Sophie Besl – Bitch Flicks

Let’s All Calm Down for a Minute About ‘The Hateful Eight’: Analyzing the Leading Lady of a Modern Western

In an action movie, violence is due to befall all characters. Is violence against any female character inherently woman-hating, inherently misogynist? … It’s possible that subconscious sexism makes people quick to see her as a victim, and then criticism of the trope of women as victims may be getting in the way of seeing the agency and complexity of a character like Daisy Domergue.

This guest post is written by Sophie Besl.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape, sexual assault and graphic violence] | Spoilers ahead.

When the only female character in Quentin Tarantino’s new film, The Hateful Eight, appeared on promotional materials, and eventually onscreen, with a black eye and chained to a male character, the hair on everyone’s backs was already up. A Tarantino fan and writer I admire went so far as to post on Facebook, “…What I saw tonight in 70 millimeter was a woman-hating piece of trash.”

In this analysis, I ask viewers and readers to take a new perspective. In an action movie, violence is due to befall all characters. Is violence against any female character inherently woman-hating, inherently misogynist?

The Hateful Eight Is a Western.
This male-centric genre, like many others, is guilty of shackling a limited number of women into stereotypical roles such as: a) emotional, submissive frontier wives completely at the mercy of men’s decisions, b) hyper-sexualized sex workers, or c) exoticized depictions of Native and Indigenous women. Of course, there are still standout roles for women (Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles, Katharine Ross in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the role of Mattie in True Grit), but these roles are difficult to etch out. I would like to submit that Daisy Domergue, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is one of these strong roles. Tarantino gets as close as he can to putting a woman in a leading role (which he has shown is his preference in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglourious Basterds).

The primary message of The Hateful Eight is about the Civil War and what it meant for America and the men, white and Black, who fought it. Thus, the main characters fought in the war. While a small number of women disguised themselves as men and fought, the overwhelming majority of veterans were men. So since the main characters had to be veterans, these were male, but Tarantino made the “next available” lead character female. Domergue is essentially the third lead, the highest level available that is historically accurate for a woman, given Tarantino’s primary goal exploring race relations (her Golden Globe nomination is for supporting actor, but it’s okay, those decisions are not a science!).

Play the Movie in Your Mind with a Male Actor in the Role.
In my opinion, one test of whether a character is feminist or not is if you ask, “Does this character’s gender play any part in the character’s actions, fate, or treatment?” If the answer is “no” or “not really, not essentially,” then that is a very feminist character. Insert a male actor in place of Jennifer Jason Leigh. Think about it — the plot would play out exactly the same. Not only that, but almost no lines of dialogue would need to be changed. “This woman” would be replaced with “this man,” “sister” with “brother,” etc. The only outlier is the dreaded “b” word, but Tarantino has plenty of colorful insults for all manner of characters.

Domergue Is Never Viewed in a Sexual or Objectifying Way.
This is rooted one of my favorite things about Tarantino as a filmmaker. In a world riddled with rape, the last thing we need is gratuitous, titillating visuals, filmed from a male point of view, of sexual violence against women.¹ The closest Tarantino ever comes to this is with the Bride² — but the sexual violence is implied not shown³ — and Death Proof, where the revenge equally or far outweighs the initial gender-based homicide. On the flip side, Tarantino has no problem showing rape and sexual assault against men onscreen, such as in Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight.

Shosanna in Inglourious Basterds is one of the best examples of Tarantino writing for women as if they do not live in danger of sexual violence from men. This suspension of disbelief onscreen is refreshing and empowering for viewers, such as me as a woman who does somewhat live in daily fear of sexual violence. Shosanna repeatedly, assertively turns down advances from Zoller quite at her own peril throughout the entire film. Her fearlessness is astounding, and respected. Here are the ways that Domergue is written in similarly feminist ways:

[Spoilers follow.]
• She is walked into a log cabin in the middle-of-nowhere Wyoming to spend the night with 9 or 10 men, one of whom she is chained to, and it never seems to the viewer that she might be in danger, of sexual violence or even significant other harm.
• There is no implication that her captor has raped or sexually assaulted her.
• Her looks are never commented upon, neither that she is pretty nor looking haggard. The comment-ability of her appearance intensifies over time based on the chaos that occurs inside the cabin, yet no one comments. This is impossibly refreshing and almost unheard of for women in film. Even the looks of the strongest women characters in other Westerns are usually remarked upon or up for discussion among the men.
• Domergue is not a love interest of any of the characters.*
• Men are willing to risk their lives to save Domergue due to familial or gang ties, not out of love, affection, or sexually driven motives.*
• The camera never rests on her in an objectifying or gazing way that is different than the other characters or unique to her as a woman.

*Note: Major Marquis Warren does imply this in one line of dialogue, but it is quickly dismissed. Compared to most films where men only act out of love for women and sex is a major motivator, this is still a major step in terms of feminist film.

Okay Yes, We’ll Talk about the Violence.
I’m no fool — I’m not going to pretend that it’s all butterflies and rainbows for Domergue in The Hateful Eight. As Leigh told The Daily Beast, she took a photo of herself and sent it to her mom when her only makeup was a black eye and a few scratches and bruises and said, “This is as good as it’s going to get. This is the beauty shot from the movie. … Then it just got more and more insane as it goes on.”

My initial question was: Is any violence against a woman inherently misogynist? Leigh said in an interview:

“I think it’s actually more of a sexist response [to say that]… I think it’s easy to have a sexist response. ‘Hitting a woman? Sexist.’ It’s a natural go-to place for people. But [Tarantino]’s actually taking the sexism out of it.”

Another argument about the violence is that Domergue has almost full agency over it. She has been arrested by an officer of the court, and he has made it clear what the consequences are for what actions. She purposely violates his rules, knowing what the consequences will be, and chooses the risks of receiving an elbow to the face for getting in some fantastic jabs at Kurt Russell’s character John Ruth, such as that his intelligence may have suffered from taking a high dive into a low well.

Also, while many would argue that Domergue gets the worst of the violence, mostly marked by her lack of wiping blood off of her face, it should be noted that part of the lead protagonist Major Warren’s genitals are separated from his body by a gunshot wound, an injury he viscerally suffers from until the end of the movie, so it’s not like Tarantino spares his lead male actors.

She Kills Her Captor.
While: a) being chained to Ruth, b) Ruth is poisoned and thus vomiting on her, and c) Ruth is still managing to beat her up, Domergue manages to grab his gun and blow him away. Any one of the “hateful eight” could have easily killed Ruth plot-wise, but Tarantino gives this murder to Domergue, who deserves it and has truly earned it. (Note: She also deftly and matter-of-factly saws his arm — which she’s still handcuffed to — off of his corpse to facilitate her mobility later that night.)

The Fates of Four Men Rest on Her in the End.
Speaking of her being a total badass, after Jody’s murder, she goes from being the #2 to the #1 leader of one of the most dangerous gangs in the land. In the final act of the film, she just about single-handedly negotiates the lives (and deaths) of the two protagonists and her two remaining gang members. She is unarmed, and yet commands full power over the four men’s actions and decisions until the very last moment. Her brilliance —“She’s very, very smart,” Leigh tells The Daily Beast — causes her to outshine all of the other characters and almost “win.” “…She’s a leader. And she’s tough. And she’s hateful and a survivor and scrappy,” says Leigh in an interview with Variety, all traits that give Domergue power in the frenetic, desperate situation in which all the characters find themselves.

The Death Scene.
This is arguably the most problematic scene of all. Let’s present what I’m up against before I present my counterpoint. Matt Zoller Seitz at RogerEbert.com writes:

“The film’s relentless and often comical violence against Daisy never feels truly earned. Saying, ‘Well, they’re all outlaws, including her, and that’s just how women were treated back then’ feels like an awfully thin defense when you hear audiences whooping it up each time Russell punches Leigh in the face, and it dissipates during the final scene, which lingers on Daisy’s death with near-pornographic fascination. In a movie filled with selfish, deceptive and murderous characters, hers is the only demise that is not just observed, but celebrated.”

Well this is where I’m going to go way out on a limb and repeat what Leigh herself (the woman who had to sit around in 30 degrees in the fake blood and brains, and pretend to be hung) said, “I think it’s actually more of a sexist response [to say that].” Why is watching a villain get what’s coming to her “near-pornographic fascination?” There’s nothing sexual about the act of killing her, or its filming/gaze. Also, after her death, her body is sometimes held in the same shot with the two protagonists, as if her character still lives on in a way.

• Did this reviewer feel the same way when Tarantino’s three protagonists were kicking the living bejesus out of Russell’s character in Death Proof?
• What about when Elle is sitting over Bud’s snake-poison-filled body in Kill Bill Vol. 2 and calmly reading to him? If anything, that is more tortuous and sick, plus the camera is looking up at Elle (murderer) and down at Bud (victim). These camera angles are reversed in Domergue’s murder, with an upward shot on her and downward at the murderers.
• If I recall correctly, the audience also “whooped it up” each time significant discomfort befell almost any of the characters: O.B. getting really cold, Ruth and O.B. throwing up from poison, Mannix getting shot and passing out, etc.
• If I recall correctly, the audience pretty clearly celebrated or enjoyed the shorter-in-duration but also gristly murders of Bob and Jody. This violence was also slated as comical.
• Maybe I was the only sick person in the theater, but I also found it pretty enjoyable and hilarious that Tim Roth’s character didn’t die right away, and he was crawling around in the background while a bunch of other stuff was going on, with no one paying him any mind.
• May I take a moment to reiterate the violence to Major Warren’s genitals? This was extremely comical to the audience — why is his violence earned but hers is not?
• There are only a few murders in the film that are decidedly not celebrated and those are of three women (and two men, one of whom is an older man in his 70s).

I see the temptation to look at what happens to Daisy Domergue on-screen and denounce, “You sexist, you’re destroying a woman, how misogynist!” I even did it for moments myself. However, I encourage everyone to move past this knee-jerk reaction. It’s possible that subconscious sexism makes people quick to see her as a victim, and then criticism of the trope of women as victims may be getting in the way of seeing the agency and complexity of a character like Domergue. I’d rather we not take this as an opportunity to put down Tarantino, but as an opportunity to celebrate Leigh’s nuanced and powerful performance – she even took time to learn to play guitar to perform a song in the film — as film critics are doing this awards season.

I’ll close with a quote from Tarantino:

“Violence is hanging over every one of those characters like a cloak of night. So I’m not going to go, ‘OK, that’s the case for seven of the characters, but because one is a woman, I have to treat her differently.’ I’m not going to do that.”

Notes:

[1] See my view on the only acceptable treatment of sexual violence in film in “I’ll Make You Feel Like You’ve Never Felt Before”: Jennifer’s Power in I Spit on Your Grave

[2] See a thoughtful exploration of the Bride’s rape revenge in Revenge Is a Dish Best Served… Not at All?. I agree with Rodriguez’s interpretation that Buck is “at the bottom of the barrel” as the first to die, but I disagree that Tarantino sees this is a means of empowerment that enables her to find liberation. I see it as another brutalization by Bill (indirectly) that further justifies her revenge. The Bride’s revenge against Bill feels very “tit for tat” in the way historically all-male cast movies are written, yet by working in the rape and the losing of her baby, he makes them more true to the realities of what a female character would face (again without showing sexual violence). Writing a female character with completely equal respect as a male character, yet with these realistic modifications based on gender, is the most feminist thing I can imagine.

[3] This argument of “implied not shown” was used to justify a reason why Mad Max: Fury Road is a feminist film.

Sophie Besl is an exploitation film fanatic with a day job in nonprofit marketing. She has a Bachelor’s from Harvard and lives in Boston with three small dogs. She tweets at @rockyc5.

“I’ll Make You Feel Like You’ve Never Felt Before”: Jennifer’s Power in ‘I Spit on Your Grave’

No movies ever had to justify a cowboy going on a rogue revenge kick after his log cabin was burned to the ground or his family was killed; certain sufferings of injury, murder of loved ones, robbery, etc., have been accepted throughout cinematic history to merit revenge at all costs. ‘I Spit on Your Grave’ was a large part of a relatively new phenomenon, possibly born out of the feminist movement, to add rape—based on the woman’s experience of rape, whether validated by law or not—to that list of worthy harms, which is an important statement in our rape culture.

Jennifer, before she murders the final man

This guest post by Sophie Besl appears as part of our theme week on Rape Revenge Fantasies.

I got into exploitation films through Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. I liked the Bride’s unapologetic rampage, and was thrilled to learn that Tarantino’s work emerged from a rich tradition of female-fronted films starting in the early 1970s. What interested me most was that this tradition was created by men for the entertainment of a predominately (young, urban) male audience. Yet these exploitation films, such as Coffy, Foxy Brown,[1] Lady Snowblood,[2] and dozens of low-budget slasher films[3] where the “last man standing” was almost always a woman, felt like some of the most empowering, pro-women films I had ever seen. No subgenre of exploitation films brings up the question of whether these films empower or exploit more so than the rape revenge genre. While there is evidence on both sides, as a feminist woman, I greatly enjoy films that follow this plot formula, seeing them as explorations of women’s potential to be fierce and powerful in the face of horrific abuse.[4]

I Spit on Your Grave, originally released as Day of the Woman[5] in the late 1970s, is to me the flagship film of the rape revenge genre. A woman named Jennifer rents a house in the country to spend some quiet time to herself writing and relaxing, but is trapped, tormented, raped, and almost killed by a group of four men from the small town. She then plans and exacts gruesome revenge on each of them. The film was torn apart by critics, yet decidedly not from a feminist angle. A review decrying the scene where Jennifer castrates one of her rapists as “one of the most appalling moments in cinema history,”[6] also calls out the double standard of sexual violence in film–rapes in other films, or even the rape of Jennifer earlier in the same film, did not rile up even close to the same level of distaste at the time it was released.

But while reviews were mixed for an understandably disturbing horror/exploitation film, this film importantly caused viewers to identify with a rape victim in ways previous films did not allow. In her book Men, Women, and Chain Saws, Professor Carol Clover suggests that I Spit on Your Grave is an example of the movement away from how rape was treated in films prior to the 70s, which typically caused the viewer to adopt the rapist’s point of view, such as with somewhat titillating close-ups of a woman’s face as she is strangled.[7] In this film, the viewer adopts Jennifer’s perspective. The camera reveals the ugliness and uncouthness of the male perpetrators from her point of view, and the acts are depicted in such a violent and unpleasant way that there is little discernable sexuality in the assaults. The filming reverses prior conventions in a way that could cause even male viewers to side with the victim rather than the rapists.

Another element that enables male viewers to identify with Jennifer is her victim-to-hero character, not commonly seen fully realized in female characters. Films from earlier in the century tend to have “victim” and “avenger” as separate characters—and often female- and male-gendered, respectively—but in rape revenge films, these roles are unified in one character. Without the “assumption that all viewers, male and female alike, will take Jennifer’s part, and…‘feel’ her violation…the revenge phase of the drama can make no sense” (Clover, 1992). If viewers want to cheer for Jennifer as a hero in the second half of the film, then they have inherently sided with her during her victimization in the first half.

Other than these new and progressive ways of considering female rape victims in film, I Spit on Your Grave provides three fantastic and thought-provoking elements:

The entire movie operates outside the realm of the law

Unlike many other rape revenge films (such as Last House on the Left, where the rapist is a criminal actively hunted by police; The Accused, which is entirely about the legal system and rape; or even the 2010 remake of I Spit on Your Grave, where one of the four men is a police officer), I Spit on Your Grave takes place without any sign of law enforcement. Jennifer does not go to the police after her attack. There is an interesting scene where she prays briefly at a church, but mostly the film recounts, somewhat objectively, the play by play of her attack, followed by the play by play of her revenge killings (though the trailer does proclaim “There isn’t a jury in this country that will convict her!”). No movies ever had to justify a cowboy going on a rogue revenge kick after his log cabin was burned to the ground or his family was killed; certain sufferings of injury, murder of loved ones, robbery, etc., have been accepted throughout cinematic history to merit revenge at all costs. I Spit on Your Grave was a large part of a relatively new phenomenon, possibly born out of the feminist movement, to add rape—based on the woman’s experience of rape, whether validated by law or not—to that list of worthy harms, which is an important statement in our rape culture.

Jennifer uses feminine seduction to exact her revenge

In rape revenge films, the feminine experience of rape often, notably, is the cause for the hero-victim to take on masculine qualities, such as low emotionality and physical brutality. However, in I Spit on Your Grave (while she is undoubtedly brutal in committing murder), Jennifer gets her first “victim” by softly entreating him, “I’ll give you something to remember for the rest of your life.” She actually begins to have intercourse with him (interestingly, he was the only one of the four men who did not want to assault her—he had been a virgin, is cognitively challenged, and caves to peer pressure) so she can slip a noose around his neck and hang him. She simply drives up to her next “victim” and beckons him into her car. He goes willingly because he believes she wants some more. When she pulls a gun on him, he tries to talk her out of shooting him. She complies and invites him back to her house, which he also willingly does due to her coy demureness. At her house, they take a bath together, and while touching him underwater saying, “Relax, I’ll make you feel like you’ve never felt before,” she subtly slips a knife into the tub and cuts his genitals off. Jennifer swims up to the next man’s boat in her bikini and seductively climbs in. Caught off guard, he is pushed into the water, and Jennifer kills him and the last man with an axe and the boat’s motor as they flounder. Her sexuality is her means of entering the situations that enable her to execute each man.

I find it interesting that the castration scene was removed in the remake (as was another such scene in the remake of Last House on the Left), and I’m not sure why. Castration seems to be on an equal plane with the level of violence in these films. (Was it too distasteful to male viewers? Something to think about.) There is also no seduction during the revenge in the remake, with Jennifer instead relying on torture/murder tactics similar to the Saw movies. While perhaps this rewrite to agendered violence is feminist in that she can use the same cunning, engineering, and brutality as men, I think the significance of 1978’s Jennifer using female sexuality, the root of her attack, as part of her revenge technique should not be overlooked.

All four of the men must die, no matter their physical role in the gang rape

During their attack on Jennifer, three of the men constantly “offer” her to the cognitively challenged man, who is visibly horrified by what his friends are doing and avoids participating at all costs. The other three men commit different acts trying to impress and show off to one another, sickly showing that this is more of a sport or game to them than a sexually driven act. When Jennifer confronts each man alone, he pleads and blames the other men. The group dynamic may have caused the men to do things they otherwise wouldn’t have, and the film could serve as a sick warning to men in our rape culture. However, it is important and noteworthy, especially because some reviews at the time described “three rapes” and “three rapists,”[8] that there is no doubt in Jennifer’s or the viewer’s mind that all four should be punished.

I don’t believe the anti-feminist trope that women need attacks like this to make them strong. Many of these films involve gang rapes, or other situations where the woman is at a serious disadvantage due to the men’s weapons or physical strength. To me, the message in these films is that if men choose to take advantage in these sick ways, they will be punished beyond their imagination. A common question is, What do men get out of watching these films (made for men, by men)? I think, because rape is based in extreme powerlessness, degradation, and humiliation, it gives audiences a free pass to fully experience and enjoy the revenge half of the film. In a rich history of movie characters avenging murders of loved ones and all types of suffering, the rape revenge fantasy should only take second place to someone being able to avenge their own murder. Anything the media or society can do to enforce the idea that rape is a paramount crime is a step in the right direction, and I Spit on Your Grave played a large role in building that case through film.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Rape as a MacGuffin: The Hollywood Cop Out

Recommended reading: I Was Wrong About I Spit on Your Grave

Sophie Besl is an exploitation film fanatic with a day job in nonprofit marketing. She has a Bachelor’s from Harvard and lives in Boston with her feminist boyfriend and three small dogs. She tweets at @rockyc5.

[1] Coffy (which Tarantino cites as a direct precursor to Kill Bill) and Foxy Brown, both star Pam Grier, a darling of Blaxploitation whom Tarantino later directed in Jackie Brown. (For more on the fantastic Pam Grier, please read these Bitch Flicks articles on her unfinished legacy and her time in another exploitation subgenre, women in prison). A similar discussion of racism is relevant with Blaxploitation movies—while these films use excessive nudity and do confirm stereotypes, they star Black protagonists who are in themselves empowered in fighting personal battles, and viewers of all backgrounds identify with these protagonists.

[2] Lady Snowblood stars a fierce female protagonist, and is part of the chambara subgenre of exploitation, a revisionist, non-traditional style of samurai film popular in Japan in the early 1970s (Wikipedia).

[3] Slasher films are an exploitation and horror subgenre. While they too are arguably feminist, in that the murderer is usually defeated by the “Final Girl,” in these films, the female protagonist fights because she has to. Rape revenge plots have women calculate revenge, then choose to engage in violence as an avenger, rather than a continuation of being a victim.

[4] When a female character is the attacked avenger, I prefer films that focus on rape revenge fantasy as the entire plot, as opposed to a story like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where it is a part of a larger story. A story where it is simply part of the plot sends me the message that rape is part of what women have to deal with on a daily basis; it is inescapable. The extreme treatment of and sole emphasis on rape in films like I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left enables these films to be an exploration of power plays and humanity’s darker sides, rather than a statement about the prevalence of rape in women’s lives.

[5] The original title of this film is significant. The “day of the woman” to me clearly refers to the day of her vengeful murders. By using the phrase “the woman” instead of the character’s name, this seems to imply that her revenge is not just on behalf of herself against her attackers, but on behalf of all women against all men who have perpetrated crimes like this.

[6] Review from Mick Martin and Marsha Porter, Video Move Guide: 1987, as cited and described in Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, by Carol J. Clover (Princeton University Press 1992).

[7] See Clover (1992, p. 139) for more. She argues that, in films made before 1970, rape was “construed as an act of revenge on the part of a male who has suffered at the hands of the woman in question (to have been sexually teased, or to have a smaller paycheck or lesser job, is to suffer).”

[8] Clover, 1992.