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| Alexandra Breckinridge (l) and Frances Conroy (r) as American Horror Story‘s Moira |
This is a guest post by Paul and Renee
In terms of the female characters on American Horror Story, there are quite a few problematic elements. There are the issues of violence and rape, but one that often gets overlooked is the treatment of sex. It is impossible to have a discussion about sex and American Horror Story without examining the character of Moira.
In many ways, Moira is defined by her sexuality. Even her origin as a ghost came about through her sexuality, when Constance killed her for sleeping with her husband by shooting her in the eye and burying her body in the garden.
Since that moment, her ghost has been stuck in the persona as a sexual object for the pleasure of straight men. It is expressly labelled as this by the way her body shifts form depending on who looks at her. Independent of all of the ghosts in the house, she is not stuck in the body she died in — she is not always the young, attractive woman that Constance murdered. She only ever appears as her original form when a straight man is looking at her and not only does her appearance change, but so does her demeanour, her words and her actions. Moira’s attractiveness, her body, her sexuality is only ever apparent when it is time to titillate a straight man — it’s expressly there for both straight male pleasure and to be used as a tool for power against straight men. And many of the living straight male characters recognise this: for example, Ben is surprised that Vivien is happy to keep Moira on, because her attractiveness and her overtly sexual and seductive demeanour is so blatantly aimed at him that he assumes Vivien must see her as a threat or problem (especially since he has cheated before).
When Moira is not around a living straight man, a target for that sexuality, she is an old woman displaying a damaged eye where she was shot. She is presented as completely lacking in sexual attractiveness — not only in appearance but in demeanour as well. Her sexual nature is reserved for straight men.
Moira’s most fascinating persona is that of an older woman played by Frances Conroy. Older Moira is virtually passive until Vivien Harmon enlists her help to scare a new family away from the murder house. This character plays upon the idea that seniors, particularly senior women, are not sexual and most certainly never the object of sexual desire.This is a societal construction that’s continually reified by the media. Consider for a moment that Sean Connery and Richard Gere are most definitely senior citizens but are still constructed as sex symbols and paired with significantly younger women in movies. There is never a question that they are desirable and their age is certainly never a barrier to sex. With Moira, her advanced age makes her decidedly non-sexual and, without the veneer of youth and sexuality, she is powerless and impotent.
Moira’s sexuality is also presented as dangerous. She is the temptress who leads men astray — the woman whose sexuality causes the man’s downfall. It is positively biblical with Moira representing Eve.
“Be it Lilith or Eve, is seen as the enemy of harmony, well ordered life and peace. She is the source of all evils, the originator of sin in the world. This negative understanding of the woman, particularly Eve, is presented in the words of some prominent male scholars. The Jewish commentator, Cassuto, maintains that the serpent too is female and the cunning of the serpent is in reality the cunning of the woman. The German Old Testament scholar, claims that women confront the allurements and mysteries that beset our limited life more directly than men do, and therefore, woman is a temptress. Mckenzie connects woman’s moral weakness with her sexual attraction and holds that the latter ruined both the woman and the man. Thus, male interpreters understand woman as responsible not only for the origin of evil in the world, but makes female “to represent the qualities of materiality, irrationality, carnality and finitude, which debase the manly spirit and drag it down into sin and death.”
In “Open House,” Moira seduces Joe Escandarian when she learns that he is considering buying the house and putting a pool out back. What makes their meeting interesting is that their flirtation occurs in the presence of Vivien and Marcy, who are shocked because, of course, all they can see is the older and certainly sexless Moira. Her goal is to get someone to dig up her bones, so that Constance can finally be held accountable for her murder. The next time Moira acts, she gives Joe oral sex, further enticing him to buy the house to get what she wants. In the end, Moira learns that Joe intends to tear down the house, she acts again, and this time it is to take part in Joe’s murder. She seduces him, initiates oral sex and then bites off his penis. In this we can see her constructed as Joe’s downfall. It’s not a new storyline, because women have been positioned in this manner since Eve fed Adam the apple and Delilah cut Samson’s hair. A woman’s sexuality, and any power ensuing from it, is a threat to men and eventually leads to some sort of disaster. And every scene where she is young and seductive has a faintly sinister feel, the way it is presented is threatening — her overt sexuality a weapon used against the helpless man who is desperately trying to resist. In some ways, Moira is almost a Jekyl and Hyde figure – with the good, supportive elderly Moira for the living women contrasting the evil, seductive, menacing young Moira for the men.
But to look at Moira’s sexuality as purely a source of evil seduction for the poor men is to ignore the power differentials in these relationships — starting with her relationship with Constance’s husband that resulted in her death. In every case she is an employee, even with the living men who do not realise she is a ghost, she is in an inherent position of weakness to these men. We also have to ask what other tools she has? We have seen, in episode 7, Moira trying to seduce men to convince them to dig up her bones where they are buried. She wants freedom, she wants to be away from the murder house, we even see that she had family outside the murder house she wished to see and could only do so on hallowe’en. She is using the only tool she has to try to obtain freedom, to try and obtain some form of justice.
Moira does get to be seen as a tragic figure for this. We see her pain and her loss when her mother dies in a nursing home. We get to see her fear and frustration over trying to be free from the house and having her plans thwarted. We get to see her pain and anger in the face of Constance’s constant taunting and needling of her, still holding a grudge for her husband’s infidelity. But in all these instances we’re expected to sympathise with the older Moira — the good Moira, the non-threatening Moira and, tellingly, the non-sexual Moira. Sexual Moira is not a person to be pitied or a person due sympathy or who feels pain.
As with many of the prejudices that run rampant on this programme, the sexualisation of Moira is overtly displayed but poorly challenged. The depth of Moira’s character and any sympathetic characteristics are all overshadowed by the simple narrative of the dangerous and even evil sexual woman. So strongly is this message carried that the writers don’t even try to make sexual Moira someone we can empathise with — only when she is stripped of all her sexuality does she get to be human.
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Paul and Renee blog and review at Fangs for the Fantasy. We’re great lovers of the genre and consume it in all its forms — but as marginalised people we also analyse critically through a social justice lens.