Jennifer’s Body is a film based
around two characters, Jennifer, the main character who is also the killer and
Needy, her best friend. The films pans out that Jennifer is sacrificed but in
the process is possessed by a demon. This then means she starts to kill and eat
males to live while Needy tries to stop her.
Even the name Jennifer’s Body is
said to be feminist because the title even bases itself around her body and all
throughout the film there are sexualized long shots of her walking down a
corridor or laying on a bed to highlight her body. Also, the film could be
named Jennifer’s Body as she attracts men to kill by using her body, like a
weapon.
Jennifer is shown to be a
promiscuous, popular, high school girl in the film, which is normally the girl
who gets killed first, however, in this film she is the villain. This is
because she gets possessed by a demon when a band she meets try to sacrifice
her thinking she is a virgin, ironically, being unchaste saves her life. However,
the theory of the “Final Girl” by Carol Clover still stands as the awkward
virgin, Needy, is the last girl standing and is the one who kills Jennifer.
As the villains in films are
usually men and they are played as males torturing women, most women victims
need to be masculinized before they are able to become a killer. For example,
in the Alien films, the center woman becomes more masculine as the films play
out. She gains more muscle and dresses more like a man and as this happens her
technique of killing the aliens becomes more accurate and easier. Therefore as
the band that sacrifices Jennifer use a knife to do this, you could say that
every penetrative knife stroke transfers part of their male energy into
Jennifer, allowing her to be masculine enough to kill.
Jennifer embodies the proverb
“man-eater” in this film as she is shown to be a oversexed who walks over weak
and blameless men but she relies on them to live and for her to keep her power.
Needy says to her at one point “You’re killing people.” And Jennifer replies,
“No, I'm killing boys.” However, by the end of the film, after killing a few
men, she says she “Goes both ways” meaning she kills women too. This could
suggest how she had become so masculine from killing and eating men that she
started to kill women like a typical villain in horror films.
At the end of the film, Jennifer
tries to kill Needy’s boyfriend, Chip. Needy obviously tries to stop Jennifer
and this is where Jennifer says she also kills women. Chip then stabs Jennifer
with a pole and she walks away from them, not finishing the kill. Chip then
dies and Needy seeks revenge on Jennifer, however, before she does, she needs
to become masculinized just like Jennifer was and Jennifer needs to become
feminized just like Needy was. This is done through Needy using a box cutter to
stab Jennifer in the heart and Needy telling Jennifer that it was used to cut
boxes, disregarding the butch comment.
Therefore, Jennifer’s Body could be
said to be a feminist film due to change in gender roles and how they are presented.
We have a promiscuous female villain who feeds off of men to stay beautiful and
keep her power and we have the awkward virgin as the final girl. The final girl
follows conventions of a normal horror film, however, a woman being the villain
does not. Also, as it is men that she kills, they show them to be weak and
vulnerable, swapping gender roles again.
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