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There’s something wrong with Dawn O’Keefe. She is a member of a group called The Promise, a group for young people that promotes abstinence until marriage. That in itself is not a bad thing, believe me, I have a daughter myself. The problem lies with the religious dogma of the group, the typical proto-Christian repression of all things unseemly. Not only are the young people supposed to abstain from any sexual contact, but they are also taught that masturbation is a sin against God. But it goes even further than that. When Dawn and Tobey, her potential boyfriend, and her best friends, couple Phil and Meg, go out on a double date to the movies, they end up seeing a G-rated cartoon because, as Dawn says, “…
even a PG-13 movie is going to have heavy making out.” These are not kids who are taught to wait until the time is right: they are kids who are taught to hate their own bodies, who are taught that any acknowledgement of their raging hormones is a repugnant thing, and that so much as having an impure thought needs to be the basis of a sleepless, guilt-ridden night. (In one of the deleted scenes, when the Scooby gang is patrolling the mall, they show shock and horror at the types of sexual images used in advertisements. Dawn proceeds to tell them how she simply filters them out. How she has an internal censor, and any images that she feels she shouldn’t see simply don’t get seen by her. The scene is on-the-nose, and unnecessary to all but the most chuckle-headed viewers, but for reviewing purposes helps to explain Dawn’s extremely sheltered and unhealthily repressed mindset.) | So with this well-meaning but ultimately unhealthy mindset in place, it is no wonder that Dawn is completely unable to cope with one of the basic horrors of the modern world: namely, the dominance of the male ego and sexual aggression. While Teeth could easily register as a horror film, it is mainly a comedy, albeit a very dark one. One of the darkest moments comes when Dawn is violated, and as is the case in real life more often than I care to think about, she is violated by someone whom she trusted (for whom the basis of his wretched act is the very repression I spoke of earlier). Except the violator gets the surprise of his life. Because, if you were not previously aware, there is something wrong with Dawn O’Keefe. She has Vagina Dentata. Which is exactly what it sounds like. The (literally) mythical chompers downstairs. In a fit of pure terror and panic, she reflexively clamps down on her attacker, and does Lorena Bobbit eight-shades of proud. |  You're in for a surprise, buddy! |
Except Dawn feels a tremendous burden of guilt. On the one hand, she feels it because she has been programmed to feel guilt over everything, but also because society always chooses to blame the victim. She had it coming. She was asking for it. And the penis is the most sacrosanct image in American culture, so to violate the magic wand of the masses must make her a violator herself. The unforeseen side-effect of the attack and subsequent defense from such is two-fold: on the one hand, she can no longer deny herself as a sexual being. She has had her sexuality thrust upon her in a way she cannot ignore, and she becomes forced to acknowledge and deal with that. Similarly, she can no longer ignore her delicate condition south of the border, the knowledge of which she has been repressing since an early childhood incident involving her step-brother.
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