Female revenge narratives are no stranger to Hollywood, but their success is. In 2009, Diablo Cody’s Jennifer’s Body was released and received poorly by audiences and critics alike. The film was first marketed as a sex-filled fantasy created for the male gaze, but its true message is far more complex than that. Jennifer’s Body is a scathing, metaphorical, social commentary on sexual assault, rape culture, and the female avenger. However, this film was in need of a cultural shift before it could receive the attention and respect it deserved, and that shift came in the form of the #MeToo movement. In 2017, allegations against Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein gave women, both inside and outside of the film industry, the strength and courage they needed to speak out about their own experiences with sexual assault. Women from all over the world posted their stories online followed by the hashtag, “MeToo” in support of the global movement. A year after the #MeToo movement went viral, and nearly ten years after its release, Jennifer’s Body had risen from a “commercial flop” to a cult classic. Soon after the resurrection of Jennifer’s Body, films like Promising Young Woman and Last Night in Soho bluntly addressed the very same issues, such as rape and sexual assault; both films also involved a female avenger the audiences could sympathize with, but they were granted immediate success, unlike their predecessor. This cultural shift and new acceptance of the female avenger is a worthy subject of analysis as it demonstrates the evolution of society’s perspective on the female experience, especially in relation to sexual assault, and it challenges how those experiences should be portrayed on film. Jennifer’s Body’s rise in status also provides insight into society’s ever-changing relationship with gender and sexuality. 

 Even for audiences in 2021, the premise of Jennifer’s Body is experimental and innovative. Though the film plays into certain stereotypes and tropes, it does so in order to challenge them, and it pushes boundaries that were too difficult for the audiences in 2009 to fully appreciate. Cody’s female-revenge plot follows the aftermath of a tragic fire that takes place in a small-town bar in Devil’s Kettle, Minnesota. Popular, high-school cheerleader, Jennifer Check, convinces her unlikely best friend, Anita “Needy” Lesnicky, to go to the town’s only bar to see an indie band perform. After flirting with the all-male band members, Jennifer persuades the bartender to give her drinks (it is insinuated that she flashes her breasts in order to illegally retrieve the beverages), while the band members try to determine amongst themselves whether or not she is a virgin. Needy, as she is called throughout the film, overhears their conversation and claims that Jennifer is a virgin because it is better than sleeping with “creeps,” but this knowledge only further entices them (00:13:52-00:14:00). As the band begins their set, a fire breaks out, but Needy and Jennifer escape through a bathroom window. Somehow, the band also manages to escape unscathed and promises to keep the traumatized Jennifer safe inside their van, but it is soon discovered that they intend to sacrifice her virginity and life to the devil so they may gain fame, wealth, and success. Unbeknownst to the men, Jennifer is not actually a virgin like she and Needy claim, therefore the ritual goes awry and she becomes possessed by a flesh-eating demon.  

 There are several social critiques made within these scenes that demonstrate just how provocative and bold this film is. First, the debate over Jennifer’s virginity reflects society’s obsession with controlling and restricting female sexuality. It is important to note how ironic it is that a pure virgin is needed for a satanic ritual to successfully be performed. It is no coincidence that this contradiction is all too similar to the standards women are held to in society. A woman is convinced that she is supposed to be desirable, appealing to the male gaze, but if she is too free with her sexuality she is deemed “easy” or a “whore.” Women are generally taught not to give their bodies away so freely, yet time and time again, the very men who restrict female sexuality forcefully (and without consent) take the women they repress and use them for physical satisfaction. Men desire women to be sexually intriguing while also condemning them if they openly accept or wield their sexuality. Jennifer plays into this paradox while simultaneously shattering its power. She willingly gives in to the desires of men by flaunting her feminine features, such as her breasts, to get what she wants. She even tells Needy that women “have all the power … [breasts] are like smart-bombs… you point them in the right direction and shit gets real” (00:11:47-00:13:57). By the time she is in high school, Jennifer has already learned how to manipulate the patriarchal system that attempts to control her body and the expression of her femininity. On the other hand, when it comes to the men in the band, she is unable to wield the same power over them. Believing the band members want to use her for sex, Jennifer claims to be a virgin and tells them to find someone who will know what they are doing (01:01:08-01:01:25). She assumes being a virgin will deter them from desiring her. Ruth Scodal believes the “exposure of the virgin is an important part of the horror of human sacrifice,” and, though Jennifer is not a virgin and her body is never physically exposed (as in, her clothes are never removed), the fact that the status of her virginity is even discussed is a form of exposure (1). 

Jennifer’s falsified virginity presents yet another societal contradiction that functions to oppress women; female virginity is both looked at as repellent and seductive. As Tassie Gwilliams writes, “Narratives of falsified virginity testify to an increasingly complex negotiation of the cultural contradictions involved in celebrating female virginity as a central value while at the same time treating women — and their virginity —  as objects of commerce” (2). In one instance, a woman who is a virgin is desirable and even preferred, while a woman with sexual experience is viewed as damaged or dirty. In another instance, a woman with sexual experience is enticing while a woman who maintains her virginity is a prude. These impossible standards shift depending on the situation, forcing women to play certain roles so they can reach certain goals. Women are forced to treat their bodies and their virginity as objects to be bartered. 

 These scenes also touch on the taboo treatment of rape culture: Cody did not address rape culture and sexual assault in a pointed manner, rather, she did so under the guise of a satanic ritual. This is interesting for several reasons. Though the men did not take pleasure in Jennifer’s body by having non-consensual sex, they did use her body to gain something they wanted; they bartered with something that was not theirs to exchange. Furthermore, they used the gruesome murder as a male-bonding experience. In Jennifer’s final moments, she is surrounded by men who sing and laugh as the lead singer of the band violently stabs her to death. Only one of the members reveals his doubts, but in the end, all he can do is stand to the side as a reluctant bystander, which makes him just as guilty as the very one who stabs Jennifer (01:02:28-01:02:56). This fictional scene seems far-fetched, yet it is an identical representation of what Christine Blasey Ford would describe in her 2018 testimony against the United States Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. When asked what she remembers most vividly about Kavanaugh’s assault, Ford explains, “indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two [men], and their having fun at my expense” (Ducharme). Cody’s fictional, female-avenger experiences an identical situation. When the demon-possessed Jennifer does eventually recount the events of the night she was sacrificed, there is a sense that she still feels and experiences the trauma even as a flesh-eating succubus. She admits that she does not remember what happened to her next or how she made it to Needy’s house afterward (01:06:05-01:06:15). Women who experience sexual assault often say the same thing: they do not remember all the details, but they do remember specific moments. Cody's use of a satanic ritual where a female virgin is sacrificed no longer seems unrealistic when paired alongside true accounts of sexual assault. 

Another important commentary made within these scenes is that revenge is not solely masculine like society has tried to enforce. The very idea of a woman seeking justice is terrifying for a patriarchal society, as it distorts the gendered identity of revenge. Lesel Dawson states, 

“Scholars are divided as to whether female avengers should be interpreted as honorary men, heroes in their own right, monstrous inversions of gender norms, or conducts through which male subjectivity is formed. Implicit in these debates are also questions about how revenge plots impact wider constructions of gender, and whether such narratives reinforce conservative gender roles, interrogate the ‘masculine’ values that society prizes, or establish new ways of conceptualizing women and men” (2).  

To understand what Dawson is attempting to evaluate, one must recognize the common tropes of a revenge story within film. Current trends in revenge films are as such: When a man seeks justice, he is doing society a service; he is good. Tania Modleski states, “The temptation to elevate what men do simply because men do it is, it would seem, practically irresistible” (35). Because the male avenger is elevated due to his sex, movies about men seeking revenge are rarely ever horror films; they are action films of heroic tales with brave characters men can imagine themselves as, like Keanu Reeves' character in John Wick or Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher. When a woman wants to seek justice, she is called crazy, like Cassie in Promising Young Woman, or she is pushed to become a murderer, like Sandy in Last Night in Soho. While Jennifer, in Jennifer’s Body, is indeed a succubus and therefore not a traditional hero, she is doing what many women who have endured sexual assault wish to do: seek justice or retribution on those who oppress and abuse her. 

Additionally, female revenge narratives that address sexual assault or rape culture are categorized as horror or psychological-thriller films. As Tim Posada says, “Horror cinema punishes women for their sexual desires,” but Cody was not punishing Jennifer for her sexuality, she was revealing how society commonly mistreats women (194). Horror cinema punishes women for their sexuality because society punishes women for their sexuality, but Cody’s horror-comedy seeks to both reveal that truth and destroy that norm. The very notion of a sexually assaulted woman coming back as a flesh-eating demon is representative of how men see women who use their voice against injustices such as sexual assault. At one point in the film, the demon-possessed Jennifer admits, “I knew what I had to do to be strong,” which refers to her flesh-eating needs (01:07:32-01:07:35). In order to be strong and stay alive, Jennifer had to eat men; she had to perform the act of revenge. For women who have been subject to the traumatic experience of sexual assault, one of the most profound ways of reclaiming their strength lies in accusing their rapist or assaulter and talking about their experience. Women who speak up against sexual assault are disruptive of the system which has minimized them, and Jennifer was certainly disrupting the peace in her small town which stands as a metaphor for the male-dominated society as a whole. 

These first thirty minutes of the film, paired with Jennifer’s later retelling of her assault, touch on complex issues in a creative and revolutionary way, yet it still performed poorly with both audiences and critics in its release year. This “flop” was due largely in part by the marketing strategies which sought to seduce teenage boys and young men into the theater with promises of seeing the hyper-sexualized Megan Fox in a racy role. In an exclusive interview with ET Live, Cody and Fox discuss how the marketing strategies set the film up for failure. Cody explains that pre-screenings of the film (which involved hand-picked audiences) included mostly young men and hardly any women. She also reveals that many of the suggestions the first audiences made involved a desire for “more sex” or “more boobs” which Cody did not adhere to (Cody, Fox 00:07:15-00:08:29; 00:32:48-00:33:56). In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,”  Laura Mulvey states, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure …” (837). Though many elements of the film are sexy and are meant to be viewed as such, Jennifer’s Body was not created with the intent to satisfy the male gaze or their “phantasies.” However, the marketing team disregarded the true message of the film and its intended audience and sought to adhere to the typical expectations of the male viewer. Mulvey cites Budd Boetticher later within the same essay, who says, “What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents,” and what Jennifer represents is not a sexual fantasy for men to find pleasure or satisfaction in (837). In Cody’s female-revenge story, Jennifer represents the anger women feel at being an objectified, hyper-sexualized, and abused body for men’s pleasure. This story forces the male viewer to confront the atrocities enacted on women, and the truths they are confronted with are not easy to digest. Thinking they would be seeing Megan Fox as a sexy, popular cheerleader who seduces her male classmates, the male viewers were heavily disappointed by the lack of effort the story took to satisfy their desires. Mulvey claims “an active/passive heterosexual division of labor controlled the narrative structure” but Cody manipulates this structure and creates a film where the experiences and desires of women are elevated above men’s (838). 

Unfortunately for Cody, elevating women’s experiences and needs above men’s resulted in criticism so intense she left the film industry. However, with recent shifts in society’s understanding and reception of women’s experiences, Jennifer’s Body has been brought back to life. This rise in popularity is due mostly to the viral social media movement called #MeToo which gained traction in 2017. The founder of #MeToo, Tarana Burke, states: 

 “In 2017, two words sent shockwaves throughout the world as the hashtag #MeToo went viral in less than 24 hours. Individuals, leaning on the power of community, found the courage to come forward with their experiences of sexual violence. More than 12 million in the first 24 hours, and over 19 million in the first year. The United States, and now numerous other countries, are being forced to reckon with the systemic ills that have perpetuated gross abuses of power in society, and a culture that predicates itself on the silence of those impacted” (4).  

This movement gave women the courage to speak out against such issues, but it also forced Hollywood and its audiences to reevaluate its default gaze. In a post-#MeToo world, Jennifer’s Body is no longer viewed as a failed sex fantasy for the male gaze. Instead, it is seen for what it always was: an empowering revenge fantasy for women. #MeToo paved the way for Jennifer’s Body’s reemergence, but it also gave a platform for earlier mentioned films like Promising Young Woman and Last Night in Soho. Promising Young Woman follows the life of Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas after she drops out of medical school to take care of her best friend who is raped at a party. Angry about how the crime was handled, Cassie seeks revenge on each person who was involved in the rape and its cover-up. She even goes to bars and pretends to be intoxicated so men will take her home and try to take advantage of her. Once she gets the men alone, she reveals she is not drunk and teaches them a lesson about consent and sexual assault. (This film is nearly identical to the 1978 rape-revenge film I Spit on Your Grave which, unlike Promising Young Woman, did not perform well in cinemas.) The 2021 film, Last Night in Soho, shows how a confident, optimistic, and young performer is slowly ruined by an industry that forces her to exchange her body for success and opportunity. She eventually decides she is done being used, and she begins to murder every man who has ever abused her.

All of these female revenge films address the same issues and speak the same message, but the difference lies in the climate of society at the time of their release. It is evident that #MeToo forced society to shift in a way that drastically changed the film industry. Of course, this movement was met with opposition from men who feared a cultural shift that would give women the power to dismantle an abusive system. Tim Posada writes, “The #MeToo movement foregrounds the hysterical men who fear a cultural shift, as President Donald Trump, accused by twenty-two women of sexual misconduct, implied in October 2018, when he said, ‘It’s a very scary time for young men in America’” (194). What movies like Jennifer’s Body, Promising Young Woman, and Last Night in Soho have to say to men like Donald Trump is: only those who are guilty of such crimes should be fearful. 

Ultimately, art has the ability to profoundly impact and influence society, but society must also be in a position to accept what art has to say. The #MeToo movement was exactly what society needed in order for art such as Jennifer’s Body to reemerge and claim its rightful place as a well-crafted, feminist film. Without this cultural shift, female revenge narratives would continue to be unjustly dismissed, but the positive reception of films like Promising Young Woman and Last Night in Soho reveal society is shifting its gaze. Though some scholars argue that films with female avengers reinforce traditional gender norms, one could argue instead that the #MeToo movement has allowed society to see these stories not just as a commentary on gender and sexuality but also on basic human rights and justice. Society is slowly unlearning destructive gender norms and imposing a new identity on the role of revenge within film, especially when a woman takes on the role of the avenger. 

Works Cited: 

Burke, Tarana. MeToo Impact Report 2019. ‘me too.’ International. 9 Dec. 2019. https://metoomvmt.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/2019-12-09_MeToo_ImpactReport_VIEW_4.pdf 

Cody, Diablo, and Megan Fox. “Jennifer's Body Reunion: Megan Fox and Diablo Cody Get Candid About Hollywood (Exclusive)” Interview by ET Live. YouTube, uploaded by ET Live, 19 Sept. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2JLRtWlq0o&t=912s 

Dawson, Lesel. “Introduction: Female Fury and the Masculine Spirit of Vengeance.” Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Literature, edited by Lesel Dawson and Fiona McHardy, Edinburgh University Press, 2018, pp. 1–30, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctv7h0vqp.5. 

Ducharme, Jamie. “The Science Behind Christine Blasey Ford's Testimony.” Time, Time, 27 Sept. 2018, https://time.com/5408567/christine-blasey-ford-science-of-memory/. 

Gwilliam, Tassie. “Female Fraud: Counterfeit Maidenheads in the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 6, no. 4, University of Texas Press, 1996, pp. 518–48, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4617220.

Jennifer’s Body. Directed by Karyn Kusama, Fox Atomic and Dune Entertainment. 2009.

Modleski, Tania. Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women. Routledge, 2016. 

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44.

Posada, Tim. “#METOO’S FIRST HORROR FILM: Male Hysteria and the New Final Girl in 2018’s Revenge.” Performing Hysteria: Images and Imaginations of Hysteria, edited by Johanna Braun, Leuven University Press, 2020, pp. 189–206, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv18dvt2d.13.

Scodel, Ruth. “Δόμων Ἄγαλμα: Virgin Sacrifice and Aesthetic Object.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), vol. 126, [Johns Hopkins University Press, American Philological Association], 1996, pp. 111–28, https://doi.org/10.2307/370174.