Summary: The Monstrous Feminine

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Recommended: Introduction to women in horror films

Zaira Aguilar CINE344 Genre: Horror March 15, 2017 The Monstrous Feminine Jennifer's Body, Karyn Kusama, 2009 Female sexuality has always been a societal taboo that limits the freedom of sexual desire by limiting the freedom of gender roles associated to the horror genre. It constrains female sexuality to an impenetrable box of horror genre tropes. The horror genre heavily comments on female sexuality implicating that women use their bodies to represent the conflict, (reflected through demonic possession), labeling them as monstrous females in need of purification, (reflected through exorcism), in order to restore the natural order and be once again “proper and clean”.“Possession becomes the excuse for legitimizing a display of aberrant …show more content…

They reject the disgusting bodily characteristics associated with the traditional demonic possession yet, the nature of the monstrous female remains. Creed explains possession and abjection by stating, “Possession becomes the excuse for legitimizing a display of aberrant feminine behavior which is depicted as depraved, monstrous, abject - Number firstly appealing.” She also explains how horror films demonstrate abjection through the women body weather it is whole of dismembered and how the body secrets disgusting bodily fluids such as blood, vomit, saliva etc. A perfect “graphic” example of this is the possessed pubescent girl, Regan, from the iconic 1973 horror film,The Exorcist ,directed by William …show more content…

Yet, the difference between the traditional “final girl” trope and Coby’s version is that she is not a purely innocent virgin rather she is a sexually active teenager who shares her sexual needs with her boyfriend, Chip. This contradicts the main principle characteristic of the traditional “final girl” trope ,which is crucial to the “final girl’s” survival. By rejecting virginity and embracing sexual freedom Coby shatters the “final girl” trope and brings it a step further by demonstrating Needy as the final survivor. In other horror films women who express sexual freedom are often punished and the first to die. For example, the opening scene in the thriller-parody, Scary Movie, the first to die is a very promiscuous girl played by Carmen Electra who is being chased down by the murder. In this scene the murder reaches for her and somehow rips all of her clothes off. She runs half naked through the water sprinklers in slow motion like if she was in Baywatch running her hands through her hair, touching her body, while making sexual jesters with her face only to be murdered. Scary movie pokes fun at the typical horror genre “final girl” trope by overly exaggerating this scene. Scary Movie comments on this trope and demonstrates what happens to the sexual and unpure women in the typical horror films, they die first and there is no

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