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:
Yawn. You can troll better than that Arks.
Really, trolls are not getting any brighter these days.
Since when do you need to be a feminists to admit that “no woman could beat any man in no situation” is stupid? Listening to misogynists is tiresome, because half a hour later after this crap, you can get an other one saying that feminists are responsible for female-on-male DV. Or that all war are started by women, although we just heard that they long to be submissive.
“…to quote Dune, ‘the vaginas must flow.’”
If this is what you think Dune was actually about, I don’t even wanna know how you interpret the sandworms.
>>and NONE where wimminz are targeted specifically
Last House on the Left (both the original and remake).
The remake of the Hills have Eyes (they kill the men but only because they want to take the women and use them for reproduction)
The Screwfly Solution (the irony here is MRAL is going to HATE that one and call it misandrist mangina bullshit lol).
That’s just off the top of my head.
@badandfierce:
I’m a little late to the party, but: amen.
It makes me twitch when all sorts of fine-tuned, qualified statements get overused and over generalized. The physical capabilities of women is high on that list. Being an anthropologist, it particularly sets my teeth on edge when this is used as “proof” of what early humans were like.
Extending any current day social/cultural norms back in time, to other places, or other situations is just stupid and obscures the picture more than anything. With physical capability, SOME things can be concluded. But “men are stronger and so were socially dominant” is WAY too much.
And, as you say, it discourages woman from doing something when they are in danger. And I think it might also discourage women from developing the capabilities they do have. Not all women will ever be champion weight lifters, but with time, practice, and dedication, women can hone their capabilities to a fine degree. (i.e. a black belt, right?)
Cassandra:
I actually didn’t mean to say it was sexualized violence that bothers me in particular. Texas Chain Saw Massacre wasn’t sexual at all but I hated it. It’s the pure sadism element. The death scenes, are they drawn out with extra special attention paid to the gore and screams, are they extremely torture-y? I don’t care if it’s a man torturing a woman or another man, it’s the nature of the movie itself that to me needs to be more thrillery, with a real plot and suspense, not shock and awe over the torture (unless the gore is totally stupidly fake, in which case it’s a big ironic tribute to b-movies, like kill bill part-1)
I was just wondering if its a gorey horror movie that futurelle was noticing also had feminist undertones for once unlike most horror movies (in which case I wont go see it) or if it was a good thriller with proper suspense and unpredictability, just that the death scenes that are incorporated classify it as horror as opposed to thriller (in which case I will)
Oh, tvtropes. What a relationship I have with thee. Of course, since it is tvtropes, as soon as I clicked one link I ended up following several more and ended up here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreTheExpendableGender
As I was reading I was thinking “okaaaay, this feels like it can equally go one way or the other in terms of recognizing that women-as-the-perfect-angels-and-men-are-only-real-men-if-they’re-manly is a patriarchal issue as well, or blaming it on WOMEN ARE VIEWED AS SOOOO SPESHUL AND NOBODY THINKS MEN ARE WORTH ANYTHING.”
Then I got to the end of the article and this gem met my gaze…
“The way organizations such as the UN or Amnesty International devote themselves to ending violence against women specifically, or focus on protecting women, shows that some human beings are seen to have a much greater right to live. ”
Head. Desk.
Arks: What about the feminists who aren’t repressing masochistic desires? Because I have a couple bruises that say that we don’t, necessarily.
What about women with sadistic desires? What about women who aren’t kinky at all? Both categories do, in fact, exist, you know.
Shaenon, unfortunately in my estimation nerdgirls are almost worse than traditional picky alphas. Nerdgirls are like, oh I don’t like Pitt… just the translated function of Pitt, ie, Pitt(glasses) or Pitt(badhaircut). It’s the same thing with an extra helping of pretentiousness
The second half of The Last House on the Left was devoted to killing the gangsters, three out of four of whom were men. Fail.
Unfortunately for you, I have seen The Screwfly Solution. There were some male victims near the end, as the stronger men began to attack the weaker, so you yet again fail.
The Hills Have Eyes- HAHAHA! Neither of the two females were killed, while every single one of the men except one was massacred. Big giant fail, actually, having this on your list fucking proves my own point.
@Ozy:
I doubt Arks is thinking in terms of kink. I think the comment is more about how ALL women, regardless of kink-interest, are submissive. Like it is encoded in our genes or something. A functional relationship that involves kink/BDSM or related activities would probably bewilder and scare Arks and the other trolls.
I swear, it was a sad day when “subconscious desires” as a valid argument made its way onto the internet. Now, anyone anywhere could be accused of “secretly wanting/enjoying” or are “ultimately responsible” for whatever happened to them.
Why talk about victims when everyone can be totally responsible for everything? Why admit that bad things happen to all sorts of people (good, bad, and otherwise) when you can “prove” that they’re really at fault or wanted what they got.
@Arks: What about feminist women who haven’t been physically abused? Are they just crappy magnets? Fucking asking for it, how does it work?
I really hate horror movies, I can’t stand the violence. I especially hate the hypocritical ones that show you young, nubile bodies having sex as much as possible, and then punishes those characters later. Just because they’ve deliberately put it in to tittilate the viewer doesn’t mean they’re not bad and wrong and deserve what’s coming to them, dirty sluts. But whatever, I get that some people love those movies 🙂 I have a Joss Whedon obsession, I’m not going to throw stones.
Wow, “punishes” is not at all grammatically correct there. I’m way too important for such trivialities as verb agreement!
I think it goes more along the lines of your basic Nice Guy meme, which is “hot chicks only date jerks, therefore they want to be abused.”
I’m on moderation…?
So NOT a horror fan, but when I saw this discussion about gender and horror come up on my LJ flist, I thought, aha, the Manboobz people might enjoy it.
http://www.badreputation.org.uk/2011/11/21/guest-interview-talking-horror-with-theatre-of-the-damned-part-12/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+org%2FnCPY+%28Bad+Reputation%29
Hey gang! Just stopped in to bring you the headlines from Jezebel, one of your antidotes to boobery. Aaaaaaaand here it is.
“Companies Less Evil When Women Occupy Board Rooms”
http://jezebel.com/5860974/companies-less-evil-when-women-occupy-board-rooms?tag=women-at-work
It seems those durned men are just evil. The article is all about how generous and good women are, and well, ya know, men suck. They got a study too, referenced by Kimberly Weisul is the co-founder of One Thing New, the free email newsletter for smart, busy women. And of course the article was done by Erin Gloria Ryan.
The story goes on to say how companies with more women CEOs generate so many more dollars for charities than companies with less women CEOs. How they determined this? Why I’ll give ya that link in a jif, but for now lets analize, “charity.”
Charity, for those big corporate monoliths is a write off of course. What they don’t tell ya is, Big Daddy still wants his money. So if say all those generous women working in HR give a trillion dollars a year to, “charity organisations,” which of course are owned by those same big corporations. Well, Big Daddy still want’s that trillion dollars. Guess who foots that bill?
Further, there really is only two charities in existence today. You have womens charities and the women & childrens charities.
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Here is the PDF link I promised
http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/11-121.pdf
After reading as much as I could stand I came to this paragraph.
“The variation in findings suggests that pure gender effects are unlikely; rather, the effect of gender on giving is a complex process that is highly contingent on social context and other factors.”
Also one of the myriad of studies show that women give less more often, while men give more less often.
And of course
“Similarly, in mixed-sex pairings, women were more likely than men to convince their partner to adopt their personal giving preferences”
Nothing quite like women giving away mens money to “their” personal preference. In a misandric society I wonder what a womans preference will be?
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Probably most telling would be the reference sources for, “the study.” Heres a few.
Which is the Fair Sex? Gender Differences in Altruism.
Women’s Funding Network
Center for Women’s Business Research
When are Women More Generous than Men?
Are Women Less Selfish Than Men?:
A Feminist Analysis of Organizational Research on Sex Differences.
Altruism in individual and joint-giving decisions: What’s gender got to do with it? Feminist Economics
A few good women–on top management teams.
The 10,000 Women Initiative.
A Feminist Reinterpretation of the Stakeholder Concept.
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These are just a few of the unbiased, “sources.” The study, being the total crap it is, doesn’t take into account, was that company profitable before those donations which really aren’t donations? One of the studies clearly showed that the actual position those women were hired for was an HR dept. to specifically make donations. Kinda kills two or three birds with one stone, aye? Women are hired to meet a quota, charities are given which is a write off, and more women CEOs equals more generosity. Sweet!
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Think of me as your antidote to misandry, chipping away at your pedestal. I find these articles quite illuminating. They clearly show modern day women as vain, egotistical, narcissistic, gullible fools who need a constant supply of attention, praise and worship. Perhaps that’s why most women in the western world are athiests. They’ve simply become their own god.
Nah NWO, I just tend to think of you as the court jester, jumping up and down going “LOOK AT ME!” in a way that’s sometimes entertaining but mostly just makes you look like an idiot.
@tatjna
You’re far to generous in your evaluation of me as an idiot. But as the evidence in the study suggests, women can’t help but be more generous, altruistic and empathetic than men.
NWO, shouldn’t you be quite literally working your fingers to the bone right about now? No 28 hour day today?
1. W0rk at university, not corporation. (small, rural, regional, mostly non-traditional age students, mostly first-generation of family in college; v. necessary since cotton and dairy industry in area around tanked over 15 years ago).
2. Am animistic pagan, not atheist.
3. Support for charities: Doctors W/Out Borders, local animal rescue, and local scholarships.
4. Tend to think most corporations are structurally “evil” and need to be reined in.
5. Tend to think most corporations are dominated by men. Ditto government, legal system, etc.
6. Thinks NWO has major Daddy issues.
I’ll take your directive under advisement, but in the meantime, I’ll continue to think of you as an idiot.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god, you ass. Jesus, can’t you write three sentences without contradicting yourself or exposing your utter lack of knowledge or understanding?
======================================================================
Also, added this to NWO’s Great Book O’Larnin’:
Corporate Taxation: All corporations are subjected to a flat-rate tax of one trillion dollars. When a company makes a charitable donation, that donation is tax-deductible. However, the fact that it’s tax-deductible doesn’t mean that Big Daddy Gubmint won’t still tax the company one trillion dollars. So, women become corporate CEO’s on purpose in order to steal the money that men earned heroically battling women and children in Equador for natural resources that God made especially for American men. Oppression!!
Women influence men to be less sociopathic? Is there no end to Teh EBIL of WYMYNZ!?!?
Here’s a counter quote;
“Corporate philanthropy is influenced by two intra-organizational factors: the idiosyncratic qualities of individual corporate leaders (Hambrick, 2007; Galaskiewicz, 1997) and the organizational units that systematize and align decision-making with the strategic goals of the
firm (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Coady, 2008).”
Koch Industries anyone?
Shorter NWA; Fucking Philanthropy! How does it work!?
Hey! Here’s a few comment’s from the antidote to boobery article.
“This supports my theory that women should run the majority of countries around the world. Shit would get done, people who are down and out would be helped, and we’d only go to war if someone really pissed us off. And since we have a natural adeptness to shopping, I’m sure our trade would increase as well.”
Daaaaumn, women are really, really good, huh? Gettin shit done and helpin people.
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“I’m of the opinion that over time women in power would morph slowly and inexorably until they, like men, had been reduced to that curiously genderless husk – the politician.”
Whoa, we wouldn’t want women to morph into the bad man. See, men are already default bad, women are default good.
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“Touche! But I think by nature the majority of women who gain power are less likely to abuse it compared to their male counterparts, but there will be some rotten apples in the bunch, as there always has and will be. I just hope that more women will be elected as the leaders of countries, it’s a good thing all around!”
Luckily, due to womens altruistic nature, they’d be far less likely to be bad. Ain’t it strange how women don’t have a nature when it’s convenient, but once the chit-chat turn to nobility, empathy, generosity, altruism; why them same women are just sloppin over with nature.
Let’s just all hope more women get into power, because ya know, they’re women. Oh hell, why bother hoping. We’ve got Big Daddy to throw his weight around.
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Luckily, the fruits of all these women in power these days can clearly be seen with the ease of life for everyone. Stuff just keeps gettin better everyday, don’t it?
@hellkell
“NWO, shouldn’t you be quite literally working your fingers to the bone right about now? No 28 hour day today?”
Nope, pulled a 39 day stint in SLC and I’m off for a bit.