We've already beaten this poem to death in class, but I really love it so I'd like to return to it with a few added ideas of my own...
So for anyone who is a horror-movie buff or anyone who's watched even one of these big name blockbusters: Scream, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, you should know the Rules for Surviving Horror Films. One of these rules is (listen up girls, this is for you) don't be a slut.
See if you're anything like the sexually active teenage girls in these movies, you're destined to die. In fact, if you're liberal, free-thinking, sexually empowered, and wearing anything but a turtleneck and a string of pearls, you're pretty much toast. Yep, Paris Hilton, see yah!
So for anyone who is a horror-movie buff or anyone who's watched even one of these big name blockbusters: Scream, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, you should know the Rules for Surviving Horror Films. One of these rules is (listen up girls, this is for you) don't be a slut.
See if you're anything like the sexually active teenage girls in these movies, you're destined to die. In fact, if you're liberal, free-thinking, sexually empowered, and wearing anything but a turtleneck and a string of pearls, you're pretty much toast. Yep, Paris Hilton, see yah!
"Slut" by Daphne Gottleib from the Spoken Word Revolution Redux book, addresses the stereotypes and dehumanizing connotations of the slang term "slut" with humanizing imagery. She talks about the "slut" as human being with a past, as a baby, with childhood toys and coming-of-age troubles.
She describes the movie scenes we're all familiar with,
"sometimes I enter a dark
room and unbutton
my shirt, rock my hips
side to side
until the killer's music comes on.
Then I button up
quick, laughing or
shaking, sometimes
both."
The movie scene strikes a chord with the reader/listener because it is something everyone is familiar with, something everyone can visualize.
The poem makes us reassess our views of the word "slut," the imagery it conjures, and the power of the word as a weapon against women or a vehicle for taking back power for women. It is the difference between a guy calling his girlfriend a "slut" and girlfriends calling each other "sluts" jokingly. Or is there a difference?
Something I realized the other day is that in horror movies, while the rules for surviving a horror movie still apply, there are in fact some mainstream slasher flicks that are diverting from this long-tread path. In the SAW series, no one is safe. Parents, teenagers, children, virgins, sluts, drug-dealers, little old Grannies. It doesn't seem to make a difference. In the SAW films, everyone has a dirty little secret.
Similarly, the movie Jennifer's Body depicts a sort of role reversal. While Amanda Seyfried is the innocent, guileless one, Megan Fox is depicted as the "slutty friend." Its interesting to see that in this movie (Ok, if you care, SPOILER ALERT), Megan Fox is turned into a succubus after she is kidnapped and offered as a (failed) virgin sacrifice to Satan by an up-and-coming emo band in exchange for fame and fortune. Meanwhile, Seyfried loses her virginity and survives. Fox dies by the end of the film.
Maybe (and I think Gottleib would agree) we're getting closer to a point where "being a slut" isn't such a bad thing.
She describes the movie scenes we're all familiar with,
"sometimes I enter a dark
room and unbutton
my shirt, rock my hips
side to side
until the killer's music comes on.
Then I button up
quick, laughing or
shaking, sometimes
both."
The movie scene strikes a chord with the reader/listener because it is something everyone is familiar with, something everyone can visualize.
The poem makes us reassess our views of the word "slut," the imagery it conjures, and the power of the word as a weapon against women or a vehicle for taking back power for women. It is the difference between a guy calling his girlfriend a "slut" and girlfriends calling each other "sluts" jokingly. Or is there a difference?
Something I realized the other day is that in horror movies, while the rules for surviving a horror movie still apply, there are in fact some mainstream slasher flicks that are diverting from this long-tread path. In the SAW series, no one is safe. Parents, teenagers, children, virgins, sluts, drug-dealers, little old Grannies. It doesn't seem to make a difference. In the SAW films, everyone has a dirty little secret.
Similarly, the movie Jennifer's Body depicts a sort of role reversal. While Amanda Seyfried is the innocent, guileless one, Megan Fox is depicted as the "slutty friend." Its interesting to see that in this movie (Ok, if you care, SPOILER ALERT), Megan Fox is turned into a succubus after she is kidnapped and offered as a (failed) virgin sacrifice to Satan by an up-and-coming emo band in exchange for fame and fortune. Meanwhile, Seyfried loses her virginity and survives. Fox dies by the end of the film.
Maybe (and I think Gottleib would agree) we're getting closer to a point where "being a slut" isn't such a bad thing.
Allieface!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post about sluts and horror movies. I really like that you talk about the power and role of imagery in the poem and how we all have preexisting ideas of what a slut is and means. Socially, there is such a dehumanization of the word slut, that is commonly associated with women, but it makes me happy that women are trying to reclaim it for themselves. It's amazing how a word is just a word until meaning is attached to it. There was a certain point in class when the word no longer had meaning for a bit! It was just a word we were pulling apart and deconstructing. I think you do a great job with the imagery in this poem and the image of the stereotypical slut. It's also sweet that you continued the horror movie discussion and how the idea of the slut is changing in modern times.