On Election Day, I sat in the back of my Italian cinema class and watched as everyone’s screens darted between class notes and polling numbers.
Scenes from Dario Argento’s 1977 slasher “Suspiria” flashed across the projector as my professor ran around the room, gesturing wildly. If you’ve never seen any of Argento’s “giallo” horror films, picture a cross between the gore of the “Scream” franchise and the whimsical technicolor of Disney’s “Snow White.”
“Tremate, tremate, le streghe sono tornate!” Professoressa Sabrina bellowed across the classroom, quoting the movie. “Tremble, tremble, the witches are coming!”
Film often treads a curious line between fiction and microhistory, and Argento’s horror is a particularly interesting example of this. Amidst the frenzy of polls and anticipation, Sabrina told us about the Italian feminist movement of the 70s — the self-proclaimed witches who stormed the streets of Rome, twisting the language of their oppressors against them in a vital, sustaining protest against the patriarchy.
Not many slasher flicks from the 70s pass the Bechdel test. In “Suspiria,” however, Argento’s coven reflects the spirit of Italy’s “witches,” and their unwillingness to be confined to any singular, flattening role. They are both the pious angels and the wicked witches, both the moral good and the decadent evil.
Sometimes, if you listen closely, you can hear “tremate, tremate” in the background. Sitting in my Italian language class the morning after the election, I felt a different sort of trembling: the nervous, fidgety clack of nails against desks, the stuttering flutter of a leg unable to stay still.
Donald Trump had won. I looked around at all the women in the room, many of whom I’ve seen every day of the week since we began learning Italian freshman year, and saw this reality reflected in their glassy eyes. Class ended, and as we stepped outside the floodgates broke loose. These women are not my close friends, yet all of a sudden we were crying and hugging each other, holding space for all the hurt we felt together.
The language surrounding the election — campaign materials, conversations between friends and classmates, the rhetoric of professors and clubs — is inflammatory, and it’s everywhere. Up until now, this column has focused only on foreign languages. But as hordes of men across the country begin calling for “your body, my choice,” I find myself thinking about language in more general terms: all the ways it binds us together and tears us apart.
What does it mean to be a woman? A daunting, colossal question, arguably unanswerable in its scope. All I know is that on the morning after the election, I felt more connected to this intangible idea of womanhood than ever. Words of wisdom, words of consolation — the language of my loved ones felt hearty and tangible to me.
From Argento’s allegory of witches to the caring words of Italian classmates, in the aftermath of the election I was struck by how our forms of resistance — that of women, people of color, immigrants, suspended students and more — are so tightly bound to the language we wield.
Again and again, when we talk about the power of language in “reclaiming” words and ideas, we get lost in the virtual weeds of clichés and virtue signaling, circling around the primordial tower of political correctness. I don’t want to be told what “female empowerment” is by an Instagram ad asking me to donate to Kamala Harris’ campaign — I want to hear women’s stories.
The streets of Italy in the 1970s: thousands of women taking on “witch” as a badge of honor, tearing holes in the fabric of a male-dominated society. The mountains of China 3,000 years ago: secret communities of mothers and sisters, creating a language to express themselves and be in community together. When I hear these stories, I feel a visceral understanding of what it means to reclaim a language, to use it as both a salve and a weapon in a world that has always treated women with volatile violence.
“The words we speak become the house we live in.” The physicality of the Persian poet Hafiz’s words strike me more than ever as we anticipate Trump’s presidency.
There’s a physicality to language that we often ignore, one that is diminished by empty phrases thrown around on the internet, especially after the election. In this environment of misinformation and mistrust, it’s easy to lose faith in language as a tool for building something as warm as a home.
Claire Welch SC ’27 wants you to know that she has a pug, is addicted to Malott cold brew, and has a deep attachment to the Italian Department at Scripps.