I just got done watching a film entitled “Teeth”
The premise is as follows :
High school student Dawn works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group’s most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by her bad boy stepbrother Brad’s increasingly provocative behavior at home. A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence. As she struggles to comprehend her anatomical uniqueness, Dawn experiences both the pitfalls and the power of being a living example of the vagina dentata myth.
WARNING : This post will contain spoilers — so if you want to see this film, bookmark and read this post later. I do suggest watching it, it is very interesting and says a lot about our culture, I think.
IN-DEPTH SUMMARY
I want to go a little more in depth than the summary above because it will give a better insight to Dawn’s situation. The film opens with her giving a speech about abstinance. This sets the mood for her character, but also each segment of this film can be attributed to a societal mark of sexuality. In this case, her speech to middle schoolers (that goes along with a promise ring to wait until you are married to have sex) shoves sex under the carpet. Repression of female sexuality happens at a very young age and the little red ring that is worn in this film is a ring that cuts off circulation to sexuality. This becomes obvious later on in the film when Dawn takes off the ring and drops it over a cliff — a moment of reclaiming sexuality.
Fast Forward — Her and a boy she likes (who she can’t stop thinking about) swim out to this cave to make-out. She wants to leave and he is rather persistant in his endeavors. He tries to rape her, and the teeth on her vagina (that she cannot control at this point in the film) sever his penis onto the rocky floor. He swims off, and she sits in the cave panicked. Although the entire film creates the metaphor of Dawn’s teeth being a way that women can protect themselves against violence of men, at this point Dawn is still a very fragile feeling young girl who was violated. The teeth worked for her benefit, but she was very unsure of her body as most girls her age are. Dawn struggles with this (a metaphor for struggling with sexuality in general) until her next lapse with male violence.
She looks up information about genital mutation and finds tons of references to females in mythology having teeth on their vagina until a hero can save her of her destruction. She heads to the doctor to find out what is wrong with her — he says everything is fine. Next thing we know he is testing her “flexibility”, but his demeanor is rather intrusive and uncomfortable for her. Needless to say, after his violation – he was 4 fingers short.
She later finds out that the aforementioned boy was killed (and we find out the teeth in her vagina are very much like a shark / manta-ray hybrid) – she goes to a friend for help. He treats her very nice and takes care of her when she has no one to turn to. The image above of her in the bath takes place in his house. He sets up candles and comforts her (when she realizes she must go to the police). They have sex. At this point, there is a real tension of whether or not he will be killed next, but the scene shows his aiding to her using a vibrating ring. Basically, this shows that treatment to woman is the right thing to do — because they have sex and he does not get his genitals cut off — UNTIL THE NEXT MORNING. She feels liberated and has sex again the next morning. He gets a call from his buddy who he had placed a bet with (to see if he could sleep with Dawn). At this point, you can tell she has full control over the teeth as she bites down hard.
The final showdown for her was with her step-brother who was in love with her (before their parents got married). He was partly responsible for her mother’s recent death, so she put’s on make-up and gets revenge. After the dismemberment his dog eats his penis. This is a very interesting aspect of the film because his dog was obidient before, but now that his “power” was gone, the dog was released from his control.
The film ends with Dawn hitch-hiking. She gets a ride from a very old man who locks her in the car and will not let her get out until she “repays him”, she smiles and the film ends.
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That is the more in-depth summary of the film and some of the metaphors in the film. The film really speaks truly to women fighting back against male power and dominance. There were many scenarios in the film that deal with circumstances of violence against women — date rape, incest, stranger, friend, etc. The film is rather empowering because eventually Dawn has power over the men who are trying to conquer her. The end of the film with her step-brother shows a very strong power differntial after his penis is gone. In each case, when the penis is gone – the man turns into a crying “sissy” (for good reason), but is a very interesting commentary on — “the only thing that gives someone power in this world is a penis”.
Although, I am not a fan of revenge or matriarchy, the final scene of her smiling trusts the notion that women can be powerful and will not stand for the abuse any longer. Near the beginning of the film she felt very shameful and different (like young girls often are supposed to feel), but as she realized that she could be more powerful than a man, she was able to fight past her fear of her own body.
An interesting scene in the film occured in the classroom. They were studying anatomy and had just learned about the penis. Students turned the page to a giant gold sticker over the vagina (and the teacher would not say the word vagina). This was a very literal interpretation of how we try to cover-up female sexuality.
Overall, the film has so many “fight-back” messages embedded that it really reverses the role of traditional media of today (most horror films are of serial killers killing women).
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When doing some research on IMDB for the film I saw a few postings (some of which I responded to) that I found interesting. I want to post them in here as part of a discussion.
POST :: Feminist Rhetoric is Tiring
- If a woman is the victim of male violence in a movie (which often happens in life), feminists complain that it’s an instance of “misogyny.” Thus the Janet Leigh shower scene in PSYCHO is an expression of Hitchcock’s deep-seated hatred of women.YET… If a woman is mean, nasty, and heartless in her treatment of men in a movie (which also often happens in life), the same feminists complain that the movie is…yes, that’s right, “misogynist,” because of its unsympathetic portrayal of a woman.
My analysis: feminists complain too much.
Oh, and by the way ladies, you know as well as I that a movie like “Teeth” would never have gotten made if it featured a male protagonist getting revenge on a bunch of mean girls by mutilating their genitalia. So stop bitchin’ about supposed “double standards.” If there are any double standards in movies, they favor y’all women, not us men.
MY REPLY
- Well, in this situation, you have too look at statistics from a societal stand-point. A film like Teeth is a metaphor for women not taking the violence of men any longer — to fight back. 1 in 4 women report rape — that is only reported, so the statistics are staggering. Of course, if there was a film about men mutilating women’s genitals there would be an outrage. The main reason for this being that women in Africa are daily victims to Female Genital Mutilation — as part of a cultural attack on women. Also, the other problem is that in 90% of films (horror or otherwise) men are the ones killing — usually “promiscuous” girls (a directly metaphorical attack on women’s sexuality). Therefore, the overall reason for a making a film like teeth is to send the specific message of fighting back against male violence — there is no need for a film about men fighting back because there is not an overwhelming problem in our society with men being raped.
THEIR REPLY
MY REPLY
- Well, first off I am a man, and I have never experienced sexual assault, but I have learned a lot about it — and that’s the point, the statistics do not lie, and our media is a reflection of our society.When I said 90% of films (horror/otherwise) i was referring specifically to movies that have KILLING in them. The MAJORITY of films with killing comes from the hands of men.
I am also not saying that MEN are not victims — but again 1 in 4 women are sexual assaulted (and that is reported). Also, the MAJORITY of men that are sexually abused are abused by other men.
I am just saying that our culture is SATURATED with films where men are killing people. Plenty of films do include sexual assault against women which portray them in a weak and fragile state (understandably), but I think it is good that there is this ONE film (at least in the horror genre) that fights back against sexual abuse against women. I never said that EVERY MALE is a potential rapist, I actually never said anything about living in fear either — I was relating the message of the movie to the real life statistics of our society.
Also — think of what you said “political correctness” — it would be wrong to make a film like that for the sole reason that the amount of women being sexually abused in this country alone is far more than it should be (it should be 0). Plus, like someone said on another post , the majority of mainstream media portrays women as weak, fragile, dumb-blonde, sluts that cannot do anything without a man, and it is nice to have to film where men are not the only people in power.
REFLECTION:
Although this conversation is still happening. I think it is interesting this person automatically thought I was a female abused feminist. Assumptions like this saturate our culture and that is why people like this person have the views they do. A lot of men don’t want to “hear feminists” because they don’t want to be part of the problem, so they disregard and make fun. I just find it interesting that someone would say that this movie is bogus because it depicts a woman killing men by castration.
As a fan of the horror scene, there has been an increase in castration lately — and i think this has a direct correlation between sexual assault on women and the need to stop this abuse.
I found it highly sickening that a few posts I found on the net talked about Dawn’s nudity as a “saving grace” to the film. I think a lot of men will hate this film because it shows women being powerful over men and for some egos that is too much, but further the fact that some men will completely MISS the point of the film and talk about the nudity in the film shows we have yet to go a long way.
There are a ton of good conversations happening about this film over at IMDB, I would check them out. One thing I want to note is the contraversy surrounding this. Men seem to be saying “what about violence against men”, and I don’t think most of them are reading the stats on sexual assault, but more importantly they are being defensive about the portrayal of MEN in the media. The problem is when violence against women happens in films there is no 2nd guessing, but this film is already causing a stir two days after release — so I must ask to those people –
why was there not an uproar when the film se7en depicting a man fucking a woman with a knife until she was left for dead?
That is ONE example of a horrendous act of violence against a women. When violence is happening to women there is no uproar because it is NORMALIZED in our culture. When a film like Teeth is relased — an uproar happens because it challenges the system and brings forth a problem.
I think it is rather interesting the film has caused a stir because the film is categorized as horror/comedy — which I think is problematic at the same time. I didn’t laugh at all during the film (though the abstinence education was laughable I suppose). The general idea is surfacing and I hope to see more films like this because they really open up a dialogue about the violence against women.
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