BellaOnline Forums TV and Movies Horror Movies I Spit On Your Grave - degrading or empowering?

Dear Lisa, Steve is not calling Deb crazy. He replied to her own statement, which was "Hopefully, there is a glimmer of insight for you other than I'm crazy, which I assure you - I am not." He is asking her "why would I assume you are crazy?" because she brought that up. Knowing Steve for as long as I have, he would not be so rude as to call anyone crazy in an open forum.

With all due respect to everyone in this discussion and their personal opinions, I must say I agree with Steve on many points.

Lisa, I so admire you and Deb for many reasons and you know I consider you a very good friend. We have had many chats and often help each other.

I also greatly admire Steve for the way he handles his forum. He is the moderator here and has the right to run this forum his way. It is unseemly I think for anyone to attack him and shout at him and threaten him. I do believe a private message to him about your feelings would have been more appropriate.

In my opinion, Steve is not disrespecting anyone. If I were him, I would be very frustrated and upset that all who have responded have not seen the movie and may have not even read his review on the movie. Only one person so far, (Linda), has seen both movies that Steve asked for an opinion on and answered his original question. I have been following this thread and find that Steve has been doing an excellent job of listening and responding to everyone. He is doing so in a professional manner and even thanks Deb for bringing up a point that motivated him to do further research. I believe he is respecting everyone's opinion even though they are different than his own. He, too, has the right to express his opinion.

It is unfair to attack an editor here who is doing what his job calls for. His reason for being here is to review movies then open a discussion on a movie to get opinions of horror movie fans. I think it admirable that he is able to conduct this discussion in the way he is doing even though he has been side-tracked and taken away from the purpose of this thread.

In all honesty and my apologies, Steve, I have not seen the remake or the original movie - but I do have an opinion on revenge due to what my daughter and I went through.

Lisa, if you feel I have offended you or Deb, please send me a private message and we can discuss it there so as not to take this thread any further off topic.

Thank you so much Phyllis for your kind words, you're a true friend and a very intelligent woman :)I highly respect your opinion.

It must have been very difficult to share that story and I'm upset that you had to. Very upset that you had to. I appreciate your brutal honesty with this though, it shows that people do have different reactions to this terrible form of attack. I also think you did an incredibly brave and kind thing by discussing it here. I appreciate it a lot. You don't have to justify your feelings and it doen't matter that you haven't seen the films as you had better intentions with your words, and we were already way off topic anyway. Thank-you again


I don't know why this topic has gone so crazy off track. I do obviously understand that rape is a very tender subject and that ppl have strong feelings about it. There is a forum to discuss rape & it's best discussed there instead of the horror movie section. However, we are meant to be discussing a fictional film. A film that only one person who commented has seen. If no-one has anything constructive to say regarding the actual films, then I see no point in debating if women should take revenge or not - that's a personal choice. Many women have taken revenge/many more haven't.

I would also like to say that I was hurt and angry at the remarks made toward me and my gender - which were either completley incorrect or very disrespectful and stereotypical. I will not have sexisim toward women or men in my forum though. I personally view both sexes as equal, and all humans as individuals - not stereotypes of any kind.

If anyone who has seen the film/s would like to continue this discussion of course that's fine. However, I really don't see the need for any more of this ridiculous behaviour which is completley off topic.

Hopefully that will be the end of the discussions about other things - which are better suited to other parts of the forum. I want to thank Phyllis once again for sharing her story which is obviously very personal to her. I respect you greatly

As you wish Phyllis.

I am brand new to the forums, and this is my first post. Firstly, I have seen both versions of the film, and I agree partially with your review of the remake. The lead character seemed almost superhuman when taking her revenge on the men. Now if she had been a physicist or some kind of mechanical engineer, the ending might have made sense; still, I thought the revenge scenes detracted from the realism in the film. The original film displayed a very realistic character who exacted her revenge in a very realistic way. Couple that with the newly burgeoning feminist movement of that era, and you have a rather haunting tale that leaves viewers wondering if it might be based on fact. Now to answer the questions posed: [quote]Is the film empowering to women?[/quote] I believe the remake of the film does not empower women. Viewers will simply throw it on the huge pile of graphic and sexually explicit films already exist (such as Saw, Hostel, etc). The original film is extremely empowering...in the wrong way. It empowers women to take matters into their own hands instead of bringing it to the authorities. [quote]Does it take a feminist viewpoint?[/quote] The remake does not take a feminist viewpoint, in my opinion. There are already thousands of horror movies that take mutilation and torture to a twisted, uncomfortable level; the idea that a woman could take vengeance on her attackers does not have the same shock value as it did back in the sixties and seventies. The original film, in my opinion, does not take a feminist viewpoint. If the lead character had tried to go to the authorities yet they did not take her seriously, then the vengeance might have had a feminist slant to it. A woman taking vengeance on her attackers simply demonstrates that her trauma pushed her to a psychological breaking point but not that she was empowered because she is a woman. [quote]Is it just vulger? Is it both? What's your opinion?[/quote] The remake was extremely vulgar; that was the point, I think. That was also another reason the remake was not very realistic. The traps were too clever, the men were too "evil"(by this, I mean there was no remorse at all, except that mentally retarded one), and the girl was too psychotic. The original film was also extremely vulgar; however, it was that very vulgarity that made it hauntingly realistic. The rape scenes were, indeed, extremely nauseating, and they seemed to go on and on; it brought the unwilling audience through that girl's humiliation, suffering, and fear, and helped the audience to understand why the girl took vengeance the way she did. My opinion is that the original "I Spit on your Grave" was a well-made film, aside from the fact that it was difficult to stomach; however, it sent the wrong message to women. The remake of "I Spit on your Grave" was just another horror movie and is not empowering at all.

For the sake of the peace I apologize to you and Phyllis.

I hope you don't think I wrote the above piece LMAO. I was thinking that perhaps you did or your friend? I'm going to ask Lisa or Jeanne to get the IP address of this "new" mystery person. I'm sick to death of this darn subject and this seems too covieniant for my liking.

If you are new to bellaonline, I apologise. This doesn't ring true to me though ATM.

Let me save you the trouble. I know and live with Lisa-Appalachia. She has been raving for a while about BellaOnline and how nice everyone is, but I wasn't really interested in joining a new forum. She started mentioning things such as ethnic beauty and Islamic spirituality, but these weren't topics in which I was interested. Today, she asked me about the movie you reviewed, and it peeked my interest, mostly because I have seen both versions of the movie. Not many people can step back from the controversial material and analyze it, and I was curious to know if you had that ability. So I read your review, and posted the above. Please don't take this as an insult or any kind of attack, but had I been a completely new individual, that kind of a "welcome" would have put me off to posting anything else on these forums.

Dear group -

I am making this post as the owner of BellaOnline. We are nearing our 10 year anniversary of running this site and forums as an editor-run website. A key aspect of our focus is on handling all topics, including challenging ones, with respect and appreciation for opposing points of view.

This was clearly a thread on a very sensitive topic. Yes, it's "just a movie" - however, movies help us think about and discuss real life issues that are important to us. A movie about whale hunting is not necessarily just a 1.5 hr entertainment we watch and forget. It can be something that stays with us for years and changes how we live our life.

We all have different opinions and points of view. I think when people talk about calm topics such as blue vs green or sweats vs jeans that it is easier to listen to opposing opinions. When the topic becomes emotionally stressful, then emotions are already wound so tightly that differences become trigger points.

I think it's fair to say that some women are soft and nurturing, while others are hard and sharp. Women come in a myriad of styles. Some love shooting automatic weapons. Some love playing Grand Theft Auto. Some abuse their children. Millions of women in Africa cut their daughters' genitals with glass and then sew them shut. Millions more iron their girls' breasts down flat. Women can tell their daughters they're fat, ugly, and stupid.

Yes, many women dream of gratuitous revenge. I've heard women say they've dreamt of becoming an assassin, that they'd love to be a female James Bond, and that they'd love to be a vigilante. I've heard many women say they're glad they never had kids because they simply don't enjoy them.

I've also of course heard many women say they adore kids, women say they love being a nurse or teacher, and women say they are happy staying at home and tending to the cooking and cleaning.

Women are multidimensional. They are a kaleidoscope. There is not one way of thinking about women. Only 100 years ago women were barred from attending college because their brains were "not up to the challenge." People thought men's brains and women's brains were enormously different. Now we know that much of it is related to training from infancy. If you give a group of adults an infant and tell them "this is a girl" then they will treat that infant demonstrably more gently and softly than a matching boy.

If you look at how girls are "expected" to play, their play is cooperative. A girl who is aggressive is ostracized and trained to fit in. In comparison, when you look at how boys are "expected" to play, they're expected to excel and taken on leadership roles. The top boy is celebrated. He becomes the captain and gets rewards.

All of these are great topics for other forum areas. We can talk at length about sociology issues in the Women's Rights area, for example.

In this thread, about this specific movie, then it makes sense for people to have seen the movie in order to be able to talk about it. The topic is the movie.

If forum members have different ideas about how girls and boys are socialized to behave a different way - and how that differs from culture to culture - that would be great! We have forums where that type of topic is handled and all points of view are welcome.

I'd ask that in a movie forum that we have the main focus on the movie in question. If someone hasn't seen that movie, then there are plenty of other movies under discussion in the forum system which can be chimed in on!

If anyone has questions, suggestions, or comments on my post, please feel free to email me personally! I'd ask that you email me rather than forum-PMming me - I do not frequently check the forum PM area.

I personally have not seen this movie.

Sincerely,

Lisa that was eloquent and succinct. Thank you for making the very point that I blundered around and botched. It's exactly how I feel, yet couldn't express except through anger. Sorry to derail the thread.

I want to thank Lisa Shea here. She has been able to communicate her thoughts and feelings regarding this thread and people's opinions brilliantly and with intellect and a ggod heart. I obviously agree with everything she has said.



That's fine. I haven't taken it as a personal attack & I wouldn't have liked a welcome like that either. I was 99% sure of your exsisting knowledge of the debate. It didn't exactly take a genius to realize that you were somehow involved with Lisa Appalachia LOL. I gather you didn't tell her you were joining from her shock? I would have gone through your thoughts and views on the film, but obviously, that isn't appropriate now.

If you're a horror fan however. It would be great to hear what your favorite horror film is and why? There's another thread for that here at the horror movie section.

One thing I will say is that 'I spit on your grave' is a brilliant film for bringing up people's opinons/feelings and thoughts on rape/revenge and womens place in society. Where at one time I looked completley down on the material. The opinions which were so passionately displayed here just at the topic name and plot alone, tell me that the film is very important, simply because of the way it gets people debating these subjects. Subjects which should be discussed and not hidden, as long as they are discussed calmly and with education of course. And not discussed in regards to a film in the movie section, but rather in the women's issues section.

The 'I spit on your grave' films even made you join the site "new."

This subject has gone far too off topic now however, and it is locked sadly.