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

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This book is sometimes hard to read, and the concepts of psychoanlaysis that she draws on are often dubious. Creed uses the expression "monstrous feminine" because it accentuates the significance of gender in relation to the construction of monstrosity. In this new and expanded edition of the classic The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Barbara Creed adds a crucial monstrous-feminine register: the nonhuman. Creed also interrogates at the portrayal of desire and lesbianism in the horror film the Hunger (1983), arguing that when the two female vampires kiss there is an eruption of blood in the women's mouths, which represents how lesbian relations are deadly and consequential. Creed defines this "crisis TV", wherein news reporters focus on disasters to provoke anxiety and immediacy, and bring the abject into reality.

Moving from mothers to maidens, this session delves into the terrifying bodily transformation of adolescence through two contrasting figures: the mermaid and the werewolf. Moreover, oftentimes possessed women are on the verge of menstruation and their blood is meant to symbolize or suggest a fear of castration. This updated edition includes a new section examining contemporary feminist horror films in relation to nonhuman theory. The Monstrous-Feminine as Avenging Zombie: The Girl With All The Gifts (2016), The Dark (2018), Atlantics (2019).Barbara Creed FAHA (born 30 September 1943) is a professor of cinema studies in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Creed argues that the monstrous feminine horrifies her audience through her sexuality, as she is either constructed as a virgin or a whore. Payments made using National Book Tokens are processed by National Book Tokens Ltd, and you can read their Terms and Conditions here. Primarily, Barbara Creed's works focus on the horror genre, and the impact of patriarchal ideologies upon the genre. Creed examples that in examples where the monster is clearly defined as male, its status as male identifies it with a lack, and hence defines it as feminized.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The term vagina dentata was coined by Sigmund Freud and follows the myth that female genitalia are monster-like, having teeth. The Monstrous-Feminine is a brilliant book and I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in a unique portrayal of gender in horror film. Her argument that man fears woman as castrator , rather than as castrated , questions not only Freudian theories of sexual difference but existing theories of spectatorship and fetishism, providing a provocative re-reading of classical and contemporary film and theoretical texts. Her argument that man fears woman as castrator, rather than as castrated, questions not only Freudian theories of sexual difference but existing theories of spectatorship and fetishism, providing a provocative re-reading of classical and contemporary film and theoretical texts.

In an age at which anthropogenic and patriarchal harms threaten the very survival of the planet, embracing the nonhuman becomes a remedial, even liberating gesture. 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.

Creed's work using the psychoanalysis framework validates its usefulness in the feminist film theory field. Coming full circle from the maiden back to the mother, our examples include the Wilis, the chorus of thwarted ghost brides in the ballet Giselle, and the murderous pregnant woman in Alice Lowe’s 2016 film Prevenge.This is a timely update of a seminal text which re-interprets key films of the horror genre, including Carrie, The Exorcist, The Brood and Psycho. She performs close textual analysis of key horror films including Carrie, The Exorcist, Psycho and Alien. Creed examines Freud's psychoanalytic theory of sexual difference, and the marking of female sexuality as dangerous, as Freud believed women had vagina dentata and that they were castrators of men.