Revenge (2017)
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
Yes — Revenge is woke, scoring 60 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Coralie Fargeat's Revenge takes the rape-revenge thriller, a genre with a long and dubious ledger, and submits it to a rigorous audit.
Consciousness Markers
The film is explicitly framed by its director and critics as a feminist reworking of the rape-revenge genre, subverting the male gaze and centering a woman's transformation from object of desire to self-possessed avenger.
The feminist critique is embedded in visceral genre action rather than delivered as explicit sermonizing, though the subversion of the male gaze carries a pointed thematic argument.
The cast is almost entirely white European actors with no evident effort toward diverse or inclusive casting; the protagonist being a woman is a genre convention, not a representation statement.
The villain is a wealthy married man with a luxury desert villa, but the film critiques his personal predation and entitlement rather than mounting any systemic class or anti-capitalist argument.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext appear anywhere in the film.
Race is not a theme; the conflict is gendered and interpersonal, with no engagement of racial dynamics.
The desert setting is atmospheric backdrop only; no environmental or climate messaging is present.
The film's treatment of the body is visceral and gore-focused; there is no body-positivity messaging.
No neurodivergent characters or themes are present.
The film is a fictional genre piece with no historical subject matter to revise.
Why it received this score
Coralie Fargeat's Revenge takes the rape-revenge thriller, a genre with a long and dubious ledger, and submits it to a rigorous audit. The camera first regards Jen as an object, then watches her become a blade. This is a deliberate maneuver, and the film's defenders have spent years explaining it in terms usually reserved for museum wall labels. The result is a lean, brutal action picture with an argument in its pocket.
The argument is feminist, and it is not shy about being feminist, though it prefers blood to seminars. Fargeat stages the assault briefly and refuses to make suffering the main attraction. The transformation, the cauterized wound, the phoenix scar, the final shotgun chase through a luxury villa, all of it is designed to reverse the gaze and settle the account. There is little lecture in the delivery. The film trusts a woman with a shotgun to make its case, which is more than many of its peers manage.
Elsewhere the ledger is thinner. The cast is white European by default. The villain has a nice house and a sense of entitlement, but the film is not interested in systems, only in a very bad man and his friends. Race, climate, LGBTQ subtext, neurodivergence, and body politics are absent. The body here is a site of damage and repair, not a message. This leaves a film that is pointed without being preachy, visceral without being empty. It is a genre exercise with a thesis, and the thesis earns its keep.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Jen's romantic getaway with her wealthy married boyfriend is disrupted when his friends arrive for an impromptu hunting trip. Tension mounts at the house until the situation culminates in an unexpected way.
Questions about Revenge
Is Revenge woke?
Yes — Revenge is woke, scoring 60 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Woke.
What makes Revenge woke?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Feminist Agenda (82). On Feminist Agenda: The film is explicitly framed by its director and critics as a feminist reworking of the rape-revenge genre, subverting the male gaze and centering a woman's transformation from object of desire to self-possessed avenger.
How does Revenge compare to other 2017 movies?
It ranks #18 of the 309 films from 2017 we've scored; their average is 19. The wokest is I Am Not Your Negro (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.