“Good for Her” and The Politics of Revenge: Examining Rape-Revenge in the #MeToo Era

Abstract

Since the film genre known as "rape-revenge" first caught the attention of American audiences in the 1970s, it has been contentious, and inseparable from the social changes and anxieties caused by the feminist movement at the time. This thesis traces rape-revenge into the present day, exploring the ways in which the genre has experienced newfound mainstream popularity and a feminist reclamation following the inception of the #MeToo movement in 2017. I argue that new films build upon and pay homage to those that came before while illustrating continued ambivalences around women’s agency and progressive social change in post-#MeToo America.