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:
Hahaha! Or rather muwhahaha!
Actually NWO should read Robert jordans Wheel of Time series if he wants to belive in a world were women are secretly or overtly ruling the world. D: (If you have read this series then you know MRA = Children of the light. Also I am the heart of the Brown Ajah who are the white tower’s librarians so I must be evil! (or atleast black ajah) )
@Kirbywarp: Gaslighting is a major part of abusve relationships, but it can operate in other ways, and several of the feminist bloggers have been discussing how similar rhetorical patterns play out in the internet. There’s nothing that says a troll is not gaslighting: a lot depends on how much they believe the stuff they’re spewing. I don’t think all our MRA trolls are gaslighters–MRAL and Brandon aren’t, in my categorization, but I think it darn well fits DKM and NWO. YMMV of course!
BUt the point is still the same–nothing we say is going to convince them to take any different perspective, or moderate their hatred in any way.
You can speak for your motivation as a troll–not for anybody else’s.
I could never see the point of that behavior at all, probably because I’ve spent twenty years trying to teach the principles of “good” argument to college students.
@Aloren:
If you want a shady feminine conspiracy, why not Dune?
“Now we can have the mandatory, “she fears you” class.”
You have that? You USians are weird.
Oh yeah that’s a good one too! But I rea Wheel of Time before I read Dune so I am biased.
@Kyrie:
I must admit, this USian doesn’t really know what all that’s about. I have never, to my knowledge, been to a “she fears you” class. The closest I got was a coed lecture on “don’t do sex things at summer school.” *shrug*
NWO thinks it’s terrified when we say women are afraid of men.
He also thinks women should be afraid of men.
He also thinks that Elmo knows about the candy, and if he doesn’t ELMO IS A DIRTY LIAR BELIEVE NOTHING ELMO SAYS ELMO=GOOD COOKIE MONSTER=BAD MORE ELMO LIES.
I had a nice [/sarcasm] on the previous comment, but it disappeared…
@Kyrie
So tell us, NWO:
“What is the male equivalent of not having the right to vote?”
Being drafted to kill and die in a war due to having the right to vote. Women kept the yum-yum of no draft while getting the vote.
——————–
“What’s the male equivalent for being owned by the men of your family?”
Being responible for the actions of your family just as a parent is responsible for their childrens actions even today.
——————-
“What is the male equivalent of not having the right of having a job, a bank account or take basically any important decision without the agreement of your husband?”
Dying at his job, being maimed at his job, being financially responsible for the welfare of his family and shamed if he fails.
——————
“What is the male equivalent of living in a country where a huge majority of leaders are men?”
Living in a country where the majority of voters are women, who then voted in the men while complaining about men being voted in, while reaping the rewards of thousands of gender specific laws.
——————
“What is the male equivalent of being shamed because you have sex/you have female genitals?”
Women are praised for every damn thing they do. Is the lack of outright fall down on your knees worship unsettling?
—————–
“What is the male equivalent of receiving death and rape threat on a daily base because of your gender?”
Being falsely accused and thrown into prison to be raped by the sodomites which feminism promotes. All on a womans word.
——————-
“Also, “you hurt me, I hurt you back” is still not what a zero sum game means.”
Well perhaps I’ll have to spend a little more time in the ivory tower so I can learn the exact meaning.
One of the movies I have watched was the untouchables. I particularly liked the line where he said something along the lines of, if he pulls a knife, you pull a gun, if he pulls a gun, you pull a bigger gun.
So if you call me a dick, I call you a filthy cunt. Probably not really, “zero-sum,” but I think it’ll work out fine.
Stop ignoring logic.
Oh wait, I forgot your declared modus operandi is logical fallacy.
Adamantly? I find it slapdash and the title kind of stupid. I merely dispute your assertion that it represents misandry. Do I need to remind you of your arguments in the last thread about how if men really are better at math then it’s not sexism? Well the same rules apply here. If men are found to make companies measurably “less evil,” whatever that even means, then the points of argument are whether the study measuring “evil” is measuring correctly and whether it is appropriate to label behavior X evil.
Actually, see my previous paragraph. Every feminist in the world pays attention to Jezebel? Why aren’t the feminists of the world riding their high horses over The Spearhead? Also there was a highly problematic article by some victim-blaming MRA talking about an underage sex tape on Jezebel recently, but as near as I can tell nobody was fired. We have an example for your hypothetical situation and your prediction does not match reality.
/me is not surprised.
Hall monitors are a well-known precursor to fascism. “First, they came for the gum chewers, and I did not protest because I was not a gum chewer.”
Wake up, sheeple!
Today, on 1800s Attitudes Theater: The White Man’s Burden.
Actually, NWO, looking at that entire post — Being drafted, being solely responsible for a family including a childishly helpless wife, having to praise women on your knees, being thrown in prison… which of these have actually happened to you?
Slavery for everybody! Lifetime infantilization, huzzah!
I can’t, off the top of my head, think of anyone more anti-freedom than Owlyslave.
And, as I recall, that article was covered and mocked on this very website.
Anyway, NWOslave, stick to the topic at hand: what do you think of vampires?
@Holly Pervocracy
Do tell Holly, which of the things Kyrie mentioned has happened to you?
need I remind you who exempted women from the draft? hint: it wasn’t women.
Also I know you could care less, but in the past especially, plenty of women died giving birth.
@Spearhafoc
“Anyway, NWOslave, stick to the topic at hand: what do you think of vampires?”
They suck!
hurr hurr…I see what you did there NWO.
I live in a country where the vast majority of leaders are men.
I’ve been shamed for having sex and for being female.
I’ve gotten rape and death threats for being a mouthy female.
This shit isn’t all theoretical to me.
NWO, the gaslighter, trudges his weary rounds…..
@Quackers
“need I remind you who exempted women from the draft? hint: it wasn’t women.”
Oh yes it was! One of the many faces of feminism fought long and hard. Just like they fought to shoot down the ERA. Women want rights, entitlements, privileges above men. Equality sucks and women know it. The safety net is where it’s at.
I always find it funny that MRAs think Phyllis Schafly is a feminist.
NWO. Name something you like. Anything. Please.
Here, I’ll start. I like board games.