Do female revenge films like these degrade or empower women?

I'd suggest watching the 1978 I Spit On Your Grave with commentary. I believe with the understanding of the directors intention, followed by the fact that the rape scenes are filmed in a not overly titillating way, that it's empowering. It needs to be understood in it's historical context. Rape in movies at the time would often allude to it, and not show the brutality of it.

Since that time we've had a number of rape revenge movies, to the point it's become it's own genre. I think there are good and bad examples. If the victim is shown to be strong and capable, then I think that's acceptable. If the character needs to be 'rescued', if it's done for titillation, or of the character is 'evil' (excessively torturous), then I'd consider it degrading.

What I do find interesting is the lack of male rape revenge movies (Deliverance the only one?).

Female revenge films neither empower, or degrade women. Women's equality groups never look to the horror genre, the category most of these films fit into, as a reference for how empowered women come to be. The formula for these films is too simplistic to really make any social commentary on the so-called rape culture or the patriarchy. The formula always goes something like this: A woman is always wronged/raped by some man. Woman experiences PTSD. Woman leaps from normal, sane wallflower to bloodthirsty, man-hating psycho practically overnight.

In reality, this is not how the progression would normally play out, if ever. Woman revenge films boil all these elements down to their most simple and basic forms. No thought is ever given to whether these female characters are ones we even can sympathize with. Yes, something terrible happens to them, but do we care? No back story is ever provided for the female lead, or the men who attack them.

The male victims in these films are nothing but hunks of meat to be cut into bloody bits later as punishment for their evil deeds. All we know about them is that they're grinning, slobbering predators who are merely there to provide the catalyst for the woman slipping into the role of vigilante. This is as far as it goes for character development. To make the argument that these types of films influence women, one way or the other, is a bit of a stretch as there really is nothing beyond the surface to look into.

You're such a mess, the train wreck stops to watch you!

There is no fine line in this movie. Totally innocent men were targeted simply for their gender.

i don't think that a movie necessarily has to be either empowering or degrading. a movie is mostly a (fictional) story brought to film, how people interpret said story is up to them.

of course you can make a movie about a rape victim healing and growing, maybe even forgiving, but since that's not what the majority of people want to see on the screen, that's not what we get in "girls against boys".

i also think that longing for revenge is a very natural thing to do and to be honest the whole revenge theme is what brought me to watch the movie in the first place. of course there is the fine line between justice and vengeance you were speaking of and while in a perfect world we would strive to achieve the first, in an entertainment format that is film, we are bound to see more of the latter.

regarding your introducing question: i don't think it's degrading when a woman seeks revenge on her rapist, on the contrary. we have tons of action heros mowing down bad guys with a machine gun, nobody would specifically call that degrading for those men. why should is be degrading for a woman, the minute she takes things in her own hands?

the thing is, as soon as innocents get hurt, or the revenge is all too drastic, it also stops being empowering or just and puts the former victim on the same level as the perpetrator.

that's also what i liked about girls against boys: it's understandable if a rape victim wants to seek revenge, but in the end we see that this revenge was facilitated not by a friend, but by a bloodthirsty psycho, who in the end mostly made things worse.

One of the chief problems here, is realizing most of this is nothing more than critical arguments. Which are a fine exercise and one thing you should have in an academic setting, but at some point you either need to confine your life to it, or start getting a little bit of reality into your speech.

A rape revenge work is still an exercise in fiction. It's up to you as the individual if you find it degrading or empowering. There's no material answer here outside of your own thought. And anyone else is free to reject or accept it.

Now what you really are getting at is that some of these works are highly exploitative and one-sided. As in case we often see the female go from pure innocent character to murderer, taking it out on men who are pure scumbags. Which aren't exactly impossible types of people to find.

Fiction is fiction. If you want fiction to be fair, you need to allow it to sometimes show the good and the bad. This is true for each gender. Sometimes you get good role models and sometimes you get bad role models. Historically sometimes it's harder for works that give the edge to a minority to get heard. But nowadays we have more power, more expression. If you want better equality, help promote the role models you do like, trying to cyber bully the people who made the ones you don't like, doesn't help anyone.

If the kind of movie says to you it's taking advantage of a serious issue by turning a victim into a killer, go spend your time searching and promoting works that do the opposite. Be positive and learn. Unless you happen to be one the people who plan to spend the rest of your life only talking to people of your peer group. In which case you probably aren't even still reading and are typing an insult because I chose to use logic terms instead of language school terms.

Communities left for being out of touch: Gamefaqs, Home Theater Forum
Also left a group on Flickr

The mistake you make is thinking the answer to that question means dick to anyone but a bunch of frothing-mouthed feminists who couldn't give a rat's a$$ what the answer actually is as long as they get to dominate the dialog.


Feminism and the women's movement lost ALL credibility when they derided Clinton's rape accusers and ignored his open and blatant sexual harassment of his interns.

NO -- not Monica, the ones that DID NOT get the cushy Jenny Craig deal, the job at the Pentagon, and so forth in exchange for a pair of presidential kneepads. THEY were blatantly victims of sexual harassment.

And so-called "Feminists" didn't give a rodent's patootie.

Karens against simps