In this essay I am going to critically analyse Doris Wishman's Bad Girls go to Hell (1965) .). Doris Wishman was a prolific director within the popular Sexploitation genre during the 1960’s. The term 'sexploitation' refers to low budget, highly graphically films that use sex as a shock factor of entertainment. Schaefer remarksRandall Clark observes that "Playboy inspired imagery of nude women and later of stimulated sex " (2002, p3) Randall Clark further comments " Like the art film, exploitation pictures are made cheaply, by independent filmakersfilmmakers and reflect no studio control. They are aimed at a small, exclusive audience who might avoid mainstream Hollywood product" (1996, p4)).A marginalised figure due to male dominance of the…show more content… Low- angle shots of feet and shadows further distances the viewer away from the narrative, whilst presenting Meg’s identity as fragmented and obsolete within the city. Meg is passive in patrichal environments, adopting the role of the domesticated housewife with her husband Ted and Al, the alcoholic whom she meets within New York City. Her repressed desires dissipate within female environments, shown by her homosexual encounter with Della, and the lack of cutaways, as Luckett observes “the scene in Bad Girls where Della seduces Meg features just one random cutaway (a brief shot of a radio clock that serves no censorship function and is only minimally disruptive” (2002,p146) By fetishizing violence, Bad Girls Go To Hell resists represses the erotic, feminizing the male viewpoint, as Moreover, Meg chooses to dream about homosexual sex in this manner, whilst heterosexual sex is presented as a rampant…show more content… Instead they correspond with a more feminine look..” (2003,p154-p155).
Wishman may have used the representations of women within the ‘roughie’ genre to promote the demoted position of women in 1960’s American society, the increase of male anxiety due to socio-economic factors. By denying male viewers scopohophilic pleasure, critics situate Bad Girls go To Hell in the realm of feminist cinema, as McKendry notes “...many critics began to take a sullen notice of Wishman's films, citing them as seedy grindhouse films with a weird "feminist" feel" (2010, p.59)G.
Wishman’s ‘roughie’ films also contain gratious violence although they emasculate women. In contrast, Modelski argues “the film generally plays to the male gaze, as the camera lingers on various female body parts of the scantily clad Meg and the soundtrack plays the cheery, chintzy Muzak that is a staple of pornography to this