How could I have let this happen to me?
Why didn’t I trust my gut?
How could I have been so weak?
Why didn’t I fight back?
How could I…?
Why didn’t I…?
Why…?
Why…?
Why…?
Our society has a storied history with victim-blaming, despite the best efforts of many to change the narrative. This habit is so ingrained, the blaming questions so automatic, that even when we’ve done the most incredible thing and survived, we’re primed to turn these questions inward and to shame ourselves for not having done more — As if there’s any “more” that matters beyond getting out alive.
Woman of the Hour is based on the true story of Cheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick), an aspiring actress cast on a 1978 episode of The Dating Game, and Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto), a serial killer who appeared as a contestant on that same episode. The film delves into the harrowing experiences of the women Alcala targeted and honors the courageous ways in which they fought to survive.
When faced with threat, the body’s response is as primal as it is precise. It rapidly unleashes a sophisticated wave of hormonal and physiological changes, each one sharpening our senses and ensuring survival remains our foremost instinct. You have likely heard about this phenomenon by its most traditional name, “fight or flight.” This catchy phrase, though, does not capture the full spectrum of stress responses our bodies may activate when under duress, including the lesser-known but equally vital “freeze” and “fawn.”
Meet your body’s survival squad:
FIGHT.
Fight fuels your body to take a stand and hold your ground.
You don’t have to be an assertive, confident, or bold person for your body to initiate the fight response when it perceives danger. This response can manifest as either verbal confrontation or physical aggression. You will notice an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and adrenaline, all working together to boost your physical strength and to amplify your sense of power. Your body will additionally dull your pain perception, enabling you to push through injury and sustain your will to fight.
FLIGHT.
Sometimes, the best way out is through. Other times, it’s just out!
When your body senses danger and determines that the flight response is your best avenue for getting to safety, you will feel the impulse to take off and run. To support a quick escape, your heart will increase blood flow to your muscles, delivering the oxygen and nutrients necessary for intense and sustained physical effort. You may also experience tunnel vision, wherein your brain prioritizes information related to both the threat and your escape route, tuning out peripheral distractions.
FREEZE.
You might feel like a deer in headlights, but your body is actually taking a tactical pause.
Following a traumatic event, many people report a feeling of anger toward themselves and their bodies for freezing up in the face of danger. The freeze response, though, serves two essential purposes that often go unrecognized and thus, underappreciated.
First, your body initiates the freeze response when it senses that fight or flight is not possible or wise. This brief pause allows your brain to assess the situation and weigh your best course of action. Freezing additionally conserves energy, giving you the chance to prepare for fight or flight should an opportunity present itself.
Second, when under direct threat or assault, the freeze response can involve disassociation, where you feel emotionally and physically disconnected from your body and surroundings. This crucial defense mechanism helps to minimize the immediate impact of trauma, shielding you from overwhelming fear, panic, and pain.
FAWN.
Fawn is not weakness nor surrender; it’s the art of disarming without a fight.
When your body detects danger and the possibility of escape is not realistic, it may activate the fawn response as a means of neutralizing the threat and reducing your risk of harm. Fawning is a powerful tool designed to placate the aggressor, and can manifest as flattery, apologizing, excessive agreeableness (i.e., people pleasing), submission (i.e., suppressing your own beliefs or desires in order to keep the peace), and over-responsiveness (i.e., anticipating the aggressor’s needs and going out of your way to fulfill them). Fawning can promote lifesaving threat de-escalation, potentially reducing the severity of the assault, or even persuading the aggressor to abandon the confrontation altogether.
Meet the women of the hour:
Sarah.
Rodney is an amateur photographer, conducting a session with a new subject, Sarah (Kelley Jakle), in the remote Wyoming mountains. In response to Rodney’s request to tell him about herself, Sarah becomes tearful discussing plans she and her boyfriend had shared prior to him abandoning their relationship.
Scene timestamp: 00:03:51
Fawn. Fight. Freeze. Flight. Fight.
This is the moment that Sarah clocks Rodney’s behavior as intrusive and alarming. He hasn’t said or done anything overtly threatening. But his silence is unsettling, and he’s crossing into her personal space for no discernable reason, and he’s getting too close. She doesn’t let on that she’s wary, but her brows furrow, and her body immediately initiates a fawning response. Despite her discomfort, Sarah apologizes for crying and thanks Rodney for providing her with a listening ear. As he inappropriately strokes her neck under the guise of offering comfort, she continues to appease him by forcing a smile onto her face. And when he grabs her neck, she maintains a playful demeanor and chuckles as she pushes him away.
When Rodney grabs her neck again, Sarah snaps briefly into fight mode, voicing her disbelief with a shocked expletive. Her body then quickly shifts to freeze: Sarah takes in her surroundings and registers just how alone they are, and she holds eye contact with Rodney as she attempts to read his intentions. And then, she runs. Rodney catches her quickly and tackles her to the ground, where her body instinctively re-initiates its fight response in a final struggle for her life.
Cheryl.
Following their filming of The Dating Game, in which Cheryl selects Rodney as the winning bachelor, they decide on a whim to grab a drink together.
Scene timestamp: 1:07:38
Fawn. Flight.
Cheryl and Rodney engage in easy back-and-forth banter until he makes an awkward comment that’s uncomfortably intense. Cheryl attempts to relieve her discomfort by playing along with a good-natured joke; however, she quickly realizes from Rodney’s non-response that he has taken offense. Detecting the tense energy shift, Cheryl’s body works to defuse the situation through fawning. She offers him reassurance by affirming his perspective, takes responsibility for the sudden tension, and accepts his subtle dig without pushback. When Rodney continues to engage in disconcerting dialogue, Cheryl adopts a submissive approach, holding back any contrasting or challenging statements she might otherwise have made. This fawning strategy is maintained until Cheryl is able to seek assistance from a waitress, allowing her to escape the interaction and effectively ending their impromptu date.
Scene timestamp: 1:11:01
Flight. Fawn. Freeze. Fawn. Fight. Flight. Freeze. Flight.
When Cheryl and Rodney exit the restaurant, she immediately exhibits flight and fawning behavior as she attempts to calmly walk away from him toward the safety of her car. When he states he’ll walk with her, she stares unwaveringly ahead, willing herself to refrain from protest. And when he asks for her number, she obliges. And when he asks if something’s wrong, she says no, her voice steady but strained— Each decision a careful effort not to trigger his anger, not to reveal her fear.
Once they reach the desolate studio parking lot and Cheryl says goodnight, hoping to distance herself from Rodney once and for all, he asks again for her phone number, under the pretense of double-checking its accuracy. Cheryl freezes, her senses sharp as she assesses her surroundings. Still frighteningly alone in a dimly lit lot, she quickly determines that fawning remains her best course of action. But when she offers to verify the number she wrote down is correct and legible, Rodney challenges why she can’t simply recite it verbally, the air between them thick with the danger of her self-protective lie.
Fawning no longer a viable tool, Cheryl’s fight drive emerges as she adopts a confident tone and defiantly asserts, “I’m not going anywhere with you.” As she turns to leave, she hears Rodney mutter a gruesome remark about her under his breath, causing her again to freeze. Incredulous and terrified at Rodney’s words, her eyes dart around the deserted parking lot, desperate for a lifeline to appear. But when no escape materializes, Cheryl resumes a flight strategy, walking briskly to her car with only the slightest hint of urgency. Her pace quickens as she feels Rodney trailing her, taunting her, maintaining a distance that gives the illusion of safety, one they both know he could easily close. His game of cat and mouse ends only as studio employees enter the parking lot, forcing him to pull back and freeing Cheryl of his menacing pursuit.
Amy.
Rodney has driven Amy (Autumn Best), a teenage runaway, to a remote desert for a photography session. After instructing her to turn her back to him and to face the setting sun for a final shot, he tackles her from behind to the ground.
Scene timestamp: 1:19:11
Freeze. Fawn. Flight.
Amy regains consciousness and wakes lying on her back to the sound of Rodney crying beside her. Her body instantly enters a freeze state as she registers that her hands and feet are tied, and that she’s been assaulted. Her face set with resolve, she embraces a fawning strategy as she turns to face Rodney. Her tone is soft and fragile as she offers concern for his wellbeing, assumes shared blame for the previous night, and feigns embarrassment over her behavior. All a calculated set up to appeal to his ego as someone who could protect her from the fallout, she then coaxingly asks him to do her the favor of not telling anyone, positioning him as her savior.
Amy continues to fawn as she aligns herself with Rodney’s beliefs and desires. She conveys that she understands him by remarking how judgmental others can be, and she anticipates his expectations by suggesting they return to his place together. She’s casual when she asks for his help loosening her restraints, and she leans back with an aura of ease when he begins to untie the knots. Caution and uncertainty still lingering on Rodney’s face, Amy strategically bestows flattery, gradually disarming him and inching herself closer to an opportunity for escape.
As Amy and Rodney drive back toward town, she maintains a fawning demeanor, offering reassurance that all is ok. It’s not until Rodney pulls over at a pitstop to use the restroom, leaving Amy alone, that her flight response engages. Seizing the moment, she takes off running to a nearby diner and calls the police, ultimately leading to Rodney’s arrest and securing her own safety.
The 4 F’s of Survival: Leaving “Failure” and “Fault” Behind
Woman of the Hour sets itself apart in the thriller genre because it homes in on the moment the air changes, when the eyes flicker and the lips twitch, when the smile becomes a sneer, when the playful tone turns sharp, when the touch is just a touch too firm or lingers just a touch too long, when the room starts to close in on you, when your heart begins to race and your mouth feels dry and the hairs on your arms stand on end. This is the moment you know your body has already perceived danger and jumped into protective action.
We engage fight, flight, freeze, and fawn with fluidity. As depicted in the scenes described above, our bodies are constantly assessing the situation when under threat, adapting to new information in real time, and employing whichever of the four F’s are most likely to keep us safe. A difficult reality, though, is that despite our bodies doing everything they can to shield us, there is no guarantee of safety in a dangerous situation and harm cannot always be minimized or prevented. This is not a failure of you or your body. If you have ever been under threat and something happened to you, it was not your fault. In the aftermath, it’s natural to reflect on what happened, to replay each moment, to wish you’d acted differently, but it’s imperative to recognize that you’re making those judgments with the benefit of hindsight. When your body took the actions it took, it was under duress, pressed to make split-second decisions with limited information, and in a heightened state of alert. Your body was acting instinctively, focused entirely on survival. What may seem like the wrong choice now was the only choice then.
It’s essential for healing to release the idea that somehow you should have done something differently, that you could have prevented what occurred, or that your body didn’t do enough to protect you. The truth is, sometimes a dangerous situation is just too dangerous, and our bodies don’t always have control over the outcome. When you’re ready, give yourself permission to take the blame off your shoulders… It has never been yours to carry.
Survival isn’t about making every “right” move. Far from it — It’s primal, chaotic, and anything but perfect. Whichever of the four F’s your body calls upon to protect you from harm, it’s doing exactly what it was built to do: keeping you here, in the story, to write your next chapter.
Cleveland Clinic. (2024, July 22). What is the Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn Response? https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-happens-to-your-body-during-the-fight-or-flight-response
Guy-Evans, O. (2023, November 9). Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn: How We Respond to Threats. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/fight-flight-freeze-fawn.html
Harvard Health Publishing. (2024, April 3). Understanding the Stress Response. Harvard Medical School. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
Kendrick, A. (Director). (2023). Woman of the hour [Film]. AGC Studios, Vertigo Entertainment, and BoulderLight Pictures.
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