across most cultures, vaginas tend to get a bad rap. they're unclean, obscene, vulgar, venomous, lecherous, and seductive. cautionary tales abound detailing the specific and general perils that await the men who are forever trying to get in and out of them; they're eaten, castrated, or otherwise dismembered and/or killed upon every attempt. "here be dragons," all the anatomical maps read. as such, the vagina dentata mythos doesn't really have a hallowed place in feminist history. castration anxiety, devouring mothers, and the woman scorn'd were not of woman born, but rather shaped by man, who - poor deer, frozen in headlights - found himself paralised at the sight of female genitalia. he stared into the abyss, and it stared back at him. then it bit his fucking head off.so while not exactly a feminist narrative, teeth reclaims the vagina dentata myth just as the rape revenge genre reappropriates sexual violence ... which is to say that neither quite gets it right, but both do interesting things with what they have. teeth tells the story of a girl whose nightmarish sexual awakening becomes a will to power, and she wields it mercilessly. the Y chromosome's uppence definitely comes - painfully so. and good on 'er! especially since, like most rape revenge films, the most upsetting thing about teeth is that there isn't a decent dude in the entire movie.*
the film also does a really good job of taking the piss out of those holier-than-thou promise-ring douches we hated in highschool cuz we were breaking curfew to have awkward car sex while the sun shone out of their asses. at least most of them are single parents now.
* with the technical exception of her father, but i have reservations about that.
