Review of Teeth (2000) by Laura S — 04 Apr 2010

Most of you know that, although I am warming up to the genre, horror movies are not my favorite. However, one of my horror expert friends kept telling me about this movie, so I decided to check it out. (Thank the gods for Netflix instant viewer.) I was skeptical. When anything flouts the term "feminist empowerment" about, I wonder if it's truly feminist at its core. At first glance, it seemed like the kind of film that makes feminism a dirty word: innocent, churchy girl gets raped (which, obviously, I am not making light of), then grows vagina teeth in order to take revenge on all of mankind (emphasis on MAN). Seems pretty anti-sex and anti-male to me, which is not what true feminism is about. However, I was (for the most part) pleasantly surprised, even though it's not really about female empowerment at all.

In the beginning scene, we see the protagonist, Dawn, promoting abstinence and purity at one of those promise rally type things, not only to teenagers, but children. "Great," I thought, "this is gonna be one of those 'all sex is bad' movies." On the contrary, it points to the failures of promoting abstinence as birth control. Ok, I'm down with that. Plus, the portrayal of these purity campaigns was spot on and pretty damn funny. Trust me, I attended some of them back in the day.

As opposed to being about female empowerment (which it kind of is, but Iâ??ll get to that in a moment), I think this movie is really about the societal fear of female sexuality. In her high school sex education class, the medical drawings of the penis are used as educational tools (see what I did there?) while the vulva must be covered due to school board mandates. Dawnâ??s stepbrother treats women, including his stepsister and stepmother, horribly, seeing them only as outlets for his sexual angst and frustration. Where does this anger come from? The fact that Dawn â??bitâ?? him when he was a kid because he tried to touch her. He has, of course, blocked this from his mind and thinks she bit him with the teeth in her mouth, but he still sexually desires Dawn (most likely so he can conquer his fear).

Even Dawn herself is afraid and ashamed of her own sexuality. When she begins to fantasize about her new crush, she punishes herself for not thinking â??purely.â?? By the end of the film, when she has (what she thinks) is a positive sexual encounter, we see her looking at her naked body in the mirror, satisfied and not ashamed of what she sees. They bring some of the actual mythology about vagina dentata (yes, it exists. Look it up!), which is interesting but they focus on the â??heroâ?? that comes to conquer and â??healâ?? the woman/vagina in question. I really donâ??t think another penis is the answer to this problem.

So, all of this is good, yes? There were a couple things I had problems with: every single man in the movie (with the exception of Dawnâ??s father) perpetuated this vagina fear and were only interested in what Dawn had to offer sexually. I donâ??t like gender stereotypes, male or female, and it would have been nice to see a pro-woman male character in this movie. Since there is not, it runs the risk of male-bashing, which is definitely not cool.

At the end of the film, Dawn uses her â??powersâ?? to punish men who seek to do her sexual harm, which is where the "empowerment" part comes in. This is where I have some problems. It would have been much more empowering to see Dawn in a healthy sexual relationship with a man who cared about her rather than using her â??vagina dentataâ?? to chomp off every penis she comes in contact with. Again, too much anti-sex male-bashing for my taste. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised. The film itself wasnâ??t great (a C grade slasher movie at best) and didnâ??t really fall into the horror genre in my opinion. But then again, I donâ??t have a penis.