Mitchell Lichtenstein’s 2007 horror-comedy Teeth is transgressive and it’s hilarious. It’s kind of terrible, but as part of that brilliant cinematic genre of good-terrible, resulting in a feminist parable that looks directly at the hypocrisy of purity culture and the relentlessness of male entitlement.
Lichtenstein’s direction is nuanced, balancing body horror with dark comedy, and always maintaining genuine sympathy for his protagonist, Dawn, played by Jess Weixler.
Dawn is a teenager who praises the rewards of sexual abstinence, but she is overwhelmed and conflicted about the overt sexuality that surrounds her. The teen years are confusing, after all.
She is subjected to a truly awful series of life events and ultimately discovers that what she thought was monstrous about herself may actually be her saving grace.
Teeth, as the name may hint at, is about vagina dentata, the mythological idea found – fascinatingly – across a vast array of cultures across the world, throughout history that women’s vaginas contain teeth.
So approach them with caution and kindness.
Dawn finds to her horror that she has vagina dentata, and a relentless parade of boys and men approach her with neither caution nor kindness.
Instead, they approach with aggression or coercion, and they face some unusual consequences. Namely, instant castration. Which is not something Dawn chooses. It just happens.
This, initially, is as alarming to Dawn as it is to her now-impotent aggressors. Weixler conveys this bewilderment and alarm with skill, avoiding the risk of the film being purely about either silliness or gore.
Instead, we see a young woman facing reacting with genuine emotional complexity to her own desire, shame and, ultimately, agency.
The male characters’ reactions to the consequences of their actions are also remarkably well depicted. There are more layers of responses to their sudden amputations than you might anticipate, adding nuance to what could otherwise become a repetitive trope.
Teeth and purity culture
One of the themes Teeth examines is how American Christian purity culture weaponises and demonises women’s sexuality. Dawn’s initial embrace of abstinence-only ideology feels naïve, but it also lays out the oppressive nature of a system that teaches young women to fear their own bodies and desires, which we clearly see as Dawn tries to suppress her own growing sexuality.
The film never mocks Dawn for her initial beliefs. Instead, it exposes the toxic environment that shaped and reinforced them.
This film is self-aware. It knows exactly what it is doing with its in-your-face metaphors
After all, this film is self-aware. It knows exactly what it is doing with its in-your-face metaphors suggesting penises and vaginas all over the place.
It knows exactly which buttons to push, as it were, to invoke sexual imagery. Then it pushes them all.
Consent and justice
The attitude to consent in Teeth is surprisingly sophisticated, especially for a film from 2007. Each of Dawn’s encounters serves as a commentary on a different type of entitlement and sexual coercion, from the manipulative “nice guy” to the more overt predator.
The visceral justice contained in Teeth may be fantastical, but it speaks to very real frustrations about living in a rape culture that consistently assaults women, then tells us why it was our fault.
The visceral justice is also, I have to say, gratifying. There’s a point in the film that involves a severed penis and a rottweiler; I’m sure I should not experience quite as much schadenfreude as I do at that moment, but there’s something about justice of any kind being such a fucking rarity that I refuse to feel bad about enjoying it.
Justifiable anger
Perhaps surprisingly, Teeth does not pathologise Dawn’s vagina and its teeth that know precisely when to attack. Nor does it present it, or her, as monstrous.
Instead, the vagina dentata serve as a metaphor for female rage and the power that violent systems and structures work so hard to contain.
It shows us, in blood and gore, that women’s anger is justified.
In fact, it is to be feared.
Teeth speaks to very real frustrations about living in a rape culture that consistently assaults women, then tells us why it was our fault
As a film, Teeth is outrageously heavy handed. Every phrase, every visual, and every scene is unapologetically making a very clear point.
It bangs its message home with its tongue so firmly in its cheek that it gets away with it.
It is heavy handed but gloriously so, with more than a hint of camp.
This film may look like it’s portraying extremes – can one girl really come up against such a series of predators? The answer is that yes, she can. We regularly do. So the extremes portrayed in the film are the very extremes the film is critiquing. Extremes that are creating carnage in the lives of women and girls daily.
Traditionally, the horror genre has relied on themes of women being tortured and terrorised as a form of gory entertainment, and Teeth stands out by subjecting abusive men to a fraction of that treatment. (You might just cheer it along as it does so.)
It is heavy handed but gloriously so, with more than a hint of camp.
This film combines its unflinching examination of social issues with genuine entertainment in a way that feels refreshing, and also silly. For a film that’s essentially about violence and rape, it was unusual in that it left me feeling taller rather than smaller.
Teeth trusts its audience to handle complexity, making this movie both subversive and compassionate. It is challenging and confronting, but it is also cathartic for anyone who has had their fill of sexual violence – whether on film or in real life or both – and a sense of liberation might just stick with you after the end credits.
And if Teeth should also make the odd rapist feel a little bit scared, all the better.