The Monstrous-Feminine (Barbara Creed, 1993)

Barbara Creed. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge,1993.

In this book the author challenges the patriarchal (woman-as-a-victim) view by arguing that the prototype of all definitions of the monstrous is the female reproductive body. Against Freudian theories, which claim that women are terrifying because they are castrated, she claims that women terrify because they might castrate. From a feminist and psychoanalitical perspective Barbara Creed discusses seven faces of the Monstrous Feminine (woman-as-a-monster) 1. the archaic mother, 2. the monstrous womb, 3. the vampyre, 4. the witch, 5. the possessed body, 6. the monstrous mother and 7. the castrator or female castratice. The declared intention of the book is to explore the representaion of woman in the horror film and to argue that woman is represented as monstrous in a significant number of horror films. * Women monstrous in relation to her mothering and reproductive function. * Women's monstrousness linked to sexual desire.

Creed draws on Kristeva's concept of "abject" - the place where meaning collapses (p.9)-. The horro film is an illustration of the work of abjection (p.10). Kristeva sees the mother-child relationship as marked by conflict: the child struggles to break free but the mother is reluctant to release it. The mother's body becomes abject to the child. A function of Religion is to purify the abject. Horror film is a confrontation with the abject ( a form of modern defilment rite, reconciliation with the mother's body). Abjection both repels and attracts.

Rational Fears (Mark Jancovich,1996 )

Mark Jancovich. Rational Fears, American Horror in the 1950s. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.

PREFACE

"The 1950s, it is assumed, constitues a period of conservatism with horror, whether this conservatism is conceived of in aesthetic or political terms, and critics usually establish their owns ares as worthy of study by defining them as different from the horror of the 1950s." (p.1)

He takes issue with Robin Wood: "However, far from being 'all the same', even the 1950s invasion narratives are often markedly different from one another. They may share particular patterns and features, but they deploy them in very different ways." (p.2)

Shift from the relying on gothic horror towards a preoccupation with the modern world. The book is divided in three parts 1] invasion narratives (complex responses to condition of post-war america, internal changes and fear of Soviet agression) 2] the outsider narratives (an alternative to existing norms or feelings of alienation, isolation, estrangement or how American normality has become strange) and 3] narratives concerned with 'crisis of identity' (people unable to rely both on rationality or irrationality, emotion, intuition).

" this situation also helps to account for the fact that many 1950s horror texts have not only acquired the status of classics for horror fans, but have also been so important to contemporary popular culture. 1950s horror not only lives as vital points of reference within popular culture, but many of the key practioners of contemporary horror (and indeed popular culture in general) often refer to 1950s horror text as the most significant and formative texts within their appreciation of horror in particular, and popular culture in general" (p.4)

Conclusion

Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers (1993) is a remake of a 50s horror classic. So is Attack of the 50 foot Woman, The Blob, The Fly, Invaders from Mars, Little Shop of Horrors, The Thing. Furthermore, Alien (1986) borrows from Them!, The Stepford Wives (1974) replicates elements of the Body Snatchers; Jaws takes visual images from the Creature from the Black Lagoon; the opening of It Came from Outer Space reappears in Starman (1984).

"As a result, it is important to note that while the contemporary horror genre has changed since the 1950s, it has not simply broken with the past. As was shown in the case of Psycho, these attempsts not only tend to ignore the processes which culminated in specific transformations, but also tend to ignore the ways in which earlier periods are constantly available for reworking and reinterpretation, and are not simply dispensed with, or rendered redundant" (p.303).

"Indeed, the importance of 1950s horror is that it established many of the preoccupations which are central to contemporary horror. It was the 1950s horror, for example, which moved the genre away from its concerns with exotic locations and began to place it firmly in the context of modern American society" (p.303-4).

It is also important because writers and filmmakers, such as Spielberg and Stephen King, were influenced by them.

"unlike many other areas of 1950s popular culture, 1950s horror has occupied a central place within the development of 'cult' ot 'trash' audiences, an important and well-established section of contemporary popular culture" (p.304) .

About Edward D. Wood's 'excentricity': " His films do no really conform to the dominat tendencies within the period, although he does draw upon certain elements of 1950s horror. Indeed, Wood's contemporary importance is not a product of his significance within the 1950s, but of the specific strategies of interpretation which contemporary 'cult' audiences have brought to the period. His significance is a product of the ways in which the period has been reinterpreted within the present" (p.304)

Pressing need to study the ways in which the readings of contemporary cult audiences are the product of differential distribuition of cultural capital and the struggles between different tastes formations. (Pierre Bourdier. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge,1984)