Ms .45, Cosby, Thana Get your Gun!

TW: Sexual Assault, R*pe
What can I say about Ms .45, damn! I viewed this freshly after watching the new 'We Need to Talk About Cosby' Docuseries, which I highly recommend, and the theme of this 1981 thriller/horror/revenge flick really hit hard with relevance. Zoë Lund does a fantastic job, in her first movie, at making the character Thana believable along with the whirlwind of personality and attitude changes that ensue throughout the story. As I gazed, I started to think about the films I Spit On Your Grave, Carrie, and the female revenge genre. Then I thought about Aileen Wuornos, who made her own life about revenge kills from the oppression of the patriarchy and childhood trauma.

Ms .45 is about a woman who literally has no voice, and can be compared to women in real life who are afraid to speak out and have their voice heard when seeking justice involving their own sexual assault cases because, in reality, our criminal justice system is still deeply rooted in patriarchal nonsense wherein rapists are getting away scot free. Ms .45 exists as a form of exploitive escapism from this oppression, and a way for there to be a type of justice within story line. In the Cosby documentary, we learn that there are no winners with sexual assault and rarely accountability for these sexual assaulters. Thana is a way around our deeply cracked system, basically stating that the only way to fix this is becoming a vigilante. We see her getting deeper into her actions from the scene I love the scene of Thana standing in the workroom appearing to listen to her manager speak, but the camera does a close up of her as we see she's leaning in front of a bathroom door that has a 'Men' sign, and honey we know that's what is on her mind as soon as she is off her shift, ready to get that gun. After seeing how much pain Cosby caused, I know that there were folx who had a fantasy about rubbing him out like Thana. 

It's interesting that Abel Ferrara, the director, also did The Driller Killer a couple years before this in 1979. That was a horror pic in which the male protagonist, Ferrera playing the role, used a giant drill to murder people, mainly women; an analogy for male dominance, wielding power with genitals, & sexual assault. It's noticeable Ferrara wanted to do the opposite of that theme and push against it with Ms .45, especially since he plays Thana's assaulter! I'm glad these two films were close together because they make for a great compare and contrast, almost like a parallel universe sequel to Driller Killer.
  
On a somber note , during Thana's interactions, I didn't notice if anyone was actually trying to help her, reach out, or be a true friend. She seemed so alone, and I hoped anyone would sit down with her for a long period of time and have a talk. With Thana being mute and a victim, she felt complete isolated. There were no other characters with a similar disability either. Even the climax left me feeling despondent because it was such a tragedy, but at the very end we see that she was more human than anyone else in the film! Cheers Zoë Lund you did an impeccable job, and gave me a stronger appreciation for this genre. Ms .45, filmed during a time when Cosby was continuing his assaults, ties together the female revenge genre, Aileen Wuornos, and our broken justice system, still bringing it all to the forefront of relevance today. As for Thana, I'm with her.