Boiling the Bunny: The Backlash and Macho Feminism

Abstract

Ever since Fatal Attraction was first released in 1987, the film has become synonymous with one particular scene — the boiling rabbit. Cinema audiences were shocked and scared as they witnessed the motherly and caring Beth (Anne Archer) discovering her daughter’s dead pet simmering in a pot upon the stove. The child screams in fear, unable to find the animal, and her husband Dan (Michael Douglas) jumps up, already certain of who is to blame for this gruesome crime — his mad, pregnant mistress Alex Forrest (Glenn Close). Principally as a result of this heinous attack on the happy American family, moviegoers cheered during the final scene that saw Alex being both drowned and shot.¹ This raving madwoman seemed so incredibly deranged and turned increasingly dangerous in her actions that contemporary audiences came to feel an overwhelming sense of hatred for her, as well as sympathy for her intended victims. Alex became the embodiment of evil in the film and, following her vicious murder of an innocent animal, she also gave rise to a new cultural stereotype and description of neurotic and menacing womanhood: the bunny-boiler.² Susan Faludi explains that as soon as the film came out it mesmerized the media that reported on “Real Life Fatal Attractions”, advising the unsuspecting public that “[i]t’s not just a movie: All too often, ‘casual’ affairs end in rage, revenge, and shattered lives” (145).