Contributor Maryam Bokhari explores the trending phenomenon of ‘monstrous femininity’ and its cultural roots in the horror genre.
Blood has officially become the new black. My thoughts on Jennifer Check cannibalising innocent men? Good for her! Amy Dunne’s ‘Cool Girl Monologue’ is a girl’s scripture. My favourite type of character is a woman covered in a man’s blood. I’m having the feminine urge to bed rot. By the way, who’s your favourite fictional baby girl serial killer? NBC’s Hannibal Lecter is so girlcoded because I also have a picky palate AND a silly obsessive crush. Whaaat? Officer, I’d never do such a thing, I’m literally just a girl!
Recently there’s been an influx of online influencers and content creators that have all embraced a new cultivated mindset: monstrous femininity. But what I’ve noticed is that the majority of these characters that women and girls have been sinking their teeth into all originate from the same place: the horror film genre. Horror films throughout history have continued to be subjected to controversy, often criticised for their lacklustre depiction of female and ethnic characters. Nonetheless, from the big screen to our little phones, it seems like horror has evolved into numerous social commentaries and phenomena worthy of communal and individual value. Media critic Bodo Winter argues that taboo horror films are “cultural representations [which] create new metaphors in the minds of new generations”. [1] What I’ve been wondering is, why are women so drawn to these villainous female characters? What does it even mean to be “Pearl-coded?” And is idolising these characters unhealthy or liberating?
It is an obvious fact that horror films have perpetuated a dominant hegemonic representation of females; such as the depiction of women in horror films as individuals displaying “fearfulness and protective need” in the face of terror. [2] Comparatively, men are portrayed as strong and heroic characters who always triumph over evil. Media theorist Laura Mulvey argues that spectatorship over the female body is a voyeuristic and oppressive mechanism called the “male gaze.” [4] Mulvey believes the female body onscreen was created by men for the presumed male audience, neglecting the female spectator. In fact, surveillance of the female body has conditioned women into becoming obsessed with their feminine presentation in both their corporeal and online realities.
Therefore, the importance of well-written female representation in media is integral. People enjoy identifying themselves with someone holding similar values, characteristics, or identities to them. Fictional characters and their themes, motivations and traits can influence an audience’s behaviour and psychology. Film professor Shelley Stamp suggests that the same qualities which lead some to label horror as misogynist may be elements that justify its appeal to female fans, and that “horror, more than any other film genre, deals openly with questions of gender, sexuality and the body.” [4]
Stamp states that while femininity and the female body are often presented as ‘monstrous’, horror provokes discussion among men and women to think critically about patriarchal culture. Overcoming ‘the horrors’ may allegorically or even supernaturally symbolise resilience against real-life challenges women face in their day-to-day lives such as gender-based violence or subverting traditional gender roles that constrain female autonomy.
In today’s world, women are often expected to be polite, selfless, and beautiful. The It Girl, the Clean Girl, the Mob Wife. Are you deer, fox or bunny pretty? Women, especially POC women, are typically discouraged from expressing anger or frustration. To remain calm, clean, and presentable is to be expected. So this recent TikTok trend of piecing movie clips of furious, screaming female fictional characters into edits titled ‘Female Rage’ was fascinating. As a South Asian woman myself, this recognition of fictional women expressing deep-rooted anger is something I don’t often see off screen, nor be so blatantly celebrated.
Think of Black Swan (2010), Gone Girl (2014), US (2019) and X (2022). When women reclaim their power in horror films, they reclaim their ability to turn the terror of the adversities they face onto the offending party typically through violence, a phenomenon that women often cannot perform in reality. [5] Consequently, female consumers collect a “very delicious sense of power seized—power, specifically, of the body, of which women in [Western] culture are so
frequently deprived”. [6]
It is unsurprising that these narratives centred on unhinged women are so popular during the aftermath of the #MeToo movement and the second and third waves of feminism. The emergence of the term ‘Final Girl’, coined by Carol J. Clover in 1987 was a response to Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978), stating the final girl is the "first character whose perspective approaches our own privileged understanding of the situation.” [7] Thus, the female character gradually transitions from being portrayed as ‘weak’ into someone who holds wit and agency. Horror has developed from taking pleasure in victimising women to focusing on women as survivors and protagonists, “veering away from slashers to more nuanced films that comment on social issues”. [8]
Barbara Creed, our token Australian feminist film theorist, defines the term ‘monstrous feminine’ with the depiction of women in horror films as monstrous and abject figures. She argues that horror cinema often associates female characters with various monstrous perceptions that reflect societal anxieties related to women's bodies, sexuality, and power. The monstrous feminine can manifest in various forms, such as the femme fatale, the witch, the vampire, or the monstrous mother [9]. Creed highlights how the genre both exploits and challenges anxieties about women and femininity, while also providing a space for women to potentially subvert traditional gender norms.
Furthermore, Julia Kristeva, a social theorist and philosopher introduced this concept of ‘abjection’, contending that the ‘abject’ represents the breakdown of socially constructed boundaries and challenges our own identity and subjectivity. The abject can refer to aspects that are “disgusting, repulsive or threatening” that can cause fear and discomfort.
The encounter with the abject can be unsettling, yet it also can be alluring as it prompts individuals to confront and question their own existence and the limits of their social identities. [10] Female horror characters, and even the female body itself under patriarchy is treated as ‘abject’: bizarre, misinformed, concealed. So the woman who embraces her abjection exhibits an anomalous cultural position by transgressing the norms of gender as violent women on or off screen, traversing both the male/female binary and legal and social controls. This subversion of traditional roles can resonate with us women who crave alternative representations of femininity and empowerment through the medium of horror.
My favourite film Carrie (1976) is described as the “girlhood to monster trope", in which puberty appears to make monsters out of innocent girls. The transition is depicted as something grotesque and abject, resulting in Carrie becoming the antagonist; her femininity being villainized by society around her. When Carrie gets her period for the first time, she is bullied by her classmates. However, the film ends in Carrie wielding revenge on her classmates with her telekinesis powers. Some criticise the film for demonising womanhood, however I believe that Carrie experiences great humiliation and invasion for simply existing as a teenage girl – something that is simultaneously both relatable and universal for women. There is this inherent satisfaction of seeing a woman covered in blood that is not her own. When I was younger, my mother and I would talk about periods in hushed whispers whenever men were around. I’ve been bleeding between my legs for so long that it's time blood came out of somebody else.
The emergence of the ‘good for her’ mentality towards revenge seeking women stems from the observation of vengeance for those who have been wronged. Hence, it often does not matter for some women what measures are taken in achieving retribution, as the character still manages to gain the validation and approval of an audience. [12] Many critics argue that horror films portraying female ‘monsters’ cannot be classified as ‘feminist’ or empowering. So does feminism equate to hurting men? Of course not. Violence is never the answer, however it is the cathartic nature of watching monstrous women deviate from the harsh glare of gender and beauty expectations and express their internalised anger at society that makes it so exhilarating.
Overall, there is still a lot to be done to abolish one-dimensional female archetypes. So for now, let’s learn to embrace the ‘abject female’ (within the law, of course). Rot in bed for a couple of hours. Cut off those toxic relationships without an apology. Rewatch Jennifer’s Body (2009). Switch up your gender expression. Hold the men who wronged you accountable. Scream. Personally, I need to see more fictional unhinged ethnic women do a lot of crime and be a little bitchy. This was a long overdue cultural renaissance; a raw reflection of the real meaning of girlhood. Let's make this ‘era’ into a practice. It’s okay to not have it all together, to feel betrayal and anger and frustration. Remember: You are not a monster, you are just trying to survive in a world that still sees you as one.
ENDNOTES
[1] Winter, Bodo. Horror Movies and the Cognitive Ecology of Primary Metaphors, Metaphor
and Symbol, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 151–170. 2014.
[2] 11 Representation of Women in Horror Films, screampsychohorror. 2011.
[3] Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, London Afterall Books. 1975.
[4] Berlatsky, Noah. Carrie at 40: why the horror genre remains important for women, Shelly Stamp, The Guardian. 2018.
[5] Female Villainy in Horror Movies, https://the-line-up.com. 2021.
[6] and [11] Miller, Alyson. Artherton, Cassandra. Hetherington, Paul. Agents of Chaos: The Monstrous Feminine in Killing Eve, Feminist Media Studies, Emily Temple, pp. 1–17. 2021.
[7] Clover, Carol J. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. 1992.
[8] Stewart, Arianna. Women in Horror Cinema: ‘Screen Queens’ and changing representations. STAND. 2020
[9] Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge. 1993
[10] Kristevia, Julia. POWERS OF HORROR An Essay on Abjection, [online] Available at: https://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/Zombies/Powers%20of%20Horror.pdf.
[12] Korenge, Andie. [Opinion] Horror films enforce stereotypical representations of women, THE EAGLE EYE. 2023.
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