The term ‘Female Rage’ has become popular in the last couple of years. With movies like Midsommar and Promising Young Woman debuting with this cult classic style that represents the way many women feel today. While this style of media has become more popular in the last couple of years, it does not mean that it is new.
Years ago this style was explored through movies such as Gone Girl and Kill Bill,though these movies are receiving even more recognition now, as the once too young generation can now understand and appreciate it.
The movie Midsommar has been up for debate since it came out. In the film we follow Dani, who goes to a foreign country with her cheating boyfriend, Christian, and his friends. The only reason Christian tells Dani about the trip is because her whole family had just died. The scenes show Christian giving little comfort to his grieving girlfriend and his friends encouraging him to cheat. By the end of the film the viewers have concluded that they have been trapped in a cult. The cult has successfully brainwashed Dani into their ideology and gave her the choice for who gets “sacrificed” at the end. After witnessing her boyfriend cheating, she picks him. You might think that this is sadistic of her, but while taking a closer look you can see that maybe the cruelest thing in this movie is the fact that the only ones who ever cared about Dani, were the cult members. Of course they had their own motives, but they still unlocked the rage that had been built up because of wrong doings to Dani, and let it go. They did not shame her for her decisions, but embraced them. Obviously this would never happen in real life and this adaptation can be described as gruesome as it shows the demise of the male leads.
The most interesting part of female rage portrayed in fiction is how it could not be directly translated into real life. I believe that is what is so freeing about it. We are able to experience women getting back at their abusers in the most deranged ways. With that there is still some realness to it. In ‘Midsommer’ even though Dani got her revenge she is now stuck in a cult that she did not want to be in to begin with, in ‘Gone Girl’ Amy has to go back to her cheating husband with the only silver lining being that he is now more miserable than her, and in ‘Promising Young Woman’ the main character finally got her friends abusers and rapist caught, but she is now dead by the hands of the same people who ended her friends life. So is the bliss relief overshadowing the real outcome of these films? Or is it we do not care about these outcomes because at least these people got revenge.
Do we as a generation see these women let out their anger in gut wrenching ways as cathartic? Is there a comfort in seeing these women take revenge? Are we exploring this because of modern feminism or just because we have had enough? Those questions have many answers depending on who you ask, but the only one that matters is your own. Female rage can take many characters and shapes. The way that is interpreted depends on the person who watches these fictional adaptations, and how it relates to the nonfiction that is their existence.