Writer: Sonaxi Satpathy
Editor: Mehul Shah
Illustrator: Parina Ramchandani
"I've mastered the art of letting go so well, I forget to be angry," says Oprah Winfrey. And many more, you have insisted on denouncing anger, which according to modern psychology, is a normal human emotion. Of course, like most things in psychology, anger can be adaptive as well as maladaptive. While this should apply to everyone regardless of gender, more often than not, a woman's anger becomes synonymous with the maladaptive kind. It reflects how "the angry young man" is the celebrated hero who is angry for a cause while "the angry woman" is either the "shrill wife," the "crazy ex-girlfriend," or the "feminazi."
This gendered understanding of anger can be analysed from a multitude of dimensions, bringing in the psychological, historical, religious, political, social and capitalist narratives around it. While that would be a comprehensive discussion, a brief understanding of the angry woman can be drawn from her portrayal in art and cinema and how it has evolved.
Angry women have always been goddesses, monsters or witches; in other words, since the oldest of stories, the "angry woman" has been denormalized. The angry Indian goddess "Kali" and the Greek figure "Medusa" are a node of this categorization.
During the 17th century, playwright William Congreve had popularly written, "Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned." That sets the stage for one of the few cliches in which a woman's anger can be perceived - it is to be feared. During this same period, we had Lady Macbeth and the painting titled "Timoclea Killing Her Rapist" by Elisabetta Sirani. Both women take power into their own hands, though in different contexts.
These examples may make you wonder, "Is the angry woman empowered?" Well, it might seem so, but not really. The female rage has been historically commercialised, acting majorly as a cliche or a plot point.
Even the modern feminist doesn't get to be angry, as that makes her irrational; that's a "bad feminist." Authors like Roxane Gay have elaborated on this. An apt example in this regard would be the 1967 book S.C.U.M. (Society For Cutting Up Men) Manifesto by Valerie Solanas. The title justifies the radical ideas the book contains. It was actively declared as a work of fiction by critics and feminists alike; a violent and unhinged kind of anger cannot be patronized by the insecure man by saying that "you look cute when you're angry." Because anger of this kind is "irrational" and means that "she's probably on her period." A modern-day example of this phenomenon is when actress Uma Thurman was lauded for "restraining her anger" in an interview regarding the misconduct by Hervey Weinstein.
In 20th and 21st cinema, we see the evolution of the angry woman, from troops such as the "Final Girl" - think of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - to the "Good For Her" genre - movies like Promising Young Women or Gone Girl. Here again, even though the angry woman is the protagonist, female rage is still scary, murderous, and even psychotic. It is a radical response to the injustice that has been done to her.
The angry woman in cinema is either caricatured and used as an object of humour or a terrifying villain; at most, she's the revenge-seeking anti-heroine. An angry woman as the heroine is a rare sight because conventionally, the heroine needs to be kind and thoughtful, her rage contained; this can be understood by the un-nuanced and one-dimensional portrayal of many female superheroes.
With time there have been attempts to humanise the angry woman and to tell stories from her point of view. Movies and shows like "I", "Tonya," and "Dead to Me" can be seen as examples. Works like these need to be celebrated as they humanise the female rage and make for a much more nuanced and interesting character.
To humanise female rage is exceedingly vital because the stigmatisation of this emotion and its expression turns it into a privilege for an entire section of society. It's about time that we realise that female rage can be just as adaptive and is just as normal; something as fundamental as feeling anger and being able to express it shouldn't be a privilege.
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