Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darling readers.    For this week’s Femme Fatale Friday, I have decided to take on the topic of Ginger from the film Ginger Snaps.   In particular, I want to discuss whether or not she was the original archetype that would inspire Jennifer Check from Jennifer’s Body.    While there is plenty of connection between the two films, they also have distinct aspects to them.   So I will be exploring the comparisons and contrasts in this post!

There has been a good amount of discourse online in recent years since Jennifer’s Body began getting recognition as a great film, that compared the two films.   It is quite obvious that there are certainly several aspects within both films.   The line from Jennifer’s Body “Hell is a Teenage Girl” can easily apply to Ginger Snaps as well!   Both films focus on the relationship between two female characters in high school, one of whom becomes monstrous.   The differing point is that Ginger and Brigitte are sisters, whereas Jennifer and Needy are best friends.    Both Brigitte and Needy are shown as the Good Girls in relation to Ginger and Jennifer as the Bad Girl archetype.   Really working as a balance of Dark Feminine and Light Feminine in the Divine Feminine realm.   Finally, both films are examples of the Monstrous Feminine, showing the fear we have around female power and feminine bodies.

Ginger Snaps is really about the horror of puberty, the horror of menarche, and the horror of growing up.   Both sisters desire to remain in their cocoon together for as long as possible.   There is even a reference to a suicide pact referring to being “out by sixteen” meaning that neither sister wanted to grow up.   In the film, we see Ginger literally become a monster by being attacked by a werewolf on the night she gets her first period (which the girls’ mother had pointed out that both are years late in having their menarche) and turning into one herself over the next moon cycle.   It is a perfect alignment between the menstrual cycle and the moon cycle that lends this film a level of gravitas, as it is obvious that as her menstrual cycle continues Ginger becomes more monstrous, and we know that she will become a full-on werewolf at the full moon!   It is a great film to explore the fears associated with growing up and becoming a woman when you already feel like an outcast.  This is a fear of the feminine that both boys and girls have.    Boys fear it because they will never be able to experience that kind of cycle within their bodies, so it is foreign.   Girls fear it because it is a time when they do not know what is going on with their own bodies as it changes so rapidly and suddenly with the onset of menarche!   

Ginger began to explore her sexuality, thinking that her bloodlust was physical lust, which led to her transferring the lycanthropy to a boy she slept with.   Over the course of the film, we also see it turning into a more body horror style of film, something Jennifer’s Body never really does, as the only bodies mutilated are of her victims.   We see Ginger growing hair in strange places and dealing with the fact that she is literally growing a tail!    This mental anguish we see her go through serves to cement that her monstrous nature is not something she would ever want.   Many of the traditional werewolf tropes are taken to the bare bones in this film.   Anything that can kill a human will kill a wolf, no silver bullet is required.   Silver can help to prevent a transformation because it is a pure metal, which is why they pierce Ginger’s belly button with a pure silver ring.   When that does not work, another thing is tried, wolfsbane (or aconite) to make an injection to prevent or cure the transformation.   This is given to the guy the Ginger accidentally turned and it works to cure him.   Brigitte desperately tried to save her sister by showing solidarity and making herself a werewolf!   This all comes too late, Ginger has already killed the boy that Brigitte liked, after trying to seduce him, which is directly paralleled in what happened with Jennifer and Chip in Jennifer’s Body.   Finally, at the end Ginger becomes a full wolf and has to be killed by her own sister, dying in her arms as Brigitte weeps!   These two morbid girls with Gothic mentality ended up not dying together, but instead one dead at the hands of the other because of this battle over the hell of growing up!    

On the other hand, Jennifer’s Body is about the horror of being popular versus begin an outcast.  Jennifer becomes a monster during a botched ritual by a rock band that wanted to sacrifice a virgin to Satan.    Since she was not a virgin, she became possessed by a succubus, giving her a lot of powers, but also an insatiable thirst for human flesh.    Her popularity and sexuality are both what got her into the situation of being sacrificed, as well as what allowed her to get away with her rampage for as long as she did.   Men trusted her because they were attracted to her, only her best friend Needy thought there was an issue.    She, like Brigitte, embarked on a saga to help save her best friend which ended up with her killing Jennifer, as Brigitte killed Ginger and ended up with some powers of her own.   Brigitte ended up being a werewolf herself, but putting off the change with herbs (as is shown in the sequel film), whereas Needy got some of Jennifer’s powers by the bite that Jennifer inflicted upon her.    The bite transferred some of the powers, allowing Needy to escape the mental institution and enact revenge by killing the band Low Shoulder!    It is a story of Needy’s evolution from being an outcast to a badass who is capable of getting her revenge and living her best life (or as good as possible after the deaths of her best friend and boyfriend).   She had encountered her shadows and became stronger!

At the end of the day, the films are very similar, having a duo of girls confronting the monstrous nature of one of them.   Both even share similar naming patterns and a fight over a boy as a plot point.   But one is more about the terror of growing up, while the other is more about the terror of finding your inner strength!   For those that have not seen Ginger Snaps, I highly recommend this Canadian teen horror film. It truly was ahead of its time, and I feel it still holds up well today! I hope you have enjoyed this post about two awesome films.   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a great edit of Ginger images from the film.    I found the image on https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/ginger-snaps-movie-review.

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Further Watching

• Ginger Snaps (2000)
• Jennifer’s Body (2009)