Web Letters: Soft-Core Sexism

Is the producer responsible for what the viewer sees, or does the viewer only see what his or her context allows? Admittedly, the PR campaign for Black Snake Moan is deceiving. However, as a woman raised in the south and raped as a child, I did not find the movie an exploitation of women. Perhaps this is because I am neither a heterosexual male nor a fundamentalist Baptist preacher.

What I see is an accurate verbal and visual portrayal of what happens when a child is raped, and what has forcefully been taken is replaced with enough shame to keep even the strongest of wills enslaved in self-hatred. Rae describes this as a "feeling" that starts in her head, moves to her hands, and then "down lower", and stops only after she has sex. For others, the shame and inner rage at the abuse manifests itself in cutting or substance addiction, a desire to feel something other than the internal noise and pain.

I see an accurate portrayal of abuse survivors as they are, a combination of oxymorons rather than superhuman--defiant and wounded, waving and drowning. I feel liberation and release in Rae’s reclamation of her own sexuality as she dances at the juke joint for her own pleasure and no one else’s.

I see a woman who saves herself. Lazarus does not “save” Rae, an admission he makes as he unchains her, yet his non-sexual, unconditional frienship does ground her. This gounding, metaphorically represented by the chain around her waist, paradoxically gives Rae the freedom to risk change, to choose to experience the pain of her memories rather than to re-live them physically. Ultimately, it is HER will to allow the noise of self-hatred and shame to be subsumed in the broader context of a grounded, loved self which is her “salvation”.

R.L. Harris

Washington, DC