Just a thought of some films, where the main character, or feature of a certain aspect for it is a special power. Telekinensis, often coupled with telepathy. With a particular focus seemingly to be how that ‘power’ came about. The following films are the ones that came to mind for this.

Firestarter (1984) – taken from a Stephen King story, and starred Drew Barrymore. A memorable watch and actually a good film. In this one, she developed pyrokinesis though being the offspring of two people who had been used for military testing, who themselves had developed abilities through that process.

Ascension (TV Mini Series – 2014) – a one series flash in the pan, but rather interesting for what it was. This will contain spoilers – the premise was a bunch of scientists decided to create a simulated space mission, where the occupants didn’t know it was fake. And they stole a number of bright children, put them into the ‘program’ and created an illusion of being on a craft, travelling through space. With an extra layer that they had been doing this for two generations already, and it had these weird rules and systems around breeding and what jobs you were assigned or what your allocated purpose was. But, the strange twist at the end, was that something happened to one of the younger members of the ‘crew’ where she sort of went atomic for a moment and created an energy charge caused by emotional distress. The ones monitoring and controlling the experiment seemed awfully happy with this occurring as they had theorised it would. And then they ended the series, so we’ll never know where they were going with that, but I will speculate on it shortly.

Stranger Things (TV Series – 2016) – a really well thought out and executed series, at least the first and second one. Went a bit weird in the third one and lost me, but the idea initially was great. Similar I suppose to Firestarter, the main focus being a young girl who is the offspring of someone affected by military testing of drugs. And who themselves have developed telekinetic and various linked abilities.

Carrie (1976) – another Stephen King one, where an isolated, lonely teenage girl discovers horrifying telekinetic powers when pushed to the emotional edge. Again, well done and worth a watch.

Dr Jean Grey (X-Men films) – A running character and one of the main ones, but has the highest ability afforded in any fictional character along these lines.

Now, having telepathic characters, or angry women who are ‘activated’ when needed to use special abilities isn’t anything new, or technically out of the ordinary when you are talking fiction or science fiction. But, when I looked at those storylines (have to admit, didn’t think of any featuring boys as the ones who get that same power), it struck me how they were all girls or women. And the running theme of most of them, is that it needs to be suppressed if it can’t be controlled. Now, that could just be a classic analogy to recreate societal ideals, or it really could be about fearing something in females, that hasn’t necessarily become known. I already speculated on women having more power than some would like when it comes to reproduction in The Creator and the Destroyer. Another film comes to mind too with that, Species.

But for a wild, fictional, speculatory theory one could say that women have almost been feared at some point, and it was deemed necessary to bind them, hold them down and condition them to believe they are weak, and powerless in the bigger scheme of things. At the mercy of patriarchy and male domination, beholden to rules and standards set and enforced by them, leading to a rather downtrodden percentage of the population. I also notice though, that isn’t entirely true, as if you look back through history, and fiction, women have possessed great power, or authority. To the point of terrifying in some cases, witches, goddesses, sirens and more. Vengeful, devious, filled with rage and unforgiving torment in more than a few stories. And it may well be that it’s trying to be brought out and harnessed, as it always is portrayed in the films, caused deliberately with a view to control it. But that kind of thing surely is just fiction, isn’t it?

(c) K Wicks