Jake Shane Completely Missed The Point Of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is, to many women viewers and critics, a seminal film about a mother pushed to her absolute limits. It’s Oscar-nominated, and is a tense, uncomfortable, searingly powerful watch. But to influencer Jake Shane, it was just about an “annoying” child – a child who, in the film, is incredibly sick and needs to be fed through a tube.

Directed by Mary Bronstein, the film was inspired by her own experience of having a sick child along with the stress and “existential dread”, as she put it, of that time period. I went to see If I Had Legs I’d Kick You with my mum in the cinema, and while I didn’t grow up sick, my mum said she resonated with a lot of what the film brings up. Linda, the mum character played by Rose Byrne, isn’t supported emotionally and practically in the caregiving by her husband, she’s not listened to or taken seriously by the other people she frequently comes into contact with, and as a result her own mental health spirals. Byrne’s performance is suffocating and laboured. If you've ever been at your wit's end, you'll recognise the expressions on her face in uncomfortable close ups that open the movie. It was refreshing to see a lead actress look their age too, with wrinkles and grey roots on show. Those fine details only added to the image of a mum who maybe once kept up appearances now at breaking point. My mum and I went for lunch afterwards and unpacked it, and it made me reflect on how difficult some stretches in my early childhood must have been for my mum that I was too young to see.

That was all lost on Jake Shane, 26, when he was invited to interview stars at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party — a gig which, when asked how he got it, said: “I don’t know, honestly.” It’s not uncommon now for influencers to take on hosting gigs like this, but time and time again we are reminded that entertainment journalism is a skill and not everyone can do it. Shane has become the poster child for the influencer-shouldn’t-be-journalists debate and, whether he’s deserving of it or not, he’s at the centre of a fiery controversy. It all went down when Shane came face to face with Julia Fox, who is very open about being a single mum to a five-year-old son. Shane remarked, “You know that kid was so damn annoying.” Fox had just praised If I Had Legs I’d Kick You as being “every mother’s story.” Quen Blackwell and Brittany Broski were also hired as influencer hosts for the red carpet, and Fox then told Shane and Blackwell: “She had issues. Can I tell you something? It's not that it's the mother's fault or the child's, it is society's fault. It sets mothers up to fail.”

Shane then tried to make the same tone-deaf “joke” to F1 star Damson Idris, who also wasn’t impressed. It’s clear that Shane was doing a bit, and one that may have worked on his Therapuss podcast, but in this setting, it was just wrong and rude. Given the film’s serious subject matter, and the fact that Shane is not a woman nor a mother, he was feeding into the same harmful narratives about motherhood that the movie was addressing. The fiasco then led to Variety’s Daniel D’Addario writing a piece on why influencers shouldn’t replace journalists on red carpets. It’s bleak that such a palpable film has been publicly reduced to an ignorant statement — a statement that Shane clearly thought actors on the carpet would agree with. But instead of piling on Shane, like so much of the internet is doing, I think it’s more important to unpack why his comments were so damaging, and why If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is such a necessary story. 

A study by Columbia University that came out less than a year ago found that of the almost 200,000 mothers who took part, only 25.8% had “excellent” mental health. The report concluded that wellbeing has declined in the last seven years for female parents. This research emerged at a time when a few other films exploring what it means to be a mother on the edge came out: Jennifer Lawrence starred in Die My Love, Taraji P. Henson led the cast in Straw, and Amy Adams played a mum-cum-dog in Nightbitch. While I loved all three of these films, the critics weren’t so kind, offering mixed reviews and critiques. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was the first of these recent films on motherhood’s challenges to actually receive widespread critical praise (a film that Bronstein told the LA Times no one wanted to fund initially, unless she was willing to “pull back”). Rose Byrne won the Golden Globe for Best Actress and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category. That matters, because these issues are so seldom given the spotlight and accolades they deserve. And clearly, while people of influence like Shane continue to miss the point and make that known, these films must keep being produced.

For mums, the film was validating and created a space in which to feel seen. For women considering motherhood, the film was everything we fear about the potentials of it: being left to do the bulk of the caregiving alone, all while working, all while experiencing declining mental health. Seeing a film that depicts a mum both working and being the at-home caregiver – the idea of 'doing it all' – and still not being understood and supported, is horrifying. Although women can build multifaceted lives involving family and work, their ability to enjoy it is only as good as the company around them. Linda isn't seen by her husband, her therapist, her child's doctor, and anyone else she regularly encounters. That is terrifying because as women we’ve been led to believe we can choose our destinies, but that optimism doesn’t take into account that so much relies on the pressures on women being seen and understood externally. Namely, by men. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is, in part, a sobering look at that. The irony that a comment about the unwell child character being “damn annoying” came from a man isn’t lost on me.

The horror classification of this film is due to its surrealist, suffocating moments; but really, the most horrifying moments are the most literal ones for women watching. It's being dismissed and left isolated, allowed to crumble.