totally submissive, they attempt to remove her power from her (and try to kill her). Creed talks about the two selves of women in reference to Sisters and I think this can apply here too, the trauma from assault could take away Jennifer’s power, her independence and her well-being (getting rid of her Dominique sort of) but instead Jennifer becomes powerful fully realizing their metaphorical fears of castration and exacts her revenge by killing them, the ultimate castration (some real castration thrown in there). The revenge part is still revolving around the men’s fears of the powerful woman, this time the castrating woman. The fact that the men are ready to have sex with her despite knowing she survived and in one case pulled a gun on him, makes explicit the masochistic sexual fantasies of man that Creed brings up. Since this was released at a time when horror’s majority audience was male, I think the revenge part of this movie does give into those fantasies of being enticed and punished by the female body. I thought the point from Doane was really interesting, “that woman’s narration is almost always interpreted and is ‘therapeutic only when constrained and regulated by the purposeful ear of the listening doctor’ so her narration ‘is granted a limited validity’ only,” I think this really interesting when applied to I Spit on Your Grave. The validity and justification for Jennifer’s killing rampage is exacting revenge on her rapists, but only to the extent to which it features male anxieties and desires. Outside the diegesis of the film is also the fact that it is made by a man and intended for mostly male audiences another way in which the catharsis is acceptable because of regulated by the male gaze. 

However, I can’t say that I didn’t myself thoroughly enjoy a bunch of creepo rapists get murdered by a noose, knife, axe, propeller wielding woman. It was satisfying to watch especially after having to sit through the torture of the first part of the film and seeing the physical and emotional trauma Jennifer experienced, I am still uncomfortable with how long the rape scenes were and am not certain the payoff excuses or uses the length of them as a good thing. And knowing the revenge was going to happen made the killing that much more exciting, being privy to that knowledge while the men thought they were being seduced felt like a gotcha I was a part of. Although again the oversexualization in the context of made by and for men does feel icky. I did find the ending cathartic, but it was bogged down with the context of the making and the constraints of male gaze and fears. Having this and Texas Chainsaw Massacre sandwiching our class was interesting, both came out around the time that slasher and exploitive horror were hitting their stride and shaped a lot of modern horror. Both fully indulge psychosexual fears with plenty of gore and both have the potential for radically different meanings when viewed so many years later. The expansion of film audiences brings more identities and ideas into play that provide the potential for so many different readings of a controversial film made over forty years ago. I wasn’t a huge fan of I Spit on Your Grave but also did kind of love it for the simple catharsis and the potential it had to open up so many ideas. 

Thank you for being the best (and only) film class I’ve taken, it was super fun!