Winter's Bone - Analysis (web link)

“The astonishing thing is not that some people steal or that others occasionally go out on strike, but rather that all those who are starving do not steal as a regular practice, and all those who are exploited are not continually out on strike: after centuries of exploitation, why do people still tolerate being humiliated and enslaved, to such a point, indeed, that they actually want humiliation and slavery not only for others but for themselves?”

So wrote the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich in his book on the psycho-sexual attractions of authoritarianism The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933).  Nowhere is this question more salient than in considering man’s oppression of women. Humanity’s inhumanity to Humanity takes myriad forms.  We are ruled not by a Patriarchal father but by a Kyriarchal lord and the shape of that lord is forever changing.

The dynamic nature of human oppression goes some way to explaining the extent to which women can be complicit in the oppression of other women.  This is a theme that cuts right to the heart of Debra Granik’s cinematic adaptation of Daniel Woodrell’s novel Winter’s Bone (2006).  Set in the Ozark mountains, the film tells the story of a seventeen year-old girl as she navigates the terrifying network of hatreds, fears and obligations that holds together her impoverished rural community.

In the Ozarks of Winter’s Bone, both men and women are trapped within a rigidly defined set of social roles. Notionally patriarchal in structure, these roles oppress men as much as they oppress women because they deprive men of their freedom. This concept is beautifully illustrated in a scene in which Teardrop has decided to help Ree to track down the bones of her father. When driving back home at night, the pair are pulled over by the local sheriff. Rather than seeking to placate the lawman, Teardrop reaches for his rifle and a tense stand-off ensues. The only reason a death does not follow is that the sheriff decides to back down. Teardrop is an intelligent man, he understands more than he lets on, but when another man cuts across his path and decides to interfere in his business, he must act in the way expected of him. In a later scene, the sheriff seeks to explain to Ree that he backed down in order to protect her but it is abundantly clear that Ree thinks him not only a coward but actually un-manly.

Read more here: https://ruthlessculture.com/2010/09/30/winters-bone-2010-its-a-mans-world-thanks-to-women/