Interestingly, I was looking at the imdb page for this movie and I came across this in the trivia section;
'Sophia Takal originally pitched to Blumhouse a remake of I Spit on Your Grave (1978), a feminist revenge flick, but they couldn't obtain remake rights and she was instead offered the chance to remake Black Christmas (1974). Takal was looking forward to making this film more feminist than the original film was, as she perceived its ending to be "misogynistic". '
When this movie was first announced, I thought the announced plot of women taking down men that were terrorising them sounded quite I Spit On Your Grave-ish. So maybe that explains why the 2019 Black Christmas was the way it was. It was originally using themes from a different, much less subtle rape and revenge movie.
Out of interest, I wonder what part of the original Black Christmas Sophia Takal found to be misogynistic. The literal ending is when Jess is asleep, and we see that Billy is still upstairs so we know the killer wasn't Peter. I assumed she didn't mean that, but meant something more about the confrontation between Peter and Jess being misogynistic. But I can't honestly think what part of that was so bad?
On other other hand, much though I liked the I Spit On Your Grave movies, I could see how people would see misogyny there. It's a movie about women being raped. Yes, the women are the heroes of the story, win in the end and gain brutal revenge. But it seems an odd attitude to reference I Spit On Your Grave, but then blame the original Black Christmas for anti-female sentiment.
I say that as a male, so may have missed the point somewhere. And obviously, am assuming IMDB is reporting this correctly. But still, seems an interesting take, shall we say?
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JakeSWITCH (504)
5 years ago
I'm a massive fan of the original 'Black Christmas' and I agree that the creepy twist ending of the film - Jess is left at the mercy of Billy, who is still lurking in the attic - isn't misogynistic.
Yes, it does sound like Takal pitched a feminist horror movie remake and then tried to shoehorn that angle into the only intellectual property she was offered. It's a shame, because it seems like it's still quite difficult for filmmakers to get movies with feminist-themes green-lit by studios.
The bad ones (Paul Feig's 'Ghostbusters' reboot, for example) seem to impact the success of the good ones ('Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)' was surprisingly good).
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hurricane (1960)
5 years ago
I've heard people refer to slasher movies as misogynistic before, and though I often don't agree with this assessment, I can sometimes understand how people might hold that opinion.
For example, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre has long periods of time where the female lead is running away and screaming, before being rescued by a man. Much though TCM is one of my favourite movies, and I think the slasher genre has moved on since then in terms of female characterisation, I can understand if people used that as an example of sexism.
But with the first Black Christmas, I can't think of anything that might even be considered sexist. Even in error. Yes, the victims were predominantly female. But they weren't portrayed a helpless, useless eye-candy. If anything they were real characters being brave in a difficult situation.
In a lot of later slashers, you could argue that the fact that there was a lot of female nudity was sexist. But that wasn't present in Black Christmas either.
I literally can't think of anything about the 1974 movie that was sexist, or needed fixing in that way.
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