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SMNTY Classics: The Female Revengers (Part 1) · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Addy and Samantha.
0:07
Speaker 2: Stuff one never told you objection by Heart Radio, And
0:18
Speaker 2: today we are bringing back part one of our two
0:24
Speaker 2: parter on Female Revenge. I'm gonna tell you this one
0:29
Speaker 2: put me in a place. These two put me in
0:30
Speaker 2: a place, so be prepared. They're a little intense. They're
0:36
Speaker 2: a little intense, but because of some last of us
0:41
Speaker 2: related reasons, I thought it.
0:42
Speaker 1: Would be good to bring it back.
0:45
Speaker 2: You know, yes, so please enjoy part of our episode
0:50
Speaker 2: on Female Revenge.
0:57
Speaker 3: Hey, this is Annie and welcome to stuff Mom. Never
1:00
Speaker 3: told your production of iHeartRadio's House Stuff works. You know
1:12
Speaker 3: what one of my resolutions is, what is your resolution
1:15
Speaker 3: to stop saying the intro so quickly?
1:18
Speaker 4: Oh well, it's better than what I do, since I've
1:20
Speaker 4: never done it, and I'm just grateful that you do.
1:23
Speaker 1: One day, I'm all good.
1:25
Speaker 4: I am a little fearful of the day that you're
1:28
Speaker 4: gone with safer and I have to do something because
1:30
Speaker 4: we're behind or something, and I had to do an
1:32
Speaker 4: introduction like this, and I'm gonna be like, oh, I
1:34
Speaker 4: miss Annie so much right now.
1:36
Speaker 3: But you can learn from my mistakes. That is one
1:39
Speaker 3: of my many resolutions. That's not my only resolution.
1:41
Speaker 4: Well, I will say one of the problems is because.
1:44
Speaker 1: You do it.
1:45
Speaker 4: I don't even pay attention. But it sounds like I
1:48
Speaker 4: think I tried. We tried this one time with an outro.
1:51
Speaker 4: I try to do an outro and it was such
1:53
Speaker 4: a cluster and I was like, I'm done.
1:55
Speaker 1: You do it.
1:56
Speaker 3: I still have to write it down, even though I've
1:57
Speaker 3: said it so many times. But we're anyway not talking
2:02
Speaker 3: about resolutions today. We're talking about female Revenge, love It, history,
2:10
Speaker 3: science examples, and it ballooned into such a big episode.
2:15
Speaker 1: It's now a two parter.
2:17
Speaker 4: Well, and I think part of that was you and
2:18
Speaker 4: I kept going on and on and on adding to
2:21
Speaker 4: the movie list or just a genre of it because
2:24
Speaker 4: I'm like, I like this one, and like this one
2:26
Speaker 4: and this one and this one, and this could be considered,
2:27
Speaker 4: and this is considered because we actually went beyond. We
2:30
Speaker 4: could talk about TV shows, and we do couple, but
2:33
Speaker 4: not all of them obviously.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, but then even trips.
2:36
Speaker 4: With like books as well as comics or graphic novels,
2:41
Speaker 4: we don't exactly get into all of that level, right,
2:44
Speaker 4: So it could be like a five.
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Speaker 3: Day series, it could be an entire podcast just revenge,
2:51
Speaker 3: because you're right, I didn't even think about comic books.
2:54
Speaker 1: What is it? Yeah with me, I can't believe you
2:56
Speaker 1: didn't go there. Maybe will come to me as we
2:59
Speaker 1: do it, So that's your lane.
3:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we are planning some specific episodes on Birds
3:04
Speaker 3: of Prey Black Widow, so well we'll come back to
3:07
Speaker 3: that before we get into all of the stuff we
3:10
Speaker 3: have to talk about. We did want to put a
3:12
Speaker 3: trigger warning hair because there's gonna be discussion around sexual
3:15
Speaker 3: assought violence, brief mentions of mental health, and suicide where
3:19
Speaker 3: these revenge things get pretty dark. Yes, yeah, and it's
3:22
Speaker 3: actually something I didn't have too much knowledge around when
3:26
Speaker 3: it comes to entertainment, this idea of women in revenge.
3:30
Speaker 3: As I've said before, most revenge media makes me uncomfortable
3:33
Speaker 3: and nervous, which is funny because I've actually written a
3:36
Speaker 3: lot of things about revenge in my own life.
3:40
Speaker 1: So I think I think there's something.
3:42
Speaker 3: About the fantastical element of superhero type revenge that I
3:46
Speaker 3: can click out and it seems like fantasy and watching
3:49
Speaker 3: like revenge, even though it's heightened usually there's something about it.
3:54
Speaker 3: It just puts me on edge, which I think is
3:56
Speaker 3: the point.
3:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, that is the point. It makes you uncomfortable, right,
3:59
Speaker 4: It kind of makes you look your shoulders at all times.
4:01
Speaker 3: Right, And I a good revenge movie makes you question
4:06
Speaker 3: the main character and whether or not they're justified in
4:09
Speaker 3: what they're doing.
4:09
Speaker 4: I think this is definitely one of those anti hero
4:12
Speaker 4: right ideas.
4:14
Speaker 1: Right, And I didn't want to say in here.
4:16
Speaker 3: I have a friend who is excellent at revenge. She
4:22
Speaker 3: I hope I never end up on her bad side.
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Speaker 3: The anchovies in the car, the ants in the car. Basically,
4:27
Speaker 3: your car is not a safe place if you made
4:29
Speaker 3: her mad.
4:30
Speaker 4: You know, that's kind of a trope as well, that
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Speaker 4: the girlfriend, the mean quote unquote crazy girlfriend.
4:36
Speaker 1: They always go after the car, right.
4:38
Speaker 4: It does seem to be that type of feel I've
4:41
Speaker 4: definitely met women that I'm like, Yeah, you scare me
4:44
Speaker 4: because you have not only do you think of it,
4:47
Speaker 4: and I think a lot of people think bad thoughts,
4:49
Speaker 4: but you actually start planning it. And when you start
4:51
Speaker 4: planning it, you know you better watch out right.
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Speaker 3: And so this isn't something I'm very familiar with, but
4:59
Speaker 3: you are a right.
5:01
Speaker 4: Yes, I do really really love female revenge movies. Unfortunately,
5:05
Speaker 4: with some of the me too stuff is it's kind
5:07
Speaker 4: of taken out of my rotation a lot of the
5:09
Speaker 4: ones that I really do love, and I'm very sad
5:12
Speaker 4: about that. I also find it really interesting because one
5:15
Speaker 4: of the things, and I don't think we mentioned it
5:17
Speaker 4: in here when we talk about mad Max, one of
5:20
Speaker 4: the big problems people had was Cherli Stirn playing of
5:25
Speaker 4: such a pivol character, which in my mind, I'm like,
5:27
Speaker 4: she still need a saving in the end. So I
5:28
Speaker 4: don't understand why people are upset people being men and
5:31
Speaker 4: men's activists, let's put it that way. But it is
5:34
Speaker 4: a kind of a revenge justice type of mentality as well.
5:40
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like, Okay, who are we looking at,
5:43
Speaker 4: who are we rooting for? How are we rooting for it?
5:45
Speaker 4: And how do we come to like the just desserts?
5:48
Speaker 1: You know? I want to see all that I do.
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Speaker 4: I love that because I don't always like really dark,
5:53
Speaker 4: dark things, but when it has a satisfying ending or
5:57
Speaker 4: a satisfying moment, it makes every.
6:00
Speaker 1: Thing okay to me. Yeah, it's carthartic.
6:02
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I made a very foolish mistake in preparation
6:07
Speaker 3: for this, and I've watched probably fifteen of these in
6:10
Speaker 3: like four days in an interesting place.
6:14
Speaker 1: I did not recommend that.
6:15
Speaker 3: No nobody in there thinking about themselves and their health
6:21
Speaker 3: wouldn't have done that. I kept telling myself, why no
6:24
Speaker 3: one's making you do this?
6:26
Speaker 4: I was, Yeah, I was surprised, And I will say
6:29
Speaker 4: one of the reasons, and you'll hear in the later episode.
6:33
Speaker 4: We picked Farst Wives Club because I wanted we were
6:37
Speaker 4: talking about doing a revenge type of themed movie, but
6:42
Speaker 4: I wanted to make sure it wasn't over the top
6:44
Speaker 4: gory and over the top dark. And this is kind
6:47
Speaker 4: of one of the beginnings of the revenge justice type
6:52
Speaker 4: of thought process in movies, and not beginning, that's not true,
6:55
Speaker 4: but you know it was one of the iconic ones. Yeah,
6:58
Speaker 4: but yeah, and then finding out you watch all these
7:01
Speaker 4: oh why oh?
7:03
Speaker 3: But the reason I wanted to say that is because
7:05
Speaker 3: what you said earlier, the me too thing watching them,
7:09
Speaker 3: you're gonna recognize when we get to our part two episodes,
7:12
Speaker 3: several names like the wine scenes come up a lot, right,
7:15
Speaker 3: fascinating because it makes you wonder the people working on it.
7:18
Speaker 3: And I know I've read some some reviewsers all this
7:21
Speaker 3: female revenge maybe makes you wonder.
7:25
Speaker 4: Makes you And it seems like a female revenge and
7:27
Speaker 4: anger is something that are on a lot of people's mind.
7:30
Speaker 1: He'll have no fury like a woman scorned.
7:33
Speaker 4: That is a great great line in anything, A quote
7:36
Speaker 4: derived from William Congree's sixteenth century English play The Morning Bride,
7:41
Speaker 4: m You are Ning? And these episodes were in part
7:45
Speaker 4: inspired by the upcoming Carry mulligan revenge flick Promising Young Woman,
7:49
Speaker 4: directed by Emerald Fennel. And I was really really like.
7:51
Speaker 4: I started watching it and I was like, oh, damn, okay, okay, that's.
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Speaker 1: Taking out the nice guy trope real hard.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, And I really enjoy It's gonna be an intense,
8:02
Speaker 4: intense scene because within the previews you can already see
8:06
Speaker 4: the nice guy bits. You have very unassuming, good looking
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Speaker 4: guys you would never expect. Ab you have the friend
8:13
Speaker 4: who didn't support her, didn't believe her, and then you
8:17
Speaker 4: have the teacher figures, yeah, that also don't believe her
8:21
Speaker 4: and just kind of tell her it's gonna make it
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Speaker 4: worse for you.
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Speaker 1: And then she just left and everybody's like, why did
8:25
Speaker 1: you leave?
8:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it definitely had a hard candy vibe to it.
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Speaker 1: Too, which I appreciate.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're gonna be talking about that film and
8:33
Speaker 3: another movie that kind of reminds me of that that
8:35
Speaker 3: I just watched in the Faith. But okay, let's do
8:39
Speaker 3: our definition bit. The Dictionary definition of revenge is quote
8:44
Speaker 3: the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for
8:47
Speaker 3: an injury or wrong suffered at their hands. It is
8:49
Speaker 3: defined as both an act and a desire. Some psychologists
8:53
Speaker 3: refer to it as narcissistic acts of self repair. The
8:59
Speaker 3: definition of justice, which is a term that gets thrown
9:01
Speaker 3: around a lot in conversations around revenge, is just behavior
9:04
Speaker 3: or treatment, and the line between the two of them
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Speaker 3: can be murky. Punishment pops up a bit too, which
9:12
Speaker 3: is a penalty inflicted for wrongdoing. But when I was
9:16
Speaker 3: trying to think of the differences between these things, and
9:18
Speaker 3: I do think there can be overlapped. I think the
9:20
Speaker 3: main thing with revenge is there's a personal emotional aspect
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Speaker 3: and that it's not so much about justice necessarily. It
9:31
Speaker 3: might be, but it's more like, I want to hurt
9:33
Speaker 3: this person who directly hurt me.
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Speaker 1: Right, it might You might take actions that.
9:38
Speaker 3: Don't worry a lot of the movies are going to
9:40
Speaker 3: talk about. They kind of go a bit further than
9:44
Speaker 3: request ally, yes, and yeah, we are as a society
9:49
Speaker 3: pretty torn on ideas of revenge. There's an eye for
9:52
Speaker 3: an eye versus the other cheek, which are both from
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Speaker 3: the Bible. A paper digging into revenge and all of
9:58
Speaker 3: this found that when part dissipants believed a revenge action
10:01
Speaker 3: was sanctioned by God, they were more likely to support
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Speaker 3: revenge and seek it themselves. Revenge is a basic human drive.
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Speaker 3: The same part of your brain that lights up when
10:12
Speaker 3: you're in love that sends reward signals lights up when
10:15
Speaker 3: you think about revenge. The prefrontal cortex shows activity too,
10:19
Speaker 3: which this is the same area associated with planning how.
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Speaker 1: To achieve a goal. That's really intriguing.
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Speaker 3: Evolutionarily, it may have been a way to keep burgeoning
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Speaker 3: societies functioning. Those that do wrong that threaten stability get punished,
10:34
Speaker 3: a tool to prevent future wrongs. And we did touch
10:38
Speaker 3: on some of the science behind revenge in our Forgiveness episode,
10:42
Speaker 3: but there's some more we want to touch on because
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Speaker 3: it is really fascinating. At twenty seventeen, study out of
10:47
Speaker 3: the University of Kentucky looked into revenge, tasking participants with
10:51
Speaker 3: writing an essay and then swapping essays for feedback with
10:55
Speaker 3: other participants, and one of the participants was an undercover
10:58
Speaker 3: researcher who epically critical feedback. Then the participants were allowed
11:05
Speaker 3: to express how angry the feedback they had gotten made
11:08
Speaker 3: them with a voodoo doll and needles. The participants who
11:12
Speaker 3: had received the negative feedback reported feeling better after engaging
11:16
Speaker 3: in some revenge basically sticking the doll with needles. A
11:20
Speaker 3: follow up study looked into whether people would go out
11:23
Speaker 3: of their way for revenge and they found that to
11:27
Speaker 3: not be true. People sought it out if they believed
11:29
Speaker 3: it would make them feel better, but participants led to
11:32
Speaker 3: believe it wouldn't, and they did this through a placebo
11:36
Speaker 3: that they called a mood stabilizing pill. Basically, no matter
11:38
Speaker 3: what you do, your mood's going to stay the same.
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Speaker 3: Did not pursue revenge against teammates that had let them down.
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Speaker 3: This corroborates the popular psychological understanding of revenge that its
11:49
Speaker 3: primary goal is catharsis, followed closely by deterrence and restoration
11:54
Speaker 3: of self esteem.
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Speaker 4: So a similar study found that when given the opportunity
11:58
Speaker 4: to get revenge against the player who wronged them. Participants
12:01
Speaker 4: universally took it, but also universally reported feeling worse after
12:05
Speaker 4: that case compared to those who weren't wrong and therefore
12:07
Speaker 4: did not seek revenge. Those who had been wronged and
12:10
Speaker 4: were not given the opportunity to get revenge reported they
12:12
Speaker 4: believed they would feel better if they had pursued revenge,
12:15
Speaker 4: even though they were in the happier group. Well, again
12:19
Speaker 4: the grass is greener idea. Yet another study found that
12:22
Speaker 4: acts of revenge are only better than not getting revenge
12:25
Speaker 4: in cases where the revenge is acknowledged and the balance
12:27
Speaker 4: is restored.
12:29
Speaker 3: Right So if it goes unacknowledged, then you don't get
12:31
Speaker 3: the same.
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Speaker 1: Right like benefit from it.
12:34
Speaker 3: And as we talked about in our forgiveness episode, most
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Speaker 3: science indicates that revenge is satisfying in the short term,
12:40
Speaker 3: but associated with more negative outcomes in the long term.
12:43
Speaker 3: Instead of providing closure, it keeps a wound fresh. Yet
12:47
Speaker 3: another study found that when asked about a time they
12:50
Speaker 3: got revenge in a time when they were the target
12:53
Speaker 3: of revenge.
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Speaker 1: Almost everyone.
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Speaker 3: I love this, Almost everyone deemed their act of revenge
13:00
Speaker 3: as just and appropriate. And the act of revenge against
13:03
Speaker 3: them as excessive.
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Speaker 4: Of course, of course, how dare you exactly?
13:09
Speaker 1: Oh, humanity.
13:11
Speaker 3: We actually have a lot more science and history about
13:14
Speaker 3: revenge to get into, but first we have a quick
13:16
Speaker 3: break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back,
13:33
Speaker 3: Thank you sponsor. So one thing I was curious about
13:36
Speaker 3: is the question of why do we like revenge stories.
13:40
Speaker 4: Well, obviously, revenge stories are satisfying.
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Speaker 1: Like I just said, they're cathartic.
13:45
Speaker 4: In a world where bad things happen to a good
13:48
Speaker 4: people without rhyme or reason, a reality beset with senseless smiles,
13:52
Speaker 4: it's comforting to think that those who have wronged us
13:55
Speaker 4: will face the consequence and then so huh hope. Most
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Speaker 4: of our revenge media functions like a fantasy where everything
14:02
Speaker 4: is exaggerated.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is kind of nice.
14:05
Speaker 3: It reminds me of what we talked about in Whitey
14:07
Speaker 3: People victim blame, where we're always trying to find a
14:10
Speaker 3: reason for or to find balance, right, to make things just.
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Speaker 4: For there's sense. Yeah, I think that's the true libra
14:17
Speaker 4: in me. I needed to be Oh that's out, y'all?
14:21
Speaker 3: Oh okay, all falling into place from doctor Edward Halliwell,
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Speaker 3: psychiatrist and author, quote, the pursuit of revenge is a
14:29
Speaker 3: turn on.
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Speaker 1: It's an adrenaline rush. You can really get into.
14:33
Speaker 3: It, and once you have experienced it, you want to
14:35
Speaker 3: do it again and again, and it.
14:37
Speaker 1: Becomes a way of life.
14:39
Speaker 3: He argues that if you wanted, you could frame our
14:42
Speaker 3: entire history in terms of revenge.
14:45
Speaker 4: I think that's what wars are essentially, when you look
14:48
Speaker 4: at the bottom line and money.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and of course money.
14:54
Speaker 4: In the two thousand and eight study out of Australia
14:56
Speaker 4: conducted by doctor Ian McKee, you found a link that
14:59
Speaker 4: suggested that those most interested in revenge were people more
15:02
Speaker 4: motivated by power, specifically right wing authoritarians and some sort
15:06
Speaker 4: of social dominance and all the attributes that go with it.
15:10
Speaker 3: Other studies have shown that events that inspire revenge differ
15:13
Speaker 3: by culture and others that revenge is viewed differently among
15:17
Speaker 3: communities without access to legal means of justice. There are
15:21
Speaker 3: entire websites dedicated to helping you get revenge. Think the
15:24
Speaker 3: Exploding Glitterboxes or get your Revenge on your x dot
15:28
Speaker 3: com run by a man whose wife cheated on him.
15:30
Speaker 3: According to him, most of his clients are female.
15:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to look it up. No.
15:39
Speaker 4: A recent study found that men enjoy revenge more than women.
15:42
Speaker 4: When shown instances of wrongdoers getting punished, male participants were
15:46
Speaker 4: more likely to feel pleasure, while female participants were more
15:49
Speaker 4: likely to feel empathy. Another study looking into gender differences
15:53
Speaker 4: found that men were far likelier than women to engage
15:55
Speaker 4: in revenge of fantasies, and that even children fantasize about
15:59
Speaker 4: getting I've seen this as a nanny and as a
16:03
Speaker 4: person who was in the field.
16:05
Speaker 1: I've seen this. Okay, you sometimes are really crafty too.
16:08
Speaker 1: Just wants to know that I believe it.
16:09
Speaker 4: The women reported that they believed revenge was ultimately pointless,
16:12
Speaker 4: and a lot of the women who did express revenge
16:14
Speaker 4: fantasies were more likely to turn the revenge inwards, imagining
16:19
Speaker 4: about harming themselves to punish those that harmed them.
16:23
Speaker 3: There is a certain level of breaking gender norms in
16:25
Speaker 3: female revenge entertainment. Traditionally, aggression and violence are associated with men. Anger,
16:31
Speaker 3: the emotion most closely associated with revenge, is traditionally viewed
16:34
Speaker 3: as a more masculine, sanctioned emotion. Historically, women have used
16:38
Speaker 3: words as weapons whereas men are more violence like using
16:43
Speaker 3: swords or guns or whatever, what have you. And also
16:48
Speaker 3: I read a lot of things that viewed this as
16:51
Speaker 3: kind of a dismissal of feminine expressions of grief, in
16:54
Speaker 3: viewing them as weak, and kind of going off of that,
16:59
Speaker 3: we did look at some history some famous examples of
17:04
Speaker 3: women getting revenge. But before we get into that, we
17:07
Speaker 3: have one more quick break for word from our sponsor
17:22
Speaker 3: and we're back, Thank you sponsor, and we're back with
17:25
Speaker 3: some history.
17:25
Speaker 1: So let's get into that.
17:27
Speaker 4: Throughout our history, Western culture has largely depicted vengeance as
17:31
Speaker 4: a more masculine avenue. A lot of the monsters from
17:34
Speaker 4: our Female Monsters episode tell stories of enraged, insatiable vengeance
17:37
Speaker 4: like the Furies. Less about revenge though, which has more
17:41
Speaker 4: personal element, but there are similar themes, and there are
17:44
Speaker 4: plenty of famous historical examples.
17:46
Speaker 3: We have real life examples like lorraina Bobbit, but also
17:50
Speaker 3: going back further, there is the example of Kiyomara, a
17:54
Speaker 3: Galician noble woman during the Galatian War with Rome around
17:57
Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty nine BCE. She was take captive
18:01
Speaker 3: the person in charge of the prisoners, including Kyomara made
18:04
Speaker 3: several sexual advances towards her, all of which she rejected.
18:08
Speaker 3: So he raped her, but then felt such guilt about it,
18:11
Speaker 3: kindly ransomed her to her people, the countrymen that came
18:16
Speaker 3: for the exchange, with a nod from Kiyomara or perhaps
18:19
Speaker 3: speaking in their native language depending on the source, that
18:22
Speaker 3: you know what, you should cut off this guy's head.
18:25
Speaker 3: The countrymen did that. She took the head, carried it
18:29
Speaker 3: back with her in her dress, threw it at her
18:31
Speaker 3: husband's feet.
18:31
Speaker 1: When she arrived home.
18:33
Speaker 3: Her husband said, a noble thing, dear wife, is fidelity,
18:36
Speaker 3: and she responded, yes, but it is a nobler thing
18:39
Speaker 3: that only one man be alive who has been intimate
18:41
Speaker 3: with me.
18:42
Speaker 4: So. Artemisia Gentileschi was a painter in the sixteen hundreds
18:45
Speaker 4: who was raped when she was eighteen, and instead of
18:48
Speaker 4: punishing the rapists, the court, of course of tortured Artemisia,
18:51
Speaker 4: which we've seen even today, tying ropes around her fingers
18:54
Speaker 4: and pulling them tight. As she was tortured, she shouted
18:57
Speaker 4: out her rapists, who watched in the courtroom, this is
18:59
Speaker 4: the real you gave me, and these are your promises,
19:02
Speaker 4: and she repeated unwavering about her testimony. It is true
19:06
Speaker 4: the entire transcript of the trial survived, and she went
19:09
Speaker 4: about getting her revenge through her art, painting The Disturbing
19:11
Speaker 4: and Affected Judith and Holoferness, in which Judith, along with
19:15
Speaker 4: another woman, hold down Holofernes, slitting his throat.
19:18
Speaker 1: It is a very effective faint as good one.
19:21
Speaker 3: In sixtycee in present day southeast England, Boudica was born.
19:26
Speaker 1: She went on to marry Celtic.
19:27
Speaker 3: King Proscutagus at the age of eighteen. When Prostutagus died
19:31
Speaker 3: in forty three CE without a male air, his kingdom,
19:33
Speaker 3: land and property were annexed by the Romans. They then
19:36
Speaker 3: publicly flogged Budica and raped her two daughters. Records show
19:40
Speaker 3: that she declared nothing is safe from Roman pride and arrogance.
19:44
Speaker 3: They will deface the sacred and will deflower our virgins
19:47
Speaker 3: when the battle are perished. That is what I a
19:49
Speaker 3: woman will do. A trained warrior, she helped form a
19:53
Speaker 3: rebel army of tribes that went on to destroy the
19:55
Speaker 3: Roman capital of Britain and killed all those that lived there.
19:58
Speaker 3: The rebel army did the same thing with two other cities,
20:01
Speaker 3: including London, Records from the time suggest that Budica's rebellion
20:04
Speaker 3: killed seventy thousand Romans and pro Roman Britons before she
20:08
Speaker 3: was defeated.
20:09
Speaker 1: All right, then, yeah, and perhaps inspired by.
20:13
Speaker 3: Some of these true stories, perhaps now we have plenty
20:15
Speaker 3: of fictional examples as well, going way back right.
20:18
Speaker 4: In euripides Greek play Medea, this character is sometimes called
20:22
Speaker 4: the Queen of revenge. Once said a woman's weak and
20:25
Speaker 4: timid in most matters. The noise of war, the look
20:27
Speaker 4: of steel make her a coward. But touch her right
20:29
Speaker 4: in marriage and there's no bloody or spirit. Media's ex husband, Jason,
20:33
Speaker 4: dished her for another woman for her superficial reasons after
20:36
Speaker 4: Medea helped him climb the social ladder. The whole play
20:39
Speaker 4: is about her journey to secure her revenge, not caring
20:41
Speaker 4: who ends up in the crossfire, including her own children,
20:45
Speaker 4: taking away what he left for her, a future in royalty,
20:48
Speaker 4: and when she gets it, she rides off in a
20:50
Speaker 4: dragon drawn carriage. You meant to give me an abandoned
20:53
Speaker 4: old age, I give one now to you. This example
20:56
Speaker 4: is particularly in settling because the Medea flouts her gender
20:59
Speaker 4: norm both of women being too kind to seek revenge,
21:02
Speaker 4: but also that women are unfailingly protective maternal of their children,
21:06
Speaker 4: a twist because we the audience expect the act of
21:09
Speaker 4: vengeance to take Jason's life.
21:11
Speaker 3: This whole thing of revenge seemed to be a theme
21:15
Speaker 3: in euripides work. Around the mid fourteen twenties BCE. Euripides
21:18
Speaker 3: also published Hecuba Hekibah was the queen of Troy and
21:22
Speaker 3: witnessed and experienced many many wrongs, including the deaths of
21:26
Speaker 3: her husband and sons. She was enslaved by those who
21:30
Speaker 3: killed her family, Her daughter is sacrificed, and another is
21:33
Speaker 3: taken as a concubine to be killed. Hecuba, along with
21:36
Speaker 3: other female captives of the Trojan army, lure the King
21:39
Speaker 3: of Thrace, Polymester, and his two sons into the women's
21:42
Speaker 3: tent in a post war encampment, proceed to blind the
21:45
Speaker 3: king with pens from their dresses and kill his two
21:48
Speaker 3: young sons. Polymester prophesied that Hecuba would become quote a
21:52
Speaker 3: dog with fiery eyes. Many scholars interpret this as a
21:56
Speaker 3: symbol of the fiercely maternal, and this is an early
21:59
Speaker 3: example the key element in revenge stories about women their
22:02
Speaker 3: suffering must be detailed and painful enough so that we
22:05
Speaker 3: are sympathetic and we back them stepping outside of traditional
22:09
Speaker 3: gender norms by getting revenge instead of punishing them for
22:13
Speaker 3: transgressing these boundaries. And Janet Claire delved into the dichotomy
22:18
Speaker 3: of this character as the all suffering, grieving mother and
22:21
Speaker 3: furious woman set on revenge. She describes quote a culture
22:25
Speaker 3: that condemned revenge and saw it as a last resort
22:27
Speaker 3: to which only a male should have recourse, and that
22:30
Speaker 3: to stage a hecuba as she was staged in classical
22:33
Speaker 3: tragedy would be to stage a rebellion.
22:36
Speaker 4: So when it comes to our modern day entertainment, revenge
22:39
Speaker 4: is a genre dominated by men, both in leading roles
22:41
Speaker 4: and when it comes to directors. So when we think
22:44
Speaker 4: of revenge movies with male protagonists, the wrong at the
22:47
Speaker 4: heart of the revenge is usually quite different and often
22:50
Speaker 4: involves the fridging killing off of the main love interests
22:54
Speaker 4: early in the plot, sidelining her to an object that
22:56
Speaker 4: functions solely to start the main male character's vengeful journey.
23:00
Speaker 4: Not only does she die, she's often raped and tortured
23:03
Speaker 4: prior to death, defiling the man's property quote unquote, we
23:07
Speaker 4: as the audience, typically root for the man to get
23:09
Speaker 4: his vengeance, chewing on his typically violent retribution.
23:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, how many times have we seen this?
23:14
Speaker 4: In every James Bond at least one person loved the
23:17
Speaker 4: Lovengers that you know for like thirty seconds. Yeah, nake
23:19
Speaker 4: it on the bed dies immediately, and then of course yeah,
23:22
Speaker 4: John Wick is famous for the dog and don't care
23:27
Speaker 4: to be fair. Yeah, I get that killing off the
23:30
Speaker 4: dog and the wife. And then there's you see so many,
23:33
Speaker 4: so many of those that begin as I think every
23:36
Speaker 4: John Statum movie outside of.
23:40
Speaker 1: So sad but so true, that's exactly how you see it.
23:44
Speaker 1: You're deathways.
23:45
Speaker 4: I watched that and that's the beginning plot, and you're like,
23:47
Speaker 4: what is happening?
23:50
Speaker 3: Yeah? Also, I guess Mission Impossible. I love how like
23:54
Speaker 3: every Mission Impossible movie starts with this and then at
23:56
Speaker 3: the end he's with someone, right, but then she dies
23:59
Speaker 3: at the.
24:02
Speaker 1: Time.
24:03
Speaker 3: Stop, you will never be happy. That's the message. That
24:07
Speaker 3: is the message. Revenge won't make you happy anyway. Revenge
24:10
Speaker 3: stories with women at the helm, on the other hand,
24:12
Speaker 3: usually are more gendered fears and anxieties like sexual assault,
24:17
Speaker 3: domestic violence, cheating motherhood. While we frequently cheer for these
24:21
Speaker 3: anti heroines, audiences are more likely to turn on her
24:24
Speaker 3: than on a male protagonist, giving her as hysterical or deranged.
24:29
Speaker 3: Some movies even managed to flip somehow so that the
24:32
Speaker 3: audience sides with the male antagonist or that the woman.
24:36
Speaker 1: Quote deserved what she can right.
24:38
Speaker 3: Yes, when I was thinking about this, I think men
24:41
Speaker 3: don't like imagining a world where women can exact revenge
24:44
Speaker 3: for the wrongs done to them.
24:46
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, there's so many things about being a
24:48
Speaker 4: ladylike and being kind and motherly and nurturing that that's
24:52
Speaker 4: not acceptable. While while the father is the protector, so
24:56
Speaker 4: of course it crosses the line to be protecting even
25:00
Speaker 4: if you're protecting yourself, that that's crossing the gender norms boundary,
25:05
Speaker 4: right sure.
25:05
Speaker 3: And we have a lot of examples about that in our.
25:10
Speaker 1: Upcoming part two of.
25:11
Speaker 3: This I've been One of the ones we're going to
25:14
Speaker 3: talk about that really gripped our collective cultural psyches was
25:18
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventy eight film I Spit on Your Grave.
25:21
Speaker 1: That's intense. I can you watched that?
25:23
Speaker 4: Right?
25:23
Speaker 1: Oh yeah? Oh yeah, no, that's an intense one.
25:26
Speaker 3: It is yes, it very much is, and this was
25:30
Speaker 3: done by mer Zarky. This movie follows an aspiring writer
25:34
Speaker 3: who is gang draped and her relentless vengeful pursuit to
25:37
Speaker 3: take them all out after that. As you might imagine,
25:41
Speaker 3: this started up a lot of controversy.
25:44
Speaker 1: Robert Ebert famously.
25:46
Speaker 3: Despised it, calling it quote one of the most depressing
25:49
Speaker 3: experiences of my life and describing the film as a.
25:53
Speaker 1: Vile bag of garbage.
25:56
Speaker 3: And we're going to do a terrible thing here and
26:00
Speaker 3: leave it at a cliffhanger like some revenge movies do.
26:04
Speaker 1: Take that, Yeah, you take that. Listeners, Thank you for listening.
26:08
Speaker 4: So sorry, just save it. Just one to do until
26:12
Speaker 4: you know you can do a streaming.
26:13
Speaker 1: Things, Yeah do yeah, benj it.
26:16
Speaker 3: Yes, we have a part two forthcoming where we're going
26:19
Speaker 3: to look at our more modern female revenge genre and
26:23
Speaker 3: specific examples, and we're also focusing in for feminist maybe
26:27
Speaker 3: Friday on First Wives Club, So keep your ears out
26:32
Speaker 3: for that. In the meantime, if you have a favorite
26:35
Speaker 3: revenge movie or any kind of revenge media, you can
26:38
Speaker 3: email it to us. Our email is Stuff Media Mom
26:41
Speaker 3: Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also find us
26:43
Speaker 3: on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at
26:46
Speaker 3: Stuff I'll Never Told You. Thanks as always to our
26:49
Speaker 3: super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks and thanks to you for
26:52
Speaker 3: listening Stuff I Never Told You to protection of iHeartRadio's
26:55
Speaker 3: house Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit iHeartRadio app,
26:59
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows