Quote:
Originally Posted by Daemonia  I'm hard pushed to consider NYR as being misogynistic. It chronicles the activities of a misogynist - I mean, the killer obviously hates women, so he's not going to be kind and gentle to his victims, is he? But, in all honesty, for the film to actually be misogynistic would mean that its sole remit as a film would be to get the viewer to hate women. Well, it doesn't really do that, does it? |
Well, to be fair, misogyny (as a worldview) is not quite as simple as the film would need to make "the viewer hate women" which is entirely subjective and moves out of theorising and into a whole area of qualitative/ quantitative research based on audience reaction and the baggage they bring to it.
But
anyway... I get enough of this in my PhD (*screams loudly and throws Kracauer at the wall*)
I digress: a film *can* hold a misogynistic worldview and it can also sexualise images that are inherently misogynistic: a naked woman tied to a bed with her nipple sliced in half for instance. The New York Ripper does both of these - which is why it has the reputation it has.
However, whether it is down to bad looping and some dubious acting I do not know - the film is also really funny and it feels like some kind of send-up with Fulci and the cast being "in on the joke". Sort of like Pieces in a sense - only with much more technical/ production values. The same cannot be said for more sterile and studied misogyny of something like the Halloween remake - which, if memory serves, had no BBFC problems at all. I do think Shameless got a bum deal from the BBFC.
And whilst Kermode, who I really like, did not think much of The New York Ripper he did defend Martyrs (which I hated) and was disgusted by The Devil's Rejects (which I thought was excellent) so you know the old saying about opinions and assholes...
