I was making a prose-poetry chapbook for my Honours in creative writing and the idea that the project centred on was what I called “the romance of being not in love”.

It’s when you have that feeling of romance in a situation that no one would normally associate with that word. It was kind of the main driving force in my life at the time, because everything was filtered through the project – I was constantly thinking of things through the lens of the idea of romance, but it was a realigning of that idea. Like, seeing an eclipse and there’s no one around to talk to about it, and so you’re just experiencing it by yourself. Or when somebody leaves you an answering-machine message and it’s just the sound of them walking because they’ve pocket-dialled you. And also brushing your teeth. 

I don’t really know where it came from apart from the fact that I’d always loved the scene in Bring It On where Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Bradford brush their teeth together. They don’t speak – it’s just these two bodies in a room doing something that is weirdly intimate when they don’t know each other that well, doing something that’s so domestic and utilitarian and in some ways kind of gross. That didn’t seem like something that was typically “romantic” to me.

Then I noticed that it occurred in other films I loved. In the creative writing project, I talk about Bring It On, Chantal Akerman’s short film L’Homme à la valise, Chungking Express, Carol. When I realised that those movies all had toothbrushing scenes in them I also realised that it would be fun to collect them.

And so then I just started collecting. I started making a list in my phone notes of the scenes that I encountered in movies and TV shows where people brush their teeth. I was writing about it in 2018 when I was doing the thesis, but then in 2020 when I was stuck at home, that’s when I started actually recording the scenes and collecting the videos.

One of the conditions of the project, I guess, is that I try not to seek them out. Often people will tell me that they noticed one and I’ll be a little bit conflicted about whether I should straight away go and watch it – especially if it’s something that I wouldn’t normally watch. I think if the librarian in me was trying to catalogue every single scene – I’m a librarian by day – obviously I would have to watch every movie that existed. But I think I’m drawn to the project because it’s about the fact that I was recognising this commonality in films I organically loved. 

Like, Kelly Reichardt is one of my favourite directors and she has toothbrushing scenes in multiple films. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, because what I love about her is the intimacy and quietness of her films, and so it makes sense that those in-between moments are captured. I respond a lot to depictions of everyday life that are quite sparing.

Often I will be watching a movie and I’ll get excited because the character will go into the bathroom and it looks like it’s about to happen, but they’ll wash their face or have a shower. I think one of the reasons that it doesn’t happen as much is because it’s aesthetically a little bit weird, because you’re dealing with spit and with someone having something in their mouth, whereas someone can very glamorously brush their hair or put on make-up. But you can’t really brush your teeth in a way that looks like anything other than exactly what it is.

I think that’s another reason that it often occurs in films that I already like, because it’s a commitment to a supernaturalistic way of representing the world. Of course I love a lot of films that are not naturalistic, but it’s very rare that those films have those kinds of moments. Like, Tom Cruise doesn’t brush his teeth in War of the Worlds, right?

The chapbook is done – there’s a lot more in it than just the toothbrushing – and so that’s nice that it has its own life. Now I am finally working on stitching all of the scenes together into a kind of supercut, and I’m showing it at an event that coincidentally is organised by my mum. She was the one who encouraged me to finish it – I wouldn’t have done that otherwise; I would have just let them sit there. I’m actually kind of excited for it to be done in this form, because I think I’ll probably stop making note of it every time I see it. I feel like, then, it’ll be over.

I’m sure I’ll still notice it every time it happens, and I’m sure a film will come out where there’s a scene that’s so good I’ll be sad it wasn’t included. But I like the idea that it is just a record of the films that I watched between 2018 and 2026 that had toothbrushing scenes in them – all 90 or so of them. It’s a closed box now.

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