Feminist Take on Historic Murder

A new film "Lizzie" as reviewed by Amy Nicholson of Variety Magazine takes a feminist spin on a famous female ax murderer of the late 1800s. Instead of framing this historical crime as a cold-blooded murder, the film develops a plot framing the woman "Lizzie Borden" as a feminist anti-hero, taking her revenge on the misogynist, abusive and immoral men she is forced to be submissive to. It is interesting to see a crime that was covered heavily in newspapers at the time in a completely different way, reframed for modern morals. Although the film is very white-centric, it shows an interesting shift in the interpretation of women's actions and their justifications. Additionally, the lead is portrayed as a lesbian, something that is used as an additional form of character development but does not have any particular historical backing. This choice is interesting, as it could be interpreted as providing more representation for the LGBT community in films, but it could also be interpreted as playing into the man-hating, aggressive stereotype that lesbians frequently face.