Bitch Slap

The opening credits of Bitch Slap are a montage of “badass” and beautiful women, largely from vintage exploitation films. But one of the clips is of women’s suffrage protests from the 1910’s. And I thought to myself that having first wave feminists depicted in the same series of images as Bettie Page and garbage exploitation films probably doesn’t bode well for this film’s take on female empowerment. Then, I chided myself for making hasty assumptions on the nature of the film based on opening credits. Nope. I was right the first time. Bitch Slap’s opening credits are a pretty good representation of the film’s tone, focus and opinion on women and feminism. This movie has a Japanese woman named Kinki who wields a killer yo-yo, dresses in a schoolgirl outfit and spanks one of the lead characters. I’m tired and I want to light something on fire.

The film is about a team three women who are searching for unknown riches out in the desert. Hel is the competent leader; Camaro, the unstable muscle and Trixie is a ditzy stripper. They have found out the location of the treasure from a terrible guy named Gage who they quickly dispatch. The treasure in question belongs to the mysterious Mr. Pinky, a crime lord. Through flashbacks we learn the secret motives and identities of the three women as well as the fact that each one has had sex with the other two women at some point. In the present, other parties such as a local deputy named Fuchs and an insane criminal named Hot Wire and his girlfriend, Kinki arrive to try and get the treasure for themselves.

Bitch Slap is very much a parody and homage to exploitation B-movies of the 60’s and 70’s. I get that. I understand what this movie is referencing. But as a parody, it doesn’t work for two reasons. The first is that it’s just not that funny. It’s a very stupid movie but stupid and funny aren’t synonyms. The second and related reason is that it’s actually not ridiculous enough. For parody to work, it needs to either have actual, clear jokes which the film doesn’t have, or exaggerate elements to a point of clear humour. Bitch Slap doesn’t go far enough. It’s about the same level of ridiculous as some of the films it’s parodying. As such, I couldn’t always tell if the reason the film was bad was because it was parodying a bad film or just because Bitch Slap itself is a bad film.

Bitch Slap was clearly inspired by other homages, specifically the Grindhouse series by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. There’s a lot of things those films have that this film lacks including overall talent and quality. But one specific difference is focus. The Grindhouse films and most successful exploitation homages had a narrow set of movies they were referencing. Death Proof, for example was an homage to carsploitation films specifically. Bitch Slap casts far too wide a net. It references numerous genres of exploitation including nunsploitation and cheap spy flicks. But also has more current influences from low budget action and sci-fi films of the 2000’s. The film feels less like targeted homage and more like directionless wish fulfillment. Bitch Slap has more in common with the works of Friedberg and Seltzer with their awful references comedies like Disaster Movie than it does with Tarantino and Rodriguez films.

Let’s get into Bitch Slap’s views about women and empowerment. They’re bad and very simple. The film’s understanding of what sexism looks like is a serial rapist who constantly calls the lead characters sexist and homophobic slurs. The film’s idea of feminism is a women in a skimpy outfit killing said character with a gun. That’s the level of simplicity we’re dealing with. None of this basic understanding of feminism stops them from having Camaro spew a constant barrage of sexism and homophobia despite being a lesbian herself and eventually attempting to rape another woman. The film would probably argue that’s equality or something.

If you ever need to explain the male gaze in film to someone, show them Bitch Slap. That shit is constant and textbook. Not only is there a constant focus on female bodies, but the camera constantly fragments said body. The camera zooms in on character’s breasts, stomach and ass, removing the woman’s face from the equation and further objectifying her by breaking her down to desirable fragments instead of depicting her as a whole. This is constant. And again, I know the defence here is that it’s a parody. The reason there’s so much objectification is because it’s parodying sex-focused films of the past. But these scenes don’t feel like comedy, they just feel horny. I’m also not sure if there is such a thing as “ironic female objectification”. If there is, Bitch Slap is not nearly smart or competent enough to thread that needle.

Maybe this is biased because I’m a woman or whatever, but I think if you’re going to make an homage film about badass women that has three female leads, you need to make that film accessible and inviting to women. This is something similar films of the 60’s and 70’s failed at but Bitch Slap doesn’t update and correct. If anything, this film is more inaccessible to a female audience than many of those films. So much of this film felt like it was absolutely screaming at me that, “This movie isn’t for you!” It doesn’t respect women at all and wants you to know that. How absolutely groundbreaking, to make an homage to films from over 50 years ago and make said film as much if not more backwards on women’s rights than the originals.

Bitch Slap has a built-in defence against criticism by saying, “but it’s a parody or homage! It’s stupid because those films are stupid, it’s sexist because those movies were!” I’m not having it. If it were a parody, it would be funnier. If it were an homage, there would be focused instead of it genre-jumping every time the movie got bored with its basic set-up. And homage or not, this movie is incredibly sexist, homophobic and a little racist. Bitch Slap is made for an audience of young, stupid, straight men. If you aren’t this audience, the film will do everything in its power to let you know you aren’t welcome. Even if you are in its core demographic, the film is still so obnoxious and stupid that it’s probably insulting that the filmmakers assumed this is the kind of movie you wanted.

Overall rating: 3.1/10

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