Hot Sweaty and Weird Starts with the Hot!

By Cathryn Wriska

Hot, Sweaty, and Weird Summer at the Senate Theater kicks off a set counter-culture camp film that makes the season live up to its name. Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill! (1965) is an exploitation film by Russ Meyer that follows three strippers who are seeking excitement while traveling through the desert on a murder and kidnapping spree!

The purpose of exploitation films like this are to shock or disgust audiences, and was a are media, as films with this content were not commonly shown. These films are live up to their names, as they exploit cultural trends to garner more attention. They also use shocking themes that intertwine with those trends, to send a message.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill Kill! is classified as a “sexploitation” film, which is a subgenre of exploitation films. The way in which exploitation films include nudity or express sexuality is in a non-explicit context; in common films, most expressions of sexuality or occurrences of nudity have a purpose to the movie or are somehow justified by the plot. In exploitation films, nudity and sexuality are not so much plot devices but rather a main appeal by design. The cultural phenomena that Faster, Pussycat! engages with is the sexual liberation movement, which evolved from the female liberation movement that started in the 1960’s. The sexual liberation movement started as a way to challenge traditional conceptions and behavior regarding sex, just as exploitation films challenge the traditional conception of what it means to be a film.

The nature of these films reflects the culture of their time, as does the mode in which they were historically shown. Exploitation and exploitation films were not shown in chain theaters due to their low budget, explicit content, and violation of the Hays Code, which were guidelines filmmakers had to follow to avoid censorship in their productions. They were most often shown in independent theaters or grindhouse theaters. Grindhouse theaters were theaters in urban areas that primarily showed these types of films. Before exploitation films became a popular force in counterculture, grindhouse theaters were commonly burlesque theaters! In fact, the theaters got their name'' from the 1943 musical comedy-mystery film Lady of the Burlesque.

Exploitation films have been produced since the 1920s but became popularized in the 1960s and 1970s after censorship laws were lax. Often exploitative films were not protected under the First Amendment until the landmark case of Burstyon v. Wilson, which addressed obscenity laws and gave all films, including exploitation and its subgenres, protection under the freedom of expression clause in the 1st Amendment.

The Senate Theater carries on the historical practice of exploitation films by continuing to show this feature post-Hays Code! Celebrate the summer and exercise your 1st Amendment rights by kicking off this hot, weird, and sweaty summer at the Senate Theater with Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and appreciate the audacity of this classic exploitation picture.