The Horror of Female Friendship
Words by Amy Louise
“Hell is a teenage girl”, as told by Needy (Amanda Seyfried), the anxious protagonist of 2009’s Jennifer’s Body. Except we do not know Needy is anxious and well uh...needy at this point. In fact, what the audience quickly bears witness to is a hardened, swearing juvenile delinquent, currently biding her time in a mental institute. As Needy is locked in solitary confinement for attacking an orderly, the audience is brought back in time to months previous, and properly introduced to the cause of Needy’s breakdown, her best friend, Jennifer (Megan Fox): hot, popular and most importantly, a man-eating succubus.
Jennifer’s Body always skewed towards more comedy than horror, an inevitable reality for a film featuring a title track by Panic! At the Disco and the word “lesbigay”. However amidst the camp screams and gore, the true horror lurks beneath the surface, lending the film enduring relevance despite the fact it is now 12 years old. Despite marketing focusing solely on Megan Fox’s identity as the hottest woman alive, promising a gore fest filled with murder, sex and all that other good stuff, at its core, Jennifer’s Body is not a tale about one girl, but rather, two: Jennifer and Needy. Sharing a deeply tempestuous relationship bolstered by time, passive aggression and sexual tension, it is here in which the true horror of the film shines.
Megan Fox as Jennifer and Amanda Seyfried as Needy.
Within the first 20 minutes of the film, the audience learns a lot about Jennifer and Needy’s relationship. They’re complete opposites who have been friends since childhood and share an unhealthy power dynamic whereby Jennifer leads and Needy follows. Easily bullied by Jennifer, Needy tags along to dingy bars and drops her boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) at a moment’s notice, all because Jennifer wants to spend time with her. Most importantly, their relationship is undeniably queer-coded, best explained by Jennifer and Needy’s ineloquent classmate as “totally lesbigay”, as Needy gazes longingly as Jennifer waves back, in a slow-mo pullback worthy of any teen film (despite the fact they typically feature heterosexual pairings). All of this, and more, makes a match made in hell.
To quote another film, 1989’s Heathers, I often think about the moment in which Veronica realises she’s killed Heather Chandler, gasping “I’ve just killed my best friend” to which her new boyfriend JP replies “and your worst enemy”. Veronica answers “same difference”.
Many women will understand that there’s a strange intimacy and intensity when it comes to the friendships you develop with other women, particularly as a teenager. Oftentimes one’s best friend can act as an effective stand-in for a romantic partner. You might talk all the time. Share private jokes, secrets, even a bed. You share an intimacy that is so close, it could be perceived as romantic. For many queer women, it often is, even if that fact is not realised until your adult years. Like all relationships, particularly those that occur during a naturally turbulent time in your life, toxicity may occur. You can grow apart. Efforts may become one-sided. Your conversations can often devolve into passive-aggression, bullying and manipulation. It’s the never-ending anxiety of not being good enough, paired with an awareness that a person is not good for you, yet somehow you can’t turn away. A common experience held by many at least once in their lifetimes, this stormy back-and-forth is the core of Jennifer’s Body.
BFFs or Frenemys?
At the beginning of the film, Jennifer and Needy are at the point of no return. Early on, Chip remarks that he doesn’t understand why Needy does everything Jennifer says, to which Needy weakly replies saying she doesn’t “it’s just because I like the same kind of things that she likes. We have stuff in common. That’s why we’re BFFs”. To Needy, Jennifer is a lifeline. To Jennifer, Needy is a plaything used to hide her own insecurities.
When Needy discovers that Jennifer is a succubus, she’s horrified, but she is simultaneously unable to turn away. Childhood memories and the passage of time keep her clinging to this wreckage of a friendship. In one scene, Needy screams in terror at an imagined image of Jennifer with blood down her mouth. In the next, she calmly listens to Jennifer’s story after a passionate kissing session, perfectly encapsulating the toxic to-and-fro of their relationship. It’s something hateful yet permeated with lust and possession, both girls needing each other as much as the other, unable to walk away.
In a film with satanic rituals, cannibalism and Chris Pratt, the scariest thing is a friendship between two girls. The horror plot’s sole purpose is to exemplify this toxicity. Jennifer claims to be unable to bring herself to hurt Needy, yet seduces and kills Chip in a clear fit of jealousy and a further attempt to exert control. In another type of film, she’d have just kissed him. Either way, the point would be made, Needy is not allowed to have anything unless Jennifer can have it too.
When Needy finally snaps and fights back, Jennifer finally shows her true rage “I am going to eat your soul and shit it out Lesnicky”. No longer the seductive popular girl or manipulative bitch, Jennifer is now pure rage because the one person who should stay by her side is now gone. In the girls’ final battle, it’s not-so-much a physical battle more so than a psychological one, with Needy finally declaring to Jennifer that she’s finished, before ripping off her half of a matching BFF necklace and stabbing her in the heart.
Despite negative reviews on its initial release, Jennifer’s Body has since developed cult status, with a myriad of feminist and queer analyses telling you exactly why that is. This relatable portrayal of a toxic friendship is what always pulls me back in, and I presume that’s the case for many other fans too. While there may not be any man-eating succubi, we’ve all likely dealt with a ‘Jennifer’, and that is something infinitely more terrifying than any horror film.
