Look At Me

LOOK AT ME

Look at Me is the story of one woman’s life from shortly before she’s born until her death. We see her on her birthday at various points–watch her grow from an excited fetus to a legendary child-woman painter. She maintains the same optimistic personality throughout her life: during her early years, as the emotionally abused child of an alcoholic mother and physically abusive father; through young womanhood, when she watches her father get married, for the third or fourth time, to her roommate; through a trying marriage to her college art professor; and into fame–and seclusion–as a brilliant painter. Her attitude toward life never changes. She wants one thing only, forever until eternity. You guessed it: to be loved.

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It’s a good thing Conner is genuinely adorable, because otherwise Serena would be quite unlikable. Of course there’s the whining about love, but Serena also says things like “Art is no big deal. Either you can do it or you can’t.” She’s a terrible tease, exclaiming about her virginity one minute and taking off her shirt in front of her art instructor the next, mocking his sexual excitement and laughing at the size of his penis. Her mother gets written off immediately, because she smoked and drank while Serena was in the womb. Mother is almost never mentioned except to be derided. Serena is utterly miserable when she moves to Paris, supposedly because the weather is gray all the time. She has no girlfriends, and despite her loneliness seems to have no desire for them. Real love can only come from a man apparently. Were it not for Conner’s charm, it would be awfully hard to get behind these male writers’ stereotype of a female survivor.