Suffragette Review [London Film Festival 2015]

Less than 100 years after all adult women in the UK were finally granted the vote, a film about the struggle to gain that basic democratic right emerges. With a dream team of female talent in front of and behind the camera, Sarah Gavron's Suffragette is a gripping start, but it becomes clear that there is far more of this true story of tremendous sacrifice left to be told.

Suffragette makes the interesting decision to follow fictional character Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) from washer woman and poverty-stricken working mother to militant suffragette engaged in escalating actions against the government. To the detriment of her own family life, she joins Edith Ellyn’s (Helena Bonham Carter) group of East London women who are spurred on by the currently in-hiding Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep). As Inspector Steed (Brendon Gleeson) keeps a close eye on the women, their civil disobedience becomes more volatile and threatens to land them all in prison.

To a young audience raised in a world increasingly full of strong women who may never have even questioned their right to vote, the suffragette's struggle looks at once completely ludicrous, and at the same time teeth-grindingly infuriating. How dare men decide that women didn't deserve the vote? It’s an unimaginable situation that seems preposterous, but is still sadly relevant. The closing crawl of the film indicates the year that women got the vote in other countries of the world, and unbelievably the UK was far from the most recent.

Suffragette sits neatly alongside 12 Years a Slave as a document of the Western world's recent history where depressing barbarity was carried out in the name of old white men who were desperate to never let any power slip from their hands. The working class washer women in Suffragette are little more than slaves, being paid far less and working longer hours than their male counterparts. Those that speak out against the unfairness of the system are beaten, threatened, humiliated, ridiculed and made to feel ashamed.

And this is where the true tragedy of Suffragette lies. Because while it covers the famous incident involving Emily Davison's brave sacrifice involving the King's horse, it's really the story of ordinary women engaged in everyday action. Even Streep's Pankhurst only appears for a single scene, though her inspiration and influence is felt throughout. Maud sacrifices so much for the cause, including her beloved son and her job, and it is this tension between doing what she wants (to see her son) and what she must do (make the world a better place for future generations of women) that is so heart-wrenching.

Suffragette feels just as relevant today as it would have been in 1912. Women are abused, belittled and laughed at by men. But they also face the impossibly difficult choice of often wanting to manage a family with a desire to do something potentially more fulfilling outside of the home. It's a choice which Suffragette pointedly shows a single father tragically failing to consider. It also deals with the notion of what is basically terrorist action, as the women have become fed up with not being listened to, and decide on a policy of non-violent but destructive disobedience. In its mentions of police surveillance and brutality, and the media's tendency to ridicule those who threaten the status quo, Suffragette constantly reminds of none-more-contemporary issues.

For a period drama, Suffragette feels righteous and urgent in its fury. The performances are uniformly excellent, particularly Mulligan and Anne-Marie Duff, while Gavron's direction is best when highlighting the horrors of hard labour in the laundry and more so, the barbarity of the women's treatment during prison stints. It’s a shame not to learn more about Emily Davison as she plays such a fundamental role in the climax, but Suffragette's focus on the fictional Maud makes for an incredibly emotive journey.

Suffragette is a vital film, but feels like a strong start, rather than the definitive suffragette movie. More films on this movement would be most welcome, and for those dumb enough to think feminism is a dirty word; this is a timely reminder of its fundamental potential.

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Testament of Youth Review

Vera Brittain fights the repressive attitudes of pre-WW1 British society, including her parents who argue that she should not be going to university to study, but instead concentrating her efforts on finding a decent man to marry. She is a bright, determined young woman who gains entry to Oxford just as she falls for a man on the eve of the First World War. Brittain is forced into making the difficult decision of abandoning her studies that she worked so hard for, in order to support the man she loves and her only brother who have gone to fight at the front in France.

Based on Brittain’s memoir of her experiences during the war, Testament of Youth is an incredibly potent anti-war film where very little fighting is actually glimpsed. Forget those ‘war is hell’ movies that dwell on the blood, guts and gory glory, Brittain’s story swims in the waters of the women like Vera who were left at home to pick up the pieces. A traumatised, devastated generation were born out of the trenches and while the men leaped at the chance to fight for their country, the women who made incredible sacrifices and nursed the wounded both at home and at the front are undoubtedly just as heroic.

Alicia Vikander, so impressive in Ex Machina (also out in January), delivers a heart breaking performance as Brittain. From driven young woman to tragic heroine to fierce pacifist, Brittain endures incredible hardship and Vikander never puts a foot wrong even with the camera clamped to frequent close ups on her face. Kit Harington is also striking, making a decent break from his best known role in Game of Thrones, and the rest of the supporting cast, including Taron Egerton, Miranda Richardson and Dominic West also get effective moments to shine.

It’s a shame that the real story is not considered emotional enough, without going for a couple of clichés like having a tragedy occurring on a wedding day. Nevertheless, this is an incredibly moving story, driven by a brilliant performance from Vikander and a vital message that still resonates tragically today.

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Fight Club, Feminism and Misogyny: A2 Film Studies Exam Answer

It's that time of year again when the A2 Film Studies exams are nearly upon us. As usual I'm doing lots of revision with my students and also practicing exam answers. Here is one I wrote on Fight Club and whether the film could be considered misogynist or not.

'Marla is at the root of it’, says Jack in Fight Club.  Discuss what this statement says about the film as a whole.

When Fight Club’s narrator Jack begins to tell his story, he believes that it all starts with how he came to meet and begin a complex relationship with a woman named Marla Singer. Played by Helena Bonham Carter, Marla is a gothic looking, free spirited, depressed and deviant woman who spends her time in support meetings for people with serious illnesses. Jack blames Marla for much that is wrong with his life and many have suggested that this makes the film misogynistic. However, it is far from that simple.

 In Fight Club, the protagonist who the audience is encouraged to identify with at first seems to hate Marla. She ruins everything for him once he finds that he can cry when in support groups and that this allows him to sleep at night. He calls her a ‘bitch’, a ‘tumour’ and finds her presence threatening and annoying. The viewer learns this through Jack’s voiceover and so audiences are encouraged to identify with his feelings of hatred. The fact she is dressed all in black, smokes constantly and steals clothes from launderettes also makes her appear to be a negative character, very similar to the femme fatale figure of film noir who often lures the male protagonist to his death. Later in the film, Jack treats Marla terribly, often being rude to her and trying to get her to leave his house. This is made all the more offensive to audiences when they learn the twist in the story and that Jack is actually having sex with Marla before sending her on her way.

 On the other hand the film could also be seen to be about men needing to mature in order to have a healthy and loving relationship with another person. Jack is like a baby when we first meet him, nursing at the giant breasts of a man who has had his testicles removed and now resembles a mother figure. Jack cannot deal with the fact he may like Marla and so creates an uber-masculine alter-ego who treats women poorly and distances them from him. The end of the film sees Jack rejecting Tyler and accepting Marla as an equal and potential partner when the pair hold hands to watch the destruction of credit card company buildings. This shows that by the end of the film, Marla is a source of happiness for the protagonist and after reverting to being a baby then acting like a rebellious teen with Tyler, Jack is now mature and ready for a grown-up relationship with a woman.

 Fight Club could be also be read as a film that attacks the feminisation and emasculation of men in modern society. While Marla is not a very ‘feminine’ woman, it could be argued that Jack has been feminised by his job and the commercial culture he lives in. He is a consumer who loves nothing more than buying from the IKEA catalogue and satisfying his nesting instinct. He has never been in a fight, hunted for his food and never had a father figure around to teach him to be a traditional man. The film answers this problem by giving Jack his alter-ego Tyler Durden who is fearless and tough, rejects advertising and material possessions and uses women only for his sexual desire. Tyler wants to return to a vision of the past where men were hunters and did not have to go to work and be treated poorly by bosses for low incomes that allowed them to buy comforts such as duvets. It could even be argued that Marla finds the masculine Tyler side of the protagonist more sexually attractive than the more feminine Jack side.

 While the statement ‘Marla is at the root of it’ suggests she is a major character, women in Fight Club are barely present and could be seen to be ignored or dismissed in the narrative. They do not participate in the fight clubs or Project Mayhem and Marla and Chloe are the only named female characters. Women are either not invited or do not want to attend fight clubs and we learn little of Marla during the course of the film. Chloe is a cancer sufferer and is made a bit of a joke out of as she wants to just have sex one more time before dying. Both Marla and Chloe are tied to the idea of sex and although Marla seems quite strong and fearless in many ways, she also keeps returning to a man who treats her incredibly poorly.

On the other hand the men in the film are also very negatively represented and actually Tyler appears to be the main cause of problems for Jack in Fight Club. The men in the film are at first seen as whimpering support group attending victims. They cry and hug and many have literally lost their testicles. The men who join the fight clubs and are later sucked in to Project Mayhem are easily lead followers. They become like a cult, never thinking or questioning anything they are told. They are silenced by Tyler and become terrorists and moronic. Tyler becomes increasingly thuggish and dangerous until Jack if forced to fight and then kill him. Even though women are negatively represented in Fight Club, Marla appears to be the sanest person in the film by the end.

Marla is indeed at the root of Fight Club but she is not the cause of all Jack’s problems as he originally suggests. When he meets Marla, his psyche splits and in order to deal with the fear of falling in love, Jack creates Tyler in order for him to become a mature man. The film ends with the protagonist rejecting the macho rebellion of Tyler and accepting Marla as a source of love and affection. Marla is at the root of his salvation and the film is therefore neither as misogynistic nor radical as some have suggested.

Gender Politics and Hip Hop Culture in African American Cinema of the 90s

The representation of gender politics in 1990s African-American cinema has been hugely influenced by Hip Hop culture in many ways. S. Craig Watkins (1998) argues the producers of rap music have attempted to bring up to date the representations of poor, black youth and ‘filmmakers have likewise waged a similar struggle’ (Watkins, 1998, p.198). With reference to Boyz N the Hood (Singleton, 1992, USA) and male rap, and Set It Off (Grey, 1997, USA) and female and male rap, my argument is that Hip Hop has had a generally negative effect on gender politics in these films.  However I will also argue that this is a result of commercial pressures on black filmmakers and that nevertheless, some male and female rappers often influence the gender politics of these films in positive ways.

Hip Hop culture has most directly influenced the soundtrack and stars of African-American cinema in the 1990s.  Gender politics play a large part in the lyrics and construction of stars in Hip Hop music, and therefore play a large part in how they are represented in film.  Set it Off features Hip Hop star Queen Latifah, who ‘positions herself as part of a rich legacy of black women’s activism’ (Rose, 1994, p.162), as a lesbian bank robber.  She is represented as being angry with black females, particularly in the scenes where she argues with her friends over their complacency at the unfair situation they are in.  This representation of black females as active and independent, yet trapped, is influenced by Latifah’s own music.  For example her song ‘Set It Off’, for the soundtrack of the film includes lyrics like ‘nothing to lose…back to the wall…situations I been in, got me capable of sinning’.

Equally the casting of rappers Ice Cube in Boyz N the Hood and Dr Dre in Set it Off show the clear influence of Hip Hop on these films’ gender politics.  Dr Dre’s character is the provider of guns which indicates his power over the community and fits with his star persona.  The women in Set It Off need his help, even Latifah, who is clearly independent and submissive to no man, must ask for his help.  Much like female rap stars, the female characters in the film require support from, and therefore are dominated by rap star Dre.  Ice Cube in Boyz N the Hood clearly represents the misogyny that is obvious in much of his music, his lyrics suggesting ‘that state authority figures and black women are similarly responsible for black male disempowerment and oppression’ (Rose, 1994, p.149) and whose influence on the narrative and themes is therefore clear.  Throughout the film his character puts women down, no doubt due to the welfare mothers he encounters, represented as lazy, drug addicted, uncaring single parents that need a man in their lives. 

However Ice Cube and Hip Hop did not begin the trend of misogyny in some black music.  Ward (1998) notes that towards the end of the of the black power era, artists such as Clarence Reid who previously showed sensitivity and insight on issues of gender politics, had turned to X-rated comedy music that could be seen as ‘helping to perpetuate or legitimise destructive sexist attitudes within their communities’ (Ward, 1998, p.380).  The reason for the representation of women in Hip Hop and African-American cinema is clear from Ward’s next line, ‘What mattered was this stuff sold’ (Ward, 1998, p.380).

Also Hip Hop has had a huge influence on the narratives and themes of the ghetto action film cycle and therefore on the representation of gender politics within these narratives.  Watkins argues ‘the representation of the urban ghetto as a site of repression and entrapment’ (Watkins, 1998, p.212) is a recurring theme in these films.  In Set it Off this is applied to black females who are repressed by white men and black men and trapped by poverty.  The representation of gender politics and the influence of female rap are clear from the first scenes of the film.  Frankie is fired from her job at the bank for knowing a bank robber, indicating her repression by black men (the robber) and white men (the bank manager and detective).  The following scenes with Luther, the other women’s boss, indicate the female characters’ repression by black male employees and entrapment because Tisean is forced to work for enough money just to be able to afford a babysitter. 

On the other hand Boyz N the Hood is influenced more by male rappers, ‘a forum…that says ‘Be a father to your child’’ (Baker, 1999, p.415), in its representation of gender politics in the narrative and themes.   The character Doughboy is seen as being trapped because of a bad upbringing by a single mother.  He is taken to prison at a young age as his mother flicks her cigarette to indicate her neglect and uncaring attitude toward him.  Tre is brought up by a good strong father, however, and eventually breaks free of the hoods entrapment.  Women in the film are seen as bad mothers, either unemployed and drug addicted, or studying and employed as in the case of Tre’s mother, yet both types are unable to discipline and teach their sons to be men.  Tre moves to his father’s house, learns his responsibilities as a man and ends up at college.  Therefore Watkins (1998, p.222) argues:

Boyz reaffirms the idea that single-parent fathering leads to successful child development…while single-parent mothering…leads to unsuccessful child development. 

However patriarchy is also upheld to some extent in Set it Off, influenced by female rap, whose ‘lyrics sometimes affirm patriarchal notions’ (Rose, 1994, p.148).  The character of Stony uses her boyfriend at the bank, and sells herself to patriarchal values through her new dress he buys her.  Soon after the couple become lovers.  Rose argues of female rap, ‘Women are taking advantage of the logic of heterosexual courtship in which men coax women into submission with trinkets’ (Rose, 1994).   The narrative of Set It Off ends ambiguously, on one hand Stony, who is the only one of the four women to survive, is also the only one to have a heterosexual relationship during the film.  The other three, career girl, single mother, and lesbian all die, indicating the need for heterosexual relationships in order for black women to survive.  On the other hand Stony is on her own at the end of the film showing her to be independent because of her friends’ who represent black women’s, sacrifices.

Rose (1994) also argues that much Hip Hop by both men and women show signs of mistrust of the opposite sex.  Both films can be seen as being influenced by ‘women’s raps that often display fears of loss of control and betrayal at the hands of men’ (Rose, 1994, p.171).  In Boyz N the Hood, a scene where Tre argues with his girlfriend, Brandi, about having sex clearly shows the feminist perspective.  Brandi criticises Tre for wanting sex but not marriage and tells him ‘Don’t touch me’.  However they then have sex suggesting a woman is right to share her views, but preferably not deny sex.  Similarly in Set It Off, Stony is forced into prostitution to get money from a businessman, cash she desperately needs but cannot get any other way except by succumbing to the demands of the male.

The iconography and elements of the mise-en-scene are influenced by Hip hop culture in their representation of gender politics in Boyz N the Hood, and in Set It Off where they are used to empower women to some extent and challenge typical gender roles in Hip Hop culture.  Gangster film iconography, primarily guns and cars, have always been shown in hip hop music and as a result in the ghetto film cycle too, mainly in relation to men.  However in Set It Off, it is mainly the women who have the control of guns and cars.  This shows the influence of rap as ‘black female rap videos share a visual and lyrical universe with male rapper’s work’ (Rose, 1994, p.166).  Similarly the characters in each film share a visual universe where men and women hang out on the streets in their cars, carry guns, and use drugs.

However it can also be argued that African-American cinema has had poor representations of gender politics before Hip Hop emerged.  Ward (1998) describes the blaxploitation films of the 1970s as often showing ‘images of cool black studs for whom sexual conquest of the…beauties draped around the set like so many props was a powerful means of self-affirmation’ (Ward, 1998, p.375).  This would seem to indicate not only poor representations of gender relations between blacks in African-American cinema before the arrival of Hip-Hop, but also that blaxploitation actually influenced modern Hip-Hop a great deal, as confirmed by Tupac Shakur’s mother in the documentary, ‘Baaaadasssss Cinema’.

Nevertheless, in conclusion I believe Hip Hop has influenced African-American cinema’s representation of gender politics and generally not in a good way.  However I think that this is largely due to the pressures that black rap artists and filmmakers are under to appeal to the demands of the mass audiences as Watkins (1998) suggests.  ‘Blackness has been trapped in expressions of the primitive, the physical body, violence’ (Guerrero, 1998, p.334) and this is what Hollywood and audiences want judging from the success of Boyz N the Hood and Set It Off.

Read more:

Baker, H. (1999) “You cain’t trus’it”: expert witnessing in the case of rap In: Carbado, D. (ed.) Black men on race, gender and sexuality: a critical reader. New York and London. New York University Press.

Guerrero, E. (1998) A circus of dreams and lies: the black film at middle age In: Lewis, J. (ed.) The new American cinema. Durham and London. Duke University Press.

hooks, b. (1993) The oppositional gaze: black female spectators In: Diawara, M. (ed.) Black American cinema. London. Routledge.

Rose, T. (1994) Black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Middletown, Conneticut. Wesleyan University Press.

Ward, B. (1998) Just my soul responding. London. UCL Press.

Watkins, S. (1998) Representing: Hip Hop culture and the production of black cinema. Chicago and London. University of Chicago Press.

The Femme Castratrice in Horror

 Digging through my old university essays, I came across this very psychoanalytic essay on rape-revenge films. This means I had to not only watch I Spit on Your Grave but actually repeatedly view some scenes in order to analyse it. No wonder my head was messed up through my university days after watching this sick stuff. Anyway if you are interested in psychoanalytic readings of films or a vaguely feminist reading of the horror films that feature women characters as the 'femme castratrice' (or castrating woman), then this is essay is for you.

If you are interested in what else I did in my film studies degree then check out this essay on Black sexuality in buddy cop movies of the 80s.

There are many implications of the femme castratrice or ‘castrating woman’ for the analysis of women’s role in horror, particularly from a feminist and psychoanalytic approach.  Creed says the femme castratrice ‘assumes two forms: the castrating female psychotic…and the woman who seeks revenge on men who have raped or abused her’ (Creed, 1993, p.123).  I would argue that the rape-revenge films in which the femme castratrice appears are misogynistic despite creating empathy for the female protagonist.  Films such as I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) contain sickening sights of violence and rape against a woman, the femme castratrice.  She is represented as monstrous, a seducing witch that confirms castration anxieties whereas on the other hand slasher films such as Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) are more problematic as they show the femme castratrice as the perhaps more empowering ‘final girl’, but also often as the psychotic killer.  

The femme castratrice, Jennifer, in the rape-revenge film I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) is constructed as monstrous to an extent.  Creed argues ‘the scenes in which Jennifer carries out her revenge are deliberately eroticised.  Woman is monstrous because she castrates, or kills, the male during coition’ (Creed, 1993, p129).  The film has three scenes of violence against the male bodies of the rapists.  One rapist, Matthew, a mildly retarded man, is hung after Jennifer lures him into the woods, reveals her naked body to him and allows him to have sex with her.  Matthew is symbolically castrated when Jennifer gets onto her knees and undoes his trousers.  This causes him to drop to his knees and drop his knife and therefore relinquish his phallic power.  Jennifer also uses a gun to make her next victim strip, therefore demonstrating that she has phallic power.  After massaging and washing him, Jennifer literally castrates the rapist with a knife.  The femme castratrice is presented as monstrous as ‘woman, pleasure and death are intimately related in these scenes’ (Creed, 1993, p.129).

Furthermore it can be argued that the film constructs the femme castratrice as a witch figure.  Creed also suggests in her book that the ‘central reason for the persecution of witches was morbid interest in the witch as ‘other’ and a fear of the witch/woman as an agent of castration’ (Creed, 1993, p.74).  In I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978), Jennifer is transformed into an agent of castration after recovering from the rapes.  She wears flowing robes and seduces the men before killing them.  The rapists persecute Jennifer because of their fear of her apparently castrated body when they see her in her bikini.  She is held down by three men during the assaults showing how threatening she is to them and after the assaults she becomes a silent, menacing figure.  Similarly in another film with rape as its subject, The Accused (Kaplan, 1988), the girl seems to cast a spell on the men around her while dancing provocatively.  She is then raped and symbolically castrates the men by taking away their freedom and appearing with a newly shortened and less feminine haircut.  Peter Lehman argues ‘the women in these films are nearly always beautiful’ (Lehman, 1993, p104), which confirms as Russell suggested that the ‘witch is essentially a male creation, a product of male fears’ (Russell, 1996:121).  Jennifer lying in her boat in her bikini is a threat to the men in their phallic speedboat.  Matthew even thinks Jennifer is cursed as he says ‘you’ve brought nothing but bad luck with you’.  A review of The Accused quoted in Jacinda Read’s essay on the rape-revenge film states the victim’s ‘blatant sexiness is a challenge, which they’, the men, ‘can only extinguish by humiliating and hurting her’ (Walters, 1989: 32). 

However it can also be argued the film is not representing the woman as monstrous.  Peter Lehman argues ‘the male spectators are positioned to be disgusted by the rape and to identify with the avenging woman’ (Lehman, 1993, p.104).  This is true in that the narrative belongs to the woman.  When the men arrive in their boat they are disruptive of Jennifer’s peace and animal-like in their behaviour, hunting in packs and seemingly communicating like monkeys.  During the rape the viewer identifies with Jennifer because we see her face in close-up as well as having close-ups of the rapist's face as he forces himself onto her.  Clover also justifies the actions of the femme castratrice in the film when she says ‘all phallic symbols are not equal, and a hands-on knifing answers a hands-on rape in a way that a shooting…does not’ (Clover, 1996, p.79).  The scene in I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) where Jennifer forces one of the men to strip at gunpoint emphasises the viewers’ and Jennifer’s need for a harsher punishment as afterwards it is revealed he believes the rape is her fault because he’s ‘just a man’.  Unlike Matthew, this rapist is unapologetic and constructed as a monstrous, cheating and ultimately castrated victim.

Similarly it can be argued that the men in the film lack any phallic power except in the rape scenes.  Jennifer is active, assuming the masculine position in the narrative except during the rape scenes.  It is her who moves to the country, it is her who is writing a book and it is her that takes revenge.  The men are already castrated; their scenes do not drive the narrative, except when they rape Jennifer.  Vera Dika argues of stalker films, ‘the victims…occupy a ‘feminine position because their narrative and cinematic enfeeblement has rendered them functionally ‘castrated’’ (Dika, p.90).  The male victims of I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978), fish, play with knives, and hang around their friend’s house until they are told to leave by their friend’s wife.  They are the same as the stalker film victims, ‘deemed guilty, sexually investigated, and then brutally punished’ (Dika, p.90).

The femme castratrice can also be seen as a way of representing woman as psychotic, ‘a borderline personality, her normal exterior hiding a demented female fury’ (Creed, 1993, p.137).  This is clear in I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) as Jennifer appears normal in the first half of the film and then after the rape becomes a relatively silent, unforgiving killing machine.  She sits and listens to operatic music calmly as the castrated man in the bathroom bleeds and screams himself to death.  However the woman as psychotic castrator is clearer in horror films such as Sisters (De Palma, 1973) where one half of siamese twin sisters are invaded by the dead other half.  This shows woman as unconsciously psychotic, ‘woman’s nature is represented as deceptive and unknowable’(Creed, 1993,p.136), a point further demonstrated in I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) by Jennifer’s methods of seducing the men, even letting them share seemingly intimate moments with her before castrating and killing them.  

The rape-revenge film and femme castratrice can also be argued to reduce women’s role in horror to victim and psychotic.  Rape is used as a narrative device to begin a semi-pornographic slasher film. Peter Lehman suggests ‘the gang rape lends itself well to the narrative demands… since the avenging woman hunts the men down’ (Lehman, 1993, p107).  One after the other Jennifer stalks and kills the men, paralleling the killer in slasher films such as Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980).  The rape is merely an event to begin the killing spree, as Dika suggests of the slasher film, ‘it is always presented with a two-part temporal structure.  The first part…presents an event…the killer is driven to madness’ (Dika, p.93).  In I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978), this is up until Jennifer is raped, admittedly longer than most slasher films first parts.  Dika argues the second part is when the killer takes revenge, as Jennifer does in a brutal yet often sexual way.  Therefore it can be argued the femme castratrice is a tormented woman role, and the rape-revenge film’s narrative emphasises the torment of the killer more than in slasher films.  However this it could be argued is to create more empathy with the killer.

Other films such as Fatal Attraction (Lyne, 1987) represent the psychotic woman as femme castratrice because she is castrated.  Charles Derry argues ‘the recent horror-of-personality films seem to reflect…a disturbing hostility toward women, which seems a direct response to the feminist movement’ (Derry, p165).  The femme castratrice slits her wrists early in the film as well as cutting her leg with a knife in the final scene of the film, perhaps indicating her desire to be castrated and therefore dependent on a man and ‘the name of the father’.  The character becomes psychotic after she exposes her bleeding wounds and can be seen as wanting to give up her independence, as showing herself to be castrated, in order to encourage the male character to give up his wife and child and therefore symbolically castrate him.  Her ‘desire to castrate man is related directly to her own earlier mutilation, separation and the death of her active self’ (Creed, 1993, p.136).  She is a psychotic femme castratrice that the viewer is not encouraged to identify with, an independent woman who becomes dependent on a man who cannot control his phallus, and yet can control the phallicised femme castratrice when she attacks him with a knife.

The femme castratrice is also an association of the slasher film, a genre that is a clear descendent of the rape-revenge film.  Woman is portrayed as psychotic when the slasher is female, for example in Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980).  The killer, Mrs Vorhees, penetrates a man with a knife in the neck and opens a woman’s neck with a knife.   However much like Jennifer in I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978), the female killer is to an extent, rendered sympathetic as her ‘anger derives…from specific moments in their adult lives in which they have been abandoned or cheated on by men’ (Clover, 1996, p.77).  The femme castratrice in both films kill because of trauma in their past, in I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) because of being raped by men, and in Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) because of men and women abandoning the killers son, causing him to die.

However the role of women in slasher films is rarely the killer so the femme castratrice is usually the ‘final girl’ as Clover theorises, ‘films following Halloween present Final Girls who not only fight back but do so with ferocity and even kill the killer on their own’.  In Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980), Alice is the final girl and her revenge on the killer is in no way eroticised as in the rape-revenge film, representing woman less as monstrous castrator.  Final girls are independent and show signs of masculinity and of needing men less than other women, sexually or otherwise, ‘her smartness, gravity, competence in mechanical and other practical matters, and sexual reluctance set her apart’ (Clover, 1996, p.84).  Alice is a femme castratrice as she symbolically castrates the killer by chopping her head off.  This eliminates the phallic power of Mrs Vorhees who carries a knife and holds the gaze of the victims.  In such films the femme castratrice is the heroine, but whereas in slasher films ‘the heroine survives not only by her ability to see the evil, but also by her ability to use violence’ (Dika, p.99), in the rape-revenge film, Jennifer is unable to see or use violence until it is too late and she has been horrifically assaulted.  In Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) the final girl sees the bodies of her friends, and dispatches the killer by symbolically castrating her. 

The implications of the femme castratrice are still clear in modern slasher films such as ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ (Nispel, 2003) in which the final girl, who screams a lot less than her predecessors, symbolically castrates the killer by cutting his chainsaw-wielding arm off.  Similarly modern rape-revenge films such as ‘Monster’ (Jenkins, 2004) and ‘Irreversible’ (Noe, 2003) show women less as seductive monster and more as psychotic killer or sympathetic victim.  The similarities between the slasher film and the rape-revenge film are obvious from the writings of many theorists, particularly Creed, Clover, and Dika.  The femme castratrice is associated with both genres and as a result the role of women in these horror films has changed over time, remaining generally fairly negative.  However I feel the femme castratrice has evolved from the rape-revenge films and early slasher films such as I Spit On Your Grave (Zarchi, 1978) and Friday the 13^th (Cunningham, 1980) and is gradually becoming an increasingly empowering role of women in horror.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Clover, C. (1996) Her body, himself: gender in the slasher film In: Grant, B. (ed.) The dread of difference. USA. University of Texas Press

Creed, B. (1993) The monstrous-feminine: film, feminism and psychoanalysis. London: Routledge

Derry, C. (1987) More dark dreams: some notes on the recent horror film In: Waller, G. (ed.) American horrors. Urbana and Chicago. University of Illinois Press

Dika, V. (1987) The stalker film, 1978-81 In: Waller, G. American horrors. Urbana and Chicago. University of Illinois Press

Hart, L. (1994) Fatal women: lesbian sexuality and the mark of aggression. London. Routledge

Haskell, M. (1973) From reverence to rape: the treatment of women in the movies. New York, Rinehart and Winston

Lehman, P. (1993) Don’t blame this on a girl: female rape-revenge films In: Cohan, S. and Hark, I. (eds.) Screening the male: exploring masculinities in Hollywood cinema. London: Routledge

Read, J. (n.d.) Popular film/popular feminism: the critical reception of the rape-revenge film [online] De Montfort University. Available from:  http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/film/journal/articles/popular_feminism.htm

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