I Spit on Your Grave
Well, I finally watched it. It's a typically bad 70's exploitation movie about rape and revenge. A woman is violently and repeatedly raped, then she gets revenge. Off and on someone brings up the idea that it's a feminist movie, because the POV is of the victim, not the rapists. Meh, I don't know about that. Maybe so maybe no. (my opinion is next and while I won't go into explicit details of the movie, I want to put out a general trigger alert)
The difference in this one though, is it was banned in several countries for "graphic violence" and gang rape. I wondered why. It's not worse than other movies I've seen, not gorier, not more graphic. The rapists are poorly drawn characters for the most part.
The one thing it has going for it is the rapes are brutal. no panting or moaning from the victim,the kind could be taken for enjoyment, there is crying and screaming. The rapists clearly don't see a human being, they see a sub-human, a woman. They beat the shit out of her.
There is an interesting scene that shows the victim watching one of her rapists with his family. Another one where this same rapist enumerates all the reasons the rape was her fault--she 'walked around showing her legs' no bra etc.
So why was it banned? A bad exploitation movie? I got to thinking. You can have a "Debbie does Dallas" porn movie, and that, apparently is a-ok, or The type of porn where the woman is reluctant (says no, means yes) but as the tension of her resistance is overcome then bam, multiple orgasms.
There was NO gratuitous pleasure in this movie. (well maybe for me in the revenge scenes) so was that why? A stark presentation of rape with dumbass cartoonish rapists, the aftermath of a woman pulling herself together enough to take the bastards out? Was rape really the issue with this movie, or the fact that it wasn't candy coated enough to even present a decent story line for the rapes. Unlike "Last House on the Left", where you have a bunch of psychopaths running around, these were small town men, joe schmoes, bored, I guess. The acts of rape, and their solution (to kill the victim) was completely random and senseless.
Do people NEED a reason for rape? Does it have to make 'sense' to them in some way? The movie destroys the typical 'she was asking for it' subtext during her conversation with one of her rapists. Do men shy away from potential self identification with rapists? They were too ordinary? Too close to home?
From wiki, this is the directors take;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Spit_on_Your_Grave
In the commentary for the Millennium Edition, Zarchi said he was inspired to produce the film after helping a young woman who had been raped in New York. He tells of how a friend of his and his daughter were driving by a park when they witnessed a young woman crawling out of the bushes bloodied and naked (he later learned the young woman was taking a common shortcut to her boyfriend's house when she was attacked). They collected the traumatized girl, returned the daughter home, and quickly decided it was best to take the girl to the police rather than a hospital, lest the attackers escape and find further victims.
They quickly decided that they made the wrong decision — the officer, whom Zarchi described as "not fit to wear the uniform", delayed taking her to the hospital and instead insisted that she follow formalities such as giving her full name (and the spelling), even though her jaw had been broken and she could hardly speak. Zarchi insisted the officer take her to the hospital and he eventually complied. Soon afterwards the woman's father wrote both Zarchi and his friend a letter of thanks for helping his daughter. The father offered a reward, which Zarchi refused.
In the same commentary, Zarchi denied that the film was exploitative, and that the violent nature of the film was necessary to tell the story. He described actress Camille Keaton as "brave" for taking on the role.
So while I am by no means recommending the movie to anyone--I have bizarre taste in movies anyway, I have to say the universal repulsion felt is quite curious--given we live a rape culture, perhaps taking all the fun out of it make it too repulsive-- and too familiar.
= new reply since forum marked as read
that our culture is promoting rape/gang rape as titillation for men. That stat you mentioned some time ago about the percentage of young men who would rape if they thought they could get away with it is alarming. It's alarming & on this site, which is supposedly progressive, there is unbelievable denial of the impact of today's porn & media portrayal of women, even by other women. They perplex me as much as repub women do.
Couple that with politicians blatantly saying that there are degrees of rape & trying to legislate that (!) & I am very scared for where this country is headed, especially for women & gays.
I am not happy with President Obama's record on many things, particularly letting war criminals walk, the continuing clusterfuck in Afghanistan & the drone warfare, but I will be voting for him come November because these republican assholes scare the shit out of me.
I am sort of friends with a woman who leans repub. A few months ago, when the states were passing those trans-vaginal bills, we talked about all of this craziness. She said, "No one is going to take my BC away from me or my daughters!" Yesterday she 'liked' Romney on FB. Ron Paul was her first choice. What the fuck? 
