I Spit on Your Grave (Day of the Woman)
Day of the Woman (the title preferred by its director Meir Zarchi), also known as I Hate Your Guts and The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill, was controversial enough to earn an X-rating upon its original U.S. release in 1978. Since it was poorly received at the box office, distributor Jerry Gross renamed the film I Spit on Your Grave (after the Stateside title of Michel Gast’s 1959 controversial French drama, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes) for its re-release in 1981. According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the more offensive and exploitative title led the film to greater publicity. Shocked by the harrowing images of rape and revenge, conservative critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert launched a campaign against the film. In addition, the film was branded with the label “Video Nasty” in the United Kingdom; it was also banned in many countries, including Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.
Zarchi claimed that the inspiration for this film came from a personal encounter with a woman who was raped by two men. When he brought the traumatized woman to the nearest police station, the police officer, described as “not fit to wear the uniform” by Zarchi, tied the woman up in police red tape and forced her to file a report. Instead of treating the woman with compassion and understanding, the officer delayed taking her to the hospital. Zarchi decided to re-tell the woman’s story through a film. However, this time, instead of going to the police, she would take her own revenge (IMDb).
I Spit on Your Grave seems to offer brutal shock therapy to middle-class ennui; in the film, Jennifer Hill (Camille Keaton), a sophisticated writer from New York City, is raped by four men when she temporarily moves to the country for the summer. However, it seems to me that she asked for it. When she first arrived at the local gas station, she got out of the car and walked back and forth in front of the gas station manager, Johnny. She was wearing a short skirt, thereby exposing her “damn sexy legs,” as Johnny described them. She did not seem to be oblivious to the male gaze upon her.
Then, when Matthew, the village retard, delivered a bag of supermarket groceries to Jennifer’s house, she was also wearing exposing clothing. When she noticed that Matthew seemed to be interested in her, she flirted with him:
Matthew: Do you have a boyfriend?
Jennifer: I have many boy friends.
Matthew: Can I be your friend?
Jennifer: Sure.
The final match was struck when Jennifer sunbathed in a bikini. She obviously knew that the four men (Johnny, Matthew, Stanley, and Andy) have been driving their motorboat in that lake all their lives. The men decided to teach her a lesson. First, they circled around Jennifer’s canoe in their motorboat. Then, they chased her in the forest while whooping like Indians. Johnny, Stanley, and Andy challenged Matthew’s masculinity when they dared him to rape her: “You wanna be a man, don’tcha? Don’t miss your chance. You won’t regret it!” The traits of stereotypical masculinity are shown through the men’s “guy talk” and their constant bragging. At one point, one man even declared, “Total submission. That’s what I like in a woman.”
After the prolonged scenes of gang-rape, the film reached its turning point; Jennifer, wearing all black, knelt down in the local church and asked for God’s forgiveness. Her black clothes served as an obvious contrast to the pure white interior of the church. From then on, the film was all about her revenge. First, she seduced Matthew, her easiest target: “I could have given you a summer to remember for the rest of your life.” As he became oblivious to his surroundings, she strung a noose around his neck and hangs him on a tree. She then cut the rope and dropped his dead body into the lake. Next, she seduced Johnny into taking a ride with her in her car. She drove to a secluded area, pointed a gun at him, and ordered him to strip off all his clothes: “Now, on your knees.” When he angrily stated that he did not women who gave him orders, she fired her gun on the floor to scare him. He attempted to give excuses for the gang-rape that were extremely offensive to men: “The thing with you was a thing any man would’ve done. Whether he’s married or not, a man is just a man!” She pretended to forgive him and let him take the gun from her. She lured him into taking a hot bath with her.
As Lawrence Diggs once claimed, “The weakness of men is the façade of strength; the strength of women is the façade of weakness.” Just when Johnny thought he had gained the upper-hand again, Jennifer castrates him with a knife hidden under her bathroom mat. She locked him in the bathroom and left him to bleed to death. When Stanley and Andy realized that both Johnny and Matthew were missing, they attempted to attack her. She killed one with an axe and disemboweled the other with the outboard engine of the motorboat. The movie ended with Jennifer driving the boat into the sunset.
Jennifer reminds me of Denesa Steiner in The Body Farm. While Denesa kills for attention, Jennifer kills for revenge. While Denesa turns the role of protector into murdered, Jennifer turns her role as a victim to a murderer. They are both beautiful yet murderous femme fatales who kill men after luring them through seduction.
The film seemed to be slightly offensive to lower-class men, who were portrayed as lazy, unsophisticated, and with poor or no jobs. Jennifer, a sophisticated, middle-class woman from New York City, ended up killing all four of them. In addition, this notorious film lacked sophistication; the plot unravels through a linear time-sequence, dialogue is minimal, music is almost completely absent, and the characters are clichéd and flat. These factors seem to prevent the viewer from becoming emotionally engaged in this traumatizing film.
Day of the Woman (the title preferred by its director Meir Zarchi), also known as I Hate Your Guts and The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill, was controversial enough to earn an X-rating upon its original U.S. release in 1978. Since it was poorly received at the box office, distributor Jerry Gross renamed the film I Spit on Your Grave (after the Stateside title of Michel Gast’s 1959 controversial French drama, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes) for its re-release in 1981. According to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the more offensive and exploitative title led the film to greater publicity. Shocked by the harrowing images of rape and revenge, conservative critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert launched a campaign against the film. In addition, the film was branded with the label “Video Nasty” in the United Kingdom; it was also banned in many countries, including Germany, Australia, and New Zealand.
Zarchi claimed that the inspiration for this film came from a personal encounter with a woman who was raped by two men. When he brought the traumatized woman to the nearest police station, the police officer, described as “not fit to wear the uniform” by Zarchi, tied the woman up in police red tape and forced her to file a report. Instead of treating the woman with compassion and understanding, the officer delayed taking her to the hospital. Zarchi decided to re-tell the woman’s story through a film. However, this time, instead of going to the police, she would take her own revenge (IMDb).
I Spit on Your Grave seems to offer brutal shock therapy to middle-class ennui; in the film, Jennifer Hill (Camille Keaton), a sophisticated writer from New York City, is raped by four men when she temporarily moves to the country for the summer. However, it seems to me that she asked for it. When she first arrived at the local gas station, she got out of the car and walked back and forth in front of the gas station manager, Johnny. She was wearing a short skirt, thereby exposing her “damn sexy legs,” as Johnny described them. She did not seem to be oblivious to the male gaze upon her.
Then, when Matthew, the village retard, delivered a bag of supermarket groceries to Jennifer’s house, she was also wearing exposing clothing. When she noticed that Matthew seemed to be interested in her, she flirted with him:
Matthew: Do you have a boyfriend?
Jennifer: I have many boy friends.
Matthew: Can I be your friend?
Jennifer: Sure.
The final match was struck when Jennifer sunbathed in a bikini. She obviously knew that the four men (Johnny, Matthew, Stanley, and Andy) have been driving their motorboat in that lake all their lives. The men decided to teach her a lesson. First, they circled around Jennifer’s canoe in their motorboat. Then, they chased her in the forest while whooping like Indians. Johnny, Stanley, and Andy challenged Matthew’s masculinity when they dared him to rape her: “You wanna be a man, don’tcha? Don’t miss your chance. You won’t regret it!” The traits of stereotypical masculinity are shown through the men’s “guy talk” and their constant bragging. At one point, one man even declared, “Total submission. That’s what I like in a woman.”
After the prolonged scenes of gang-rape, the film reached its turning point; Jennifer, wearing all black, knelt down in the local church and asked for God’s forgiveness. Her black clothes served as an obvious contrast to the pure white interior of the church. From then on, the film was all about her revenge. First, she seduced Matthew, her easiest target: “I could have given you a summer to remember for the rest of your life.” As he became oblivious to his surroundings, she strung a noose around his neck and hangs him on a tree. She then cut the rope and dropped his dead body into the lake. Next, she seduced Johnny into taking a ride with her in her car. She drove to a secluded area, pointed a gun at him, and ordered him to strip off all his clothes: “Now, on your knees.” When he angrily stated that he did not women who gave him orders, she fired her gun on the floor to scare him. He attempted to give excuses for the gang-rape that were extremely offensive to men: “The thing with you was a thing any man would’ve done. Whether he’s married or not, a man is just a man!” She pretended to forgive him and let him take the gun from her. She lured him into taking a hot bath with her.
As Lawrence Diggs once claimed, “The weakness of men is the façade of strength; the strength of women is the façade of weakness.” Just when Johnny thought he had gained the upper-hand again, Jennifer castrates him with a knife hidden under her bathroom mat. She locked him in the bathroom and left him to bleed to death. When Stanley and Andy realized that both Johnny and Matthew were missing, they attempted to attack her. She killed one with an axe and disemboweled the other with the outboard engine of the motorboat. The movie ended with Jennifer driving the boat into the sunset.
Jennifer reminds me of Denesa Steiner in The Body Farm. While Denesa kills for attention, Jennifer kills for revenge. While Denesa turns the role of protector into murdered, Jennifer turns her role as a victim to a murderer. They are both beautiful yet murderous femme fatales who kill men after luring them through seduction.
The film seemed to be slightly offensive to lower-class men, who were portrayed as lazy, unsophisticated, and with poor or no jobs. Jennifer, a sophisticated, middle-class woman from New York City, ended up killing all four of them. In addition, this notorious film lacked sophistication; the plot unravels through a linear time-sequence, dialogue is minimal, music is almost completely absent, and the characters are clichéd and flat. These factors seem to prevent the viewer from becoming emotionally engaged in this traumatizing film.
Roger Ebert called the film “a vile bag of garbage… without a shred of artistic distinction [that is] so sick, reprehensible and contemptible.” Zarchi denied that his film was exploitative; he claimed that the violent nature of the film was necessary to depict the raw reality of rape. Is rape ever justified? Do rapists deserve death as a rape victim’s ultimate justice? Are women empowered or exploited by the revenge fantasy? Is the film promoting immoral violence, or is it just trying to tell a story, as Zarchi claimed? And is the film ultimately feminist or misogynist?
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