, Veronica Blade was raised on equal doses of riot grrrl zines and vintage vinyl. Her adolescence was marked by a fierce independence, cultivated in the DIY music scene and sharpened by her participation in underground theatre collectives that tackled police violence, reproductive rights, and queer identity. After a short-lived attempt at an art school degree, Veronica left academia to tour with a feminist noise band called Her Majesty’s Razor, where she performed spoken word over industrial soundscapes in squats and protest camps across North America.

By her early 30s, she had moved to New York, where she lived in a Bushwick warehouse with performance artists, fire-eaters, and ex-dominatrixes. Here she co-founded Molotov Darlings, a guerrilla performance troupe known for their impromptu shows in front of hedge fund offices and their reimagining of Greek tragedies through a queer-anarchist lens. Her visual essays, blending collage and scathing satire, began circulating widely online, catching the attention of the alt-arts community and eventually being featured in fringe art festivals in Berlin, Montreal, and Melbourne.

Career Highlights:

2007 – Co-wrote Vulvatron, a graphic novel hailed as “explosive, obscene, and essential reading” by Broken Pencil Magazine.
2010 – Guest-curated the controversial exhibition Grrrls with Grenades at a renegade gallery in Brooklyn, which explored the aesthetics of feminine rage through street art, sculpture, and drag.
2013 – Published a widely shared essay The Clitoris is a Political Weapon on feminist blogosphere site Jezebitch, which was banned in five countries and taught in two liberal arts colleges.
2016 – Arrested during a protest performance at a tech conference where she set fire to a mannequin dressed as a Silicon Valley bro, gaining notoriety as both artist and agitator.
2019 – Shortlisted for the Audre Lorde Radical Voices Fellowship for her anthology Blood Ink: Writings from the Queer Body Underground.
2021 – Wrote a monthly column called Art Slaps for the experimental culture journal NoiseMuse, dissecting art world hypocrisies with her signature wit and fury.

Veronica Blade brings with her a reputation for fearless critique, raw intellect, and an unrelenting commitment to smashing patriarchy with glitter, words, and duct tape

#11 ‘City Lights’

Mime Your Feelings, But Keep the Woman Blind

#12 ‘The Searchers’

#10 ‘The Wizard of Oz’