The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (Popular Fictions Series)

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In this new edition, Creed does it again, recontextualizing the conception of the monstrous-feminine to track many of the evolutions in the horror genre and this revised edition will continue to shape our understanding of the horror genre in the new millennium. If you are a Member you can apply your promo code when you enter your billing info for 20% discount. Then throughout the rest of the book, she blames men and the patriarchy for representing the feminine as monstrous. In her discussion of the many "faces of the monstrous-feminine", she draws on Kristeva's concept of abjection [9] to describe how patriarchal society separates the human from the non-human, and rejects the "partially formed subject". The idea of castration is derived from Freud's concepts of sexual difference, believing that women are substantially different from men, and that all women desire to be a man or masculine-like, suffering from a penis-envy.

Exploring these figures within folklore and fairy tales, as well as in contemporary horror revisions such as films The Lure (2015) and Ginger Snaps (2000), we find rampant appetites unleashed at puberty and messy bodies beyond the control of society. The Monstrous Feminine - an online day course with Dr Elizabeth Dearnley and Dr Katharine Fry takes place on the 11th of March. Coming of Age: The Monstrous-Feminine as Virginal Dentata: Ginger Snaps: (2000), Teeth (2007), Jennifer’s Body (2009).Moreover, oftentimes possessed women are on the verge of menstruation and their blood is meant to symbolize or suggest a fear of castration. Barbara Creed frequently mentions in her work that horror movies play on this fear of the vagina dentata and even include it visually in films, through enormous toothed monsters or aliens, to settings such as dark and narrow hallways, deadly traps and doors, and spaceships such as that in Alien. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Kristeva's theory therefore can be applied to the monstrous feminine, particularly the themes of the mother-child relationship and the mother's womb, which both relate to the ‘ archaic mother’.We’ll also work through the maiden-mother-crone tripartite division of women, inviting attendees to discuss whether such labels are useful or damning.

Whereas Freud believed that the Father was the one viewed by the child as the castrator, Barbara Creed has shown it is actually the mother. In Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny, [5] Barbara Creed reflects on the representation of men in the horror genre, with a specific focus on how they are portrayed in comparison to women. Barbara Creed has identified several faces of the Monstrous Feminine in the horror film genre, and lays out the basis for these faces in psychoanalysis. The ‘primal uncanny’, as Creed looks at, was firstly discussed in Freud's work as just the ‘uncanny’ that linked to ideas of psychoanalysis and castration. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit.Abjection, or Why Freud Introduces the Phallus: Identification, Castration Theory, and the Logic of Fetishism".

Creed challenges this view with a feminist psychoanalytic critique, discussing films such as Alien, I Spit on Your Grave and Psycho. One word of warning to potential readers is that the book, being a decade old, does not consider more recent horror films. Point by point, Barbara Creed has shown that the faces of the Monstrous Feminine as seen in the horror film, are based in the actual psychology of the developing child in the early experiences of childhood and infancy. The Monstrous-Feminine is a brilliant book and I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in a unique portrayal of gender in horror film. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.However, I would suggest having a brief look at Creed's ideas in advance just so you know, what you are getting into as some topics in the book can be quite 'heavy' or even controversial. Creed argues that a woman's deep connection to natural events such as reproduction and birth is considered ‘quintessentially grotesque’. In Darwin's Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time and Sexual Display in the Cinema, Barbara Creed examines the uncanny through Charles Darwin's works regarding sexual selection and origins.