Welcome To My Bathtub

There is a very small town in Kentucky called Allensville, a farming town, a place where friends gather.

— Stephen Capps

Despite being an imaginary place, “The Bathtub” hit home with people all over the world.  It made us realize everyone has their own special place somewhere. A place where you feel understood, a home -- a place fiercely loved and fiercely protected.

Inspired by the testimonials we heard, we asked fans to take a minute and send us a photo and share their own personal Bathtub.

Down the street from where I live in Maryland is a state park: Patapsco State Park, named for the river that runs through it. 

This bend in the river is my favorite spot. It's more of a solitary than a community attachment, I suspect. Many people march right by, on their way to the rapids a quarter mile up the trail, which the guide map tells you that you WANT to see; where there are picnic tables, then up a hill to a parking lot. 

But when I stand at this bend, I feel the power of the universe surging through me, then pulling me in all directions, kind of like Hushpuppy verbalizes in the film. In fact, when she uttered that line, my riverbend flashed through my mind...

— Cindy Rosenberg

In a hammock with my boyfriend is my bathtub.

— Ricky Emmons

My Bathtub is a blanket fort with my girlfriend.

— Dalton Day

My Bathtub is my parents' garden in the Cotswolds, south west England.

— Emily Kinder

My Bathtub's name was Engavaagen. I lived there for nine months, six years ago. A day doesn't go by without me thinking of it.

When I was nineteen my parents told me that they could either send me to a university for a year or abroad. It wasn't a difficult decision. My parents weren't very well off, but they somehow sent me to one of the richest countries in the world; Norway. My parents were of an evangelical Christian persuasion, so they sent me to a sort of religious international boarding school for young missionaries. The boarding school was just outside of a small Norwegian town above the arctic circle, a stone's throw away from the shores of a fjord. You could walk to the tip of the peninsula and look out to sea. The islands dotted the horizon and the mountains circled round you. 

Part of me thinks it is wrong to say that Engavaagen is my Bathtub. As I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild I was saddened to know that there is no place like that currently in my life, no community. Engavaagen wasn't mine, it didn't "make" me . . . not like it made the Norwegians who grew up there. But I loved it, I loved it. I walked and walked and walked around it and loved the sky and the sea and the islands and every inch of it, as though it were a person and not a place. 

I was sent to Engavaagen to grow in my faith and to get closer to God. God and I are no longer on speaking terms and I have no religion to speak of, but Engavaagen remains. After I left, it hurt to even look at a picture of it or talk about it very much. One day I'll try to go back, but plane tickets to Norway run about $2,000 these days. A vacation like that will be beyond me for at least five more years. I might not be meant to go back.

Now I live in Portland, Oregon, and I think my task is to carry and plant Bathtubs and Engavaagens wherever I happen to be. Or at least, not to pine for something far off and ignore the place in front of me. 

— Marylin H

Fiercely protecting this little corner of my universe for over 40 years! My Bathtub is my back yard in Minneapolis, MN, USA!

— Vicki MacNabb

The bathtub in my back garden, Capetown, South Africa.

— Bryan Little

Email us (beasts@beastsofthesouthernwild.com) a photo or illustration of a place that you consider YOUR Bathtub, put ‘Welcome to My Bathtub’ in the subject line, or tweet it to @thebathtubber, using #mybathtub and we’ll add it to our website.

Benh Zeitlin's Bathtub

Back in June 2012, just before the theatrical release of Beasts of the Southern Wild, journalist Jeremy Butman sat down with Benh Zeitlin to discuss the filmmaker's take on The Bathtub and the ideas and themes the film represents.

And of course the storm is going to recall Katrina. So it seems as though it has an absolute analogue in the real world. How is the audience supposed to understand the connection between the mythological setting of Beasts and the real southern Louisiana?

I think it's very different inside and outside of Louisiana. In Louisiana, especially when you get outside New Orleans, the storm in the film and the issues with the storm are much more inspired by [Hurricane] Gustov and current land-loss in south Louisiana and the levee issues around the Mississippi and salt water intrusion and the oil spill and all this other stuff that for me was actually more the reference point. I feel like that's what it will be for people there, too. It's been interesting as I show it outside there that it's going to go to Katrina, because that's what people think of when they think of storms in Louisiana.

The reason I wanted to do this story was that I'm interested in the current moment of living in south Louisiana, where there's a group of people, and a world, that knows they're under threat constantly, but they're totally entrenched in living there, and they're not going to leave. I wanted to try to understand that impulse, that impulse as an observer and then also my personal impulse to move there and live there the rest of my life—why do you do that?

Read the full, in depth interview here.