MovieChat Forums > 28 Days Later (2003) Discussion > I actually felt physically ill when...

I actually felt physically ill when...

posted 8 years ago by antoshi
3 replies | jump to latest

... The implied rape was about to happen. Here you have this character in Selena who's extremely strong both physically and mentally. She's serious, focused, self-sufficient and smart. She won't hesitate to kill if it means saving her own life. She is literally the opposite of the damsel-in-distress. I feel like that started to wane the longer the movie went on, especially after Selena is consoling Hannah over Frank's death. She becomes more of the love interest of Jim and gets visibly shaken after Mitchell takes her machete and grabs her.

Then came the impending rape when Farrell and Jim are locked up and then taken away, and I got really uncomfortable. The fact that you have this really badass, strong-willed female character like Selena that's about to become a rape victim left me really unsettled. I assumed it was happening when Jim was locked up (I honestly don't know why they had to wait) though luckily it did not. At this point Selena's whole character just falls to pieces. She still shows her crafty side by at least formulating a small plan to help Hannah cope with what's about to happen, but she still gets dehumanized by the army guys and treated 'like a woman' - manhandled, ogled, verbally abused and put in a sexy red dress.

Now she's the damsel in distress - as she has to wait for Jim to save her - and it just felt really aggravating and wrong. She offered no help in Jim's single-handed take-down of the small military group (who have both automatic weapons and military training), except to lead Hannah around and be dragged along by Mitchell. Then she hesitates to kill Jim whom she's uncertain is infected (why didn't Jim just say something here?) and even Jim remarks that it was out of character for her. I suppose it's fair to say that not every character has to have one or two personality aspects that they have to follow and can show various other, radically different sides of themselves. Still, Selena ends up straying a long way from the quiet, silent and focused heroine she was in the first half of the movie.

All in all, I'd say the filmmakers did a bang-up job of making her very emotionally invested in all of these characters. I got nervous as hell when Jim gets shot (and I have read about the alternate endings, which gave me flashbacks of I Am Legend) but I was relieved that he pulled through. I really want there to be more characters like Selena who are beautiful yet strong ... just without any sort of rape aspect tied to them.

[–] ChrRome 8 years ago

Seeing Hanna and her father happy together gave Selena a new outlook on post-infection life, and likely didn't kill Jim because she had hope that he wasn't infected.

I do agree that they should have given her more to do while Jim was taking out the base although it's possible she thought it was just infected that broke into the building and she thought she needed the military people's help to survive.

[–] erikriveros 8 years ago

loved this OP....couldn't agree more

it is better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it

[–] riosweitzer-899-924312 8 years ago

If you recall Selena didn't know if Jim was infected or not. Seeing him battling the last guy, probably scared her so badly that she froze. When he goes to her, she goes to kill Jim and realized that he's not infected. I didn't see her as a damsel in distress during that fight. She was being threatened, she had been scared by the screams and gunfire and thinking that out of the 3 of them who were taken there, that she was the last one standing with this soldier who was planning to rape her, and was holding her weapon. When Jim came at them, to kill the guy, she assumed he was infected, and being terrified of what she'd been witnessing, she froze. Starting to snap out of it enough to grab her machete, she notices that Jim has finished killing the soldier and she freezes again slightly, thinking that she's probably going to have to kill the man she was falling for. He moves towards her and she goes to kill him, only to stop when she sees that he's not infected. During his attack on the soldiers, she couldn't do anything because she was unarmed and trying to keep Hannah safe, with armed guards watching them both. As soon as Mailer and the other infected soldier tear through the house, the guards who were watching them get distracted and try to run or kill the infected, while she tries to get a very stoned Hannah to safety. So there was no chance for her to arm herself and help Him, because as she tries to do so, Hannah heads off, and she's got to try to escape from the infected who are closing in, which causes the one soldier to take her hostage and pulls a weapon on her. So with being scared out of her wits, and being unarmed during the whole process, she can't help Jim. If she tries, she'll be killed, so she was out of options.