January 22, 2020 • 26 mins
In part one of this deep dive on female revenge, Anney and Samantha dig into the science behind revenge and discuss famous historical examples of women getting their revenge.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
Mom never told your production of I Heart Radio's How
Stuff Works. You know what one of my resolutions is,
what is your resolution to stop saying the intro so quickly? Oh, well,
(00:26):
it's better than what I do, since I've never done it,
and I'm just grateful that you do. Okay, I'm all good,
I'm I'm I am a little fearful of the day
that you're gone with Safer and I have to do
something because we're behind or something, and I had to
do an introduction like this, and I'm gonna be like,
I miss Annie so much right now, But you can
learn from my mistakes. That is one of my many resolutions.
(00:47):
That's not my only resolutions. Well, I will say one
of the problems because you do it. I don't even
pay attention. But it sounds like I think I tried.
We tried this one time with an outro. I tried
to do an outro and it was such a cluster
and I was like, I'm done. You do it. I
still have to write it down, even though I've said
it so many times. But we're going anyway, not talking
(01:09):
about resolutions today. We're talking about female revenge, love it, history,
science examples, and it ballooned into such a big episode
it's now a two parter. Well, and I think part
of that was you and I kept going on and
on and on adding to the movie list or just
(01:30):
a genre of it because I'm like, I like this one,
and like this one and this one and this one.
This could be considered, and this is considered because we
actually went beyond. We can talk about TV shows and
we do couple, but not all of them obviously UM,
but then even trips with like books as well as
UM comics or graphic novels. We don't exactly get into
all of that level. So it could be like five
(01:54):
day series, it could be in an entire podcast just revenge.
You're right, I didn't even think about comic. What is
with me? I can't believe you didn't go there. Maybe
I will come to me as we do it, So
that's in your line. Yeah, Well, we are planning some
specific episodes on on Birds of Prey Black Widow, so
well we'll come back to that before we get into
(02:16):
all of the stuff we have to talk about. We
did want to put a trigger warning hair because there's
gonna be discussion around sexual saut violence, brief mentions of
mental health, and suicide. With these revenge things get pretty dark. Yeah,
and it's actually something I didn't have too much knowledge
around when it comes to entertainment, this idea of women
in revenge. As I've said before, most revenge media makes
(02:40):
me uncomfortable and nervous, which is funny because I've actually
written a lot of things about revenge my own life.
So I think I think there's something about the fantastical
element of superhero type revenge that I can click out
and it seems like fantasy and watching like revenge, even
though it's heightened usually it's something about it just puts
(03:02):
me on edge, which I think is the point. Yeah, exactly,
that is the point. It makes you uncomfortable, kind of
makes you look at your shoulders at all times, right,
and I a good revenge movie makes you question the
main character and whether or not they're justified in what
they're doing. I mean, this is definitely one of those
anti heroo right ideas. Right, And I didn't want to
(03:22):
stay in here. I have a friend who is excellent
at revenge. She she I hope I never end up
on her bad side, the anchovies in the car, the
ants in the car, basically your car. It's not a
safe place if you made her mad. You know, that's
kind of a trope as well, that the girlfriend the
main quote unquote crazy girlfriend. They always go after the car.
(03:45):
It does seem to be that type of feel. I've
definitely met women that I'm like, yeah, you scare me
because you have not only do you think of it,
and I think a lot of people think bad thoughts,
but you actually start planning it. And when you start
planning it, you know you better watch out. And so
this isn't something I'm very familiar with, but you are right, Samantha. Yes,
(04:08):
I do really really love female revenge movies. Unfortunately, with
some of the me too stuff, it's it's kind of
taken out amount of rotation a lot of the ones
that I really do love, and I'm very sad about that.
I also find it really interesting because one of the
things um and I don't think we mentioned it in
here when we talk about Mad Max, one of the
big problems people had was Charles their own playing of
(04:32):
such a pivoal character, which in my mind, I'm like,
she still needs a saving in the end. So I
don't understand why people are upset people being men and
men's activists, let's put it that way. But it is
a kind of a revenge justice type of mentality as well.
So it's kind of like, Okay, who are we looking at,
who are we rooting for? How are we rooting for it?
(04:52):
And how do we come to like the just desserts?
You know? I want to see all that I do.
I love that because I don't always like really dark,
dark things, but when it has a satisfying ending or
satisfying moment, it makes everything okay to me. Yeah, it's cathartic. Yes, yes,
I made a very foolish mistake in preparation for this,
(05:15):
and I've watched probably fifteen of these in like four days.
I did not recommend that. Nobody in there, thinking about
themselves and their health care, wouldn't have done that. I
kept telling myself, why no one's making you do this?
I was. I was surprised, and I will say one
(05:37):
of the reasons, and you you will hear in the
letter later episode. We picked First Wives Club um because
I wanted We were talking about doing a revenge type
of themed movie, but I wanted to make sure it
wasn't over the top gory and over the top dark.
And this is kind of one of the beginnings of
(05:57):
the revenge, just this type of thought process and movies
and not beginning. That's not true, but you know it
was one of the iconic ones. Yeah, but yeah, and
then finding out you watched all those why But the
reason I wanted to say that is because what you
said earlier than me too. Thing watching them you're going
to recognize when we get to our part two episodes,
(06:19):
several names like the wine Steins come up, A what right?
Fascinating because it makes you wonder the people working on it,
and I know I've read some reviews there's all this
female revenge maybe makes you wonder, makes you larger, and
it seems like a female revenge and anger is something
that are on a lot of people's mind. Um, he'll
have no fury like a woman scorned. That is a great,
(06:41):
great line in anything, A quote derived from William Congrey's
sixteenth century English play The Morning Bride and U are
n I n g. And these episodes were in part
inspired by the upcoming Cary Mulligan revenge flick Promising Young Woman,
directed by Emerald Fennel, and I was really really like
I started watching, I was like, oh damn, okay, okay,
(07:03):
that's taking out the nice guy troupe, real hard UM,
and I really enjoyed. It's going to be an intense,
intense scene because, um, within the previews you can already
see the nice guy bits. You have very unassuming, good
looking guys you would never expect a B. You have
the friend who UM didn't support her, didn't believe her,
(07:24):
and then you have the like teacher figures that also
don't believe her and just kind of tell her it's
gonna make it worse for you. And then she just left,
and everybody's like, why did you leave? Um? And it
definitely had a hard candy vibe to it too, which
I appreciate. Yeah, and we're gonna be talking about that
that film and another movie that kind of reminds me
of that that I just washed in f A. But okay,
(07:45):
let's do our our definition bit. The Dictionary definition of
revenge is quote the action of inflicting hurt or harm
on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.
It is defined us both an act and a desire.
Some psychologists referred to it as narcissistic acts of self repair.
The definition of justice, which is a term that gets
(08:08):
thrown around a lot in conversations around revenge, is just
behavior or treatment, and the line between the two of
them can be murky. Punishment pops up a bit too,
which is a penalty inflicted for wrongdoing. But when I
was trying to think of the differences between these things,
and I do think there can be overlapped. I think
the main thing with revenge is there's a personal emotional
(08:32):
aspect and that it's not so much about justice necessarily.
It might be, but it's more like, I want to
hurt this person who directly hurt me. Might you might
take actions that don't worry. A lot of the movies
we're going to talk about, uh, they kind of go
a bit further than yes, and Yeah, we are as
(08:56):
a society pretty torn on ideas of revenge. There's an
eye for an eye versus the other cheek, which are
both from the Bible. Um. A paper digging into revenge
and all of this found that when participants believed a
revenge action was sanctioned by God, they were more likely
to support revenge and seek it themselves. Revenge is a
(09:16):
basic human drive. The same part of your brain that
lights up when you're in love that sends reward signals
lights up when you think about revenge, the prefront until
cortex shows activity two, which this is the same area
associated with planning how to achieve a goal. That's really
intriguing evolutionarily, it may have been a way to keep
burgeoning societies functioning. Those that do wrong that threatened stability
(09:41):
get punished, a tool to prevent future wrongs. And we
did touch on some of the science behind revenge in
our Forgiveness episode, but there's some more we wanted to
touch on because it is really fascinating. Study out of
the University of Kentucky looked into revenge tasking participants with
writing an essay and then swapping essays for feedback with
(10:02):
other participants, and one of the participants was an undercover
researcher who left epically critical feedback. Then the participants were
allowed to express how angry the feedback they had gotten
made them with a voodoo doll and needles. The participants
who had received the negative feedback reported feeling better after
(10:23):
engaging in some revenge, basically sticking the doll with needles.
A follow up study looked into whether people would go
out of their way for revenge, and they found that
to not be true. People sought it out if they
believed it would make them feel better, but participants led
to believe it wouldn't and that they did this through
a placebo that they called a mood stabilizing pill. Basically,
(10:45):
no matter what you do, your your mood's gonna stay
the same. Did not pursue revenge against teammates that had
let them down. This corroborates the popular psychological understanding of
revenge that its primary goal is catharsis, followed closely by
to terrence and restoration of self esteem. So a similar
study found that when given the opportunity to get revenge
(11:05):
against the player who wronged them, participants universally took it,
but also universally reported feeling worse after that case compared
to those who weren't wrong and therefore did not seek revenge.
Those who had been wronged and we're not given the
opportunity to get revenge reported they believed they would feel
better if they had pursued revenge, even though they were
in the happier group. Well again the grass is greener idea.
(11:28):
Yet another study found that the acts of revenge are
only better than not getting revenge in cases where the
revenge is acknowledged and the balance is restored. Right, So
if it goes on acknowledged, then you don't get the
same like benefit from it. And as we talked about
in our forgiveness episode, most science indicates that revenge is
satisfying in the short term, but associated with more negative
(11:48):
outcomes in a long term. Instead of providing closure, it
keeps a wound fresh. Yet another study found that when
asked about a time they got revenge in a time
when they were the hearget of revenge, almost everyone. I
love this, Almost everyone deemed their act of revenge as
just and appropriate and the act of revenge against them
(12:10):
as excessive. Of course, of course, how da hear you? Exactly,
Oh humanity. We actually have a lot more science and
history about revenge to get into, but first we have
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(12:39):
we're back, Thank you sponsor. So one thing I was
curious about is the question of why do we like
revenge stories. Well, obviously, revenge stories are satisfying. Like I
just said, they're cathartic in a world where bad things
happen to a good people with rhyme or reason, a
reality beset with sense of smilence. It's comforting to think
(13:00):
that those who have wronged us will face the consequence
and then song. I hope most of our revenge media
functions like a fantasy where everything is exaggerated, which is
kind of nice. It reminds me of what we talked
about in um. Why do people victim blame? Where we're
always trying to find a reason for or to find balance, right,
(13:20):
to make things just, there's no sense. Yeah, I think
that's the true libra in May I needed to be okay,
all falling into place. From Dr Edward Halliwell, psychiatrist and author, quote,
the pursuit of revenge is a turn on. It's an
adrenaline rush. You can really get into it, and once
(13:40):
you have experienced it, you want to do it again
and again, and it becomes a way of life. He
argues that if you wanted, you could frame our entire
history in terms of revenge. I think that's what warsaw essentially,
when you look at the bottom line and money. Oh yeah,
of course, money in a two thousand eight study out
(14:02):
of Australia conducted by Dr Ian McKee. He found a
link that suggested that those most interested in revenge were
people more motivated by power, specifically right wing authoritarians and
some sort of social dominance and all the attributes that
go with it. Other studies have shown that events that
inspire revenge differed by culture, and others that revenge is
(14:23):
viewed differently among communities without access to legal means of justice.
There are entire websites dedicated to helping you get revenge.
Think the Exploding glitter boxes or get your Revenge on
your x dot com run by a man whose wife
cheated on him. According to him, most of his clients
are female. M yeah, I don't want to look it up.
(14:44):
I don't want to. A recent study found that men
enjoy revenge more than women. When shown instances of wrongdoers
getting punished, male participants were more likely to feel pleasure,
while female participants were more likely to fill empathy. Another
study looking into gender different has found that men were
far likelier than women to engage in revenge fantasies, and
(15:04):
that even children fantasize about getting revenge. I've seen this
as a nanny and as a person who was in
the field, I've seen you sometimes I really crafty too.
Just wants to know that the women reported that they
believed revenge was ultimately pointless, and a lot of the
women who did express revenge fantasies were more likely to
turn the revenge in words imagining about harming themselves to
(15:27):
punish those that harmed them. There is a certain level
of breaking gender norms in female revenge entertainment. Traditionally, aggression
and violence are associated with men. Anger, the emotion most
closely associated with revenge, is traditionally viewed as a more masculine,
sanctioned emotion. Historically, women have used words as weapons, whereas
men are more violence like using swords or guns or whatever,
(15:53):
what have you. And also I read a lot of
things that viewed this is kind of a dismissal and
then expressions of grief and viewing them as weak, and
kind of going off of that, we did look at
some history, some famous examples of women getting revenge. But
(16:13):
before we get into that, we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank
you sponsor, and we're back with some history. So let's
(16:33):
leet into that throughout our history, Western culture has largely
depicted vengeance as a more masculine avenue. A lot of
the monsters from our Female Monsters episode tell stories of enraged,
insatiable vengeance like the Furies. Less about revenge though, which
has more personal element, but there are similar themes, and
there are plenty of famous historical examples. We have real
(16:54):
life examples like the Rain of bob It's but also
going back further, there is the example of Kamara, a
Galatian noble woman during the Glacian War with Rome around
one b C. She was taken captive. The person in
charge of the prisoners, including Kamara, made several sexual advances
towards her, all of which she rejected. So he raped her,
(17:16):
but then felt such guilt about it, kindly ransomed her
to her people. The countrymen that came for the exchange,
with a nod from Kamara or perhaps speaking in their
native language depending on the source, that you know what,
you should cut off this guy's head. The countryman did that.
She took the head, carried it back with her in
(17:36):
her dress, threw it at her husband's feet when she
arrived home. Her husband said a noble thing, dear wife,
is fidelity, And she responded, yes, but it is a
nobler thing that only one man be alive who has
been intimate with me. So. Artemisia Gentileschi was a painter
in the sixteen hundreds who was raped when she was eighteen,
and instead of punishing the rapist, the court of course
(17:57):
of tortured Artemisia, which we've seen even to a tying
ropes around her fingers and pulling them tight. As she
was tortured, she shouted at her rapists who watched in
the courtroom, this is the ring you gave me, and
these are your promises, and she repeated, unwavering about her testimony.
It is true. The entire transcript of the trial survived,
and she went about getting her revenge through her art,
(18:18):
painting the disturbing and affected Judith and he Leferness, in
which Judith along with another woman, hold down the Lefferness,
slitting his throat. It is a very effective, faint good one.
In sixty c in present day southeast England, Boudica was born.
She went on to marry Celtic King Prostitutagus at the
age of eighteen. When Prostutagus died in fourty three CE
(18:39):
without a male heir. His kingdom, land and property were
annexed by the Romans. They then publicly flogged Brutica and
raped her two daughters. Records show that she declared nothing
is safe from Roman pride and arrogance. They will deface
the sacred and will deflower our virgins when the battle
or perish. That is what I, a woman will do.
A trained warrior, she helped form a rebel army of
(19:01):
tribes that went on to destroy the Roman capital of
Britain and killed all those that lived there. The rebel
army did the same thing with two other cities, including London.
Records from the time suggest that Boudica's rebellion killed seventy
tho Romans and pro Roman Britain's before she was defeated. Yeah,
and perhaps inspired by some of these true stories, perhaps
(19:21):
now we have plenty of fictional examples as well, going
way back right in Euripides Greek play media, this character,
sometimes called the Queen of Revenge, once said a woman's
weak and timid in most matters. The noise of war,
the look of steel make her a coward, but touch
her right in marriage and there's no bloody or spirit.
Media's ex husband, Jason, dished her for another woman for
(19:42):
her superficial reasons after Media helped him climb the social ladder.
The whole play is about her journey to secure her revenge,
not caring who ends up in the crossfire, including her
own children, taking away what he left for her, a
future in royalty, and when she gives it, she rise
off in a dragon drawn carriage. You've been to give
an abandoned old age, I give one now to you.
(20:03):
This example is particularly unsettling because of media flouts her
gender norm, both of women being too kind to seek revenge,
but also that women are unfailingly protective maternal of their children.
A twist because we the audience, expect the act of
vengeance to take Jason's life. This whole thing of revenge
seemed to be a theme in euripides work Around the
(20:23):
mid fourteen twenties BC. Euripides also published Hecuba. Hecuba was
the Queen of Troy and witnessed and experienced many many wrongs,
including the deaths of her husband and sons. She was
enslaved by those who killed her family. Her daughter is
sacrificed and another is taken as a concubine to be killed. Hecuba,
along with other female captives of the Trojan army, lure
(20:46):
the king of Thrace, Polymester, and his two sons into
the women's tent in a post war encampment, and proceed
to blind the king with pens from their dresses and
kill his two young sons. Polymester prophesied that Hecuba would
become quote a dog with fiery eyes. Many scholars interpret
this as a symbol of the fiercely maternal, and this
is an early example the key element in revenge stories
(21:09):
about women. Their suffering must be detailed and painful enough
so that we are sympathetic and we back them stepping
outside of traditional gender norms by getting revenge instead of
punishing them for transgressing these boundaries. And Janet Claire delved
into the dichotomy of this character is the all suffering,
grieving mother and furious woman said on revenge, she describes
(21:31):
quote a culture that condemned revenge and saw it as
a last resort to which only a male should have recourse,
and that to stage a heckyba as she was staged
in classical tragedy would be to stage a rebellion. So
when it comes to our modern day entertainment, revenge is
a genre dominated by men, both in leading roles and
when it comes to directors. So when we think of
(21:52):
revenge movies with male protagonists, the wronged at the heart
of the revenge is usually quite different. Often involves the
fridging killing off of the main love interests early in
the plot, sidelining her to an object that functions solely
to start the main male character's vengeful journey. Not only
does she die, she's often raped and tortured prior to death,
defiling the man's property quote unquote, We as the audience,
(22:15):
typically root for the man to get his vengeance, chewing
on his typically violent retribution. I mean, how many times
have we seen this? In every James Bond at least
one person loved the love interest that you know, for
like thirty seconds naked on the bed, dies immediately. And
then of course, yeah, John Wick is famous for the
dog and I don't care to be fair, Yeah, I
(22:35):
get that um killing off the dog and the wife.
And then there's you see so many, so many of
those that begin, as I think every John stadhum movie
outside of her, but so true. That's exactly how you
see it, you death rays. I watched that and that's
the beginning plot, and you're like, what is happening? Yeah? Also,
(22:59):
I guess Mission Impossible. I love how like every Mission
Impossible movie starts with this and then at the end
he's with someone, but then she dies in the hes
over every time, ever stop. You will never be happy,
that's the message. That is the message. Revenge will make
you happy anyway. Revenge stories with women at the helm,
on the other end, usually are more gendered fears and anxieties,
(23:23):
like sexual assault, domestic violence, cheating motherhood. While we frequently
cheer for these anti heroines, audiences are more likely to
turn on her than on a male protagonist, giving her
as hysterical or deranged. Some movies even managed to flip
somehow so that the audience sides with the male antagonist,
or that the woman quote deserved what she can write. Yes,
(23:47):
I when I was thinking about this, I think men
don't like imagining a world where women can exact revenge
for the wrongs done to them. Well, I mean, there's
so many things about being ladylike and being kind and
motherly and nurturing, but that's not ex sceptible while the
father is the protector. So of course it crosses the
line to be protecting, especially even if you're protecting yourself.
(24:09):
That that's crossing the gender norms boundary. And we have
a lot of examples about that in our our upcoming
part two of this um and one one of the
ones we're going to talk about that really gripped our
collective cultural psyches was the film I Spit on Your Grave.
That's intense. Second, you watched that, right, Oh yeah, oh yeah,
(24:31):
I know that's an intense one. It is, Yes, it
very much is. And this was done by Mere's ar guy.
This movie follows an aspiring writer who is getting grape
and her relentless vengeful pursuit to take them all out
after that. As you might imagine, this stirred up a
lot of controversy. Robert Ebert famously despised it, calling it
(24:55):
quote one of the most depressing experiences of my life
and describing the film as a vile bag of garbage.
And we're gonna do a terrible thing here and leave
it at a cliffhanger like some revenge movies do. Take that, Yeah,
you take that. Listeners, thank you for this so sorry,
(25:16):
Just save it. You know you can do streaming things. Yeah, yeah,
bene it um. Yes, we have a part too forthcoming
where we're gonna look at our more modern female revenge
genre and specific examples, and we're also focusing in for
feminists maybe Friday on First Wives Club, so keep your
(25:38):
ears out for that. In the meantime, if you have
a favorite revenge movie or any kind of revenge media,
you can email it to us. Our email is Stuff
Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also
find us on Twitter, mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram
at stuff I'll Never Told You. Thanks as always to
our superproducer Andrew Howard. Thanks and thanks to you for listening.
(26:00):
Stuff I Never Told You's a prodection of iHeart Radios.
How Stuff Works. For more podcast from my heart Radio,
visit iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff.
Mom never told your production of I Heart Radio's How
Stuff Works. You know what one of my resolutions is,
what is your resolution to stop saying the intro so quickly? Oh, well,
(00:26):
it's better than what I do, since I've never done it,
and I'm just grateful that you do. Okay, I'm all good,
I'm I'm I am a little fearful of the day
that you're gone with Safer and I have to do
something because we're behind or something, and I had to
do an introduction like this, and I'm gonna be like,
I miss Annie so much right now, But you can
learn from my mistakes. That is one of my many resolutions.
(00:47):
That's not my only resolutions. Well, I will say one
of the problems because you do it. I don't even
pay attention. But it sounds like I think I tried.
We tried this one time with an outro. I tried
to do an outro and it was such a cluster
and I was like, I'm done. You do it. I
still have to write it down, even though I've said
it so many times. But we're going anyway, not talking
(01:09):
about resolutions today. We're talking about female revenge, love it, history,
science examples, and it ballooned into such a big episode
it's now a two parter. Well, and I think part
of that was you and I kept going on and
on and on adding to the movie list or just
(01:30):
a genre of it because I'm like, I like this one,
and like this one and this one and this one.
This could be considered, and this is considered because we
actually went beyond. We can talk about TV shows and
we do couple, but not all of them obviously UM,
but then even trips with like books as well as
UM comics or graphic novels. We don't exactly get into
all of that level. So it could be like five
(01:54):
day series, it could be in an entire podcast just revenge.
You're right, I didn't even think about comic. What is
with me? I can't believe you didn't go there. Maybe
I will come to me as we do it, So
that's in your line. Yeah, Well, we are planning some
specific episodes on on Birds of Prey Black Widow, so
well we'll come back to that before we get into
(02:16):
all of the stuff we have to talk about. We
did want to put a trigger warning hair because there's
gonna be discussion around sexual saut violence, brief mentions of
mental health, and suicide. With these revenge things get pretty dark. Yeah,
and it's actually something I didn't have too much knowledge
around when it comes to entertainment, this idea of women
in revenge. As I've said before, most revenge media makes
(02:40):
me uncomfortable and nervous, which is funny because I've actually
written a lot of things about revenge my own life.
So I think I think there's something about the fantastical
element of superhero type revenge that I can click out
and it seems like fantasy and watching like revenge, even
though it's heightened usually it's something about it just puts
(03:02):
me on edge, which I think is the point. Yeah, exactly,
that is the point. It makes you uncomfortable, kind of
makes you look at your shoulders at all times, right,
and I a good revenge movie makes you question the
main character and whether or not they're justified in what
they're doing. I mean, this is definitely one of those
anti heroo right ideas. Right, And I didn't want to
(03:22):
stay in here. I have a friend who is excellent
at revenge. She she I hope I never end up
on her bad side, the anchovies in the car, the
ants in the car, basically your car. It's not a
safe place if you made her mad. You know, that's
kind of a trope as well, that the girlfriend the
main quote unquote crazy girlfriend. They always go after the car.
(03:45):
It does seem to be that type of feel. I've
definitely met women that I'm like, yeah, you scare me
because you have not only do you think of it,
and I think a lot of people think bad thoughts,
but you actually start planning it. And when you start
planning it, you know you better watch out. And so
this isn't something I'm very familiar with, but you are right, Samantha. Yes,
(04:08):
I do really really love female revenge movies. Unfortunately, with
some of the me too stuff, it's it's kind of
taken out amount of rotation a lot of the ones
that I really do love, and I'm very sad about that.
I also find it really interesting because one of the
things um and I don't think we mentioned it in
here when we talk about Mad Max, one of the
big problems people had was Charles their own playing of
(04:32):
such a pivoal character, which in my mind, I'm like,
she still needs a saving in the end. So I
don't understand why people are upset people being men and
men's activists, let's put it that way. But it is
a kind of a revenge justice type of mentality as well.
So it's kind of like, Okay, who are we looking at,
who are we rooting for? How are we rooting for it?
(04:52):
And how do we come to like the just desserts?
You know? I want to see all that I do.
I love that because I don't always like really dark,
dark things, but when it has a satisfying ending or
satisfying moment, it makes everything okay to me. Yeah, it's cathartic. Yes, yes,
I made a very foolish mistake in preparation for this,
(05:15):
and I've watched probably fifteen of these in like four days.
I did not recommend that. Nobody in there, thinking about
themselves and their health care, wouldn't have done that. I
kept telling myself, why no one's making you do this?
I was. I was surprised, and I will say one
(05:37):
of the reasons, and you you will hear in the
letter later episode. We picked First Wives Club um because
I wanted We were talking about doing a revenge type
of themed movie, but I wanted to make sure it
wasn't over the top gory and over the top dark.
And this is kind of one of the beginnings of
(05:57):
the revenge, just this type of thought process and movies
and not beginning. That's not true, but you know it
was one of the iconic ones. Yeah, but yeah, and
then finding out you watched all those why But the
reason I wanted to say that is because what you
said earlier than me too. Thing watching them you're going
to recognize when we get to our part two episodes,
(06:19):
several names like the wine Steins come up, A what right?
Fascinating because it makes you wonder the people working on it,
and I know I've read some reviews there's all this
female revenge maybe makes you wonder, makes you larger, and
it seems like a female revenge and anger is something
that are on a lot of people's mind. Um, he'll
have no fury like a woman scorned. That is a great,
(06:41):
great line in anything, A quote derived from William Congrey's
sixteenth century English play The Morning Bride and U are
n I n g. And these episodes were in part
inspired by the upcoming Cary Mulligan revenge flick Promising Young Woman,
directed by Emerald Fennel, and I was really really like
I started watching, I was like, oh damn, okay, okay,
(07:03):
that's taking out the nice guy troupe, real hard UM,
and I really enjoyed. It's going to be an intense,
intense scene because, um, within the previews you can already
see the nice guy bits. You have very unassuming, good
looking guys you would never expect a B. You have
the friend who UM didn't support her, didn't believe her,
(07:24):
and then you have the like teacher figures that also
don't believe her and just kind of tell her it's
gonna make it worse for you. And then she just left,
and everybody's like, why did you leave? Um? And it
definitely had a hard candy vibe to it too, which
I appreciate. Yeah, and we're gonna be talking about that
that film and another movie that kind of reminds me
of that that I just washed in f A. But okay,
(07:45):
let's do our our definition bit. The Dictionary definition of
revenge is quote the action of inflicting hurt or harm
on someone for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.
It is defined us both an act and a desire.
Some psychologists referred to it as narcissistic acts of self repair.
The definition of justice, which is a term that gets
(08:08):
thrown around a lot in conversations around revenge, is just
behavior or treatment, and the line between the two of
them can be murky. Punishment pops up a bit too,
which is a penalty inflicted for wrongdoing. But when I
was trying to think of the differences between these things,
and I do think there can be overlapped. I think
the main thing with revenge is there's a personal emotional
(08:32):
aspect and that it's not so much about justice necessarily.
It might be, but it's more like, I want to
hurt this person who directly hurt me. Might you might
take actions that don't worry. A lot of the movies
we're going to talk about, uh, they kind of go
a bit further than yes, and Yeah, we are as
(08:56):
a society pretty torn on ideas of revenge. There's an
eye for an eye versus the other cheek, which are
both from the Bible. Um. A paper digging into revenge
and all of this found that when participants believed a
revenge action was sanctioned by God, they were more likely
to support revenge and seek it themselves. Revenge is a
(09:16):
basic human drive. The same part of your brain that
lights up when you're in love that sends reward signals
lights up when you think about revenge, the prefront until
cortex shows activity two, which this is the same area
associated with planning how to achieve a goal. That's really
intriguing evolutionarily, it may have been a way to keep
burgeoning societies functioning. Those that do wrong that threatened stability
(09:41):
get punished, a tool to prevent future wrongs. And we
did touch on some of the science behind revenge in
our Forgiveness episode, but there's some more we wanted to
touch on because it is really fascinating. Study out of
the University of Kentucky looked into revenge tasking participants with
writing an essay and then swapping essays for feedback with
(10:02):
other participants, and one of the participants was an undercover
researcher who left epically critical feedback. Then the participants were
allowed to express how angry the feedback they had gotten
made them with a voodoo doll and needles. The participants
who had received the negative feedback reported feeling better after
(10:23):
engaging in some revenge, basically sticking the doll with needles.
A follow up study looked into whether people would go
out of their way for revenge, and they found that
to not be true. People sought it out if they
believed it would make them feel better, but participants led
to believe it wouldn't and that they did this through
a placebo that they called a mood stabilizing pill. Basically,
(10:45):
no matter what you do, your your mood's gonna stay
the same. Did not pursue revenge against teammates that had
let them down. This corroborates the popular psychological understanding of
revenge that its primary goal is catharsis, followed closely by
to terrence and restoration of self esteem. So a similar
study found that when given the opportunity to get revenge
(11:05):
against the player who wronged them, participants universally took it,
but also universally reported feeling worse after that case compared
to those who weren't wrong and therefore did not seek revenge.
Those who had been wronged and we're not given the
opportunity to get revenge reported they believed they would feel
better if they had pursued revenge, even though they were
in the happier group. Well again the grass is greener idea.
(11:28):
Yet another study found that the acts of revenge are
only better than not getting revenge in cases where the
revenge is acknowledged and the balance is restored. Right, So
if it goes on acknowledged, then you don't get the
same like benefit from it. And as we talked about
in our forgiveness episode, most science indicates that revenge is
satisfying in the short term, but associated with more negative
(11:48):
outcomes in a long term. Instead of providing closure, it
keeps a wound fresh. Yet another study found that when
asked about a time they got revenge in a time
when they were the hearget of revenge, almost everyone. I
love this, Almost everyone deemed their act of revenge as
just and appropriate and the act of revenge against them
(12:10):
as excessive. Of course, of course, how da hear you? Exactly,
Oh humanity. We actually have a lot more science and
history about revenge to get into, but first we have
a quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
(12:39):
we're back, Thank you sponsor. So one thing I was
curious about is the question of why do we like
revenge stories. Well, obviously, revenge stories are satisfying. Like I
just said, they're cathartic in a world where bad things
happen to a good people with rhyme or reason, a
reality beset with sense of smilence. It's comforting to think
(13:00):
that those who have wronged us will face the consequence
and then song. I hope most of our revenge media
functions like a fantasy where everything is exaggerated, which is
kind of nice. It reminds me of what we talked
about in um. Why do people victim blame? Where we're
always trying to find a reason for or to find balance, right,
(13:20):
to make things just, there's no sense. Yeah, I think
that's the true libra in May I needed to be okay,
all falling into place. From Dr Edward Halliwell, psychiatrist and author, quote,
the pursuit of revenge is a turn on. It's an
adrenaline rush. You can really get into it, and once
(13:40):
you have experienced it, you want to do it again
and again, and it becomes a way of life. He
argues that if you wanted, you could frame our entire
history in terms of revenge. I think that's what warsaw essentially,
when you look at the bottom line and money. Oh yeah,
of course, money in a two thousand eight study out
(14:02):
of Australia conducted by Dr Ian McKee. He found a
link that suggested that those most interested in revenge were
people more motivated by power, specifically right wing authoritarians and
some sort of social dominance and all the attributes that
go with it. Other studies have shown that events that
inspire revenge differed by culture, and others that revenge is
(14:23):
viewed differently among communities without access to legal means of justice.
There are entire websites dedicated to helping you get revenge.
Think the Exploding glitter boxes or get your Revenge on
your x dot com run by a man whose wife
cheated on him. According to him, most of his clients
are female. M yeah, I don't want to look it up.
(14:44):
I don't want to. A recent study found that men
enjoy revenge more than women. When shown instances of wrongdoers
getting punished, male participants were more likely to feel pleasure,
while female participants were more likely to fill empathy. Another
study looking into gender different has found that men were
far likelier than women to engage in revenge fantasies, and
(15:04):
that even children fantasize about getting revenge. I've seen this
as a nanny and as a person who was in
the field, I've seen you sometimes I really crafty too.
Just wants to know that the women reported that they
believed revenge was ultimately pointless, and a lot of the
women who did express revenge fantasies were more likely to
turn the revenge in words imagining about harming themselves to
(15:27):
punish those that harmed them. There is a certain level
of breaking gender norms in female revenge entertainment. Traditionally, aggression
and violence are associated with men. Anger, the emotion most
closely associated with revenge, is traditionally viewed as a more masculine,
sanctioned emotion. Historically, women have used words as weapons, whereas
men are more violence like using swords or guns or whatever,
(15:53):
what have you. And also I read a lot of
things that viewed this is kind of a dismissal and
then expressions of grief and viewing them as weak, and
kind of going off of that, we did look at
some history, some famous examples of women getting revenge. But
(16:13):
before we get into that, we have one more quick
break for word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank
you sponsor, and we're back with some history. So let's
(16:33):
leet into that throughout our history, Western culture has largely
depicted vengeance as a more masculine avenue. A lot of
the monsters from our Female Monsters episode tell stories of enraged,
insatiable vengeance like the Furies. Less about revenge though, which
has more personal element, but there are similar themes, and
there are plenty of famous historical examples. We have real
(16:54):
life examples like the Rain of bob It's but also
going back further, there is the example of Kamara, a
Galatian noble woman during the Glacian War with Rome around
one b C. She was taken captive. The person in
charge of the prisoners, including Kamara, made several sexual advances
towards her, all of which she rejected. So he raped her,
(17:16):
but then felt such guilt about it, kindly ransomed her
to her people. The countrymen that came for the exchange,
with a nod from Kamara or perhaps speaking in their
native language depending on the source, that you know what,
you should cut off this guy's head. The countryman did that.
She took the head, carried it back with her in
(17:36):
her dress, threw it at her husband's feet when she
arrived home. Her husband said a noble thing, dear wife,
is fidelity, And she responded, yes, but it is a
nobler thing that only one man be alive who has
been intimate with me. So. Artemisia Gentileschi was a painter
in the sixteen hundreds who was raped when she was eighteen,
and instead of punishing the rapist, the court of course
(17:57):
of tortured Artemisia, which we've seen even to a tying
ropes around her fingers and pulling them tight. As she
was tortured, she shouted at her rapists who watched in
the courtroom, this is the ring you gave me, and
these are your promises, and she repeated, unwavering about her testimony.
It is true. The entire transcript of the trial survived,
and she went about getting her revenge through her art,
(18:18):
painting the disturbing and affected Judith and he Leferness, in
which Judith along with another woman, hold down the Lefferness,
slitting his throat. It is a very effective, faint good one.
In sixty c in present day southeast England, Boudica was born.
She went on to marry Celtic King Prostitutagus at the
age of eighteen. When Prostutagus died in fourty three CE
(18:39):
without a male heir. His kingdom, land and property were
annexed by the Romans. They then publicly flogged Brutica and
raped her two daughters. Records show that she declared nothing
is safe from Roman pride and arrogance. They will deface
the sacred and will deflower our virgins when the battle
or perish. That is what I, a woman will do.
A trained warrior, she helped form a rebel army of
(19:01):
tribes that went on to destroy the Roman capital of
Britain and killed all those that lived there. The rebel
army did the same thing with two other cities, including London.
Records from the time suggest that Boudica's rebellion killed seventy
tho Romans and pro Roman Britain's before she was defeated. Yeah,
and perhaps inspired by some of these true stories, perhaps
(19:21):
now we have plenty of fictional examples as well, going
way back right in Euripides Greek play media, this character,
sometimes called the Queen of Revenge, once said a woman's
weak and timid in most matters. The noise of war,
the look of steel make her a coward, but touch
her right in marriage and there's no bloody or spirit.
Media's ex husband, Jason, dished her for another woman for
(19:42):
her superficial reasons after Media helped him climb the social ladder.
The whole play is about her journey to secure her revenge,
not caring who ends up in the crossfire, including her
own children, taking away what he left for her, a
future in royalty, and when she gives it, she rise
off in a dragon drawn carriage. You've been to give
an abandoned old age, I give one now to you.
(20:03):
This example is particularly unsettling because of media flouts her
gender norm, both of women being too kind to seek revenge,
but also that women are unfailingly protective maternal of their children.
A twist because we the audience, expect the act of
vengeance to take Jason's life. This whole thing of revenge
seemed to be a theme in euripides work Around the
(20:23):
mid fourteen twenties BC. Euripides also published Hecuba. Hecuba was
the Queen of Troy and witnessed and experienced many many wrongs,
including the deaths of her husband and sons. She was
enslaved by those who killed her family. Her daughter is
sacrificed and another is taken as a concubine to be killed. Hecuba,
along with other female captives of the Trojan army, lure
(20:46):
the king of Thrace, Polymester, and his two sons into
the women's tent in a post war encampment, and proceed
to blind the king with pens from their dresses and
kill his two young sons. Polymester prophesied that Hecuba would
become quote a dog with fiery eyes. Many scholars interpret
this as a symbol of the fiercely maternal, and this
is an early example the key element in revenge stories
(21:09):
about women. Their suffering must be detailed and painful enough
so that we are sympathetic and we back them stepping
outside of traditional gender norms by getting revenge instead of
punishing them for transgressing these boundaries. And Janet Claire delved
into the dichotomy of this character is the all suffering,
grieving mother and furious woman said on revenge, she describes
(21:31):
quote a culture that condemned revenge and saw it as
a last resort to which only a male should have recourse,
and that to stage a heckyba as she was staged
in classical tragedy would be to stage a rebellion. So
when it comes to our modern day entertainment, revenge is
a genre dominated by men, both in leading roles and
when it comes to directors. So when we think of
(21:52):
revenge movies with male protagonists, the wronged at the heart
of the revenge is usually quite different. Often involves the
fridging killing off of the main love interests early in
the plot, sidelining her to an object that functions solely
to start the main male character's vengeful journey. Not only
does she die, she's often raped and tortured prior to death,
defiling the man's property quote unquote, We as the audience,
(22:15):
typically root for the man to get his vengeance, chewing
on his typically violent retribution. I mean, how many times
have we seen this? In every James Bond at least
one person loved the love interest that you know, for
like thirty seconds naked on the bed, dies immediately. And
then of course, yeah, John Wick is famous for the
dog and I don't care to be fair, Yeah, I
(22:35):
get that um killing off the dog and the wife.
And then there's you see so many, so many of
those that begin, as I think every John stadhum movie
outside of her, but so true. That's exactly how you
see it, you death rays. I watched that and that's
the beginning plot, and you're like, what is happening? Yeah? Also,
(22:59):
I guess Mission Impossible. I love how like every Mission
Impossible movie starts with this and then at the end
he's with someone, but then she dies in the hes
over every time, ever stop. You will never be happy,
that's the message. That is the message. Revenge will make
you happy anyway. Revenge stories with women at the helm,
on the other end, usually are more gendered fears and anxieties,
(23:23):
like sexual assault, domestic violence, cheating motherhood. While we frequently
cheer for these anti heroines, audiences are more likely to
turn on her than on a male protagonist, giving her
as hysterical or deranged. Some movies even managed to flip
somehow so that the audience sides with the male antagonist,
or that the woman quote deserved what she can write. Yes,
(23:47):
I when I was thinking about this, I think men
don't like imagining a world where women can exact revenge
for the wrongs done to them. Well, I mean, there's
so many things about being ladylike and being kind and
motherly and nurturing, but that's not ex sceptible while the
father is the protector. So of course it crosses the
line to be protecting, especially even if you're protecting yourself.
(24:09):
That that's crossing the gender norms boundary. And we have
a lot of examples about that in our our upcoming
part two of this um and one one of the
ones we're going to talk about that really gripped our
collective cultural psyches was the film I Spit on Your Grave.
That's intense. Second, you watched that, right, Oh yeah, oh yeah,
(24:31):
I know that's an intense one. It is, Yes, it
very much is. And this was done by Mere's ar guy.
This movie follows an aspiring writer who is getting grape
and her relentless vengeful pursuit to take them all out
after that. As you might imagine, this stirred up a
lot of controversy. Robert Ebert famously despised it, calling it
(24:55):
quote one of the most depressing experiences of my life
and describing the film as a vile bag of garbage.
And we're gonna do a terrible thing here and leave
it at a cliffhanger like some revenge movies do. Take that, Yeah,
you take that. Listeners, thank you for this so sorry,
(25:16):
Just save it. You know you can do streaming things. Yeah, yeah,
bene it um. Yes, we have a part too forthcoming
where we're gonna look at our more modern female revenge
genre and specific examples, and we're also focusing in for
feminists maybe Friday on First Wives Club, so keep your
(25:38):
ears out for that. In the meantime, if you have
a favorite revenge movie or any kind of revenge media,
you can email it to us. Our email is Stuff
Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also
find us on Twitter, mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram
at stuff I'll Never Told You. Thanks as always to
our superproducer Andrew Howard. Thanks and thanks to you for listening.
(26:00):
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