title: Female genital mutilation

text: Type I is the most common form in Egypt, and in the southern parts of Nigeria. Type III (infibulation) is concentrated in northeastern Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan. In surveys in 2002–2006, 30 percent of cut girls in Djibouti, 38 percent in Eritrea, and 63 percent in Somalia had experienced Type III. There is also a high prevalence of infibulation among girls in Niger and Senegal, and in 2013 it was estimated that in Nigeria three percent of the 0–14 age group had been infibulated. The type of procedure is often linked to ethnicity. In Eritrea, for example, a survey in 2002 found that all Hedareb girls had been infibulated, compared with two percent of the Tigrinya, most of whom fell into the "cut, no flesh removed" category.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: FGM is mostly found in what Gerry Mackie called an "intriguingly contiguous" zone in Africa—east to west from Somalia to Senegal, and north to south from Egypt to Tanzania. Nationally representative figures are available for 27 countries in Africa, as well as Indonesia, Iraqi Kurdistan and Yemen. Over 200 million women and girls are thought to be living with FGM in those 30 countries.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The highest concentrations among the 15–49 age group are in Somalia (98 percent), Guinea (97 percent), Djibouti (93 percent), Egypt (91 percent), and Sierra Leone (90 percent). As of 2013, 27.2 million women had undergone FGM in Egypt, 23.8 million in Ethiopia, and 19.9 million in Nigeria. There is a high concentration in Indonesia, where according to UNICEF Type I (clitoridectomy) and Type IV (symbolic nicking) are practised; the Indonesian Ministry of Health and Indonesian Ulema Council both say the clitoris should not be cut. The prevalence rate for the 0–11 group in Indonesia is 49 percent (13.4 million). Smaller studies or anecdotal reports suggest that various types of FGM are also practised in various circumstances in Colombia, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and India, but there are no representative data on the prevalence in these countries.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Prevalence figures for the 15–19 age group and younger show a downward trend. For example, Burkina Faso fell from 89 percent (1980) to 58 percent (2010); Egypt from 97 percent (1985) to 70 percent (2015); and Kenya from 41 percent (1984) to 11 percent (2014). Beginning in 2010, household surveys asked women about the FGM status of all their living daughters. The highest concentrations among girls aged 0–14 were in Gambia (56 percent), Mauritania (54 percent), Indonesia (49 percent for 0–11) and Guinea (46 percent). The figures suggest that a girl was one third less likely in 2014 to undergo FGM than she was 30 years ago. According to a 2018 study published in "BMJ Global Health", the prevalence within the 0–14 year old group fell in East Africa from 71.4 percent in 1995 to 8 percent in 2016; in North Africa from 57.7 percent in 1990 to 14.1 percent in 2015; and in West Africa from 73.6 percent in 1996 to 25.4 percent in 2017. If the current rate of decline continues, the number of girls cut will nevertheless continue to rise because of population growth, according to UNICEF in 2014; they estimate that the figure will increase from 3.6 million a year in 2013 to 4.1 million in 2050.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Surveys have found FGM to be more common in rural areas, less common in most countries among girls from the wealthiest homes, and (except in Sudan and Somalia) less common in girls whose mothers had access to primary or secondary/higher education. In Somalia and Sudan the situation was reversed: in Somalia, the mothers' access to secondary/higher education was accompanied by a rise in prevalence of FGM in their daughters, and in Sudan, access to any education was accompanied by a rise.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: FGM is not invariably a rite of passage between childhood and adulthood but is often performed on much younger children. Girls are most commonly cut shortly after birth to age 15. In half the countries for which national figures were available in 2000–2010, most girls had been cut by age five. Over 80 percent (of those cut) are cut before the age of five in Nigeria, Mali, Eritrea, Ghana and Mauritania. The 1997 Demographic and Health Survey in Yemen found that 76 percent of girls had been cut within two weeks of birth. The percentage is reversed in Somalia, Egypt, Chad, and the Central African Republic, where over 80 percent (of those cut) are cut between five and 14. Just as the type of FGM is often linked to ethnicity, so is the mean age. In Kenya, for example, the Kisi cut around age 10 and the Kamba at 16.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: A country's national prevalence often reflects a high sub-national prevalence among certain ethnicities, rather than a widespread practice. In Iraq, for example, FGM is found mostly among the Kurds in Erbil (58 percent prevalence within age group 15–49, as of 2011), Sulaymaniyah (54 percent) and Kirkuk (20 percent), giving the country a national prevalence of eight percent. The practice is sometimes an ethnic marker, but it may differ along national lines. For example, in the northeastern regions of Ethiopia and Kenya, which share a border with Somalia, the Somali people practise FGM at around the same rate as they do in Somalia. But in Guinea all Fulani women responding to a survey in 2012 said they had experienced FGM, against 12 percent of the Fulani in Chad, while in Nigeria the Fulani are the only large ethnic group in the country not to practise it.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Dahabo Musa, a Somali woman, described infibulation in a 1988 poem as the "three feminine sorrows": the procedure itself, the wedding night when the woman is cut open, then childbirth when she is cut again. Despite the evident suffering, it is women who organize all forms of FGM. Anthropologist Rose Oldfield Hayes wrote in 1975 that educated Sudanese men who did not want their daughters to be infibulated (preferring clitoridectomy) would find the girls had been sewn up after the grandmothers arranged a visit to relatives. Gerry Mackie has compared the practice to footbinding. Like FGM, footbinding was carried out on young girls, nearly universal where practised, tied to ideas about honour, chastity, and appropriate marriage, and "supported and transmitted" by women.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: FGM practitioners see the procedures as marking not only ethnic boundaries but also gender differences. According to this view, male circumcision defeminizes men while FGM demasculinizes women. Fuambai Ahmadu, an anthropologist and member of the Kono people of Sierra Leone, who in 1992 underwent clitoridectomy as an adult during a Sande society initiation, argued in 2000 that it is a male-centred assumption that the clitoris is important to female sexuality. African female symbolism revolves instead around the concept of the womb. Infibulation draws on that idea of enclosure and fertility. "[G]enital cutting completes the social definition of a child's sex by eliminating external traces of androgyny," Janice Boddy wrote in 2007. "The female body is then covered, closed, and its productive blood bound within; the male body is unveiled, opened, and exposed."


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In communities where infibulation is common, there is a preference for women's genitals to be smooth, dry and without odour, and both women and men may find the natural vulva repulsive. Some men seem to enjoy the effort of penetrating an infibulation. The local preference for dry sex causes women to introduce substances into the vagina to reduce lubrication, including leaves, tree bark, toothpaste and Vicks menthol rub. The WHO includes this practice within Type IV FGM, because the added friction during intercourse can cause lacerations and increase the risk of infection. Because of the smooth appearance of an infibulated vulva, there is also a belief that infibulation increases hygiene.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Common reasons for FGM cited by women in surveys are social acceptance, religion, hygiene, preservation of virginity, marriageability and enhancement of male sexual pleasure. In a study in northern Sudan, published in 1983, only 17.4 percent of women opposed FGM (558 out of 3,210), and most preferred excision and infibulation over clitoridectomy. Attitudes are changing slowly. In Sudan in 2010, 42 percent of women who had heard of FGM said the practice should continue. In several surveys since 2006, over 50 percent of women in Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gambia, and Egypt supported FGM's continuance, while elsewhere in Africa, Iraq, and Yemen most said it should end, although in several countries only by a narrow margin.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Against the argument that women willingly choose FGM for their daughters, UNICEF calls the practice a "self-enforcing social convention" to which families feel they must conform to avoid uncut daughters facing social exclusion. Ellen Gruenbaum reported that, in Sudan in the 1970s, cut girls from an Arab ethnic group would mock uncut Zabarma girls with "Ya, Ghalfa!" ("Hey, unclean!"). The Zabarma girls would respond "Ya, mutmura!" (A "mutmara" was a storage pit for grain that was continually opened and closed, like an infibulated woman.) But despite throwing the insult back, the Zabarma girls would ask their mothers, "What's the matter? Don't we have razor blades like the Arabs?"


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Because of poor access to information, and because circumcisers downplay the causal connection, women may not associate the health consequences with the procedure. Lala Baldé, president of a women's association in Medina Cherif, a village in Senegal, told Mackie in 1998 that when girls fell ill or died, it was attributed to evil spirits. When informed of the causal relationship between FGM and ill health, Mackie wrote, the women broke down and wept. He argued that surveys taken before and after this sharing of information would show very different levels of support for FGM. The American non-profit group Tostan, founded by Molly Melching in 1991, introduced community-empowerment programs in several countries that focus on local democracy, literacy, and education about healthcare, giving women the tools to make their own decisions. In 1997, using the Tostan program, Malicounda Bambara in Senegal became the first village to abandon FGM. By August 2019, 8,800 communities in eight countries had pledged to abandon FGM and child marriage.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Surveys have shown a widespread belief, particularly in Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, and Egypt, that FGM is a religious requirement. Gruenbaum has argued that practitioners may not distinguish between religion, tradition, and chastity, making it difficult to interpret the data. FGM's origins in northeastern Africa are pre-Islamic, but the practice became associated with Islam because of that religion's focus on female chastity and seclusion. According to a 2013 UNICEF report, in 18 African countries at least 10 percent of Muslim females had experienced FGM, and in 13 of those countries, the figure rose to 50–99 percent. There is no mention of the practice in the Quran. It is praised in a few "daʻīf" (weak) "hadith" (sayings attributed to Muhammad) as noble but not required, although it is regarded as obligatory by the Shafi'i version of Sunni Islam. In 2007 the Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research in Cairo ruled that FGM had "no basis in core Islamic law or any of its partial provisions".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: There is no mention of FGM in the Bible. Christian missionaries in Africa were among the first to object to FGM, but Christian communities in Africa do practise it. In 2013 UNICEF identified 19 African countries in which at least 10 percent of Christian women and girls aged 15 to 49 had undergone FGM; in Niger, 55 percent of Christian women and girls had experienced it, compared with two percent of their Muslim counterparts. The only Jewish group known to have practised it is the Beta Israel of Ethiopia. Judaism requires male circumcision but does not allow FGM. FGM is also practised by animist groups, particularly in Guinea and Mali.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The practice's origins are unknown. Gerry Mackie has suggested that, because FGM's east–west, north–south distribution in Africa meets in Sudan, infibulation may have begun there with the Meroite civilization (c. 800 BCE – c. 350 CE), before the rise of Islam, to increase confidence in paternity. According to historian Mary Knight, Spell 1117 (c. 1991–1786 BCE) of the Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts may refer in hieroglyphs to an uncircumcised girl ("'m't"):


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The spell was found on the sarcophagus of Sit-hedjhotep, now in the Egyptian Museum, and dates to Egypt's Middle Kingdom. (Paul F. O'Rourke argues that "'m't" probably refers instead to a menstruating woman.) The proposed circumcision of an Egyptian girl, Tathemis, is also mentioned on a Greek papyrus, from 163 BCE, in the British Museum: "Sometime after this, Nephoris [Tathemis's mother] defrauded me, being anxious that it was time for Tathemis to be circumcised, as is the custom among the Egyptians."


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The examination of mummies has shown no evidence of FGM. Citing the Australian pathologist Grafton Elliot Smith, who examined hundreds of mummies in the early 20th century, Knight writes that the genital area may resemble Type III because during mummification the skin of the outer labia was pulled toward the anus to cover the pudendal cleft, possibly to prevent a sexual violation. It was similarly not possible to determine whether Types I or II had been performed, because soft tissues had deteriorated or been removed by the embalmers.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE – c. 23 CE) wrote about FGM after visiting Egypt around 25 BCE: "This is one of the customs most zealously pursued by them [the Egyptians]: to raise every child that is born and to circumcise ["peritemnein"] the males and excise ["ektemnein"] the females ..." Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE) also made reference to it: "the Egyptians by the custom of their country circumcise the marriageable youth and maid in the fourteenth (year) of their age when the male begins to get seed, and the female to have a menstrual flow." It is mentioned briefly in a work attributed to the Greek physician Galen (129 – c. 200 CE): "When [the clitoris] sticks out to a great extent in their young women, Egyptians consider it appropriate to cut it out." Another Greek physician, Aëtius of Amida (mid-5th to mid-6th century CE), offered more detail in book 16 of his "Sixteen Books on Medicine", citing the physician Philomenes. The procedure was performed in case the clitoris, or "nymphê", grew too large or triggered sexual desire when rubbing against clothing. "On this account, it seemed proper to the Egyptians to remove it before it became greatly enlarged," Aëtius wrote, "especially at that time when the girls were about to be married":


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The genital area was then cleaned with a sponge, frankincense powder and wine or cold water, and wrapped in linen bandages dipped in vinegar, until the seventh day when calamine, rose petals, date pits, or a "genital powder made from baked clay" might be applied.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Whatever the practice's origins, infibulation became linked to slavery. Mackie cites the Portuguese missionary João dos Santos, who in 1609 wrote of a group near Mogadishu who had a "custome to sew up their Females, especially their slaves being young to make them unable for conception, which makes these slaves sell dearer, both for their chastitie, and for better confidence which their Masters put in them". Thus, Mackie argues, a "practice associated with shameful female slavery came to stand for honor".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Gynaecologists in 19th-century Europe and the United States removed the clitoris to treat insanity and masturbation. A British doctor, Robert Thomas, suggested clitoridectomy as a cure for nymphomania in 1813. In 1825 "The Lancet" described a clitoridectomy performed in 1822 in Berlin by Karl Ferdinand von Graefe on a 15-year-old girl who was masturbating excessively.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Isaac Baker Brown, an English gynaecologist, president of the Medical Society of London and co-founder in 1845 of St. Mary's Hospital, believed that masturbation, or "unnatural irritation" of the clitoris, caused hysteria, spinal irritation, fits, idiocy, mania, and death. He, therefore "set to work to remove the clitoris whenever he had the opportunity of doing so", according to his obituary. Brown performed several clitoridectomies between 1859 and 1866. In the United States, J. Marion Sims followed Brown's work and in 1862 slit the neck of a woman's uterus and amputated her clitoris, "for the relief of the nervous or hysterical condition as recommended by Baker Brown". When Brown published his views in "On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females" (1866), doctors in London accused him of quackery and expelled him from the Obstetrical Society.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Later in the 19th century, A. J. Bloch, a surgeon in New Orleans, removed the clitoris of a two-year-old girl who was reportedly masturbating. According to a 1985 paper in the "Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey", clitoridectomy was performed in the United States into the 1960s to treat hysteria, erotomania and lesbianism. From the mid-1950s, James C. Burt, a gynaecologist in Dayton, Ohio, performed non-standard repairs of episiotomies after childbirth, adding more stitches to make the vaginal opening smaller. From 1966 until 1989, he performed "love surgery" by cutting women's pubococcygeus muscle, repositioning the vagina and urethra, and removing the clitoral hood, thereby making their genital area more appropriate, in his view, for intercourse in the missionary position. "Women are structurally inadequate for intercourse," he wrote; he said he would turn them into "horny little mice". In the 1960s and 1970s he performed these procedures without consent while repairing episiotomies and performing hysterectomies and other surgery; he said he had performed a variation of them on 4,000 women by 1975. Following complaints, he was required in 1989 to stop practicing medicine in the United States.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Protestant missionaries in British East Africa (present-day Kenya) began campaigning against FGM in the early 20th century, when Dr. John Arthur joined the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) in Kikuyu. An important ethnic marker, the practice was known by the Kikuyu, the country's main ethnic group, as "irua" for both girls and boys. It involved excision (Type II) for girls and removal of the foreskin for boys. Unexcised Kikuyu women ("irugu") were outcasts.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Jomo Kenyatta, general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association and later Kenya's first prime minister, wrote in 1938 that, for the Kikuyu, the institution of FGM was the ""conditio sine qua non" of the whole teaching of tribal law, religion and morality". No proper Kikuyu man or woman would marry or have sexual relations with someone who was not circumcised, he wrote. A woman's responsibilities toward the tribe began with her initiation. Her age and place within tribal history were traced to that day, and the group of girls with whom she was cut was named according to current events, an oral tradition that allowed the Kikuyu to track people and events going back hundreds of years.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Beginning with the CSM in 1925, several missionary churches declared that FGM was prohibited for African Christians; the CSM announced that Africans practising it would be excommunicated, which resulted in hundreds leaving or being expelled. In 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council began referring to FGM as the "sexual mutilation of women", and a person's stance toward the practice became a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association. The stand-off turned FGM into a focal point of the Kenyan independence movement; the 1929–1931 period is known in the country's historiography as the female circumcision controversy. When Hulda Stumpf, an American missionary who opposed FGM in the girls' school she helped to run, was murdered in 1930, Edward Grigg, the governor of Kenya, told the British Colonial Office that the killer had tried to circumcise her.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: There was some opposition from Kenyan women themselves. At the mission in Tumutumu, Karatina, where Marion Scott Stevenson worked, a group calling themselves "Ngo ya Tuiritu" ("Shield of Young Girls"), the membership of which included Raheli Warigia (mother of Gakaara wa Wanjaũ), wrote to the Local Native Council of South Nyeri on 25 December 1931: "[W]e of the Ngo ya Tuiritu heard that there are men who talk of female circumcision, and we get astonished because they (men) do not give birth and feel the pain and even some die and even others become infertile, and the main cause is circumcision. Because of that, the issue of circumcision should not be forced. People are caught like sheep; one should be allowed to cut her own way of either agreeing to be circumcised or not without being dictated on one's own body."


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Elsewhere, support for the practice from women was strong. In 1956 in Meru, eastern Kenya, when the council of male elders (the "Njuri Nchecke") announced a ban on FGM in 1956, thousands of girls cut each other's genitals with razor blades over the next three years as a symbol of defiance. The movement came to be known as "Ngaitana" ("I will circumcise myself"), because to avoid naming their friends the girls said they had cut themselves. Historian Lynn Thomas described the episode as significant in the history of FGM because it made clear that its victims were also its perpetrators. FGM was eventually outlawed in Kenya in 2001, although the practice continued, reportedly driven by older women.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: One of the earliest campaigns against FGM began in Egypt in the 1920s, when the Egyptian Doctors' Society called for a ban. There was a parallel campaign in Sudan, run by religious leaders and British women. Infibulation was banned there in 1946, but the law was unpopular and barely enforced. The Egyptian government banned infibulation in state-run hospitals in 1959, but allowed partial clitoridectomy if parents requested it. (Egypt banned FGM entirely in 2007.)


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In 1959, the UN asked the WHO to investigate FGM, but the latter responded that it was not a medical matter. Feminists took up the issue throughout the 1970s. The Egyptian physician and feminist Nawal El Saadawi criticized FGM in her book "Women and Sex" (1972); the book was banned in Egypt and El Saadawi lost her job as director-general of public health. She followed up with a chapter, "The Circumcision of Girls", in her book "The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World" (1980), which described her own clitoridectomy when she was six years old:


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In 1975, Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American social scientist, became the first female academic to publish a detailed account of FGM, aided by her ability to discuss it directly with women in Sudan. Her article in "American Ethnologist" called it "female genital mutilation", rather than female circumcision, and brought it to wider academic attention. Edna Adan Ismail, who worked at the time for the Somalia Ministry of Health, discussed the health consequences of FGM in 1977 with the Somali Women's Democratic Organization. Two years later Fran Hosken, an Austrian-American feminist, published "The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females" (1979), the first to offer global figures. She estimated that 110,529,000 women in 20 African countries had experienced FGM. The figures were speculative but consistent with later surveys. Describing FGM as a "training ground for male violence", Hosken accused female practitioners of "participating in the destruction of their own kind". The language caused a rift between Western and African feminists; African women boycotted a session featuring Hosken during the UN's Mid-Decade Conference on Women in Copenhagen in July 1980.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In 1979, the WHO held a seminar, "Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children", in Khartoum, Sudan, and in 1981, also in Khartoum, 150 academics and activists signed a pledge to fight FGM after a workshop held by the Babiker Badri Scientific Association for Women's Studies (BBSAWS), "Female Circumcision Mutilates and Endangers Women – Combat it!" Another BBSAWS workshop in 1984 invited the international community to write a joint statement for the United Nations. It recommended that the "goal of all African women" should be the eradication of FGM and that, to sever the link between FGM and religion, clitoridectomy should no longer be referred to as "sunna".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, founded in 1984 in Dakar, Senegal, called for an end to the practice, as did the UN's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993. The conference listed FGM as a form of violence against women, marking it as a human-rights violation, rather than a medical issue. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s governments in Africa and the Middle East passed legislation banning or restricting FGM. In 2003 the African Union ratified the Maputo Protocol on the rights of women, which supported the elimination of FGM. By 2015 laws restricting FGM had been passed in at least 23 of the 27 African countries in which it is concentrated, although several fell short of a ban.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly included FGM in resolution 48/104, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and from 2003 sponsored International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, held every 6 February. UNICEF began in 2003 to promote an evidence-based social norms approach, using ideas from game theory about how communities reach decisions about FGM, and building on the work of Gerry Mackie on the demise of footbinding in China. In 2005 the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence published its first report on FGM. UNFPA and UNICEF launched a joint program in Africa in 2007 to reduce FGM by 40 percent within the 0–15 age group and eliminate it from at least one country by 2012, goals that were not met and which they later described as unrealistic. In 2008 several UN bodies recognized FGM as a human-rights violation, and in 2010 the UN called upon healthcare providers to stop carrying out the procedures, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic nicking. In 2012 the General Assembly passed resolution 67/146, "Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Immigration spread the practice to Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America, all of which outlawed it entirely or restricted it to consenting adults. Sweden outlawed FGM in 1982 with the "Act Prohibiting the Genital Mutilation of Women", the first Western country to do so. Several former colonial powers, including Belgium, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, introduced new laws or made clear that it was covered by existing legislation. , legislation banning FGM had been passed in 33 countries outside Africa and the Middle East.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: In the United States, an estimated 513,000 women and girls had experienced FGM or were at risk as of 2012. A Nigerian woman successfully contested deportation in March 1994, asking for "cultural asylum" on the grounds that her young daughters (who were American citizens) might be cut if she took them to Nigeria, and in 1996 Fauziya Kasinga from Togo became the first to be officially granted asylum to escape FGM. In 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM. The first FGM conviction in the US was in 2006, when Khalid Adem, who had emigrated from Ethiopia, was sentenced to ten years for aggravated battery and cruelty to children after severing his two-year-old daughter's clitoris with a pair of scissors. A federal judge ruled in 2018 that the 1996 Act was unconstitutional, arguing that FGM is a "local criminal activity" that should be regulated by states. Twenty-four states had legislation banning FGM as of 2016, and in 2021 the STOP FGM Act of 2020 was signed into federal law. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes all forms of the practice, including pricking the clitoral skin.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Canada recognized FGM as a form of persecution in July 1994, when it granted refugee status to Khadra Hassan Farah, who had fled Somalia to avoid her daughter being cut. In 1997 section 268 of its Criminal Code was amended to ban FGM, except where "the person is at least eighteen years of age and there is no resulting bodily harm". , there had been no prosecutions. Officials have expressed concern that thousands of Canadian girls are at risk of being taken overseas to undergo the procedure, so-called "vacation cutting".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: According to the European Parliament, 500,000 women in Europe had undergone FGM . In France up to 30,000 women were thought to have experienced it as of 1995. According to Colette Gallard, a family-planning counsellor, when FGM was first encountered in France, the reaction was that Westerners ought not to intervene. It took the deaths of two girls in 1982, one of them three months old, for that attitude to change. In 1991 a French court ruled that the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees offered protection to FGM victims; the decision followed an asylum application from Aminata Diop, who fled an FGM procedure in Mali. The practice is outlawed by several provisions of France's penal code that address bodily harm causing permanent mutilation or torture. The first civil suit was in 1982, and the first criminal prosecution in 1993. In 1999 a woman was given an eight-year sentence for having performed FGM on 48 girls. By 2014 over 100 parents and two practitioners had been prosecuted in over 40 criminal cases.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Around 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales were born in countries where FGM is practised, as of 2011. Performing FGM on children or adults was outlawed under the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985. This was replaced by the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 and Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005, which added a prohibition on arranging FGM outside the country for British citizens or permanent residents. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) asked the government in July 2013 to "ensure the full implementation of its legislation on FGM". The first charges were brought in 2014 against a physician and another man; the physician had stitched an infibulated woman after opening her for childbirth. Both men were acquitted in 2015.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Anthropologists have accused FGM eradicationists of cultural colonialism, and have been criticized in turn for their moral relativism and failure to defend the idea of universal human rights. According to critics of the eradicationist position, the biological reductionism of the opposition to FGM, and the failure to appreciate FGM's cultural context, serves to "other" practitioners and undermine their agency—in particular when parents are referred to as "mutilators".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Africans who object to the tone of FGM opposition risk appearing to defend the practice. The feminist theorist Obioma Nnaemeka, herself strongly opposed to FGM, argued in 2005 that renaming the practice "female genital mutilation" had introduced "a subtext of barbaric African and Muslim cultures and the West's relevance (even indispensability) in purging [it]". According to Ugandan law professor Sylvia Tamale, the early Western opposition to FGM stemmed from a Judeo-Christian judgment that African sexual and family practices, including not only FGM but also dry sex, polygyny, bride price and levirate marriage, required correction. African feminists "take strong exception to the imperialist, racist and dehumanising infantilization of African women", she wrote in 2011. Commentators highlight the voyeurism in the treatment of women's bodies as exhibits. Examples include images of women's vulvas after FGM or girls undergoing the procedure. The 1996 Pulitzer-prize-winning photographs of a 16-year-old Kenyan girl experiencing FGM were published by 12 American newspapers, without her consent either to be photographed or to have the images published.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The debate has highlighted a tension between anthropology and feminism, with the former's focus on tolerance and the latter's on equal rights for women. According to the anthropologist Christine Walley, a common position in anti-FGM literature has been to present African women as victims of false consciousness participating in their own oppression, a position promoted by feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fran Hosken, Mary Daly and Hanny Lightfoot-Klein. It prompted the French Association of Anthropologists to issue a statement in 1981, at the height of the early debates, that "a certain feminism resuscitates (today) the moralistic arrogance of yesterday's colonialism".


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Nnaemeka argues that the crucial question, broader than FGM, is why the female body is subjected to so much "abuse and indignity", including in the West. Several authors have drawn a parallel between FGM and cosmetic procedures. Ronán Conroy of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland wrote in 2006 that cosmetic genital procedures were "driving the advance" of FGM by encouraging women to see natural variations as defects. Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi compared FGM to breast enhancement, in which the maternal function of the breast becomes secondary to men's sexual pleasure. Benoîte Groult, the French feminist, made a similar point in 1975, citing FGM and cosmetic surgery as sexist and patriarchal. Against this, the medical anthropologist Carla Obermeyer argued in 1999 that FGM may be conducive to a subject's social well-being in the same way that rhinoplasty and male circumcision are. Despite the 2007 ban in Egypt, Egyptian women wanting FGM for their daughters seek "amalyet tajmeel" (cosmetic surgery) to remove what they see as excess genital tissue.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Cosmetic procedures such as labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction do fall within the WHO's definition of FGM, which aims to avoid loopholes, but the WHO notes that these elective practices are generally not regarded as FGM. Some legislation banning FGM, such as in Canada and the US, covers minors only, but several countries, including Sweden and the UK, have banned it regardless of consent. Sweden, for example, has banned operations "on the outer female sexual organs with a view to mutilating them or bringing about some other permanent change in them, regardless of whether or not consent has been given for the operation". Gynaecologist Birgitta Essén and anthropologist Sara Johnsdotter argue that the law seems to distinguish between Western and African genitals, and deems only African women (such as those seeking reinfibulation after childbirth) unfit to make their own decisions.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: The philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that a key concern with FGM is that it is mostly conducted on children using physical force. The distinction between social pressure and physical force is morally and legally salient, comparable to the distinction between seduction and rape. She argues further that the literacy of women in practising countries is generally poorer than in developed nations, which reduces their ability to make informed choices.


title: Female genital mutilation

text: Several commentators maintain that children's rights are violated not only by FGM, but also by the genital alteration of intersex children, who are born with anomalies that physicians choose to correct. Arguments have been made that non-therapeutic circumcision of boys, also violates children's rights. Religious male circumcision is practised by Muslims, Jews, and some Christian groups. Globally, about 30 percent of males over 15 are circumcised; of these, about two-thirds are Muslim. At least half the male population of the United States is circumcised, while most men in Europe are not. The positions of the world's major medical organizations range from the view that elective circumcision of male babies and children carries significant risks and offers no medical benefits, to a belief that the procedure has a modest health benefit that outweighs small risks.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive attention-seeking behaviors, usually beginning in early childhood, including inappropriate seduction and an excessive desire for approval. People diagnosed with the disorder are said to be lively, dramatic, vivacious, enthusiastic, extroverted and flirtatious.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: HPD lies in the dramatic cluster of personality disorders. People with HPD have a high desire for attention, make loud and inappropriate appearances, exaggerate their behaviors and emotions, and crave stimulation. They may exhibit sexually provocative behavior, express strong emotions with an impressionistic style, and can be easily influenced by others. Associated features include egocentrism, self-indulgence, continuous longing for appreciation, and persistent manipulative behavior to achieve their own wants.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: People diagnosed with HPD may be dramatic. They often fail to see their own personal situation realistically, instead dramatizing and exaggerating their difficulties. Patients with this disorder can have rapidly shifting emotions and a decreased ability to recognize other's emotions. Their emotions may appear superficial or exaggerated to others. This disorder is associated with extraversion, a lower tolerance for frustration or delayed gratification, and openness to new experiences. People with HPD may have little self-doubt and often appear egocentric.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Research has also shown those with histrionic personality have a greater desire for social approval and reassurance and will constantly seek it out, making those with HPD more vulnerable to social media addiction. People with this disorder often display excessive sensitivity to criticism or disapproval. They will work hard to get others to pay attention to them, possibly as a method of testing the stability of relationships. They may enjoy situations in which they can be the center of attention, and may feel uncomfortable when people are not paying attention to them. It is common for people with this disorder to wear flamboyant clothing, try body modifications, and fake medical conditions in an attempt to draw other's attention. They may display inappropriately sexually provocative, flirtatious, or exploitative behavior. Sexting and exhibitionist behavior are also behaviors people with this condition sometimes exhibit. Some people with histrionic traits or personality disorder change their seduction technique into a more maternal or paternal style as they age. When their desire for attention is not met, it can heighten the severity of their symptoms. They tend to be impressionable and easily manipulatable, especially by those they respect.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Patients with HPD are usually high-functioning, both socially and professionally. They usually have good social skills, despite tending to use them to make themselves the center of attention. HPD may also affect a person's social and romantic relationships, as well as their ability to cope with losses or failures. People with HPD tend to consider relationships closer than they usually are. They may seek treatment for clinical depression when romantic (or other close personal) relationships end. Substance disorders, such as Alcohol Use Disorder or Opioid use disorder, are all common in patients with Histrionic Personality Disorder. They are also at higher risks of suicide, body dysmorphia, and divorce. They may go through frequent job changes, as they become easily bored and may prefer withdrawing from frustration (instead of facing it). Because they tend to crave novelty and excitement, they may place themselves in risky situations. All of these factors may lead to greater risk of developing clinical depression. People with this condition can have an impressionistic and undetailed style of speech.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Despite these traits, they can be prideful of their own personality, and may be unwilling to change, viewing any change as a threat. They may even blame their personal failures or disappointments on others.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Little research has been done to find evidence of what causes histrionic personality disorder. Although direct causes are inconclusive, various theories and studies suggest multiple possible causes, of a neurochemical, genetic, psychoanalytic, or environmental nature. Traits such as extravagance, vanity, and seductiveness of hysteria have similar qualities to women diagnosed with HPD. HPD symptoms typically do not fully develop until the age of 15, while the onset of treatment only occurs, on average, at approximately 40 years of age.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between the function of neurotransmitters and the Cluster B personality disorders such as HPD. Individuals diagnosed with HPD have a highly responsive noradrenergic system, which is responsible for the synthesis, storage, and release of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. High levels of norepinephrine lead to anxiety-proneness, dependency, and high sociability.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Twin studies have aided in breaking down the genetic vs. environment debate. A twin study conducted by the Department of Psychology at Oslo University attempted to establish a correlation between genetics and Cluster B personality disorders. With a test sample of 221 twins, 92 monozygotic and 129 dizygotic, researchers interviewed the subjects using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders (SCID-II) and concluded that there was a correlation of 0.67 that histrionic personality disorder is hereditary.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Though criticised as being unsupported by scientific evidence, psychoanalytic theories incriminate authoritarian or distant attitudes by one (mainly the mother) or both parents, along with conditional love based on expectations the child can never fully meet. Using psychoanalysis, Freud believed that lustfulness was a projection of the patient's lack of ability to love unconditionally and develop cognitively to maturity, and that such patients were overall emotionally shallow. He believed the reason for being unable to love could have resulted from a traumatic experience, such as the death of a close relative during childhood or divorce of one's parents, which gave the wrong impression of committed relationships. Exposure to one or multiple traumatic occurrences of a close friend or family member's leaving (via abandonment or mortality) would make the person unable to form true and affectionate attachments towards other people.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Another theory suggests a possible relationship between histrionic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Research has found 2/3 of patients diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder also meet criteria similar to those of the antisocial personality disorder, which suggests both disorders based towards sex-type expressions may have the same underlying cause.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Some family history studies have found that histrionic personality disorder, as well as borderline and antisocial personality disorders, tend to run in families, but it is unclear how much is due to genetic versus environmental factors. Both examples suggest that predisposition could be a factor as to why certain people are diagnosed with histrionic personality disorder, however little is known about whether or not the disorder is influenced by any biological compound or is genetically inheritable. Little research has been conducted to determine the biological sources, if any, of this disorder.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: The person's appearance, behavior and history, along with a psychological evaluation, are usually sufficient to establish a diagnosis. There is no test to confirm this diagnosis. Because the criteria are subjective, some people may be wrongly diagnosed.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM 5, defines histrionic personality disorder (in Cluster B) as:


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: The DSM 5 requires that a diagnosis for any specific personality disorder also satisfies a set of general personality disorder criteria.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: It is a requirement of ICD-10 that a diagnosis of any specific personality disorder also satisfies a set of general personality disorder criteria.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Most histrionics also have other mental disorders. Comorbid conditions include: antisocial, dependent, borderline, and narcissistic personality disorders, as well as depression, anxiety disorders, panic disorder, somatoform disorders, anorexia nervosa, substance use disorder and attachment disorders, including reactive attachment disorder.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Theodore Millon identified six subtypes of histrionic personality disorder. Any individual histrionic may exhibit one or more of the following:


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Treatment is often prompted by depression associated with dissolved romantic relationships. Medication does little to affect the personality disorder, but may be helpful with symptoms such as depression. Treatment for HPD itself involves psychotherapy, including cognitive therapy.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: In general clinical practice with assessment of personality disorders, one form of interview is the most popular: an unstructured interview. The actual preferred method is a semi-structured interview but there is reluctance to use this type of interview because they can seem impractical or superficial. The reason that a semi-structured interview is preferred over an unstructured interview is that semi-structured interviews tend to be more objective, systematic, replicable, and comprehensive. Unstructured interviews, despite their popularity, tend to have problems with unreliability and are susceptible to errors leading to false assumptions of the patient.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: One of the single most successful methods for assessing personality disorders by researchers of normal personality functioning is the self-report inventory following up with a semi-structured interview. There are some disadvantages with the self-report inventory method that with histrionic personality disorder there is a distortion in character, self-presentation, and self-image. This cannot be assessed simply by asking most clients if they match the criteria for the disorder. Most projective testing depend less on the ability or willingness of the person to provide an accurate description of the self, but there is currently limited empirical evidence on projective testing to assess histrionic personality disorder.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Another way to treat histrionic personality disorder after identification is through functional analytic psychotherapy. The job of a Functional Analytic Psychotherapist is to identify the interpersonal problems with the patient as they happen in session or out of session. Initial goals of functional analytic psychotherapy are set by the therapist and include behaviors that fit the client's needs for improvement. Functional analytic psychotherapy differs from the traditional psychotherapy due to the fact that the therapist directly addresses the patterns of behavior as they occur in-session.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: The in-session behaviors of the patient or client are considered to be examples of their patterns of poor interpersonal communication and to adjust their neurotic defenses. To do this, the therapist must act on the client's behavior as it happens in real time and give feedback on how the client's behavior is affecting their relationship during therapy. The therapist also helps the client with histrionic personality disorder by denoting behaviors that happen outside of treatment; these behaviors are termed "Outside Problems" and "Outside Improvements". This allows the therapist to assist in problems and improvements outside of session and to verbally support the client and condition optimal patterns of behavior". This then can reflect on how they are advancing in-session and outside of session by generalizing their behaviors over time for changes or improvement".


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: In these sessions there is a certain set of dialogue or script that can be forced by the therapist for the client to give insight on their behaviors and reasoning". Here is an example from" the conversation is hypothetical. T = therapist C = Client This coded dialogue can be transcribed as:


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Another example of treatment besides coding is functional ideographic assessment template. The functional ideographic assessment template, also known as FIAT, was used as a way to generalize the clinical processes of functional analytic psychotherapy. The template was made by a combined effort of therapists and can be used to represent the behaviors that are a focus for this treatment. Using the FIAT therapists can create a common language to get stable and accurate communication results through functional analytic psychotherapy at the ease of the client; as well as the therapist.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: The survey data from the National epidemiological survey from 2001 to 2002 suggests a prevalence of HPD of 1.84 percent. Major character traits may be inherited, while other traits may be due to a combination of genetics and environment, including childhood experiences. This personality is seen more often in women than in men. Approximately 65% of HPD diagnoses are women while 35% are men. In Marcie Kaplan's "A Women's View of DSM-III", she argues that women are overdiagnosed due to potential biases and expresses that even healthy women are often automatically diagnosed with HPD. It has also been argued due to diagnostic bias that prevalence rates are equal among women and men.


title: Histrionic personality disorder

text: Many symptoms representing HPD in the DSM are exaggerations of traditional feminine behaviors. In a peer and self-review study, it showed that femininity was correlated with histrionic, dependent and narcissistic personality disorders. Although two thirds of HPD diagnoses are female, there have been a few exceptions. Whether or not the rate will be significantly higher than the rate of women within a particular clinical setting depends upon many factors that are mostly independent of the differential sex prevalence for HPD. Those with HPD are more likely to look for multiple people for attention, which leads to marital problems due to jealousy and lack of trust from the other party. This makes them more likely to become divorced or separated once married. With few studies done to find direct causations between HPD and culture, cultural and social aspects play a role in inhibiting and exhibiting HPD behaviors.


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: Barbara Seppe Ferreira (born December 14, 1996) is a Brazilian-American model and actress. She is best known for her role as Kat Hernandez in the HBO series "Euphoria" (2019–2022).


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: Ferreira was born in the New York City borough of Queens and later moved to Maywood, New Jersey. She attended Hackensack High School. Ferreira is of Brazilian descent, and was raised by her mother, aunt and grandmother. Her mother and maternal grandmother work as chefs.


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: As a teenager, Ferreira began her career by sending modeling photos to an American Apparel open casting call. She has since modeled for brands including Aerie, Adidas, Asos, Forever 21, H&M, Missguided, and Target. Unretouched photos and a video interview from Ferreira's Aerie campaign went viral in 2016. Later that year, "Time" named her among its 2016 "30 Most Influential Teens" list.


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: Ferreira directed the music video for "So Cool" by Dounia. The video, released in March, 2018, was shot that winter in Connecticut.


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: Ferreira starred in "How to Behave", the 10-episode Vice series about etiquette. For this she won a Webby Award for Best Web Personality/Host. She also starred in the "Teen Vogue" web series "Body Party", about body positivity.


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: In addition, Ferreira played Ella in two episodes of the HBO series "Divorce", and was among the ensemble stars of the HBO series "Euphoria" in its first two seasons, playing high-schooler Kat. In August 2022 Ferreira announced she will not be returning to "Euphoria" for its third season due to alleged disagreements with series creator Sam Levinson. She made her film debut in "Unpregnant" (2020) opposite Haley Lu Richardson for HBO Max and had a small role in Jordan Peele’s "Nope" (2022).


title: Barbie Ferreira

text: On August 29, it was announced Ferreira is to join Ariana DeBose in the upcoming Amazon Prime psychological thriller "House of Spoils".


title: Eric André

text: Eric Samuel André (born April 4, 1983) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, television host and writer. He is best known as the creator, host, and co-writer of the Adult Swim comedy series "The Eric Andre Show" (2012–present). He also played Mike on the FXX series "Man Seeking Woman" (2015–2017) and voiced Azizi in the remake of "The Lion King" (2019). He performs music under the name Blarf.


title: Eric André

text: André was born in Boca Raton, Florida, on April 4, 1983, the son of an American Ashkenazi Jewish mother from the Upper West Side of New York City's Manhattan borough and an Afro-Haitian immigrant father who worked as a psychiatrist. He identifies as both Black and Jewish. In 2001, after graduating from Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, Andre studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he played the double bass and graduated in 2005 with a Bachelor of Music.


title: Eric André

text: André began his comedy career in 2003. He is the creator and host of "The Eric Andre Show", a parody of public access talk shows, on Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim. The show features pranks, shock humor, sketches, and celebrity interviews. He co-starred as Mark on the ABC comedy series "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23", and guest-starred on "2 Broke Girls" as Deke, Max's love interest and fellow pastry student. He played Mike in the FXX comedy series "Man Seeking Woman", which premiered in 2015. The show's third and final season, consisting of ten episodes, ran in early 2017.


title: Eric André

text: In 2015, on SiriusXM with Howard Stern he became the first man to have ever ridden the sybian on live broadcasting.


title: Eric André

text: He voices Luci in the Netflix animated show "Disenchantment". In May 2020, André announced his first standup special on Netflix, "Legalize Everything", which was released on June 23, 2020. In 2021, André starred in the Netflix prank comedy film "Bad Trip".


title: Eric André

text: André dated actress Rosario Dawson from 2016 to 2017. In March 2021, André revealed he was in a relationship with a woman that he met at a farmer's market and that she did not know he was famous until after they started dating.


title: Eric André

text: André is an agnostic atheist and a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation. He endorsed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential election.


title: Eric André

text: In a 2016 interview, André said: "I think everyone is bi, right? There's no such thing as sexual orientation, or race, or gender. Those are all obsolete man-made concepts. I'll say it again, a hole is a hole." When asked if he was coming out as bisexual, he continued: "I'll fuck anything that moves."


title: Eric André

text: On October 11, 2022, André, along with comedian Clayton English, filed a federal lawsuit against Clayton County, Georgia, claiming that they were subject to a police program that, without reasonable suspicion, racially profiled, coerced, and illegally searched passengers boarding planes for drugs at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Their lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the program.


title: Rollo

text: Rollo (, "Rolloun"; ; ; died between 928 and 933) was a Viking who became the first ruler of Normandy, today a region in northern France. He emerged as the outstanding warrior among the Norsemen who had secured a permanent foothold on Frankish soil in the valley of the lower Seine. After the Siege of Chartres in 911, Charles the Simple, the king of West Francia, granted them lands between the mouth of the Seine and what is now Rouen in exchange for Rollo agreeing to end his brigandage, swearing allegiance to him, religious conversion and a pledge to defend the Seine's estuary from Viking raiders.


title: Rollo

text: The name Rollo is first recorded as the leader of these Viking settlers in a charter of 918, and he continued to reign over the region of Normandy until at least 928. He was succeeded by his son William Longsword in the Duchy of Normandy that he had founded. The offspring of Rollo and his followers, through their intermingling with the indigenous Frankish and Gallo-Roman population of the lands they settled, became known as the "Normans". After the Norman conquest of England and their conquest of southern Italy and Sicily over the following two centuries, their descendants came to rule England, much of Ireland, Sicily and Antioch from the 11th to 13th centuries, leaving behind an enduring legacy in the histories of Europe and the Near East.


title: Rollo

text: The "Heimskringla" (written in the 13th century) records that Rolf the Ganger went to Normandy and ruled it, so it is that Rollo is generally presumed to be a latinisation of the Old Norse name Hrólfr – a theory that is supported by the rendition of Hrólfr as "Roluo" in the "Gesta Danorum" by Saxo Grammaticus. It is also sometimes suggested that Rollo may be a Latinised version of another Norse name, "Hrollaugr".


title: Rollo

text: The 10th-century French historian Dudo in his "Historia Normannorum" records that Rollo took the baptismal name Robert. A variant spelling, "Rou", is used in the 12th-century Norman French verse chronicle "Roman de Rou", which was compiled by Wace and commissioned by King Henry II of England, a descendant of Rollo.


title: Rollo

text: Rollo was born in the mid-9th century; his place of birth is almost definitely located in the region of Scandinavia, although it is uncertain whether he is Danish or Norwegian. The earliest well-attested historical event associated with Rollo is his part in leading the Vikings who besieged Paris in 885–886 but were fended off by Odo of France.


title: Rollo

text: Sources do not make clear the year of Rollo's birth, but from his activity, marriage, children, and death, the mid-9th-century may be inferred.


title: Rollo

text: Medieval sources contradict each other regarding whether Rollo's family was Norwegian or Danish in origin. In part, this disparity may result from the indifferent and interchangeable usage in Europe, at the time, of terms such as "Vikings", "Northmen", "Swedes", "Danes", "Norwegians" and so on (in the Medieval Latin texts means 'Danes or Northmen').


title: Rollo

text: Among biographical remarks about Rollo written by the cleric Dudo of Saint-Quentin in the late 10th century, he claimed that Rollo "the Dane" was from Dacia, and had moved from there to the island of Scanza. One of Rollo's great-grandsons and a contemporary of Dudo was known as Robert the Dane. However, Dudo's "Historia Normannorum" (or "Libri III de moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum") was commissioned by Rollo's grandson, Richard I of Normandy and – while Dudo likely had access to family members and/or other people with a living memory of Rollo – this fact must be weighed against the text's potential biases, as an official biography.


title: Rollo

text: According to Dudo, an unnamed king of Denmark was antagonistic to Rollo's family, including his father – an unnamed Danish nobleman – and Rollo's brother Gurim. Following the death of their father, Gurim was killed and Rollo was forced to leave Denmark. Dudo appears to have been the main source for William of Jumièges (after 1066) and Orderic Vitalis (early 12th century), although both include additional details.


title: Rollo

text: A Norwegian background for Rollo was first explicitly claimed by Goffredo Malaterra (Geoffrey Malaterra), an 11th-century Benedictine monk and historian, who wrote: "Rollo sailed boldly from Norway with his fleet to the Christian coast." Likewise, the 12th-century English historian William of Malmesbury stated that Rollo was "born of noble lineage among the Norwegians".


title: Rollo

text: A chronicler named Benoît (probably Benoît de Sainte-More) wrote in the mid-12th-century "Chronique des ducs de Normandie" that Rollo had been born in a town named "Fasge". This has since been variously interpreted as referring to Faxe, in Sjælland (Denmark), Fauske, in Sykkulven (Norway), or perhaps a more obscure settlement that has since been abandoned or renamed. Benoît also repeated the claim that Rollo had been persecuted by a local ruler and had fled from there to "Scanza island", by which Benoît probably means Scania (Swedish ). While Faxe was physically much closer to Scania, the mountainous scenery of "Fasge", described by Benoît, would seem to be more like Fauske. Benoît says elsewhere in the "Chronique" that Rollo is Danish.


title: Rollo

text: Snorri Sturluson identified Rollo with Hrólf the Walker (Norse ; Danish ) from the 13th-century Icelandic sagas, "Heimskringla" and "Orkneyinga Saga". Hrólf the Walker was so named because he "was so big that no horse could carry him". The Icelandic sources claim that Hrólfr was from Møre in western Norway, in the late 9th century and that his parents were the Norwegian jarl Rognvald Eysteinsson ('Rognvald the Wise') and a noblewoman from Møre named Hildr Hrólfsdóttir. However, these claims were made three centuries after the history commissioned by Rollo's own grandson.


title: Rollo

text: There may be circumstantial evidence for kinship between Rollo and his historical contemporary Ketill Flatnose, King of the Isles – a Norse realm centred on the Western Isles of Scotland. If, as Richer suggested, Rollo's father was also named Ketill and as Dudo suggested, Rollo had a brother named Gurim, such names are onomastic evidence for a family connection: Icelandic sources name Ketill Flatnose's father as Björn Grímsson, and  – the implied name of Ketill Flatnose's paternal grandfather – was likely cognate with . In addition, both Irish and Icelandic sources suggest that Rollo, as a young man, visited or lived in Scotland, where he had a daughter named Cadlinar (, 'Kathleen'). Ketill Flatnose's ancestors were said to have come from Møre – Rollo's ancestral home in the Icelandic sources. However, was a common name in Norse societies, as were names like and .


title: Rollo

text: Dudo's chronicle about Rollo seizing Rouen in 876 is supported by the contemporary chronicler Flodoard, who records that Robert of the Breton March waged a campaign against the Vikings, nearly levelling Rouen and other settlements. Eventually he conceded "certain coastal provinces" to them.


title: Rollo

text: According to Dudo, Rollo struck up a friendship in England with a king called Alstem. This has puzzled many historians, but recently the puzzle has been resolved by recognition that this refers to Guthrum, the Danish leader whom Alfred the Great baptised with the baptismal name Athelstan, and then recognised as king of the East Angles in 880.


title: Rollo

text: Dudo recorded that when Rollo controlled Bayeux by force, he carried off with him the beautiful Popa or Poppa, a daughter of Berenger, Count of Rennes. He married her and she gave birth to his son and heir, William Longsword. Her parentage is uncertain and may have been invented after the fact to legitimize her son's lineage, as many of the fantastic genealogical claims made by Dudo were. She may have come from any country with which the Norse had contact, as Dudo is a highly unreliable source who may have written his chronicle primarily as a didactic text to teach courtly values.


title: Rollo

text: There are few contemporary mentions of Rollo. In 911, Robert I of France, brother of Odo, again defeated another band of Viking warriors in Chartres with his well-trained horsemen. This victory paved the way for Rollo's baptism and settlement in Normandy. In return for formal recognition of the lands he possessed, Rollo agreed to be baptised and assisted the king in defending the realm. As was the custom, Rollo took the baptismal name Robert, after his godfather Robert I.


title: Rollo

text: The seal of the agreement was to be a marriage between Rollo and Gisela, daughter of Charles. Gisla might have been a legitimate daughter of Charles. Since Charles first married in 907, that would mean that Gisela was at most 5 years old at the time of the treaty of 911 which offered her in marriage. It has therefore been speculated that she could have been an illegitimate daughter. However a diplomatic child betrothal need not be doubted.


title: Rollo

text: The earliest record of Rollo is from 918, in a charter of Charles III to an abbey, which referred to an earlier grant to "the Normans of the Seine", namely "Rollo and his associates" for "the protection of the kingdom". Dudo retrospectively stated that this pact took place in 911 at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte.


title: Rollo

text: Dudo narrates a humorous story not repeated in other primary sources about Rollo's pledge of fealty to Charles III as part of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. The attendant bishops urged Rollo to kiss the king's foot to prove his allegiance. Rollo refused, saying "I will never bow my knees at the knees of any man, and no man's foot will I kiss." Instead, Rollo commanded one of his warriors to kiss the king's foot. The warrior complied by raising the king's foot to his mouth while the king remained standing, which "caused the king to topple backward" much to the amusement of their entourage. On taking his oath of fealty, Rollo divided the lands between the rivers Epte and Risle among his chieftains, and settled in the "de facto" capital Rouen.


title: Rollo

text: Given Rouen and its hinterland in return for the alliance with the Franks, it was agreed upon that it was in the interest of both Rollo himself and his Frankish allies to extend his authority over Viking settlers. This would appear to be the motive for later concessions to the Vikings of the Seine, which are mentioned in other records of the time.


title: Rollo

text: When Charles III abdicated the throne to Rudolph of France, Rollo felt that his pledge and oaths to the kings of France were null and void, and began raiding in the west to expand his territory, putting pressure on other rulers to propose another compromise. The need for an agreement was particularly urgent when Robert I, successor of Charles III, was killed in 923.


title: Rollo

text: Rudolph was recorded as sponsoring a new agreement by which a group of Norsemen were conceded the provinces of the Bessin and Maine. These settlers were presumed to be Rollo and his associates, moving their authority westward from the Seine valley. It is still unclear as to whether Rollo was being given lordship over the Vikings already settled in the region in order to domesticate and restrain them, or the Franks around Bayeux in order to protect them from other Viking leaders settled in eastern Brittany and the Cotentin peninsula.


title: Rollo

text: Rollo died sometime between a final mention of him by Flodoard in 928, and 933, the year in which a third grant of land, usually identified as being the Cotentin and Avranchin areas, was given to his son and successor William.


title: Rollo

text: Rollo's son and heir, William Longsword, and grandchild, Richard the Fearless, forged the Duchy of Normandy into West Francia's most cohesive and formidable principality. The descendants of Rollo and his men assimilated with the French-Catholic culture and became known as the Normans, lending their name to the region of Normandy.


title: Rollo

text: Rollo is the great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror the progenitor of House of Normandy in England, however Charles III and the British Royal Family are not direct male-line descendants of Rollo as the House of Normandy ended with the death of Henry I. However the House of Plantagenet have influence from the Norman dynasty, as Empress Matilda, the mother of Henry II of England was the daughter of the Norman king Henry I.


title: Rollo

text: A genetic investigation into the remains of Rollo's grandson Richard the Fearless, and his great-grandson Richard the Good, was announced in 2011 with the intention of discerning the origins of the historic Viking leader. On 29 February 2016 Norwegian researchers opened Richard the Good's tomb and found a lower jaw with eight teeth in it. However, the skeletal remains in both graves turned out to significantly predate Rollo and therefore are not related to him.


title: Rollo

text: After Rollo's death, his descendants continued to rule Normandy until the fall of the French monarchy. Most of the Capetian kings descended from Rollo through various lines. Henry V, a descendant of John Lackland, reconquered Normandy as part of his conquest of France. It was lost again during the reign of his son Henry VI. Rollo's dynasty was able to survive through a combination of ruthless military actions and infighting among the Frankish aristocracy, which left them severely weakened and unable to combat the Rouen Vikings' growing determination to stay put.


title: Rollo

text: Rollo is the subject of the 17th-century play "Rollo Duke of Normandy", written by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman.


title: Rollo

text: A character, broadly inspired by the historical Rollo but including many events from before the real Rollo was born, played by Clive Standen, is Ragnar Lothbrok's brother in the History Channel television series "Vikings".


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Jennifer's Body is a 2009 American horror-comedy film written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama. The film stars Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, and Adam Brody. Fox portrays a demonically possessed high school girl who kills her male classmates, with her best friend striving to stop her. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States and Canada on September 18, 2009. As a tie-in to the film, Boom! Studios produced a "Jennifer's Body" graphic novel, released in August 2009.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Working with Cody again following their collaborative efforts on the film "Juno", Jason Reitman stated he and his producers "want to make unusual films". Cody said she wanted the film to speak to female empowerment and explore the complex relationships between best friends.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: The film had a lackluster performance at the North American box office, making $2.8 million its opening day and $6.8 million its opening weekend, and received mixed reviews from critics, with its dialogue, emotional resonance and performances being praised, while the narrative and uneven tone were targets for criticism.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Anita "Needy" Lesnicki, once an insecure and studious teenager living in the small town of Devil's Kettle, Minnesota, is now a violent mental inmate who narrates the story as a flashback while in solitary confinement.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Since childhood, Needy has been best friends with Jennifer Check, a popular cheerleader, despite the two having little in common. One night, Jennifer takes Needy to a local dive bar to attend a concert by indie rock band Low Shoulder. A fire engulfs the bar, killing several people. Jennifer leaves with the band. Later that evening, she appears in Needy's kitchen, covered in blood, and attempts to eat a rotisserie chicken. She immediately vomits a trail of black fluid and almost bites Needy's neck, but retreats and leaves.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: The next morning at school, Jennifer appears fine and dismisses Needy's concerns, appearing apathetic to the fire tragedy. She seduces the school's football captain and disembowels him. Meanwhile, Low Shoulder gains popularity due to their falsely rumored heroism during the fire, and offer to make a charity appearance at the school's spring formal.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: A month later, Jennifer appears sick and listless. She accepts a date with school alternative/emo Colin, whom she brutally kills. While Needy and her boyfriend Chip have sex, Needy senses something dreadful has happened. She leaves in a panic and almost runs over Jennifer, who is drenched in blood. Jennifer visits Needy at home, and the two kiss. Jennifer explains that Low Shoulder had taken her into the woods after the bar fire and offered her as a virgin sacrifice to Satan in exchange for fame and fortune. Although the sacrifice was a success, Jennifer was not actually a virgin, so she became permanently possessed. She became hungry and Ahmet, a foreign exchange student, who was thought to have died in the fire, was her first victim. She had intended to eat Needy as well, but left because she could not bring herself to hurt her best friend. When she has eaten, she can withstand virtually any injury without pain, healing instantly.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Needy goes to the school library's occult section and determines that Jennifer is a succubus who must feed on flesh and can only be killed while she is hungry and weak. Needy tells Chip about Jennifer. He does not believe her, so she breaks up with him in order to protect him. Chip is intercepted by Jennifer on the way to the school dance. She takes him to an abandoned pool and begins feeding on him. Needy arrives and Chip impales Jennifer through the stomach with a pool skimmer. Jennifer escapes and Chip dies.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Angry and heartbroken, Needy breaks into Jennifer's bedroom. The two fight and Jennifer bites Needy's neck in the struggle. Needy rips Jennifer's half of their best friend necklace off her neck. Jennifer stops fighting back and Needy stabs her in the heart with a utility knife, killing her and destroying the demon. Jennifer's mother enters and finds Needy on top of her dead daughter's body. Needy is brought to an asylum. She now manifests some of Jennifer's supernatural powers due to the bite. She escapes the mental facility and hitchhikes a ride, telling the driver she is following a band.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: In a credits scene, a home video and crime scene photos show that the members of Low Shoulder were murdered in their hotel by Needy.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: "Jennifer's Body" is the follow-up to writer and producer Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman's collaboration efforts on "Juno." In October 2007, Fox Atomic pre-emptively purchased the rights to Cody's script with Megan Fox to star. Peter Rice, who at the time oversaw Fox Searchlight and Fox Atomic, brought in the project as Fox Searchlight had previously distributed Cody's film "Juno". Mason Novick and Reitman's producing partner Dan Dubiecki signed as producers in November 2007 with plans to produce the film under Hard C, which is housed at Fox Searchlight. Reitman commented, "We want to make unusual films, and anything that turns a genre on its ear interests Dan and I." Karyn Kusama took over as director in January 2008. Kusama said she signed on to the project because of the script. "I was blessed to read this script at a moment where the producers were meeting with directors and it just knocked me out. It was just so original, so imaginative", she stated. "That's what it is about this script and the world is that it feels like a fairy tale gone psycho and I think that's what most fairy tales actually started as." Additionally, Cody, Reitman and Kusama knew the film would be R rated because of the language.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: In February 2008, a cease and desist was given to a writer at CC2K.us after they posted an advance script review for the film. The Latino Review also posted an advance review. At the time CC2K.us received their cease and desist order, questions were raised why Latino Review's largely positive script review was allowed to stay posted while CC2K was being forced by Fox Searchlight to remove their mainly negative coverage. Although Latino Review was later asked to remove their review, numerous other websites and blogs published their own critiques of the script.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Cody stated that when writing the script, she was "simultaneously trying to pay tribute to some of the conventions that we've already seen in horror, yet, at the same time, kind of turn them on their ear". One of her influences from the 1980s horror genre was the film "The Lost Boys". She wanted to "honor that, and at the same time, [she] had never really seen this particular subgenre done with girls and [she] tried to do a little of both". Despite this, she said she had noticed that "the last survivor standing in the typical horror film is a woman" and that because of this she feels "horror has always had kind of a feminist angle to it in a weird way and, at the same time, it's kind of delightfully exploitative". "Jennifer's Body" could play on both of these aspects.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Cody said she wanted the film to speak to female empowerment and explore the complex relationships between best friends. "(Director) Karyn Kusama and I are both outspoken feminists", she said. "We wanted to subvert the classic horror model of women being terrorized. I want to write roles that service women. I want to tell stories from a female perspective. I want to create good parts for actresses where they're not just accessories to men." Addressing "the male-dominated" horror genre, Cody said "a key reason for writing the film was to bring to the screen a new way of expressing the intensity of female bonds" and that the adolescent female friendships she experienced were unparalleled in their intensity. She wanted to show the "almost horrific" aspect of such devotion and its relation to parasitism.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: The producers decided to have the film open with the statement "Hell is a teenage girl" to reflect the "horrors" of puberty and that "the hellish emotions felt during high school often reappear as teenage girls mature into young women". Cody stated:


title: Jennifer's Body

text: There's the scene where Jennifer's sitting alone smearing makeup on her face. I always thought that was such a sad image. She's so vulnerable. I don't know any woman who hasn't had a moment sitting in front of the mirror and thinking, 'Help me, I want to be somebody else.' What makes it extra affecting is that [Megan Fox] is stunning.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Cody crafted the story to follow a night that ends in a tragic fire, after which Jennifer is kidnapped and set up as a sacrifice which goes awry. Jennifer, now possessed by a demon and subsequently altered into a succubus, sets out on a bloody rampage in which she devours boys, and it is up to Needy to stop her. In sort of a reversal aspect of how puberty changes a girl's life, Jennifer must consume the blood of others once a month or she becomes weak and plain-looking. "It's a meek shall inherit the Earth sort of thing. I think it's always really satisfying and cathartic to see a character that was previously bullied become super human", said Cody. Cody said the script is not a reflection of any part of her own life, but that she is more like character Needy. "I would say I was more of a Needy than a Jennifer. I was never an Alpha female, and I've never gotten off with bullying other people", she said. "If I had to choose, I was definitely the one being shoved, not the one shoving."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: The nickname "Needy" was given to Seyfried's character to underline the essentially condescending dynamic in Jennifer and Needy's high school relationship, as Needy often admires Jennifer and feels she needs her. Cody said "Jennifer is a product of a culture that pressures girls to be skinny, beautiful and just like movie stars" and that she "hopes the film inspires girls to take life into their own hands and do with it, what they want". "If I had gone to this movie as a teenage girl, I would've come out of it feeling totally inspired", she stated. "I would've wanted to write, I would've wanted to create and I would've felt like I watched something that was speaking to me."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Assigned to direct the film, Kusama said, "I think also a lot of horror is about femaleness – whether it's "Carrie" or "Rosemary's Baby"." She said she feels "like there's a lot of fear of the female or kind of celebration of it in some weird way and something about this movie managed to take the fear and the sense that it's the female that ultimately survives and sort of marry that in a really interesting way".


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Addressing her decision to have Jennifer and Needy be romantically intimate at one point during the film, which takes place in the form of a long and passionate kissing scene, Cody said she did not write the scene to score publicity. Speaking of the scene's media hype, she said that "if the two protagonists of the film were a guy and a girl and in a particularly tense moment, they shared a kiss, no one would say it was gratuitous" but "the fact that they're women means it's some kind of stunt". The scene was "intended to be something profound and meaningful" to her and Kusama. She further stated:


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Obviously we knew people were going to totally sensationalize it. They're beautiful girls, the scene is hot—I'm not afraid to say that. There is a sexual energy between the girls which is kind of authentic, because I know when I was a teen-aged girl, the friendships that I had with other girls were almost romantic, they were so intense. I wanted to sleep at my friend's house every night, I wanted to wear her clothes, we would talk on the phone until our ears ached. I wanted to capture that heightened feeling you get as an adolescent that you don't really feel as a grownup. (laughs) You like [your] friends when you're a grownup, but you don't need to sleep in the same bed with them and talk to them on the phone until 5 a.m. every night.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Though the film is part comedy, Cody initially intended for it to be a "very dark, very brooding" traditional slasher film. Close to "a third of the way into the process" she felt that she was incapable of doing so because "the humor just kept sneaking in". She stated, "I have a macabre sense of humor. A lot of the things in the movie that are horrifying are funny to me." Feeling that "comedy films and horror films are kind of similar" due to being films where you can significantly gauge intense audience reactions, Cody stated, "They're laughing, they're screaming, it's not a passive experience. So, I actually think comedy and horror are kind of similar in that way."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Handling the film's special effects were KNB EFX GROUP and Moving Picture Company (MPC). For Jennifer's demonic form, the creators used different techniques. "I actually wasn't in [the makeup chair] that much because they created an entire head. They did a live cast of me from the shoulders up. They created me and then put the teeth in", stated Fox. "To save my face, they had a photo double that would come in and do most of the crazy monster makeup - they would do that on her. So it would go from me, then in post-production it would somehow go to her and the fake head. They would mix them all together."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: For the "vomit scene" where Jennifer has just arrived at Needy's house after being murdered and inhabited by a demon, Fox said the liquid she was given to spit out "was actually ... chocolate syrup initially". "We did a few takes where I would just do this scream and sort of puke Hershey's chocolate syrup. Scratch the Hershey's because I don't want to endorse that or anything", she stated. "And then, special effects did a rig that clamps onto my ear and you revisit it in the pool scene ..." Fox said it "clips on. It goes around the back of my ear and then I bite down on it on the side of my face, like this, and it projectiles. It's a tube ..."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Director Kusama said it had a classic feel. Fox agreed, "Yeah, and it projects whatever that material was. I'm not sure. It was pretty intense. I think it was worse for [Seyfried] because she's the one that got puked on. I was the one doing the puking."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: For more practical special effects on the set as opposed to CG, Kusama said it "was a choice that we all sort of made organically". She said they appreciate "those kind of effects in older movies and [questions] sometimes how much more effective it is to use a ton of CG" and that they "always started with a practical effect and then moved forward from there to lay a groundwork of something that's actually physically, materially there". They found this to be more enjoyable.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Erik Nordby of KNB (known for his work on "The Haunting in Connecticut", which also features co-star Kyle Gallner) stated, "We immediately went into pitch mode in January and spent a solid two weeks trying to not only bid the script but also collect as much reference material and stuff for the first client get together." He said the director and producers wanted an "old-school, hands-off, lo-fi approach to the visual effects" so that the horror elements would not overpower the storyline. Based on the script, MPC similarly came to the same conclusion and "provided a clear direction" for Nordby and his team. "At that point when we met with them, they had already met with KNB, who had already done up a stylized still of what, at the time, they were calling 'Evil Jennifer,'" he said. "There was a lot of info yet to come, but based on the script, Jennifer goes from very beautiful Megan Fox to a very ghoulish, succubus creature whose jaw distends half-way down her face." Nordby said the look was eventually toned down at the wishes of MPC. From there, KNB "produced some tests, grabbing a bunch of stills from [Fox] and [did their] work to indicate how that balance could exist between special effects and visual effects and still maintain a level of subtlety" and that "[MPC] responded really well".


title: Jennifer's Body

text: The teams wanted to "maintain some sort of the Megan Fox allure" but said that it was "incredibly difficult because as soon as [they] warped her face in any direction, the shine kind of came off it". To combat this, they ended up focusing on anything below her nose, where they had the freedom to make things "as horrific as [they] needed to" and then above her nose, "[they] could manipulate it somewhat with warps and color correction in her eye sockets. So even at her worst, she had some of that sexiness throughout".


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Nordby said most of the attention was devoted to Jennifer's face and that "very quickly in combination" with special effects and makeup, MPC thought up a five-station system for what Jennifer goes through. Nordby stated:


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Stage one is beautiful Jennifer and then two and three were strictly makeup where her eyes become more recessed and she would start to look plain like the rest of us. And stage four was some custom dentures that KNB made for her, and then visual effects in stage four was mainly facial warping and recessing her eyes some more and having a pinning effect to her irises and a variety of other musculature deforms, just bringing her cheek bones down more. And stage five was the full on, as crazy as it gets, which you don't really see until near the end.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: During testing, Nordby and the special effects teams realized that getting Fox in and out of the appliance used to create Jennifer's murderous jaw would be too time-consuming. To remedy this, they hired a photo double. "[E]very day (for about 10 days) she would sit in a chair with this full appliance on her and we would shoot this jaw, and then all [Fox] would have to do is the dentures", stated Nordby. He said that "when it came time to shoot any of these jaw moments, [Fox] would act out in rehearsal how she was going to attack her victim and [they would] fine tune that blocking so it was relatively locked". The camera accompanied them in the same way, as "it would roll and she would put her dentures in, and they would really distort her face" in a way that would produce a satisfying and nice side effect. Additionally, the team would have Fox wear contact lenses and go through exactly the same motions as normal Jennifer. "But then I would shoot all the key poses that existed in whatever moves the digital double was doing, so that we had as much of that appliance in that lighting condition that we could get", said Nordby. "KNB also created a hairless but high detailed head of the stage five Jennifer that had an articulating jaw."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Nordby spent a significant amount of time shooting "the articulating jaw" scene because they had "ultimate control over how the light was hitting the head". He said, "This so-called jaw shot became a pivotal point, because for four months of the post, the filmmakers thought the film was getting too scary so MPC pulled back on the jaw and then they thought it wasn't scary enough." Because of this, "they pushed back and this jaw went back and forth quite a bit to help navigate where they wanted the tone on any given day". These different poses helped the two teams perfect the jaw scenes. "From a marketing point of view, from all the test screenings they did", said Nordby, "there was a lot of work figuring out how to make this a scary film as well as a funny film." Since the team was on a small budget, they "relied more on skilled artists to think through shots rather than a brute force approach".


title: Jennifer's Body

text: MPC additionally worked on the disappearing waterfall that serves as Jennifer's grave when she is killed at the beginning of the film. They transformed the mysterious waterfall into a whirlpool. "We came up with an approach that we thought would work because we had a lot of confidence in our water sims", stated Nordby. "The waterfall appears both as a day and night shot, so we had to integrate with the water. And the night shots play a pivotal role in the film, and we do a huge crane over." They could not lock it to a pan or to a tilt and filming the shots was difficult due to the actual base of the waterfall being out of reach. Nordby said, "I eventually lowered down a shot—a ton of reference of the area because I knew we'd have to do some digi-matte work to recreate the basin that the whirlpool ends up in." They soon realized that there was an insufficient amount of churning and foam to read as real as the location. The CG Supervisor, Pete Dionne, presented a different idea. "He grabbed chunks of that river and tialing it so that it had a nice stretch of birds' eye point of view of the water that existed on the location in the lighting situation we were trying to match", stated Nordby. "And then he projected that onto a whirlpool of animated sprites and had similar enough texture to the actual water that existed there, but pulled control into lighting it and could add depth mainly to the center of it." Dealing with "very shallow" water, the team had to take extra care when filming the scenes.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: During the film's fire scene, Cody appears as a character in the barroom. "To me, I am afraid of fire and fire technics and all that stuff which is why I don't know why I asked to be in the bar scene because I've never exploded before", she said. She had asked to be set on fire. "That was me trying to conquer a fear. By the way, they would not allow me to do a full burn for insurance purposes, even though I argued that Burt Reynolds had done it once", stated Cody. "But apparently he got really hurt, so they would not let me. To me, there's nothing more horrifying than being stuck in a claustrophobic space as it is burning down so, to me, it was more like tapping into a personal fear. That's not tough."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: In late 2007, Fox Atomic had plans to film "Jennifer's Body" before a possible writer's strike. When the Writers Guild of America strike began, shooting was then moved to March 7, 2008, in Burnaby, British Columbia, specifically at Robert Burnaby Park near Cariboo Hill Secondary School. Some of the scenes, particularly those situated in a school setting, were filmed in local Vancouver-area schools such as Vancouver Technical Secondary School, Langley Secondary School and University Hill Secondary School. The waterfalls scene was filmed at Cascade Falls in Cascade Falls Regional Park in British Columbia.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Fox said that while filming her highly anticipated kissing scene with Seyfried that Seyfried was "extremely uncomfortable" but that she herself was not. "I feel much safer with girls, so I felt more comfortable kissing [Seyfried] than kissing any of the other people that I had to kiss", she said. Seyfried's uneasiness in the scene caused "giggling fits" between takes. Seyfried said that neither of them wanted to do the kiss because they felt it was just for promotional purposes. She agreed with Fox that she was uneasy about acting out the scene. "It was my first time doing a real kissing scene with a woman", she stated. "It is just weird. It is a woman. With a woman's smell—soft and floraly—and maybe the pheromones are different. Something about it felt uncomfortable for me."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Music was incorporated as an essential part of the film; there are "very specific bands" placed in band posters in some parts, such as in the selection of the band poster on the walls of the bar. Kusama said "[t]he music was a huge component of the movie" and this is first evident with "the songs that we see and hear performed, but then, just the vibe of the movie actually". She said, "As the movie progresses, it becomes a pretty clearly music-oriented movie. It's sort of a youth movie. Some of those bands were totally made up and some of them are not."


title: Jennifer's Body

text: The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 45% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 210 reviews, and an average rating of 5.30/10. The website's critical consensus states, ""Jennifer's Body" features occasionally clever dialogue but the horror/comic premise fails to be either funny or scary enough to satisfy." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews from mainstream critics, the film holds a score of 47 out of 100 based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C-" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Jennifer's Body

text: Film critic Roger Ebert enjoyed the film, dubbing it a ""Twilight" for boys" and saying "as a movie about a flesh-eating cheerleader, it's better than it has to be." Ebert said that within Cody there is "the soul of an artist, and her screenplay brings to this material a certain edge, a kind of gleeful relish, that's uncompromising. This isn't your assembly-line teen horror thriller". Additionally, he complimented Fox as "[coming] through" in her portrayal and "play[ing] the role straight". He gave the film three out of four stars. Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" gave the film three out of four stars. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" stated it is "Hot! Hot! Hot!" and that "Director Karyn Kusama is torn between duty to female empowerment and slasher convention". He credited Fox's portrayal as showing "a comic flair" that "Transformers" "never investigated". Tom Charity of CNN said "[the] last time a horror flick tried for a distinctly female point of view the result was "Twilight", which was more of a wan gothic romance than a chiller" and "Fox makes a convincing vixen, callously picking up victims whenever her luster begins to fade. It's not hard to imagine she can have anyone who takes her fancy". Charity credited the dialogue as "bitingly smart, funny teen-speak ... along with sharp pop culture references".