Seeing Red: Riding Hood Gets Angry in Freeway

Anna Gumport

Can Freeway, a campy and at times gruesome “artsploitation” piece, be read as an effective feminist film? Matthew Bright seeks to create a social satire based on a classic fairy tale. And, as Joe Baltake notes, “what allegorical character would be better to convey the way women, both young and mature, have been preyed upon than Little Red Riding Hood?” Freeway’s heroine, however, is drastically revamped as Vanessa, a feisty fifteen-year-old “bad girl” who’s angry and not at all opposed to expressing herself violently. As Vanessa admits, she’s “pissed off and the whole world owes [her].” A member of the social underclass, she lives with a drug-addicted prostitute mother whose boyfriend molests her constantly and has spent a good deal of her life bouncing in and out of foster homes and correctional facilities. The governmental institutions meant to aid Vanessa (welfare, criminal justice, etc.) have systematically failed her, and she has long since realized that no one will fight her battles for her. Far from being crushed by this knowledge, Vanessa has no problem using violence frequently to get what she needs. She is not disturbed by her behavior, nor does she restrict it to life-threatening situations. Is Vanessa an appealing feminist protagonist? Is her violence subversive or appalling? On the one hand, Vanessa can be seen as an empowered girl representing a refreshingly raw and depiction of female anger onscreen. On the other, she can be seen as an irrationally enraged character whose violence alienates viewers. In this paper I will examine Vanessa as a complex female heroine and discuss the ways in which her actions are informed by the metaphors, literary and cinematic references, and social satire at work in the film. Where does Vanessa stand in relation to other violent female characters? How do notions of girl power and “third wave” feminism relate to Vanessa? Most of all, how does Vanessa reflect on the real world – what message, if any, does she present? That Freeway is intensely critical of society is clear, but exactly how Vanessa fits into that critique is more ambiguous. Treating Vanessa as a problematic protagonist, I will argue that she can be read as a new breed of feminist film character whose violence is the means of empowerment for a disenfranchised youth unable to access traditional means of “girl power.” Vanessa brings the issues of the underclass to the forefront in a film that not only portrays an angry girl, but also presents the sources of her anger. Freeway calls for a reevaluation of our impressions of violence which takes into account the limited ability of girls like Vanessa to empower themselves without violence and the manner in which violence functions as a rhetorical strategy in a film about an angry girl who refuses to be a victim and whose life is no fairy tale.