Teeth

Spoiler Alert- Teeth is a movie based on a young woman, Dawn, who has a vagina with teeth. You can imagine how great this is going to work for her. Dawn unfortunately encounters many boys and men who are rapists, perverts, don’t know how to treat women, and they get the karma they deserve. The first time a sexual situation happened was when a boy asks to see Dawn’s vagina and it bites him. Her vagina is basically speaking for her since she is not speaking up. Her vagina biting him shows she is uncomfortable with the situation and he needs to stop. Some time goes by and while in class, she learns about genitalia, and her teacher doesn’t speak about vaginas but the vagina is covered in her textbook. Why is it okay to talk about penises but not vagnias? Not shaming penises, but how is it more comfortable to talk about penises than a vagina when humans naturally come out of vaginas? Sexist behavior can even come from our teachers, who we look up to most! Surprise! Dawn wants to save herself for marriage because sex is important to her, but her brother is the complete opposite and does not believe in this at all. She finally finds a boy that she is interested in, Toby, and things are going great for them. She develops feelings for him, and they eventually kiss at a swimming hole that they met at. One thing leads to another and Toby becomes obviously horny and wants to move further. Dawn is not comfortable with this considering she is saving herself for marriage, and she starts to panic. Toby panics as well but becomes forceful and aggressive towards Dawn. Dawn ends up getting hurt and so Toby took advantage of Dawn and raped her. She was mortified, and her vagina bit his penis off. She was so upset knowing that her first time having sex was with a guy who she didn’t give consent to and he was forceful and took advantage of her body.

Dawn decides it is best to go to the gynecologist to see what is happening with her vagina, and he sexually assaults her and her vagina bit his fingers off. Again, this was a way of her vagina defending her and stopping these horny, gross men from thinking they can just control women like that. Tammy Oler, the author of The Brave Ones states, “The rape-revenge genre is responsible for a vicous celluloid legacy of violence and victimization of women, but at the same time, it allows us to identify with a fantasy of female power and recrimination that is second to none in cinema” (Oler 31).  Teeth falls under the rape-revenge genre because Dawn is getting revenge on the men raping her by biting their penises off. Although the men get what they deserve, it is still traumatizing to Dawn. Dawn comes home one day and realizes that her mother is on the ground and is not responsive, so she gets taken to the hospital and passes away. She goes to her friend Ryan and confesses to him about everything going on, and he tries to help her. He thinks that this may be happening since she did not consent to either of these situations, so he helps her to see if her vagina would bite off a vibrator even though it isn’t harming her in any way. She enjoys it and consents to it, and her vagina does not bite it off.

She then decides to engage in sex with Ryan which she consents to, and her vagina does not bite his penis off until he starts focusing on a phone call while having sex and is not focusing on her. Dawn leaves and then later speaks to her stepfather about her mother’s sudden, unfortunate death. Her stepfather is hysterical over the fact that Brad, her step-brother, knew something was happening but just ignored it. Dawn has had enough with these disgusting men and decides to plan something that will show Brad that he is a pig. She seduces him and gets him to take his clothes off, and then her vagina out of anger bites his penis off, which kills him. She tries to ride her bike away and finds a car that picks her up, but while in the car trying to recover from everything that has happened to her, she realizes she is in a pedophile’s car, and then the movie ends. Overall, Dawn has encountered many unfortunate situations in which she encountered awful men who got what they deserved in the end.