Who Is Jennifer's Body Responsible For The Mistreatment Of Women?

The 2009 film Jennifer’s Body was met with poor box office performance and lackluster reviews from critics at the time of its release despite its producers’ wholehearted attempts to market it on star Megan Fox’s allure without any regard to writer Diablo Cody’s original vision. In the utmost fairness, what was to be expected from a marketing strategy summarized as ‘Jennifer sexy, she steal your boyfriend’ [sic] and a predominantly male base of critics in an industry desensitized to its own mistreatment of women? The film ultimately wouldn’t find its footing until ten years later, when it found its footing as the feminist horror classic it was always supposed to be and Fox, objectified for much of her career, gained more respect for roles where

Jennifer is ultimately killed by Needy to prevent her from consuming more of the boys at their school, but as an act of tough love; she had crossed a line in murdering Chip, who wasn’t the brightest but was ultimately harmless and a good boyfriend. Even in this scene, Jennifer objectifies herself as she has done for her own gain throughout the film; in pain, she says “my tit,” before Needy corrects her, “your heart,” after being stabbed, which Cody emphasized to ET Live as a significant moment of Needy enlightening her in her final moments that she didn’t have to play into others’ perceptions of her as a sex object (“Jennifer’s Body Reunion”). The problem is never really the desire for revenge, in Needy’s eyes, especially when her own possession by the demon drives her to fulfill that thirst for blood against the members of Low

Speaking for ET Live, Fox and Cody both admit to Jennifer and Needy existing as two iterations of the self to which they can relate: the sex symbol and wild card respectively compared to the private self that has matured and learned to navigate sexism in the industry (“Jennifer’s Body Reunion”). Fox is aware of her image, and she often uses that to her own career advantage, which she has every right to even without nuance if it is her own conscious decision and not imposed upon her. However, as Philippa Snow observes for Los Angeles Review of Books, she has found her own footing in other roles and knows how to mock those consuming her as the object of their desire effectively (Snow). While she has felt unwelcome by other feminists for this use of her own image, Fox also uses it as a way to mask her own struggles with anxiety and self-esteem, keeping her private self protected from the public (“Jennifer’s Body Reunion”), correlating, albeit less violently, with Jennifer’s use of sexuality to lure the boys she consumes into feeding the demon possessing her, almost as a means of coping with the effects of her trauma. Similar to Barthes’ observations on striptease, there’s a sanitation to this sexualization, though; it’s rehearsed, manufactured by its performer, so that it’s titillating in a way that is culturally