Pork Chop
In Clerks II, Elias tells us about Pillow Pants, a troll that lives inside his girlfriend’s vagina. ‘Myra says that if I put my thing in her, Pillow Pants will bite it off,’ he explains, to Randal’s consternation. In Teeth, directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, Pillow Pants is real, or at least its gnashers are, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘man eater.’
Vagina dentata is a real life condition. One in twelve million women possess a vagina that’s lined with teeth, just as we’re told teeth can grow potentially on any part of the human body. But don’t worry. The website Understanding Vagina Dentata decodes many of the myths surrounding it, advising that it doesn’t really lead to castration. That the site happily links to the film’s UK domain should say something about how seriously it treats the movie, which is a horror-comedy covering the subject in the only way it probably could without lapsing into ridiculousness.
Teeth starts by introducing its female lead, Dawn (Jess Weixler) as a high school student in Texas who leads the local chastity group. It soon becomes apparent that this is a front, masking the real reason for suppressing her developing sexuality, and we learn exactly why when one of her male friends attempts to take advantage of her. At first, Dawn is scared of her condition. The school’s sex education classes are depicted as a joke. Whereas teachers discuss the make-up of the penis in lurid detail, the page in the textbook that offers a drawing of the vagina has been covered. When students try to peel off the gold sticker shielding the offending image, it tears away the entire page. Clearly in this repressive society, Dawn doesn’t have a chance to find out for herself what’s down there, and what shouldn’t be down there, until it’s too late for a would-be suitor.
Whether sex education in Bush’s conservative America is really like this remains to be seen. In the UK, we generally get the impression there are regressive sectors of the United States that have a ‘Mr Cholmondley-Warner‘ attitude to such matters, though it would be unwise to view Teeth purely as a withering denouncement. That it’s there as part of the subtext is definite, but just as likely to add to Dawn’s misery is her family life. Under the belching cooling stacks of the local industrial plant, Dawn shares her house with a dying mother, weakling step-father and his odious son, Brad (John Hensley), a slacker who plays heavy rock at top volume as the soundtrack to taking his girlfriend up the arse. ‘I have a perfectly good pussy,’ she moans, but Brad’s subconsciousness takes him back to a time when he was a kid, and young Dawn showed him hers…
At school, Dawn’s circle of friends hails from her chastity group. Bad boy Ryan (Ashley Springer) admires her. She has eyes for Tobey (Hale Appleman), who at first seems to be equally committed to celibacy before marriage, but this isn’t the case. After an innocent swim in the local pool, Tobey tries it on, and is the first to experience the eye-watering crunch that defines the title.
So much for Tobey. Teeth doesn’t spare us any detail. As the screaming boy catches sight of his mangled stump and flees, Dawn shrinks from the mess that remains, the helmet and what’s left of the shaft swimming in its own pool of blood. Nor is this the last such scene. When Dawn volunteers to be examined by a doctor, he loses several of his fingers when his work starts taking on less professional dimensions. And it’s here that Teeth starts taking on a blackly comic edge. Deflowered and growing in confidence, Dawn starts to realise that she has power, that she can literally use sex as a weapon.
Teeth never seems entirely sure about what it’s trying to say. Part social commentary, part comedy and (especially to male viewers) a good deal of horror, the middle section in particular stops being about a girl struggling to come to terms with her uniqueness, and takes on the energy of a revenge thriller, albeit one with dark comic moments. Yet this is also its strength. Teeth confronts an allegory-riddled and difficult subject, and thanks mainly to its strong lead character offers some light at the end of the tunnel. Its morality is ambiguous. Dawn quickly sheds her chaste veneer and goes from the most blushing of virgins to an outright fox in less than 90 minutes, but then by the close of play she’s also in control and stronger for her experiences. Is that the point? Is the film trying to tell us that being a teenager is indeed to be confused, and good luck to anybody who comes out unscathed at the other end? If so, then Teeth has a lot to say about growing pains that is true, albeit taking the point to extremes.
A bigger problem comes in the movie’s depiction of men. According to Teeth, the male of the species is a creep and borderline rapist, from the pervy gynaecologist through to the lad who tries to lay Dawn for a dare. In fact, these duplicitous characterisations are there simply to move along the plot. What Teeth focuses on is Dawn’s progress. Its men line up to be emasculated; each of them deserves the loss of a penis that is their just dessert. A withering comment if ever there was one, and one that isn’t entirely accurate
Yet neither is it completely invalid. Teeth is a good, well made movie that survives its groin-clutching sequences. It is one of the odder attempts at a tale about female empowerment, and in Jess Weixler it has an actress who, er, sinks her teeth into the role to celebratory effect. The film closes with a fully sexualised Dawn, wearing an ironically virginal white dress and setting out into the great unknown. She’s beautiful, confident and happy, and the last scene, which is left teasingly open, demonstrates that she won’t let anything stand in her way. As heroines for the twenty first century go, we could do a lot worse.