“I think that it took someone who was, like, genuinely demented at that time to play a demon-possessed man-eating teenager,” says Megan Fox. Photo: Doane Gregory/Twentieth Century Fox
It’s been ten years since the release of Jennifer’s Body, a movie that was panned by the majority of critics upon release and largely rejected at the box office. Movies flop all the time, but there was something distinct about the way Body failed. The story, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama, concerned a pair of best friends named Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) who were navigating teenage bestie codependency and the small problem of Jennifer being turned into a boy-eating succubus. It was more revenge story than vampire thrill, intent on subverting horror heroine tropes, skewering the typical commodification of women onscreen, and showcasing a kind of intimacy between teen girls rarely seen in movies.
However, the movie’s marketing campaign tells a different story. Twentieth Century Fox promoted the film around a ginned-up, vixenish version of Fox’s media-friendly persona, seemingly downplaying Body’s potential audience of young girls in favor of horny boys aged 18 to 24. Unfortunately, criticism unraveled accordingly. One reviewer offered the assessment that, “If you’re in search for a way to ogle Megan Fox’s body, there are a lot better ways to do it than subjecting yourself to this [movie]”; another said that Fox “telegraphs Jennifer’s role as the Generic Spoiled Slut” before lamenting that Seyfried was styled from a “luscious bit of blonde honeycomb” into a “sexy librarian” look instead. Even just ten years later, it seems clear that Fox and Jennifer’s Body were caught in the gears of a particularly unforgiving stage of celebrity discourse.
But what a decade it’s been for Jennifer’s Body since its release. A veritable online movement erupted in the years after its theatrical debut, calling for a reappraisal of the film — again and again. At this year’s Beyond Fest in Los Angeles — 11 days after the official tenth anniversary of Jennifer’s Body — Fox and Kusama joined me (and an audience of fans) to discuss the emotional toll of making the movie, what it felt like to be told the story needed “moar bewbs,” and what it’s like to revel in the film’s prescient message today.
Karyn, you’ve talked about Jennifer’s Body at various points over the years and participated in screenings before. But Megan, this is one of your first times really revisiting the work publicly. Why now?
Megan Fox: I didn’t really understand how it had grown since we released it. I’m not online very much at all, so unless somebody takes me aside and says, “This is happening,” I stay pretty much unaware of it. So I didn’t really understand how the movie continued to gain fans through the years. I have in recent years noticed a lot of Jennifer Checks out at Halloween, but this year all of a sudden, there were all these requests for the ten-year anniversary and celebrating it. I started looking into it a little bit more, really understanding the impact that it’s had, and I just didn’t realize that it was being appreciated now the way that it is.
A unique aspect of the way this movie has been revisited is that it’s not just, “Hey, guys, this is good.” The first piece I really remember coming out that sort of catalyzed this wave was one from the Mary Sue, “So, When Are We Going to Apologize to Megan Fox?” Then there was a big feature from last year called “You Probably Owe Jennifer’s Body an Apology.” I wanted to hear your personal reactions to it being reexamined in that way.
Karyn Kusama: I mean for me, and I’m going to guess that I share this with Megan, I like to make my work and then move on and not really revisit the experience. Not necessarily for good or for bad, just because I like to keep moving in my life. For me, what’s really gratifying about people coming back to the film and just watching it here with you guys, is it’s being revisited because it’s really fucking good. It’s exciting for me. It’s like, you know, of course the movie has its flaws and a lot of movies do. Most movies do. But I’m really excited by what survives in it, what remains totally bracing and un-PC. I have to say while Megan is up here onstage with me, your performance is so layered, nuanced, and complicated. I don’t think people understood how hard it is to do that role, and you did it and you made it look easy.
Yes. Your performance is canon.
Kusama: It’s iconic.
Obviously you’re giving a really fun performance, just chewing through all that Diablo Cody dialogue, but at the same time there’s a through line of vulnerability that keeps us from ever turning away from Jennifer. How did you bring that duality out?
Fox: I’m not going to sit up here and be like, “You know, when I was studying Method acting … ” That’s not re
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