You pretend to be nice and you're trash‪.‬ Madeline Looks Back

Rape-revenge movies have a reputation as voyeuristic at best, or at worst, distorted fantasies made by men, for men. Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman” reimagines the genre by exploring what revenge and reparations would be sufficient to punish a rapist. We explore the societal and legal structures that fail rape survivors and how men respond when women don’t act the way they expect.

Content warning: This episode deals with rape and trauma, so if that’s not something you want to listen to, check out one of our other episodes.

Cited:

Clover, Carol J. "Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film." Princeton University Press, 1997.

Machado, Carmen Maria. "How 'Promising Young Woman' Refigures the Rape-Revenge Movie." The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/how-promising-young-woman-refigures-the-rape-revenge-movie

Wilson, Lena. "Rape-Revenge Tales: Cathartic? Maybe. Incomplete? Definitely." The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/movies/rape-revenge-films-flaws.html

The music used in this episode is "Lost Souls" by Portrayal freemusicarchive.org/music/Portraya…l_-_Lost_Souls used under an attribution license creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/