The biggest titan of a film and the most acclaimed of 2025 was easily Paul Thomas Anderson’s heavily lauded political thriller “One Battle After Another”. Upon its September release, it made waves for its impact and relevancy to the current state of American politics and leadership. It’s one that many have even went to categorize as one of the decade’s best and defining films, as many have been quick to put it on there top films of last year and even of the decade. Despite that love the film gets, one aspect many can’t seem to agree on is the heavily controversial character in the film by the eccentric name of “Perfidia Beverly” played by Teyana Taylor. Teyana portrays an eager revolutionary filled with boiling anger and passion, leading the way of the revolutionary group of the French 75. Despite only appearing in roughly only the initial 30 minutes of the lengthy epic, Perfidia’s mark is still left in the narrative — for better or for worse. She successfully goes through with her plans to get an upper leg on her oppressors, but at what cost?
In the process, she gets her way through multitudes of sexual encounters and engagement with the main villain Col. Steven Lockjaw played by Sean Penn. That plot device itself, stirred up a wave of controversy in the midst of all the praise for the movie during the discourse. Many argued that Paul fetishizes and sexualizes black women in a negative light for malicious intent. The pace of the film was praised as well, yet many still agree that the first 30 minutes with Perfidia’s sexual acts were by far the most distasteful part of the movie. It’s easy to seem as such, as Perfidia on the surface seems like a vague sex symbol rather than a revolutionary, but what if they both go hand in hand? As I said, Perfidia is the main leader of the French 75 revolutionary group. Her goal is to destruct and take down the current regime that is holding immigrants and other minorities captive by the hands of the government. Perfidia is arguably the most eager revolutionary always willing to push the initiative in order to get a leg up. It helps her at times in the beginning, but soon that act of pushing the initiative turns into crossing the line and pushing away morality.
The controversial part of the character primarily lies between her relationship with Col Lockjaw aka the main operator of the group attempting to rise to supremacy. In order to take down Lockjaw or at least distract him from the bigger fish to fry, she attacks his weakness — lust. One thing to note about Lockjaw is that there’s no doubt that he’s inherently racist. He tries to portray minorities such as blacks and Mexicans as savages and disgraces to the community of American citizens in order to push an agenda of white supremacy. He even later in the film tries to join a white supremacy group of the name “Christmas Adventurers Club”. Despite his racism against blacks, he still has a strong attraction to them — specifically the black woman Perfidia Beverly Hills. Once Perfidia sees Lockjaw in sight and knows he has an attraction to her, she uses it as an advantage to get a leg up in the revolution. She tries to seduce lockjaw into a sexual relationship with her in order to gain power over Lockjaw and make him submissive to her. She knows the lustful eyes of him will get attached to her body and ultimately get distracted from his real view of her and the revolution operation. Its a classic case of a decoy, a distraction to occupy the enemy’s attention off of the main task at hand. Teyana Taylor who plays Perfidia even described the relationship in a similar light. “Perfidia kind of dived into the, ‘Oh, you think I’m hot? All right, bet. Cool if I get to still do what I’m doing, all I gotta do is show you a little titty or something,” (via The root).
She described it as a relationship that was transactional for both — Lockjaw gets the sexual pleasure he wants, and Perfidia gets that tactic of power play and distractive moves to be successful. That however, is exactly where the flaw in Perfidia’s motive lies. She gets the sense of power she wants, but also at the same time stoops low to meet the needs of enemy territory by fulfilling Lockjaw’s lustful spirit. The revolution moves on, but at the cost of her losing her worth to others as a women and blindly objectifying herself for those like Lockjaw to further box her into typical stereotypes of black women ultimately in the process only giving him another way to reinforce his white supremacy narrative. Teyana has went on many times to sympathize with her character but has also recognized her flaws and seen her as just as selfish. “Once she realized she was able to actually have him do that, I think it just woke up a whole nother beast in Perfidia. She had plenty of opportunity to kill him, but she enjoyed the power and she got too greedy” (via Matt Neglia’s Next Best Picture interview).
Teyana isn’t just selfish because she handled the revolution in a morally corrupt way, but also because she participated in the act of adultery and abandonment in the process. Throughout her plan to seduce and have sex with Lockjaw, she had a fellow revolutionary waiting for her at home who also happened to be her partner. She wanted to be a bold revolutionary, but in the process became a selfish human who didn’t consider how these actions would effect others around her later on. So why would PTA include her as a revolutionary? — one of the people who should supposedly be on the right side of the history of corrupt leadership? It’s to show how many facets of revolution acts there are. It’s not just a mission that’ll be always objectively right or clean of a job just because you’re fighting for something bigger than yourself. Its a scheme, full of many tactics that can be for better or for worse. Perfidia at the end of it all, ultimately lies as a template for the worse side of revolutionary violence. She’s fighting for a purpose and is desperately passionate about fighting for those oppressed and discriminated against such as her own race, but can only do it through impulsive violence and compromising her morals.
Willa However — The “daughter” of Bob Fergusson, Is a template of the right side of the revolution. As soon as she is taken captive under Lockjaw’s wings just like her mother Perfidia, she fights for power but in a more admirable way. She’s determined to take down Lockjaw but also determined to express her loathing towards him, screaming and kicking her way out of his chains of captivity and calling him all kinds of insults. She never tries to present herself as alluring or willing to come to a compromise with Lockjaw, but instead expressing all her loathing towards him and making it be known to his face that their regime is beyond corrupt. It’s no secret that Paul is directly critiquing many right wing ideologies and trying to take a stance in support of the left, but he also directly criticizes the other side of the political spectrum through the character of Perfidia Beverly Hills. She’s a template for the lines of what a revolutionary and someone trying to fight against oppression should and shouldn’t be. Willa is a template and symbol of hope for the future — hope that there’s a next generation of revolutionaries that take the baton of those before them but handle it in a more rational and morally correct way.
