David Lynch's heroines A brief journey through his female characters, fromTwin Peaks to Blue Velvet

There are no middle grounds. David Lynch is either loved or hated. His cinema obsessively moves between dream and reality, imagination and the unconscious, making the viewer doubt what they see, never fully knowing what is before their eyes. His films are inhabited by ambiguous and grotesque figures, dwarfs and women in brown cardigans clutching a log, dead girls wrapped in cellophane, caffeine-addicted police officers, nocturnal roads, and small-town America that hides sordid and atrocious truths behind its reassuring facade. In this universe, women hold a central but always dual role, balanced between angel and devil, between innocent souls in peril and dark, tormented, and mysterious ladies. Lynch has often been accused of sexism and misogyny for his frequent depictions of violence against women. Yet, actresses from Laura Dern to Naomi Watts have eagerly competed to work on one of his projects. Why? Because his characters are compelling and complex. They are often victims of toxic masculinity, abused and tortured, broken as they collapse or lose themselves, but they are also multifaceted. They have dark pasts and seek redemption; they are pure and alluring, desperate and wild, yet resilient. Lynch portrays them at their lowest moments, but with an empathetic gaze, as though they represent the best of humanity — flawed, but somehow heroic in surviving evil.

Lynch passed away on January 16, 2025, at the age of 78. nss G-Club remembers him through his most iconic female characters.

David Lynch's female characters: Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet (1986)

Two lovers on a road trip to California, traveling dusty roads and chasing dreams of finding a place to be happy together: Sailor, played by Nicolas Cage in a snakeskin jacket, and Lula, portrayed by Laura Dern, with tight dresses, voluminous hair, and an obsession with The Wizard of Oz. Their love is deafening, screaming and kicking against a dirty and cruel reality, where family friends are rapists, loved ones are unjustly imprisoned, and your mother is a wicked woman who hires gangsters to separate you from your soulmate.

Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks (1990-2017)

Once again, Lynch brings a dual woman to the screen, played by Laura Dern. He casts her as Nikki Grace, an actress who confuses her life with the character she’s portraying, Susan. She is a woman in distress, unraveling, deforming, and consuming herself in front of the camera, worn down by an emotional, grotesque, and frightening journey into her mind, where it’s hard to distinguish the unconscious from reality. Dern gives body and soul to one of Lynch’s most heartbreaking, claustrophobic, and striking female characters.