The first film in my analysis of the
films of Julia Ducournau is the coming-of-age body horror film Raw. Ducournau’s
full-length feature debut, draws on her interpersonal relationship with her
parents and their expertise (gynecology and dermatology) along with her
affinity for the works of David Cronenberg and Tom Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. Centered in the throes of the zombie cultural zeitgeist of the
mid-2010’s, Raw clearly has its influences (Claire Denis’s Trouble
Everyday), and yet this film was a part of a moment that spawned its own
cinematic parallels and allusions (Bones in All and Fresh). Still,
this film has far more meat on the bone than a simple story of the first
tenuous steps into adulthood, wrapped in a cocoon of body horror. In her freshman
film, Ducournau challenges what we understand about burgeoning desire and the
enduring bonds of feminist sisterhood. Ideas that are recurrent and subverted
throughout her entire filmography.
PLOT
A vegetarian medical prodigy, Justine (Garance
Marillier), begins her veterinarian training alongside her older sister, Alex (Ella
Rumpf). The bullying she experiences during the hazing rituals of her incoming
class awakens an intersecting desire for experience, experimentation and
cannibalism. As she comes to terms with this new reality, she must find a way
to satisfy her cravings while maintaining her relationships with her sister,
her roommate and her parents, without revealing the fledgling but ferocious
hunger growing inside her.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
Raw is a cultural product with an
interesting intersecting point of time and space. A cinematic debut that would herald
a unique voice in the genre bending/blending of horror itself, opening into a
more mainstream audience that, in their attempts to legitimize it, frame the
rest as something of less quality. This can be crystalized by the discourse
around the definition and application of the phrase “Elevated Horror” sometimes
referred to as “arthouse” horror. Raw’s development,
production and reception coincide with these conversations.
The Pretentious Pedestal of
‘Elevated Horror’
According to Rhys Hope (2023): The term “elevated horror” is
usually applied when that film has:
the
omission of a convention of what made the genre popular and familiar in its
formative years. Whether that be a machete-wielding killer, hordes of undead
monsters or possessive spirits, ‘elevated’ horrors tend to subvert expectations
and scare through less obvious means.
Hope
(2023) and other scholars point out that the use of the term
“elevated” is both subjective and provides a not-so-subtle insult to what the
horror genre is perceived to be; a shlocky, simple set of stereotypical scenarios
that barely move people beyond running and screaming. This is a class status
distinction that is hyperbolic and pretentious; implying that “non elevated”
horror movies are less elegant and refined than those that are placed in the
“art house” category.
The
distinction between “elevated” and not isn’t occurring in other genres. When we
discuss films like John Wick, Michael Clayton, Monkey Man, or
Interstellar we don’t use the same derogatory qualifier (Hope 2023). Instead, the commentary of those films is that
they exemplify the genre they represent, even when they subvert expectations.
When these films have inventive action, unconventional framing of shots or epic
scope, the chatter around them is never that they have broken the bonds of
genre, but that the filmmakers have brought the genre to a new location. This
is accepted, whole cloth, without the use of an annoyingly unnecessary hierarchical
structure.
A lot of this is tied to capitalism. It has
been a long Hollywood idiom that horror movies always make money. This is
primarily because of their traditionally lower budgets and comparatively higher
box office returns. Therefore, a film in the horror genre is consistently
profitable (Brutlag 2021). Similarly, because of its minimal investment and
maximum return, new directors cut their teeth on the horror genre, with women directors finding the genre a reliable gateway into the
industry that is frequently blocked by systemic misogyny.[1] Thus, because it is cheap
to produce and the genre is used as a proving ground for inexperienced directors,
there’s this assumption of lower quality that permeated horror up until the
early 2010’s
Since the 2010’s we have seen a
shift in the allegory of horror films, particularly in its villains. No longer
are these villains a caricature and commentary on the internalized fear of the
poor and the disabled. Instead, the “real” villains in these modern horror
films are the various social ills of our society: racism, misogyny,
militarization etc. that impose themselves on individuals (Brutlag 2021). This
more refined social commentary caught the attention of independent film studios,
which through their promotion, infused these stories with an air of intellectualism,
that they then sold as high art.
One
studio that built its brand on this intellectualizing of horror into class
breaking “arthouse” cinema is A24. Through the 2010’s, A24, as they were both
building a name and a cult following, chose to showcase horror films that were artistically
complex and of premiere quality. Names like Ari Aster, Robbert Eggers, Jonathan
Glazer, Yorgos Lanthimos and Alex Garland became part of the studio’s cadre of
directors synonymous with the term: elevated horror (Bradley 2019). The focus on
grief, pain and psychological distress seemed to both capture the attention of award
granting regulatory bodies and synergistically align with their own elitism.
Thus, making ‘elevated horror’ more about industry validation and profit. To
sell something to a new market that previously wasn’t considered viable, the
pretentious film snobs that glorify the filmmaking of 1970’s new Hollywood, studios
like A24 arbitrarily created a high-class status of horror film that they then traded
on, not recognizing their contribution to this manufactured schism of opulence within
the genre. It should be no surprise that a common theme running parallel to the
arrogance of arthouse horror from studios like A24, is their inability to deeply
engage with the text. One has but to scratch the surface of every subgenre of horror
film to find the psychological and sociologically meaningful layers of cultural
and social commentary that emanate from classic and low budget horror films. Many Scholars
have even devoted a lot of their time and energy into identifying the value of these
films. Rather, it seems that “elevated horror” is an arbitrary label to
generate profit and to convince audiences to conspicuously consume film media
for status; even when those films may be shallower in theme, or at the very
least, wear them too pronounced on their sleeve.
Production
Raw
first began to
take shape in 2012, when writer/director Julia Ducournau first put pen to
paper. Like many first-time independent films that came before it, the movie
had a shoestring budget, was shot quickly and was primarily in one location: Liège,
Belgium. Once the film production began in earnest, pre-production and principal
photography took a scant 16 weeks. Yet, by the end of the final mixing of the
film, and ready for its submission to the Cannes Film festival that started its
worldwide run for distribution, 4 and ½ years had elapsed.
Because
a lot of first-time films are cobbled together with the blood, sweat, and tears
of the filmmakers; their will, being the only driving force to birth their art,
many people attribute complex, or breathtaking shot compositions to talent rather
than a happy accident born out of restriction(s). Creatives love to say that limitations
are the mother of invention. Yet, there seems to be a gendered difference here
that is not usually acknowledged. When male directors tell stories of their first
films, their tone flares with frustration that their vision was not fully
realized: “The fake shark wouldn’t work.” “The space battles weren’t dynamic
enough.” etc. Even greats like Hayao Miyazaki, lamented that what he could produce
did not live up to the images in his head. What these cisgendered male directors
are running up against and bristling towards is a categorical rejection of
their worth and value. Most of these men grew up on the privileged side of a white
supremacist, capitalists, heterosexist patriarchy that continues to value them
for simply existing. As they became more ingrained in the system, and a
representation of it, opportunities and access to resources abound. Heck, Steven Spielberg got his first job
by conning his way on to a film set.
Thus, their frustration during their first features was more a function of
being unfamiliar with significant barriers.[2] That lack of experiencing
barriers does add to the egoistic god complex of many male directors, and unfortunately
for those who do become successful, they end up squandering money and resources
trying to perfect their flawed first films (Lucas keeps dipping into the Star
Wars films believing he can improve them just by visual and special effects
alone). Women directors, having consistently had their worth questioned, and their
work overly scrutinized just to be considered for an opportunity, understand
that their artistic vision is always tempered by reality, and that the image in
their heads is altered by the practicality of living under the patriarchy. Thus,
for women directors like Ducournau,
they learn to flex within the confines of that system.
As Ducournau and her DP Ruben
Impens were developing shots,
Ducournau wanted to play with lighting, contrasting warm and cool colors in the
same frame and playing off the contrast of the body. In the art direction of
the film, Ducournau’s directive was to have an organized messiness to each
scene, believing that everyone, and therefore every character, has their own
level and style of messiness. Ducournau used tracking, slo-mo, and shot-reverse
shots to fill out her world, making it seemed lived in and dynamic. One
beautiful example of this command of the camera is a little-recognized, single
take, 4 min tracking shot at the beginning of the film as Justine walks through
the rave. According to Ducournau on the commentary for the film’s Blu-ray
release, this shot took 10 hours: 4 hours for installation and setup and 6
hours to shoot 10 takes, 2 of which were perfect. Yet, it is so seamlessly interwoven
into an engaging story that it is only noticeable when it is pointed out. That
is economical, brilliant and powerful filmmaking.
Fourth
Wave Feminism
According to Valenti (2014):
Feminism can be defined as:
·
The belief in the social, political,
and economic equality of all the sex and gender identities within the gendered
spectrum that incorporates an understanding of standpoint differences based
upon age, race, class, disability, sexual orientation, cultural and religious
ideology.
·
An organization and socio-political
movement around such a belief.
The fear of and the illicit bias towards (all) women have generated a
strong and resilient backlash against such a movement, (that has its origins in
white cis/het male panic)[3]
Regardless:
·
Feminism has made valuable and concrete changes in the lives of everyone
on the gendered spectrum (at every level).
·
The current generation (many of whom don’t identify as feminist) stand on
the shoulders of feminist activists and benefit from their victories and are periled
by their losses.
·
Feminists have reshaped society’s understandings of gender roles which is
instrumental into creating a generation of females with agency, power and
access to resources.
·
If we don’t read and study women’s rights, we run the risk of forgetting
their struggle and allow those hard-fought rights to be taken away, as we have
seen in recent history.
Raw’s
film production
and premise places it well within the fourth wave feminist movement. The wave model of feminism points to various periods of
social upheaval that generated an increase and sustained political action to
improve the rights of women. The First wave concentrated on giving white women
the right to vote and passing the 19th amendment. The Second wave saw
the availability of contraception (the pill) and the passage of landmark
legislation: Title IX, The Equal Pay Act and the federal protections for
abortion with the Roe v. Wade decision. The third wave was born out of
the Clarance Thomas confirmation hearing and the treatment of Anita Hill who
accused Thomas of sexual assault. Under the third wave, feminism became far
more intersectional and saw an expanse of women in positions of power. It was instrumental
in broadening the definition of sexual harassment to include the creation of a
hostile work environment, passed the Violence Against Women Act and the Lilly
Ledbetter Equal Pay Act.
The
fourth wave of feminism began in 2012 through 2018.
According
to Adler (2023)
Fourth Wave feminism is
characterized by action-based awareness campaigns, protests, and movements like
#MeToo advancing from the fringes of society into the headlines of our everyday
news. The Fourth Wave has also been characterized as “queer, sex positive,
trans-inclusive, body-positive, and digitally driven.” It seeks to further
deconstruct gender norms. The problem these feminists confront is systemic
white male supremacy. Fourth Wavers believe there is no feminism without an
understanding of comprehensive justice that deconstructs systems of power and
includes emphasis on racial justice as well as examinations of class,
disability, and other issues [such as] a rise of new popular culture and
citizen journalism… The internet has democratized cultural and artistic
production, making indie music, films, zines, self-publishing, and other forms
of art-making feasible and easy to distribute. (p15-16)
In this context, Raw’s
development and overall thematics[4]frames it as a feminist
text, albeit a flawed one. The horror genre was one of the first to pierce the
veil of the diminutive feminine stereotype and allowed audiences to imagine white
women as a “credible perpetrator” (Clover 2015:17). Ducournau
uses the structure of a coming-of-age story to frame cannibalism as a
rebellious subversion and challenge to patriarchy. This is akin to the fourth
wave feminist act of the deconstructing power systems that Adler (2023)
describes above. Growing up reading third wave feminist icons, Ducournau understands
the reclamation of power, and creates a reality where “the girl” is the one to
be feared. An interesting example of the inversion of the typical predator
schema between men and women comes at the film’s end when it is revealed that Justine’s
father allows himself to be continuously eaten alive for the love of Justine’s
mother. Those final images have a lot of feminist thematic weight. Initially,
one angle of analysis that is male centered, understands Justine’s father as a
feminist ally, embracing the symbolic destruction of the patriarchy through the
slow consumption of his body. Ironically, the inverse could also be misogynistically
argued; that feminism represented by cannibalism, is the dangerous thing that
is consuming men until they are nothing. While nuance is important, I tend to
support the former rather than the latter. In the film’s commentary, Ducournau identifies
the father as the hero and the one that is the most sympathetic, implying the ally
role; one that does align with the fourth wave feminist principles.
It
should be noted that there are some disagreements and criticisms to the wave
model in general.
According to Rory Dicker (2016):
"Approaching
Feminism as a collective project aimed at eradicating sexism and domination
seems the most practical way to continue feminist work. Quibbling about which
wave we are in now or in whether I think of myself as a second, third, or
fourth waver hardly seems a good use of my limited time; instead, I'd like to
see sustained feminist activism performed by young, middle-aged and old
women-separately or better yet, together."
To add to Dicker sentiments, there are
a good number of feminist issues that all women across the "waves"
have had to deal with, such as:
·
Violence against Women
·
Unrealistic and unobtainable Beauty Standards
·
Harassment (Street or otherwise)
·
Pay Gaps and Workplace Discrimination
·
Child Care and Family leave
·
Body and Sex Shaming
These are just some
of the constant struggles all women continuously face when fighting for a more
equal future. Similarly, there is strong criticism that regardless of
its attempts to be intersectional and inclusive with Black, Queer, Disabled and
poorer women, the feminist movement nevertheless promotes the perspective, time,
and agenda of cis/het white women.
According to Miki
Kendall (2020)
“Feminism is defined by the priorities of white women hinged on the
availability of Cheap Labor in the Home from women of Color…[we are] skeptical
of those who promise they care but do nothing to help those who are
marginalized.
White Feminism is rarely interested in the fulfilling of Basic Needs
(Kendall 2020):
·
Housing Commercial Zoning of residential areas, gentrification,
·
Education -Gerrymandering, School to Prison Pipeline, code switching
·
Gun Violence – Tied to Intimate Partner Violence. Most Mass shooters are white men.
Most victims are people of color. Suburban white flight,
·
Hunger Food deserts in COC, living near a store but can’t afford to shop there.
class status and meal prep, WIC myth of fraud,
·
Living Wages raising of minimum wage for all work,
·
Medical Care (outside of Abortion access). Defunding and dismantling the for-profit
system
White Feminism also:
- Ignores Black female victims of
Rape and Sexual assault
- Ignores Missing Black Children
- Reinforces the Racist Fear of Black boys
and men
A lot of feminist
arguments centered around white cis/het women are not about helping women
achieve and satisfy these basic needs; because it implies these needs are
already satisfied. Instead, such a focused movement is about increasing
“privileges.”. Also, White Feminism pays more lip service (than actual
service) to equality as white feminism fails to show up for women of color. But
women of color are frequently called upon to choose gender over race and stand
with white women against the patriarchy.
Similarly, Raw is a very
white film. Its feminism embodies a very white space and does not engage with
identity outside of its whiteness. Most of the characters we follow are white
and have a middle to upper class background. This is crystalized in the way
that cannibalism in the film is presented as a feminist act of agency and self-discovery.
Yet, it is a liberation that is achieved through a range of behaviors that
illustrate an ambivalence to open hostility toward non-white and queer bodies (Galt
and van Der Zaag 2022). It’s another example of the continued exploitation of
nonwhite cis/het people by rich white feminists that Kendall (2020) describes.
Our Flesh-Eating Fascination
Since the release of George Romero’s classic Night
of the Living Dead (1968) there has always been a cultural concentration on
flesh-eating monsters. Typically, a representation of capitalist consumerism,
Romero was one of the first zombie filmmakers to present an image of
consumerism through the lens of the zombie. In 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, Romero
provided audiences with scenes of hordes of zombies walking through the mall; a
prophetic evocative rebuke of what would become Reaganite Capitalism and the mindless
consumerism that followed.
The
zombie would once again be invoked to explain capitalism two decades later as a
particular totemic embodiment of ennui for the millennial generation. The
events of the dot com bubble, 9/11, and the 2008 financial crisis, crystalize
the consistent economic hardship of millennials (Gen Y). The financial
instability of these three events properly illustrates the yearning for the social,
economic and cultural world millennials were promised by their parents, only to
be met with disappointment. Gen Y are the first white generation to have inconsistent
generational social mobility. This jump started a gig economy where
regardless of education, workers would engage in wage labor (often in the
service industry). White millennials had to learn “the side hustle” (common in economically
poorer communities) just to make ends meet. Thus, what was an economic and
labor model for unstable careers (like acting) became the new normal for young
white millennials, as the struggle to survive became that much harder.
It
is not surprising that during this time of economic precarity, we started to see
a resurgence of the zombie, and other “eaters of the flesh” in our popular
culture. Yet, while “the Zombies are us” mantra were presented through the
Gordon Gecko ‘greed is good’ lens of consumerism of the 1980’s,
in the 2000’s, the zombies became an allegory for corporate greed. In this new
zombie era, the source of zombification was the pharmaceutical industry or
other forms of corporate negligence in their pursuit of profit. In almost every
rendition, across genres, corporate greed was seen as the true monster. Games
like Resident Evil, Dead Island, and The Last of Us, to films
like 28Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and Train to Busan all
have an anti-capitalist, anti-corporation aesthetic. For 20 years, zombies were
in the cultural zeitgeist again, and it was (un)ironically profitable.
Julia
Ducournau’s Raw was released at the precipice of another lens shift for
the flesh-eating metaphor of capitalism: cannibalism. According to Nancy Fraser
(2023), as capitalism is unable to find a limit and continues to eat away at
both resources and livelihoods in equal measure, it eventually turns on itself,
becoming an ouroboros. Much like cancer, capitalism consumes and grows, even to
the detriment of its own survival. It has a voracious appetite that is
insatiable. It moves us from various “crisis points” of exploitation throughout
history, just to extract more capital until there is nothing left; a cannibal
capitalism (Fraser 2023). Raw’s central
struggle is the balance between monstrosity and humanity. Justine struggles but
holds firm to her humanity whereas Alex falters. The constant between them is their
hunger for human flesh. Cannibalism is the constant force in the film, as capitalism
is in our society. The urge and need to consume is always present. Yet, Capitalism
is also something that we are forced to participate in, as Justine is first
forced to eat meat before “the hunger” captures her. In both cases, consumption
is never ending and the drive for profit (or flesh) will destroy lives,
relationships and families. The profit motive will cause us to eat each other…bones
and all.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
Raw’s sociological themes center on
gender, the body, gendering that body, a pushback to eroticizing those bodies
for (typical) male pleasure, and the formation of a fraught feminist sisterhood.
These themes and ideals lay on the surface for even the casual viewer. Upon deeper
analysis, what seems like circumvention, with the right critical arc, can be
seen as reinforcement. Thus, while attempting to craft a story about women
coming into their own and feeling their power in the choices that they have, Ducournau
ends up, at times, reinforcing the opposite.
Socialization of Bodies
Ducournau’s
first full-length feature is a coming-of-age parfait. It is a story about a
genius child going to university for veterinary medicine. While there, she has
social and sexual awakenings that lead to a penchant to prey on people through a
hereditary hormonal catalyst concluding in cannibalism. Sociologically, this is
an allegory for the primary socialization into adulthood. Socialization being
the process of social learning through various seemingly arbitrary rites of
passage that are guided by various institutions, organizations and individuals.
Ducournau is layering that simple premise through a horror framing with a
sexually subtextual cherry on top. Meanwhile, meta-textually, a lot of that
same framing can be applied to the journey Ducournau went on to make this film.
Going through the production of her first film parallels Justine’s journey; both
finding themselves and their voices, trying to know which impulses to trust and
indulge, and which to suppress. So many other films have this premise, with
many young cisgendered women filmmakers repeating this structure (Celine
Sciamma has Water Lilies, Ana Lilly Amirpour has A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Karyn
Kusama has both Girlfight and Jennifer’s Body). Yet, what sets Ducournau apart is
not just that she uses horror, but the way that she constructs horror through the
lens of the female body, that makes it unique.
Julia
Kristeva (1982) discusses the body being “The Horror Within”. The inside body is thinly contained, through
skin, from the outside body which no longer guarantees the integrity of either.
This is typically read as a metaphorical analysis to talk about women existing
in misogynistic spaces, and how they reject the phallic centered expression of
sex by expelling, or in true oedipal fashion, coveting it (p53-54). Yet, when
applied literally, Kristeva’s (1982) analysis takes a different dimension when
applying it to the body-horror subgenre. The literal body is a scientific
wonder, an evolutionary anomaly of awe; but there is a lot about the body that
is simultaneously gross. The way that the naturalness and normality of body
fluids are mined for horror, says a lot about our puritanical cultural roots
and the amount of shame that accompanies living in our bodies.
One
of the sexist differences inherent in gender socialization revolves around the
gendered relationship we have with our bodies. Cisgendered men are allowed to
glorify the grossness of their bodies because the way that we’ve successfully conditioned
our civilization into normalizing it. All marketing, experiences and sanctions men
experience reinforce the male body as being utilitarian, practical, and
therefore allowed to be messy, dirty, able to be mucked up. Yet, through gender
socialization, women see their bodies differently. As something that is
ornamental, to be appreciated, and only used for a specific purpose (reproduction).
Due to this diametric messaging, girls and women regularly develop shame around
normal body functioning; causing them to develop rituals and
consume products that make that messiness invisible to others, and in extreme
cases, even to themselves.
This is a trap. It is the iron maiden of our culture’s ‘beauty myth’ in which
women are incarcerated. Yet, regardless of gender, we are all a part of this
body carceral system, and we are our own jailers (Wolf 1991, Crawley, Foley and
Shehan 2008). The body is our own prison and anyone who isn’t a cis/het able-bodied,
white man has a rougher sentence. In the
case of trans and nonbinary people, many who are not being able to express or
transition into the body that best fits them and their gender identity; are
literally prisoners in their unwanted bodies. While many scholars have correctly
reiterated that gender and the way that we experience our bodies is a social
construct, the reality and strength of that construct is psychological fueled
and reinforced by societal conformity (Orbach 2009). The walls may seem like
glass and our chains made of paper; but in our minds, aided by a toxic dose of
social ridicule, they become concrete and steel.
Ducournau,
growing up with parents that are both in the medical field, wasn’t repulsed by
the body, or manufactured it into her own personal prison. She reveled in its every
aspect. Even at a young age, Ducournau wanted to shatter the inherent double
standard of body acceptance between cisgendered men and women. Thus, all
Ducournau’s films are intentionally scummy. They exhilaratingly present the
female body in a decreasing and precipitously erotic way: gore, vomit, urine and
excrement are all present in her films with the intention of circumventing the
female body as fundamentally ornamental and objectively sexual. Ironically, in Raw,
these images are far less refined than they present later in her career.
Still, the liberation of the female body from their own psychic prison, is a
fundamental aspect of the feminist awakening the character of Justine goes through.
First rejecting what her body needs, then accepting it, and finally, finding a
way to exist in her new cannibalistic normality.
Cannibalism
as Desire
There
is an underlying eroticism in cannibalism. Often used as a metaphor for
becoming, the consumption of another person, in the context of pleasure and
desire, can be enticingly romantic. There are lofty (albeit also pithy)
platitudes about love that evoke this imagery. From the cultural rituals of
merging lives that encompass various social, legal and economic entanglements
that we normalize with a variety of forestry metaphors (‘laying down roots’
etc.); two people becoming one is an entrenched rite of passage in our
socio-cultural system; to the point that when we first have sex in a
relationship, the formal term we use to describe it is “consummation”.[5]
Because
the female body has been eroticized and commodified in our misogynistic
patriarchal culture for the purposes of cis/het pleasure; girls and women have
been socially conditioned to be the sole source of emotional labor for men.
Girls and women learn to consume the emotional turmoil of their partners and
their family. To be the arbiters of their peace, serenity and stability as a
part of the patriarchal bargain. Conversely, cis/het boys and men are pressured
to experience this satisfaction of emotional labor as suffocating. They are
conditioned to feel like their female partners are consuming them, taking bites
of their individuality and autonomy away. This is regardless of the reality
that women and men are both happier in opposition to these gendered norms. Women
are happier and healthier when they are living alone and are single. Whereas
men are in a similar state when they are partnered and have a family. Thus, the
process of socialization, too, is feeding off all genders, by shaping them into
their desired form for the purposes of social control.
According
to Michel Foucault (1990), the deployment of sexuality in a society rests
within the cultural relationship between power and sex. Censorship, uniformity
and prohibition are all used to organize sex in a very specific way to maintain
the proper order (in this case heterosexual misogyny). That order is then
solidified by making these mechanisms of control invisible through the guise of
biology and the fundamentally sexist perception of women’s innate weakness and male
supremacy.
In Raw, Ducournau deploys sexuality through cannibalism; often depicting the desire for sex and for flesh as one indistinguishable urge. Justine’s first consummation of her cannibalism is through the consumption of a symbolic phallus (her sister’s finger), and then later, when she is having sex for the first time, she uncontrollably snaps her teeth at Adrian; only relenting when she sinks her teeth into her own flesh, punctuated by her orgasm…both compulsions satisfied in tandem. Here Ducournau rewrites the power dynamics of a misogynistic patriarchy, turning it on its head by flipping the script of the predator/prey dynamic common in heterosexual sex[6]. Unfortunately, to achieve this liberation for Justine and her sister Alex, Ducournau straightwashes the one gay character in the film, then murders him. While this is done in an inverse “fridging” incident, allowing Justine to choose humanity over monstrosity (Alex making the opposite choice), it continues the tired trope of gay characters being used as props while simultaneously invalidating their existence through their untimely deaths on screen.
The
Feminist Power of Sisterhood
“Patriarchal thinking normalizes
competition between mothers and daughters…women who suppress their unique gifts
in the interest of being dutiful daughters wives and mothers are often filled
with rage…girlhood power were it widespread, could easily undermine the
conventional sexist social order” (bell hooks 2002:122-123).
The patriarchy has always been
fearful of the solidaric sisterhood of women. This is evidenced by the litany
of historical examples of powerful institutions and individuals attempting to break
that solidarity by race, sexuality, social class and disability fragmentation. Sometimes,
the solidarity shines through the rampant heteronormative classist ableist
racism, but not without effort and capitulation under the guise of compromise.
This is often done to placate rich straight cisgendered white women, who not
only are the major beneficiaries of affirmative action policies, are also those
most likely to accept the patriarchal bargain and prop up the horrors of
misogyny to glean power from it. Even setting aside this specific divisiveness,
regardless of other dynamics, the conditioned state of general female competition
hinders women’s abilities to celebrate each other. To achieve this, women must
learn to celebrate themselves (hooks, 2002).[7]
Ducournau illustrates the arc of female solidarity in the relationship between Justine and Alex. Their loving bond is established when Alex takes her younger sister under her wing when she arrives at veterinary school. Yet, as Alex’s resentment of Justine’s academic prowess grows, that animosity then turns violent after Justine rejects Alex’s solution to their collective hunger. Seeing Justine’s lust for Adrian, Alex murders him and attempts to frame Justine; trying to gaslight her into believing that she cannot control herself. This ruse is almost immediately dispelled, resulting in a viscerally gory fight that only ends in solidarity through the sister’s mutual resistance to the school’s authority. While Ducournau ends the film with the solidarity of Justine and Alex intact, it unfortunately also reinforces the tired stereotype of women, in this case sisters, fighting over the attention of a man. This is not the kind of catalyst and celebration that hooks (2002) envisioned. Instead, it’s another tired trope of female confrontation through the lens of the patriarchy; women’s actions, once again, being motivated by men.
CONCLUSION
Raw is a powerful debut from an
engrossing and interesting filmmaker. Ducournau marries body horror with a
variety of other genres that is hard to describe with normal conventions. Her freshman
film is a taut representation of the fourth wave feminist movement while
continuing our fascination with flesh eating stories. The film’s amalgamation
of themes from feminism and sisterhood to sexuality makes it ripe for cultural
criticism and a unique cinematic representation of burgeoning womanhood. While
this film does momentarily stumble into tired sexist and heteronormative tropes
that weigh down the film; it is a collection of well mixed ingredients, that if
cooked longer, may turn into something spectacular.[8]
REFERENCES
Adler, Jo-Anne 2023. “ Five Waves
of Feminism” in Canadian UU Women’s Association Retrieved on 10/5/2025
Retrieved at https://cuuwa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/CUUWA-Five-Waves-of-Feminism-3.pdf
Bradley, Laura 2019. “This was the
decade that horror got “elevated”. In Vanity Fair Retrieved on 10/4/2025
Retrieved at https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/12/rise-of-elevated-horror-decade-2010s
Brutlag, Brian 2021. “Not Just a
Villain: Disability and Capitalism Among Horror Antagonists in Film” in The
Sociologist’s Dojo Retrieved on 10/4/2025 Retrieved at https://thesociologistsdojo.blogspot.com/2021/10/not-just-villain-disability-and.html
Clover, Carol J. 2015. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the
Modern Horror Film Princton. Princton University Press
Crawley, Sara L. Lara J. Foley and
Constance L. Shehan 2008. Gendering Bodies New York: Rowman and
Littlefield
Dicker, Rory C. 2016. A History
of US Feminisms New York: Seal Press
Foucault, Michel 1990. The
History of Sexuality Vol1: An Introduction New York: Vantage Books
Galt, Rosalind and Anette-Carina
van der Zaag 2022. “‘C’est grave’: Raw, cannibalism and the racializing logic
of white feminism.” In The Journal of Visual Culture 21:2 Retrieved on 10/5/2025 Retrieved at https://doi.org/10.1177/14704129221112972
hooks, bell 2002. Communion: The
Female Search For Love New York:
Harper Collins
Hope Rhys 2023. “The Myth of ‘Elevated
Horror’” in Film-East.com Retrieved on 10/4/2025 retrieved at https://www.film-east.com/s/stories/the-myth-of-elevated-horror
Kendall, Mikki 2020. Hood
Feminism: Notes From a Movement that Women Forgot New Yorkr: Viking
Kristeva, Julia 1982. Powers of
Horror: An Essay on Abjection New York: Columbia University Press
Orbach, Susie 2009. Bodies New
York: Picador Publishing
Ramey Berry, Diana 2020. A Black
Woman’s History of the United States Boston: Beacon Press
Valenti, Jessica 2014. Full
Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters New York
Seal Press
Wolf, Naomi 1991. The Beauty
Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women New York: William and
Morrow Company
[1] There
is also the issue that many women directors find it hard to escape the horror
genre. This is unlike men, who once they “prove themselves” with the success of
a particular film, are given free reign to shift, mix and create whole new
genres that fit their cinematic sensibilities. Then, without fail, they are
called auteurs and visionaries. Women must slowly creep from the perceived basement
of horror to prove their worth a thousand times over; with fewer chances when
they fail than their male counterparts. Horror directors that are women often
are seen as only horror directors; whereas cisgendered male directors one ones
that do horror.
[2] It
is important to note that just because someone does not experience certain
barriers within a system does not mean to imply that they are free from
struggle and adversity. What that means is that their identity and demographics
are not an additional barrier to the struggles they might be facing.
[3]
Cisgendered and Heterosexual
[4]
See the social analysis section
[5]
This is also why we find vampires and vampirism sexy.
[6] A
better depiction of this inversion of the sexual predator prey dynamic is in
the 2007 body horror film Teeth about a young girl who discovers that through
a sexual awakening she realizes that she has vagina dentata. The film does a
better job of depicting agency and consent while reinforcing the male terror of
such a reversal.
[7] Historically, Black women have
always been at the forefront of this movement, ready to come out champion and
fight for everyone else’s right even when they do not directly benefit, because
they understand that solidarity validates everyone. We all owe a debt to Black
women for what they have done and continue to do.
[8] As
with her acclaimed second film Titane
