The Cinematic Universe of Women’s rage
By Ayomide Asani
Female Rage is all the Rage these days, (get it? ‘rage’ as in rage). But more seriously Womxn's anger has captured mainstream attention in the form of articles, video essays, and social media phenomena. Cinema today is littered with portrayals of Female Rage. ‘Movie Tok’ has also captured our fascination with womxn’s anger on screen. What I am concerned with, is how Female Rage and an Anthropology of Emotion intersect today. More importantly, how can Anthropology contribute to feminist discussions of womxn’s experiences?
This short essay will define female rage through an urban dictionary definition that states ‘female rage is a rejection of gendered ideas regarding who gets to express anger and in what ways’. Patriarchy touches every element of life and emotions are not exempt from this. Stereotypically womxn are labeled as emotional, spreading the idea that emotional expression can be differentiated by gender. For generations, womxn and femme people have been undergoing systematic modes of oppression that entrap womxn from bodily autonomy, perpetual sexual violence, and economic oppression. Under these systems of misogyny depictions within Film, Music, and Media use rage to collectivise and revolutionise womxn struggles. Centuries of womxn have felt the generational trauma at the hands of misogyny.
In anthropology, we view emotion as a way of knowing and a form of knowledge, which is often painted negatively in comparison to rationality as a post-enlightenment and patriarchal knowledge. This negativity trivialises womxn's emotions and also systematically bars men from expressing any form of emotion for fear of emasculation. Media has been a way of both perpetuating this and a means of expression for womxn. Sad Girl Tumblr epitomised womxn and young teenage girls' sadness. Lana del Ray, Effie, and Bella Swan ruled Tumblr posts and young womxn began to romanticise their sadness through smoky smudged eyeliner and ripped tights. This time was symbolic of young womxn struggling with mental health who wanted to feel seen and find community through female adolescence and the sometimes turbulent transition from girlhood to womanhood. This sadness is a direct result of the pressures that come with being identified as a womxn within society. For many womxn, these platforms weren’t a place to idolise mental health issues but to understand the reasons for these issues and their connection to their gender identity. In retrospect however, Sad Girl Tumblr has been criticised for its fetishization of sadness while creating a toxic outlet that didn’t facilitate the healing of young girls struggling with insecurities and mental health issues but instead pushed them further into the depths of sadness. This doesn’t mean that artists only speak on sadness as a way of demoralising womxn but rather sheds light on the importance of vocalising sadness.
Emotional knowledge was used as a way to consolidate solidarity between womxn allowing womxn to be empowered by their emotions rather than being suppressed. Thus, media has shaped ways of portraying and understanding sadness, but can simultaneously be construed as a platform for female empowerment.
It could be theorised that Female Rage is a reactionary response to the passive sadness that dominated the internet in the past years, evoking womxn and girls alike to reclaim their pain through an ‘agency of anger’(Shanspeare 2023). Sadness became too idle and muted, elegant tears became limiting. The angry womxn was becoming a way of expressing collective feminine rage to the psychological distress of being a womxn. Female Rage has become synonymous with female autonomy - being able to express emotions powerfully and chaotically, rather than fearing the gendered stereotypes towards womxn's emotions. Womxn alike are hungry for raw depictions of anger. To have their anger seen and made visible rather than hidden behind docile controlled emotions.
The Sad to Angry Pipeline is well documented within music in Aretha Franklin's 1967 Album ‘I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You’ Franklin uses her soulful voice to depict heartbreak through the blues while progressing to an angry jazz sound in her timeless hit ‘Respect’ her strong vocal riffs illustrates the shift from melancholy to fury effortlessly. Speaking to the exasperation that womxn feel in response to constant disrespect. Similarly, SZA, a Pop RnB artist, invokes these themes through her vulnerable lyricism in her song ‘SOS’ she raps unapologetically ‘I talk bullshit a lot no more fuck shit I’m done’ (SZA 2022b) The blunt attitude directly juxtaposes lyrics like ‘Only like myself when I’m with you, Nobody gets me’ (SZA 2022c), an emotionally charged track that imploys the slow violin to encapsulate the themes of loss that SZA is expressing. In Fiona Apple's music, she also displays this progression of sadness to anger within her music within the song ‘Paper Bag’ Apple's tonal voice shifts from soft to tense as the song progresses communicating feelings of madness through the quickening tempo. As such, womxn resonate with outbursts of rage at an emotional breaking point. These bursts of fury are usually defined by screaming, yelling, and messy emotional breakdowns, basically what is typically defined as pure anger. However, anger is not only expressed in one way. Linguistic differences mean that many societies don’t have a word directly for anger but instead have words that express some aspects of, or varieties of, anger. For example, anger among Inuit people is expressed differently than in the West where anger is controlled from a young age and aggressive expressions of emotion are minimal. ‘Inuit, social order did not derive merely from following rules of expression, it depended on feeling culturally appropriate emotions. As they saw it, emotions motivated behavior’(Briggs 2000).
Female Rage has become a subgenre within cinema as nuanced storytelling surrounding womxn begins to expand. Rage has become both cathartic and satisfactory for many womxn to see portrayed on screen. Looking at the case of horror regarding female rage, we see how emotions and cinema are both socio-culturally constructed. In American Horror Story (2013) Angela Basset plays the titular role of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen, becoming an ensemble cast member. Marie Laveau’s anger is expressed in a controlled and powerful way, in response to the injustice that black people endure due to racism. Vengeance through violence is a running thread and the audience is enthralled by Marie’s flair for empowering black womxn as Marie uses her powers to exact revenge on those who have wronged her. This anger is displayed through Marie's methods of revenge poisoning and murder allowing the horror genre to be fruitful in revealing black womxn’s rage.
(The Reluctant Bride by August Toulmoche, 1866)
In Waiting to Exhale (1995) Basset plays the character of Bernie married to the cheating John here Bernie is shattered by her husband's betrayal allowing the audience to understand her pain, regret, and ultimately outrage about the adultery. Olvia Pope (Scandal) and Annalise Keating (How to Get Away with Murder) also demonstrate the rage of black womxn in response to both betrayal and racism. Portrayals of black womxn experiencing rage on-screen are considerably controlled with mainstream depictions centering around racism, cheating husbands, and intense misogynoir. Due to the ‘Angry Black Woman’ stereotype, media portrayals need to be incredibly careful to not generalise all black womxn as angry and aggressive. Black womxn’s anger is constantly suppressed and monitored meaning that Black womxn's rage is inextricably linked to systematic modes of oppression. Black womxn’s rage is politicised with racial surveillance, with black womxn constantly having to survey their emotions for fear of being labeled as ‘angry’. I and many other black womxn have the shared experience of self-monitoring emotions and behaviors to avoid being perceived negatively and for the comfort of others. This penetrates the media which discourages extreme portrayals of black womxn's rage which disrupts mainstream sensibilities. Contrastingly, in Pearl (2022), we see a visceral depiction of female rage. Indicating rage brewing amid toxic mother-daughter relationships, isolation, and rejection from wider society. Voice is a tool of agency in Pearl, where she constantly screams and yells. The expression of anger becomes a dream fantasy idolised by commentators on TikTok Edits. People connect to Pearl's rage.
Womxn of colour explore anger on a different terrain than that of white womxn as their anger is even more taboo in public spaces. Racial stereotyping of Angry Black womxn has meant black womxn are under constant scrutiny for how they present their emotions if they are even allowed to present said emotions. Thus, making the display of anger another privilege given to white people. The emotions of black people are often seen as threatening or demeaning. Furthermore, womxn of colour are at the intersection of racial and gendered trauma. In many ways, their ownership of trauma is robbed from them. They are put in an ‘either-or situation’ making it impossible for them to feel both their traumas and the wider systemic trauma that has been placed upon them. Thinking of Katherine’s bathroom monologue in Hidden Figures (2016), where she has to travel off-building to use the bathroom due to segregation and isn’t allowed to wear comfortable clothing as she must also perform femininity in the workplace. Her anger and frustration stem from racist treatment under segregation.
Many depictions of black female rage hyperfocus on black womxn's rage rooting in jealousy of white womxn. For example, in ‘In Waiting to Exhale’ Bernadine burns her husband's car due to his cheating here the rage is controlled and calculated as a build-up of frustration over time. Because black womxn are scrutinised for their rage it must be justified under intense scrutiny within Western media. For, white womxn in Western media, anger is messy and uncontrollable. Yet, Nigerian film industry womxn’s rage in all instances is common in films both in loud and quiet on-screen performances.
The media itself provides an empowering outlet for womxn to express both anger and sadness. Such expressions can be active forms of resistance against patriarchal systems that invalidate expressions of emotion. The song ‘Kill Bill’ by SZA blends the feminisation of sadness and anger into a Pop RnB hit with over a billion streams on Spotify. Why has the song garnered so much popularity since its release? Artist popularity, strong lyrical and production capabilities, or perhaps the relatability of experiencing anger and sadness during a breakup. Art has always had a way of giving negative emotions agency in a modern world where late-stage capitalism and modern-day patriarchy have simultaneously commodified the expression of emotions and imposed strict gendered norms on them.