Female Revenge: A Complicated Genre
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- My opinion on a very complicated and controversial movie genre + the review of a cult classic Ms .45 with Zoë Tamerlis Lund. Had to blur things and tiptoe around the subject because it's YT.
Some timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction (thoughts, opinions on the genre at large)
7:28 - Ms .45 Review
Main movies that are shown as B-roll:
1. I Spit on Your Grave (original and remake)
2. The Last House on the Left (original and remake)
3. Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973)
4. Straw Dogs (remake) - Krátké a kreslené filmy
men reuploading the r scenes to 🌽 sites is more than proof that showing it from the offenders pov is total bullshit and is only there to satisfy the male audiences unempathic perverse desires. not showing it at all or just showing the facial expressions of the man/no nudity like Ms.45 is the way to go because it is uncomfortable and makes one focus on the animalistic nature of the attacker rather than "ooohhh booby" or something like that
Lesser men who will hate women and the men who want to help women make a safer world. These guys are single for a reason. Hopefully they can get some help for whatever they have going on mentally. Anyone who likes seeing women violated is f*cked up. I agree that Ms. 45 isn't perfect but it is better than most of those revenge films of it's time.
Fuck the hollywood cult tbh!!!! They tell on themselves constantly
nothing but facts
The writers and directors probably want the audience to feel disgusted, at least I hope so, but it just doesn't work like that. If it's a famous actress, guys will ignore the message and will watch it as 🌽. But what really scares me is that small portion of people who get off because it's R4P3, sort of like "Cuties". The way the message is interpreted is way more important than the message itself, specially if people choose to ignore it.
trust me the people who'd find the scene arrousing won't "get" a message against it anyhow, to state the obvious most men don't like rape fantasies, which tend to be more of a focus of female-aimed sexual literature ae written pornography than male fantasies so for the small group that likes this kind of porn nothing way of presentation is gonna do anything.
I think if the r$pe is shown from the woman's point of view, not the mans, it could be better. By that I mean- the camera focuses on the man's features and his animalistic nature, not on the woman or what is being done to her body. That would make it easier to sympathize and help the viewer see things from her point, instead of "taking part" in it when they do it from the man's point of view.
Brilliant. And yes! Absolutely. The musician, FKA Twigs, has a music video where she shows this quite well.
@@samanthawright527 FKA Twigs is lowkey a genius. I love all her work.
nah american horror story tried that and everyone hated it. you don't have to show it at all. things can be implied.
Are you man? Only a man could want to actually see the horrors of raped from the perspective of a woman's brutalized body. Just ewww.
Imagine being a rape victim and seeing such form of media, it would just retraumatize you.
As a woman, I think it's better to let I it be implied.
But ofc men want rape to be explicitly shown in media.
I don't think we need to see it ever. It always feels exploitative or unnecessary, gratuitous it's one of those times where show don't tell isn't true.
I hate, hate, hate Noe’s reasoning. Here’s a man who showed a woman being brutally r*ed for 9 minutes - what for? - to dictate other women how to behave. Why thank you Gaspar, I didn’t know I could be in danger of male violence without your valuable contribution! What am I supposed to use instead of an underground tunnel - a magical helicopter that would safely drop me on the other side? Was the r*e somehow Monica Bellucci’s character’s fault for walking instead of flying? This scene seriously messed me up when I saw it as a teen, and now I get huge anxiety whenever I’m walking through tunnels. But guess what Gaspar, I still have to use them, so fuck you
You took the words out of my mouth
I hate fake-deep explanations for scenes that are clearly placed for aesthetic or edgy reasons. He wanted to ‘push the envelope’. That’s it. 🙄
I remember the movie for that one event, but I’m not sure what the rest was about.
@user-pd5py3yt9u Exactly
that guy is a fucking joke he thought that making a movie where gay men all beat each other to death and rape each other would make up for his obvious incest fetish
@@LoneWulf278100%, he absolutely made this scene purely to get off of (~fictional~) violence against a world famous beauty and sex icon and titillate his male audience. Then come the excuses: “weeeell, I absolutely had to include this scene because there’s a secret deep morale behind it, it’s about the tunnel! So there, just avoid tunnels” But in a sick way, I think he truly believes that discerning women would manage to avoid violence if only they’re careful enough😡🤬
Women who have experienced violence are fully aware how devastating violence against women is. If a sa victim can’t watch your movie about sa revenge without being retraumatized, then what’s the point? Which is why I believe most of these kind of movies made by male directors miss the mark. Maybe because a lot of them are kind of far removed from the experience of rape, so they feel the need to go to the extreme to show how brutal it is. But rape in of itself is brutal, even if the circumstances don’t seem brutal.
Exactly. It’s pure voyeurism.
Couldn't the same be said of any of the revenge genres?
@@NelsonStJames This is what people ignore. It's not unique, people just are focusing on this subgenre specifically.
I don't think men who make these movies or the men who watch them are trying to "hit the mark"
"But rape in of itself is brutal, even if the circumstances don’t seem brutal." perfectly put. no matter how it's included in media, it is always absolutely horrifying
Two kinds of vigilante movies
1. sad woman kills three people after an attack.
2. War veteran kills eight million people because something bad happened to someone he knew.
LMAOO This is so true. In reality, most ‘revenge’ attacks don’t even harm the perpetuator. In The Body Keeps the Score, Van Der Kolk describes a Vietnam veteran who felt deep PTSD and regret because he sexually assaulted and killed civilians after his buddy got shot. Worse, he had children and a wife too.
@@thenablade858 Don’t even harm the perpetuator. Two words, Gary, Plauché.
Hitler?
I notice in these movies usually the rape is done by a stranger man who doesn't know the woman, as opposed in real life where you're most likely be sexually assaulted by a man you know than a random on the street
only 28 (ish) percent of rapes are stranger rapes, but almost all rapes in film i’ve seen are stranger rapes. it isn’t showcased often, but is typically the most relatable. i was raped by a boyfriend, you’ll almost never see this in a film, mostly because the shock value doesn’t hit as hard for viewers who haven’t been through SA. They’re both extremely traumatic, but it’s easier to process for viewers as a random act of violence by an unnamed man, than someone you are deeply connected with violating you in one of the most cruel ways.
@@dh.151i’m sorry that happened to you by the way… and hope you’re doing well
(I am a woman, to preface my comment) I started out in the film industry as an armorer's assistant. We would provide firearms, make blanks and sometimes squibs, and provide police and military uniforms. Since we were the primary consultants on those specific props, we would read the scripts in advance to prepare for which props/squib/firearms/uniforms were needed.
The nature of our trade was simulated violence, so we predominately dealt with either horror, action, or copaganda films and shows. My mentor was a 35year veteran of the industry, so his opinion held a lot of weight when we would read these scripts. He also had the right to refuse anything that he didn't want to work on.
I can not tell you how many scripts we had float by the desk that had outrageously fetishistic sexual violence. Scripts that would have bare bones for everything else, and yet intricately detailed descriptions of the r*pe scenes, the murder scenes, just scenes of women being violently abused. Some of them were so bad, he would pre-screen them first for me so I wouldn't have to read it.
A lot of these directors were just in it for the r*pe scenes. And we would have meetings and ask about it, and advise different ways to tone it down. The push back was unreal - DAYS of filming to watch directors vicariously observe naked actresses being tortured for "art."
Some of these films never even made it to the reel. They weren't sent to the festival circuit, they weren't in theatres, we couldn't even find them on streaming services. They just sat on a hard drive somewhere.
I'm not in the industry right now. I just... couldn't do it after a while. One day I'll go back in a different role, but it cast a pallor on my love of film.
Thank you for sharing that. I didn't realize things could get bad to this extent in the film industry. I suppose there are a lot of hateful bigots (specifically sexists) out there who use artistic choices as an excuse to live out their pathetic little fantasies. Those with privilege who've never experienced actual hardship obsess over the victimization of less privileged groups, and they think it makes them an edgy visionary who speaks the bitter truth. In reality, they're just sex-crazed invalids who perpetrate their abuse of privilege onto others by forcefully making the less fortunate experience undue tragedy. I hope that the industry changes so that these pathetic assholes never get a chance to hold that kind of power over anyone.
My recent favorite "female revenge" show is "Brand New Cherry Flavor".
The revenge is not so much related to sexual assault (although it does almost happen), but to the main heroine taking revenge on a powerful rich man who basically stole her movie that she made that had a big emotional significance for her.
She goes to a modern kind of witch to curse him, and his life spirals. But her life spirals too! And I love that.
So many ppl get hurt as a result.
It's the most bizarre, unique and interesting show I've seen.
God I love brand new cherry flavor
I'm so sad that it got cancelled :(, S2 would have been great
@@mpGreen03it was announced as a limited series from the beginning which is a shame, I would've loved to see the witch's continuation through the protagonist's ex, and who would be the next generation of cursed people as the story was placed in the 90s from what I remember
@@eewahnah Was it supposed to go like that? I was more interested in protagonists story, she left to find out about Tiger stuff and her mom? I remember I was supper excited for S2 but allas :(
@@mpGreen03 Yeah, they were putting in the promo on the site that it's limited :(
Watching Irreversible was the most disturbing and terrifying thing I have seen. I had a friend tell me that when she was SA as a teen that it was 100% like this scene. I didn't realise how traumatized she was, still don't, until seeing that clip. It's awful to think someone could do this to a person.
Irréversible kinda validates me because it's the only sexual assualt scene that I think really understands how soul shattering the nature of rape is
idk if its the case nowadays but i grew up in a household that was always showing true crime things surrounding rape and it definitely didn't do anything good for my brain
Seriously, that's awful about your friend. I remember watching that film as a teen and being totally disgusted by it, I get that it might feel validating to some, but I'm sure it also serves as j*rk off material for the psychopathic monsters of the world, jut like may of these kinds of scenes in movies.
yeah unfortunately i once saw that scene on a corn account on twitter and it was very very heart-breaking.@@martinestarot4703
@@femmefilms I been jerking it to Irreversible for years. I discovered that scene when I was like 18.
The Last House on the Left on the left remake literally traumatized me when I saw it for the first time in theaters - it was just so raw and graphic - I realized how disrespected women are just in society in general and it changed me forever
I'm so sorry to read this, I also share similar feelings.
There are few things that can upset me as much as imagery depicting violence against women because it is so common and normalised to brutalise feminine bodies on media to the point it seems like it's the natural course of things.
Over sexualization, omnipresent power dynamics, humiliation, infantilization, adultification, unnecessary and objectifying exposure of female bodies, the eroticisation of violence... I'm so sick of this and feel abnormal for hating it. It is everywhere.
The 2000s were especially bad for a lot of the torture p^rn type movies
I watched that movie way too young it’s extremely fucked up. At least that guy got fried by the dad in the end
To this day, the best representation of r I’ve ever seen is in Alien. Assault and being forced to carry its offspring internally which is a part of the massive fear of sa. And those scenes particularly got under the skin of male audience members. Basically, Ridley Scott didn’t give men any room to get off on sa scenes in the movie, he just created fear around it. (That being said, the movie isn’t perfect and still has its qualms with exploitation)
I am a former rape and crisis counselor and i have never heard any survivor or read anything about a fear of carrying the baby. Maybe bc abortion at the time was not a problem to get, but every single female was traumatized by the helplessness and powerlessness they felt, the violation of being penetrated against their will and the fear the perp would return or find them again. So I don't know where carrying a baby comes into the picture. Can you let me know where you learned this?
@@lauraanne5175I'm not sure what you are even talking about bc speaking from zero citable facts and purely from raw emotion: it is definitely a common fear from those victimized to fear being impregnated by the attack. Not sure where you live that "abortion has always been available," but those of us in red states have not had one readily available for decades, let alone since overturning roe v. wade
@@magickaldust1213 I am not trying to start a fight, I want to educate myself bc in my 25 years of studying SA and working in that field directly with survivor in my office daily, I have never heard any survivor or read anything on this. That is all i am trying to find. I am not saying that there might be some who feel that way but as a major part of SA survivors feeling that way is something I have not discovered or ever heard. Again no one I have counseled in 25 has ever mentioned that to me. SO I am feeling I am missing something and looking to educate myself. Please let me know your resource so I can follow up.
Wouldnt a lot of body horror content count as good rep as well
@@lauraanne5175 i cant speak for the other commenters point but i'm a csa survivor and at very least fiction that depicts forced carrying of offspring from an attack are a good way to hammer in the concept of being alienated from your own body after it happens. the feeling that you lost something (either your purity, your agency, etc), your body no longer belongs to you and that forever it will be linked to what you went through. so in a sense, Alien does accomplish this effect of translating some of what we feel.
I find it hard to believe that any director who shows SA in a movie and it's obviously shot from a male gaze perspective with lingering shots on the victims body, is making any attempt to be sympathetic.
I saw something, I don't know if you'd call it an art installation, but that's probably the best description, where people donated the clothes they were wearing when they were SA'd as an argument against the common justification of "well, what were you wearing?" Most of it was sweatpants, overalls, modest children's clothes, and other "unsexy," garments. SA in movies shouldn't have to be "sexy," or someone's disgusting fantasy to have an impact and make you sympathetic to the protagonist.
i actually loved “revenge” because, to me at least, it helped make that point that a woman being sexually active and “promiscuous” doesn’t mean that they asked for or deserved the assault
Yeah I feel the same way
Play stupid games - win stupid prizes.
In the korean drama 'I Miss You', the protagonist - as a young girl- is being r*ped, only th viewers don't see (or even hear- to my recollection) what's happening to her, the camera focuses on her friend- a young boy, maybe 14 years old, who witnessed the horror. It's so powerful, and respectful to the young actress, and to us as views. We see the horror through the boy's eyes.
The events then continue to haunt them both throughout the series, and we see the emotional long lasting damage such cruelty does to the victims.
I don’t need a male director to explain to me, a survivor of SA, why it’s so bad and terrifying. If you want to create a revenge fantasy for SA survivors, maybe make it not retraumatizing for the target audience. It’s kinda…patronizing tbh - the sense I get that they need to “explain” why it’s bad. If it’s meant for men, sure, makes sense, but if you’re intending it as anything else…ok. Thanks for showing how much you ACTUALLY respect women - that we can’t understand why our experiences are awful and need them to be graphically explained to us by a man (I know there are obviously male SA survivors and I’m not intending to exclude them, just focusing on women cause that’s what the films focus on)
I was there in the theater watching Last House on the Left, and it was silent. Everyone was disgusted. Suddenly one guy shouted out “Does anyone else find this horrifying, disturbing, and unnecessary?” and everyone just started shouting about much we fucking hated it. It was 20 minutes of an entire theater, profoundly disturbed, that this was shoved in our faces, and it wasn’t horror - it was torture porn. It was a small college town, where I was going to Uni, a place I’d NEVER have expected any dialogue on that to occur, but it did. It was oddly comforting knowing an entire theater audience, was angry and disturbed.
As a survivor of SA though,I do enjoy some revenge films like American Mary. My husband can’t cope with them (he is a survivor too), whereas, I’m not going to lie, I genuinely wish I could off the monster that did it to me. I just really wish as a genre, it would figure out how to do it in a way that can be comforting and empowering, to finally see justice evoked, as the survivor wants it to be. Otherwise, it’s all just torture porn at the expense of survivors who struggle each day.
The only one that gets it (apart from ms 45 obviously) is promising young woman; wich i still dont understand why people hated it for being actually realistic and not the fantasy we are used to in this genre
Promising Young Woman definitely hit a nerve imo
Agreed. I love Promising Young Woman.
So true. That’s definitely a classic movie IMO. What did people hate about it? I’ve only heard that one critic say that the main actress wasn’t hot enough or something. But that’s it.
I've only heard people say it's unrealistic because the police would never help a rape victim and that the police and that lawyer end up being the good guys. I actually see it like this : Cassie did not have any means to make them care and make Nina's rapers pay other than letting herself be killed so that they at least pay for her murder.
@@LoneWulf278 many women hated it because the protagonist gets killed in the end instead of having an unrealistic "happy badass female ending" like they are used to in the r*pe revenge genre... precisely thats the reality of what would actually happen if this events took place in real life, but i guess many viewers prefer the fantasy over the tragedy in these type of films (i understand it, what i dont get is the unfair hate for it, like you have plenty other movies depicting what you are looking for so why dogpile on the one that doesnt follow those "rules" and wants to bring more nuance and reflexion to the genre??)
I'd never heard of Ms 45 before (another reason I'm subscribed! 🙂). Just wanted to point out that NYC, USA was really like that in the 70's & most 80's. My aunt survived multiple attempted assaults (spiked heels ARE a weapon!), men cat called women all over the city; & no way Ms45 would have been able to report her boss & expect to get anything done about it because "that's just the way it is sweetheart, you don't like, don't work there" was the philosophy.
So I'm sure there were lots of women at that time who would have been living vicariously through the revenge part. & of course she had to die, because of the underlying "you can't stand up to or be as powerful as men & get away with it" belief of the powers that be. Not saying random murders should justified, but that it's the same concept as the old US censorship rule that "homosexuals can be in movies/TV as long as they are an exaggerated caricature for comic relief or die/be shown as evil in the end".
Ms 45 is really good film
My mom watched it in the theather when it was released. She always talks about this movie to this day.
Ms. 45 is so underrated! Feminine rage is all the rage. ❤
comrade thana?
Watched it not too long ago and loved it , have any other recs ? 👀
First time I’ve heard of it, going to look it up
💯 ‘‘Even lambs have teeth” Is also underrated, any recommendations?
@@deadeyes4626 you might want to check out m.f.a starring Francesca Eastwood
Tbh I don't know any women that has not been violated by a man in any way.
you wouldnt know blue from orange if u say that
Word.
A dubious and unverifiable claim.
@@LordVader1094 we can quite easily verify it by being in female only spaces and speaking about our experiences
The majority of women I know have been victims of some form of assault or domestic violence at the hands of men. I also know a few men who were SA or domestic violence too, both from men or women
These directors and screenwriters claiming that they make the scenes so gratuitous because they want the reality of the situation to sink in are so full of sh*t. The pure fact is...women are aware, and men don't care. After my own r*pe, I can't bring myself to watch media with sexual assault of women anymore. If I suspect a film I'm interested in has SA in it, I'll risk a little spoiling the plot to look up the 'reasons for rating' stuff on IMDB, and I've definitely skipped some movies and don't feel any loss in not seeing them. It's not like serial killers, or a zombie outbreak, or any other horror genre that rarely if ever happens to people IRL. It's something that a lot of girls and women experience, and I guarantee that any man who has not lived in solitude his entire life knows at least one woman who has been a victim, whether he is aware of that fact or not. I really wish this genre would just...stop. But I know that's never going to happen with directors being overwhelmingly male.
Anyway...your video was great as always, I always get excited when you pop up in my notifications 💙
Preach. I'm sorry you went through that. I went through SA, not actual r*pe, and it was bad enough and gave me cptsd..also being harassed and touched at times inappropriately by random guys, it's gross. I cringe every time I see or hear anything that remotely trivializes SA. I've worked in offices where I'd hear men crack jokes about r*ape and it was always very triggering..until I went through EMDR at least.
did you get to watch Ms 45?
I love the movie Revenge and 100% understood what the director was going for. That movie doesn’t even really show the attack. You hear it, you see the window moving, but it is off screen. It also focuses on eyes, glasses, binoculars, etc. so I’m not entirely sure how the director could’ve made her intention any more obvious.
Furthermore, I appreciated the fact that the main character was sex positive. She wore clothing that showed off her body, and never does the movie blame her for her attack. In fact, when she’s attacked, she is wearing a T-shirt and was initially in her pajamas.
The main posters for Revenge aren’t even similar to other revenge posters. It shows her with a gun, in a tank top with her pink Star earring accentuated against a blue sky.
Idk. I get the point in this video, and you’re welcome to not like the movie. But I personally think that the message/intention of that movie was extremely well done and don’t think that movie should be lumped in with Straw Dogs or I Spit on your Grave.
I agree! Revenge is probably my favourite of the R Revenge horror movies because of this
I hate Revenge because it plays the 'Woman gets raped and becomes an empowered badass' tropes completely straight
@gleewhoseline198 I don't really agree but I completely understand what you mean!!
"It's kind of boring to keep telling women that they can only be angry only after they've gone through all the circles of hell."
When I say I hit the subscribe button _so fast_-
As a victim, I can say that "Kill Bill" was the movie that kept me from not going for revenge. It just helps me not to snap. I can feel it in my bones, my own horror was even greater at points, and it got so much worse when I was pregnant, happily married, "over it" as I thought then, and I just felt immense anger and urge to harm everyone who had their part. So I watched it to have some catharsis, over and over, knowing real life will not bring me that catharsis if at all. Exaggerated gore and humour of this film was a factor too. I could hardly watch ISOYG when it came out. It was trying to be realistic and to me it failed. KB did the opposite in some sense and it worked.
Tbh as a survivor the most impactful and well done portrayal of SA I’ve seen in film is from the beginning of Belladonna of Sadness. Visceral and impactful, but doesn’t have to go as far as physically reenacting assault to get the point across. It’s a scene I could actually sit through and relate to deeply.
ASJAKDJKDSJLKDS I LOVE THIS VIDEO for years ive found it soooo hard to articulate to other horror fans (especially men) why I can watch insane amounts of violence but cant stomach scenes w/ SA. you seriously hit the nail on the head. every other sentence I was shocked by how perfectly our experiences watching these films aligned. ugh.
Excellent essay. I saw MS .45 when it first came out in the theatres. It was really able to bring audiences to a stunned silence. I saw it twice on the big screen when it was released. There were no video tapes of it for years. And it certainly wasn't going to TV. The second time I saw it was in a Grindhouse on 42nd Street. I remember a guy who was saying yeah do it, during one her assault scenes. But by the end of the film the same guy was whimpering, No No No. I immediately recognized the importance of both Abel Ferrara and Zoë Tamerlis (as she was then called).
Sadly Zoë got dragged into a strange sort of revolutionary philosophy, and didn't play her cards well careerwise. She also got seriously involved with the worst substances. I kept meeting people who knew her and Abel, and I half hoped I'd bump into her sometime. She seemed to need to be talked down from her ledge. One acquaintance told me of her apartment being full of rats she was collecting. She was clearly extremely intelligent, yet the drugs ate her away. (See Bad Lieutenant, she was using as she was being filmed, but she was the one who put in most of the references to God in the script.) She was quite desperate to change her life at the end. And made the mistake while living in Paris of switching from one substance to another, hoping that that would help her stop. It killed her. Sadly.
I have an idea that a great film could be made of her life. Anya Taylor-Joy could do it.
You do the best film essays ever thank you so much for talking about miss 45!! ❤
Wow when it got to the scene she finally speaks and says “sister” I got shivers. Goes deep on so many levels 😢
I use does the dog die to avoid this type of media. Seeing SA once every 15 minutes is normal for tv now and I just don’t get it. The gratuitous sex scenes in every damn show are so fucking tacky
had no idea a thing like dtdd exists! thank you
I use it for harm against children and babies. After I had my son I truly couldn’t stomach it anymore to the point where I would be upset for hours. It’s been so helpful in avoiding certain shows and movies and I’ve found a lot of peace in it. I highly recommend this website for any triggers.
True, it's painful to see a woman suffering through it, but that's what makes revenge sweeter and more glorious than anything... To see the perpetrators destruction far more gruesome or more psychologically or socially destructive makes everything perfect...
When facing the judge, it would be that statement... "He roamed free, guiltless of what he has done. If he repeats again, I bet you'll still let him go. So I did it. I made him pay what you hadn't owed him to pay. The fault of this matter lies in the system and mine."
I wish there was a movie like that...
Your videos are so enjoyable. Even if it's about a stressful subject I know I will not be drained by your video. Thank you also for talking about lesser known movies.
we all kinda know that assaulting a women in such a way is horrible thanks Noe i would of NEVER known that before you're statement . ( eye roll )
also i always thought that about these sort of movies that even if the girl gets revenge shes still living with the trauma of what was done to her , like in the ending of i spit on you're grave remake after she kills all her attackers she stares blankly at the camera and you can see shes no longer the happy person who was when the movie started .
I hated I spit on your grave. It literally retraumatized me so badly that I had to drop out of college.
I personally have to stay away from it. I cannot stomach movies with SA it’s just too much
Same. It’s always so violent and extra long scenes for no reason. It’s torture porn. Movies&shows with those scenes are banned in our house
I admire you for admitting it and saying it. All movies aren't made for everyone, and as an audience we need to be discerning. I know Jewish people that don't watch holocaust films, no matter how many awards and accolades they get. Even though some people go nuts over the idea of spoilers, in this day and age there is no excuse for blindly going to a film dealing with a subject that upsets you.
Same. I’m honestly just sick of it. At this point it’s lazy and cliche for me, going for the lowest hanging fruit on the tree instead of doing the work to find an obstacle more specific to the character.
Because let’s be honest: most portrayals of SA these days add nothing new to the conversation. And women have been stuck with the exact same character obstacle over and OVER. Every arc is about overcoming her ovaries basically
@@NelsonStJamesMajor difference is nobody is using holocaust films to get off.
I think a movie that does this well is “promising young woman” because they never show the actual assault, just how people react to it
I think that "Jennifers Body" is worthy of mention
My least favorite movie of all time is "I spit on your grave". My roommate in college said it was a female empowerment/revenge story before playing it. I went out to eat dinner and when I came back, I looked at the screen and it was just a woman being r4ped brutally. My trauma instinct is to just freeze up until bad things are over so I watched a good amount of the scene. It was at least 30 minutes until I finally un froze and ran to take a long shower. It was at least 2 hours of me scrubbing my body, trying to forget. Once I got back, she was watching a different movie so I just went on my computer to relax. After a bit I heard yelling from the tv. It turned out she was watching the second movie. I was so sick and completely froze. A flashback took hold of me and basically I was rexperiencing that trauma. After the r4pe was finally over, all the girl did was torture the guys for like 5 minutes. How is that empowering? It was 40 minutes of straight brutal r4pe and then just 5 minutes of violence and that's it? It was disgusting. When I woke up the next morning, my roommate was watching the 3rd movie. I threw up in the bathroom and didn't come back to the dorm for the rest of the day. It triggered so many repressed memories and caused me to have a breakdown. I basically thought everyone was trying to SA me and completely lost it. I had to take the rest of the semester off.
I'm so sorry. I hope you're doing okay now. ❤
When they have to make a SECOND movie with about he same structure and plot as the first one you just know "empowerment" wasn't the main goal in the director's brain....
As a writer and a lover of horror, I really don't like SA as an excuse to commit acts of violence. But the reason why they do it is because a) it's a quick easy way to make you hate the villain (same reason why the German WW2 guys are such overused villains), and b) because it gives the character a blank check to brutally murder them. It's a lazy way to get the audience to sympathize with the victim and then root for her (because it's never him even though men get SA too).
It's like, how often do we see men (who either committed SA or were about to commit SA, or in some cases were just henchmen) have their penises cut or shot off vs how often we see an evil woman get her private parts blown off? There seem to be unwritten rules here where we can't have a man be SA'd and go on a revenge tour and we can't see villainous/henchwomen get shot in the vagina.
Fantastic video! Thank you 🧡.
I'd love to hear your views on films like Lady Vengeance (2005 Park Chan-wook) or Lady Snowblood (1973 Toshiya Fujita).
I love this! And I love the observation on how the r*pe scene was shot, pretty similar to Promising young woman when *spoiler alert* the protagonist is being attacked, we would only see details from her feet or the attacker hands and how he's doing it in such violent way, I think this made it much more harder to see, like more realistic! I just hate violent scenes against women being shot from the male gaze perspective. Thanks for such an awesome content, I'm a big fan of your channel :)
Extremities with Farrah Fawcett is a powerful movie about sexual assault and it explores the psychological aspects of such sexual violence.
This was amazing. Thank you for doing this. I'd actually never watched Girl 45 was introduced to it during season 1 of Euphoria, which is quite interesting considering the current dialogue around Sam Levinson and season 2 of Euphoria
I won't watch anything that exploits women and their experiences. I don't like seeing SA shown in movies. It doesn't need to be shown, it could be briefly mentioned and that's it. As a cis straight male (who doesn't hate women) it just makes me want to exact vengeance on her abuser/s.
You can tell a guy made the film when they give the female character stereotypical traits of a weak willed passive person. The female character is written to hate all men, no male characters have redeeming qualities which I find to be problematic.
As it reinforces the "men just can't control themselves" narrative akin to the "boys will be boys" excuse. Maybe showing how a man should respect a woman in one damn scene and him showing empathy for her (and women in general) would make it less "revenge porn" ugh.
wow, i was just rewatching so many of your videos last night because I missed your content!! i'm so glad to see a new essay from you, i love your work!
When I clicked on the video, I thought the discussion was going to be on the Kill Bill types which I'm in the process of writing myself, but I didn't know about the R&R genre or even heard of the film Ms. 45, and I was morbidly attached to the video. Great job!
Omg finally got a notification on time!
Very excited about the video’s topic 🥰
I love your videos so much. You speak so wisely about every topic and you never misses
Thank you so much for your excellent videos!! Every time they come out i feel like it's a holiday 🎉🎉🎉
Ms. 45 rules and is a hundred times the film I Spit On Your Grave is.
I recently found your channel and every single video is such a gem!
Very interesting take, this is definitely a genre that's often just used for shock value and from voyeuristic (usually male) perspective. Something that puts me off in most of this movies even when done tastefully is the way violence is presented as the only solution to the problem. I get that manslaughter fantasies can be cathartic for some female viewers but I think it falls a bit flat, once they achieve their revenge. Getting over something like that in real life is tough and I would rather see how the character deals with the situation and the challenges in their process of healing and reconciliation but I guess that would be a different type of movie.
Ms. 45 is p much the only R Revenge film I'll ever recommend other than lady snowblood. Fully agree with all of your points, glad you made this vid!
In a weird way, your movie reviews are allowing me to understand myself as a woman and heal my past traumas at the same time. Your channel is the absolute best.
thank you for such great movie reviews/recommendations, i recently watched ms. 45 and secretary after watching your vids about them and I really loved them!! they have become some of my favorites. your reviews help me understand the intentions of the writers and directors more! love your vids :)
We need a super sleek, super well filmed remake of “Shoot ‘Em Up” where the main female protagonist just runs around slaying sleazy pervs and organized traffickers. No on screen SA needed.
The only r* revenge movie that I like is the korean horror movie 'bedevilled'. This one is more about female solidarity and it feels like it has a female audience in mind. PS: Also, I always felt like the revenge part was only there so male directors could excuse the r* part and say it's "feminist, actually".
I think a huge thing to take into account here with cuties versus other films that you're describing is that whatever the intention was, children were still being shown in provocative poses. It wasn't so much an issue of the message of the film, as much as it was an issue of children being unable to consent to this sort of exploitative characterization. At least the women shown in these films are old enough to consent to how they were depicted. The girls in cuties were not.
I'd love a video on Cuties! I haven't seen it, but I usually really appreciate your takes on controversial subjects because of the nuance you bring. I feel most people either defended it totally or condemned it with surface level arguments...
SA being shown from the POV of women with a limited facial shots of mostly attacker is slowly happening more. So that is a bit of relief.
Another great video.
Good to see a video with an overview approach to a movie such as Ms. 45. Sadly i think missing from the analysis is examining the commercial nature of "movies".
As someone who watches closely horror movies and who was born in the 70's i can relate to being drawn to stare at the car wreck that is Ms. 45. I find it has artistic flourishes as well as the blunt provocative hits of shocking images as referenced in this video. The films you cited not liking lean heavy on shocks being the main attraction.... that was a way to get people talking about a film. If one studies the times and the medium you can see how explosions in styles and approaches ( such as rape revenge, extreme gore, animal attacks, satanism, punks!) are often movie makers trying the latest trick to capture the wandering attention span.
A factor in theatrical movies at that time was that what was on screen was things that most audiences could not see on television and could not see in daily mundane life. That is why the fears and atrocities are writ large. Or that is why a film might go to far away places or depict fantasies ...as much as nightmares. I think its a factor people don't think about today with having the internet and an easier broader access to information and images.
I think movie makers chasing trends is still very much at play in the current age. I think chasing the dollar is a main factor today in this field of "communication" as it is in others ---like mainstream news.
!
Movies may have as much to do with advertising than it does with "art". Its a lame fact and is mostly applicable on what plays the chain theaters and what's on the big streaming sites. By advertising i mean the tactics developed to get an idea under people's skin --including using subliminal messaging. Another tactic advertising uses is creating paradoxes in the viewer--puzzles that stay with someone even when they are away from the ad. I'm sure there 's quite a few more tactics but it gets kinda boring contemplating the mind games of oppressors.
I think a deep analysis of film..and much of American/Western European pop culture would benefit from this awareness. That of advertising being one of the unseen hands behind what we regarde in mainstream media
I also want to highlight that much of the products made since the 70's (movies as well as cars etc) are made to be disposable. We are meant to consume it and buy another one shortly after. We eat a Captain Marvel or I Spit on Your Grave and not bother where it goes after we shit it out. That plastic island in the Pacific Ocean will be the museum for the collected works of capitalism (well not the ones we stream at least).
Art has more of a connotation that what is made will speak to future generations in fabulous inspired ways. I think with Hollywood films inspiring a future person in fabulous ways is more of a happy accident than by intent or skill. Though we do get some lasting images from John Carpenter, Kathryn Bigelow, John Waters, David Cronenberg....Lucio Fulci....
.......Paul Verhoeven...Agnes Varda.....
...Jean Luc Godard
Catherine Breillat...Herzog...Wenders.....
......
but those peoples' visions are largely left out of the multiplex version of reality
oh PS ....Fuck the MPAA
This is an excellent analysis of the film, beautiful work!
The only film from this "genre" I will let live, and even _praise,_ is 'Day of the Woman' (alternately titled 'I Spit on Your Grave'). The quick blurb here about Meir Zarchi's entire reason for that film was glanced over, and almost derided. Let's go into more of the details, shall we? He literally saved a woman who was crawling out of the bushes in a New York City park, so brutalized by two men that her jaw was broken. He was with a friend and his daughter, and they dropped his daughter off at home. Zarchi took the woman to a police station and watched them treat her as nothing but a number, questioning her and expecting answers with a broken jaw, showing no empathy or compassion. Zarchi said the officer was "not fit to wear the uniform". He finally snapped and insisted they take her to the hospital. He has said he regretted not having taken her there first, but chose the police station to get the crime and its details reported as soon as possible.
He realized the criminals would never be caught, that they would likely do it again, and that they might never face punishment. HE was so angry and traumatized that he made the film as both a catharsis and to put on full display the horrors of such a filthy crime. He wanted everyone to know, to see, how it really was -- to put in their faces that the act is _brutal,_ that the perpetrators are worthless and often hidden in society, and that the victims are PEOPLE. It was more the experience with the apathy of law enforcement that moved him to make the film than anything. And had he made a gentler movie without graphic depiction, it would have gone unnoticed. Zarchi was not a film director, he did not have hollywood connections, and the film would have had no distribution. At the time, many directors actually used exploitation to break into the industry.
That was also a time period where women were viewed much differently, and the attitude towards r*pe was almost blase. And other films of the time absolutely DID glorify it, and they were movies to which audiences would flock, featured A-list actors and directors, were favorably reviewed, and they were released in cinemas, not grindhouses. What kind of fever did saturday night actually have? I don't think it was the dance moves.
Speaking of time capsules, a cock-work bore should be subjected to everything it depicts, be thrown in a pile of pig shit, have tar thrown on it, and incinerated. The critics at the time called it out for what it was, but somehow it earned the title cult classic. A film from the misogynist pig who abused Shelley Duvall for an entire year? Toss it in the fucking grave with him and let everyone spit on it.
Interestingly, 'Day of the Woman' becoming a "video nasty" DID actually have the effect of shocking audiences into having to admit r*pe existed and was being ignored. It took something in the background and placed it in the foreground under a very stark light. The controversy actually helped the cause.
Every other piece of exploitation bullshit on this list (perhaps ms .45 is an exception, but I haven't seen it) can have done to it what is done to its victims.
(Note: last house on the left was DEPLORED by Wes Craven. He hated that movie, promised himself that he'd never make another one, and when he was basically backed into a corner, he decided to make the perpetrators as non-human as possible, resulting in the hills have eyes. I have to respect Craven for recognizing the film as trash and vowing never to do such a thing again.)
I will admit I haven't watched it and don't plan on it as I don't think I could handle it, but I have read some comments saying that movie wasn't the best and very triggering. In your comment you don't talk about the movie at all but instead the inspiration of the movie. So what in trying to say is: you can defend the intent behind it but there's no need to defend the actual movie. Even if the directors meant well they could have failed at their goal. What did you think of the movie before knowing the directors background? This I say with curiosity, because as I said I have not watched it myself.
I personally think that in the movie revenge they did a great Job with the use of the male Gaze. Because in the first Part of the movie (before the SA) Jenn Was shot with the male Gaze. But afterwarts she wasn't although she didn't wear much clothing.
Great video. I will have to watch Ms. 45 now. Have you seen A Gun for Jennifer? It's very obscure but it's available on youtube. Sorta tangential to the female revenge genre.
Happy Friday ✨
I would argue that we live in a society that is actually more sensitive to sexual content than we used to be. I mean, look at films from the 70s, where nudity was far more casual and commonplace in mainstream films. Nowadays, we have all these reports about how Gen-Z want fewer sex scenes in movies and people insisting such scenes aren't "necessary". There was a 2019 report that said sex in cinema had reached its lowest point since the 60s. With instant access to everything via internet and devices, there are less barriers to a child seeing something sexual than in the days when you had to rent a VHS or buy a naughty magazine, where you just didn't sell to someone underage, so everything is so sterilised in the hopes of not alienating every demographic they're trying to appeal to. A woman can't even wear a crop top or show cleavage without being called 'objectified' - someone pointed out that John Cena presenting nude at the Oscars is comedy, but a woman wouldn't be able to without people crying objectification. Hell, CZcams demonitised a friend of mine for demonstrating jiggle physics in a video. You get people pearl clutching over how characters like Lola Bunny were dressed in the 90s, even though everyone was wearing crop tops then and you wear shorts in basketball, and Lola commands respect immediately by refuting Bugs's attempts to objectify her.
There's no way to control the way an audience reacts to something because people see things in different ways - there are people who view the ass to ass scene in Requiem For A Dream as horrifying, while others strip the context away and use it on porn sites for titillation. Like, Midsommar is quite clearly shot to be horrific but we've seen scores of people insisting that it's a feminist revenge flick. Media can't plant an idea in our head, it can only affirm one that was already there. You can't control the audience but you can at least make sure the performers are taken care of - Camille Keaton was during filming of I Spit On Your Grave at least, with the male actors offering to appear nude to show solidarity with her, and she would only perform a certain direction if Meir Zarchi first stripped to his underwear and did it first to demonstrate it. Gina Ravera by contrast was traumatised filming her scene in Showgirls and she can't bring herself to watch the film. James Marsters likewise was so shaken filming Spike's attempted SA of Buffy that he had it written into his contract that he would never perform such a scene again. I'm an actor myself and when writing a script for someone else the topic of such a scene came up and since I'd be starring in it I wrote it happening to my character because I didn't like the idea of asking anyone else to perform a scene like that (I've been SA'd myself and the idea of performing such scenes never worried me weirdly enough, plus I know how to advocate for myself). The film never got made though.
A key thing to note about I Spit On Your Grave was not just that Meir Zarchi was inspired after encountering a victim in New York. It was the experience of taking her to the police to report it. They went to the police first before going to the hospital, feeling it would be better to report it in case the attackers found more victims, and he was shocked at how dismissive the police were (the woman's jaw had been broken and she could barely speak). So the story was born from the first hand experience that even someone with visual evidence would be treated so poorly and be unlikely to get justice, so he created a scenario where the woman gets justice on her own. And we should remind ourselves that Hollywood films didn't examine this kind of subject matter at the time, and The Accused in 1988 was the first one to properly centre it as part of the story, so the purpose of the graphic scene was to shine a light on the reality. And in the film, the scene is shot to be horrific and I don't find it voyeuristic at all, and the audience from the beginning is told to identify with Jennifer; they're put in her perspective, and the narrative never tries to justify it or say in any way that she 'deserved it'. The choice to have her in a bikini when it happens sets up Johnny trying to justify it later, saying "you were like bait" to show how full of shit he is, and that wouldn't have been an uncommon viewpoint at the time - The Accused has a scene where Katherine tells Sarah that on the stand she's going to be asked about all sorts of things that might have her pegged as a 'bad' victim. A lot of this context is ignored whenever the film is talked about.
TL;DR - it's like the video title says. Extremely complicated
I think a lot of SA Revenge movies exist in this space that movies often go to, where they want to show the assumed male audience something they want to see-- women being r-ed or tortured or suffering-- and also take the audience back from the emotional risk of watching that by couching the experience in a narrative that punishes the transgressors of the moral code. It's a have your cake and eat it to scenario. Enjoy watching this woman be raped, and then have your moral discomfort at yourself eased by watching the "responsible party" be punished for the act (of course, the audience is really responsible-- it's our desires the have caused the scene to occur). In this way, "we" (the assumed male audience, but tbh, many women also enjoy these films having been raised in this culture that tells of suffering is inherently feminine and ideal) get to enjoy watching something transgressive, something we know we're not supposed to see and enjoy, but are then comforted and excused from having to consider ourselves and our complicity for watching by couching the event in a punishing narrative that safety morally condemns the criminals before the end.
As for directors saying they are "Accurately" portraying these scenes, I think that's total nonsense. Most SA involves partners and family members, stranger r occurs but it's super uncommon in the grand scheme of things. They want to portray it because they enjoy it, not to shed light on women's suffering.
I would really like to see your take on The Tracey Fragments!!!! It’s such and underrated gem 🙌🏻
Ms 45!!!!! Someone actually remembers that 🔥🔥
Wow. I havent heard of this film, guess Ill be renting it this week. TY
I hadn't heard of Ms 45, I will definitely watch it!
I agree that I spit on your graves etc. is just porn, aimed at men.
My favorite rape revenge movies are:
Jagdveld/Hunting Emma
Even Lambs Have Teeth (at the beginning Kathy does NOT take the pill. She does not bow to peer pressure).
Blackway, with the excellent Anthony Hopkins.
3:01
Ultimately for me, film is art and art comes from an artist and (at least usually, I will acknowledge nowadays the film industry’s been short to nonexistent) that artist is trying to portray something with the intentional graphic and uncomfortable shots and ties together the individual films message. Art will always be cut out of context whether it’s nude portraits or graphic scenes in movies or a clip from CZcamsr or worse yet, some child’s actual tik tok but that happens too so I don’t think we should censor art because it makes people uncomfortable, especially if thats the goal. I do believe *someone* sees it and it evokes change and if it does with just one person that’s successful to me. Someone who sees it and does the opposite was always troubled and was always gonna see something to make them snap
* also artist make art to be seen and most of them are troubled making troubled work and that’s usually what makes it so good when it’s impactful. Part of the problem with todays media is that its not coming from artists cause the art field is trash to be in right now but I digress
Babe wake up, antiheroines posted a new video.
the camera work should be from a womans pov imo. the fear, the dark figure followwing you etc etc, that is what should be followed, not the abuser.
Am I surprised men cheered about the rape scene? No, they literally cheered about a woman getting hitbwuth a brick fir saying no. But as usual I'm disappointed.
the miss .45 poster seems more tasteful to me. the text saying "it will never happen again" next to her butt cheeks out gives a different vibe. one like. "this conviction i have is so strong i dare not feel shame about my naked body, i will do it naked if i have to." type of way. like claymore.
Please make another video soon 😭😭😭I love all your work 😭😭😭😭💖💖💖
your videos are a masterpiece as always💌
Another great movie beside Ms. 45 is Baise-Moi, which also adds the intersection of women's violence, age an racial diversity and sex work.
The problem with this type of movie is also that the aggressor is invariably depicted as some unknown, scary stranger. While this type of crime happens, more often than not women are attacked by people they know, be it partners, friends or even family members, and I feel the r&revenge typical plot helps obscuring this, giving the average male viewer free pass for direspecting the consent of the women in his lives - at least, they're not that bad as these boogeymen...
Ugh. Such a good movie. I remembered watching a bang bang fan made video of Madonna’s song with this movie clips and then I went right to watched it and it was amazing
Another brilliant video!
My take is that these movies are (mostly) done tactlessly, without any real intent to condemn but rather to titillate. And hence I try to avoid this genre
As a victim of SA which has left me with complex PTSD that director can F off. Men know SA happens, they don’t need to see it. (And yes men can also be victims too). Those scenes are for men, not women. If that wasn’t the case, the camera wouldn’t focus on her face the same way it does in a consenting sex scene.
brutal by marilou diaz-abaya is another great and literally brutal movie on this genre. it was cathartic, especially since i was a victim of SA & r-word. i still can't stomach a rewatch though.
Another master piece. Thank you for your content
Great video. Ms. 45 and Promising Young Woman are one of the few R&R movies I like. I'm curious about your take on a another female helmed work in the genre: Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale. You have a new subscriber.
i remember the time when i tought i spit on your grave was a female gaze feminist female revenge horror movie...... all those remakes traumatized me and i wont get over it anytime soon. and dont get me started on megan is missing, ill never forget that sick shit, getting scared just thinkin about it
I'd say it's a problem society always had and directors simply monetized on it. I have seen women express discomfort in reporting sa'd to men at the police station due to "unnecessary questions" sort of a mocking or a sexualization of their attack. When we think about it: when survivors of sa'd had been taken seriously?
Ehm, Thana is short from the female version of Immortal in greek lol, they just tend to remove the prefix A to make it shorter and easier to pronounce (which sucks)
I'd love to see your comments on martyrs, because I don't get this kind of movie.
Excellent channel, btw!
Excellent analysis of Ms. 45.
rewatched this video again while working on a painting of thana ❤️
Another video with a timely topic! Keep making new videos!
Also, watching you and Final Girl Studios has been expanding not only my views on various social issues regarding feminism, cinema, gender based studies and issues, femininity and womanhood, but also my artistic creativity (and that coinciding with my faith growth and mental health recovery journey). I'm an aspiring songwriter and poet/poetry writer and recently I got a couple ideas for a couple of poetry books; one of them, Strain, deals with my mental illnesses (particularly C-PTSD, BPD, bipolar, OCD, DID/OSDD) and both my individual traumas and intergenerational traumas in my family both inherited and circumstantially, as well as historically, culturally and universally in context with black trauma and Native/indigenous American trauma, and then both black and indigenous trauma and history intersecting especially with Afro-indigenous biracial and intercultural identity. Interestingly enough, the title came about because not only is strain a word for tension, but also a synonym for family, ancestry, blood, bloodline, dynasty, roots, lineage or kindred. And I figured that due to the subject matter of intergenerational trauma and family dysfunction, that titling this book Strain would be like a good double entendre. There's gonna be elements of horror but like a slow burn high brow horror with southern gothic, black southern gothic and black midwestern gothic.
And then the second book of poems, Feminae, mostly deals with my C-PTSD and trauma based gynophobia and chronic, intense fear and dread of women stemming from my mom and I's complicated relationship and my mental and emotional scars from that compounded by my religious trauma and trauma at the hands of other women over the years, and this has elements of exploring various darker aspects and facets of femininity, particularly monstrous femininity, which in turn tips into horror themes with additional elements of folk horror, psychological horror, gothic horror and southern gothic and midwestern gothic, especially black southern gothic and black midwest gothic too.
I know that this was a very long ramble of a comment but I said all this to say that your channel certainly rubbed off on me lol.
Ms. 45 is a masterpiece.
Personally love Ms. 45 - as someone with autism for a disability who has actually met victims of SA and have even read articles about autistics who have also been SA victims, mostly because they are far too often easy to pick on by neurotypicals who should know better, I can definitely relate to Thana.
Going off at a tangent, is this a good time to mention that the poster for the original 1978 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE featured the backside of 17 year-old Demi Moore before she became famous?
i think its funny the guy used clockwork orange when that movie completely goes against what hes saying
5:40 the problem is that in doing the commentary she also put real kids in this situation, quite literally exploiting them.
I absolutely enjoyed ms 45 zoe lund was brilliant in the film she truly was a gifted woman it's sad she died I love watching revenge films because they help me cope with my own trauma of being sexually abused when I was a child
I love this channel so much
The conclusion you got from Thana's ending truly scares me. Reminds me of men who unironically agree with the actions taken by Travis in Taxi Driver. Or people who took fight club way too literally. I think this whole genre is quite morally grotesque and is no better than the macho action films of the 80s. I truly hate this western idea that we push so much media that promotes so much violence. And encourages us to be judge jury and executioner.
Sure it's an empowering, feel good movie and some people like that. But a revenge film that features no in depth retrospection in my opinion serves no other purpose than for people to live out a morally dubious fantasy. No cultural importance or emotional growth whatsoever. I really think this genre has stayed in its infancy for too long and I'm ready to see it mature.