I wrote earlier this year about the controversy swirling around Lucky McKee’s film The Woman. After a midnight showing at Sundance last January, one angry man in the audience stood up and denounced the film as a “disgusting movie” that “degrades women.” Given McKee’s nuanced treatment of gender issues in his previous films May and The Woods, I suspected that this outraged critic had completely missed the point.
Now I’ve finally gotten to see the film and, yep, he did. The Woman isn’t a misogynist film; it’s a film about misogyny. The Woman revolves around a cheerful , self-satisfied and and superficially charming country lawyer who captures a ferocious feral woman he spots on a hunting trip and chains her in the cellar in what he perversely sees as an attempt to “civilize” her. A patriarchal king of his castle, he introduces her to the rest of the family and assigns them all chores relating to her upkeep.
I don’t really want to give away much more than this; suffice it to say that as the film progresses we learn just how much of an odious psychopath this “family man” really is. But while the film offers a savage critique of his cruelty, and his misogyny, none of the women in the film are unambiguously noble victims, and when they begin to fight back the story is no simple tale of feminist empowerment. It’s a bit more subtle and unsettling than that.
While less overtly violent than, say, your typical Saw film, The Woman is a film that’s often, and by design, hard to take. Yes, there are some grisly deaths, but this isn’t a film that glories in gore for gore’s sake; it’s really about cruelty and complicity and feeling trapped, the ways in which fucked-up families can ensnare even outsiders in their toxic dynamics.
Naturally, the film has drawn sharply mixed reactions from critics. It got a glowing review from Andy Webster in the New York Times, who described the cast as “remarkable” and praised the way McKee invests the film’s “a powerful parable with an abundance of closely observed details.” Marc Holcomb of the Village Voice, meanwhile, dismissed it as “torture porn for people who’d never admit to liking torture porn.” (He also noted sardonically that the feral woman is “apparently tame enough to shave her armpits.” And her legs too, I might add; under the caked-on-grime, she’s what the PUAs would probably rate a HB10. )
But the strangest review I’ve seen so far is one by Rene Rodriguez in the Miami Herald, who perversely describes the film as, er, fun. While acknowledging the film’s feminist themes, she dismisses them as mere window-dressing:
[C]ome on: You want a feminist movie, go rent Norma Rae. The Woman is the sort of horror picture designed to make you throw popcorn at the screen, groan with disgust and shriek out loud when McKee springs a shock on you. … Good times.
Really? Were you throwing popcorn at the screen during Antichrist too?
Of course, it doesn’t exactly help – as Rodriguez and a couple of other reviewers have noted – that the film’s publicists sent out the DVD screener with a barf bag “just in case.” The Woman deserves better than that.
EDITED TO ADD: Regular Man Boobz commenters might want to check out this thread on the IMDb forums, in which a (somewhat oversimplified) discussion of the feminist themes in the film is quickly derailed by a dude who thinks it laughable that a mere woman could possibly overpower the family patriarch:
I feel sorry for you and any other woman who truly believes that they can physically overpower a man.
You know, if women are just as physically capable as men, I’d love to start my own inter-gender boxing league. Sign me up, baby! Equality at its finest. 🙂
And the trailer:
And the dwarves, in Snow White. Seriously, there were a ton of “good” dudes in that movie, whereas the women were one each good and evil.
Mina seems to think that Dracula’s soul will go to heaven when he’s freed from his vampiric body. This is after she established her mental connection with him.
Forgot about that bit. You make a good point, but I think it could be argued that Mina needed to believe Dracula could be redeemed in order to keep believing that she herself could be too. A bit like Frodo’s need to believe Gollum wasn’t beyond saving; it may have affected her judgement. But maybe I’m giving Stoker too much credit.
I can’t be the only one who really enjoyed final fantasy 9, can I?
By no means. 7 is still my favorite of the ones I’ve played, but 9 was a lot of fun.
NWO, you’re just a fucking dumbass, please stop associating yourself with the MRM.
Women are good and victims because they were in the vicinity of the kinds of things that became oil that became credit cards. Book o’ Larning!
@NWO:
Serious question now. What would it take for us to convince you that feminism does not hold the position of “Men are evil and oppressive. Women are good and victims.” What could we, a group of feminists, possibly say to convince you that we don’t hold that position other than “we don’t hold that position?”
If there is nothing we could do to show you that we don’t think what you think we think, at least we can stop arguing in circles about the matter.
There’s also many, many, many movies and TV shows that have male villains, but also male heroes, and women’s status is somewhere between “brief sideplot love interest” and “totally nonexistent.”
(and was that the one with chocobo hot and cold or was it 10?)
It was 9. Both 8 and 9 had a card game, if memory serves.
I haven’t read the book, but mightn’t that just be part of her characterization as a good sweet person? Heroines (and heroes) often seem to be forgiving to the point of stupidity.
And what Kirby asked. Is there anything, anything we could do or say to convince you that we don’t think the things you think we do?
We’ve said a million times we don’t hate men. Is there any way (other than signing up to be your sex slaves) that we can prove to you that we don’t?
Bagelsan: Yeah it could have been a demonstration of her faith. She did seem to held up as an exemplar of modern womanly virtue.
Btw, has anyone read this longass Dracula slash fic? http://www.angelfire.com/grrl/scribescribbles/childtitle.htm
(Oh darn, looks like it’s offline now in the process of being published, but whatev.)
Questions for NWO:
What do you enjoy doing?
How can we prove to you that we don’t hate men?
Do you understand what sarcasm is?
So what you are saying is…you want someone to hand feed you sammiches. Or to be stuffed with one. *eyes her sammich*
Hey, I even liked 8 and 12, and those are the gamer agreed upon worst of the lot.
Although, I didn’t like XIII that much. They took away all of the sandbox components and made it completely linear. No fun.
With the friendliest, fightingist, loving band, that ever set foot in the promised land, and we’re happier than them all. / That’s why we call it Bonanza…Bonanza…Bonanza…
@Kirbywarp: I’ve decided that both NWO and DKM are gaslighting.
http://lauriekendrick.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/the-sad-art-of-gaslighting/
They don’t have a chance in hell of convincing any of us since the community here is strong, and they’re just not in close enough relationship with any of us to accomplish it. But that’s what they’re trying — and completely failing at time and time again.
So, no, there is nothing we can say. Nothing they will accept. Nothing that will change their minds.
They just keep building up that stinky gas then EXPLODING all over the page, gaslighting away.
Funny, because I actually consider XII to be one of their better ones, as do most of the folks I know personally XD
I did indeed like 9. Hated Garnet, liked most of the rest.
@Holly:
I’m tempted to do a little experiment whereby I assert that NWO is a self-hating man, as evidenced by his constant repetition of the phrase “men bad, women good.” If he denies his hatred, I’ll just assert that he’s lying or just being “PC” about it all. My guess is that it would be far too subtle for him though.
*sigh* This is the problem with reasoning without evidence. It’s actually very easy to come up with a self-consistent theory out of nothing. So easy, in fact, that there is a whole space of such theories, most of which are mutually exclusive. When you claim to know something without needing evidence, or with no possibility of being proven wrong, you are claiming that out of all the possible explanations there could be, you happened upon the correct one essentially from the armchair.
NWO hasn’t figured out that feminism is evil, he just wants feminism to be evil and is messing around with facts to fit his pet theory. God knows where he got the idea in the first place, but he obviously doesn’t give two shits about what is actually true.
I am going to watch that movie now, thanks David!
Speaking of artistic expression, did you know Avoiceformen is going after those silly SCUM girls now? They’ve been on a ton of creeeeepy witch hunts lately, it must be the season when woman-haters want to gather around a nice open flame.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/activism/1000-bounty-to-identify-swedish-scum-members/
Unsurprisingly, there are a ton of death threats upvoted in the comments.
Here’s a little bit of perspective for lurking MRAs: there are innumerable misogynistic directors, artists, and musicians out there. Sometimes feminists will call out these misogynist artists, but do they ever threaten to KILL them? I can safely say it barely ever happens.
Feminists: We’re not evil.
NWO: That’s exactly what an evil person would say!
x1000
/allthreadsforever
Kirbywarp –
LET $Feminism = $evilmonsters
IF $Feminism = ELSE
THEN OUTPUT “LIES!!!!”
There’s no space for input in that program.
@Holly Pervocracy
“And what Kirby asked. Is there anything, anything we could do or say to convince you that we don’t think the things you think we do?”
Feminism is a hate movement. What possibility is there to convince me otherwise. Women were never oppressed. For every hardship women as a gender have ever faced in the past, men as a gender have faced an equal hardship. Therefore, no oppression. And yes, it is a zero sum game women have initiated.
Feminism, in it’s perverted warped sense of, “fairness.” Believes in such nonsensical hardships men faced are, “men are shamed for wearing dresses,” or “men can’t be gay without being shamed.”
Both of those things should be shamed. I am a man, I am not like a woman. I don’t want to be a woman. I don’t want to act like a woman.
Feminism is a pack of lies from start to finish. As I said, in the article of evil boardroom men, if it was reversed someone would be fired and an official apology would be demanded. This shows that women have all the power, not men. That was the goal of feminism, to hand over control of all power of individual men to the State with women being the “trustee’s” in our State prison.
Feminism is funded completely by the gang at the top, they are your benefactors. All the wealth and power that was in the hands of individual men is now in their hands. Congratulations are in order. You have stupidly followed the very people who stole all the wealth and power from men, who don’t give a rats ass about you, and you’re still doing it. The people that did care about you, are the ones you have stripped of any power what-so-ever.
Feminism is the vilest, most destructive social force to ever be concieved. My hats off to the gang at the top. Those guy are truely brilliant.
@ithiliana:
I think gas-lighting is a much more insidious thing having to do with relationships. Seems to describe my relationship with one member of my family quite well… -_- I doubt that any of our trolls are that devious, or even that thoughtful about what they post.
I’ve been in the situation where I’ve trolled Christian chat rooms. Part of it was just having a laugh, but another part was “I know I’m probably right.” It didn’t really matter what was said to me, I could just wave it off as religious propaganda. That is what our trolls are doing. At the heart of it, they know they are right, and are therefore uninterested in argument. All they want to do is push out talking points. If they seem to lose a point, who cares? They’re ultimately right, so it doesn’t matter whether or not they score any points.
I got bored of my debates, because I also partly wanted to experience the arguments from the other side, get a feel for what the other side is thinking, perhaps changing my own views. But that never really happened. I have no idea why NWO hasn’t gotten bored yet.
…so that’s a no, then.
Okay, NWO, I know you’re not good at this, but let’s play pretend. Pretend you had gotten a mistaken idea. Pretend someone told you librarians were evil, but that person was wrong. And you made a mistake. You believed them. You thought librarians were evil, because you screwed up and thought a wrong thing.
How could you fix that mistake?
What could you learn–on your own or from librarians–that would convince you that librarians weren’t evil after all?
@NWO:
“Feminism is a hate movement. What possibility is there to convince me otherwise.”
See, that’s the question I was asking you. What possibility is there to convince you otherwise? I’m not asking for you to find a good argument for feminism, I’m asking for you to describe how the world would have to be so that feminists don’t hold the view of “men = bad, women = good.”
It’s possible world semantics. If God made a world in which feminists don’t hate men, what would that world be like?