December 16, 2025 • 53 mins
Abby sits down with our friend Kate Rotunda to talk about the intersection of feminism and horror. We start out by discussing Frankenhooker (1990) and go from there.
CW: Discussion of violence against women and SA.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode
of the Lunatics Radio HourPodcast.
My name is Abby Branker, and I'msitting here with Kate Rotunda.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
Hello.
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
Hi, Kate.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me.
We're so excited that you'rehere.
Kate is a longtime Lunaticscontributor, I would say.
You write articles and help uswith research and all kinds of
things.
And going into 2026, we're gonnahave a bunch of episodes with
Kate, and she has helpedresearch on some really, really
fun topics.
So we're incredibly excited forthose.
(00:48):
But today we are here to talkabout the intersection of horror
and feminism, especially throughthe lens of Frankenhooker.
Yes.
Just a quick content warningbefore we get into this episode.
We are going to talk about somepotentially heavy themes, some
themes of you know how women areobjectified in horror.
And so that could include sexualassault and beyond and other
(01:09):
things like that.
So just be aware that we'renever gonna be too graphic, but
that is something that's gonnacome up today.
So so if you're not comfortablewith that, we wanted to make
sure that you were aware of it.
So you came to me with thisidea.
This was something that youwanted to talk about.
Tell us why.
SPEAKER_01 (01:23):
Well, I'm a huge feminist and a huge horror fan,
and you can't ignore feminismand horror, especially misogyny
and horror.
It happens all the time, it isstill so prevalent.
You'd think it would have gonedown, but it's not.
Recently, I watchedFrankenhooker for the first
time, and I fell in love withit.
It is so campy, it is so crazy,and it is like, in my opinion,
(01:44):
like uh feminist horror almost.
And like Trauma is known forbeing pretty progressive with
their ideas in the worst wayalmost.
Like they do it in a way whereit's so insane that you're
watching it and you're like,there's no way this is
progressive, but they sneakthings in there, and it's just
the way the character acts andthe way the story ends is just
so beautiful to me and givesagency to these characters that
(02:07):
in any other film would havebeen treated as a complete joke.
And not to say that it isn't acomplete joke, because the movie
is once again just ridiculous,but it generally I think they do
a good job of showing a mantrying to take control of a
woman's body and it justcompletely backfiring.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
Absolutely.
To me, it feels and it it mustnot be, but it feels almost
accidentally feminist.
Yeah.
I actually just watched it forthe first time as well in
preparation for this episode,and I thought it was fantastic.
Like largely, like it not notperfect, right?
Of course, but I had so much funwatching it.
It had such a fun arc.
To your point, it kind ofsidesteps the things you think
(02:45):
that it might.
The way that it sets up, you'relike, oh god, yeah, this is
gonna be a mess, right?
Not that it isn't a mess, butit's a mess in a way that has a
bit of a heart and has, to yourpoint, like an ending that feels
really satisfying as a womanwatching horror films like this
all the time.
Yeah, I I thought it was ablast.
I also am such a Frankensteinfan that seeing those like 80s
(03:06):
remakes of some of those sceneswas really fun in a different
way.
To your point, there's somestuff that feels really great.
It feels really validating forour main character, right?
Elizabeth Shelley, who isobviously a little bit of a nod
to Mary Shelley with her name.
It doesn't feel as satisfying,for example, for the sex workers
in the movie.
Of course.
Yeah.
And to your point about the druguse and all that stuff.
(03:27):
Like, there's issues.
There's issues with that.
That aside, I think you'reright.
Like when Kate first came to meand she was like, I want to talk
about how Frankenhooker is afeminist film.
I was like, What?
Like, I've never seen thismovie, but there's no way.
It's the title alone.
The title alone, right?
Like, you know, we're s we wedon't even say that word
anymore.
Yeah, it's really, and and we'regonna have some mild spoilers,
(03:49):
I'll say, for this, but youshould definitely watch it.
Oh, yeah.
And I guess we'll give a littlebit of context around
Frankenhooker for people whohaven't seen it.
Yeah.
So the film came out in 1980.
And do you want to kind of givepeople a really high-level plot
overview?
SPEAKER_01 (04:01):
The film starts uh following a young inventor of
sorts named Jeffrey, kind of aDr.
Frankenstein type, doing littleexperiments in his basement, and
he has a girlfriend namedElizabeth, and they are at a
party for Elizabeth's father.
Elizabeth and Jeffrey seem tohave a good relationship, pretty
supportive.
I mean they both seem prettyjuvenile regardless.
The party ends in tragedy withElizabeth dying in a freak
(04:22):
accident, and Jeffrey is leftdepressed, and with his
experiments, he is trying tothink of the best way to bring
her back.
He has saved all her body partsand wants to bring her back.
So he So romantic.
Yes, very romantic.
Basically, it's a veryFrankenstein-esque thing where
he needs more body parts.
He doesn't have everything heneeds, so he goes into the city
and targets sex workers for theoptimal women's body parts and
(04:46):
ultimately brings Elizabeth backwith some unintended
consequences because she doesnot come back the way he wanted
her to.
SPEAKER_00 (04:52):
And here's the payoff, and we're just gonna
spoil the movie because I thinkit's hard to talk about this
topic without spoiling themovie.
So much of the movie, which isreally short, it's like an hour
and 20 minutes, so much of it ishim like shopping for the
perfect legs, the perfect buttcheek, the per and it's a joke,
right?
Like so much so that one of thebutt cheeks he puts a check on,
right?
Like that's the one.
He's like swapping left andright boobs.
(05:14):
Like it's this whole thing,right?
It's this joke of like himcrafting this perfect woman.
And the other layer to this,which we haven't even talked
about yet, is at the beginningof the movie, at the cookout,
Elizabeth's mom and other peopleare giving her a lot of shit
about her weight.
Yes.
And so that's another importantlayer to this because then he's
like crafting this perfect body.
(05:34):
Yeah, you know, and her bodygets destroyed.
So it's not, you know, we don'tknow how he feels about any of
that, but it's just us, it'ssomething that they included in
the movie intentionally, right?
Yes.
You would say, I guess, forexample, if you're going to take
her head, which she haspreserved and just wanting to
bring her back to life, youcould just put her on any body,
you could put her on one body,you know.
But it ends up through a seriesof events that he's piecing this
(05:55):
together.
SPEAKER_01 (05:55):
Yeah, or you you'd think he would look for body
parts that you're like, oh, thisreminds me of her.
This looks like her.
But that's not what he's doing.
He is he does not care aboutwhat she used to look like or
any of that.
He wants the perfect woman.
He wants his girlfriend back,but if he can improve on her, he
will.
SPEAKER_00 (06:11):
So much so that he's even piecing together body parts
from different women ofdifferent races.
Yeah.
Right.
And so you truly end up withthis very unusual, like a
forearm is a different skin tonethan her face, and her body.
So it's bizarre, and okay,that's like, you know, that's an
a layer of whatever that's addedon to this.
And so it's very, it's like thethe epitome of objectifying a
(06:33):
woman, reducing her to like theperfect body parts, all this
stuff.
The payoff is at the end.
Yes.
She does that to him.
She puts his head, no, I don'tknow if she doesn't like piece
it together, but she puts hishead on a woman's body.
Yes.
And sort of parrots back to himall the phrases that he gave her
about why this is like romanticand well-intentioned, and he had
(06:55):
no choice.
Yeah, for love.
When, like, in reality, that'snot the case, right?
Like he didn't do what he had todo for love.
He it it'll snowballed intosomething sh more shallow.
Yes.
And so she pays it back to himat the end in a really
satisfying way because she'sliterally verbatim saying all
these things that he said toher, and he has to like sit with
(07:17):
that and you see his face ofterror, you know, as it zooms
out at the end and you see hisfull body.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
Yeah, and the movie definitely also I think goes
into the Madonna Horror complexa little bit because he has
Elizabeth basically as this hisgirlfriend, like the one he's in
love with in the beginning.
So when she dies, he wants herto come back, and so he goes to
these sex workers in New Yorkand treats them like they're
nothing.
He buys them, he um basicallyinadvertently kills them in one
(07:46):
of the craziest scenes of alltime.
Oh, yes.
Um and he uses their body partsand he puts them on her, and
when she comes back, she doesnot remember who she is.
She still has kind of the memoryof the sex workers, so she goes
to do their work.
Yeah.
And he loses his mind.
He's like, You can't do likeyou're like, you can't go back
there, you can't do that.
(08:06):
And basically, that she'sdifferent.
Those women mattered less thanher.
So, like, even though she isthose women, she is a
combination of them.
Like, he can't stand the idea ofher doing it, but he doesn't
care about he didn't care thatthe other women were doing it,
he didn't care that the otherwoman died.
Absolutely.
Like, it's just like her, and hesaw no value to their lives
(08:27):
until they were part of her.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
So, okay, they end up dying in this crazy overdose
sort of scene, which it wasunintentioned.
But the truth is he was there topick their bodies.
So he was going to kill them.
Yes.
Right.
And he had the intention ofkilling many of them, not just
one.
Yeah.
And regardless of sort of how itcame about in the plot, he had
that intention.
So it wasn't like he was holierthan thou going into this.
(08:50):
He he had that plan.
SPEAKER_01 (08:51):
Well, there's also another character named Zorro,
who plays the pimp of the sexworkers, who is is the real
villain of the story, in a sensewhere like how the movie is
presenting it, who also gets hisgets his at the end, like
basically gets revenge at theend uh against him.
But it's this idea that Jeffreythinks he's better than the
(09:11):
pimp.
He thinks that what he's doingis more is like morally okay
compared to the pimp when he'sbasically doing the same thing.
And then yeah, at the end, whenElizabeth gets her memories
back, there is a I think areally almost like beautiful
moment, if you could say thatwith this film, where she talks
about how she can feel all theother women in her.
Like she says something like, Ifeel like I feel these memories
(09:34):
that aren't mine, like I feelsomething.
Like she she can feel the bodyparts and like who she is.
And he kind of glazes over that.
Like he glazes over the factthat he killed so many people.
Yeah.
And that he's like, Whatever,you're back.
Like, great, cool.
And like expects her to betotally fine with it.
Another thing I think isinteresting is that Elizabeth,
when she first comes back, saysto Jeffrey, like, Oh my god, you
(09:55):
like found a cure for death.
You brought me back to life.
You're amazing.
Like, that's amazing.
Yeah.
In reality, it is amazing tothink about, like, yeah, he
brought her back to life.
But then he he and I think thisis very intentional.
He says that it only works onwomen.
He only came up with like aserum for women.
SPEAKER_02 (10:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:12):
And it's because it's just another version of him
being selfish.
Like, it's just like he's like,Oh, yeah, I only made it for
you.
Like, he doesn't care about thebringing back from death.
He cares about like, I need thatgirl back.
Right, right.
But on a like lighter note,generally, the movie is just so
fun, and you get to watch thislike crazy looking creature
stomp around Manhattan, likeparroting these like weird
(10:33):
phrases, and then the men sheinteracts with who like again,
like she interacts with so manydifferent men that like don't
notice she's a Frankensteinbecause they're just so enamored
with her sexuality.
Yeah, like and she like fucksthem up, she's super strong.
Yeah, she's like really strong.
She uh like takes no shit, she'slike all of these things, and I
just think it's like a goodtime, like aside from the fact
(10:55):
that like I like, yeah, I lovethat the like feminist themes in
it, but I it's just a fun movieto watch.
And um, if you're a fan of thesubstance, I think the substance
took a lot a lot from thisvisually.
SPEAKER_00 (11:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
I hadn't thought about thatactually until you just said it.
Say more.
SPEAKER_01 (11:11):
Well, at the end, there is a scene where um kind
of the leftovers from the sexworkers that Jeffrey decided
were not good enough becometheir own thing, a blob, a
homunculus, whatever they callit.
Yeah.
And it's just a mix of likeboobs and legs and like uh
mouths and everything, and theytake their revenge on their
(11:33):
pimp.
Um but I just also recentlywatched The Substance, and there
was a scene, there's a scene, ifyou've seen the substance
similar to that at the end, thatI think just visually takes from
this movie a lot.
And it's just this it is, it'salmost like a commentary on
women just being a combinationof body parts for certain men.
Like that's all they are.
But when that when those bodyparts take their own action,
(11:55):
that's when it becomes aproblem.
So it's like these men trying tocontrol these women and then
these women getting agency stillfrom the viewpoint of them just
being their bodies by these men,but now scary because they can
do something about it.
SPEAKER_00 (12:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think The Substance isactually a great movie to talk
about in this episode because Ithought it was fantastic.
I loved it.
Yeah, yeah.
The overarching theme of TheSubstance really is like I felt
like it was like a deeplyprobably felt as a deeply
personal film to a lot of womenfor different reasons because so
much of it is about definingyour self-worth, especially
(12:52):
through the eyes of men.
Yes.
But more so than that, likethrough your physical body,
through the eyes of men, right?
And you know, and it devolvesfrom there and goes from there.
But I think there's a lot ofsimilarities to that with
feminism in general in horror.
And the substance is also a filmthat feels like it addresses
that in a progressive way, yes,and not you know, as a byproduct
(13:14):
of wanting to kill people whoare having sex or you know,
things like that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:18):
Well, I think especially one of the things I
loved about The Substance, and Ithink it's just true in
Hollywood generally, is thecommentary on women becoming
less valuable as they age.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's huge, especially withactresses and just in the
industry and in life in general,women are treated as invisible
or like less than the older andolder they get because they are
(13:40):
no longer sexually desirable.
Yep.
And uh one thing I also lovedabout the substance is while the
bodies are viewed sexuallybecause they have to be, because
that's part of the common likecommentary, like, is that this
person is looked at in a sexualmanner.
The way she like degrades overtime, especially like as the
movie goes on, kind of isdifferent from a lot of horror
(14:01):
movies, especially when it comesto like so spoilers for the
substance, when Eliza Sue at theend dies, she's this horrible,
monstrous being.
And often in horror movies, whenwomen die, they die in the most
sexual, presentable way.
Like they're naked, they're intheir skimpiest outfit, they're
(14:21):
doing a sexual act, or they'rejust their result they're
reduced to what they look likewhen they die.
Yeah.
And that's the thing I have witha lot of horror movies is that w
women are often killed first, ormore often than men in horror,
but they also die in just a muchmore brutal way.
(14:42):
And the substance does it in away where it is brutal, but it's
brutal because you've come tolove this character.
It's not just physically brutal,it's like all of the combination
of the themes of the movie makeit like that hard to watch.
Yeah.
Um because you're like, oh, itshe really tried so hard to fit
into this standard, a standardthat really just keeps changing,
(15:03):
keeps growing, keeps gettingbigger, that it destroyed her.
But in other movies, like uh onething I always just think about
is like there's so many movieswhere women die naked.
They die naked, somethinghappens to their like sexual
organs as a way of their death.
I know you hate the terrifiermovies.
SPEAKER_00 (15:20):
I I do, but I honestly, this whole time you've
been talking, it's all I canthink about.
Yeah, that's it's I and this iswhy I hate them.
SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
And like I I have a weird thingwith like I'm I just like fun
movies sometimes.
But Terrifier, I rewatched thefirst one recently, and there is
a scene where a woman is cutlike upside down and naked from
her vagina to her head.
Yep.
And it is long and it is sounnecessary.
Like I know those movies are allabout gore, but like that death
(15:47):
in particular, and just thedeath of women in those movies
are so rough to watch.
SPEAKER_00 (15:53):
That death in particular is burned into my
brain in a way that I wasthinking about it while you were
speaking.
Like it's so and I want to pauseactually because I think
something there's somethinginteresting I'm thinking about
as you're talking, and I thinkthat you and I share in this,
which is being a woman who loveshorror.
Yes, whose like personality isdefined on the fact that they
(16:14):
love horror is a reallyinteresting place to be,
especially as women who arehyper-feminist and progressive
and whatever, all these otherthings.
Because I think, and I noticedyou just did this a little bit,
and I do this too, you almostsometimes feel like depending on
the crowd, yeah, you need toapologize for liking Terrifier
or apologize for likingHalloween or whatever, or vice
(16:35):
versa.
If you're talking to like horrorpeople in a different, you know,
sort of social group, like neverbring up your commentary on it,
right?
Or your pushback on it.
And like the truth is somewherein the middle.
I think you and I both, and manypeople will agree.
I can love these movies or loveextremely graphic horror movies,
but also be critical of thetreatment of women in them.
(16:55):
Yeah.
And that's I think important totalk about.
Like it's not an all-or-nothingthing.
And in a lot of these cases,there's films that are
transformative and deeplypersonal and all these things,
but also there's issues with theway people are represented, and
not just women, of course, likemany other types of groups, you
know.
And as the genre evolves, like Ifeel like it's really starting
to shift only the last few yearsinto something that's more and
(17:17):
maybe that's unfair, butsomething that feels like
there's more awareness of thissort of thing in it, yeah.
Sometimes, but even withFrankenhooker, going back
briefly, just to say, yeah, likeFrankenhooker is incredibly fun.
Yes.
It's both problematic andprogressive at the same time.
And that's okay because we'retalking about it and addressing
it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:38):
Yeah.
I think, yeah, I think it'simportant to address, like, you
can like something, and I Godknows I love insanely awful
horror movies.
Like I like just bad horrormovies, uh, mistreatment of like
everyone.
Yeah.
But it's yeah, it's you can'tignore those.
You can't throw them aside andyou can't just pretend they
(17:59):
never happened because that'snever gonna get you anywhere.
Like and not to say that likeyou have to love them if they're
bad, and you can be turned offby a horror movie because of
something they did.
Yeah, like terrifier.
Yeah, like terrifier.
Like that's a totally validreason to not like something.
Yeah.
But it's just it's this need to,like you said, like apologize
(18:19):
for, especially like I and thisis a broad statement, but you
never really see men apologizingfor liking a movie where women
are brutalized.
Like, yeah.
So like it's just something thatbut it is hard sometimes because
I will watch horror and it justa scene will happen, and I'm
like, really?
Like that?
Another scene that I talk aboutall the time to jump to another
movie is in Final Destination 3,one of my favorite movies.
(18:42):
There is a scene where two girlsdie in a tanning bed.
And if anyone's seen this movie,knows this scene.
Yep.
And Final Destination is knownfor its brutal deaths.
Final Destination, that's allthose movies are.
There's barely any plot, there'sjust crazy deaths.
But there's a difference betweenlike in horror movies, people
are killed in brutal wayssometimes because that character
sucks and you want to see themdie that way.
In Final Destination 3, it'slike two of like very sweet
(19:04):
girls who are just there to belike kind of bimbos.
Yeah.
And then they die naked in atanning bed for like, I want to
say like five minutes of justlike horrible screaming.
And it just feels like it takesyou out of it for a second.
It took me out of it where I'mjust like, why?
Why did this need to happen?
Like, and I really don't knowthe answer as to why it needed
(19:51):
to happen, other than for fun,for to see their boobs, to see
like whatever.
Like, it's just rough and it itit stings you a little bit,
especially like while watchingolder things.
You're just like, oh, that feltreally gratuitous for no reason.
Even in a movie where gore iseverywhere, felt really weird.
SPEAKER_00 (20:11):
Yeah.
I mean, watching through, right?
We just finished our Friday the13th series.
Watching through all of thosemovies, there's so many naked
women who are who they get tothis camp, right?
It's always the same thing, orwherever they are, they undress,
they start having sex, andthere's another layer here
where, to your point earlier, alot of the time women are killed
(20:34):
while they are having sex, whichis very similar to what we're
saying with the value of womenin Frankenhooker, right?
There's like a hierarchy ofwomen who are pure or impure, in
addition to anything else.
And so while that's not always ahard rule, that's something you
see again and again, especiallyin like 80s slasher movies and
things like that, where it'sokay for them to be killed
(20:55):
because they're having sex, andthat's bad.
SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
Absolutely.
And yeah, the final girl isoften pure virginal on that.
She's not having sex, she's notdrinking, she's not doing drugs.
And anytime there is like afinal guy in a horror film,
that's never a point.
Right.
That's not really the point ofhis character.
His character is just strong,brave, or like in Evil Dead, he
just kind of happens to be theone to survive.
(21:19):
Like no offense to Ash and EvilDead.
But um with yeah, with FinalGirls, there's always like why
she's alive, like why she didthis.
Lori in Halloween is themotherly type.
She protects the children.
She's not having sex, she's liketaking care of all this, though
she does smoke weed.
SPEAKER_00 (21:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
Poorly, but yeah.
Poorly.
She tries, gives it her best.
Yeah, even that.
They have to make a point thatshe's bad at.
Yeah, she's coughing and she'sthis is not something she does
often, but she takes in thechildren, she protects the
children.
Or in uh Friday the 13th, yeah.
Alice, she's not doing anything,she's not off having sex, she's
there to do her job, and that'sit.
Or even in like Alien, like noteven a sexual thing, but like
(21:55):
obeying the rules.
Like, I love Alien, and I thinkRipley is a complete badass, but
no one likes Ripley in thatmovie.
Yeah.
If you watch that movie over,her crewmates like don't like
her because she's stoic, she'shardened, she's like kind of
compared to the other woman notcrying all the time, not she's
masculine.
Yeah, she's very masculine,especially because she was
(22:15):
written as a man first.
Exactly.
But then at the end, she getslike in her underwear for no
reason.
That always surprises me when Iwatch that movie.
There's a scene at the end whenshe's in the escape pod where
she just strips down to herunderwear for no reason.
There's simply no reason forthat scene, other than oh, I
guess she's a woman final girl,so we gotta have at least one
(22:36):
scene where she's half naked.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
It goes against everything they had set up for
her the whole time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:41):
And I guess one could argue that it's just like,
oh, it's supposed to be a humanmoment, like she's relieved,
she's whatever.
But like it just that scenealways felt so unnecessary to
me.
But yeah, the final girls areeither someone women people
hate, like that happens a lot,or like women that are like so
good that like you couldn'tpossibly want them to die.
Like, look at her, she'sperfect.
(23:02):
She's like, again, the MadonnaWhore thing, like she's amazing.
Like, why would she die?
Like, she doesn't deserve todie, other than that girl who
had consensual sex.
Yeah.
Like it's it's a lot.
And I think it's sexuality issomething that is played with so
much in horror to the pointwhere like even the progressive
view of it is not thatprogressive.
(23:24):
And uh one thing I do want totalk about is rape revenge
stories, where like that'ssupposed to be like, oh look,
she did this, like this happenedto her, and she's getting her
revenge, and you get to seethese rapists die.
But it's like all of thosemovies have very brutal sexual
assault scenes.
SPEAKER_00 (23:40):
17 minutes, right?
Last house on the left, 17minutes long.
SPEAKER_01 (23:43):
Like, I first of all don't need the woman to be a
badass because somethingterrible happened to her.
Yep.
And it's not just true of horrormovies, it's true of a lot of
other movies like Kill Bill.
Like movies that are set up likeonly when a woman is brutalized
to a point of like insanity,basically, can she then stand up
(24:06):
for herself?
And even if you want to do that,like why do you need to include
the scene?
Like, who is that for?
SPEAKER_00 (24:12):
Like well, that and that's the question.
And I think it's the samequestion as the tanning bed
thing you're just talking about.
Who is it for?
You can do you can do the thecrazy tanning bed death in 30
seconds.
Yeah, you can allude to what'shappening in Last House and the
Left very briefly from afar.
Yes, but it's the trauma ofwatching that in the way that
it's filmed, which is horrifyingon such like almost uh realistic
(24:34):
way.
Yeah, that if anybody iswatching that and they're like,
I'm entertained, I'm chill withthis, I find it deeply
problematic.
SPEAKER_01 (24:43):
Yeah, it's scary, and like, or even still, like
um, one of my favorite horrormovies of all time is Jennifer's
Body.
Same.
Diablo Cody is a beautifulwriter, but Jennifer's Body is
an allegory for both puberty andsexual assault when Jennifer is
sacrificed.
That is supposed to be likeshe's taken in the van, she's
taken in the woods, like that,but they don't show that.
(25:03):
They show like her being killed,but it's in a normal way, and
it's not more gratuitous thanany other violence in the film.
But they didn't have to show herbeing assaulted, they didn't
have to show that.
It's it's implied, it's alsolike her sexuality is prevalent
before and after that.
But it's a comment on it withoutshowing this like brutal thing
(25:27):
happening to her.
Like you don't need it, andeveryone gets it, and everyone
understands.
Like it's you don't need thatscene.
Jennifer's body was also avictim of misogyny in the real
world because of its marketing,which I think became very um
well known recently.
That it was marketed as look atMegan Fox, be sexy, um and make
out with Amanda Sayfried.
(25:48):
Yeah.
Who's the main character and notin any of the posters?
If you look at any, she's not ina single like of the main
posters, but the marketing teamwas different from the
production team.
So the marketing team was like,Megan Fox is in this, and Megan
Fox looks hot in this because,well, Megan Fox does look hot in
it because once Megan Fox, andyeah, the point is that she's
supposed to disarm like she's asuccubus if that's what it's
supposed to be.
(26:08):
But the marketing team justmarketed it towards young men.
And so the movie failed becauseyoung men don't want to see that
movie.
That was a movie made for youngwomen.
Yeah.
Um, the language of it, thefriendship of it, the content of
it, all of it is for a youngerwoman audience.
But because it was marketed aslook at Megan Fox as a
cheerleader, right, with just onthe like poster a little bit of
(26:30):
blood on her lips as if she'slike a sexy vampire, men go see
this movie and see her be likethis kind of contorted like
woman who's targeting men.
Yes, it didn't do well.
And so it kind of flopped andthen it became a cult classic,
obviously.
But it's this world in which ifthere isn't something that is
typical of horror in it and it'snot for certain audiences,
(26:53):
people are like, oh well, that'sa bad movie.
Like sometimes things justaren't for you.
Right.
It's like it's just not youdon't need to see it.
If you don't like it, it's notmeant for you.
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
It's not revolutionary to be a woman who
likes horror.
Oh, yeah.
Growing up, my m my because ofmy mom, I'm into horror, right?
Like that's something that's notnew, but there's this
perception, I believe still, inthe world where it's like so
rare.
Like women in horror, like, andlike yes, women in film, women,
all of those things areimportant, and but women fucking
love horror.
Yeah.
And there's an audience forthat.
(27:23):
And like I think that marketingteam was also like, oh, well,
men are that's where the thebigger audience for horror is,
and that's not true.
No, you know, and I I think alot of it's just like maybe
women don't love watching filmswhere women get killed all the
time in brutal ways whilethey're naked, but there women
do love horror, and that's not aniche or like subversive thing.
(27:44):
That's like a very, very, verycommon thing.
Yes.
Just to say.
Yeah.
Jennifer's Body uh was one ofthose like really pinnacle films
for me.
Oh yeah.
And I didn't know that about themarketing team at all.
It's really interesting to hearthat.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:58):
All the posters, Amanda Seyfried isn't in a
single one of them.
And if she is, she's in thebackground.
SPEAKER_00 (28:03):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (28:03):
And all of them are Megan Fox pose scandalously, all
of that, and it's just not likethe posters to the movies are
just not what the movie is.
Like it's right.
SPEAKER_00 (28:12):
Right.
There's like your two point,there's nothing wrong with Megan
Fox being hot on a poster, butit's a it's a misrepresentation
of the plot.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:19):
Yeah.
And uh even, I mean, like, Ijust don't think people uh
understood, and it flopped, andit just there are articles if
you want to like read more aboutthis about how the marketing
team failed that movie.
Yeah, it's just these thingswhere like I'm a huge fan of
bubblegum horror as well.
I know you love the love witch.
SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
Love the love witch.
Love it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:39):
Like that, you can see these women being badass
without giving up theirfemininity and without using
that feminine for men.
Like the love witch, I think isI when I first watched it, I was
like younger and I was justlike, oh, what just happened?
And then I watched it and thenI'm like, oh, that was awesome.
Like that was I love I see whatthey're doing there.
Yeah.
Moments in it where like youkind of flip the switch and you
(29:02):
don't force your character tofinal girls, they're often
forced into like masculineroles, like Ripley and Alien, or
forced into a feminine that menare comfortable with.
Whereas in The Love Witch, she'slike hyper feminine to the point
of like men don't really likethat, or like she gets tired of
them, or just just hercompletely own agency.
Like, men are just kind of therefor her, and like she like uses
(29:25):
them, she does her thing, it'sover.
And like not to say that youhave to have like a movie where
the men are completelydisposable, but like it's fun to
watch a movie where your maincharacter doesn't have to give
up anything.
SPEAKER_00 (29:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (29:37):
Like as a woman, like she doesn't really give
anything up, she doesn't changeherself in any way, she's not
attacked, she's not anything,she just is who she is.
Yeah.
And you just watch her story.
SPEAKER_00 (29:47):
There's this element of the Love Witch, which I think
is really one of the reasons Ilove it so much.
This comes up all the time inhorror, right?
This in and just in history.
This idea of vanity being a sin.
This idea of caring too muchabout your appearance or
dressing a certain way makes youbad, all that stuff.
The thing I love so much, one ofthe things about the Love Witch
(30:08):
is that her she is so aesthetic,right?
She is doing her makeup, she'sdoing her hair.
Like to your point, she's hyperfeminine, but she's beyond that,
she's putting time and care intolike she loves to dress a
certain way, she loves to styleher room a certain way, she
loves, and that's not a badthing, and that doesn't make her
weak, and that doesn't make hervapid, that doesn't make her
(30:28):
vain.
It's just something she's reallyinto.
It's her version of art.
And I find that to be so fun,and it's almost like we see her
like dream world almost throughher eyes.
And I love the part in thatmovie, which at first I was
really confused by, but the asyears go on, I am so warmed up
to it where.
There's two moments.
(30:48):
One where you just see a shitton of modern cars, and the
other time when someone's onlike an iPhone, and you're like,
oh, she's in the modern world.
Like they're purposefully doingthat.
She's just creating this likeart space for herself.
And I I think it's so cool.
Um, I mean, also any kind ofmenstrual spell horror I'm into.
Oh, yeah.
(31:09):
10 out of 10.
SPEAKER_01 (31:10):
It is, I was talking to someone and they were like,
oh yeah, like the menstrualstuff in Midsumar and Love
Witch, we were talking aboutthat.
And they were just like, ohyeah, that made me really
uncomfortable.
And I'm like, the the blood inMidsumar was the part that made
you the most uncomfortable.
Like, that's what, like, it'sjust this need to see what
(31:31):
you're used to seeing,especially in horror.
And it happens a lot where likeoriginal horror is something
that is like so sought after.
Like, it's hard, it's beenhappening forever.
And it's almost impossible.
And that's fine because you canplay with things so much.
But to see something sodifferent, like the Love Witch
or even Jennifer's Body orFranken Hooker, like something
where you're just like, that'snot what I'm used to seeing.
(31:53):
It makes people feel weird.
Yeah.
But it's also nice to see like aversion of, like you said, like
she's doing her makeup, she'slike so like all of this, but
it's never for anyone else.
Like she's just in her houselooking like that at points,
like all that.
But there's a book I love calledThe Ways of Seeing by John
Berger, where he just talksabout like the way we perceive
the world, and he has a quote init about women and how women are
(32:15):
viewed.
And he says, To be born a womanhas been to be born within an
allotted and confined space intothe keeping of men.
And he also says, um, a womanmust continually watch herself.
She is almost continuallyaccompanied by her own image of
herself while she is walkingacross a room or while she is
weeping at the death of herfather, she can scarcely avoid
envisioning herself walking orweeping.
(32:36):
From earliest childhood, she hasbeen taught and persuaded to
survey herself continuously.
SPEAKER_00 (32:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:40):
So basically, just like this feeling of being
watched, this feeling of youneed to look a certain way, you
need to act a certain way, thatin horror is punished often with
women.
Like women doing what women arelike quote unquote supposed to
do, which is dress a certainway, act a certain way, like
sleep with men, but don't sleepwith men, like any of this is
(33:01):
punished.
Right.
And obviously men are punishedfor having sex in horror too.
But it's just it's so differentbecause you're never seeing
their genitals.
No, you don't see theirgenitals, you don't see any of
that.
There's not a like long scene ofthem stripping.
There's not a long scene of anyof that.
Um, and it's just this likepurity idea that is so old but
(33:24):
so continuous, like to today.
Like it's just something that ishard to watch.
It's and I also think thatthere's a lot of horror
characters who die in like crazyways other than almost adopted
by female horror fans as like anicon or as like a like a great
thing, or like uh in I Know WhatYou Did Last Summer, um Helen
(33:44):
Shivers, like the friend whodies, like she's like people are
like, She should have been thefinal girl.
Like it's crazy that they killedher.
Or it's or in Franken Hooker, Ithink she's iconic.
I think all the sex workers areiconic.
Yeah.
And it's just like, or inTerrifier, like her friend in
the beginning is like so fun andlike free and like awesome,
like, and all she does is yeah,she bothers him a little bit,
(34:04):
but whatever.
And it's these characters thatlike you're sad seeing die,
because I'm all for a gratuitousdeath scene if the character is
an asshole.
I love watching like assholehorror characters really get
like crazy death scenes becauseyou're like, yeah.
But with women, they're likethey do like one thing wrong or
are never mentioned again.
One thing I want to talk aboutwas in Scream, yeah.
(34:25):
Yeah, has one of the craziestdeaths in that movie, in my
opinion.
Everyone else is stabbed,everyone else is stabbed and
left to die.
She's like running, screaming,trying to crawl through the
garage, get stuck in the garage,is like slowly brought up and
killed.
And this is the main character'sbest friend, the one of the
other main characters' littlesister, and she's never
(34:45):
mentioned again.
In like, I mean, I they mayoff-handedly mention her in the
rest of the series, but barely.
They don't have a scene ofmourning, they don't have
anything.
Like, if she just dies and it'sover, like it's such a crazy
long scene for a character thatis not a throwaway character,
and they have this like longscene and then they throw her
(35:07):
away.
SPEAKER_00 (35:07):
Right, yeah.
It's actually interesting.
I'm thinking about all this tooas you're talking.
I almost feel like, in a way,going back to to Jennifer's
body, but to so many otherhorror films, there is like this
rebellion, this act of rebellionthat comes with queer horror,
especially for women.
Yes, because right, toeverything we're talking about,
like women are perceived inhorror through the the eyes of
(35:30):
men generally.
And we're talking about like astraight sort of cis het
situation.
But when you have scenes like inJennifer's body or just like
generally queer horror, it feelslike just almost by nature it
flips that on its head.
Yeah.
Because you're not, you know,I'm thinking about bodies,
bodies, bodies a little bit, butyou're not like those characters
aren't inherently there to servemen or male audiences, and maybe
(35:54):
they do, but you know, whatever.
Yeah.
But like there's a differentangle to it, and just even that
shift is so powerful, you know,in in movies as they come out
now.
SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
Yeah, and I'm not saying that like you can't have
sex in movies or no, of coursenot.
Obviously, you can't preventaudiences from being assholes.
Yeah.
If like towards characters,especially like complex female
characters, like people end uphating them when like just if it
were a man doing the same thing,they'd be like, Oh, well, he's
going through a lot.
Yeah.
Um, but you can't but you don'thave to play into it.
(36:25):
And I'm not saying you even needto like have the most
progressive take.
Just like treat them like otherpeople in your film.
Like, if a man dies in your filmin a crazy way, sure, have a
woman die in a crazy way.
But if a man dies in your filmand it's kind of normal, like
then keep your deathsconsistent.
Like, keep all that consistent.
Like, there's no need to havethis follow this trope of women
(36:48):
just being brutalized.
And I just would love to seemore agency with women
characters in horror and justless of in order to become a
badass, yeah, you need to watchall your friends die, or you
need to watch um, you need to bebrutally assaulted, or any of
that.
Like, I guess that I guess thatwatching your friends die is a
big part of horror, but it'sthis almost forcefulness of the
(37:09):
characters.
They like force the charactersto see things and experience
things in order to prepare themfor the end of the film.
Whereas you could just have yourcharacter living and
experiencing something insteadof it kind of being the actions
of women in horror films is lessactual actions and more of them
not doing things, and that'swhat gets them forward rather
(37:31):
than them actually taking agencyinto their own lives.
SPEAKER_00 (37:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think that's totallyright.
And to your point, like I lovefilms with naked women, I love
films with sex, I love filmswith drugs.
Like, that's not the pro point.
It's like the association or themessage that's of the pairing of
those things, plus, right?
Yeah, and you know, I thinkabout Titan a lot or like other
films that are also exploringgender, right?
(37:57):
And I think the great thing,right?
The positive silver lining ofthis is like because horror has
been very binary for so long,yes, I think there's gonna be
some really incredible filmsthat can use these tropes and
flip them or play with them aswe sort of expand into a more
progressive world, right?
So I think that's reallyexciting and something I'm
(38:17):
looking forward to a lot.
SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I'm really looking forward towell, because film has opened up
to so many different groups ofpeople now.
Yeah.
Just films that we're almost notonly progressive takes, but
we're just the gender orwhatever of a person does not
matter.
Yeah.
That's not important to thefilm.
That's not why they survive,that's not why they're doing
this.
Right.
It just is happening.
Right, right.
So, like, not only do we needfilms that are more progressive
(38:40):
towards women that actually takefeminist stories, but there's
also feminists to just have afilm where if a woman survives,
that's just because thatcharacter survives.
It's not because she's a woman,it's not because of that.
Just treat them like peopleconsistently and then obviously
murder them viciously, becauseit's still horror.
SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
Yeah, it's still horror.
We still want the the kill.
Yeah, we still want that.
SPEAKER_01 (38:58):
Let's talk about teeth.
Yes, let's talk about teeth.
I love teeth.
I watched teeth for the firsttime when I think I was maybe 12
or 13 years old.
Okay.
And I loved it.
I thought it was amazing, andthen I had mostly male friends
at the time, and I said, Heyguys, let's watch something, but
(39:19):
don't look up what it's about.
And I forced them to watch itwith me.
Nice.
Um, they were deeplyuncomfortable.
But Teeth is a film that, and Iknow I said I don't like the
rape revenge films, butsometimes that's what you have.
That's what you have to workwith in terms of feminist films.
Yeah.
That's what they give you.
But Teeth is a film about a girlgoing through puberty who has
(39:41):
pledged to wait until marriage,and who the men in her life are
refusing to do that.
They are pressuring her, theyare attacking her, they she
cannot catch a break.
And her body gives her aself-defense system, which is
teeth in her vagina.
I um will bite off your penis ifyou try to have sex with her.
But the one thing I love aboutteeth is that every time
(40:05):
something happens to hersexually and her vagina attacks,
yeah, um, it has been sexualassault.
There is a, and they make apoint of this consensual sexual
scene in the film where nothinghappens.
SPEAKER_00 (40:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:20):
Because the point is not she can never have sex.
The point is not her vagina isprotecting her from sex, the
point is her vagina isprotecting her from sexual
assault.
SPEAKER_02 (40:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:28):
So I loved that they put a consensual sex scene in
that film.
Because that means there shouldbe no one that's afraid of this.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Like she still has agency withher body, she's not losing
control of her body.
It may feel like her body'sdoing something against her
will, which in the beginning,when she doesn't know what's
happening, it is, but it'sprotecting her.
But it's not something that isgonna keep her virginal forever.
SPEAKER_00 (40:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
And then towards the end of the film, she learns to
control it and use it to heradvantage.
And while again, this movie iscampy and doesn't have like the
best, like it's not the mostlike amazing film, and it's not,
and it has scenes where areagain are a bit much, but it
just takes a young girl whowould be taken advantage of her
(41:11):
life and gives her this agency.
Yeah.
And like I like that in thebeginning, she is confused, she
doesn't know how to control it.
Cause again, a lot of films, alot of horror films like to
explore like puberty and comingof age and all that in a
grotesque way.
Yeah.
But she grows and learns to useit and learns to be comfortable
with her sexuality and takecontrol of her sexuality.
(41:34):
So it's not saying to youngwomen, be afraid to have sex,
it's saying to young women, You,this is your body.
You can do like you havecontrol, you have agency, like
you have a say in this.
SPEAKER_00 (41:45):
And there should be no one, if any man ever watches
that movie, or any, you know,whatever, any man, any person
with a penis watches that movie,yeah, and they are
uncomfortable, yeah, thenthey're somebody who maybe is
used to having non-consensualsex.
You know what I mean?
Like there should be nothingabout that that freaks men out.
Yeah.
Like unless they're someone whowho doesn't listen to a no.
SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
But yeah, or like even yeah, even the scenes that
are like, other than like thegore in it, like, yeah, there
are scenes where a guy's penisis fully bitten off, and I can
see that maybe hitting someone.
But welcome to the life of likebeing a woman.
One of my favorite films, SleepBoy Camp, has a girl like oh
yeah, like like with a curlingiron, like like I'm pretty sure
like in her vagina at one point,or like or Texas Chainsaw Mask
(42:29):
Carl.
That's a rough one, Kate.
That's a rough movie.
Sleep Boy Camp?
Yeah, that's a whole other moviethat is that movie.
I would say I do not agree withthe ideas of.
I just think it's really fun towatch.
SPEAKER_00 (42:39):
That movie is not let's caveat that so you don't
get canceled.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
Yeah, exactly.
That movie is so dated, so sodated, yeah.
And I actually wrote a wholeessay on it in college about
like why it's messed up, but Ijust think it's fun to show
people.
Yeah.
Because it makes no sense.
But regardless, Terrifier haswomen's boobs being cut off.
Again, her being like cutstraight down from her vagina,
like Texas chainsaw.
Texas chainsaw mask, or she'shooked on that hook.
(43:02):
That is like one of the worst.
Like, that makes my skin crawl.
SPEAKER_00 (43:05):
That movie is that movie is hard for me to watch.
SPEAKER_01 (43:07):
So, yes, there are gory scenes in it where I can
see it making you uncomfortable,especially with genital things,
but like that's horror movies.
Like, there's gonna be gore init that makes you feel icky.
Right.
But other than that, the deathsaren't happening for no reason.
The deaths aren't they're doneby her and done by her body for
a reason.
And there's so like again,there's just so much agency with
(43:28):
her character.
Like, she becomes this likepowerful woman, and wish
everyone had that defensemechanism, that'd be great, but
yeah, obviously, not real.
SPEAKER_00 (43:36):
But not you're real yet, but maybe our bodies will
evolve, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
But it's just this this character who is treated as
a joke in the beginning thatknows what she wants, and her
also idea, like though she doesend up having sex before
marriage consensually, it's notsomething that feels like a
betrayal to her character.
Nothing is done for the malegaze in that film.
Everything is done for women'sempowerment generally.
(44:04):
Like obviously, there are jokesmade and all that, but just this
idea of yeah, a young girl whohas complete control over her
body by the end.
SPEAKER_00 (44:11):
And I have to say, Teeth the musical, which was an
off-Broadway show that came outlast year, I think, was one of
the most fun theater experiencesI've had in New York.
There was the first two or threerows had to wear ponchos because
they were in the blood splashzone.
It there were so many dildosinvolved in that show.
You can listen to the soundtrackon Spotify, and I encourage that
(44:32):
you do.
If it ever comes back to NewYork, I will let you guys know
because it was a delight.
SPEAKER_01 (44:37):
Like, yeah, again, sexuality is not the evil in
horror films.
No, it's how you portray it.
Yeah.
Sexuality can be amazing inhorror films.
It can be used as and again, I'mnot I don't have a problem with
sexuality being used as aweapon.
I don't have a problem withthat.
It's when you force yourcharacter into their sexuality.
Right that's an issue.
SPEAKER_00 (44:56):
Yeah, because sex like sex is deeply human.
Yes.
How people identify is deeplyhuman, like going through sort
of and you know, and also justto like broaden up the
conversation a little bit, likeeven as women, like how people w
women are not a monolith, right?
Men are not a monolith,transgender people are not a
monolith.
(45:16):
Like the ever way everybodyapproaches all of these things
is so nuanced and different, andyou know, etc.
etc.
And so and so there's no likeright or wrong playbook, right,
around how things are portrayedor it's a spectrum, is the
point, right?
But there are things that feelincredibly difficult to watch,
regardless, I would hope, ofyour personal identity, right?
(45:39):
To see a certain type of personportrayed over and over and over
again and killed in a certainway over and over and over again
is exhausting.
SPEAKER_01 (45:46):
Yeah, and it's true of different races, it's true of
trans people in horror.
There is actually, I think, abook just came out not that long
ago about like transness andhorror and just how they're uh
always portrayed as themonsters.
Yeah.
And again, like Sleepaway camp.
Sleepaway camp.
Yeah.
But like even that movie, it'snot even a like it's again a
(46:08):
forced upon the character.
Yeah.
Like if characters make choices,that's acceptable.
In Teeth, she ends up making thechoice to again in the
beginning, it's like a littlelike sloppy, but she makes the
choice to use this as a weapon.
And she uses it to heradvantage.
But then you look at somethinglike even yeah, Last House on
(46:29):
the Left, like just somethingthat is forced on them.
Yeah.
Her sexuality is forced on her,her revenge is forced on her.
Like this revenge never wouldhave had to happen.
And like, yeah, Jennifer's body,she uses her sexuality to her
advantage as well.
But also, she was forced tobecome that.
But you know, but that's thecommentary on it.
Like other films, like theyforce them to become it, and
(46:49):
they're like, Yeah, that's cool,that's great.
She's a badass, she kills allher rapists.
But in Jennifer's body, it's acomment on being forced to
become this, like ruining otherpeople's lives and seeing your
friend like kind of have thishappen to them.
But yeah, it's just this need toover-sexualize women, but not so
much that it makes menuncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00 (47:10):
I'm trying I'm even thinking about um Nightmare on
Elm Street with that imagery ofhis like gloved hand, right?
Freddy's gloved hand coming outin the bathtub, like between her
legs.
It's just like it's justnon-stop.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01 (47:23):
It's a hard topic to truly get into with like such a
broad idea of like in all ofthese films.
Like you would have to likeindividually dissect so many
classic slasher films and somany classic horror films to
really get down to thenitty-gritty of how women are
treated.
But it's just important to notonly watch out for these things
in horror films and like seewhere you can find it, to like
(47:45):
see who's still doing it or likehow it's still prevalent,
because it's important toacknowledge that it's happening,
but also to acknowledge when yousee changes in it or how it
makes you feel, or and it yeah,not just with feminism, but with
like everything that you thinkis mistreated in horror or in
movies generally.
It's important to acknowledgeit, and it's hard for me to talk
(48:08):
about like in such a concise waybecause your mind goes
everywhere because you're likeso passionate about it, and it
it really does affect you everyday, and so yeah, I enjoy
talking about it, but it'ssomething that I think like more
people need to acknowledge, andI'm glad that there are more
women and um like making horror,more trans people making horror,
(48:28):
queer people making horror, likedifferent races making horror,
just like so many more peopleare open to it now, and you get
to see this change, or you getto see commentary on it in
films, like kind of becomingmeta and like more satire with
it, and it kind of opens otherpeople's eyes to something that
maybe you just saw as abackground thing, but really can
affect like people while they'regrowing up and seeing these and
(48:49):
seeing how they're represented.
SPEAKER_00 (48:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think representation inhorror and film in general, of
course, but especially in horroris so important because there is
like we talked about this in theFriday the 13th series.
There's so much ROI, there's somuch popularity, even against
bad horror, yes, for a reason.
Horror is an insanely populargenre, even if it doesn't maybe
(49:13):
have the respect of other sortof film genres for a reason.
Yes.
It's escapism, it's somethingpeople want.
They want the thrill, they wantthe adrenaline, it's fun.
We've said that word a hundredtimes in this episode.
It's fun.
And I think the part the kind ofthe core of what we're getting
to a little bit here is that wego to horror movies, we watch
horror movies all the time fortons of different reasons.
(49:35):
But one of those reasons is thatescape, right?
It is I want to see a campyhorror movie.
I loved Jason X because it wasso freaking crazy.
Like, I want that.
I love that.
That's something horror can dothat not a lot of other genres
can do.
Where it gets uncomfortable iswhere you have a 17-minute
hyper-realistic scene that isnot an escape.
(49:55):
Yeah.
It's it's certain there's tonsof reasons that it's not okay.
But when you have these things,and there's actually a scene in
um Thanksgiving, that thathorror film that came out a few
years ago.
Oh, I know that movie.
SPEAKER_01 (50:08):
Yeah.
I watch it every Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00 (50:09):
Uh yeah, it's I I really liked it way better than
I thought it was gonna be, butthere's a scene and it's not a
feminist scene.
There's an oven scene, and itgoes on way too long.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (50:19):
That's the same with the Final Destination tanning
scene.
Yeah, it's not even aboutfeminism at all.
Too long.
It's just like, why to thesecharacters are you doing this?
Yeah.
It's often women.
Yeah.
And it's just I think it hurtit, if anything, it takes you
out of the plot.
SPEAKER_00 (50:31):
Yeah.
No, it does.
It made me so anxious watchingit in the theater.
I thought I would have to get upand leave.
SPEAKER_01 (50:36):
Yeah.
Thanksgiving, Last House on theLeft, these things that like it
hurts you deeper almost likebecause like in Friday the 13th,
you see women die and you seethem in these sex scenes, and
it's rough, but at least it likehappens, it's quick, it's over,
you're like, okay, that's ahorror movie, and you continue
on.
With films like that, you'relike, you almost leave the
horror film.
You leave the movie.
Yeah.
You go back to like you kind ofstart thinking about your own
(50:58):
director.
Yes.
Oh, yeah, sure, sure.
I like Thanksgiving, but um, Ihave thoughts on Eli Roth.
Yeah, fair.
Um but you start thinking aboutthe people who made this because
you're like, why did you dothat?
Like, what's wrong with you?
And if anything, I think ittakes away from the horror film.
SPEAKER_00 (51:12):
It also for me, like it yes, I think about the
director, but then I also thinkabout my experiences, right?
Like it it brings about maybelike trauma or other things in a
way that you're not looking forin an experience, like watching
a film called Thanksgiving onThanksgiving.
You know what I mean?
Like you're there to have a fun,good time.
SPEAKER_01 (51:29):
Yeah, and you're just like, this is so not
necessary to the plot.
It's so different from the restof the movie in terms of how
long it lasts.
SPEAKER_00 (51:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (51:38):
And just you feel icky.
You feel icky, like like adifferent kind of icky than
horror movies should make youfeel.
Like you feel real world icky.
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (51:48):
Kate, thank you so much.
This was so lovely to sit downand talk to you about feminism
and horror, especially throughthe lens of Frank and Hooker,
but through the lens of so manyof these films.
If you want more from Kate, staytuned.
But also head tolunaticsproject.com and click on
articles.
Kate writes all the time for uson lunaticsproject.com, and
(52:08):
there's so much that she has tosay, and so much that the world
wants to hear from her.
So definitely go and read someof her articles there.
And yeah, thanks for being here.
This was excellent.
Thank you guys so much forlistening.
We'll talk to you soon.
Bye.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode
of the Lunatics Radio HourPodcast.
My name is Abby Branker, and I'msitting here with Kate Rotunda.
SPEAKER_01 (00:27):
Hello.
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
Hi, Kate.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me.
We're so excited that you'rehere.
Kate is a longtime Lunaticscontributor, I would say.
You write articles and help uswith research and all kinds of
things.
And going into 2026, we're gonnahave a bunch of episodes with
Kate, and she has helpedresearch on some really, really
fun topics.
So we're incredibly excited forthose.
(00:48):
But today we are here to talkabout the intersection of horror
and feminism, especially throughthe lens of Frankenhooker.
Yes.
Just a quick content warningbefore we get into this episode.
We are going to talk about somepotentially heavy themes, some
themes of you know how women areobjectified in horror.
And so that could include sexualassault and beyond and other
(01:09):
things like that.
So just be aware that we'renever gonna be too graphic, but
that is something that's gonnacome up today.
So so if you're not comfortablewith that, we wanted to make
sure that you were aware of it.
So you came to me with thisidea.
This was something that youwanted to talk about.
Tell us why.
SPEAKER_01 (01:23):
Well, I'm a huge feminist and a huge horror fan,
and you can't ignore feminismand horror, especially misogyny
and horror.
It happens all the time, it isstill so prevalent.
You'd think it would have gonedown, but it's not.
Recently, I watchedFrankenhooker for the first
time, and I fell in love withit.
It is so campy, it is so crazy,and it is like, in my opinion,
(01:44):
like uh feminist horror almost.
And like Trauma is known forbeing pretty progressive with
their ideas in the worst wayalmost.
Like they do it in a way whereit's so insane that you're
watching it and you're like,there's no way this is
progressive, but they sneakthings in there, and it's just
the way the character acts andthe way the story ends is just
so beautiful to me and givesagency to these characters that
(02:07):
in any other film would havebeen treated as a complete joke.
And not to say that it isn't acomplete joke, because the movie
is once again just ridiculous,but it generally I think they do
a good job of showing a mantrying to take control of a
woman's body and it justcompletely backfiring.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
Absolutely.
To me, it feels and it it mustnot be, but it feels almost
accidentally feminist.
Yeah.
I actually just watched it forthe first time as well in
preparation for this episode,and I thought it was fantastic.
Like largely, like it not notperfect, right?
Of course, but I had so much funwatching it.
It had such a fun arc.
To your point, it kind ofsidesteps the things you think
(02:45):
that it might.
The way that it sets up, you'relike, oh god, yeah, this is
gonna be a mess, right?
Not that it isn't a mess, butit's a mess in a way that has a
bit of a heart and has, to yourpoint, like an ending that feels
really satisfying as a womanwatching horror films like this
all the time.
Yeah, I I thought it was ablast.
I also am such a Frankensteinfan that seeing those like 80s
(03:06):
remakes of some of those sceneswas really fun in a different
way.
To your point, there's somestuff that feels really great.
It feels really validating forour main character, right?
Elizabeth Shelley, who isobviously a little bit of a nod
to Mary Shelley with her name.
It doesn't feel as satisfying,for example, for the sex workers
in the movie.
Of course.
Yeah.
And to your point about the druguse and all that stuff.
(03:27):
Like, there's issues.
There's issues with that.
That aside, I think you'reright.
Like when Kate first came to meand she was like, I want to talk
about how Frankenhooker is afeminist film.
I was like, What?
Like, I've never seen thismovie, but there's no way.
It's the title alone.
The title alone, right?
Like, you know, we're s we wedon't even say that word
anymore.
Yeah, it's really, and and we'regonna have some mild spoilers,
(03:49):
I'll say, for this, but youshould definitely watch it.
Oh, yeah.
And I guess we'll give a littlebit of context around
Frankenhooker for people whohaven't seen it.
Yeah.
So the film came out in 1980.
And do you want to kind of givepeople a really high-level plot
overview?
SPEAKER_01 (04:01):
The film starts uh following a young inventor of
sorts named Jeffrey, kind of aDr.
Frankenstein type, doing littleexperiments in his basement, and
he has a girlfriend namedElizabeth, and they are at a
party for Elizabeth's father.
Elizabeth and Jeffrey seem tohave a good relationship, pretty
supportive.
I mean they both seem prettyjuvenile regardless.
The party ends in tragedy withElizabeth dying in a freak
(04:22):
accident, and Jeffrey is leftdepressed, and with his
experiments, he is trying tothink of the best way to bring
her back.
He has saved all her body partsand wants to bring her back.
So he So romantic.
Yes, very romantic.
Basically, it's a veryFrankenstein-esque thing where
he needs more body parts.
He doesn't have everything heneeds, so he goes into the city
and targets sex workers for theoptimal women's body parts and
(04:46):
ultimately brings Elizabeth backwith some unintended
consequences because she doesnot come back the way he wanted
her to.
SPEAKER_00 (04:52):
And here's the payoff, and we're just gonna
spoil the movie because I thinkit's hard to talk about this
topic without spoiling themovie.
So much of the movie, which isreally short, it's like an hour
and 20 minutes, so much of it ishim like shopping for the
perfect legs, the perfect buttcheek, the per and it's a joke,
right?
Like so much so that one of thebutt cheeks he puts a check on,
right?
Like that's the one.
He's like swapping left andright boobs.
(05:14):
Like it's this whole thing,right?
It's this joke of like himcrafting this perfect woman.
And the other layer to this,which we haven't even talked
about yet, is at the beginningof the movie, at the cookout,
Elizabeth's mom and other peopleare giving her a lot of shit
about her weight.
Yes.
And so that's another importantlayer to this because then he's
like crafting this perfect body.
(05:34):
Yeah, you know, and her bodygets destroyed.
So it's not, you know, we don'tknow how he feels about any of
that, but it's just us, it'ssomething that they included in
the movie intentionally, right?
Yes.
You would say, I guess, forexample, if you're going to take
her head, which she haspreserved and just wanting to
bring her back to life, youcould just put her on any body,
you could put her on one body,you know.
But it ends up through a seriesof events that he's piecing this
(05:55):
together.
SPEAKER_01 (05:55):
Yeah, or you you'd think he would look for body
parts that you're like, oh, thisreminds me of her.
This looks like her.
But that's not what he's doing.
He is he does not care aboutwhat she used to look like or
any of that.
He wants the perfect woman.
He wants his girlfriend back,but if he can improve on her, he
will.
SPEAKER_00 (06:11):
So much so that he's even piecing together body parts
from different women ofdifferent races.
Yeah.
Right.
And so you truly end up withthis very unusual, like a
forearm is a different skin tonethan her face, and her body.
So it's bizarre, and okay,that's like, you know, that's an
a layer of whatever that's addedon to this.
And so it's very, it's like thethe epitome of objectifying a
(06:33):
woman, reducing her to like theperfect body parts, all this
stuff.
The payoff is at the end.
Yes.
She does that to him.
She puts his head, no, I don'tknow if she doesn't like piece
it together, but she puts hishead on a woman's body.
Yes.
And sort of parrots back to himall the phrases that he gave her
about why this is like romanticand well-intentioned, and he had
(06:55):
no choice.
Yeah, for love.
When, like, in reality, that'snot the case, right?
Like he didn't do what he had todo for love.
He it it'll snowballed intosomething sh more shallow.
Yes.
And so she pays it back to himat the end in a really
satisfying way because she'sliterally verbatim saying all
these things that he said toher, and he has to like sit with
(07:17):
that and you see his face ofterror, you know, as it zooms
out at the end and you see hisfull body.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
Yeah, and the movie definitely also I think goes
into the Madonna Horror complexa little bit because he has
Elizabeth basically as this hisgirlfriend, like the one he's in
love with in the beginning.
So when she dies, he wants herto come back, and so he goes to
these sex workers in New Yorkand treats them like they're
nothing.
He buys them, he um basicallyinadvertently kills them in one
(07:46):
of the craziest scenes of alltime.
Oh, yes.
Um and he uses their body partsand he puts them on her, and
when she comes back, she doesnot remember who she is.
She still has kind of the memoryof the sex workers, so she goes
to do their work.
Yeah.
And he loses his mind.
He's like, You can't do likeyou're like, you can't go back
there, you can't do that.
(08:06):
And basically, that she'sdifferent.
Those women mattered less thanher.
So, like, even though she isthose women, she is a
combination of them.
Like, he can't stand the idea ofher doing it, but he doesn't
care about he didn't care thatthe other women were doing it,
he didn't care that the otherwoman died.
Absolutely.
Like, it's just like her, and hesaw no value to their lives
(08:27):
until they were part of her.
SPEAKER_00 (08:28):
So, okay, they end up dying in this crazy overdose
sort of scene, which it wasunintentioned.
But the truth is he was there topick their bodies.
So he was going to kill them.
Yes.
Right.
And he had the intention ofkilling many of them, not just
one.
Yeah.
And regardless of sort of how itcame about in the plot, he had
that intention.
So it wasn't like he was holierthan thou going into this.
(08:50):
He he had that plan.
SPEAKER_01 (08:51):
Well, there's also another character named Zorro,
who plays the pimp of the sexworkers, who is is the real
villain of the story, in a sensewhere like how the movie is
presenting it, who also gets hisgets his at the end, like
basically gets revenge at theend uh against him.
But it's this idea that Jeffreythinks he's better than the
(09:11):
pimp.
He thinks that what he's doingis more is like morally okay
compared to the pimp when he'sbasically doing the same thing.
And then yeah, at the end, whenElizabeth gets her memories
back, there is a I think areally almost like beautiful
moment, if you could say thatwith this film, where she talks
about how she can feel all theother women in her.
Like she says something like, Ifeel like I feel these memories
(09:34):
that aren't mine, like I feelsomething.
Like she she can feel the bodyparts and like who she is.
And he kind of glazes over that.
Like he glazes over the factthat he killed so many people.
Yeah.
And that he's like, Whatever,you're back.
Like, great, cool.
And like expects her to betotally fine with it.
Another thing I think isinteresting is that Elizabeth,
when she first comes back, saysto Jeffrey, like, Oh my god, you
(09:55):
like found a cure for death.
You brought me back to life.
You're amazing.
Like, that's amazing.
Yeah.
In reality, it is amazing tothink about, like, yeah, he
brought her back to life.
But then he he and I think thisis very intentional.
He says that it only works onwomen.
He only came up with like aserum for women.
SPEAKER_02 (10:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:12):
And it's because it's just another version of him
being selfish.
Like, it's just like he's like,Oh, yeah, I only made it for
you.
Like, he doesn't care about thebringing back from death.
He cares about like, I need thatgirl back.
Right, right.
But on a like lighter note,generally, the movie is just so
fun, and you get to watch thislike crazy looking creature
stomp around Manhattan, likeparroting these like weird
(10:33):
phrases, and then the men sheinteracts with who like again,
like she interacts with so manydifferent men that like don't
notice she's a Frankensteinbecause they're just so enamored
with her sexuality.
Yeah, like and she like fucksthem up, she's super strong.
Yeah, she's like really strong.
She uh like takes no shit, she'slike all of these things, and I
just think it's like a goodtime, like aside from the fact
(10:55):
that like I like, yeah, I lovethat the like feminist themes in
it, but I it's just a fun movieto watch.
And um, if you're a fan of thesubstance, I think the substance
took a lot a lot from thisvisually.
SPEAKER_00 (11:07):
Yeah, absolutely.
I hadn't thought about thatactually until you just said it.
Say more.
SPEAKER_01 (11:11):
Well, at the end, there is a scene where um kind
of the leftovers from the sexworkers that Jeffrey decided
were not good enough becometheir own thing, a blob, a
homunculus, whatever they callit.
Yeah.
And it's just a mix of likeboobs and legs and like uh
mouths and everything, and theytake their revenge on their
(11:33):
pimp.
Um but I just also recentlywatched The Substance, and there
was a scene, there's a scene, ifyou've seen the substance
similar to that at the end, thatI think just visually takes from
this movie a lot.
And it's just this it is, it'salmost like a commentary on
women just being a combinationof body parts for certain men.
Like that's all they are.
But when that when those bodyparts take their own action,
(11:55):
that's when it becomes aproblem.
So it's like these men trying tocontrol these women and then
these women getting agency stillfrom the viewpoint of them just
being their bodies by these men,but now scary because they can
do something about it.
SPEAKER_00 (12:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think The Substance isactually a great movie to talk
about in this episode because Ithought it was fantastic.
I loved it.
Yeah, yeah.
The overarching theme of TheSubstance really is like I felt
like it was like a deeplyprobably felt as a deeply
personal film to a lot of womenfor different reasons because so
much of it is about definingyour self-worth, especially
(12:52):
through the eyes of men.
Yes.
But more so than that, likethrough your physical body,
through the eyes of men, right?
And you know, and it devolvesfrom there and goes from there.
But I think there's a lot ofsimilarities to that with
feminism in general in horror.
And the substance is also a filmthat feels like it addresses
that in a progressive way, yes,and not you know, as a byproduct
(13:14):
of wanting to kill people whoare having sex or you know,
things like that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:18):
Well, I think especially one of the things I
loved about The Substance, and Ithink it's just true in
Hollywood generally, is thecommentary on women becoming
less valuable as they age.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's huge, especially withactresses and just in the
industry and in life in general,women are treated as invisible
or like less than the older andolder they get because they are
(13:40):
no longer sexually desirable.
Yep.
And uh one thing I also lovedabout the substance is while the
bodies are viewed sexuallybecause they have to be, because
that's part of the common likecommentary, like, is that this
person is looked at in a sexualmanner.
The way she like degrades overtime, especially like as the
movie goes on, kind of isdifferent from a lot of horror
(14:01):
movies, especially when it comesto like so spoilers for the
substance, when Eliza Sue at theend dies, she's this horrible,
monstrous being.
And often in horror movies, whenwomen die, they die in the most
sexual, presentable way.
Like they're naked, they're intheir skimpiest outfit, they're
(14:21):
doing a sexual act, or they'rejust their result they're
reduced to what they look likewhen they die.
Yeah.
And that's the thing I have witha lot of horror movies is that w
women are often killed first, ormore often than men in horror,
but they also die in just a muchmore brutal way.
(14:42):
And the substance does it in away where it is brutal, but it's
brutal because you've come tolove this character.
It's not just physically brutal,it's like all of the combination
of the themes of the movie makeit like that hard to watch.
Yeah.
Um because you're like, oh, itshe really tried so hard to fit
into this standard, a standardthat really just keeps changing,
(15:03):
keeps growing, keeps gettingbigger, that it destroyed her.
But in other movies, like uh onething I always just think about
is like there's so many movieswhere women die naked.
They die naked, somethinghappens to their like sexual
organs as a way of their death.
I know you hate the terrifiermovies.
SPEAKER_00 (15:20):
I I do, but I honestly, this whole time you've
been talking, it's all I canthink about.
Yeah, that's it's I and this iswhy I hate them.
SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
Yeah.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
And like I I have a weird thingwith like I'm I just like fun
movies sometimes.
But Terrifier, I rewatched thefirst one recently, and there is
a scene where a woman is cutlike upside down and naked from
her vagina to her head.
Yep.
And it is long and it is sounnecessary.
Like I know those movies are allabout gore, but like that death
(15:47):
in particular, and just thedeath of women in those movies
are so rough to watch.
SPEAKER_00 (15:53):
That death in particular is burned into my
brain in a way that I wasthinking about it while you were
speaking.
Like it's so and I want to pauseactually because I think
something there's somethinginteresting I'm thinking about
as you're talking, and I thinkthat you and I share in this,
which is being a woman who loveshorror.
Yes, whose like personality isdefined on the fact that they
(16:14):
love horror is a reallyinteresting place to be,
especially as women who arehyper-feminist and progressive
and whatever, all these otherthings.
Because I think, and I noticedyou just did this a little bit,
and I do this too, you almostsometimes feel like depending on
the crowd, yeah, you need toapologize for liking Terrifier
or apologize for likingHalloween or whatever, or vice
(16:35):
versa.
If you're talking to like horrorpeople in a different, you know,
sort of social group, like neverbring up your commentary on it,
right?
Or your pushback on it.
And like the truth is somewherein the middle.
I think you and I both, and manypeople will agree.
I can love these movies or loveextremely graphic horror movies,
but also be critical of thetreatment of women in them.
(16:55):
Yeah.
And that's I think important totalk about.
Like it's not an all-or-nothingthing.
And in a lot of these cases,there's films that are
transformative and deeplypersonal and all these things,
but also there's issues with theway people are represented, and
not just women, of course, likemany other types of groups, you
know.
And as the genre evolves, like Ifeel like it's really starting
to shift only the last few yearsinto something that's more and
(17:17):
maybe that's unfair, butsomething that feels like
there's more awareness of thissort of thing in it, yeah.
Sometimes, but even withFrankenhooker, going back
briefly, just to say, yeah, likeFrankenhooker is incredibly fun.
Yes.
It's both problematic andprogressive at the same time.
And that's okay because we'retalking about it and addressing
it.
SPEAKER_01 (17:38):
Yeah.
I think, yeah, I think it'simportant to address, like, you
can like something, and I Godknows I love insanely awful
horror movies.
Like I like just bad horrormovies, uh, mistreatment of like
everyone.
Yeah.
But it's yeah, it's you can'tignore those.
You can't throw them aside andyou can't just pretend they
(17:59):
never happened because that'snever gonna get you anywhere.
Like and not to say that likeyou have to love them if they're
bad, and you can be turned offby a horror movie because of
something they did.
Yeah, like terrifier.
Yeah, like terrifier.
Like that's a totally validreason to not like something.
Yeah.
But it's just it's this need to,like you said, like apologize
(18:19):
for, especially like I and thisis a broad statement, but you
never really see men apologizingfor liking a movie where women
are brutalized.
Like, yeah.
So like it's just something thatbut it is hard sometimes because
I will watch horror and it justa scene will happen, and I'm
like, really?
Like that?
Another scene that I talk aboutall the time to jump to another
movie is in Final Destination 3,one of my favorite movies.
(18:42):
There is a scene where two girlsdie in a tanning bed.
And if anyone's seen this movie,knows this scene.
Yep.
And Final Destination is knownfor its brutal deaths.
Final Destination, that's allthose movies are.
There's barely any plot, there'sjust crazy deaths.
But there's a difference betweenlike in horror movies, people
are killed in brutal wayssometimes because that character
sucks and you want to see themdie that way.
In Final Destination 3, it'slike two of like very sweet
(19:04):
girls who are just there to belike kind of bimbos.
Yeah.
And then they die naked in atanning bed for like, I want to
say like five minutes of justlike horrible screaming.
And it just feels like it takesyou out of it for a second.
It took me out of it where I'mjust like, why?
Why did this need to happen?
Like, and I really don't knowthe answer as to why it needed
(19:51):
to happen, other than for fun,for to see their boobs, to see
like whatever.
Like, it's just rough and it itit stings you a little bit,
especially like while watchingolder things.
You're just like, oh, that feltreally gratuitous for no reason.
Even in a movie where gore iseverywhere, felt really weird.
SPEAKER_00 (20:11):
Yeah.
I mean, watching through, right?
We just finished our Friday the13th series.
Watching through all of thosemovies, there's so many naked
women who are who they get tothis camp, right?
It's always the same thing, orwherever they are, they undress,
they start having sex, andthere's another layer here
where, to your point earlier, alot of the time women are killed
(20:34):
while they are having sex, whichis very similar to what we're
saying with the value of womenin Frankenhooker, right?
There's like a hierarchy ofwomen who are pure or impure, in
addition to anything else.
And so while that's not always ahard rule, that's something you
see again and again, especiallyin like 80s slasher movies and
things like that, where it'sokay for them to be killed
(20:55):
because they're having sex, andthat's bad.
SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
Absolutely.
And yeah, the final girl isoften pure virginal on that.
She's not having sex, she's notdrinking, she's not doing drugs.
And anytime there is like afinal guy in a horror film,
that's never a point.
Right.
That's not really the point ofhis character.
His character is just strong,brave, or like in Evil Dead, he
just kind of happens to be theone to survive.
(21:19):
Like no offense to Ash and EvilDead.
But um with yeah, with FinalGirls, there's always like why
she's alive, like why she didthis.
Lori in Halloween is themotherly type.
She protects the children.
She's not having sex, she's liketaking care of all this, though
she does smoke weed.
SPEAKER_00 (21:34):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:35):
Poorly, but yeah.
Poorly.
She tries, gives it her best.
Yeah, even that.
They have to make a point thatshe's bad at.
Yeah, she's coughing and she'sthis is not something she does
often, but she takes in thechildren, she protects the
children.
Or in uh Friday the 13th, yeah.
Alice, she's not doing anything,she's not off having sex, she's
there to do her job, and that'sit.
Or even in like Alien, like noteven a sexual thing, but like
(21:55):
obeying the rules.
Like, I love Alien, and I thinkRipley is a complete badass, but
no one likes Ripley in thatmovie.
Yeah.
If you watch that movie over,her crewmates like don't like
her because she's stoic, she'shardened, she's like kind of
compared to the other woman notcrying all the time, not she's
masculine.
Yeah, she's very masculine,especially because she was
(22:15):
written as a man first.
Exactly.
But then at the end, she getslike in her underwear for no
reason.
That always surprises me when Iwatch that movie.
There's a scene at the end whenshe's in the escape pod where
she just strips down to herunderwear for no reason.
There's simply no reason forthat scene, other than oh, I
guess she's a woman final girl,so we gotta have at least one
(22:36):
scene where she's half naked.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:38):
It goes against everything they had set up for
her the whole time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:41):
And I guess one could argue that it's just like,
oh, it's supposed to be a humanmoment, like she's relieved,
she's whatever.
But like it just that scenealways felt so unnecessary to
me.
But yeah, the final girls areeither someone women people
hate, like that happens a lot,or like women that are like so
good that like you couldn'tpossibly want them to die.
Like, look at her, she'sperfect.
(23:02):
She's like, again, the MadonnaWhore thing, like she's amazing.
Like, why would she die?
Like, she doesn't deserve todie, other than that girl who
had consensual sex.
Yeah.
Like it's it's a lot.
And I think it's sexuality issomething that is played with so
much in horror to the pointwhere like even the progressive
view of it is not thatprogressive.
(23:24):
And uh one thing I do want totalk about is rape revenge
stories, where like that'ssupposed to be like, oh look,
she did this, like this happenedto her, and she's getting her
revenge, and you get to seethese rapists die.
But it's like all of thosemovies have very brutal sexual
assault scenes.
SPEAKER_00 (23:40):
17 minutes, right?
Last house on the left, 17minutes long.
SPEAKER_01 (23:43):
Like, I first of all don't need the woman to be a
badass because somethingterrible happened to her.
Yep.
And it's not just true of horrormovies, it's true of a lot of
other movies like Kill Bill.
Like movies that are set up likeonly when a woman is brutalized
to a point of like insanity,basically, can she then stand up
(24:06):
for herself?
And even if you want to do that,like why do you need to include
the scene?
Like, who is that for?
SPEAKER_00 (24:12):
Like well, that and that's the question.
And I think it's the samequestion as the tanning bed
thing you're just talking about.
Who is it for?
You can do you can do the thecrazy tanning bed death in 30
seconds.
Yeah, you can allude to what'shappening in Last House and the
Left very briefly from afar.
Yes, but it's the trauma ofwatching that in the way that
it's filmed, which is horrifyingon such like almost uh realistic
(24:34):
way.
Yeah, that if anybody iswatching that and they're like,
I'm entertained, I'm chill withthis, I find it deeply
problematic.
SPEAKER_01 (24:43):
Yeah, it's scary, and like, or even still, like
um, one of my favorite horrormovies of all time is Jennifer's
Body.
Same.
Diablo Cody is a beautifulwriter, but Jennifer's Body is
an allegory for both puberty andsexual assault when Jennifer is
sacrificed.
That is supposed to be likeshe's taken in the van, she's
taken in the woods, like that,but they don't show that.
(25:03):
They show like her being killed,but it's in a normal way, and
it's not more gratuitous thanany other violence in the film.
But they didn't have to show herbeing assaulted, they didn't
have to show that.
It's it's implied, it's alsolike her sexuality is prevalent
before and after that.
But it's a comment on it withoutshowing this like brutal thing
(25:27):
happening to her.
Like you don't need it, andeveryone gets it, and everyone
understands.
Like it's you don't need thatscene.
Jennifer's body was also avictim of misogyny in the real
world because of its marketing,which I think became very um
well known recently.
That it was marketed as look atMegan Fox, be sexy, um and make
out with Amanda Sayfried.
(25:48):
Yeah.
Who's the main character and notin any of the posters?
If you look at any, she's not ina single like of the main
posters, but the marketing teamwas different from the
production team.
So the marketing team was like,Megan Fox is in this, and Megan
Fox looks hot in this because,well, Megan Fox does look hot in
it because once Megan Fox, andyeah, the point is that she's
supposed to disarm like she's asuccubus if that's what it's
supposed to be.
(26:08):
But the marketing team justmarketed it towards young men.
And so the movie failed becauseyoung men don't want to see that
movie.
That was a movie made for youngwomen.
Yeah.
Um, the language of it, thefriendship of it, the content of
it, all of it is for a youngerwoman audience.
But because it was marketed aslook at Megan Fox as a
cheerleader, right, with just onthe like poster a little bit of
(26:30):
blood on her lips as if she'slike a sexy vampire, men go see
this movie and see her be likethis kind of contorted like
woman who's targeting men.
Yes, it didn't do well.
And so it kind of flopped andthen it became a cult classic,
obviously.
But it's this world in which ifthere isn't something that is
typical of horror in it and it'snot for certain audiences,
(26:53):
people are like, oh well, that'sa bad movie.
Like sometimes things justaren't for you.
Right.
It's like it's just not youdon't need to see it.
If you don't like it, it's notmeant for you.
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
It's not revolutionary to be a woman who
likes horror.
Oh, yeah.
Growing up, my m my because ofmy mom, I'm into horror, right?
Like that's something that's notnew, but there's this
perception, I believe still, inthe world where it's like so
rare.
Like women in horror, like, andlike yes, women in film, women,
all of those things areimportant, and but women fucking
love horror.
Yeah.
And there's an audience forthat.
(27:23):
And like I think that marketingteam was also like, oh, well,
men are that's where the thebigger audience for horror is,
and that's not true.
No, you know, and I I think alot of it's just like maybe
women don't love watching filmswhere women get killed all the
time in brutal ways whilethey're naked, but there women
do love horror, and that's not aniche or like subversive thing.
(27:44):
That's like a very, very, verycommon thing.
Yes.
Just to say.
Yeah.
Jennifer's Body uh was one ofthose like really pinnacle films
for me.
Oh yeah.
And I didn't know that about themarketing team at all.
It's really interesting to hearthat.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (27:58):
All the posters, Amanda Seyfried isn't in a
single one of them.
And if she is, she's in thebackground.
SPEAKER_00 (28:03):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (28:03):
And all of them are Megan Fox pose scandalously, all
of that, and it's just not likethe posters to the movies are
just not what the movie is.
Like it's right.
SPEAKER_00 (28:12):
Right.
There's like your two point,there's nothing wrong with Megan
Fox being hot on a poster, butit's a it's a misrepresentation
of the plot.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (28:19):
Yeah.
And uh even, I mean, like, Ijust don't think people uh
understood, and it flopped, andit just there are articles if
you want to like read more aboutthis about how the marketing
team failed that movie.
Yeah, it's just these thingswhere like I'm a huge fan of
bubblegum horror as well.
I know you love the love witch.
SPEAKER_00 (28:36):
Love the love witch.
Love it.
SPEAKER_01 (28:39):
Like that, you can see these women being badass
without giving up theirfemininity and without using
that feminine for men.
Like the love witch, I think isI when I first watched it, I was
like younger and I was justlike, oh, what just happened?
And then I watched it and thenI'm like, oh, that was awesome.
Like that was I love I see whatthey're doing there.
Yeah.
Moments in it where like youkind of flip the switch and you
(29:02):
don't force your character tofinal girls, they're often
forced into like masculineroles, like Ripley and Alien, or
forced into a feminine that menare comfortable with.
Whereas in The Love Witch, she'slike hyper feminine to the point
of like men don't really likethat, or like she gets tired of
them, or just just hercompletely own agency.
Like, men are just kind of therefor her, and like she like uses
(29:25):
them, she does her thing, it'sover.
And like not to say that youhave to have like a movie where
the men are completelydisposable, but like it's fun to
watch a movie where your maincharacter doesn't have to give
up anything.
SPEAKER_00 (29:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (29:37):
Like as a woman, like she doesn't really give
anything up, she doesn't changeherself in any way, she's not
attacked, she's not anything,she just is who she is.
Yeah.
And you just watch her story.
SPEAKER_00 (29:47):
There's this element of the Love Witch, which I think
is really one of the reasons Ilove it so much.
This comes up all the time inhorror, right?
This in and just in history.
This idea of vanity being a sin.
This idea of caring too muchabout your appearance or
dressing a certain way makes youbad, all that stuff.
The thing I love so much, one ofthe things about the Love Witch
(30:08):
is that her she is so aesthetic,right?
She is doing her makeup, she'sdoing her hair.
Like to your point, she's hyperfeminine, but she's beyond that,
she's putting time and care intolike she loves to dress a
certain way, she loves to styleher room a certain way, she
loves, and that's not a badthing, and that doesn't make her
weak, and that doesn't make hervapid, that doesn't make her
(30:28):
vain.
It's just something she's reallyinto.
It's her version of art.
And I find that to be so fun,and it's almost like we see her
like dream world almost throughher eyes.
And I love the part in thatmovie, which at first I was
really confused by, but the asyears go on, I am so warmed up
to it where.
There's two moments.
(30:48):
One where you just see a shitton of modern cars, and the
other time when someone's onlike an iPhone, and you're like,
oh, she's in the modern world.
Like they're purposefully doingthat.
She's just creating this likeart space for herself.
And I I think it's so cool.
Um, I mean, also any kind ofmenstrual spell horror I'm into.
Oh, yeah.
(31:09):
10 out of 10.
SPEAKER_01 (31:10):
It is, I was talking to someone and they were like,
oh yeah, like the menstrualstuff in Midsumar and Love
Witch, we were talking aboutthat.
And they were just like, ohyeah, that made me really
uncomfortable.
And I'm like, the the blood inMidsumar was the part that made
you the most uncomfortable.
Like, that's what, like, it'sjust this need to see what
(31:31):
you're used to seeing,especially in horror.
And it happens a lot where likeoriginal horror is something
that is like so sought after.
Like, it's hard, it's beenhappening forever.
And it's almost impossible.
And that's fine because you canplay with things so much.
But to see something sodifferent, like the Love Witch
or even Jennifer's Body orFranken Hooker, like something
where you're just like, that'snot what I'm used to seeing.
(31:53):
It makes people feel weird.
Yeah.
But it's also nice to see like aversion of, like you said, like
she's doing her makeup, she'slike so like all of this, but
it's never for anyone else.
Like she's just in her houselooking like that at points,
like all that.
But there's a book I love calledThe Ways of Seeing by John
Berger, where he just talksabout like the way we perceive
the world, and he has a quote init about women and how women are
(32:15):
viewed.
And he says, To be born a womanhas been to be born within an
allotted and confined space intothe keeping of men.
And he also says, um, a womanmust continually watch herself.
She is almost continuallyaccompanied by her own image of
herself while she is walkingacross a room or while she is
weeping at the death of herfather, she can scarcely avoid
envisioning herself walking orweeping.
(32:36):
From earliest childhood, she hasbeen taught and persuaded to
survey herself continuously.
SPEAKER_00 (32:40):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (32:40):
So basically, just like this feeling of being
watched, this feeling of youneed to look a certain way, you
need to act a certain way, thatin horror is punished often with
women.
Like women doing what women arelike quote unquote supposed to
do, which is dress a certainway, act a certain way, like
sleep with men, but don't sleepwith men, like any of this is
(33:01):
punished.
Right.
And obviously men are punishedfor having sex in horror too.
But it's just it's so differentbecause you're never seeing
their genitals.
No, you don't see theirgenitals, you don't see any of
that.
There's not a like long scene ofthem stripping.
There's not a long scene of anyof that.
Um, and it's just this likepurity idea that is so old but
(33:24):
so continuous, like to today.
Like it's just something that ishard to watch.
It's and I also think thatthere's a lot of horror
characters who die in like crazyways other than almost adopted
by female horror fans as like anicon or as like a like a great
thing, or like uh in I Know WhatYou Did Last Summer, um Helen
(33:44):
Shivers, like the friend whodies, like she's like people are
like, She should have been thefinal girl.
Like it's crazy that they killedher.
Or it's or in Franken Hooker, Ithink she's iconic.
I think all the sex workers areiconic.
Yeah.
And it's just like, or inTerrifier, like her friend in
the beginning is like so fun andlike free and like awesome,
like, and all she does is yeah,she bothers him a little bit,
(34:04):
but whatever.
And it's these characters thatlike you're sad seeing die,
because I'm all for a gratuitousdeath scene if the character is
an asshole.
I love watching like assholehorror characters really get
like crazy death scenes becauseyou're like, yeah.
But with women, they're likethey do like one thing wrong or
are never mentioned again.
One thing I want to talk aboutwas in Scream, yeah.
(34:25):
Yeah, has one of the craziestdeaths in that movie, in my
opinion.
Everyone else is stabbed,everyone else is stabbed and
left to die.
She's like running, screaming,trying to crawl through the
garage, get stuck in the garage,is like slowly brought up and
killed.
And this is the main character'sbest friend, the one of the
other main characters' littlesister, and she's never
(34:45):
mentioned again.
In like, I mean, I they mayoff-handedly mention her in the
rest of the series, but barely.
They don't have a scene ofmourning, they don't have
anything.
Like, if she just dies and it'sover, like it's such a crazy
long scene for a character thatis not a throwaway character,
and they have this like longscene and then they throw her
(35:07):
away.
SPEAKER_00 (35:07):
Right, yeah.
It's actually interesting.
I'm thinking about all this tooas you're talking.
I almost feel like, in a way,going back to to Jennifer's
body, but to so many otherhorror films, there is like this
rebellion, this act of rebellionthat comes with queer horror,
especially for women.
Yes, because right, toeverything we're talking about,
like women are perceived inhorror through the the eyes of
(35:30):
men generally.
And we're talking about like astraight sort of cis het
situation.
But when you have scenes like inJennifer's body or just like
generally queer horror, it feelslike just almost by nature it
flips that on its head.
Yeah.
Because you're not, you know,I'm thinking about bodies,
bodies, bodies a little bit, butyou're not like those characters
aren't inherently there to servemen or male audiences, and maybe
(35:54):
they do, but you know, whatever.
Yeah.
But like there's a differentangle to it, and just even that
shift is so powerful, you know,in in movies as they come out
now.
SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
Yeah, and I'm not saying that like you can't have
sex in movies or no, of coursenot.
Obviously, you can't preventaudiences from being assholes.
Yeah.
If like towards characters,especially like complex female
characters, like people end uphating them when like just if it
were a man doing the same thing,they'd be like, Oh, well, he's
going through a lot.
Yeah.
Um, but you can't but you don'thave to play into it.
(36:25):
And I'm not saying you even needto like have the most
progressive take.
Just like treat them like otherpeople in your film.
Like, if a man dies in your filmin a crazy way, sure, have a
woman die in a crazy way.
But if a man dies in your filmand it's kind of normal, like
then keep your deathsconsistent.
Like, keep all that consistent.
Like, there's no need to havethis follow this trope of women
(36:48):
just being brutalized.
And I just would love to seemore agency with women
characters in horror and justless of in order to become a
badass, yeah, you need to watchall your friends die, or you
need to watch um, you need to bebrutally assaulted, or any of
that.
Like, I guess that I guess thatwatching your friends die is a
big part of horror, but it'sthis almost forcefulness of the
(37:09):
characters.
They like force the charactersto see things and experience
things in order to prepare themfor the end of the film.
Whereas you could just have yourcharacter living and
experiencing something insteadof it kind of being the actions
of women in horror films is lessactual actions and more of them
not doing things, and that'swhat gets them forward rather
(37:31):
than them actually taking agencyinto their own lives.
SPEAKER_00 (37:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think that's totallyright.
And to your point, like I lovefilms with naked women, I love
films with sex, I love filmswith drugs.
Like, that's not the pro point.
It's like the association or themessage that's of the pairing of
those things, plus, right?
Yeah, and you know, I thinkabout Titan a lot or like other
films that are also exploringgender, right?
(37:57):
And I think the great thing,right?
The positive silver lining ofthis is like because horror has
been very binary for so long,yes, I think there's gonna be
some really incredible filmsthat can use these tropes and
flip them or play with them aswe sort of expand into a more
progressive world, right?
So I think that's reallyexciting and something I'm
(38:17):
looking forward to a lot.
SPEAKER_01 (38:18):
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I'm really looking forward towell, because film has opened up
to so many different groups ofpeople now.
Yeah.
Just films that we're almost notonly progressive takes, but
we're just the gender orwhatever of a person does not
matter.
Yeah.
That's not important to thefilm.
That's not why they survive,that's not why they're doing
this.
Right.
It just is happening.
Right, right.
So, like, not only do we needfilms that are more progressive
(38:40):
towards women that actually takefeminist stories, but there's
also feminists to just have afilm where if a woman survives,
that's just because thatcharacter survives.
It's not because she's a woman,it's not because of that.
Just treat them like peopleconsistently and then obviously
murder them viciously, becauseit's still horror.
SPEAKER_00 (38:54):
Yeah, it's still horror.
We still want the the kill.
Yeah, we still want that.
SPEAKER_01 (38:58):
Let's talk about teeth.
Yes, let's talk about teeth.
I love teeth.
I watched teeth for the firsttime when I think I was maybe 12
or 13 years old.
Okay.
And I loved it.
I thought it was amazing, andthen I had mostly male friends
at the time, and I said, Heyguys, let's watch something, but
(39:19):
don't look up what it's about.
And I forced them to watch itwith me.
Nice.
Um, they were deeplyuncomfortable.
But Teeth is a film that, and Iknow I said I don't like the
rape revenge films, butsometimes that's what you have.
That's what you have to workwith in terms of feminist films.
Yeah.
That's what they give you.
But Teeth is a film about a girlgoing through puberty who has
(39:41):
pledged to wait until marriage,and who the men in her life are
refusing to do that.
They are pressuring her, theyare attacking her, they she
cannot catch a break.
And her body gives her aself-defense system, which is
teeth in her vagina.
I um will bite off your penis ifyou try to have sex with her.
But the one thing I love aboutteeth is that every time
(40:05):
something happens to hersexually and her vagina attacks,
yeah, um, it has been sexualassault.
There is a, and they make apoint of this consensual sexual
scene in the film where nothinghappens.
SPEAKER_00 (40:19):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:20):
Because the point is not she can never have sex.
The point is not her vagina isprotecting her from sex, the
point is her vagina isprotecting her from sexual
assault.
SPEAKER_02 (40:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:28):
So I loved that they put a consensual sex scene in
that film.
Because that means there shouldbe no one that's afraid of this.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Like she still has agency withher body, she's not losing
control of her body.
It may feel like her body'sdoing something against her
will, which in the beginning,when she doesn't know what's
happening, it is, but it'sprotecting her.
But it's not something that isgonna keep her virginal forever.
SPEAKER_00 (40:50):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
And then towards the end of the film, she learns to
control it and use it to heradvantage.
And while again, this movie iscampy and doesn't have like the
best, like it's not the mostlike amazing film, and it's not,
and it has scenes where areagain are a bit much, but it
just takes a young girl whowould be taken advantage of her
(41:11):
life and gives her this agency.
Yeah.
And like I like that in thebeginning, she is confused, she
doesn't know how to control it.
Cause again, a lot of films, alot of horror films like to
explore like puberty and comingof age and all that in a
grotesque way.
Yeah.
But she grows and learns to useit and learns to be comfortable
with her sexuality and takecontrol of her sexuality.
(41:34):
So it's not saying to youngwomen, be afraid to have sex,
it's saying to young women, You,this is your body.
You can do like you havecontrol, you have agency, like
you have a say in this.
SPEAKER_00 (41:45):
And there should be no one, if any man ever watches
that movie, or any, you know,whatever, any man, any person
with a penis watches that movie,yeah, and they are
uncomfortable, yeah, thenthey're somebody who maybe is
used to having non-consensualsex.
You know what I mean?
Like there should be nothingabout that that freaks men out.
Yeah.
Like unless they're someone whowho doesn't listen to a no.
SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
But yeah, or like even yeah, even the scenes that
are like, other than like thegore in it, like, yeah, there
are scenes where a guy's penisis fully bitten off, and I can
see that maybe hitting someone.
But welcome to the life of likebeing a woman.
One of my favorite films, SleepBoy Camp, has a girl like oh
yeah, like like with a curlingiron, like like I'm pretty sure
like in her vagina at one point,or like or Texas Chainsaw Mask
(42:29):
Carl.
That's a rough one, Kate.
That's a rough movie.
Sleep Boy Camp?
Yeah, that's a whole other moviethat is that movie.
I would say I do not agree withthe ideas of.
I just think it's really fun towatch.
SPEAKER_00 (42:39):
That movie is not let's caveat that so you don't
get canceled.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (42:42):
Yeah, exactly.
That movie is so dated, so sodated, yeah.
And I actually wrote a wholeessay on it in college about
like why it's messed up, but Ijust think it's fun to show
people.
Yeah.
Because it makes no sense.
But regardless, Terrifier haswomen's boobs being cut off.
Again, her being like cutstraight down from her vagina,
like Texas chainsaw.
Texas chainsaw mask, or she'shooked on that hook.
(43:02):
That is like one of the worst.
Like, that makes my skin crawl.
SPEAKER_00 (43:05):
That movie is that movie is hard for me to watch.
SPEAKER_01 (43:07):
So, yes, there are gory scenes in it where I can
see it making you uncomfortable,especially with genital things,
but like that's horror movies.
Like, there's gonna be gore init that makes you feel icky.
Right.
But other than that, the deathsaren't happening for no reason.
The deaths aren't they're doneby her and done by her body for
a reason.
And there's so like again,there's just so much agency with
(43:28):
her character.
Like, she becomes this likepowerful woman, and wish
everyone had that defensemechanism, that'd be great, but
yeah, obviously, not real.
SPEAKER_00 (43:36):
But not you're real yet, but maybe our bodies will
evolve, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (43:40):
But it's just this this character who is treated as
a joke in the beginning thatknows what she wants, and her
also idea, like though she doesend up having sex before
marriage consensually, it's notsomething that feels like a
betrayal to her character.
Nothing is done for the malegaze in that film.
Everything is done for women'sempowerment generally.
(44:04):
Like obviously, there are jokesmade and all that, but just this
idea of yeah, a young girl whohas complete control over her
body by the end.
SPEAKER_00 (44:11):
And I have to say, Teeth the musical, which was an
off-Broadway show that came outlast year, I think, was one of
the most fun theater experiencesI've had in New York.
There was the first two or threerows had to wear ponchos because
they were in the blood splashzone.
It there were so many dildosinvolved in that show.
You can listen to the soundtrackon Spotify, and I encourage that
(44:32):
you do.
If it ever comes back to NewYork, I will let you guys know
because it was a delight.
SPEAKER_01 (44:37):
Like, yeah, again, sexuality is not the evil in
horror films.
No, it's how you portray it.
Yeah.
Sexuality can be amazing inhorror films.
It can be used as and again, I'mnot I don't have a problem with
sexuality being used as aweapon.
I don't have a problem withthat.
It's when you force yourcharacter into their sexuality.
Right that's an issue.
SPEAKER_00 (44:56):
Yeah, because sex like sex is deeply human.
Yes.
How people identify is deeplyhuman, like going through sort
of and you know, and also justto like broaden up the
conversation a little bit, likeeven as women, like how people w
women are not a monolith, right?
Men are not a monolith,transgender people are not a
monolith.
(45:16):
Like the ever way everybodyapproaches all of these things
is so nuanced and different, andyou know, etc.
etc.
And so and so there's no likeright or wrong playbook, right,
around how things are portrayedor it's a spectrum, is the
point, right?
But there are things that feelincredibly difficult to watch,
regardless, I would hope, ofyour personal identity, right?
(45:39):
To see a certain type of personportrayed over and over and over
again and killed in a certainway over and over and over again
is exhausting.
SPEAKER_01 (45:46):
Yeah, and it's true of different races, it's true of
trans people in horror.
There is actually, I think, abook just came out not that long
ago about like transness andhorror and just how they're uh
always portrayed as themonsters.
Yeah.
And again, like Sleepaway camp.
Sleepaway camp.
Yeah.
But like even that movie, it'snot even a like it's again a
(46:08):
forced upon the character.
Yeah.
Like if characters make choices,that's acceptable.
In Teeth, she ends up making thechoice to again in the
beginning, it's like a littlelike sloppy, but she makes the
choice to use this as a weapon.
And she uses it to heradvantage.
But then you look at somethinglike even yeah, Last House on
(46:29):
the Left, like just somethingthat is forced on them.
Yeah.
Her sexuality is forced on her,her revenge is forced on her.
Like this revenge never wouldhave had to happen.
And like, yeah, Jennifer's body,she uses her sexuality to her
advantage as well.
But also, she was forced tobecome that.
But you know, but that's thecommentary on it.
Like other films, like theyforce them to become it, and
(46:49):
they're like, Yeah, that's cool,that's great.
She's a badass, she kills allher rapists.
But in Jennifer's body, it's acomment on being forced to
become this, like ruining otherpeople's lives and seeing your
friend like kind of have thishappen to them.
But yeah, it's just this need toover-sexualize women, but not so
much that it makes menuncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00 (47:10):
I'm trying I'm even thinking about um Nightmare on
Elm Street with that imagery ofhis like gloved hand, right?
Freddy's gloved hand coming outin the bathtub, like between her
legs.
It's just like it's justnon-stop.
You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01 (47:23):
It's a hard topic to truly get into with like such a
broad idea of like in all ofthese films.
Like you would have to likeindividually dissect so many
classic slasher films and somany classic horror films to
really get down to thenitty-gritty of how women are
treated.
But it's just important to notonly watch out for these things
in horror films and like seewhere you can find it, to like
(47:45):
see who's still doing it or likehow it's still prevalent,
because it's important toacknowledge that it's happening,
but also to acknowledge when yousee changes in it or how it
makes you feel, or and it yeah,not just with feminism, but with
like everything that you thinkis mistreated in horror or in
movies generally.
It's important to acknowledgeit, and it's hard for me to talk
(48:08):
about like in such a concise waybecause your mind goes
everywhere because you're likeso passionate about it, and it
it really does affect you everyday, and so yeah, I enjoy
talking about it, but it'ssomething that I think like more
people need to acknowledge, andI'm glad that there are more
women and um like making horror,more trans people making horror,
(48:28):
queer people making horror, likedifferent races making horror,
just like so many more peopleare open to it now, and you get
to see this change, or you getto see commentary on it in
films, like kind of becomingmeta and like more satire with
it, and it kind of opens otherpeople's eyes to something that
maybe you just saw as abackground thing, but really can
affect like people while they'regrowing up and seeing these and
(48:49):
seeing how they're represented.
SPEAKER_00 (48:50):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I think representation inhorror and film in general, of
course, but especially in horroris so important because there is
like we talked about this in theFriday the 13th series.
There's so much ROI, there's somuch popularity, even against
bad horror, yes, for a reason.
Horror is an insanely populargenre, even if it doesn't maybe
(49:13):
have the respect of other sortof film genres for a reason.
Yes.
It's escapism, it's somethingpeople want.
They want the thrill, they wantthe adrenaline, it's fun.
We've said that word a hundredtimes in this episode.
It's fun.
And I think the part the kind ofthe core of what we're getting
to a little bit here is that wego to horror movies, we watch
horror movies all the time fortons of different reasons.
(49:35):
But one of those reasons is thatescape, right?
It is I want to see a campyhorror movie.
I loved Jason X because it wasso freaking crazy.
Like, I want that.
I love that.
That's something horror can dothat not a lot of other genres
can do.
Where it gets uncomfortable iswhere you have a 17-minute
hyper-realistic scene that isnot an escape.
(49:55):
Yeah.
It's it's certain there's tonsof reasons that it's not okay.
But when you have these things,and there's actually a scene in
um Thanksgiving, that thathorror film that came out a few
years ago.
Oh, I know that movie.
SPEAKER_01 (50:08):
Yeah.
I watch it every Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00 (50:09):
Uh yeah, it's I I really liked it way better than
I thought it was gonna be, butthere's a scene and it's not a
feminist scene.
There's an oven scene, and itgoes on way too long.
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (50:19):
That's the same with the Final Destination tanning
scene.
Yeah, it's not even aboutfeminism at all.
Too long.
It's just like, why to thesecharacters are you doing this?
Yeah.
It's often women.
Yeah.
And it's just I think it hurtit, if anything, it takes you
out of the plot.
SPEAKER_00 (50:31):
Yeah.
No, it does.
It made me so anxious watchingit in the theater.
I thought I would have to get upand leave.
SPEAKER_01 (50:36):
Yeah.
Thanksgiving, Last House on theLeft, these things that like it
hurts you deeper almost likebecause like in Friday the 13th,
you see women die and you seethem in these sex scenes, and
it's rough, but at least it likehappens, it's quick, it's over,
you're like, okay, that's ahorror movie, and you continue
on.
With films like that, you'relike, you almost leave the
horror film.
You leave the movie.
Yeah.
You go back to like you kind ofstart thinking about your own
(50:58):
director.
Yes.
Oh, yeah, sure, sure.
I like Thanksgiving, but um, Ihave thoughts on Eli Roth.
Yeah, fair.
Um but you start thinking aboutthe people who made this because
you're like, why did you dothat?
Like, what's wrong with you?
And if anything, I think ittakes away from the horror film.
SPEAKER_00 (51:12):
It also for me, like it yes, I think about the
director, but then I also thinkabout my experiences, right?
Like it it brings about maybelike trauma or other things in a
way that you're not looking forin an experience, like watching
a film called Thanksgiving onThanksgiving.
You know what I mean?
Like you're there to have a fun,good time.
SPEAKER_01 (51:29):
Yeah, and you're just like, this is so not
necessary to the plot.
It's so different from the restof the movie in terms of how
long it lasts.
SPEAKER_00 (51:37):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (51:38):
And just you feel icky.
You feel icky, like like adifferent kind of icky than
horror movies should make youfeel.
Like you feel real world icky.
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (51:48):
Kate, thank you so much.
This was so lovely to sit downand talk to you about feminism
and horror, especially throughthe lens of Frank and Hooker,
but through the lens of so manyof these films.
If you want more from Kate, staytuned.
But also head tolunaticsproject.com and click on
articles.
Kate writes all the time for uson lunaticsproject.com, and
(52:08):
there's so much that she has tosay, and so much that the world
wants to hear from her.
So definitely go and read someof her articles there.
And yeah, thanks for being here.
This was excellent.
Thank you guys so much forlistening.
We'll talk to you soon.
Bye.
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