"Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" is a comment on gender politics, the nature of sexuality, and how these concepts are taught to us at home (by our families, however bizarre they may be).
As I've talked a bit about in other blogs, psychos and sociopaths have issues with human interaction and thus lack any relationship skills or experience. But these human monsters still have carnal urges and when they are faced with those urges and their inability to fulfill them, they kill.
"Monsters" aren't socially allowed to have relationships and therefore are terribly, sexually frustrated.
When Leatherface has Stretch cornered in the radio station, she initially fears he'll kill her. But once he has his giant chainsaw between her legs - proving his desire to have sex with her - she realizes this and attempts to seduce him (distracting him from killing her). When her terror (which he understands) dissolves into sexuality (which he doesn't understand) he becomes confused and frustrated and cannot complete the act.
Unable to to fuck or kill, he uses his chainsaw to destroy the station in an impotent rage.
And as if this statement isn't clear enough, it's followed by a stereotypically male scene in which Leatherface is confronted by his brother who keeps asking if Leatherface has "gotten that bitch, good." to which Leatherface emphatically indicates that he did; bragging about a conquest that he can barely understand, let alone have made.
And take Stretch herself: victimized by a family of men, her final act is to emasculate them and wield their power (or giant chainsaw) for herself. If this doesn't scream, "women's lib!" and "gender equality", well then I don't know what does.
Okay. Pausing the pseudo-feminist interpretation for a moment, the other take on the movie is that everything is just surface value and is simply about the thrill of hacking other people to pieces with chainsaws.
So, now that we're off the gender rant, let's talk about a truly interesting twist: somehow the most classically out-of-control actor of the era (Dennis Hopper) looks contained compared to Bill Moseley's rambling performance.
Wrap up time.
Any smart filmgoer can read subtext into a movie. Does that mean it's real? Well, as one of my favorite sayings goes, "It's the truth, even if it didn't happen."
Comments
Post a Comment