Review of Teeth (2000) by Jenny G — 27 Dec 2010

Oddly enough, I wrote a positive review of this the other day which is now gone. Is it because I upfront said this movie was about vagina dentata? Well, suck it up. It is. Until this movie I had only heard the term used in conjuncture with misogyny and gynophobia. This movie twists that around and makes it a vehicle for empowerment. Dawn is a girl who's bought into society's lies about females and sexuality, as evidenced by her purity ring and her active participation in her school's abstinence-only program. She doesn't even question why the diagrams of female genitalia are covered up with stickers in her class's biology textbooks. All this is changed though, when she is raped by a boy from the program (they're so moral, right?). But Dawn has a set of teeth in her vagina that severs the rapist's member, leaving him to bleed to death as all rapists should. (Is that the problem? That I said rapists should bleed to death? Well suck it up. They should.) This fate is also visited on her molester gynecologist, abusive stepbrother, and one of those loser guys who has sex with you and then has to call their friends to prove they did it (is there a term for those guys? There should be.) Eventually Dawn learns to embrace the power her teeth give her and all is well, except, presumably for the latest assailant who's tried to lock her in his car.

Though my husband and I were cheering the whole time and everyone who got theirs pretty much had it coming, it falls short of five stars basically because it's a bit too one sided. Every male character Dawn encounters is an evil scumbag, with the exception of her stepfather, who is very peripheral to the story. While I've met my share of rapists and abusers and enjoy seeing the jerks get theirs, I've also met a lot of good, decent men who don't approve of that sort of behavior any more than I do. It seems oversimplistic to tar them all with one brush.

I'm keeping a copy of this review, and it's going up as many times as they take it down. Suck it up, patriarchy.