Wild

“Wild” is a film based off of the same tittled book. It was written by a woman named Cheryl Strayed, and she tells her story of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. The life events that lead up to the hike are extremely life altering and she hikes the trail to find a detox and self awareness. It is based on a true story and really brings you with her through the wilderness.

In the movie Strayed has many encounters with men and women, but for most of the movie she is also alone, hiking. However, she is hiking to think and rediscover herself, so when she is thinking many of her memories are with people. Some of the people she was involved with were extremely toxic and harmful. She had an abusive, alcoholic biological father, or the man she originally became pregnant with introduced her to heroin. However, she had many relationships with women that were strong and some that she took for granted. Her mother, for example, was a the woman her father abused but had loved her children more than anything and always pushed them to be their best selves. She describes her mother as “the love of her life”.

The conversations Strayed and her mother, Bobbi, had did pass the Bechdel Test, but not all of them. They would talk about her father and the sadness. However, most of the conversations were very positive and uplifting. Bobbi would always ask her children “How much do I love you?” and they would talk and laugh. Bobbi, a single mother, raised her three children the best she could in a positive environment. Bobbie encouraged and supported Cheryl in her goals and dreams. She even went to school with Cheryl, but in their senior year of college Bobbi was diagnosed with lung cancer and shortly passed away.

Cheryl Strayed had several female friends but none that were as significant to me as “Stacy” was. Stacy is another female hiker she met amid the Pacific Crest Trail. In the book Stacy and Cheryl run into each other many times and have many heart to heart conversations about life and the trail and even men, well in the book Stacy hikes with a man. However, in the movie they make it that Stacy is mostly hiking alone and when her and Cheryl’s trails cross they spend time together and mostly just enjoy the company of another human. As specific quote Stacy asks Cheryl is: “Do you ever get lonely?” (as in asking about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone) and Cheryl’s response is “I’m lonelier in my real life than I am out here.” Probably suggesting to the fake/un-true relationships she had back home with drugs and the toxic people she was involved with. They also talk about eachother how they are the only two women they have really seen hiking the trail, the rest of the hikers are men. The girls talk about how empowering that makes them feel, but it also at the same time can be frightening. Most of the men Cheryl encounters on the trail are sincerely nice and offer advice, help and wisdom. Some of them however try to hid on her, scare/intimidate her to the point where she packs up camp in middle of the night. One time, she was picking up her food package and the postman wouldn’t give it to her if she didn’t agree to a date. Since they are alone out there if a group of men hikers, or even a determined one man hiker, wanted to they could find the girls and take advantage of them and their possessions.

“Wild” technically passes the test on several different occasions and with several different women, they talk about matters such a love between a mother and child, being empowering women, and even becoming clean from drugs.  However, some of the deepest conversations are about men; whether it be her father, her lovers, drug dealers, or potential men she could run into on the trail.

I would say this movie is quite feminist, showing she was able to solo hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail, 1,100 miles long. She was not doing it to prove that she as a woman was able to but more to find herself and become clean, to start new. The actual hike took place in 1995 which was a time that hiking and camping was considered for men. I think this was a good movie that gave women and men motivation to do something that scared them but that benefited their lives.