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

Product Information

In this book, she managed to introduce the psychoanalysis of the woman as a monster portrayed in horror films very clearly and engagingly. Medusa, Baba Yaga, the kuchisake onna (‘slit-mouthed woman’) of Japanese urban legend, the flesh-eating mermaid sisters in Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s 2015 film The Lure – there is no shortage of formidable female figures in folklore, film and popular culture. This updated edition, which includes entirely new chapters, interrogates the concept in contemporary contexts through a range of diverse films directed by women, and through the exploration of recent progressive social movements. Creed refrains from using the term "female monster" as it suggests a mere "role reversal of the ‘male monster". 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".

Another prominent monstrous figure that Creed discusses in her work is Greek mythology's Medusa and her severed head. Although a projection of male fears and paranoid fantasies, the monstrous-feminine is nonetheless a terrifying figure. 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. Other than that though, this is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the horror genre, or in film studies in general.Creed proposes a new concept of radical abjection to reinterpret the monstrous-feminine as a figure who embraces abjection by reclaiming her body and re-defining her otherness as nonhuman – while questioning patriarchy, anthropocentrism, misogyny and the meaning of the human. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit.

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’. She identifies that early historical definitions of ‘ witch’ were associated with healers and users of magic, but during the fourteenth century in the period of witch trials and witch hunts, witchcraft was believed to be a sin and in service to the devil. Then throughout the rest of the book, she blames men and the patriarchy for representing the feminine as monstrous. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine [4] was published in 1993 and clearly draws inspiration from her earlier work on Kristeva.Freud applies this theory to Medusa, as Creed explains that Freud's compares the female genitalia to Medusa as men fear castration from the sight of her. Creed argues that the monstrous feminine horrifies her audience through her sexuality, as she is either constructed as a virgin or a whore.