scifi-fantasy-horror: by Victor Adame There’s a scene in The Road to Bali (1952) where,

scifi-fantasy-horror:

by Victor Adame

There’s a scene in The Road to Bali (1952) where, instead of a conventionally attractive woman, an ugly woman is accidentally summoned from a basket by a magic flute. (I say ugly; she isn’t a thin white woman, and she’s wearing comedy eyebrows. I rather like her.) Even worse, she is somewhat sexually aggressive, clearly ready to go. This is, of course, our hero’s nightmare: a woman who treats him the way he treats women. How can this emasculating threat be neutralised? By making the Gorgon fuckable, of course: pretty, with a pouting, vaginal mouth – but lacerating tentacles. Ugly women are dangerous. Beautiful women are dangerous.