The excerpt above talks about how when women are angry at the world and have a strong new interest in feminism, a criminal female figure will be villainised in order to remind women what happens if you don't stick to the status-quo

The video essay also mentions how, in fear of driving her boyfriend away by being overtly emotional, Dani tries to play the cool girl. The face women put on to appeal to men, to not seem hysterical, clingy, needy, or crazy, a mask that does more harm than good, forcing women to supress their emotions, thus building resentment that will at some point come out - be it through a screaming match or murder of your boyfriend in a pagan Swedish cult.

In short this is a revenge fantasy movie, and how much we appreciate when the revenge happens depends a lot on how much we relate to the character taking it so it makes sense that women, especially women who have been with emotionally unavailable men would root for Dani's revenge.

The movie tackles a lot more than this and has a subtle racist subplot that could be missed by casual viewers. On their way to the cult, driving to Sweden, the group pass a sign with a message in Swedish, that translated roughly talks about keeping Sweden pure and white. The racism is also prevalent in the cult, Film Quarterly arguing that the cult was actually founded on racism, having everything else built around that idea. This is not something that surprises me, as the people of colour in the group were killed first and discarded as they were useless past just being mere sacrifices, while the white members were used for procreating to further the cult's bloodline. Another thing that was pointed out in the article was how in the end, Dani escaped her fate by joining a white supremacist cult, so rooting for her is saying that people of colour will always have to be sacrificed for a white woman's final peace of mind.

This is true, it's easy to root for Dani as a white woman, happy that she got her revenge, because it is characteristic as a white person to not acknowledge, ignore or simply not be aware of all of the subtle racism happening in the background - meanwhile a woman of colour will notice these things, making the ending be percieved entirely different. The racism portrayed in the movie unfortunately echoes a scary increase in the alt right movement in Sweden.

In the end I can agree that Dani's anger and resentment were justified, and I hated seeing her suffering on screen, but joining a cult of white supremacists is not the way we, as white women, should find catharsis.

All these things (and more) added together result in a world where we expect wives to be unhappy, nagging, and resentful which is why seeing Amy break the mould and get revenge for all of these perceivably little things that chip away at her is freeing to especially the female viewers.

The Take goes on to mention how Amy is unnervingly calm, that she's excellent at putting on the mask that allows women to curb their emotions to avoid being hysterical.

Another characteristic we should keep in mind when viewing Amy's story is that she's white. Her plan would have not worked if not for the way white women are regarded in society. White women have always been considered helpless, infantilised, and pure; these sort of attributes that society associates with them can be weaponised which Amy does with finesse. Considering this we must think of her perhaps, real life counter parts, white women crying calling the police on a black person they feel wronged them because they know they have power simply by being white and showing vulnerability. 

Is Amy wrong to have used these traits that society assigned her? I'd argue that society deserved it and all she did was play into the role it assigned her and forced her into.

Are white women who weaponize their tears for racist acts in real life wrong? Absolutely.

Although the movie is not about her anger it is certainly front and centre in her interactions with her son, dreaming about telling him she never wished to be his mother, yelling over the dinner table.

Dread Central on the other hand argues that she actually is a good mother with an innate desire to protect her children. Her anger I think is motherly and although the main reason she is angry with her son is because she blames him for her daughter's death there is more to it. In the movie it is revealed that before this ever happened in a bout of sleepwalking she almost set him on fire. If anything, I think her anger stems from what many women feel when confronted with motherhood, the loss of their identity, their DE personification to fit into the role of 'Mother' and perhaps all of these feelings were directed at her first-born son who put her in that role.

This article from The NY Times  analyses motherly rage and the expectations placed on moms in a way I, a childless 20-year-old could never. It offers not only insight into Annie's character but into the mothers I know and helps me understand them better. 

It also calls out the way women displaying emotion is perceived so differently to men doing the same thing. The way the same emotions have negative connotations if felt by a woman, to the positive connotations if felt by a man. Perhaps not even positive connotations but more like expected, those are emotions men are expected to experience and entitled to.

Because it would be impossible for me to accurately describe or analyse how these cultures contextualise anger, for my project I will focus on it through a Western lens.

I would put it this way, anger is an heirloom, passed down from generation to generation, for each of us to add more nuances to it, in turn passing it on to our children, them moulding it into something different for their children and so on.

I will investigate places that would evoke a sense of anger through they themselves or through the action that took place there. For example, a person who was deeply traumatised by religion might feel angry when in church, a place many people find solace in.

Our anger is not taken seriously and that affects us in our day to day lives and interactions

I am interested in, for lack of a better word, mutilating my female characters who will be depicting rage, moulding them into something more and less human.

Even though this is about love and not anger I thought it would be useful to look at how other artists and people approach emotion in art. Love I believe is also one of the closest emotions to anger, the people that have made me angriest in my life have always been people I loved.

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE WHY?

Female-women (who) rage(what) now and informed by the past(when) in media and real life-western society(where), because women have always had a complicated relationship with anger which is detrimental to us and our lives for a number of reasons(why)

The Detective- everything is in service of the narrative

The Activist- maybe?

Too general, be more specific about time, the now and then comparison would be more helpful if I was more specific, what is female rage in 1820s (example)

How can women express their anger in a deserved way?

Why is it such a shameful emotion for women? (Because we were socialised that way)

The main takeaway from this for me is that 'No two expressions of anger are the same, not in real life and not in Nicholson's work'. What this video touches upon is how Jack Nicholson is able to portray the angry outbursts of his characters with nuance, being able to show the underlying emotion not just the anger on top. This is important to portray anger naturally as anger is what is called a 'second-hand' emotion, it is always preceded by another feeling that triggers it.

This is important for me to understand as to be able to create realistic stories based around anger, I must understand that my characters need to feel something else strong beforehand such as hurt, indignation, fear etc.

Looking at different advice on how to properly channel anger I followed it in the hopes of quite weirdly, getting angry myself and then I documented the different ways it was exhibited.

First, I found it quite hard to focus on something to make me angry, because my efforts were pretty aimless but then I narrowed it down.

Once I found something to trigger it just a little bit, new thoughts feeding that anger came on quick. Soon I was breathing harder, restless, pacing around my room as I could not sit still. My facial expression was pained, and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

The longer it went on the angrier I got, I started hitting my pillow and sort of growling in frustration with it covering my face as I leave in an apartment building, I couldn't do what I really wanted which was to scream. Soon in an effort to explore this emotion I started writing my feelings down on paper, specifically the reasons I was angry and trying to dissect them in relation to my feeling of anger. As I was writing, my neat handwriting devolved into a mad scrawl that then became almost unintelligible as tears began to form in my eyes. Soon I was sobbing over my piece of paper, still writing, fighting for air, having to take breaks to blow my nose.

As I was spiralling in this emotional breakdown, I had to start thinking about how to stop and come back to normal. I tried the usual, deep breathing, trying to stop crying but what helped was to keep writing and getting these feelings outside of myself on the page.

By the end I felt calmer, cleansed, the crazy act of making myself angry functioned as cathartic because of the way I chose to display it and use it- to write things down. At the end looking at the page in front of me I was able to truly see how my shallow anger at the beginning devolved into my true fears that powered it by the end. That I wasn't angry just because of this one small thing, something that is considered normal, but because of the way I placed myself opposite it. That my anger stemmed from feelings of inadequacy, abandonment, fear that I am replaceable and not enough.

I consider this anger experiment a good thing as it allowed me to look at myself in a clinical way, to see the deep hidden roots of my anger and maybe with luck, work on them.

I do think that this result came about due to my stream of consciousness writing while being angry, as a way to cope.