Men, Women and Chain Saws

"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 12/18/92

cutline: Berkeley professor Carol Clover, author of "Men, Women and Chain Saws," may be the first person with a Ph.D. ever to watch 200 slasher flicks BY CHOICE.

By Joe Bob Briggs

Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas

For about ten years now, I've been getting flack from various organizations of feminists, fundamentalists, mad mamas and psycho college professors, claiming that the movies I write about--that is, the three B's, Blood, Breasts and Beasts--are sick and demeaning and twisted and perverted.

Of COURSE they are. Why do you think I watch em?

But there's other stuff they say that is NOT true. For example:

1. Slasher movies are demeaning because they celebrate violence against women.

I never understood this one, because I never noticed a single movie in which more women were killed than men, AND in 99 per cent of them, the ONLY person who survives is a woman.

2. Hard-core horror flicks cause crime.

If this is true, the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department should have a posse stationed outside my trailer house 24 hours a day, because NOBODY has watched more hard-core horror flicks than I have. Any day now I could go off the deep end and start flinging hatchets at old ladies.

3. Horror flicks are a way for rednecks (like me) to act out weird violent fantasies.

In other words, all of us out here in the boonies are like the cannibal family in "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." We really WOULD like to be munching on tourists. Otherwise, why would we laugh and hoot at the screen when Leatherface's family does it?

Anyhoo, I've talked till I'm blue in the face about this stuff. I've gone to seminars, challenged the president of the National Organization of Women to a nude mud-wrestling match, faced off against that shrewd fundamentalist, Dr. Thomas Radecki, head of the National Coalition Against TV Violence. But nobody ever listens, because it's "just Joe Bob."

In other words, I'm too pitiful.

So I wanna say something here, and I want you to listen REAL carefully. I'm about to tell you about a book written by a Berkeley professor. This is hard for me. Large parts of my identity depend on HATING everything that comes out of Berkeley. But I like this book so much that I almost don't even wanna review it, because what if everybody says "Oh, don't read THAT. JOE BOB LIKES IT!"

But it gets lonely out here. So here goes.

"Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film" is written by Carol J. Clover, Professor of Scandinavian and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley.

Whew! I'm already exhausted. Carol, next time, when you write a book, study titles like "Jaws" and "It." It's easier on all of us.

Anyhow, I'm not gonna try to analyze this whole book, because a lot of it, frankly, is over my head. (You scoff?) But it's basically about three kinds of flicks--slasher movies, possession films like "The Exorcist," and rape-revenge films like "I Spit On Your Grave." In fact, I'm pretty sure this is the first serious book in the history of the world to do a complete analysis of the PLOT of "I Spit On Your Grave."

But, from my selfish point of view, I want you to know a few things Professor Carol decided after watching about 200 of these movies:

1. Slasher movies are told FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE WOMAN! In fact, the "Final Girl"--or, as I call her, the Jamie Lee Curtis Girl--is so much a part of the slasher film that the writer doesn't have any choice. You've GOT to have a Final Girl, and the Final Girl HAS TO BE A GIRL.

2. Since 99 per cent of the audience at slasher movies is MALE, this means that all those men are IDENTIFYING WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF THE WOMAN! They're experiencing the movie THROUGH A WOMAN'S BODY! . . . In other words, the OPPOSITE of what the feminist censors have been saying for umpteen jillion years now.

3. Jason and Leatherface are actually FEMALES DISGUISED AS MALES. Kind of a transvestite deal. Think about it. Aren't these guys always real screwed up sexually? Don't they always have trouble DECIDING what they are? It's a tradition that continues right up through Jame Crumb, the psycho killer in "Silence of the Lambs." So the original criticism of these movies--that the killers are always male, and the principal victims always female--is turned upside down.

3. The real villains in horror movies are MALE REDNECKS. "The rednecks have replaced the redskins," she says. In the old westerns, any Indian who came on screen was ASSUMED TO BE VIOLENT AND HATEFUL AND SAVAGE. Today, any redneck who comes on the screen is assumed to be violent and hateful and savage.

4. "I Spit On Your Grave," which has been called the most disgusting film ever made (by Eggbert and Siskel), and which has been banned from cable TV for 15 years, is actually told from a female point of view, so that the audience identifies with the ultimate triumph of the woman over the leering rapists. (As I've always said, what male could ever watch the bathtub scene and think the movie is in FAVOR of violence against women? When I see that scene, I can't walk straight for a week.)

5. "The Accused" and "Thelma & Louise" are both watered-down versions of "I Spit On Your Grave." And "Silence of the Lambs" is just another version of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

You think I'm oversimplifying this deal?

Yeah, okay, sure. Probly. I'm probly gonna get a letter from the whole goldang Berkeley faculty, saying "You ignorant yahoo, that's NOT what it means."

But right now, today, after reading this book, I feel pretty good about it. Makes me think there's some hope. Makes me think some smart people will get their hands on it and become dumb like me.

Hundreds of dead bodies. No breasts. Academic Fu. "Men, Women and Chain Saws," published by--oh my God!--Princeton University Press.

Four stars.

Joe Bob says check it out.

JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS

Republican Alert! The Westbury Drive-In on Brush Hollow Road in Westbury, N.Y., last remaining drive-in on Long Island, is being targeted by developers, who want to rip it down and put up a 14-screen "multiplex cinema" and a BJ's Wholesale Club. The Westbury has three screens and is located on 24 tree-lined acres. Once again, look at your ratios here: it takes 14 screens to replace three OUTDOOR screens. Lisa Valentine of New York reminds us that, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here.

To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and Joe Bob's world-famous "We Are the Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.

Dear Joe Bob,

YOU'RE GONNA LOVE THIS. You know how in the Nuevo York play, "Six Degrees of Separation," how everybody in the world is separated from everybody else, including Sidney Poitier, by no more than six other people?

Well, a friend of mine has been keeping my cultural needs satisfied by sending me your columns while I've been here in England for a few months. The last batch included your column on Potomac Somnorifics, or something like that, and said that the British do it better than we in 'Murica by standing up, saying what they mean, and sitting down (in Parliament).

Well, my British girlfriend's friend, who is from Mississippi, mind you, is married to an Em Pee and Cabinet Minister. We sent your column to her, she gave it to him, he gave it to his secretary, and she's circulating it to selected members of The Ruling Class, including the cabinet. So, I want you to know, that there are no more than six degrees of separation between you and John Major, Maggie Thatcher, and all the other Right Honorable Gentlemen and Ladies! You are gettin to be as famous as Kid Shilleen, or however you spell it.

God save the drive-in!

Michael Massey

Sunderland, England

Dear Mike:

If you circulate this letter to John Major, give him this message:

There are a FEW things Americans still do better than the English. For example, we stopped using Brylcreem in 1968.

Dear Joe Bob,

I know columnists get hard up for subjects at times, and nothing is easier than expounding on the latest current events, especially if they're something tasty like the Clarence Thomas hearings, but I was really disappointed in a couple of your recent columns (really).

It's tough enough defending my native state out here without someone like you taking the good ol' boys' side in a sexual harassment case. You're supposed to be a caricature of the guys I went to high school with in a little town outside of Dallas, right? Then how come the Anita Hill columns came off sounding awfully like your real opinion? If I'm being dense and the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek, a big Never Mind. If you really think Anita Hill was a coward, I say get a grip on the real world of human foibles.

Men joke about wanting to be sexually harassed because 99 per cent of them never have been. When's the last time you shrank from walking down the street because a gaggle of construction jerks made leering remarks? Or worried about walking to your car at night or noises in your apartment? You don't worry about those things for the same reason you've probably never had to face what you considered to be serious on-the-job harassment: Women generally don't have the physical strength or inclination to pick on men. And if they did, few men would feel truly endangered because the fact is most of them are still strong enough to defend themselves.

To read your column I'd have to surmise you've never been timid in your life, always stood up for truth and justice no matter what the personal cost to you, never backed down from a bully. That's quite impressive. You're also assuming that any red-blooded male would jump at the chance of dating his female boss as long as she was good looking and flossed regularly. Even if this were true, how do you think you'd handle a boss who looked like Divine and wanted a date, the refusal of which might put a significant dent in your career?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, walk a mile in someone else's heels before doing a hatchet job, even in jest, on the Anita Hills of the world. And to think I read an interview with you in Texas Monthly and thought you sounded pretty neat.

Yours truly,

Carla Mathews

Livermore, Calif.

Dear Carla:

Everybody gets timid, scared, feels like a jerk, including me. Maybe especially me. The only test of courage is do you go ahead and speak up ANYWAY when you feel like a timid scared powerless jerk?

Anybody can speak up when they feel STRONG.

It's only in the last twenty years that people have started thinking you should do ANYTHING to avoid getting fired.

I was just saying that no job is worth that. If you wait ten years, after you're safely out of that job and don't have anything to lose, then you've kind of done it the cowardly way, wouldn't you agree?

Dear Joe Bob,

The most often shown movie on television must be "The Beastmaster," a 1982 drive-in type flick in the "Conan the Barbarian" genre starring Tanya Roberts, Marc Singer, John "Good Times" Amos and Rip Torn.

It must be Ted Turner's favorite movie of all time, because it is shown on TBS and TNT about eight times a year, plus it turns up on WGN and local stations a couple more times each year.

I have seen "The Beastmaster" several times on TV and I can't understand its appeal. The acting is terrible, the dialogue is ridiculous, the plot is as predictable as it is lame, and John Amos wears a loincloth. The only thing I can figure is that there must have been a lot of scenes of Tanya Roberts' bare chest in the original before it was edited for TV. Am I right?

Sincerely,

Tony Martin

Fort Worth, Tex.

Dear Tony:

The original version of "The Beastmaster" had one EXCELLENT scene displaying Tanya Roberts' two enormous talents, and it also had more barbarian violence than the TV version. The best actors in the movie, though, are the little ferrets that live in Marc Singer's breast-plate.

People love the ferrets, Tony. What can I say?

Joe Bob,

This is Caveman Country and wouldn't it be great if there was a Cave In Drive-In?

We have a Redwood Drive-In that thrives in the summertime but never plays any of the movies you and I love. So I don't feel guilty about sneaking kids in in the trunk of my dad's Mercury Marquis.

At least there's two chainsaws in every garage here though.

I'd love to discuss the meaning of life with you and have even thought a little of bearing your love child. But you've probably guessed my nose is too big for my skull and that my breasts are barely 32 B's.

XXXXXXX

Your fervent servant,

Mo' McCoy

Grants Pass, Ore.

Dear Mo:

About that love child: It's not the size of a chainsaw that counts, but what you can DO with it.

Joe Bob--

When my girl, Flossie Bytheway, told me she wanted to see a movie called "Eating" with, get this, no men in it, I figured she was feeling a little far out and wanted to rent some lesbo video. (Have you seen the one called "Vagina Ecology"?) Well, in "Eating," three generations of dames show up to a Saturday afternoon birthday/pool party, and I'm thinking, "Please, not another 'Steel Magnolias.'" But there's this really nice-looking French babe videotaping the party for a French TV documentary. Now I've heard about all the skin they show on French TV, so now I'm thinking, "Great!" But, Joe Bob, nothing ever happens in this movie. The chicks talk, of course, and they eat a lot, 'cuz that's what chicks do when guys aren't around, but they talked about some weird stuff.

I've got a feeling this movie is dangerous. I think it's one of those Wimmin's films about Wimmin's problems. I'm not talking chicks at the drive-in movie problems; these are art-film-house-near-campus problems, and we're gonna have GUY problems everywhere if this movie gets around.

Well, I'm no Joe Bob, but here goes: two breasts (the French babe, of course), no dead bodies, no Julia Roberts, no Dolly Parton, Basic Bimbo Fu, Mom/Daughter Fu, Primal-therapy Fu, Stab-in-the-back-bitch Fu, Bulimia Fu, Marriage-break-up-over-the-phone Fu, I-laughed-in-the-wrong-place Fu. Academy Award to me 'cuz my girl, Flossie Bytheway, thinks I'm a S.N.A.G. (Sensitive New Age Guy) just for being one of eight dudes in an audience of 200 Wimmin. This was an unexpected bonus, that's for sure, and a lot of them were real cute and probably unnattached since they were all without guys on a Friday night. I'm going back next week by myself and see if I can get lucky. You gotta check it out.

Your faithful reader,

Ralph McDonut

San Francisco

Dear Ralph:

They don't shave their armpit hair or anything, do they?

There's no mustache-waxing, is there?

There are some things about women I do NOT wanna witness.

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