Teeth (2007): She Bites Back

Two intimacy coordinators break down the infamous gynecologist scene from Teeth (2007).

The bite heard 'round the world.

From questionable medical protocol to perfect camp choreography, Ariel and Morgan break down what works, what really doesn't, and why this movie about vagina dentata still manages to make audiences laugh 17 years later.

In this episode:

• How Teeth flips the horror trope of sexual violence on its head
• Why good choreography and body awareness make this scene disturbingly effective
• The line between tension, comedy, and terror
• What intimacy coordination could've looked like for a scene this outrageous

A filmmaker's lens on horror and intimacy

Somehow, amidst the severed fingers and social commentary, there's genuine insight into consent, choreography, and why horror movies might secretly "get" intimacy better than most rom-coms.

Watch along timestamps: 56:00

Subscribe for bi-weekly behind the scenes breakdowns of film and TV's most iconic sex scenes.

Credits

Teeth (2007) | Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein | Pierpoline Films / Roadside Attractions

Hashtags

#TeethMovie #behindthescenes #HorrorComedy #IntimacyCoordinator #FilmBreakdown

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Hi, I'm Ariel Lee Cohen.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Hey, I'm Morgan Smith. And we are the hosts of Faking It with Ariel and Morgan. We're two intimacy coordinators here to talk about the spicy scenes you see in film and TV.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

So excited. Yeah. You wanna do the hot? I'm happy to do that hot. That ha ha ha. We're gonna start off with hot off the set, where we share recent onset stories with all identifying details, such as names, places, and project titles changed for privacy. Then in scene work, we'll watch an intimacy scene in real time and rate it using our spice scale, scoring it across three key categories and giving it a final letter grade. We'll have notes and links in our captions in case you want to watch the scene yourself. After that, in position to know, we'll answer common questions we get about our work. So let's kick it off with Hot Off the Set. I got called in to do a two and a half hour long scene. And all I've been told is that it's a kissing scene. This is extremely last minute. I didn't have the script. I spoke to the director briefly over the phone the night before at 10 p.m., but didn't get to speak to the actors. And all she said was it's like a four-second kiss, and they touch general touch points. That's like shoulders, waist, back, hair, head. I'm like, okay, sure. Yeah, I'll come in. I get there, I speak to the actors, everybody's comfortable with the action, whatever. And then I get told when we get up to the room where it happened, they were like, okay, well, they're gonna do this pillow fighting. The feathers are gonna go everywhere. And the lead actress is like, I am allergic to feathers. And I was like, would have been nice to know at a time. Um uh it ended up being totally okay. We discussed briefly just maybe putting the feathers in front of the camera, but then they felt it wouldn't look right. So basically, what we ended up doing is they would fight, fight, fight pillows. The pillow falls, they would have their kiss moment, and then she would run out of the room the second they called come. She'd like to hang out outside and try to like brush it all off her face. They would come in with vacuums and vacuum every inch of the space. They would take pieces of tape and throw it on all the bedspreads and run around, and it was so crazy. We had to do like 15 total takes. I felt so terrible. It might have been good for the actress to tell production ahead of time that she was allergic to feathers. However, at the same time, if I had been brought in earlier, it's something I could have flagged. But the scene looked good and we were happy and it was fine. But I just, I just was like, oh no, production, you gotta talk to your actors, man. You gotta, you gotta speak to them.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

I think a lot of people don't realize one of the things that we ask in our prep is about allergies, because you don't know if someone's allergic to a certain kind of perfume or lotion, or if your scene partner just ate strawberries, is that gonna cause a reaction in you? So that's why calling an intimacy coordinator last minute is not ideal because then we have time to figure this stuff out. Then we can go to production and say, like, hey, we're doing a pillow fight. Great, what are the pillows made of? But also good on that crew for doing all of that work in between every single take. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

70% of our job is done in prep. If we do not have time to prep, then that means things get missed. It means we don't get a chance to get ahead of boundaries, which adds time on the day. I always ask my actors, just like you said, injuries, allergies, and access needs every single time. Because you just need to know all of the factors may that may factor in.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

All right. I I got a cute one early on in my intimacy coordinating. I was working on a short that had two very new actors who had never done a kissing scene before, and they were really nervous about it. And they're playing a couple that has been together for a while. So it had to seem as though they're comfortable with each other. And they were really nervous about doing a kiss first. And so something I always offer to people when I'm in that kind of situation is like, do you want to do your first kiss, like away from crew, like just the three of us? You can get it out of the way without like a hundred people watching you and the pressure of like, oh, we're about to do it. They're like, okay, yeah, let's do that. So we go over, we're shooting outside. So we go over to this like kind of private area. And then we're standing there and we're like, so what do we do? I'm like, oh, okay, I'll walk you through it. Which I get it, because I'm like, that's just the nerves, yeah, right? It's not like they literally didn't know how to kiss. Um, yeah. So I was like, okay, we're both gonna take a breath, both gonna look at each other, take each other in, and then you're gonna step closer, and then you're gonna tilt your head, you're gonna go this way, you're gonna go that way, you're gonna get close. Now you're gonna kiss and like just walking them through the whole thing. And then when they were on camera and they were totally fine. But it was just, it was very sweet. I was really happy I gotta be there for that like first on-screen kiss moment.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

I love that story. That's so cute. A lot of our stories are cute. A lot of you people ask, What are your worst stories? We're like, no, a lot of them are adorable.

unknown 6:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, that's so true.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

All right. Well, anyway, should we move into seed work?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah. Okay. What have you brought for me? I'm so excited for this. So I know it's October, it's spooky season. I thought we should do something from a spooky movie. I had never seen this before. I was just researching like, what are four movies that have some like iconic simulated sex scenes? And one of the ones that came up was Teeth.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Are you familiar with it at all? I've okay. I've never seen it. I've heard of it.

unknown 6:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Okay, to clarify, this is the 2007 comedy horror film because there's another movie by John Waters that has the same title. So, yes. This is the comedy horror film directed by Mitchell Lichenstein. And it is starring just Wexler as Don, who received the grand jury prize at Sundance for this role, and Josh Pace as Dr. Godfrey, who will also appear in this scene. There's a bit of context that we need. The reminder this is a comedy horror. Um there is a trigger warning. This scene does involve a simulated sexual assault. So just keep that in mind. But you're gonna see that's gonna turn out well for the hero. So, our lead's name is Dawn O'Keefe. She is a teenage spokesperson for a Christian abstinence group. Her commitment to purity and sex education in rural Texas has left her a stranger to her own body. So much so that she doesn't know she has vagina dentata. Recently, her hormones started to get the better of her while making out with her boyfriend. Later, a horrified Dawn researches vaginal abnormalities when she discovers a rich ancient history of this adaptation that's meant to protect women. Now she's visiting the OBGYN for the first time alone and under a pseudonym to verify if her vagina really has teeth. Amazing. Great. Yeah, looking forward to it. Oh, and as she mentioned, the time code on this, in case listeners, viewers want to watch this on their own, is 5129. Okay, so we're in a gynecologist office.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

It's a little sparse in there. Looks very distraught. Oh, I know this actor. He tells her to lie down. She's wearing uh a patient outfit where it's not open in the back, which is not exactly accurate, but I'm not gonna complain. Okay, so she lies down. She's not scooting up or anything. She's just lying down with her feet in the stirrups. This is a little awkward and not entirely right, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I'm not gonna bite you.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Oh, he's not gonna bite.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

But you know who might be.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

That feels ironic. I feel I feel like I feel tense. Okay, so she's scooting down. Yes, okay. Her head just keeps leaving frame. It's pretty funny. Okay. Ooh, weird. Oh, I don't like that. I don't like that. He just puts his his finger, his forefingers on her knees and tries to spread her across. It's really odd. Okay, so he has a speculum.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

This might be a little cold.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

And it was cold.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Perfectly.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

He's able to get the speculum up.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Are you sexually active?

SPEAKER_03 9:58

But she has teeth in her vagina. A teeth of origin, and he's able to get it up with no difficulty. There wasn't even an inch of of discomfort on her face. Is he taking his glove off? Why is he doing that? Okay. So he's sexually assaulting her right now. Can you tell me? What is he putting-oh, he's putting lubricant on his hand? His bare hand. And he is putting his hand inside of her. And now we have discomfort. Is he putting his whole fist in her vaginal canal? Breeze through the pain. Jesus Christ. So he is penetrating her with his hand, if not entire fist. Oh my god. His hand has been bitten. Oh no. They're just both screaming and she's pulling his arm with her. Oh my god! Oh my god. She is now turned over and it ain't his hand. It ain't all of his fingers. And he just is yelling, vagina dentata. And she runs away. And that's the end of the scene. That's the end of the scene. Oh my god! Oh my god. Oops. Thoughts. So many. Let me think. Hang on. The authenticity of the moment was not real. And I'm not saying that just because of the teeth. I'm saying that regarding the OBGYN appointment. Some things that intimacy coordinators do is we work on scenes that include childbirth or anything, or along the lines of an OBGYN appointment, we might be involved potentially. The outfit is incorrect and doesn't have a slit up the back. Her legs are not near split enough. The speculum goes into her vaginal canal with no discomfort. And then usually, if someone's hearing yelling, they would come into the room. And let alone they're being teeth in her vagina. I love what he says. What did you put in here? That's my favorite line in the whole scene. I'm surprised he got that many fingers inside of her. I also wonder how far in the teeth are.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

So what we learn throughout the movie is the teeth aren't always present. They come out when she's feeling threatened. They act independently of her, but she can also kind of like unleash them at will.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

What a superpower. Oh my god. How would we approach this scene? I would talk to Wardrobe about what she's wearing. It's not really my scope. I just would have. Yeah. Um But I wonder if the actor requested that.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Like when she was running out, if she didn't want her rear to show.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

That's very possible, but I feel like even then they can wear flesh tone underwear and a strapless bra or something, and we and they can like hold it in the back and be perfectly covered. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I would do anything differently than my normal scope of the position. I would definitely need to choreograph the hell out of that.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

What about you? Yes. I couldn't get any information on behind the scenes, like how the shooting of this scene was. When I first watched this scene, other than like total shock and also just the comedy of it, because it's such a dark comedy, but it balances that so well. I was really impressed once her dentata like gripped his fingers and she's like moving him around, how much he's staying with her. Like they're working so well in tandem together. That was a huge part of the reason why I chose this specific scene because there are a few different simulated sex scenes throughout this movie, as you can imagine. But this one, the choreography is just wild.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Given the scene, I would recommend almost that he grab her inner thigh, not hard, but just enough so that they remain attached. So no matter where she goes, he can follow her without difficulty.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

I also wonder if she was sitting on something and then he held on to that. Like, you know, those paddle things you hold when you're first learning how to swim and you're kicking and you hold that floaty thing. If she was like on one of those with a handle and then he just holds the handle and then that allows her to move. I'm going low budge. You're going higher budge slightly. I mean, this this movie had, I think it was about $2 million. So it had a decent budget.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Maybe it's like a swivelly panel where no matter where she moves her body, like he's holding on. So that I mean, that would be cool too. I think low budget version, he maybe holds on to her thigh. And yeah, his reaction is pretty clear.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Like when the bite happens, it's pretty obvious what's going on.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

Yeah, let's get into that spice scale, man.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, let's uh let's talk about how spicy this scene is.

unknown 15:24

Right?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Welcome to the spice scale, our not-so scientific way of breathing intimacy scenes based on consent and power dynamics, technical craft and coordination excellence, heat factor. Each category gets a score from one to five, with five being the highest. Then we add it all up to give the scene a final letter grade. Let's start with consent and power dynamics.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

I mean, the scene depicts it well. We as the audience know the exact moment that the consent ends. He definitely has the power in the situation, kind of across the board. He, as the aggressor, has the power in the scene.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

But especially because she's never had an OBGYN appointment before. So he has 100% power in the situation. Well, um, as far as he knows.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Until her superpower shows up.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

And that's the thing is this is the second time this has happened. Because as I mentioned in the context, like the reason why she's there is because when her boyfriend forced himself on her, her vagina bit, his penis, clean off. So she's like, something's up. For girl, I mean, honestly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

Yeah. So what would you rate it? It depicts the dynamics well. So I want to give it a four. The power switch is really, really well done. It's really good. I don't think that we needed quite as much of his hand in her vagina in order to make that come across.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

It's a comedy horror. Things are slightly exaggerated. It's a little bit campy. So for me, I would give it a five because the entire movie is playing off of typical consent and power dynamics, especially in horror movies. The idea of, you know, usually the girl is being hunted down, and then a guy saves her. And in this scenario, like exactly from the beginning, we expect the male doctor to be the one who has more of the power in the scene. And then that completely flips on its head. And I feel like the movie does a very good job of showing that. I thought it was just super clear. And that's one of the things I really enjoyed about the scene because it filled up the tension really well. In the beginning, you're like, this is uncomfortable. Something isn't right. When I first watched it, I was like, oh, he's he seems nice and this is like innocent enough, and she doesn't know what's happening. And then he he gets a little weird. And then the second he takes his glove off. Great metaphor. The gloves are coming off.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

All right, I you convinced me. Well, I can move it to a five. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

All right. Five. Technical craft and coordination excellence. I mean, great job.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

You did really well. I understood for the most part what was going on. I still think even beyond the coolness of the gel, having a speculum in your body would be uncomfortable. And I don't think that I saw anything beyond that initial present moment.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

But modesty protection-wise, saw nothing. Saw nothing. Coreyo was great. I understood what was going on the entire time. Yeah, I want to say five on that.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Great job. Yeah. And I totally agree. Like I said before, even without an intimacy coordinator, clearly someone had to for you a wrap this. And, you know, this podcast is not just to celebrate projects that ICs have worked on. It's people have done unofficial versions of this job for a long time. And there are people who did it well. And I think we can still appreciate that even if the position didn't exist yet.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

A lot of our job is also not the choreography aspect. It is the being the in-person element of it and the prep element. And I don't know how that went in the film or uh behind the scenes. But as far as choreo, I think we definitely need to appreciate it. I mean, before we came along, honestly, wardrobe and hair and makeup would handle a lot of our job. And they had a lot to do anyway. So, but they were really the only people on the ground floor who the actors could confide in, who the actors could talk to, and who would fight for the actors on their behalf. So yay, hair and makeup and wardrobe and stunts.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yay. Sheet factor, the level of erotic charge or sexual tension in the scene.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

I don't think that there was sexy eroticism here, but there was tension for sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

You could argue there's eroticism on his end because he's trying to commit a sexual violent act. He's aroused, but it's not erotic, like necessarily for the audience, I would say. It's not a hot scene by any means. It's as cold as that speculum was. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

I I want to say three, because there was some in there, but it wasn't like hot for us. There was a tension to it and to certain characters in the scene.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

I think there is room to acknowledge the tension that they built in that scene, which they did really well, even if it wasn't supposed to be a sexy scene.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Yes, I agree. So that gives us a five, five, and three. That's 13, and that is a B. No! Alright. So just a slinky little B. Slinky little B. So now we're at our final segment, Positioned to Know, where we'll answer common questions we get about our work. Morgan, do you have a question that you get asked a lot?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

A lot of people will be like, your sex life must be amazing. Because you have to stop. Well. This is so funny. First of all, I'm not gonna talk about my personal sex life. Um what I will say is Being knowledgeable about these things and being able to communicate when it comes to sex is very helpful to have a healthy sex life. But I feel like a lot of times when people say that, they're picturing more like you must do the craziest stuff because you know all the things that are possibly out there. And I'm like, that's not necessarily true. My personal sex life is not inherently connected to the work that I do because, you know, in my personal sex life, I have not encountered vaginas that have teeth in them that could bite your fingers off. Like we're working with things that are just far beyond anything we could ever come across in our personal experience.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

That's astute. Thank you. I would even go as far as to say when I was single, I'm I'm only recently in the last couple of months gotten into a relationship. But um, thank you. But when I was single for the last couple of years while being an intimacy coordinator, I would say that it directly worsened my sex life. Not how I would perform the activity of sex, but more in the dating aspect, where I actually found that a lot of people were thinking, A, that I was extremely, let's use the word promiscuous, uh, that I that I would be willing to sleep with someone on date one. Then people would ask me, um, do you choreograph your sexual situations with people? And I'd say that is an insane ask. And who would do that? That's what would I pretend that we're having sex? No, no, that sounds very weird. Like that'd be a weird thing to do. Or people would be really afraid of getting canceled and they wouldn't want to talk to me about anything. So I actually found it to be a detriment to my sex life initially. Um, but yes, I agree. I think having knowledge about sex and the knowledge of anatomy and how the body works and how to find pleasure and effectively communicating with one another can be very helpful for your sex life. But I don't know that it's directly related to intimacy coordination.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

When people are intimidated by it, did you did you find that there was like mostly guys would think that X? Or was it just kind of like a mix across the board?

SPEAKER_03 24:27

That's actually a great question. I'm gonna use this as my position to know. Um yeah. When I would date men, they would have a hard time with this. Some men, not so much, but most men, not all men, but most men. Not all of them. Hashtag not all men, but most men, uh, would have some level of difficulty with this job description. I found that when I dated women, women would just be really excited that that position exists in the first place, or they would just have a million questions about it. I did not find that women had trouble with it the way that men did. I had not dated any non-binary folks in the time of my singlehood while being an intimacy coordinator, so I cannot speak to that. Uh, but that was more by chance.

unknown 25:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

That's what my guess would have been, just based on like the reactions I've gotten when I've talked to like men I don't know versus women I don't know. But it's so different because I wasn't in a dating context with them, so I wasn't sure exactly how that would play out.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Yeah, and I mean it's definitely different for everybody. And it also, I would say, depends on your demographic. Let's say if I were younger and in the middle of the country somewhere, there may be different reactions to that. But I would say it was hard for me to date, and it made it so I maybe not really want to date that much, frankly. Yeah. Yeah. I yeah, I would also say, last thing, when an intimacy coordinator walks onto set, everyone acts, I find, a little bit better than I think they normally would. They're a little more well-behaved, let's say, because they're a little afraid of being canceled by us. And I know I kind of wish they wouldn't. I try to relax the feelings as much as I can. But no one on earth who is on a film set would ever hit on an intimacy coordinate.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

That is one thing I actually really appreciate about the job is like people assume we have the superpower to cancel people. And I'm like, baby, if I had that power, we would have a different president. Like, trust. I wish I wish there was like just that, at least that guy. But I'm like, no, we absolutely do not have that power. It is so funny because like I've had people who are unsure if they can swear around me. I'm like, yeah, I'm not like I'm not your grandmother. I'm not the PC police. Like, yes, when we're we're talking about the scene that we're working on, I would prefer we do it in a respectful way, but I'm not gonna scold you if you use more colloquial terms, because I've been trained to learn this language. Other people have not been trained. You can say whatever you want to me, and I know what you're talking about, and then I can demonstrate other language you can use, but I'm not gonna like scold you, especially when I know that they're just trying to communicate. If someone's being a dick, then that's a different story.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Just if you're making like off-color jokes for the purpose of nothing, that is when I may pull you aside and talk to you. But it's not me who is offended, it is me keeping safe as space. Keeping it is me keeping safe as safe. Space, fuck, it is me keeping spaces safe. I knew you were there. I was reading for you.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

I got there, it took me so long, like a shocking amount of time. But it is a really cool thing, though, to go onto sets and be like, oh, none of the dudes who are into women on this set are gonna hit on me today. And as someone who's worked in this business for a long time, fat is a fucking superpower. Flip that hair.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yes. Imagine a world where you will never be objectified in any capacity. In fact, folks will actively try to get out of your way in that way. All right. Do you have any plugs, Morgan?

SPEAKER_01 28:42

I don't think I have any plugs. If you've got less than 30 seconds, you can support this podcast by subscribing wherever you're listening to us right now. And you can do all of that on your phone so fast for no money.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

I love that. I want to plug the holiday of Halloween. I think that y'all should do it and enjoy it and live your best Halloween-y type lives. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I plug dressing up.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Love Halloween. What are you dressing up as? Where are you going? I have no idea. Last year we uh were both Catwoman. I she Kim was the Halle Berry version, and I was the Michelle Pfeiffer version, which was so fun. We won a costume contest at a drag show, which is like honestly one of the best things that's ever happened to me. That's nice. We watched the runway and we kissed at the end of the runway, and the drag queens were judging it, and all the people watching it lost their minds, and I've never felt better about myself. I was like, oh my god, we made drag queens go crazy. So you accomplished the bar is so high. So I I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Well, I wish you the best of luck this Halloween season. Thank you so much. Catch faking it every other hump day, Wednesday, wherever you listen to podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

And make sure to like, subscribe, tell your friends, and review us because it really does help. You can follow us on all social media at faking it the pod. Join our Patreon for free, become a part of the faker community, and starting at just a dollar a month, you can do fun things like request us to talk about certain scenes from film and TV you like, get some bonus content, and other really amazing things. Stay real, fakers!

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Faking it with Ariel and Morgan is produced independently by Ariel Lee Cohen and Morgan Smith, edited by Ariel in social media and branding by Morgan. Our theme song is faking it by Suno AI until we get monetized. So feel free to send us a new one. Have questions, thoughts, or media recommendations? Hit us up at fakingthepod.com. Find us on all socials at faking the pod and head over to our Patreon for bonus content. Credits for the film or show we reacted to are in the episode caption. Keep it real, fakers.

unknown 31:20

Woo