“The brutality of language and its severed connection with the self is given a violent bent in Bone — specifically in relation to how language is manipulated in derogatory identification with women. In an off-screen discussion, two characters partake in a slagging match transposing non-human animal names to the female subject such as ‘bitch’, ‘pig’, and ‘heifer’. Bone sheds a spotlight on the ease with which such terms sit within everyday language. The harshness of the language degrades both non-human animal and woman, made all the more brutal by the casual inflection of the speakers. The offensive turns of phrase are juxtaposed with the clean and polished aesthetic of Bone—it veils a gritty and sinister motive of the transformation of life into raw materials, exemplified in the opening tableau of the leather chair and the walking cane decorated with a severed animal hoof as literal (and once living) examples of objectification. That said, Bone goes even further and thingifies its object: both woman and non-human animal are identified only through their value as sexual object, commodity item, and human domestication, as if sitting naturally in those categories.” Leah Reynolds
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