Hostile Hostel takes woman-hating to a new level

WARNING: Hey kids! This piece includes details that may give you some bad nightmares. And we definitely don’t want to give you nightmares.

Hostel: Part II, the latest installment from Quentin Tarantino and his merry band of all-male producers, is coming out tomorrow. The main characters in the first Hostel were male backpackers, but this time, they are women — young, beautiful female actors.

Somehow, someone got the idea that women as victims would be extra-edgy. Torturing women! Cool! Then we can see their hot bodies get mutilated in a bloody pool while bound and gagged! I’m a movie fan, but c’mon, people!

According to an anonymous review written on IMDB, when you enter the theater, you’ll be treated to “3 beautiful college students … tricked into entering a hostel where the ‘hosts’ like to torture, rape and murder. … three women are lured into a hostel by a handsome young man who sells them to the twisted masters, who tie them up and bring upon an unthinkable world of pain… ”

Yes, that was “torture, rape and murder” and yes, he *sells* the women to the masters.

Some of the insanely bad movie posters for Hostel II.

Especially in the poster on the far left, we have a woman’s naked body mixed with violence (the decapitated head) to produce maximum arousal for adolescent boys.

Eli Roth, writer and director of Hostel II, and two of his leading actresses. They must love him.

Eli Roth, the writer/director of Hostel II, said in an interview with Cinematical.com, “Here’s the thing: I just want to create a story, and make it scary and interesting. I want everything to be about the next level. The movie is really about the next level of depravity — that sex doesn’t get you off, that violence is a substitute for that.”

We’ve been watching girls get killed in horror movies for years, but Hostel II seems to take it right over the edge into pure misogyny. Some writers are calling these realistic films featuring women or men “torture porn.” The very term says a lot about how our culture interweaves sex (i.e. sexual acts being done to women) and violence and why we can’t seem to separate the two.

Some super-scary shots from Hostel II.

But here’s my thing: Women and girls are being tortured for real, every day, around the world, because they are women. And it’s because they are seen as less than men, less than human.

I hear the horror-film buffs now: “C’mon, the hot chicks always die in horror movies. It’s just a director pushing the envelope. And it’s just a movie. It’s not real.”

You know what, um, no. It’s not “just a movie.” Art imitates life, or at least a dreamlike, skewed version of life. And in Hostel II, we’re seeing the acting-out of a culture that is still trying to maintain women’s roles as the objects of sex or violence. It’s the fantasy world of unaware boys and men — so, my woman friends, watch your backs.

Tips for taking action: Phone up your local theaters that are showing Hostel II this weekend and tell them you won’t be going to see this misogynistic film at their theater. Write a letter/e-mail or make a phone call to Lionsgate films, the studio that produced Hostel II, and tell them what you think:
Lionsgate / 2700 Colorado Ave. / Santa Monica, CA 90404
Phone: (310) 449-9200 / Fax: (310) 255-3870 / general-inquiries@lgf.com

– J.B.

9 comments June 7th, 2007

Betty Love

Though I’ve only seen two episodes, I am hooked on “Ugly Betty.” It’s cheesy, dramatic, funny—all the key elements of a soap opera. It’s television shows like this one where I can’t decide whether I should boycott it or question the urge I have to watch it all day.

Betty is lovable. I can’t get enough of her. I relate to her because she is unlike most characters I see on television. However, the show plays on a lot of racial, class, and gender stereotypes, which in turn affect women’s self-esteem and body image.

Some of my feedback from the pilot episode:

Betty is smart, funny, ambitious, and confident. Her confidence strikes me, because usually when we see “nerdy” women on television, they are too wrapped up in their all-consuming geekiness to place value on hygiene or anything related to maintaining “femininity.” They try to accept their inherent geekiness with pride. Betty seems to know she doesn’t fit in. She doesn’t seem concerned with defining her identity within the standards set by her co-workers. Her niche includes women who are also Mode Magazine outcasts. They seem woman-centric and supportive of one another, which apparently isn’t valued at Mode. Why are the so-called “popular women” (a.k.a. fashionable and superficial ones) usually portrayed as catty, jealous, and competitive in mainstream media?

Here are a few more questions the pilot episode raised for me:

• Why do ambitious women often get portrayed as catty, competitive, mean, superficial witches or innocent, nice, unattractive (by mainstream standards), clumsy, wool-wearing simpletons?
• What are some stereotypes Hilda, Betty’s sister, perpetuates about Latina women?

And one more thing–Daniel was sexually harrassing his first assistant. Apparently if you are a beautiful and sexy (by mainstream standards) woman, you can’t expect to be taken as a serious professional. However, if you are geeky, and unattractive, you can expect to be respected…that is, after your boss feels bad for working you into the ground in an attempt to get you to quit!

If you’ve seen “Ugly Betty,” I’d love to know what you think. More to come…

–A.J.

1 comment March 8th, 2007