This book focuses on how the abject spectacle of the ‘monstrous feminine’ has been reimagined by recent and contemporary screen horrors focused on the desires and subjectivities of female monsters who, as anti-heroic protagonists of revisionist and reflexive texts, exemplify gendered possibility in altered cultures of 21st century screen production and reception. As Barbara Creed notes in a recent interview, the patriarchal stereotype of horror that she named ‘the monstrous-feminine’ has, decades later, ‘embarked on a life of her own’. Focused on this altered and renewed form of female monstrosity, this study engages with an international array of recent and contemporary screen entertainments, from arthouse and indie horror films by emergent female auteurs, to the franchised products of multimedia conglomerates, to 'quality' television horror, to the social media-based creations of horror fans working as ‘pro-sumers’. In this way, the monograph in its organisation and scope maps the converged and rapidly changing environment of 21st century screen cultures in order to situate the monstrous female anti-hero as one of its distinctive products.
Author(s): Amanda Howell, Lucy Baker
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 201
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Authors
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Monstrous-Feminine Protagonist in Twenty-First-Century Screen Cultures
The Monster’s Mother
Embarking on a Life of Her Own
The Monstrous-Feminine Protagonist as Female Anti-hero
The Monster in the Mirror: The Doppelgӓnger and Monstrous Self-fashioning
Overview of the Book
References
Part I: Othered Mothers
Chapter 2: Her Monster, Her Self: Amelia Sorts a Few Things Out in The Babadook
Labour
Maternal Ambivalence
Return of the Repressed and Women’s Rage
Power of a Scary Film
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Hungry, Unruly and Bold: A Sitcom Mom’s Zombie Makeover in Santa Clarita Diet
Mixing Genres and Pushing Boundaries of Taste
A Monstrous Makeover
Influencer
Marketing Monstrosity
Conclusion
References
Part II: Reimagining the Girl
Chapter 4: ‘I am That Very Witch’: Claiming Monstrosity, Claiming Desire in The Witch
Thomasin
Misrule and Disorder, an Escaped Goat and a Scapegoat
Handmaiden of the Lord, Handmaiden of the Devil
Blood and More Blood
‘Live Deliciously’: Reception and Fandom for The Witch
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: ‘Not Yours Any More’: The Monstrous-Feminine Bildungsroman of The Girl with All the Gifts
Friggin’ Abortions
‘You Open the Box and You Find Yourself There’
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: Resistant Girl Monstrosity and Empowerment for Tweens: Monster High and Wolfblood
Monstrous Self-fashioning: Precarity and Protection, Resistance and Empowerment in Monster High
Back to Nature: Precarity and Protection, Resistance and Empowerment in Wolfblood
Conclusion
References
Part III: From Fragments of the Old
Chapter 7: A Badass in Bad City: The Interstitial Artist and Monstrous Self-fashioning in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The Interstitial Artist
I Felt Like I Was Making My Own Country
The Girl
Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Rage Is a Monster: Lily Frankenstein Takes Back the Night in Penny Dreadful
Quality Television Horror and a Recombinant, ‘Rhizomatic’ Text
The Monster’s Bride, the Angel in the House
Taking Back the Night
Conclusion
References
Untitled
Part IV: Cult Fandoms and Fan Productions
Chapter 9: ‘We are the Weirdos, Mister’: Monstrous Performativity, Resistant Femininity and Cult Fandoms of The Craft, Ginger Snaps and Jennifer’s Body
High School Horrors
Fandoms and Fan Work
Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: From Monstrous Girlhood to Empowered Adulthood: Melissa Hunter’s Adult Wednesday Addams Web Series
Becoming Wednesday
Wednesday as the ‘Staring Child’
Adult Wednesday
Conclusion
References
Index
