[Editorial] Reclaiming Femininity and Coming of Age in Raw (2016)

Even in 2023, women are constantly fighting for their bodies.

Women’s bodily autonomy is constantly up for debate, whether it be through denial to adequate healthcare, unwanted advice on how we must repress our sexuality to remain desirable to others, guidelines on how we should keep to a certain size and shape to look good, and hiding the inconvenient truths surrounding menstruation, body hair, and other perfectly natural topics. These values are often instilled in us at a young age, when are minds are still malleable and the naivety of youth has not yet been crushed.

In a world where our bodies are so tightly policed and our desires are shunned, it seems no surprise that there is an abundance of horror films that see women rebel and reclaim their bodily autonomy. And few films illustrate the hell it can be navigating coming of age and womanhood quite like French-Belgian horror drama Raw (2016).

The feature film debut for director Julia Ducornau, Raw follows lifelong vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) as she goes away to veterinary college, the same one her sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) studies at and which her parents (Laurent Lucas and Joana Preiss) studied before them. After she is forced to eat a raw rabbit liver as part of a hazing ritual, Justine soon discovers that she has a taste for flesh - and not just that of animals. Justine develops more than just an uncomfortable rash as she begins to realise she harbours a compulsive desire to consume human meat.

Raw incited a visceral reaction from many of its viewers, with multiple reports of audience members fainting when it was screened at the 2016 Toronto Film Festival. But despite its gruesome content, the film provides a poignant, heartfelt look at coming of age as a woman and reclaiming your bodily autonomy often discarded by those who should be nurturing it.

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Few times in our life are as formative as flying the nest and going away to college as we leave the shelter of our doting parents, clinging onto newfound friendships and navigating true independence for the first time. These initial, chaotic weeks are often filled with non-stop partying, little studying, sexual exploration, and lows filled with self-doubt screaming ‘we can’t do this’ and ‘we’re not good enough’. Raw turns college into a zoo, filled with animalistic rituals and raves that pulse with unfiltered, bestial energy that personifies the wild times and out of control hormones that go hand in hand with college.

However, school is hell for many, a time where all of our insecurities stem from and a place where they all felt heightened among the cliques we desperately tried to avoid scrutiny from but also longed to be a part of. While the blood and guts of Raw are where most of the horror lies, the plot is punctuated with scenes that will make your face flush as alcohol fuels bad decisions, awkward conversations end abruptly, and students shed tears quietly. Side glances, barely hidden titters, and barked orders from senior students are littered through the plot, creating a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows that are all too familiar for those of us who have ridden the turbulent waves of our teenage years.

The pandemonium of this is seen in Raw through Justine, our main character who it is a real joy to see transform throughout the narrative. When we are first introduced to Justine, she is often seen averting her gaze from those who speak to her, hiding behind her hair and tugging at her oversized, modest clothing as if wishing the ground to swallow her whole at any given moment. Her entire identity seems to have been governed by her parents, who in the opening scenes of the film reveal Justine to be a lifelong vegetarian as her mother complains in a restaurant due to finding meat in her daughter’s dish while Justine asserts it is fine. She struggles to see eye to eye with her unforgiving professors, to make friends with her classmates, or to bond with her sister who forgets to greet her when she arrives on campus despite assuring her sibling she would.

The narrative sees Julia confront another common coming of age trope in that she questions closely held notions surrounding her life. In this instance, life-long vegetarian Justine discovers she has a taste for human flesh - not only that, but so too does her sister. As time goes on, her long-held beliefs are thrown into questions as she experiments with her newfound tastes, and begins to examine why others do not share her predilection.

For the virginal Justine, her cannibalism just so happens to coincide with her sexual awakening. The 16-year-old not only begins her experimentation with her own autonomy, it also sends her on an unrestrained journey of self-discovery. She finally gives in to her steading rising cravings in a scene where Alexia accidentally cuts off her own finger, with Justine analysing the severed limb before beginning to eat it. When she first uncovers her deeply suppressed cannibalistic urges she is horrified, but she soon learns to enjoy this newfound part of herself that allows Justine to know more about the real her, not the version of her that has been forged by teachers and her parents.

As her lust for flesh increases, so too does her desire to experiment sexually, namely with her roommate Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella). We see her soft, shy gazes towards Adriend harden into those from a hunter stalking their prey, and their often-awkward interactions transform with Justine taking the lead and initiating a sexual encounter between the pair. Eating people is deeply entwined with intimacy for Justine, which is made clear during her sex scene with Adrien, in which she bites her own arm and draws blood at the point of orgasm - the act of which, it seems, has more to do with the point of climax than the act of sex itself.

After she has sex for the first time, Justine completes her transformation from a shy virgin to a sexual hunter, using parties as her hunting grounds. She stalks across the dance floor, planting her lips on any man, or woman, she singles out as her dish for the night, a stark contrast from the quiet girl that was nervously thrown into the throng at her first party on campus.

The cannibalistic elements in a coming-of-age frame within Raw can be seen to align with Barbara Creed’s theory of The Monstrous Feminine in that women with agency become a threat to patriarchal order and power. She theorises that a woman in control of her sexuality and that showcases her own sexual desire is perceived as a threat, and a monster. Indeed, in Raw, Justine’s behaviour becomes more wild, unpredictable, and bloodthirsty as her sexuality heightens, culminating in a scene in which she crawls on all fours while trying to bite a corpse that her sister dangles in front of her. However, the narrative in Raw does not frame Justine as a monster nor a villain, rather it celebrates her transformation and creates an anti-hero that many viewers can relate to and cheer for.

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Unlike many coming of age stories in which female sexuality is repressed or at the mercy of others, Justine is in control of her sexuality as she seeks out sexual partners and engages in sexual acts at her own volition with her own pleasure in mind. This celebration of female sexuality is seen when Justine sings and dances in a mirror to ORTIES single Plus Putes Que Toutes Les Poutes, an uber sexual song that dances with themes of cannibalism and necrophilia. As she develops a stronger agency, Justine kisses the mirror, symbolising her newfound love for her identity - both physical and otherwise. This scene, with a song that that sees women rap about men in a way they often do to women, we see Ducournau subvert the typical virgin narrative in which a man takes a woman’s virginity and a part of her identity, as we see Justine fully own her sexuality and newfound raging libido.

While the stomach-churning scenes of human consumption are framed as horrifying, they also allow viewers to feel the sense of relief and enjoyment Justine does, and because of that, we go along for the ride and enjoy it too as the downtrodden teen finds her voice. The cannibalism within the film acts as a metaphor in Justine’s coming of age story for Justine - and other young women - reclaiming their power, both in sexual and non-sexual settings. Justine does not do this alone, however, as she is guided by another strong female character within the narrative.

Alexia acts as both a cautionary tale and a learning curve for Justine as she learns to control her thirst for flesh so as to not fall prey to her own insatiable pleasure drive. However, it is apparent that Alexia struggles to keep her urges under control as the pair end up in a very public fight that sees Alexia bite chunks out of her younger sister. Ultimately, Alexia’s tastes get out of control when she ends up killing Adrien and the roles between the sisters reverse as Justine must become the caregiver, bathing and dressing her sibling. This completes Justine’s coming of age transformation and also pays tribute to the age-old adage that, as much as we fight it, we all become our parents.

In the film’s final scenes, not only do we see Justine become a mother figure to her sister, we learn that their biological mother also discovered her desire to eat human flesh and it is for this reason their father bares a scar on his lip after the pair kissed. We learn that their mother had also embarked on a journey of self-discovery to control her urges, ended up in the same place that Justine has now reached.

While many coming of age films that follow women focus on the awkwardness of the changes to our bodies and the minefield of sexuality, Raw instead celebrates women discovering their feminine identity and embracing it. We see Justine’s confidence and happiness rise in her public life as she continues to sample human meat behind closed doors, seeing her gain pleasure from the act of consuming flesh. Cannibalism helps Justine discover the power that has always lurked beneath the skin, own it, and enjoy it. 

While it is easy to simply label Raw a cannibalism film, it is so much more than a horror - and a bloody good one at that - that focuses on the consumption of humans. Raw is an unshrinking portrait of going away to college and the inherent loneliness that comes with it, as well as the upswing of discovering your own identity and owning the power that comes with it. The radical coming of age horror is a celebration of what women can do when they embrace the wild, fiery, forces of nature they are and take control of their sexuality. It acts as a touching tale of sibling bonding, breaking gender and sexuality stereotypes, and breaking free of the person our parents have raised to carve out a new identity for ourselves.

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