Earlier this year there was a film called “Teeth,” which you might remember hearing about even if you didn’t see it. It’s a horror comedy about a teenage girl who discovers she has teeth in her lady parts, and they act as a defense mechanism against unwanted intruders. In other words, when someone tries to rape her, he gets his wang bitten off. Eventually she learns to use this as a weapon against unsavory men.
The concept was upsetting to some men, as evidenced by comments they posted on my review. Some samples:
So, if someone made a movie where women’s breasts were cut off, would that be hailed as an artistic success? Of course not. I’m willing to bet that all of the men in the film are bad in some way, in order to justify what she’s doing. Geez… just another movie for angry and sadistic women to enjoy, and if we don’t agree in every detail then we’re sexists.
find me one positive male in this movie and then tell me it’s not sexist. And by the way, woman can rape too. The analogy would be perfectly apt if the movie was about a penis that shot acid into women’s vaginas. But no. It’s violence against men — horrific violence, for that matter — so it’s funny.
It seems that this is an example of how extreme violence towards men is somehow acceptable in the media, a film basically that centres around men having their penis’s bitten off, i’ve yet to see a film where the hero of the movie tears wombs out with his barbed penis and then justifies it with sexual political rhetoric!
The best response to these sentiments was expressed by long-time commenter Slash, who said:
It’s a horror movie. Women are dismembered in horror movies all the time.
Nearly a 100 years of misogyny as a staple of the horror movie plot, and one movie comes out that turns the tables, and you really want to cry ‘sexism?’
Sure, castration is an uncomfortable topic for men. I dig that. But you don’t think women were uncomfortable with the literally thousands of movies in which they were viewed as walking targets, useful only as victims to be raped/murdered?
Exactly. It’s funny how panicky people get sometimes when their power is threatened. People make movies that are degrading to women all the time. Sometimes these films are even marketed to women, as with “Made of Honor,” where every single female character is at best bland and personality-free, and at worst dumb, buffoonishly fat, clueless, shrill, or mean, and where the final message of the movie is that men can act however selfishly they want and still get the girl of their choice in the end. Movies like that are so common that no one even bothers to point out how sexist they are anymore. But one movie comes along where it’s the men who are pigs and women who are powerful, and suddenly everyone’s outraged.
Don’t worry, men! You still run the world! You still make all the movies! Male screenwriters and directors still outnumber female ones by a huge margin! One film about turning the tables won’t bring down your mighty empire!
It reminds me of the ignorant white people who complain about Black History Month. “If there was a White History Month, they would say it’s racist! But since it’s Black History Month, it’s OK, and we’re the racists if we don’t like it!”
Well, yes, idiot. There’s already a White History Month, and it’s called March through January. If America had been set up in the opposite fashion — where blacks were the ruling majority and whites were imported as slaves for 200 years, then oppressed through laws for another century, then treated with suspicion and disdain by a significant chunk of the population for decades after that — then a White History Month would be appropriate.
Don’t worry, white people! Black History Month affects you in no way whatsoever! You’re still in charge! Taking a few weeks out of the year to recognize the accomplishments of a minority population is not a threat to your power! Relax!
