The 2009 film Jennifer’s Body opens with a fairly straightforward thesis statement: “Hell is a teenage girl.” The film was made by a team of women, led in particular by director Karyn Kusama and writer Diablo Cody. The film was about teenage girls, their tempestuous and intense friendships and confusing emotional states. The film was also about the violations suffered by women and the way those violations can have monstrous outcomes. This was a film for teenage girls.
How should one market a film for teenage girls? If we look at examples of the trailers for Clueless or Mean Girls (successful films for and about teenage girls) we might recognize that the trailers use pop songs and focus on the dynamics between the stars in order to draw in young female viewers. Consider, then, the choices made by the marketing team for Jennifer’s Body: we open on an image of Megan Fox swimming nude in a lake, followed in quick succession by shots of her unzipping her top to reveal cleavage or planting a kiss on Amanda Seyfriend. She insists, “I go both ways.” The posters for the film portrayed Megan Fox in a skimpy schoolgirl uniform and featured taglines like “she’s got a taste for bad boys.” This marketing tactic failed on every level; the horny teenage boys these ads were designed to lure in were uninterested in the film, and teenage girls, the audience imagined by Kusama and Cody during its production, were, understandably, turned off by the impression that this was a horror-comedy made for boys.
This misguided marketing choice is a shame, because Jennifer’s Body was judged harshly for its failure to live up to the duplicitous ads. Critics (most of whom were adult men) considered the film not sexy enough, or seemed to completely misunderstand its premise and its payoff. One particularly uncomfortable review written by James Berardinelli spent an entire paragraph arguing that there should be more “T&A” in the film and that it should take its cues from Hostel, concluding that “If you’re in search for a way to ogle Megan Fox’s body, there are a lot better ways to do it than subjecting yourself to this.” This was typical for many of the negative reviews the movie received- the consensus seemed to be that the title should be taken literally rather than ironically.
Of course the film disappointed these critics. Jennifer’s Body is patently not designed to objectify Megan Fox. Many viewers were likely familiar with Fox due to her appearance as a sexy car fan in Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise, where she was little more than a prize to be won by the protagonist played by Shia LaBeouf, so they may have been unprepared for this role. In this film, the beautiful and popular Jennifer Check shares an intense and even psychic bond with her slightly nerdy best friend Needy Lesnicki. (When Needy’s equally nerdy boyfriend Chip tries to put the moves on Needy before the girls go for a big night out, Needy squints and announces “Jennifer’s here” several seconds before Jennifer can be heard opening the front door downstairs. Chip describes this as “fucking weird.”) The girls head to a local bar to watch a band perform, and Needy overhears the sleazy yet good looking lead singer, played perfectly by Adam Brody, wonder aloud if Jennifer is a virgin. In a bid to protect her friend, Needy lies that Jennifer is a virgin in the hopes that this will cause the creep to leave her alone. Instead, this lie unintentionally sets Jen on a destructive path.
You see, the wannabe rock star isn’t interested in seducing an innocent girl. Instead, he and his bandmates want to sacrifice a virgin to Satan in order to gain popularity and success. The sacrifice works, but because Jennifer wasn’t really a virgin, she becomes demonically possessed and starts eating people to stay attractive and alive. And not just any people: teenage boys, especially those who seem most vulnerable. (Her victims include the only non-white male character we meet in the entire film, a foreign exchange student from India named Ahmet, as well as an emo guy and a jock who weeps openly when he learns his friend has died in a fire.)
In some ways, this film echoes the tropes of the rape-revenge thriller, wherein a brutalized woman takes her vengeance against her attacks. However, Jennifer notably differs from these other heroines in attacking other innocent victims rather than turning her powers on those who hurt her first. Instead it is Needy who eventually takes down the demonic rock band- but only after first taking down Jennifer herself.
It is through this distinction that we see how Jennifer’s Body responds to the tradition of the rape-revenge genre. There is no heroine in the film. While Needy does successfully stop Jennifer’s murderous rampage, she loses everything in the process and ends up in a psychiatric facility, like some kind of gothic attic-dwelling first wife.
The film has experienced something of a renaissance of late, becoming a cult classic and undergoing a feminist reappraisal. There are dozens of articles, YouTube video essays, podcasts and TikToks arguing for a new assessment of the film. Critics now seem better able to recognize the feminist messaging and queerness of the film. The kiss between the two female leads that was featured in trailers as if it were mere exploitation is, in context, a confirmation that the friendship has always had a romantic and sexual element. (Jennifer reminds Needy that they always sleep in the same bed during sleepovers, and she purrs that they can “play boyfriend-girlfriend like we used to.” This comes after scenes where the girls tightly hold hands, stare adoringly and appraisingly at one another, and get accused of being “lesbi-gay” by a classmate.)
It is genuinely shocking how misunderstood this film was upon its release; even the positive reviews, such as that given by Roger Ebert, were dismissive and treated the film as if it were some kind of silly trifle. In fact, Jennifer’s Body is a subversive and queer feminist work of art, using the language of campy horror to unearth deep truths about the impact of patriarchy on female friendships, the sexuality of teenage girls (especially queer girls) and the grotesque impacts of male violence and entitlement. (And if that doesn’t give you a reason to watch, perhaps consider the ways in which it comments on post-9/11 naivety and patriotism. Come for the feminist commentary, stay to watch Jennifer present a set of two layered shots described as “9/11 tribute shooters” and complain that “tower one isn’t full enough.”)
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