Rape, Racism, and Descent into the Ethical Quagmire of Revenge

Abstract

The victim-avengers of the rape-revenge genre in American cinema are almost exclusively white women. This is very rarely problematized in critical literature on the genre, which reinscribes the genre’s exclusion of women of color, even in the two decades since Kirsten Marthe Lentz insisted, “We need to be critical of rape revenge narratives which privilege the horror of white female victimization over (and to the exclusion of) the horrible victimization of women of color” (1993, 398). Rape-revenge’s canon formation replicates a racist hierarchy—common in cinema and media discourses, as well as in law—in which the aggravated rape of white women by strangers is considered “real” rape, the type of rape that gains attention, is taken seriously, and is viewed as deserving of punishment (or in rape-revenge, as deserving of revenge). One example of this structural absence in rape-revenge is the disregard of Foxy Brown (Jack Hill, 1974), which tends not to be recognized as a canonical rape-revenge film despite being a popular early example that instituted some of the key conventions (such as the comic presentation of castration as a climactic revenge act).¹ In certain ways, common criticisms made against white second-wave feminism—for ignoring the experiences of women of color while prioritizing and universalizing the experiences of white women; for not recognizing interlocking oppressions or fighting racism equally and alongside the fight against sexism—can be brought against the genre and its critical literature that, as Jacinda Read argues, reflects the influence of this white women’s movement.