By Chloe B. McAlpin, Staff Writer, Emerson College
I was hanging out with a new acquaintance the first few weeks of school and eventually he invited me to see a movie with him and his friends. I guess because we didn’t know each other too well and because he was a boy and I’m a girl, he felt the need to whisper when he told me which movie we would be watching.
“Ugh,” he started awkwardly, “have you heard of the movie Teeth?”
Have I heard of the movie Teeth? Have I watched Teeth five times in the last two years and introduced it to dozens of new people? Did I cry the first time I saw the main character rip off a boy’s penis? Do I now laugh maliciously at the same scene? The answer, of course, is yes.
For those of you who have fumbled across this article with no prior context I can image you might be a bit on confused. Let me explain. Teeth is an indie movie that premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in 2007. It tells the story of Dawn, a teenage girl who comes to discover that she has teeth in her vagina. Anything or anyone Dawn does not want in there she has the power to bite back at.
“Vagina dentate! Vagina dentate!” her gynecologist screams dramatically as he cowers from her in the corner of the room. Poor Dawn is left wide eyed and confused on her doctor’s examination table, his four inappropriate fingers she’s bitten off lying limp on the floor.
A lot of people bash Teeth because (I’ll admit) it’s a bit of a brutal movie. Audience members aren’t too excited to see the close up shots of men’s dickless bloody groins or the equally horrifying looks on their faces. The squelching sound that accompanies these shots doesn’t help either. Such intensity fuels many people’s argument that the context and plot of Teeth is merely “penis abuse”. This is perhaps one of the reasons IMDb gave the film 5.5 stars out of 10. A reviewer for The Boston Globe claims that the entire premise of the film “runs on a kind of angry distrust toward boys” and that it is unnecessarily harsh towards his gender.
But I say nay. I say nay whole-heartedly. An “angry distrust of boys” and “penis abuse”? Those are interesting statements given the fact that the only men who get hurt by Dawn are those who rape or abuse her. The first time Dawn even realizes she has teeth in her vagina is when a boy she considered her friends tries to rape her while she is unconscious. She is simply acting out of self-defense. And that gynecologist? He stuck half his hand up her vagina, an extreme violation of his practice as a doctor and betrayal of the innocence of his patient. It doesn’t seem like penises are the ones being abused in these situations. In fact it seems that people are getting a bit uncomfortable with the idea that Dawn had the ability to fight, and bite, back.
Another key component to Teeth is that Dawn has complete control over her “vagina dentate” in sexual situations. She can choose when to might down, just like with her mouth. This makes her vagina no more dangerous or deadly then a run of the mill blowjob. Teeth are teeth, and anyone can control when to bite down. And she does have control. There is a scene in which she happily enjoys sex with a boy onto which no harm falls. This is a huge aspect to the film and the messages it relays about Dawn’s sexuality. She is not a monster at all. She’s a girl who learns to accept herself for who she is, vagina teeth and all.
I was hanging out with a new acquaintance the first few weeks of school and eventually he invited me to see a movie with him and his friends. I guess because we didn’t know each other too well and because he was a boy and I’m a girl, he felt the need to whisper when he told me which movie we would be watching.
“Ugh,” he started awkwardly, “have you heard of the movie Teeth?”
Have I heard of the movie Teeth? Have I watched Teeth five times in the last two years and introduced it to dozens of new people? Did I cry the first time I saw the main character rip off a boy’s penis? Do I now laugh maliciously at the same scene? The answer, of course, is yes.
For those of you who have fumbled across this article with no prior context I can image you might be a bit on confused. Let me explain. Teeth is an indie movie that premiered at The Sundance Film Festival in 2007. It tells the story of Dawn, a teenage girl who comes to discover that she has teeth in her vagina. Anything or anyone Dawn does not want in there she has the power to bite back at.
“Vagina dentate! Vagina dentate!” her gynecologist screams dramatically as he cowers from her in the corner of the room. Poor Dawn is left wide eyed and confused on her doctor’s examination table, his four inappropriate fingers she’s bitten off lying limp on the floor.
A lot of people bash Teeth because (I’ll admit) it’s a bit of a brutal movie. Audience members aren’t too excited to see the close up shots of men’s dickless bloody groins or the equally horrifying looks on their faces. The squelching sound that accompanies these shots doesn’t help either. Such intensity fuels many people’s argument that the context and plot of Teeth is merely “penis abuse”. This is perhaps one of the reasons IMDb gave the film 5.5 stars out of 10. A reviewer for The Boston Globe claims that the entire premise of the film “runs on a kind of angry distrust toward boys” and that it is unnecessarily harsh towards his gender.
But I say nay. I say nay whole-heartedly. An “angry distrust of boys” and “penis abuse”? Those are interesting statements given the fact that the only men who get hurt by Dawn are those who rape or abuse her. The first time Dawn even realizes she has teeth in her vagina is when a boy she considered her friends tries to rape her while she is unconscious. She is simply acting out of self-defense. And that gynecologist? He stuck half his hand up her vagina, an extreme violation of his practice as a doctor and betrayal of the innocence of his patient. It doesn’t seem like penises are the ones being abused in these situations. In fact it seems that people are getting a bit uncomfortable with the idea that Dawn had the ability to fight, and bite, back.
Another key component to Teeth is that Dawn has complete control over her “vagina dentate” in sexual situations. She can choose when to might down, just like with her mouth. This makes her vagina no more dangerous or deadly then a run of the mill blowjob. Teeth are teeth, and anyone can control when to bite down. And she does have control. There is a scene in which she happily enjoys sex with a boy onto which no harm falls. This is a huge aspect to the film and the messages it relays about Dawn’s sexuality. She is not a monster at all. She’s a girl who learns to accept herself for who she is, vagina teeth and all.
So why call Teeth “penis abuse” and “unnecessary” when really it just seems to tell the kick ass story about a girl who chops off the rapists’ dicks. In my eyes that makes Dawn the most realistic superhero I’ve ever heard of. Batman is equipped with billions of dollars and life long training but all Dawn has to do to cause some trouble is open her legs.
By the end of the movie she has controlled her sexuality and come to terms with who she is. She has the ability to protect herself and with that comes the confidence she lacked in the beginning of the movie. She even avenges her dead mother. If that isn’t a superhero story I don’t know what is.
Chloe B. McAlpin is a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. Originally from Florida, Chloe enjoys crunchy orange leaves, used bookstores, and Simon & Garfunkel. If she had to pick a favorite animal it would be a Persian cat, and if she had to pick a favorite person it would be Virginia Woolf. Contact Chloe on her Twitter.
Images: Whatculture.com, buzznet.com
By the end of the movie she has controlled her sexuality and come to terms with who she is. She has the ability to protect herself and with that comes the confidence she lacked in the beginning of the movie. She even avenges her dead mother. If that isn’t a superhero story I don’t know what is.
Chloe B. McAlpin is a Writing, Literature, and Publishing major at Emerson College. Originally from Florida, Chloe enjoys crunchy orange leaves, used bookstores, and Simon & Garfunkel. If she had to pick a favorite animal it would be a Persian cat, and if she had to pick a favorite person it would be Virginia Woolf. Contact Chloe on her Twitter.
Images: Whatculture.com, buzznet.com