rich 1.0 Can violence ever be feminist? Is anger ever useful or productive? How is it that ‘female rage’ has become a TikTok trend? TW: femicide, sexual harassment, SA, and murder. Key text: Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi (1991) Referenced texts: The Uses of Anger by Audre Lorde (1981) American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis (1991) Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012) In this week’s episode, Alice takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the revenge fantasy genre, with a close reading specifically of Helen Zahavi’s razor-sharp cult-classic, Dirty Weekend. Zahavi’s dark comedy in which protagonist, Bella wakes up one day and realises she’s “had enough”, then embarks on a vicious killing spree of certainly-not-innocent men in Brighton. Published in 1991, Zahavi’s dark comedy caused quite the stir — with feminist critics simultaneously lauding and rejecting it for its sardonic tone and (extremely) violent subject matter. The text was frequently critiqued in conjunction with Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho — another slasher published in the same year. The girls also explore why it is that one text has been forgotten about whilst the other has gone on to become a cult classic… The revenge fantasy genre often ventures far into taboo and ethically grey areas. We do not approach the subject-matter lightly and encourage everyone who chooses to listen to the episode to do so mindfully. If you or anyone else has been affected by what we cover in this episode, please consider reaching out to (or supporting) The Survivor’s Trust: https://thesurvivorstrust.org (https://thesurvivorstrust.org/) Out-of-Print https://audioboom.com/channels/5167871-out-of-print Audioboom https://audioboom.com 480 95 https://audioboom.com/i/43879629/600x600/c 600 600 <iframe width="100%" height="95" src="https://embeds.audioboom.com/posts/8963305/embed?v=202301" style="background-color: transparent; display: block; padding: 0; width: 100%" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="allowtransparency" scrolling="no" title="Audioboom player" allow="autoplay" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>