Ivana Chen/Contributing Illustrator
You are a 12-year-old boy in 2009, and you have just reached the coveted last class of Friday. You watch the clock hands aimlessly — too bad, now you can’t factor. When that bell finally rings, you clip on your helmet and erupt out of your seat and into the halls. You know you look idiotic, but your mother has spies everywhere eager to snap a picture of you without it. You suck it up, and you ride.
A euphoric feeling is in the air this afternoon. Is it the freedom from the chokehold of academia’s rigidness? Is it tonight’s McDonald’s meal that your father promised to buy you because your mom divorced him, and he wants to be your favorite parent? No. It’s what stands before you. It’s Megan Fox’s boobs.
You grab your popcorn and are ready to go.
Except, when you sit for this screening of Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody’s “Jennifer Body,” you don’t realize the enigma of feminist critique that you are entering. This is nothing like what you saw in trailers. The girl-on-girl scene is totally overhyped. You leave a Rotten Tomatoes review of 37% and ride back to your friend’s house for a debrief. You tell Carl his sister is hot.
I watched “Jennifer’s Body” for the first time this school year, knowing its mixed legacy. The movie is a hidden gem, a satire so layered and clever that the majority of first-time viewers in 2009 missed its pro-woman message. The marketing campaign of 20th Century Fox undermined the film’s chances right from the start by excluding the very demographic that the filmmaking team had intended the movie for: women. This Halloween, forgo the overdone, overhyped horror classics. Take the path of nuance, and get your girls together for a “Jennifer’s Body” watch party!
If you knew anything about “Jennifer’s Body” when it came out, it was probably that it was going to give you the chance to see Megan Fox being sexy. Fox was fresh off the set of “Transformers” as Mikaela Banes, a seductive schoolgirl who could fix your car in 10 seconds in a bikini, and the straight men were waiting for more.
When it came time to market “Jennifer’s Body,” the movie studio took an expected approach. The poster featured Fox scantily clad, legs poised like a good girl, with the hook, “She’s got a taste for bad boys.”
It may as well have been an advertisement for a porno, which apparently is not such a farfetched notion, as a preliminary marketing idea was to have Fox host an amateur porn site to promote the film. Cody and Kusama were disgusted but unsurprised.
“[W]e are seeing either we made a movie that they see completely differently, or what’s in front of them is something they don’t want to see,’” Kusama said in a 2018 interview with IndieWire. “It was awful, but now I’m realizing this is evident of the world at large.”
While the film is nuanced and manages to critique a diaspora of elements in just 90 minutes, it does a superb job of spotlighting female friendship dynamics, men’s obsession with women’s sexual expression and the death of innocence in adolescence.
If you haven’t actually seen “Jennifer’s Body,” I suggest you pause here and put your Emory University-sponsored Max account to good use. If that’s too much, here’s what you need to know: a high school girl named Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) becomes a man-eating demon after a ritual gone wrong, and her best friend Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) attempts to save her and their town. From there, it’s all spoilers.
One of Cody and Kusama’s main objectives with the film was to highlight the beauty and complexity of female friendships — hence why I suggest you watch it with your girlfriends! Jennifer, a popular cheerleader, and Needy, a shy nerdy schoolgirl, are unlikely best friends. However, their relationship is strong, and is, at times homoerotic. In a 2009 interview with “The Frisky”, Cody wrote about this portrayal:
“[w]hen I was a teenage girl, the friendships that I had with other girls were almost romantic, they were so intense. I wanted to sleep at my friend’s house every night, I wanted to wear her clothes, [and] we would talk on the phone until our ears ached.”
Jennifer and Needy portray this, and their physical relationship escalates this notion to show its prominence. Their makeout scene occurs in the middle of a screaming match between the two. There is also a string of toxicity in Jennifer and Needy’s relations that complicates the erotic and the platonic. For instance, Jennifer is often degrading toward Needy, with a tone that is more condescending than not. But Needy, akin to her nickname, disregards this mistreatment, as she feels she could not function without Jennifer — a common trope in toxic relationships.
In the film, the theme of male obsession with female sexuality is prominently showcased. The scene involving Jennifer’s virginity sacrifice illuminates the twisted and perverse nature of this fixation, as the group of male characters capitalize on an innocent girl’s vulnerability for their own gain. Jennifer turns into a man-eating demon after losing her virginity, flipping the power back to her.
Religion permeates the narrative as a metaphor for deeper societal norms and beliefs that perpetuate this dangerous obsession. This connection is epitomized when a religious man is murdered by Jennifer while clutching his rosary, symbolizing the distorted and entangled relationship between faith, desire and violence. These moments in the film underline the perilous consequences of idealizing and objectifying women, ultimately highlighting the exploitation and violence that can arise from such attitudes.
The theme of the death of innocence is prevalent throughout the film, as it explores the loss of virginity as a symbol of purity and the destruction of seemingly innocent characters. Needy witnesses Jennifer’s transformation into this demon-like creature, an event that underscores how virginity is perceived as an emblem of innocence and its loss can lead to a metaphorical death.
While nice men in the story are often portrayed as innocent due to their kindhearted nature, they still fall victim to Jennifer’s seduction and murderous intentions. Chip, Needy’s boy-next-door boyfriend, does not escape Jennifer’s pull, and while he is dying, he can’t muster much more to Needy than how hot she looks in her dress. This nuanced portrayal prompts contemplation on gender roles and sexuality within the story. Despite embodying kindness, Chip’s vulnerability highlights an underlying theme: That surface-level kindness does not mean a man is incapable of dark things.
Needy begins the film as the epitome of the good girl archetype, a portrayal of innocence and simplicity that contrasts sharply with the seductive allure of her best friend, Jennifer. As the story unfolds, Needy’s life takes a tragic turn as she witnesses Jennifer’s demonic possession, thrusting her into a world of supernatural horrors and challenging her sheltered worldview. Her journey is marked by a tragic loss of innocence as she uncovers dark truths, becoming entwined in supernatural horrors and grappling with her own guilt and newfound powers.
To fully appreciate the depth of “Jennifer’s Body” I implore you to revisit this cinematic piece with a fresh perspective this Halloween. It’s time to recognize and celebrate the feminist commentary that the film masterfully weaves into its plot. So take a day off from barhopping this Hallo-week (in case Mags decides to go Melody Lane on the students of Emory). Let’s grab our popcorn and seize this opportunity to appreciate “Jennifer’s Body” for what it truly is: a thought-provoking and nuanced exploration of female friendships, societal obsession with sexuality and the tumultuous journey from innocence to empowerment.
Maddy Prucha (26C) is from Long Island, NY.
Madeleine Prucha (she/her) (26C) is from Long Island, New York, majoring in economics and human health and minoring in English. She previously served as president of her high school's paper, The Gull, for which she founded a creative writing column. She is highly involved in NEDA Campus Warriors, Emory Gymnastics and Kappa Alpha Pi. In her free time, you can find her baking for her Instagram account, listening to the La La Land soundtrack or threatening to beat people in a badminton match.
