film is critiquing "familiar male arguments about women 'bringing it on as "simply sexist, self-excusing rhetoric and are quite clearly presented as such". Later reception The initial criticism was followed by reappraisals of the film. Michael Kaminski's 2007 article for the website Obsessed with Film, titled "Is I Spit on Your Grave Really A Misunderstood Feminist Film?" argues that, when understood within the context in which director Zarchi was inspired to make it, the movie may be equally appropriate to analyze as "feminist wish-fulfillment" and a vehicle of personal expression reacting to violence against women. A reappraisal was made by Carol J. Clover in the third chapter of her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Clover notes that she and others like her "appreciate, however grudgingly, the way in which [the movie's] brutal simplicity exposes a mainspring of popular culture". Clover further argues that the film's sympathies are entirely with Jennifer, that the male audience is meant to identify with her and not with the attackers, and that the point of the film is a masochistic identification with pain used to justify the bloody catharsis of revenge. Clover wrote that in her opinion, the film owes a debt to Deliverance. The British feminist Julie Bindel, who was involved in pickets outside cinemas in Leeds when the film was released, has said that she was wrong about the film and that it is a feminist film. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, I Spit on Your Grave holds an approval rating of 51%, based on 39 reviews, and an average rating of 5.4/10. Its consensus reads, "I Spit on Your Grave is as aggressively exploitative as its title suggests, although as a crude rejoinder to misogyny, it packs a certain amount of undeniable power." Controversy The film caused significant controversy and backlash for its graphic violence, particularly the rape scene, with feminists protesting the movie and people accusing the movie of glorifying rape. The Motion Picture Association of America tried to prevent the film's producers from using the R rating. After the association gave I Spit on Your Grave an R rating, the producer of the film added rape scenes, making it an X-rated movie. Ultimately an agreement was reached where the film removed any references or explicit shots referring to anal rape and the MPAA restored the original R rating. In an interview with Fangoria, director Meir Zarchi said as a