I've begun writing essays like this on Medium. Throw me a follow if you like this content?
https://medium.com/springboard-thought/looker-what-society-tells-us-to-envy-unravels-us-at-the-seams-f15c31f995ce

A heads up: spending time in the head of a woman who is going to pieces can be intense and disturbing. But it also provides a unique way to illustrate the ways in which all of our lives are tailor-made for others.

“I am sick to death of men. Buzzing, angry men. Hot liquid men. Men wanting sex. Men wanting to touch and be touched. Men wanting to drain you of every last ounce of energy you’ve reserved for getting through the days…Men leaving their refuse everywhere: inside, outside, all over the world. Until the world fills up and spills over as it may soon do: The End.”

Looker casts an unironic, unyielding gaze on a woman who, at first glance, seems like she would be fulfilled by her life. At least, by the standards society has set before us as attainable precedents, anyways— savings account, “decent” male partner, post-secondary educated, a good neighborhood in a desirable city — all checked boxes; but our narrator is anything but content.

Ostensibly, this all begins with a splash of envy.

Envy for the actress, who has moved closer than ever into her orbit, causing her to contrast her own life with that of the hallmark. The narrator imagines hers to be a perfect life, but these fantasies feel more like a mere simulacrum the narrator projects her desires into, even as it cleaves her wide to do so.

But this all-consuming desire she develops isn’t the underlying cause, I’d wager. It reads more like a drive to obtain or possess the actress herself in some way, any way at all. This is a more “real” trigger, rather than simple envy. Interestingly, it is the response of a man. Of a consumer. Of somebody with autonomy and power and sway over their life.

But it too is merely a byproduct.

Where it all actually begins, we find out early on (a mild spoiler here), that the one true catalyst is the narrator not being able to conceive a child. She and her partner try everything, at great personal and emotional cost. Then, as she tries to cope with this loss, venturing out into the world and her curated life. Everything tells her she is ruined. And she begins to unspool.

I reference the narrator with pronouns and not by name because the perspective is stream-of-consciousness. All of our time is spent in her head (similar to the perspective of “You”) and so, there is no name. Granting the fiction the power to have the reader on a ride-along. This obsession could pervade anyone’s life, even your own; look out!

In a bid to reclaim control (as she perceives it) the narrator begins recreating toxic power dynamics she’s witnessed, and been subject to, throughout her life; with people she interacts with directly and in fantasies both. The lens she uses to view the world begins to change, accommodating a new outlook.

“But wouldn’t it make us sisters, the actress and me? Wouldn’t it be an act of communion with her, in the end? Could I ever make her see it that way?”

She also becomes bolder. As do the prose, which mimics poetry. They build up; become frenetic and desperate and lilting. Where once it was unnoticeable, the prose, and she herself, transcend their former structure.

Throughout, the narrator begins to take actions that are absolutely inexcusable and harmful to others, but they are also placed into a context such that the reader can at least understand them, and possibly, therefore, generate some empathy for the narrator. Two things withheld from her by those people she knows and associates with.

“Nothing can touch me, not the loud noise of traffic, not the crowds, not even the foul air. I’m as sheltered from it all as the actress would be — or more than she would be, because I don’t have the prying pairs of eyes, the dropped jaws, the pointed fingers, the tourists sneaking smartphone pics. I’m invisible — except for a few men who, predictably, do double takes as I pass. I ignore them. I feel so light and free I could lift up off the sidewalk and fly all the way home.”

Every interaction is punctuated by somebody wanting something from the narrator while giving nothing in return. And granted, she is an unreliable narrator… But this too is interesting because isn’t the fact that you, as a reader, may not have cause to believe her also the default position most people take in society when a woman behaves outside of how a woman ought to behave, think, and act?

At the very least, in Looker, nothing in the narrator’s life helps her mental and emotional well being, that can be said for certain — and we can take something away from that.

Even when people become aware that something is amiss with her, something they intuit to be wrong or “off” somehow, their reaction is to either condemn her or do nothing at all. The result: every interaction pushes her further away from stability and improvement, of course.

The hard truth found in Looker is that there is no real, substantive justice to be found here — for anyone. Our society is not arranged to help the majority of people. Even more deplorable, it doesn’t help, only hurts those individuals who do not — or cannot — fulfill their asymmetrical social contract. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are never quite within reach, and our envy often is left to spoil, turning into something dark and toxic.

“This cannot be my life. I never thought it would be. I envisioned a sunlit, stylishly decorated place, with books lining the shelves and a beloved’s arm holding me. I envisioned children playing in the backyard as I smilingly went about menial household tasks. I envisioned myself as a tenured academic, wrapped safe in the belly of an institution for all time. I envisioned myself as a good woman, a great woman — the best! Better than the actress, happier than the actress, more alive and connected to life than the actress could ever hope to be, trapped as she is in the velvet prison of fame.”