Jennifer's Body (2009) Karyn Kusama
Very 2000s
lowrise jeans/costuming
music: Panic at the Disco, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low, the fictional band Low Shoulder
the emo Collin character
we feel kinda grimy and oversexed
technology and flipphones
Genre: dark comedy
sacrifice the virgin for fame and fortune plot (we know this); satirizing the overused elements
"Hell is a teenage girl"
transitions/changes, not being in control; chemical and social imbalances; dramatization of maturity/growing up
zoom in shot; foreshadows possession
teen girls are evil?
turns lens back on to how sexism frames women's bodies?
coupled with nondiegtic girls laughing, highlighting crossroads
bed/asylum switchpoint: thinking about how teenage girls are "stuck" places
child's toys, bunny slippers, and the orange jumpsuit: thinking about childhood and maturity
parallel texts
OitNB (women's prisons where does violence happen)?
questions of desire versus friendship/ homosocial v homosexual
relies on stereotypes from high school dramas
how does this film think about loss and trauma?
"sorry was last week's emotion" critiquing the drive towards "getting better"
"Taken advantage of" Where do we locate the power and violence in this text
crying football player and Jennifer's "grief counseling"
is flipping the script getting us out of power dynamics?
questions of consent
revenge/rape narrative
justifies violence but only after violence (often sexual viiolence)
men as means to an end; Jennifer's body still bound in rules
women as overly emotional, insane violent creatures
by having women-led production, shifts narrative slightly to think about women's bonds with women