Transcription
[Applause] [Music]
A lot of work in the academic arena has been done as it relates to victims and horror films. So much in fact that this understanding of horror victims and how they're portrayed as being punished for their transgressions has reached a popular consciousness through self-referential horror. A keen knowledge of who will die and in which order does not create tediousness among horror fans. Far from it, the deaths of the victims become ritualized, and each death is both expected and anticipated.
Much has been made of the fact that these victims, particularly in the slasher variety of horror, are more often women than men. In the introduction to seminal work *Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film*, Carole J. Clover writes, "The functions of monster and hero are far more frequently represented by males, and the function of victim far more garishly by females." This is mostly true, but there is some worth in examining the monsters in horror films that are women, or who display feminine traits, or that which reminds us of women.
Laura Mulvey, in *Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema*, famously maintained that "the cinematic gaze, constitutive of primary identification, is not gender-free. It's structured by male or masculine perceptions." With this in mind, a cinematic monster who is also a woman or displays feminine traits is constructed in a patriarchal discourse, which reveals a lot about male desires and male fears, but also tells us very little about desires and fears of other genders. Barbara Creed, writer of *The Monstrous-Feminine* and a major influence on this work, believed that because of what we can glean about gender attitudes from this feminine horror in film, there must be some value in analysis. Human societies invariably have a conception of what is monstrous about the feminine, about what it is about a woman that is shocking. Classical mythology is populated with gendered monsters. The difference of female sexuality is portrayed as a difference which is grounded in "otherness."
Although folklorists, mythologists, and classical literature professors prefer to disown horror movies as products mediated by profit, to be seen as having anything to do with folklore and myths of antiquity, the truth is that horror bears a lot of resemblance to old myths. A fixed set of tale types that generate an endless stream of what are, in effect, variations, sequels, remakes, and ripoffs. These myths suggest that fear of women, and therefore inevitable subjugation of them, comes from a combination of allure and repulsion.
The reasons why the horror feminine terrifies her audience are quite different from the reasons why, say, Jason Voorhees horrifies his audience. It's not simply a gender swap. The feminine horror movie monster is defined in terms of her gender and sexuality. Jason hunts his victims because of a perceived slight against himself when he was a child that resulted in his drowning. Subsequent sequels make his motivations less and less clear. Mrs. Voorhees' motivation, however, is maternal. Her rage is not her own; it's gendered because it's related entirely to her being a mother and a psychotic desire to extend her motherhood even beyond Jason's grave by taking revenge on his behalf. Her character is born of maternal expectations.
So, what are these feminine monsters in film, and what qualities do they display that uncover men's fears about women? If there's one villainous archetype that is almost exclusively female, it is that of the witch. Joseph Campbell, professor of literature and famous for his work on comparative mythology, argued that women were ascribed magical power before men because of their ability to create new life. The church has long since changed our perception of witches as agents of the devil, but prior to all of this, magical women were seen, at least in some cultures, as healers, practitioners of medicine. When witchcraft was deemed heresy in the 14th century, the services witches had previously performed were reimagined not only as crimes but as abominations, particularly midwifery. The crime that ensured that witches would be burnt at the stake was collaborating with the devil, and since that is logically impossible, all witches burned at the stake for this crime were historically innocent.
Witches' alleged crimes were gendered. This is because witches were accused, among other things, of having sex with the devil, causing male impotence, causing the penis to disappear, and stealing men's penises. Horror movies almost always portray witchcraft in the post-14th-century incarnation: malevolent and diabolical. Emphasis in these films tends to be on the hunt for the witch, or from the perspective of the male leader of the witch hunt, like in *Black Sunday* (1960) and *Burn, Witch, Burn* (1962). Witch hunting has some historical roots. In the 15th century, an inquisitors' manual for witch prosecution called *Malleus Maleficarum* was commissioned by the Catholic Church. It was used for centuries to prosecute and execute women under dubious claims.
In some horror films, the supernatural is linked to the reproductive system. In the 1976 Stephen King adaptation *Carrie*, a woman with supernatural powers receives her gift, or curse, at the onset of her first menstruation. Carrie provides a strong example of woman as both a witch and menstrual monster. Novel, among others of her kind, due to her pathetic portrayal. Blood takes a variety of forms in the film: pig's blood, the blood of death when Carrie goes on her rampage, and the blood of sin itself. The blood between mother and daughter joins them together, proving that women also participate in both patriarchy and mythological propaganda against women. Carrie's mother claims that female sexuality is inherently evil and responsible for the biblical fall from grace. To the film's credit, it does portray the witch archetype with some empathy. This is Carrie's story, after all, not the story of witch hunters.
Barbara Creed, however, argues that the ambiguity of the blood poses a problem. "Part of the problem with *Carrie* is that it plays on the debased meaning of woman's/pig's blood in order to horrify modern audiences. In so doing, it also perpetuates negative views about women and menstruation." The analogy drawn between women and pigs is also central to the film's discourse on the "other." Carrie/woman is monstrous because she bleeds like a stuck pig, as the saying goes. But the meaning of the pig's blood is ambiguous. By associating Carrie's supernatural powers with blood, the film draws on superstitious notions of the terrifying powers of menstrual blood. In some cultures, a young girl who had prophetic dreams at the time of her first menstruation was singled out as a witch. An association among blood, the supernatural, and femininity. Historically, the curse of a woman, particularly if she were pregnant or menstruating, was considered far more potent than a man's curse. A mother's curse, as it was known, meant certain death. The curse of a woman who was also a witch was even worse.
Castration anxiety can refer to being castrated literally or symbolically. In the literal sense, it's the fear of being physically emasculated. In the metaphorical sense, it's the idea of a man feeling insignificant or the worry that he is not conforming properly to male expectations. These gender expectations create an irrational fear in which the man may go to extreme lengths to save his pride. Sigmund Freud famously linked man's fear of woman to a childish belief that the mother is castrated. "Yes, in his mind the woman has a penis in spite of everything, but this penis is no longer the same as it was before; something else has taken its place, has been appointed its substitute, as it were, and now inherits the interest which was formerly directed to its predecessor. Probably no male human being is spared the fright of castration at the sight of a female genital."
The myth of the vagina dentata appears in a variety of cultures throughout history. The myth is that women are shocking because their vaginas have teeth, and that these women must be tamed, usually by a male figure, before intercourse. Horror famously deconstructed this myth in the 2007 film *Teeth*.
In the 1960 film *Psycho*, Norman Bates is metaphorically castrated by his domineering mother, herself a gendered villain much like Mrs. Voorhees. The rage of the original antagonist from *Friday the 13th* only exists due to her son, but in *Psycho*, the mother persona only exists within Norman. In both cases, they are inextricably linked. *Psycho*, as well as other horror films like *The Fiend*, *The House That Screamed*, and *Mother's Day*, all represent the psychotic killer son as the product of an overbearing mother. Norman himself is Ethel. It is mother who is the murderer. Norman also shows signs of what were believed at the time to be homosexual traits: wrongheaded ideas of the '50s and '60s about homosexual men coming from close relationships with their mothers, a mistaken belief that had its roots in the writings of Freud. That is meant to create a kind of gay panic for the audience.
In *Psycho*, Norman has been metaphorically castrated by his mother. The result of which is a feminine man who takes on feminine traits. Norman is threatened both physically and psychologically by the maternal figure. One could argue that Norman's desire to become the mother is motivated not by love or longing to see his mother again, but by his own fear. He wants to become the mother in order to prevent his own castration, to castrate rather than to be castrated.
In the beginning of the film, Marion meets with her lover Sam. Marion says that she would like them to meet at her place with her mother's picture on the mantle. Sam says, "And after the stake, do we send sister to the movies? Turn Mama's picture to the wall." Mother is the embodiment of respectability, ever watchful, judging Sam, judging men. Later in the film, Norman hints that mother is always watching, and her silent judgment is presented as the impetus for Norman's murders. Although the most famous death in the film is that of a woman, *Psycho* plays far more on a deeper fear among men.
[Music]
The temptress archetype may have some of its roots in the effort to sexually repress attitudes about women fornicating with the devil, but it has broadened over time to include far more than witches. Women or feminine-coded beings that have both seduced men and tricked men into believing they are ordinary human women. The tempter's motivation is to kill men, to emasculate men, or to castrate men. Although Dracula is easily the most famous vampire in both literature and film, the next most persistent archetype is that of the female vampire, often represented as a creature whose sexuality is merely a weapon in which to ensnare men. In Bram Stoker's *Dracula*, Harker is seduced by three of Dracula's Brides in order to eat him until they are prevented by Dracula himself. In the sci-fi horror film *Species*, the alien wants a baby. To accomplish this, she lures men in with the promise of sex, but with the real goal of a pregnancy.
Among men, there is a common belief that for women, sex is a weapon. Women only want sex for reproduction, thereby tying the man to herself for life, or the woman only wants sex as a means in which to earn the favor or approval of the man. Obviously, this disregards the simple notion that the woman wants sex for the same reason that the man wants sex: because they are sexual creatures and they desire it. Some men would sooner believe in a sex alien than a woman who has a healthy sexual appetite. For those who do believe women have this appetite, it is often seen as a negative.
The temptress archetype has a lot of history, dating back as far as, or perhaps even further than, the sirens from the Odyssey in Greek mythology in general. Fast forward a couple thousand years, and the variations on the same theme remain: women as manipulators whose sexuality exists only as a weapon against men. And for some secondary motivation, they do not enjoy exploring their own sexuality because, to the male writers and presumed male audience, such exploration and such enjoyment either cannot exist at all, or cannot exist outside of the aegis of men. According to a paper by psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and Jean M. Twenge, "The suppression of female sexuality can be regarded as one of the most remarkable psychological inventions in Western cultural history. The sex drive of the human female is naturally and innately stronger than that of the male, and it once posed a powerfully destabilizing threat to the possibility of social order. For civilized society to develop, it was allegedly necessary, or at least helpful, for female sexuality to be stifled."
These images of women as monsters whose powers are closely related to their gender and sexuality are widespread in contemporary horror. They frighten us in a primordial way, but once understood as tools that were born of pervasive patriarchal attitudes, they should frighten us in another way altogether.
Hi everyone, thanks for watching my episode on the feminine horror. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe, and make sure to also hit that notification bell next to the subscribe button so that you never miss an episode. Also, hit the Patreon link so you can support the show. I'll have a new episode soon. Bye.