The Final Girl Studios video you quoted is also critical and brings up how it's a white-centric term. I don't think that out-of-context phrase does it justice.
Writing as a trans woman who nearly uniformly despises usage of the phrase 'female' as a modifier to any kind of experience—as you rightly point out, such a term presumes a unified experience and a taxonomy of human existence that doesn't, well, exist—I think this essay could use a little more defining. When you write and complain about 'female rage,' are you decrying a trend in film or a trend in film analysis? I would assume and had been assuming the latter, but in the first paragraph of the final segment of this essay you write a mystifying paragraph that helped me put a finger on the uncertainty I'd been feeling as I read. You briefly acknowledge the possibility of catharsis, but go forwards to say that "depictions of angry women do very little to actually alter the material conditions of their audience’s lives." I'm baffled by this! I suppose I would ask what art, what essay, or what translation of Marx has ever altered the material conditions of the life of the person who experienced it. We aren't dealing with a magical misogyny-ending fairy godmother who can change things with a flick of her female-rage themed wand, we're dealing with movies and TV shows that are being analyzed in annoying ways by fourteen year olds on TikTok. Your token nod to a 'normalization' argument frustrates me even further. Does art only exist to normalize potentially subversive behavior or to fix gender inequality? It doesn't, and I'm almost certain you don't believe it does either. Tossing aside the 'female' prefix, as you encourage, I'm still comfortable saying that there is something empowering (and fun! I don't think that should be ignored either) about Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body, or by Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke in Do Revenge. Your argument that all marginalized identities, not just women, are discouraged from exhibiting rage doesn't discount the fact that people don't want to see me angry. You concisely criticize of the 'female' label and you resoundingly rebuke gender essentialism. But doing so doesn't make it untrue that there are a wealth of women who are told that they should not feel angry, and seeing women onscreen who do introduces them to a possibility they may not have been able to previously grasp. I guess, to sum it up, none of these movies actually use the words "female rage." I hope that during your salient critiques of media analysis you don't slip up and take friendly fire against the media that is being analyzed.
P.S. – I'm not writing this arguing that Hereditary or Pearl or what have you are morally exempt from critique! I guess I just feel like if we really expect stories to 'alter the material conditions of people's lives' or normalize particular emotions by themselves, I'm worried we're forgetting the actual point and value of art. And while I couldn't put a name to what that is without a lot more thought, I can pretty confidently say it's not this! Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
P.P.S. – As someone with a background in theater, I think it's personally interesting that "women who get angry" dates back to, like, Medea. There's clearly a difference between Antigone's anger at Ismene for not helping her bury Polynices and, like, Fleabag, but we can chart this stuff over time and I think that's neat.
the point i'm trying to get at with this essay is not that these depictions shouldn't exist or that they're never useful/cathartic/etc. i love a lot of the movies that get labeled 'female rage' films! my point is simply that i don't think labeling them as 'female rage' is useful. i agree that it's not the responsibility or even necessarily the purpose of art to directly change material conditions; i also think we need to be realistic and aware of how much credit we're giving to these types of film for their supposed feminism when we discuss the positives of their depictions, and taking material conditions into account is part of that (including things like who's profiting, etc). as in--a film where many people feel seen and obtain catharsis out of a specific depiction of rage can be a good thing, but it's not necessarily going to be equivalent to other forms of feminist action. and i think we need to be careful with overestimating the 'empowering' impact of catharsis, because it can easily lead to complacency in situations where things feel better but haven't actually gotten better. same thing with the normalization argument--it's good to let people feel like their anger is recognized, but i think we should question whether such depictions are actually making that anger more acceptable by society in the day to day. and my point about all oppressed groups being expected to regulate their emotions is, again, not saying these depictions are worthless or shouldn't exist--it's to emphasize that i think labeling them 'female' rage as if being expected to suppress your anger is solely a facet of misogynistic oppression is not useful.
basically, to answer your first question - this is inteded as a critique on a certain type of film analysis, not the existence of those films in the first place. as i say at the end, i think we should be focusing on how rage is directed and what rage is directed towards in assessing whether/to what extent these films are feminist/empowering/etc, not that we should get rid of rage altogether bc it's never helpful. hopefully this clarifies!
I think people came up with that term a bit too late. It might have been useful during the first waves of feminism (when for lack of inclusivity, only "women's" liberation was the goal). But now when we have much better understanding of how complex and multifaceted gender is, the term has become redundant. We need a new terminology to define "rage against the dominant power".
The Final Girl Studios video you quoted is also critical and brings up how it's a white-centric term. I don't think that out-of-context phrase does it justice.
fair enough, i can add some more context
Writing as a trans woman who nearly uniformly despises usage of the phrase 'female' as a modifier to any kind of experience—as you rightly point out, such a term presumes a unified experience and a taxonomy of human existence that doesn't, well, exist—I think this essay could use a little more defining. When you write and complain about 'female rage,' are you decrying a trend in film or a trend in film analysis? I would assume and had been assuming the latter, but in the first paragraph of the final segment of this essay you write a mystifying paragraph that helped me put a finger on the uncertainty I'd been feeling as I read. You briefly acknowledge the possibility of catharsis, but go forwards to say that "depictions of angry women do very little to actually alter the material conditions of their audience’s lives." I'm baffled by this! I suppose I would ask what art, what essay, or what translation of Marx has ever altered the material conditions of the life of the person who experienced it. We aren't dealing with a magical misogyny-ending fairy godmother who can change things with a flick of her female-rage themed wand, we're dealing with movies and TV shows that are being analyzed in annoying ways by fourteen year olds on TikTok. Your token nod to a 'normalization' argument frustrates me even further. Does art only exist to normalize potentially subversive behavior or to fix gender inequality? It doesn't, and I'm almost certain you don't believe it does either. Tossing aside the 'female' prefix, as you encourage, I'm still comfortable saying that there is something empowering (and fun! I don't think that should be ignored either) about Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body, or by Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke in Do Revenge. Your argument that all marginalized identities, not just women, are discouraged from exhibiting rage doesn't discount the fact that people don't want to see me angry. You concisely criticize of the 'female' label and you resoundingly rebuke gender essentialism. But doing so doesn't make it untrue that there are a wealth of women who are told that they should not feel angry, and seeing women onscreen who do introduces them to a possibility they may not have been able to previously grasp. I guess, to sum it up, none of these movies actually use the words "female rage." I hope that during your salient critiques of media analysis you don't slip up and take friendly fire against the media that is being analyzed.
P.S. – I'm not writing this arguing that Hereditary or Pearl or what have you are morally exempt from critique! I guess I just feel like if we really expect stories to 'alter the material conditions of people's lives' or normalize particular emotions by themselves, I'm worried we're forgetting the actual point and value of art. And while I couldn't put a name to what that is without a lot more thought, I can pretty confidently say it's not this! Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
P.P.S. – As someone with a background in theater, I think it's personally interesting that "women who get angry" dates back to, like, Medea. There's clearly a difference between Antigone's anger at Ismene for not helping her bury Polynices and, like, Fleabag, but we can chart this stuff over time and I think that's neat.
the point i'm trying to get at with this essay is not that these depictions shouldn't exist or that they're never useful/cathartic/etc. i love a lot of the movies that get labeled 'female rage' films! my point is simply that i don't think labeling them as 'female rage' is useful. i agree that it's not the responsibility or even necessarily the purpose of art to directly change material conditions; i also think we need to be realistic and aware of how much credit we're giving to these types of film for their supposed feminism when we discuss the positives of their depictions, and taking material conditions into account is part of that (including things like who's profiting, etc). as in--a film where many people feel seen and obtain catharsis out of a specific depiction of rage can be a good thing, but it's not necessarily going to be equivalent to other forms of feminist action. and i think we need to be careful with overestimating the 'empowering' impact of catharsis, because it can easily lead to complacency in situations where things feel better but haven't actually gotten better. same thing with the normalization argument--it's good to let people feel like their anger is recognized, but i think we should question whether such depictions are actually making that anger more acceptable by society in the day to day. and my point about all oppressed groups being expected to regulate their emotions is, again, not saying these depictions are worthless or shouldn't exist--it's to emphasize that i think labeling them 'female' rage as if being expected to suppress your anger is solely a facet of misogynistic oppression is not useful.
basically, to answer your first question - this is inteded as a critique on a certain type of film analysis, not the existence of those films in the first place. as i say at the end, i think we should be focusing on how rage is directed and what rage is directed towards in assessing whether/to what extent these films are feminist/empowering/etc, not that we should get rid of rage altogether bc it's never helpful. hopefully this clarifies!
I think people came up with that term a bit too late. It might have been useful during the first waves of feminism (when for lack of inclusivity, only "women's" liberation was the goal). But now when we have much better understanding of how complex and multifaceted gender is, the term has become redundant. We need a new terminology to define "rage against the dominant power".
Mitski 😍