Bonus Article - Ye Old Lipgloss

Or: Smash Mouth in a Bog

There’s a moment in A Knight’s Tale that should not work. We’re supposed to be in 14th-century Europe. There’s a noblewoman in head-to-toe silks. Heath Ledger is doing the world’s sexiest poor-boy-makes-good impression. And then, mid-court ball, David Bowie’s “Golden Years” kicks in. The crowd starts with a stiff medieval waltz. Then the beat drops. Suddenly, we’re pelvic-thrusting in period garb like it’s the Renaissance Faire afters and someone just threw you a goblet.

It’s anachronistic. It’s absurd. It’s perfect. And if you’ve ever had one of those rare, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments where life felt spontaneous and cinematic, where a night turned on a dime into something golden and stupid and inexplicably joyful, then you understand that scene exactly. It’s not just a movie moment. It’s a thesis: that the best parts of life are made of genre glitches. Things that technically shouldn’t happen. But do. Because someone, for once, said screw the plot and hit play.

This is the scene. Must watch, don’t skip! Don’t quit after the first 30 seconds:

The A Knight’s Tale dance scene is indulgent. And indulgence, of fantasy, of style, of emotion, is inherently political. Because it threatens the idea that life must always make sense, follow the rules, or earn its joy. It’s no accident that the people most allergic to this kind of genre chaos are the ones who believe “facts don’t care about your feelings” is a brave thing to say. That logic is the hill they die on, usually alone, usually wearing dry-fit polos and not understanding where the clit is.

But the rest of us? We’re out here swaying to glam rock in stolen dresses, crafting meaning from aesthetic dissonance, letting ourselves get swept up in things that don’t entirely make sense but do make memory.

I’m still “suffering” because I thought romance would feel like that dance scene…unexpected, ecstatic, choreographed by fate, and somehow also to modern rock. I thought love would look like Shrek: deeply loyal, maybe a little swampy, but emotionally available and down bad, begrudgingly soft, muddy but safe, someone choosing you exactly as you are (and letting you be weird in peace). I thought I'd get the Romeo + Juliet fish tank moment, the eye contact, the lighting, the instant knowing, the eyeliner, but ideally without the bloodbath. And The Princess Bride? That didn’t just mess up my sense of love; it started my interest in politics. I believed in justice because someone told me to never start a land war in Asia, and I took that seriously. Love, I assumed, would be a battle of wits with excellent costuming, where someone risks everything because they actually mean it. Instead, it’s mostly been me texting men explaining why they should care about the world, them responding “lol ur wild and the most extraordinary creature” and then dipping out.

I’m not a Disney adult (thank Christ I’m not out here quoting Frozen or building a personality around churros), but I still have a soft spot for the older animated films (Fern Gully, Land Before Time, Robin Hood, Fantasia). The ones where the politics weren’t about royalty but about reverence. Loving the earth. Grieving your mother. Robin Williams and fairies and adorkable animals, beautiful music, and not being taken too seriously. Those stories made tenderness feel powerful. But let’s be honest: fantasy also set us up. So do we really fault women for wanting the Knight’s Tale dance scene when the reality of growing up is being handed a dress code and a rape statistic in the same breath? When the real coming-of-age story is not an epic dragon battle and ball gown sweeping up the stairs, but a barely-legal being choked on a casting couch and smiling through it? Fantasy didn’t fail us. Reality did. We just haven’t found an existence that knows what to do with both.

Fantasy isn’t a retreat. It’s an assertion. It’s saying: I am not bound by the setting I was dropped into. I can narrate my way out. I can add glitter and key changes and spontaneous dance numbers. I can cast my crush as a knight and still get home in time to do my taxes. And no one understands this better than those of us who’ve had to make the everyday bearable by re-scripting it. Not just women, though, yes, especially women, but anyone who’s ever had to survive a beige life in this modern hell-scape (I’m being dramatic) by decorating it internally. If you’ve ever walked into a CVS and imagined it as the setting for a dramatic confrontation with your great white buffalo, congratulations: you’re the target audience.

We live in the worlds we build. And the A Knight’s Tale dance scene? It built one where elegance and goofiness aren’t opposites, where coolness is measured in conviction, and where a crowd can learn the choreography just in time for the beat drop. The real plot twist: we like feeling things. Epic things. Star stuff.

If this all sounds dramatic, good. That’s the point. Not everything needs to be subtle. The dance scene is technically out of place. But so are most of the best things in life. First kisses. Road trips. The one compliment you still think about two years later. A movie that dares to say, “What if the peasant girl got a custom look and a coordinated group dance?” What if the historical record had better taste?

Let the scene be messy. Let the music be wrong. Let the fantasy (pro femninist, pro immigrant, pro queer, pro mother earth, pro poc) be obvious. Because anyone who tells you that meaning only comes from dry nihilistic understandings of the day has never understood the pleasure of a well-timed genre break, or a movie that doesn’t apologize for wanting to entertain you more than it wants to impress them.

This summer, may we all live a little less like Ben Shapiro thinks we should and a little more like Heath Ledger dancing to Bowie in a stone castle.

Medieval-Y2K Movies Ranked by How Hard They Slap

1. A Knight’s Tale
    🏰 Medieval sports movie but everyone’s charismatic and dancing to Bowie. Hot poor guy. Surprise dance number. Genre said “what if yes.”

2. Shrek
    🧅 Fairy tale about class struggle, ass, and acceptance. Smash Mouth in a bog. You will never top it.

3. The Princess Bride
    🗡️ Earnest, campy, sword-filled love story. Invented “Inigo Montoya”, sarcasm and soft, dark boys. Peak bisexual theater camp.

4. Romeo + Juliet (1996)
    🔫 Catholic guilt with a Baz Luhrmann filter. No one is okay, everyone is hot. That “Kissing you” fishtank scene should be illegal. Paul Rudd still looks the same.
   

   Bonus:
   10 Things I Hate About You
    📚 High school Shakespeare. Julia Stiles invents literary rage and cool girl syndrome. Second Heath Ledger sighting.

xoxo, Sofia