Megan Fox, a diabolic indie rock band, toxic friendship, fluid sexuality, feminist reckoning, and a literal man-eater in the body of a high school cheerleader:
Jennifer’s Body
has it all
Featuring an original interview with director Karyn Kusama
What would be an easy sell in 2021 — women at the helm (screenwriter Diablo Cody, director Karyn Kusama), a bankable cast (Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried), and a deceptively complex skewering of gender politics — was a box office flop in 2009. In
Extra Salty
, Frederick Blichert flips the script on how
was labeled a failure to celebrate all that is scrumptious (as Jennifer would say) about it: supernatural horror, dark comedy, queer love, and a nuanced handling of gendered violence. The movie could have been to the aughts what
Heathers
was to the eighties, and it’s finally getting its due — whether in the flood of tenth-anniversary praise, the parade of Jennifer Halloween costumes, or Halsey’s nod to it (“Killing Boys”) on her platinum-selling album.
With insight into the genre’s cinematic tropes, our current cultural reckoning with misogyny, and an original interview with director Karyn Kusama,
solidifies the status of
as a cult classic.
About the Pop Classics Series
Short books that pack a big punch, Pop Classics offer intelligent, fun, and accessible arguments about why a particular pop phenomenon matters.