[Editorial] Is Rape Revenge Dead?

One of the most controversial subjects in horror has continued to return to the screen time and time again. This contentious subject can offer many a feeling of catharsis, while others stand firm on its exploitative nature but what is it about the rape-revenge narrative that keeps bringing filmmakers and audiences back?

Rape is a disgusting and unspeakable offense but this unspeakability often translates into an inability for the nuances within the experience to be fully investigated. Visibility through the depiction of these experiences disrupts this unspeakability, which may be why rape and revenge have both been prominent pairings in film as early as the silent era. However, it was when the Hays code, also known Motion Picture Production Code, was officially replaced by the MPAA film rating system in 1968 that the rape-revenge narrative structure which we know today really came into fruition— rape was now a subject that was able to be more explicitly depicted and addressed on screen.

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Since then, we have seen periodic surges and disappearances in the use of the rape-revenge narrative through film history– often traced to periods of social tensions and shifts in gender dynamics, making it a prime breeding ground for the “diagnostic reading” of a society that Robin Wood saw in horror films, demonstrated in the essay Neglected Nightmares. Much like the many films of the “good for her” variety, it is never agreed upon as to whether these films have feminist underpinnings that empower survivors, or if they operate simply as exploitative depictions of gendered violence. The answer will never be simple. Wherever one lies on the debate, tracing the history of the cyclical rise and fall in the prevalence of rape-revenge films illuminates what is really being negotiated when the choice is made to represent rape and its subsequent revenge.

Rape-revenge films seem to visit and revisit the big screen in times characterized by hopelessness, times when the public wrestles with humanity, and ideas of justice and retribution. One such first boom occurred during the 1970s, right on the heels of the decline of the Hays Code, the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and the civil rights and second-wave feminist movements. Society was ripe with social unrest. Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) most immediately reflects post-war nihilism, the fear of the degradation of the new generation, and the death of the “hippie” counterculture.

Just like the first televised war, violence and despair visited the living room of the Collingwood’s. This era of cinema then became characterized by the rise of exploitation films. I Spit on Your Grave (1978), directed by Meir Zarchi, is perhaps the most infamous, likely the first title one’s mind might conjure when it hears “rape-revenge”. I Spit on Your Grave’s cult status is due in part to the push and pull between its exploitative marketing campaign once the film finally gained a distribution deal in 1980 and its feminist underpinnings as Zarchi’s attempt to expose the brutality that women face and provide a revenge fantasy for the women who are not afforded justice. Avengers like Jennifer Hills would not have been possible without the newfound public understanding of the subjugation of women in society brought about by the second-wave feminist movement and the independence that many women began to find–but rape-revenge films continued to be condemned as exploitation.

These same films revisited the screen on the tail end of the wave of neo-exploitation in the form of early 2000s “torture porn” films, with remakes of The Last House on the Left in 2009 and I Spit on Your Grave in 2010. This era of film is also directly traceable to the effects of the September 11th attacks and the torture in Abu Ghraib, as highlighted by Edelstein in his 2006 article coining the term “torture porn”. Torture and the crimes of humanity were again forced into the public eye and the lines drawn between morality and justice were muddled. These feelings allowed rape-revenge to again be conjured into the film canon of the time. However, these films continued to mimic the tried-and-true rape-revenge narrative structure, complete with three acts–the rape of the film’s protagonist, time for the victim to regroup and undergo the transformation needed to continue to the third act, and the finale consisting of acts of revenge on her rapists. While many find catharsis in these films, the credits rolled over trails of dead rapists, leaving many with the question of what happens to these survivors after the bloodshed…

The 2010s saw a new type of rape-revenge film being told–one that did not simply end with the bloodbath but that investigated the lasting effects of sexual assault and the compliance of others, whether an individual or an institution, that makes it so difficult for survivors to come forward. This shift coincidentally came alongside the Weinstein allegations and the resurgence of public discourse around the prevalence of sexual assault. M.F.A. (2017), directed by Natalia Leite, released within days of the news, and was soon followed by the social media movement #MeToo. An art student, Noelle, is assaulted at the party of a fellow student in whom Noelle has shown interest. After the accidental death of her rapist during a confrontation over differing testimonies of the events of that night, Noelle becomes enraged by the countless assaults that her university has swept under the rug and takes matters into her own hands. M.F.A. shares striking similarities with the discourse that followed the harassment exposed in Hollywood by addressing the power that institutions have in silencing survivors and even features remarks by Noelle that maybe they should be doing more than creating a hashtag–an inspiring scene considering a hashtag is exactly how social media responded at the time. Most notable about how this film changed the typical structure of a rape-revenge film is that the death of our avenger’s rapist is at the front of the film, rather than the finale of the three-act structure the films typically follow. The rest of the film is spent with Noelle’s pain, her crumbling relationships, and the differing experiences of the other survivors in the story.

The films that followed continued to engage in this meditation on the lasting effects of trauma and the powers in society that suppress survivors.

Promising Young Woman (2020), directed by Emerald Fennell, follows Cassie who is a brilliant and cunning med school dropout haunted by the suicide of her best friend Nina, resulting from a rape that occurred at a college party. Like M.F.A.’s Noelle, with a tad less murder, Cassie moves through life only with the goal of luring and confronting predatory men. They also similarly attempt to shed a spotlight on the administration at their respective universities that demonize victims and protect abusers–but Promising Young Woman also exposes that it is not just the lawyers, administrators, and other institutional figures that maintain and perpetuate the cultural ideas that normalize rape but your friends, fellow women, and the “nice guys” that made us feel safe. Unlike most rape-revenge films, which either feature a woman avenging her own rape or a male hero such as a boyfriend or father taking vengeance on her behalf, these women are looking for accountability on behalf of other women that have been silenced but find cutting down rapists to be like cutting the head of a hydra. Cassie and Noelle’s stories are tragic and these films represent the way sexual assault can poison your life, especially when the world around you refuses to validate that trauma and nurture any journey to find healing.

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The weight of this experience is expertly explored in a film of the same year, Violation (2020), co-directed by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, takes an extremely intimate look at the reality of sexual trauma, which is most often experienced as an event that is not overtly violent. Miriam experiences an ultimate betrayal when she is sexually assaulted by her brother-in-law and lifelong friend, Dylan while regaining consciousness after a night by the campfire. By being told in non-chronological order, a tool masterfully used in Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible (2002), the film evokes the time-collapsing disorientation caused by trauma while also confronting the audience with acts of violence decontextualized from the initial offense that would “justify” said violence. Considerable amounts of time are spent with Miriam as she meticulously disposes of Dylan’s body, highlighting her strenuous labor–symbolizing the endless labor that survivors will have to expel as they carry the weight of their trauma. Violation also continues to unveil the layers of obstacles that survivors have to endure to be believed, this time focusing on family through Miriam’s already complicated relationship with her sister, Greta. Sometimes the ones closest to us are the hardest to open up and communicate our truth to.

What all of these films manage to do is complicate the revenge fantasy on which the rape-revenge narrative is founded. In the traditional rape-revenge three-act structure, credits roll once vengeance is realized, but now films are representing the understanding that trauma lives with the survivor. They also attempt the daunting task of holding up a mirror to rape culture, unearthing the way justifications for rape have bled into every aspect of our lives.

The question now remains, where do we go now?

It’s now been a couple of years since a rape-revenge film has revisited the screen and after giving much reflection to the waves that the genre undergoes whenever this narrative disappears one must wonder if, when, and why it will return. The most recent iteration almost entirely consisted of films directed by women–films that were confrontational and emotionally heavy hitting. However, there are many stories left to be told. Films like M.F.A., Promising Young Woman, and Violation portrayed the difficulties of carrying trauma as a survivor of sexual assault and brought a whole new perspective to the narratives that are usually told but it cannot go unnoticed that the avengers and survivors of these films are still typically conventionally attractive cis white women.

One of the lasting effects of the education that came from #MeToo was the prevalence of sexual assault and the visibility of the array of people who have been living as survivors of sexual assault and this is a front that has yet to be given proper representation in the media that grapples with this difficult topic. Sexual assault is not just a tool of gendered oppression but a weapon of racial subjugation, homophobia, and transphobia, among many other forms of hate. To be clear, this is not entirely absent from film. Descent (2007), directed by Talia Lugacy, is a shocking representation of living with the trauma of sexual assault with a heartbreaking performance from Rosario Dawson as a college student, Maya, who is brutally sexually assaulted by a boy she has just gone out with. Revenge becomes her course of action after she continues to see her rapist on campus and even becomes the TA of a course in which he is enrolled.

This film came a whole decade before M.F.A. and deals with much of the same discussions around sexual assault, even down to the college campus settling, but her experience differs from Noelle’s in the racist slurs and taunts that her rapist uses to degrade her during the assault. A film like M.F.A. has been given much more attention in the conversation of rape-revenge, perhaps buried by the divisive reviews it received, shadowed by the countless brutal films of that decade and saturation of films deemed “torture porn” or the difficulty in the ability to find the film, which is currently not streaming anywhere. Stories like Descent need to not become buried, and filmmakers should continue to be inspired to tell their truth regardless of whether their story fits the rape-revenge mold. This is a hard ask, and many might be baffled at a call for more rape on screen but that is not what is being demanded. If rape-revenge films experience another boom, as we have seen happen over the course of film history, then let those stories continue to be told by survivors. Ultimately, the evolution of the rape-revenge narrative will be determined by the way the discourse around sexual assault will evolve–survivors control this narrative.

 Rape-revenge may be dormant for now but for as long as people continue to be victimized and denied justice in this world, the genre will continue to represent that discourse and we should expect rape-revenge, like Jennifer Hills, to return with a vengeance. 

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