Jennifer's Body, and the problem with the patriarchy

The other day, I watched Jennifer's Body for the first time. And I really liked it.

What has struck me about this film is that it is a story for women by women, highlighting the intricacies of female friendship and the oppression of the patriarchy. Even more interesting is that the treatment of the film before, during, and after release became an extended metaphor for what writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama tried to achieve with their film. That this movie is now lauded as a cult classic is perhaps indicative of the changing times, but the film comes weighed down by its dark history.

For context, (light spoiler alert!) Jennifer's Body follows two teenage girls, Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried). The two girls go to a local bar to see a relatively unknown indie band fronted by Nikolai (Adam Brody—my once lost teenage love). Long story short, the bar burns down, Jennifer climbs into the band's van, and, in a botched human sacrifice, her body is possessed by a demon who needs to munch on human entrails to stay strong and beautiful.

From the get-go, it's clear the film is wrestling with several high-concept issues, all centered around the female experience. Even from the title, the film suggests an objectification of women's bodies—a point driven home by the casting of Megan Fox herself, whose body was shamelessly sexualized to the point that she has never been able to escape this image. Make no mistake, Jennifer is a traditionally male definition of sexy. She wears revealing clothing, she demands that her friends don't upstage her physical attributes, and she attracts a lot of male attention. Despite all this, it still feels unfair to accuse her (or anyone, really) of deserving to be taken into the woods in the middle of the night under the fear of being raped.

There is something chilling about the imagery of a group of men willingly and stoically literally sacrificing a woman's body for their own professional gain. It precedes the height of the #MeToo movement, but feels like an apt metaphor for the carelessness in which women's bodies are treated so a couple of white dudes can make a bunch of money off of them.

I think what's so interesting about the story surrounding Jennifer's Body is the way that the art truly reflected life. Megan Fox and Diablo Cody have come under fire time and time again for using their womanhood in their art. Many times, these criticisms have come from women themselves, and I am not exempt. I, too, fed into the early, misdirected criticism of Megan Fox and her overtly sexualized image. Women are encouraged perhaps even more so than men to participate in the patriarchy to keep other women down.

Both women have experienced sexual assault as they moved forward in their professional lives, and due to their "troublesome" image—Fox as a sex symbol and Cody as a former stripper—men and women alike have discounted their claims. Feminists disown their voices and urge them not to speak out for their cause, perpetrating the idea that there is an ideal feminism. It's one that doesn't have room for women who embrace their femininity or use the male gaze to their advantage. Stripped of their voices, these women need to find other ways to express their agency. For Fox's character, Jennifer, this means exacting revenge by eating up little teenage boys.

Lashing out by attacking teenage boys instead of her own assailants is a view on misdirected trauma. Jennifer does choose to snack on men, even though the film throws anvil-sized hints at her fluid sexuality. However, she never does pursue the men who did this to her to begin with, and it's unclear why they never make it onto her radar as potential victims.

Perhaps, as a young teenage girl, she feels safer at home. After all, she does choose to go straight to her best friend's house after being attacked. But trauma rarely follows logic.

In creating Jennifer's Body, Cody and Kusama have created something special. They've made a dark comedy horror film for an audience that normally is not the target for horror. They've created a thoughtful, but honestly super weird film that explores through symbolism and metaphor what it's like to navigate a world made for men as a young woman. They were hugely cheated by the studio executives (read: old white men) who tried to market the film as a sexy movie about Megan Fox to drive frat boys into movie theater seats, and then again by a public eye that loves to watch women fail. Outside of this disastrous wake, however, sits a movie that has gained the acclaim it deserves from the depths of the internet.