4 — ANGER IS RETRIBUTION
Like Mildred Hayes’ search for answers regarding her
daughter’s rape and murder in 2017’s Three Billboards
Outside Ebbing, Missouri, or Cookie Lyon’s anger at being
sidelined out of the business she sacrificed her freedom
for in the TV series Empire.
5 — ANGER POWERS AGENCY
Whether there’s a specific reason or just the state of things,
rage is a powerful motivator. If Joker’s Arthur Fleck and
Network’s Howard Beale can be angry at the system, don’t
tell me that female characters can’t also be. Expecting
women to be content with the cards they’ve been dealt,
and not feel angry, is the same as expecting others to solve
their problems for them.
6 — ANGER IS SYSTEMIC
This is not just a feeling. Sometimes it is impossible to leave
it behind, even when you’re doing your best. The system
is rigged against you, as seen in the desperate outbursts
of serial-murderer-in-the-making Aileen Wuornos (Charlize
Theron) in Patty Jenkins’ 2003 film, Monster, when she
tries to quit sex work and get an office job, and is met with
another, more systemic, form of abuse.
7 — ANGER IS EXHAUSTING
For this very reason, it takes a toll, emotionally, physically
and mentally. It takes a lot of energy to feel angry,
and a lot of energy to channel it into something tangible.
Especially for women of colour, whose anger has been
tokenised and stereotyped when not ignored entirely.
8 — ANGER IS IN THE DETAILS
Women often aren’t allowed the privilege of beautiful,
violent raging monologues in movies, so they funnel their
anger into the fine details. Think the tightened fists of Betty
Cooper on TV’s Riverdale, the composed determination
of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
saga, or even the seething, wine-sipping protagonists of
Big Little Lies.
9 — ANGER IS EXPLOSIVE
Let us rage. If you need to blow up a chemical plant as an
emotional release, like Harley Quinn does in Birds of Prey,
do it. “Maybe you have to lose it sometimes to get people
to take you seriously”, says Jennifer Aniston’s character,
Alex Levy, on The Morning Show.10 — ANGER IS PAINFUL
It’s not an enjoyable experience, it’s not self-indulgent, it’s
aggressive and painful but it’s also necessary. Like Claire,
in Jennifer Kent’s rape-revenge drama The Nightingale,
who processes unbelievable amounts of grief through her
vengeful chase for retribution.11 — ANGER IS LEGION
Comfort can be found in collective rage. A horde of women
who are ‘mad as hell’ is powerful, whether they’re silent
and hooded figures in uniform, or the faces of daughters,
girlfriends, wives and mothers. “They should never have
given us uniforms if they didn’t want us to be an army,”
says Offred in the TV adaptation of ’The Handmaid’s Tale‘.12 — ANGER CAN BE HONED
Women, in life and on screen, rarely have the privilege of
just being angry. Female rage serves a purpose, sometimes
righteous, sometimes vengeful – but always motivating.
And this is the case for women more than men, because
anger underpins every single moment.13 — ANGER IS MORE THAN UPSET
It doesn’t need to be sugar-coated. It doesn’t need to be
minimised as an ’upset’ because it’s uncomfortable. True
anger should be uncomfortable to look at.14 — ANGER NEEDS WORDS
We need more female characters to say – to actually
verbalise – just how pissed off they really are. It’s a
magnetic, powerful thing to watch an actor go off and
put rage into words, like Julia Roberts as the chronically
undermined legal secretary Erin Brokovich.15 — ANGER IS CINEMATIC
We need to learn to love to watch angry women on
screen without subjecting them to violence as a way
of justification. Television has got it, with characters
experiencing, processing and refusing to run away from
this dreaded emotion. But where are the films?027