Do Revenge is a Netflix movie that came out last year. Initially, I wasn’t sure if this movie would fit into the heroine’s journey, but I realized it is a perfect representation of Victoria Lynn Schmidt’s diagram. In this post, I will only talk about the first four steps of Schmidt’s diagram so I won’t spoil the whole movie. I do think if you watch the whole movie you would understand my initial confusion when trying to compare it to the heroine’s journey because, by the end of the movie, the main character doesn’t seem to change very much. She also doesn’t battle with her femininity in the same way that Elle in Legally Blonde did. But the first four steps of the heroine’s journey seem to fit very well with Do Revenge, and even though she doesn’t face all of the problems outlined in Schmidt’s diagram, she does generally go through the steps and has her own sort of personal development even if it isn’t directly related to her relationship with her gender.
The first step in Schmidt’s diagram is the illusion of the perfect world. The protagonist in Do Revenge is Drea, a scholarship student attending a private school, Rosehill. She has cultivated the perfect persona throughout high school and wants to attend Yale when she graduates. She fits in with the popular group at her school and has a popular boyfriend, Max. The movie opens with her friend, Tara, hosting a party for her to congratulate her on being on the cover of a magazine. Although some people believe she only got the cover because she was a scholarship student, her rich friends back her up. As Drea narrates this party scene and the viewer gets to see how she has carefully crafted her life to ensure her perfect future, it becomes obvious that she has an illusion of a perfect world. At the end of the party, Max asks Drea to send him an explicit video. The next day at school, she realizes someone sent the video to everyone. Of course, she thinks it was Max and confronts him. He denies it and she punches him. At this point, Drea’s life falls apart. Max’s betrayal makes her realize that everything she did to ensure her perfect future was all for nothing, and she faces a lot of loss in her life. This part in the movie is kind of similar to the betrayal in Legally Blonde. Drea faces a betrayal from her trusted boyfriend, and it feels like everything else falls apart.
Over the summer, Drea goes to tennis camp where she meets Eleanor. Although Drea is initially hesitant to accept Eleanor’s friendship out of fear that it stems from pity, they eventually have a conversation where Eleanor confides in Drea about a rumor a Rosehill student spread that ruined her life. Eleanor is transferring to Rosehill the following year. When school starts, Drea realizes that Tara and Max started dating, and all her friends have decided to take Max’s side. Max further disappoints her when he victimizes himself and states that his privacy was violated when the video was released at a school assembly. At this point in the movie steps three and four overlap. Step three is the awakening, and step four is passing through the gates of judgment. When Drea starts school again, she passes through the gates of judgment before her awakening, but the judgment continues even after her awakening. Drea and Eleanor meet again once school starts and they decide to “do each other’s revenge” so that they can’t get caught. No one knows that Drea and Eleanor know each other, so they decide that Eleanor will find something to use against Max, and Drea will do the same for the girl who spread a rumor about Eleanor. Once the awakening is over, they both start preparing for their journey. Eleanor becomes friends with Max and they make plans to ruin his life. Drea continues passing through the gates of judgment as she is rejected by Yale and her old friends continue to ignore and mock her. She is also continuously judged by others in her school while Max paints himself as the victim and maintains his popular status.
As the movie continues, Drea’s heroine’s journey follows the path Schmidt’s diagram lays out.
I think your analysis of the movie is really interesting. Although the story may not fit the heroine's journey perfectly, you state that it has a combination and repetition of steps. I think that this is what makes the heroine's journey so cool because it is flexible and therefore widely adaptable. Additionally, although the character may not change on the surface, I think that her changed relationship with herself is evidence of internal development because that is one of the most basic parts of oneself. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI love your analysis of this movie and how it fits into the Heroine's Journey in a unique way! A lot of narratives that obviously fit with Schmidt's Heroine's Journey model deal with external symbols of femininity and masculinity, but I love how you showed how this model can fit with internal growth and growth through relationships, which has less obvious ties to femininity and masculinity. I think the way Drea grows to become more independent is evidence of her separating from traditional views of femininity (like the expectation to rely on other people/stronger figures (e.g. men)), and her being comfortable with herself seems like evidence of the heroine finding her place in the world, not strictly following people's/society's expectations of her. I agree with Lisa that this just shows how versatile the Heroine's Journey model is, and I think you portray this perfectly!
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ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! I just recently watched the movie and didn’t even think about it as a heroine's journey, but you match it perfectly. Another way of looking at it (instead of her understanding femininity and masculinity) is her journey with social expectations of popular kids versus how she actually wants to act. In the beginning she’s got the ideal high school life, but then she loses her status and has to learn a different lifestyle.