Dr Emily Brick
Manchester Metropolitan University
The Rape-Revenge Narrative in Contemporary French Horror Cinema
Windows Media Video
[Download Windows Media Player]
This paper will examine Baise-moi (France, 2001) in relation to discourse on the rape-revenge film and current debates about female violence on screen. I Spit on Your Grave (Meir Zarchi, US, 1978) is commonly cited as a paradigmatic example of a genre which has been simultaneously read as both misogynist and feminist. This paper aims to locate the rape-revenge narrative as both a universal mythic tale type and a cycle which is grounded in location and history with reference to the current cycle resurgence within European horror cinema. Baise-moi presents a particularly interesting example of the genre because it is written and directed by women. The emphasis on male visual pleasure and the symbolic masculinisation of the heroine within critical accounts of the rape-revenge film has meant that female agency, in particular the notion of sadistic female agency, has been all but erased from the text. This paper will discuss the way in which sexual politics, symbolic economy and mapping of feminine subjectivity operate within this contemporary cycle.
