Question concerning the end of the movie. (Spoiler.)
What did Thana whisper after she saw who stabbed her at the Halloween party?
share"Sister" I think, but by the way she held that knife, I'm not so sure.
share"Sister.............."
share
MovieChat Forums > Ms .45 (1981) Discussion > Question concerning the end of the movie...
"Sister..."
Interesting use of it. Remember how the sleazeball photographer referred to the same girl as Thana's sister earlier on? Do you think this explicitly refers to them as literal sisters, or as sisters in womanhood?
What REALLY interested me about that scene, was that if you watch carefull, you can see the girl holding the knife is holding it in a VERY phallic manner, which makes her stabbing really feel like a betrayal to me....Thana's SISTER is like a call on her betrayal, and use of a phallic object to destroy her.
Censor *beep* Sucks.
Interesting, but I think the word refers to sisters in womanhood, which is Thana's motivation throught the film.
"brother...."
Good, I thought I was the only one who noticed that.
But what does that mean though, that Zoe was in the right and stabbed in the back (literally) by patriarchs? I mean, for a while the guys she was blowing away were creeps and had it coming, but even before the final massacre she was going to kill some dude whose only crime was having a fight with his girlfriend (she couldn't get him because of a locked gate, if I remember correctly).
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and I'd be grateful if someone else would give their two cents on this, but it seems to me that the message of this movie is very hateful.
Good post brodiebruce, and soruht, I belive when she attempted to kill the Asian boy, that was the part of the film we, the audience were supposed to turn on her. It was fun rooting for her to gun down sleazeballs, but by the time she attempted to kill the Asian boy who clearly did nothing wrong, and kick the dog under a car, we see that she's completely lost her sense of right and wrong.
share Thana : derives from the Greek deity of death, Thanatos. Thana never gets the chance to communicate what has happened to her to anyone, least her fellow co-workers, to whom she seems little more than an object for sympathy. This renders her betrayal all the more poignant. Zoe's performance exudes an overall dislike and well founded mistrust of all the characters she encounters in the film; no-one treats her with any dignity or grace. My sympathies lie squarely with her character, I can't identify with anyone else in the film.
Try not to be so literal: think of the movie as a fantasy, not as a realistic scenario. It might be natural for a victim of consecutive rapes to fantasize about killing any man who says or does something sexual. Evil might beget more evil, and the movie allows this to play out in an extremely colorful and irrational way.
But, right and wrong is not the best way to view the movie - its dream logic is beyond morality. She becomes a destructive force - until someone takes her down.
Maybe about half of Thana's victims "deserved it". Aside from the pimp, and the gang in the park, the other victims were just lonely men, all of them desperate for some affection even if they didn't have the strong character to maintain a healthy relationship.
What's great about that final standoff is how it jumbles gender signifiers. Thana's victim is dressed in drag, a very feminine, bridal-type white dress. He stands in front of the gun in an almost submissive stance, not running like the other party-goers. Thana and Laurie both hold phallic symbols of power through violence, the gun and the knife, respectively. The knife isn't just held low at Laurie's crotch, it's also a curved blade/
It could be read as "stabbing in the back", but I think its more about Thana being "penetrated" for the third time. It's reminiscent of Scarlet Street. The whole scene sort of confuses Thana's vision of the world. That women could hurt other women. That men could be victims. That feminine signifiers are marks of weakness and vulnerability. That male signifiers are those of violence.
“The knife isn't just held low at Laurie's crotch, it's also a curved blade”
Yes! I came here looking for this very post, and I’m surprised it isn’t commented on more often.