Women’s Studies
Open your mind before it gets opened for you
Sam Harris has famously argued that by being accommodating towards moderate religious beliefs, we open the way for more extreme values to insist on the same acceptance. The target of Women’s Studies is a political rather than a religious ideology but fanaticism is fanaticism (and religious fundamentalism has much more to do with political power than with finding faith) and the film tries to explore the way in which the process of radicalisation works.
Mary (Cindy Marie Martin) is a feminist and graduate student in Women’s Studies with a bright political future ahead of her – until she realises that she’s pregnant. This leaves her torn between her political idealism, Catholic guilt and career aspirations and uncertain of what to do next when she, her boyfriend, Zack (James A. Radack) and two friends Beth (Melisa Breiner-Sanders) and Iris (Laura Bloechl) share a car back to college for the start of a new term.
Mary’s car is stolen while the four are en-route and a group of students offer to put them up in their nearby academy temporarily. And then things start to get strange.
The Ross-Prentiss Women’s Academy is a women only institution, and one that emphasises subjects such as women’s studies, business and politics – all of which are studied from an exclusively feminist perspective.
Mary finds herself drawn to the ideals of Judith (Tara Garwood), a senior student at the academy and the prime mover of much that happens here, who quickly ensures that the four friends are separated from each other. Iris, uncertain and more than a little naïve, finds herself under increasing pressure to not only buy into the student ethos, but also to become a student herself. With Zack isolated and, frankly, a bit useless it falls to Beth to see that something is wrong here. Unfortunately, the others aren’t listening…
Women’s Studies is an original take on the Isolated teenagers genre of slasher films and one that does make a serious stab at exploring the sort of exclusionary behaviour, peer pressure, groupthink and bonding rituals that typifies a cult and that can draw someone along the line from idealism to terrorism. It helps that the characters are consistently well rounded and given real depth by a consistently strong cast. These characters – both the protagonists and the academy students – manage to remain both consistent and believable and it is this that gives the film a lot of its strength and makes it such a shocking experience.
In fact, I would have liked to have seen more of the characters – and they were certainly strong enough to have supported some deeper development – and less of the ending, which was longer than it needed to be and tended to over-labour some of the points.
That said, the film does have an excellent coda.
0 comments Friday 29 Aug 2008 | Paul Pritchard | Horror
