Two assigned film essay.
CINE 325 | American Women Directors
The Monstrous-Feminine
OUR FILM PROGRAM
Jennifer’s Body (Karyn Kusama, 2009)
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)
The Love Witch (Anna Biller, 2016)
Carrie (Kimberly Peirce, 2013)
Barbara Creed, “The Monstrous-Feminine” (1986)
Looks at the figure of the ‘monstrous-feminine’ in horror film texts, applying + critiquing Kristeva’s theory of abjection to illustrate how the horror film text puts us in direct contact with the abject and does so through representations of the feminine and mother.
All human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine, of “what it is about woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject.”
Classical mythology is full of gendered monsters, many of which are female - The Medusa is queen of this pantheon of female monsters, and men who looked at her would turn to stone → Freud’s link of horrors of castration anxiety to sight of mother’s genitals. Sexual difference is root of monstrousness.
“Does the experience of horror - of viewing the horror film - cause similar alterations in the body of the male spectator - what is the relationship between physical states, bodily wastes and the horrific, in particular the monstrous-feminine?”
ABJECTION
The place of the abject is “the place where meaning collapses,” the place where “I” am not.
On the other side of an imaginary border which separates the self from that which threatens the self. Necessary to demarcate what is life → exclusion.
Ambiguity: “We may call it a border; abjection is above all ambiguity...it does not cut off the subject from what threatens it - on the contrary, abjection acknowledges it to be in perpetual danger.”
The ultimate in abjection is the corpse - confronts viewer with death, nonexistence. Bodily wastes such as blood, urine, vomit, and pus - way in which body expels these objects and wishes to extricate oneself from where they fall.
In ritual, the demarcation lines between human and non-human are drawn up anew and presumably made stronger in the process.
Feminist critics have viewed Kristeva’s theory with some hesitation due to its connection of the mother with the abject (child must detach from mother to take up position in patriarchal society, to form ego), which seems to align with a Freudian concept of woman as symbolic.
Julia Kristeva
The horror film works as an illustration of abjection in three ways:
It is saturated with images of abjection, foremost of which is the corpse, whole and mutilated, followed by an array of bodily wastes such as blood, vomit, saliva, sweat, tears, and putrefying flesh. When we say a horror film “made me sick” or “scared the shit out of me” we are actually foregrounding that horror film as a “work of abjection” or “abjection at work” - both literally and metaphorically. Viewing the horror film signifies a desire not only for perverse pleasure (confronting sickening, horrific images, being filled with terror/desire for the undifferentiated) but also a desire, having taken pleasure in perversity, to throw up, throw out, eject the abject (from the safety of the spectator’s seat).
The construction of “the monstrous” in the horror film - that which crosses or threatens to cross the ‘border’ is abject. The specific nature of the border changes from film to film, but the function of the monstrous remains the same - to bring about an encounter between the symbolic order and that which threatens its stability.
Maternal figure is constructed as the monstrous-feminine, preventing child from taking up proper place in relation to the Symbolic. Connection between mother/child and the abject.
The archaic mother (Alien) → evokes horror because she threatens to cannibalize, to take back the life forms to which she once gave birth.
The possessed girl (The Exorcist) → evokes a pleasurable disgust because she confronts us with those abject substances (blood, pus, vomit, urine) that signify a return to a state of infantile pre-socialization
The pregnant woman (The Brood) → evokes horror because her body houses an alien being - the infant /other
The female vampire (The Hunger) → evokes horror because she draws attention to the female blood cycle and reduces her captives to a state of embryonic dependency in which they must suck blood in order to live
The young female witch (Carrie) → evokes both sympathy and horror because her evil deeds are associated with puberty and menstruation.
FIGURATIONS OF THE MONSTROUS-FEMININE IN HORROR FILMS
“The feminine itself is not per se a monstrous sign; rather, it is constructed as such within a patriarchal discourse which reveals a great deal about male desires and fears but tells us nothing about feminine desire in relation to the horrific. ”
JENNIFER’S BODY (2009)
Dir. Karyn Kusama
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014)
Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour
General Questions to Keep in Mind:
What power lies in the image of the monstrous-feminine, in monstrosity in general?
The Monstrous-Feminine in modern contexts - how do we see this figuration queered, made intersectional, appropriated, for currently discussed politics and issues? Think: #MeToo movement, intersectional feminism, queerness, etc.
What happens when women direct films and co-opt the monstrous-feminine figure for their own purposes and messages?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Jennifer’s Body + A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night:
What scenes stand out to you as moments of abjection? What role do they play in these film texts/what do these moments represent?
How do the films use the figuration of the monstrous-feminine to approach intersectional violence and trauma? What do these figurations of supernatural women communicate about power? How do themes of revenge and punishment factor/work in these texts?
What’s the relationship between sex and violence in these films? How are they intertwined?
Both of these films seem to approach the topic of queerness within heteropatriarchy - what does this do in relation to the monstrous-feminine figure?
In what ways do we see common elements of beauty and seduction in relation to the violent monstrous-feminine here? Are the films upending this stereotype in any ways?