By Christian ShapiroWoman is the N-word of the world. Nakedly daring performance artist Yoko Ono was not the first social critic to point out the subjugation - both institutionalized and randomly individual - of the female gender, but Yoko did encourage a gallery audience to snip off her clothing while she made her points, which opened a lot of eyes to an appallingly prevalent attitude among males that the fairer, frailer sex are little more than slaves to masculine convenience and passion. For far too long, since the beginnings of recorded history at the very least, wives, mothers and daughters had been treated as chattel, personal property on a par with the family milk cow or plow horse.
There was, of course, one crucial distinction that separated the ladies of a goatherd's house from the members of his four-legged flock. The human females, in most cultures, exuded a far more powerful sex appeal than did the livestock. For centuries, nigh unto millennia, the archetypical patriarch has seen little reason to resist the impulse to couple with any sexually objectified woman who triggers his desire. On top of the female's unfair workload and second-class standing were heaped unwanted displays of affection, many times from strangers, but just as devastating when coming from neighbors or family members. These unsolicited amorous attentions often led to bruised thighs, lacerations and other soft-tissue injuries, not to mention life-threatening, reputation-shredding pregnancy that so reduced a woman's marketability that she would be discarded by her family and community and perhaps pelted with large stones until she died.
Such scenes are less common today, at least in countries where the influence of motion pictures has made a large imprint. Naysayers who belittle the importance of the movie industry and claim that commercial film is nothing more than diversionary entertainment and does nothing to improve the world, should spread their words on toast along with a dab of crow pate and eat them. Go out to any street corner in America today. Chances are there will not be a gravid woman standing there wilting under a fatal barrage of rocks. A form of activist art, the plots of such films typically begin with a damsel who is defiled without a hint of consent from her part. The balance of the educational entertainment follows the wronged woman as she regains her esteem, if not her virtue, by stalking, severely stressing and ultimately slaying her oppressor. Look and learn, louts! A female's fancy is not to be trifled with.
In recognition of service in the interest of loose and lovely ladies everywhere, Mr. Skin has established the Friends of Females Foundation, which in alliance with the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coochie Possessors), has instituted the Righteous Woman Wronged Awards, to be presented to the films that we feel have done the most to empower frail victims of brutish male sensual sadism. The honored films are presented here, in alphabetical order.
Award for Excellence in Applied Martial Arts: Alley Cat (1982), for one girl's manual emasculation of a the marauding gang of street toughs that done her wrong. Hand to hand has never been so harrowing.
Lifetime Achievement for Recurring Avenger: Angel (1984) (Picture: 1), Avenging Angel (1985) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3), Angel III: The Final Chapter (1988) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3) and Angel 4: Assault With a Deadly Weapon (1993) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3), for proving that a prostitute can hold a grudge longer than her sidewalk shelf life, meaning that if you kill one of her co-workers, you will pay with your life. Even if it takes her three sequels to track your scurvy ass down.
Fiercest Depiction of Foreign Female Fury: Baise moi (2000) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6), for graphic, sexualized violence that includes buggering a bastard with a gun barrel, and then shooting off!
Excellence in Table Turning: Extremities (1986), for serial nipple-slipper Farrah Fawcett's crafty and cruel reversal of misfortune imposed upon the creep who came back for seconds when the cops refused to lock him up for his first offense.
Best Breasts as Bared by an Avenging Angel: Foxfire (1996) (Picture: 1 - 2), for girl-gang leader Angelina Jolie's gracious display of luscious lung flesh as she and her comely schoolgirl cohorts teach life lessons to a perving pedagogue.
Exemplary Turnabout After Unfair Play: Handgun(1983), for cuddly but lethal blonde Karen Young's performance as a pistol-prodded pretty who picks up a gun and does in he who did her.
High Honors in Pursuit of High Body Count: House by the Lake (1976) (Picture: 1), for Brenda Vaccaro's spirited and innovative determination in tricking and terminating the quartet of hooligans who murdered her sleazy date and had their heinous way with her.
Most Disturbing Melding of Plentiful Nudity and Extreme Reverse Cruelty: I Spit on Your Grave (1978) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5), for the relentless naked viciousness displayed, along with the revered three Bs, by rampaging ex-victim Camille Keaton in sending her hillbilly attackers to perdition.
Best Continuation in Carrying an Eternal Theme One Giant Leap Too Far Forward: I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on Your Grave (2001) (Picture: 1 - 2), for the wholesale, hardcore sexual mayhem committed upon four unlucky stiffs when Emily Haack frees herself from a homicidal crazy, but rather than rescue her three fellow (but male and malefic) prisoners, taunts, tortures, buggers and kills them all.
Super Sensational Supermodel Sensationalism: Lipstick (1976), for the cover-girl beauty maintained by mannequin icon Margaux Hemingway while putting the screws to the scumbag who not only screwed her with impunity, but mistreated Margaux's sister (played by real-life sibling Mariel) to the same heinous anus moves.
Loudest, Lewdest Amplification of the Serial Victim's Silent Scream: Ms. 45 (1981), for the enterprising proactive policy adopted by mute, dangerously mouth-watering neo-feminist icon Zoe Tamerlis of putting a .45-caliber bullet into any man who makes a play for her.
Merciless Adherence to Genre Tradition: Naked Vengeance (1985), for following the long-established and morally justified formula of seduction, castration and execution, which allows for law-abiding, female-respecting males in the audience to lust after the curvy skin of crafty brunette Deborah Tranelli while enjoying the summary dispatching of the lout who marred that epidermis.
Hardcore Hellacious Payback in a Porno Format: Savage Fury (1985), for proving that the XXX-rated film community is every bit as concerned as the legitimate Hollywood patriarchy about the rights of every wronged woman to be attractive, naked and adept at turning her attacker into a mewling, emasculated mess of his former huffed-up, hubristic self.
Praiseworthy Perfection in Giving the Devil His Due: Savage Streets (1984) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4), for undoing the exorcism and possessing leather-pants-suited Linda Blair with a rage to bring hell to the Satan spawn who unbidden spews into and spoils her sweet sister (Linnea Quigley).
Exceptional Achievement in Evil Being Done as Evil Does: Scrapbook (2000) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5), for assuring a suitably scandalized and scandalously aroused audience that a serial killer's sex toy will not allow herself to be his pitiful, put-upon plaything forever. Especially not if she is eternally naked Emily Haack.
What Friendship Means Inspirational Plaque: Showgirls (1995) (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3), for the wonderful, cathartic ass-whupping given in proxy by Elizabeth Berkley for her best bud, the bubbly black babe whose life force is nearly extinguished by the selfish and sadistic sexual appetite of a half-a-fag rock star.
Special Recognition of Relentlessly Quick and Eternal Vengeance: Sudden Death (1985), for the pistol-packing protagonist, played by Denise Coward, who bravely puts back the pieces after being treated like a piece of toilet paper and blows to pieces any penis-owner who even looks like he might think he wants a piece of her.
Tribute to Empowering Depiction of Handicapped Heroine: Thriller: A Cruel Picture a/k/a They Call Her One-Eye (1974), for reminding the forgetful masses that hookers are human too and are not to be harmed and have their eyes poked out unless the doomed dude doing the disservice is prepared to lose everything most precious in the life he possesses.
Most Rousing Collaboration by Collective Creep Killers: Victims (1985), for illustrating that the wrath of a woman assaulted and scorned is like nothing known even in hell, and that the magnitude of this violent contempt expands exponentially for each aggrieved vagina owner added to the pack of vigilantes.
Most Inspired Overstatement of the Obvious: W.A.R. (1987), for creating a female support group with unlimited growth potential and no likely opposition, at least not on the cloven side of the gender dividing line.
