30 years on, Shame’s portrayal of toxic Australian masculinity is as relevant as ever | Jenny Valentish

Deborra-Lee Furness’ vengeful motorcyclist was complex and tough at a time when Hollywood’s leading women were hamming up the ditzy blonde trope

The rape-revenge sub-genre is a real goer within exploitation cinema. The plot is always the same: hoity-toity city-slicker visits a backwater town, is terrorised, seeks help from local coppers (who are usually down at the pub), realises none is coming and takes the law into their own hands.

The most notorious is 1978’s I Spit on Your Grave, which has a kick-arse lead in former centrefold model Camille Keaton and the tagline “This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition” – and yet the fleshy promotional artwork and the rape scenes, which take up almost half of the movie’s run time, leave no doubt that the end game is titillation, not empowerment.

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