Just Desserts My co-worker went into labor last night so I am here on my own again. My supervisor, who is recovering from her first chemo treatment, may be in later, but when I talked to her, it sounded like she was still under a bus. It's been quiet so far, which is good. And my email appears to be working; at least it only took about 3 minutes to update itself this morning. Whee! I watched a movie over the weekend called "I Spit on your Grave". It's also known as "Day of the Woman". It's probably the original revengist feminist drama, made in 1978. At the time it came out, both Siskel and Ebert blasted it as being one of the most disturbing and horrible films ever created. By today's standards, the subject matter itself is relatively tame. A young woman on holiday in a rural area is stalked, victimized, brutalized, and raped by a gang of local men. Their excuse? "She was asking for it." In the beginning of the movie, Camille (this is not the character's name, but the name of the actress who played her. For whatever reason, I can't think of the character's name) stretches her legs at the local gas station. She's wearing a demure dress that hits her at the knees. Later, one of the men accuses her of showing off her legs at this time. Later, in her cabin, her groceries are delivered by a developmentally disabled man (also one of her attackers) and she happens to not be wearing a bra, although she is wearing a shirt. Later, she's accused of "asking for it" because of her bra-less state. The men drive speedboats and whistle at her as she sits in her hammock, minding her own business. Then she is abducted as she floats in a rowboat while wearing a bikini. This is what prompts the men to initially attack her. Not only is she raped, she is beaten, sodomized, and left to fend on her own as they take her boat away. She struggles back to her cabin, literally crawls to the phone, which is then kicked away by one of the attackers. They have gone into her cabin to further torture her, and then they tell the idiot man to stab her to death, which he doesn't. Camille goes on to recover painfully, and she revenges herself on the four men. Each one of the men sell each other out, and each lambast her for being a woman, and therefore, justifying their actions before coming to each of their (deservedly) violent ends. This movie made me so sad. This was in 1978, and back then, it wasn't unusual for the victim to not contact police. Her very being would come under scrutiny just as the men did in this picture. How short was her skirt? Why wasn't she wearing a bra? How did her actions cause her to be brutalized, since men are totally blameless? This attitude has changed, but not by much. And when you're talking about a small town like she was vacationing in, it hasn't changed at all. When your attacker is a blood relation to the sheriff or even the sheriff himself, what kind of justice can you expect? When a woman is raped today, she has to defend herself many times over even after the act is done -- she has to tell her story over and over to officials. The doctors have to poke and prod her to collect evidence of her attack. She will probably have to relive her experience in the police station, in therapy, in court, all the while defending her RIGHT to simply be breathing, which for some men, is all the reason they need to exert their ultimate power and control over a woman. My husband was not happy with this choice of movie. He did attempt to make a crack about Camille's nudity (and she spent a lot of screen time in this state). I know he was nervous and upset about the subject matter, so I didn't let him have it. I did make a comment how I thought that was an inappropriate statement and let it go. Later, at dinner, I talked about about the cruelty of some people in general and what makes some people so unkind. He let me talk. I don't ever need to see that movie again. I was interested in listening to the commentary but that precluded that I would have to watch the movie again, and I don't want to. The men playing the attackers didn't do any more movies after this one, according to IMDB. Camille Keaton (the great-niece of the great Buster Keaton) did a few movies after this one -- mostly done by her husband, the writer/director of this flick -- and one of them was a "sequel" to this thing. Hmmm. I think I need to watch fluffy pink stuff for a while. Like "Hello Kitty" or "Faster PussyCat! Kill! Kill!"
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