Uh-Oh, Canada!
These scary movies reflect a real gender violence issue.
I think I know why Ginger snapped: living under the ever present pseudo-pleasantries of Canada as a preteen would have made me want to be a werewolf too.
Canada has a reputation for being polite and apologetic. According to my partner, everyone was friendly and helpful during his visit. It's a nice country, filled with nice people.
And I'm sure its government is real into maintaining that image.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's charming nature and boyish good looks, coupled with his pledges of progression and Canada's free healthcare, make him very popular outside his country.
Inside the happy-go-lucky British commonwealth, however, his progress is considered largely performative, particularly in regards to gender equality.
"But he had a gender-balanced cabinet!"
Cool! Did you know two of them resigned in the same month because of some shady corporate dealings he was doing?
Worse still, there's been at least two instances of mass violence in Canada that were explicitly gender-based, one of which was the country's worst mass shooting in history. It even created a national holiday: December 6, a day of remembrance and action on violence against women.
The most recent, a 2018 van attack in Toronto that killed 10 people - mostly women - was carried out by a self-described incel, or "involuntary celibate". They're men who think sex is a right that they're being denied. Surprise surprise, they're also raging misogynists.
Then there's the indigenous population. Since British colonization, indigenous women have been, and are still being, beaten, incarcerated, raped, sterilized, and murdered to this day.
Promises have been made to address both issues. But, like an abuser apologizing after they've committed violence, little progress is being made to prevent these issues.
Still though, Canadian society is very polite. So much so that this propensity for gender-based violence rarely shows such a public face. Instead, it tends to crop up in popular Canadian horror movies.
Spoilers ahead:
In "American Mary” (2012), a struggling medical student starts performing seedy backroom surgeries for money. Set in the U.S. city of Seattle but riddled with Canadian accents, the only thing American about this film is the college debt she's in.
Mary starts the film off as ambitious and aggressive. She's good at what she does, and she knows it.
So when an established surgeon invites her to a party with other professionals, she's elated. It means she shows promise, that she's respected.
Instead, she's drugged, raped, and taped by her professor. Instead, she's shown in the most despicable way that she'll never be seen as an equal.
In the end, she's killed by the husband of a woman she performed a body modification on; the woman no longer wanted to be viewed as "a sex object". Worse still, you never find out what happened to the wife.
David Cronenberg’s "Dead Ringers" is technically billed as a psychological thriller, but anything with Cronenberg’s name on it turns into a horror film.
The film stars Jeremy Irons as a pair of twin gynecologists that prey on infertile women. You know, vulnerable ones going through reproductive trauma. They also pass the women between them sexually - because we're too dumb to notice something like that - so this movie is straight up freaky if you have a vagina.
Rape by deception aside, it echoes the forced sterilization indigenous women still go through. One of the twins begins to think of his female patients as "mutants" and creates new instruments to "correct" them.
And we can’t leave Canada without stopping by and saying hello to "Black Christmas."
Even I'm a little surprised this came from the land of perpetual niceness. It's one of the earliest known slashers and actually inspired "Halloween," the now infamous U.S. horror movie.
After an obscene phone call, a group of sorority girls are picked off in graphic, disfiguring fashions. The killer's identity is never even revealed. With no face and no name, he instead becomes a symbol for Canadian misogyny: pervasive and sneaky.
Films chosen:
"Comforting Skin" (2011). Available on Tubi and recommended to watch with friends for a laugh, because it is baaad.
"Dead Ringers" (1988) Available on Tubi.
“Black Christmas" (1974). Available on Shudder and Tubi.
"American Mary" (2012). Available on Tubi.
"Ginger Snaps" (2000). Available on Shudder.
