Teeth
Teeth, Image via Roadside Attractions
Sub-Genre: Comedy-horror
What it’s about: Dawn is a religious teenager who works to spread the word about her lifestyle of abstinence. She meets a boy after one of her speeches and they really hit it off, but decide they shouldn’t see each other so they aren’t tempted. They eventually meet up and begin to get physical. But when Dawn tries to stop it, the boy tries to rape her. Suddenly, her vagina literally bites off his penis. After several frightening occurrences, Dawn realizes she has vagina dentata. Dawn has to learn to empower herself to harness this power, even as her own life falls apart.
What makes it feminist: In case you haven’t realized yet, the feminist undertones in Teeth are extremely overt. Dawn’s vagina dentate is, in itself, incredibly symbolic of the rejection of patriarchy. I mean, she literally cuts penises off with her vagina. How much more obvious can you get?
But the metaphor goes even deeper than that. At some point in the story, Dawn experiences a positive sexual encounter and realizes that her “teeth’ don’t come out. Dawn’s vagina dentata only act when she is being abused. This observation goes a long way here. Because initially, Dawn is horrified that she hurt someone so badly, even though she didn’t exactly mean to. She, as a highly religious young person, sees it as an immeasurable sin. Her tremendous guilt about it persists until that moment with the consensual experience. Only then does Dawn realize that it is not her fault. Like many women who blame themselves for their abuser’s actions, Dawn can only see that she isn’t the problem when she is treated respectfully.
Trigger Warning: You can probably tell from the description above, but Dawn does experience rape and sexual assault in this movie.