When the status quo is threatened
Earlier this year there was a film called “Teeth,” which you might remember hearing about even if you didn’t see it. It’s a horror comedy about a teenage girl who discovers she has teeth in her lady parts, and they act as a defense mechanism against unwanted intruders. In other words, when someone tries to rape her, he gets his wang bitten off. Eventually she learns to use this as a weapon against unsavory men.
The concept was upsetting to some men, as evidenced by comments they posted on my review. Some samples:
So, if someone made a movie where women’s breasts were cut off, would that be hailed as an artistic success? Of course not. I’m willing to bet that all of the men in the film are bad in some way, in order to justify what she’s doing. Geez… just another movie for angry and sadistic women to enjoy, and if we don’t agree in every detail then we’re sexists.
find me one positive male in this movie and then tell me it’s not sexist. And by the way, woman can rape too. The analogy would be perfectly apt if the movie was about a penis that shot acid into women’s vaginas. But no. It’s violence against men — horrific violence, for that matter — so it’s funny.
It seems that this is an example of how extreme violence towards men is somehow acceptable in the media, a film basically that centres around men having their penis’s bitten off, i’ve yet to see a film where the hero of the movie tears wombs out with his barbed penis and then justifies it with sexual political rhetoric!
The best response to these sentiments was expressed by long-time commenter Slash, who said:
It’s a horror movie. Women are dismembered in horror movies all the time.
Nearly a 100 years of misogyny as a staple of the horror movie plot, and one movie comes out that turns the tables, and you really want to cry ’sexism?’
Sure, castration is an uncomfortable topic for men. I dig that. But you don’t think women were uncomfortable with the literally thousands of movies in which they were viewed as walking targets, useful only as victims to be raped/murdered?
Exactly. It’s funny how panicky people get sometimes when their power is threatened. People make movies that are degrading to women all the time. Sometimes these films are even marketed to women, as with “Made of Honor,” where every single female character is at best bland and personality-free, and at worst dumb, buffoonishly fat, clueless, shrill, or mean, and where the final message of the movie is that men can act however selfishly they want and still get the girl of their choice in the end. Movies like that are so common that no one even bothers to point out how sexist they are anymore. But one movie comes along where it’s the men who are pigs and women who are powerful, and suddenly everyone’s outraged.
Don’t worry, men! You still run the world! You still make all the movies! Male screenwriters and directors still outnumber female ones by a huge margin! One film about turning the tables won’t bring down your mighty empire!
It reminds me of the ignorant white people who complain about Black History Month. “If there was a White History Month, they would say it’s racist! But since it’s Black History Month, it’s OK, and we’re the racists if we don’t like it!”
Well, yes, idiot. There’s already a White History Month, and it’s called March through January. If America had been set up in the opposite fashion — where blacks were the ruling majority and whites were imported as slaves for 200 years, then oppressed through laws for another century, then treated with suspicion and disdain by a significant chunk of the population for decades after that — then a White History Month would be appropriate.
Don’t worry, white people! Black History Month affects you in no way whatsoever! You’re still in charge! Taking a few weeks out of the year to recognize the accomplishments of a minority population is not a threat to your power! Relax!
June 24th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I love this blog post. With all my douche bag hating heart.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Funny how so many people don’t “get” this argument in favor (or at least in favor of understanding) Black History Month. It’s the same people who don’t see why selling an Obama sock monkey is inappropriate.
June 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Wow! The faux deepness of this post was amazing.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Well, maybe the vagina teeth movie IS sexist. I don’t know for sure, having never seen it. Just because there are 100 woman-bashing movies doesn’t mean that the 1 male bashing movie isn’t sexist. Comparitive smaller quantity of bad doesn’t justify it.
That being said, I think I found the explanation of why I typically don’t like a lot of chick flicks:
“…every single female character is at best bland and personality-free, and at worst dumb, buffoonishly fat, clueless, shrill, or mean, and where the final message of the movie is that men can act however selfishly they want and still get the girl of their choice in the end.”
June 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Honestly I’ve always had a problem, or several actually, with Black History Month but not because it’s “racist” or “reverse racism” or anything like that.
Doesn’t declaring one month as “Black History Month” suggest, as Eric points out, that the other 11 months are not just normal months but actually “White History Month”? Doesn’t that enforce a mentality of Black versus White? Wouldn’t that reinforce the us/them mentality? Isn’t a more desirable goal to see everyone for who they are and what they accomplished rather than the color of their skin?
I know that people will say things like Black History Month or Affirmative Action or NAACP or replacing the birthday celebration of a former President or Two with that of Martin Luther King are needed to combat racism but I honestly think that they do far more to PROMOTE racism and ENFORCE differences than they will ever do to bring us together as a human race or even just as Americans…
And you can say the exact same thing about Sexism… a movie like Teeth isn’t a solution to the sexism that exists in Hollywood… it’s just part of the problem…
Flame away…
June 24th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Card,
I don’t think that Eric would argue that the movie isn’t sexist. In fact, I believe his reasoning is that it is quite sexist, but that sexism is a rather typical element of the horror film genre. The reason that it is so conspicuous in this instance is that it is sexist against men rather than women. I tend to agree with that argument. Now, whether or not sexism on any level should exist is a totally different argument (answer: um, no).
My feeling is that making a sexist horror film for most is unjustifiable (and personally, I’d throw the entire horror genre). However, it is equally unjustifiable for men to get their panties into a bunch by shouting “sexism” unless they are also denouncing misogyny.
June 24th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Not JoeKing,
Tricky, isn’t it? By trying to promote a community and accept them, we also reinforce that “their” identity is different from “our own.” Sorry, I’m a little “quotation mark” happy right now.
I suppose it’s a little like trying to invite your older single brother (that would be me) to Family Night (LDS reference) and convince your kids that he’s a cool guy just like the rest of the family, except, of course, that he’s single and can’t get a date and is lonely at nights and (I’m going to cry…).
That said, I’m glad I get an invite. Brownie sundaes…mmmmm….
June 24th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
One should point out that in order for a man to be um, terrorized by this woman, he’s already got to be in a bad situation. I mean, he’d have to already have her clothes off and be naked himself, right? It’s not like it comes out and bites him while he’s minding his own business.
Seems kinda hard to label this movie as sexist, all things considered.
June 24th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Shaned,
Did they call it “Single Night’ in your honor to distinguish it from “normal” Family Night?
Cheer up, there are married people that are still “lonely at nights”… they just have to split their money with everyone else living in the house… so it could be worse…
And yes, I’m an Elipsis-aholic…
June 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
shaned,
Maybe my former comment does suffer from topic deviation a bit. I stand by my statement, though.
And I will have to disagree with this statement you made: “However, it is equally unjustifiable for men to get their panties into a bunch by shouting “sexism” unless they are also denouncing misogyny.”
First, they may be. You are only assuming that they aren’t. Second, -isms, in my opinion, are not good. I don’t feel like I have to spend equal time denouncing all of them to denounce one in particular. I will mostly likely spend the majority of my time denouncing the -isms that directly negatively affect me and my situation.
June 24th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I haven’t seen the movie, but if it is sexist, I think it’s only fair, considering women have had to put up with the James Bond franchise for some 45+ years now.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Whether or not the film is sexist at all is up for debate (not by me though, because I haven’t even seen it), but the point is that even if it IS sexist, men have no room to complain and feel threatened by it due to the prevalent misogyny in other films of various genres (not just horror, as Eric pointed out). It seems extremely silly to me to even worry about sexism in movies at all, and the fact that this situation is women v. men (and in the minority as far as movie sexism goes) makes the complaints even more ridiculous. If these people are serious about their complaints, hopefully they are also trying to champion sexism in the opposite direction, I suppose to help “the children” and make sure their minds aren’t tainted and yada yada yada.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Ah yes. This was pretty soothing to read.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:20 am
I’d just like to point out that there are other history months.
Hispanic Heritage month is, according to our old friend Wikipedia, from September 15th to October 15th. Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage month is May. I’ve seen the latter observed a few times, but then, I live in an area with a fairly big Asian population.
There may be others, but they are not listed on the all-knowing Wikipedia and are therefore unimportant.
June 25th, 2008 at 6:51 am
I have to say that reading posts like this make me remember why I read this site all the time - interesting thoughtful posts as well as the funny stuff. Though it is a useful debate, I think we can all agree that the idea of a female who kills males is unusual but not in any way different from those hundreds of horror movies where the male kills females, thus males have no reason to complain that for once, the guys are the victims of a female. Having also not seen the movie, I can’t comment on specifics. However, the comment about how we would never allow a movie where a woman’s breasts were cut off seems rather silly since that and worse happens to women in horror movies all the time, and also on regular tv shows like Law and Order. So, where is the complaint?
June 25th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Though I haven’t seen “Teeth,” I’ve got to comment on this blog entry, starting with the fallacy in its title. The glorification of female-on-male violence in movies doesn’t threaten the status quo; it *is* the status quo (even outside of the horror and action genres — how long have comedies used injury to men’s genitalia for an easy laugh?) . Talking about the “misogyny” of horror films is ridiculous, especially these days — if horror films are generally misogynistic, why is the it generally the final *girl*, not the final *boy*, who survives and emerges victorious? The recent “Hills Have Eyes 2″ and “Hostel 2″ were condemned for their rape scenes, but from what I’ve read, the payoff in each film was that the female character(s) avenged their rapes with extreme violence. And would “The Descent” have been as successful if its heroes were male? Movies generally set up male characters as villains and ask the audience to vicariously enjoy the female heroes’ violence agains them (some, like “Hard Candy”, have that as their only reason for being). Most of these films probably aren’t of high enough quality to spend too much energy attacking, but the overall effect is depressing; I’d like to see some movies, or movie critics, promote a positive misogyny, based not on Freudian fears but on mature, sensible *opposition* to female hegemony.
June 25th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Absolutely, Eric, absolutely.
notJoeKing, Amp and Thoughtful Observer: You also make good points. So much of the crime genre revolves around glamorous young women (often prostitutes) turning up gruesomely murdered - I’ve never understood the attraction.
When’s Obese History Month?
June 25th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Its kind of like when I was a kid and I asked my parents “Why is there a Mothers Day and a Fathers Day but there isnt a Kids Day?” and they responded “Every day is Kids day!”
June 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Addendum to my previous post, if it got submitted correctly: A huge example I forgot is “Monster”, a film that turned a real-life killer of men into a hero/victim and won at least one Oscar. Would a sympathetic film portrayal of Ted Bundy, get similar acclaim (assuming one could even get produced)? Not that it should, but the fact that that idea sounds so far-fetched is proof of a cultural double standard.
June 25th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Applying importance to history based on the race of the person that did the action is dumb.
If the event can’t stand on it’s own merits then it shouldn’t be mentioned solely on the fact that a black, hispanic, asian, martian person did it. To the cop-out, “The other 11 months are WHITE history month, you’re just racist” I call BS. There are many historical moments that get recognized outside of black history month because, hey here’s a concept, they were really important to history. Where is this mythical world where MLK, Civil rights movements, abolition are all ferreted in a corner until Feburary? It doesn’t happen. You talk about it all the time cause they are important events in history. The inventions of the stoplight and the pencil sharpener are not an important moments in history. The reason I know they were invented by black people? Cause I would be a bad, evil person if I didn’t respect BHM and watch all the specials that tell me how important comparibly insignificant inventions are because the inventor has a dark complexion.
Eric, I think one you least endearing traits is how you scour your comments looking for the easiest strawmen comments and then beat them down. Then your write blog posts showing how open minded you are by arguing with an imaginary, demoinzed person who one-dimensionally argues against something that most of society inherently supports. You gave no respect to the issue at all (the fact that the creator of the precursor to BLM himself wanted the practice eventually removed after black history was integrated part of general history you probably didn’t research) and just throw out imflamatory rhetoric that does nothing but keeps us trapped in political correctness that makes you feel self-righteous in the present instead of moving to a future where actually integration is a reality, not something you hold over people by claiming you’re more open-minded then others.
The most important thing I should stress is that Eric is a movie critic, not a sociologist or historian. While I respect that he should have an opinion and that his blog he can express it, giving his opinion undo-weigh cause he wrote a funny review about “Big Momma’s House” is ridiculous. And Eric while you’re crusading to be socially responsible, you should respect that holding a public venue people can measure your opinion as more important, so you should at the very least carefully consider what you are going to say before posting on such charged issues.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
FinalElysium, It seems that you took Eric’s tongue-in-cheek (and very valid, might I add) example completely out of context. In no place in the post did he ever say that we should recognize events “solely on the fact that a black, hispanic, asian, martian person did it,” something that you spend the majority of your post refuting. In fact, the only part of his post that you could possibly be referencing is this: “Taking a few weeks out of the year to recognize the accomplishments of a minority population is not a threat to your power!” And even this is not a sociological statement, as it is really just a real-world parallel to the cinematic-world problem of people crying “sexism!” when it isn’t important to do so. The fact that you think Eric was being self righteous in his post is baffling considering how well written your comment was.
And might I mention that I just HATE it when Eric posts something not inherently related to humor and/or movies and people tell him that “they didn’t come here for his politics/serious stuff/etc.” People, even movie critics, are allowed to have opinions! Just because it doesn’t mesh perfectly with your own doesn’t render it invalid, and playing the”I should stress is that Eric is a movie critic, not a sociologist or historian” card is hypocritical, as I’m guessing that you’re not either.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Card,
I like that you stick to your guns. I agree that it is not necessary to champion every vice equally. I’d get exhausted.
And to some of the last posters, I tend to disagree that he sets up strawmen arguments except for those with particularly bad grammar and rather faulty assumptions. And I think he tends to do that because bad grammar and atrocious logic are 1. fun to make fun of, and 2. really annoying.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I’d like to also concur with Savvy and Shaned and add that Eric didn’t need to do research on Black History Month because it had nothing to do with his primary point, which was … So what if there’s a Black History Month? It’s not hurting you any. Its existence is a dumb thing to be bothered by.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The fact that the vagina dentata motif shows up in virtually every culture’s ancient mythology 1.) says something about man’s primal fear of castration by woman, and 2.) makes the people complaining about a movie based on it seem all the more retarded.
June 25th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Uh oh. The only reason I come to this site is for Eric’s review of “Big Momma’s House.” NOW WHAT?!?!?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I agree with everything Eric says. And may I add, in a non-bra-burning-feminist way, it’s nice to see a man sticking up for us women-folk.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
fgsfds -
Your comment was definitely one of the most thoughtful I’ve read here, thanks for that response. I have to say that though I can’t say whether I agree more with you or with Eric’s initial entry, you both make very interesting and valid points that, I think, all hold water in my book.
to those who argue with Eric’s non-movie related thoughts -
I am tempted to comment that if you can’t appreciate the wonder that is blogging and free expression on the internet, then you should stick to solitaire on your computer and leave the scary internet full of opinions to those more mature … but then I would be a horrible hypocrite (oh fiddlesticks, seems I already am … oops)
June 27th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I totally agree with notJoeKing. Setting aside a special month for black people only reinforces the us vs them mindset. People need to quit being so obsessed with race and just live as humans on planet earth. I hate Affirmative Action and all those other programs that tell minorities that they don’t have to actually be good at anything or do their jobs well because their race will ensure them a job or a spot in a university, etc. Everyone should try as hard as they can to have a good life, and minorities shouldn’t get special priviledges just for being minorities. A small part of me hopes that Obama will win the presidency just so black people can’t pull the race card anymore.
And to comment about the movie that started this post, people should quit their whining. I don’t whine every time a film that is degrading to women comes out, so those men crying “Sexism!” need to grow a pair. They’re just freaking movies, for crying out loud. From a psychology point of view, the men who complain about a movie about having boy parts bitten off by a monster vagina obviously have some deep-seated insecurites about their manhood, or hidden hostilities toward women, or maybe even an Oedipal complex.
June 29th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I think your arguement falls flat. To say that since men have been killing women in horror movies is sexist towards women is completely wrong, it’s more sexist that men are constantly portrayed as murderous monsters. Also when these women are killed the men are the bad guys. In this movie it seems the woman is actually the hero of the movie because she mutilates men.