This is the fourth installment of a feature we call “Harpy Cinematical Society,” in which we watch a movie (new or old) en masse and then replicate for you our subsequent discussions about it.
I recently watched Teeth, the 2007 film written and directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. The other Harpies have not seen it, but commenter bluebears just watched it the week before I did! So we wanted to discuss it with each other and all of you. The film is about high school student Dawn, who discovers she is a living example of the vagina dentata myth when she becomes the object of sexual violence.
SarahMC: So, I wasn’t crazy about the acting or the general pace of the story, but I was very pleased with some of the subversive messages. The film was women-positive and critical of patriarchy in a humorous, gory way. I found myself wishing women really did have an adaptation that protected us from sexual violence, or, more accurately, got revenge on the perpetrators.
bluebears: I totally agree that it was a critique of the patriarchy and that the acting and pacing were just so-so. I think the main thing I took away from that movie was how much different life for women would be (and would have been) if we were all equipped with a set of razor sharp teeth in our vaginas. It’s something that men clearly fear (or feared) as well because the legend of the Vagina Dentata appears in several cultures. The other thing that jumped out at me occurred during the rape scene. Tobey is attempting to rape her and screams in her face that he hasn’t even masturbated in months. It was a pretty telling critique of what the denial of normal sexual urges can do to an individual. Not to excuse his actions, but his sexual frustration was palpable.
SarahMC: I loved how the film lampooned the “purity movement.” The huge stickers over the female genitalia in the textbooks were priceless.
bluebears: I was worried that it would turn into a, poor repressed girl will never know sexual freedom meme, but it didn’t.
SarahMC: I was getting impatient waiting for her to have some sort of awakening. I was upset that Dawn felt so guilty after “biting” Tobey and the doctor. She was the one who’d been wronged and had no reason to feel guilty. From the first scene, I hoped/knew she’d get back at her perverted brother. LOVED when his dick fell out of her.
bluebears: And then the dog ate it?! I was relieved to find out that she had some control over her teeth. If was sexually aroused and enjoying herself she could have sex just like anyone else. I thought the last scene was pretty awesome as well; she was owning those teeth at that point. That’s sexual power!
I loved this movie. The scene with the doctor is classic! Shocking, funny, horrible, awesome. The pacing didn’t bother me. It made sense that her initial reaction would be shame and fear, and it made her eventual epiphany so satisfying.
hmm you all had a different approach than I expected..
I wrote a term paper last year on how sexist ideals from Ancient Greece still strongly affect views today, which touched on stories involving castration during intercourse reinforcing ideas that women were dangerous and sex with a woman was something to avoid. (Greeks thought true love could only exist between two men because women weren’t capable of intellectual thought.)
Overall, I didn’t garner a good impression of this movie, from what I’ve heard about it, although I admit to never having seen it.
@marie: I agree that there is definitely a misogynistic background to the Vagina Dentata legend but that’s what I liked about this movie. It turned it on its head. Dawn doesn’t castrate illogically she uses her teeth when she is in physical and sexual danger. She was definitely, by far, the most sympathetic character in the movie.
I loved this movie. I saw it in the theatre with a friend, a male friend, and we both laughed until we cried. One woman in the theatre said that she wanted that to be her superpower.
It definitely brillianty lampoons the purity movement. I didn’t find the pacing to be that bad, I felt it built well to the climax of the act with her brother, I also liked the symbolism of her going to him wearing the white nightgown after doing her make up.
I still need to buy a copy of this film.
You all are probably right about the pacing. I am very impatient!
Though I wasn’t referring specifically to the amount of time it took Dawn to figure things out; more like, stylistically? The scenes seemed drawn out and slow to me.
@sarah: this is what I thought too re the scenes. BF LOVES this type of movie though. He could happily look at a scene of a field of corn for 20 minutes.
@bluebears: So he’s a Terence Malick fan? I have Teeth in my Play Now queue, just need to find time to view it.
@Phd: ha! Badlands is creeping up our queue right now.
This may be a dumb question but I keep hesitating on this movie because I’m worried about the triggering factor. Is it safe to say it’s fairly triggering?
Good question, theorchidthief. I will have to defer to other viewers because I honestly don’t know.
Terrence Malick is my favorite. And I also loved Teeth! Hmm! Never put it together before that I also enjoy watching corn fields.
I don’t remember finding it triggering, but of course, it very well may be for some. More like…therapeutic.
How exactly does she find out she has control over her teeth, since she was waiting until marriage to have sex? Does it say exactly how she has control over her teeth, is it mind power or physical power?
I have only seen about 30 mins of the movie but from what I saw she knows she can use it again intruding men, but she never has consensual sex?
DirtyLaundry, after the doctor molests Dawn, she seeks comfort in the arms of this other kid Ryan. He gives her a pill he claims helps his mom with anxiety (I am unsure whether he was being truthful) and Dawn gets touchy feely with him. They have sex a couple of times and everything is fine until he tells her (while they’re doin’ it) that he had bet his friends he could get her into bed. That’s when her teeth take a chomp.
Then she decides to injure her step-brother (who had molested her years earlier) by offering to fuck him.
She realizes her teeth work against bad people. I think it’s sort of a mind/body combination that controls them.
@theorchidthief: it could be triggering because there’s a rape scene.
Thanks everyone. I think I will skip it. The stepbrother thing especially hits a little too close to home. Love the movie reviews, btw!
Personally, while I found the movie interesting and thought some moments provided refreshing critiques of the patriarchy, I didn’t find it anywhere near as subversive and/or feminist as SarahMC and bluebears seemed to.
I also thought (and I may be overthinking it here, as has been known to happen) that Dawn’s vagina dentata would actually be a fairly useless protection against rape and sexual assault. Not only does it only help against penetration, whereas there are many other forms of sexual assault, but it actually required her to have been penetrated to have any effect. A protection against assault isn’t much of one if it requires the assault to actually have occurred before it can be used.
And for what it’s worth, I think it could easily be triggering for some people.
As always, I love the Cinematical Society. And, Teeth is now #1 on my queue. Thanks, all.
I have never been sexually assaulted but this movie was very difficult for me to watch. I know she gets revenge against her rapists, but the rape scenes were so graphic that they made me cry. It didn’t matter that she got revenge later. The scene with the doctor was the worst. I almost left the theater several times. I laughed a few times during the movie and it certainly was interesting, but I will never, ever watch it again.
I would NOT recommend this movie for survivors of sexual violence, or for people like me who can’t stand watching it, even though it’s supposedly all ok in the end.
I happened on this movie when a male friend of mine said he watched, “some movie about a chick with teeth in her you-know that bit off dicks” and it “was creepy and fucking scary”.
So I with good faith went out and found it. What I found interesting was he never mentioned that it had some intense rape scenes. So that’s not scary or worth mentioning at all, right? I had a chat with him after watching it with subtle warnings not to tell everyone he knew to watch this. I was myself a victim of molestation as a child. This does become hard to watch at several points and I reminded him that some women have things happen that they don’t talk about so a fair warning of things in graphic nature should be given.
On to the movie… The thing that stood out the most to me was the, “who’s afraid of the big bad penis” syndrome. Has anyone noticed how the penis has been used in many cultures and different time periods to represent everything from the start of life to a weapon to strength? I brought this up to him and commented how it seems almost hard wired into mens heads that using their penis is a quick way to cause someone harm, belittle them or break them. For me it was funny to watch their own weapons in this movie suddenly used against them.
This spawned a whole slew of questions from him if I’ve ever heard of such a thing and is it possible? I told him (granted not being very kind) that if you think about it STD’s have similar if somewhat slower effects. So if you think about it there are plenty of vaginas out there “with teeth”.
But I also added that penises do too. So not only do we have the “big bad penis” running around but sometimes they have tiny little invisible shanks that we don’t see till it’s too late. Still not very fair, you can get raped AND have something horrible for the rest of your life.
Ocean_breeze, I’m glad you pointed that out. Guys act like movies such as Teeth are uniquely violent or offensive because male bodies are targeted by women (usually in retaliation for sexual violence against women). But the countless depictions of rape and other sexual violence against women in films doesn’t make them bat an eye. And the former (penis-choppers) isn’t even a common occurrence in real life like rape is.
[...] those days, I managed to finally watch Teeth, which SarahMC and reader bluebears already dealt with, but I also happened across two feminist indies, both recent, both set in/around Los Angeles, that [...]