Rape-Revenge Films

Author: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476686491
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Book Description
Often considered the lowest depth to which cinema can plummet, the rape-revenge film is broadly dismissed as fundamentally exploitative and sensational, catering only to a demented, regressive demographic. This second edition, ten years after the first, continues the assessment of these films and the discourse they provoke. Included is a new chapter about women-directed rape-revenge films, a phenomenon that--revitalized since #MeToo exploded in late 2017--is a filmmaking tradition with a history that transcends a contemporary context. Featuring both famous and unknown movies, controversial and widely celebrated filmmakers, as well as rape-revenge cinema from around the world, this revised edition demonstrates that diverse and often contradictory treatments of sexual violence exist simultaneously.

Rape-Revenge Films

Author: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786486929
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Book Description
Often considered the lowest depth to which the cinema can plummet, the rape-revenge film has been dismissed as exploitative and sensational, catering to a demented demographic. Only on such rare occasions as Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, John Boorman's Deliverance and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof has the rape-revenge movie transcended what is commonly assumed to be its intrinsically exploitative nature and moved into the mainstream. This critical overview reassesses that viewpoint by exploring a variety of themes, as well as the elements that this type of film has in common. The author discusses an array of films directed by noteworthy directors from several countries, demonstrating that diverse and often contradictory treatments of sexual violence can exist simultaneously.

Revisionist Rape-Revenge

Author: Claire Henry
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137413956
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
Considered a notorious subset of horror in the 1970s and 1980s, there has been a massive revitalization and diversification of rape-revenge in recent years. This book analyzes the politics, ethics, and affects at play in the filmic construction of rape and its responses.

Screening #MeToo

Author: Lisa Funnell
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438487614
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
Screening #MeToo offers an important and timely discussion of the pervasive nature of rape culture in Hollywood. Essays in the collection examine films released from the 1960s onward, a broad period that coincides with the end of the Motion Picture Production Code in Hollywood, which resulted in more frequent and increasingly graphic images of sex and violence being included in mainstream movies. Focusing on narratives in which surveillance and sexual violence feature prominently, contributors from North America and Europe examine a variety of film genres, including spy films, teen comedies, kitchen sink dramas, coming-of-age stories, rape/revenge films, and horror films. Reflecting the increasing social and academic awareness of sexual violence in Hollywood film and its transmission and cultivation of rape culture in the United States and abroad, they are concerned not only with the content of the films under scrutiny but also with the clear relationship between the stories, how they are being told, and the culture that produced them. Screening #MeToo challenges readers to look at mainstream Hollywood films differently, in light of attitudes about art and power, sexuality and consent, and the pleasures and frustrations of criticizing "entertainment" films from these perspectives.

Men, Women, and Chain Saws

Author: Carol J. Clover
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691166293
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
Examining the popularity of low-budget cinema, particularly slasher, occult, and rape-revenge films, the author argues that, while such films have been traditionally understood as offering only sadistic pleasure to their mostly male audiences, in actuality they align spectators not with the male tormentor but with the females being tormented--particularly the slasher movie's "final girls"--Who endure fear and degradation before rising to save themselves.--Adapted from publisher description.

The New Avengers

Author: Jacinda Read
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719059056
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
Jacinda Read studies the rape-revenge film, and suggests that the rape-revenge cycle can be read as one of the ways in which Hollywood has attempted to make sense of feminism and the shape of heterosexual femininity in the post-1970 period.

Ms. 45

Author: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231851057
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
Despite its association with the broadly disparaged rape-revenge category, Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45 is today considered one of the most significant feminist cult films of the 1980s. Straddling mainstream, arthouse, and exploitation film contexts, Ms. 45 is a potent case study for cult film analysis. At its heart lies two figures: Ferrara himself, and the movie's star, the iconic Zoe Lund, who would further collaborate with Ferrara on later projects such as Bad Lieutenant. This book explores the entwining histories and contexts that led to Ms. 45's creation and helped establish its enduring legacy, particularly in terms of feminist cult film fandom, and the film's status as one of the most important, influential, and powerful rape-revenge films ever made.

Revisionist Rape-Revenge

Author: Claire Henry
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137413956
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

I Spit on Your Grave

Author: David Maguire
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231851286
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
There is no denying that Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (1978) deserves its title as one of the most controversial films ever made. While many condemn it as misogynistic, others praise it for raising uncomfortable issues about sexual violence. While its reputation as a cult film has undoubtedly been cemented by its unique position in the 1970s/80s exploitation era and the "video nasties" scandal, it has also become mythologized by its own official and unofficial franchises. David Maguire examines why the film still continues to provoke fierce debate forty years on, not only investigating the historical, social, and political landscape into which the film was first released—and condemned—but also examining how it is has inadvertently become ground zero for the rape-revenge genre because of its countless imitators. The book explores how academic study has reevaluated the film’s importance as a cultural statement on gender, the conflicting readings that it throws up, the timeless appeal of its story as examined through folklore and mythology, and its updating to reflect contemporary issues in a post-9/11 world of vengeance and retaliation.

Fecund Horror

Author: Noah Berlatsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781535390286
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
Terrror! Blood! Torture! Insect sex zombie apocalypse! In Hollywood films the guy gets the girl and the monster is defeated, which is boring and unsatisfying, since who wants Tom Cruise to win, anyway? But in exploitation films, the monster gets the girl, the guy gets torn limb from limb, and the whole project is really more satisfying for everyone. This 49K collection of essays covers horror films, slashers, rape/revenge, women-in-prison and other mean, twisted, exploitation atrocities which chew up your humanity and your gender and spit it out as a staggering chitinous abomination. Freud, feminism, the male gaze, and a hideous ichor from beyond the stars engage in a struggle to the death as the world dissolves in filth and abasement.Among the films discussed are The Thing, Cronenberg's Shivers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Under the Skin, I Spit on Your Grave, The Stendahl Syndrome, The Last House on the Left, Martyrs, Hostel, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Caged, The Big Doll House, Death Proof, and Switchblade Sisters.