‘Obsession’ Features a Moral Imagination

In the early 2010s, many of pop culture’s female heroines were known for a type of cool aloofness. Usually associated with an “alt” or “indie girl” aesthetic (think black eyeliner, flannel shirts, combat boots, tattoos, and piercings), the affectless “cool girl” was wry and detached. She also conspicuously did not define herself through romance. Instead, as if subconsciously overcorrecting for the critiques implied by the Bechdel Test, she was cooly indifferent to men—oftentimes paradoxically attracting them precisely because of this Tumblr-era indifference.