‘Rosemary’s Baby’: Who Possesses the Pregnant Woman’s Body?

To what extent does a woman, pregnant or otherwise, “own” her body? To what extent can or should a woman’s (pregnant) body be subject to social concerns? Physically and socially, where is the divide between the mother’s body and the baby’s body? By raising these questions, ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ is not only concerned with the spiritual but, also, the social possession of the female body.

This post by staff writer Sarah Smyth appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Who possesses the pregnant woman’s body? In Roman Polanski’s 1968 film, Rosemary’s Baby, the answer is twofold. The film’s titular protagonist, Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), becomes physically possessed after she becomes pregnant with a demonic Devil child. Yet, this heightened and fantastical narrative allows for a broader discussion regarding the wider possession of the pregnant women’s body as Rosemary becomes intensely scrutinised, manipulated, and controlled by outside forces. Rosemary is not only possessed by the Devil; she is also possessed by contemporary patriarchal social, medical, technological, legal, and sexual controls.

The poster for Rosemary's Baby
The poster for Rosemary’s Baby

 

Rosemary’s Baby tells the story of young newlyweds, Rosemary and Guy (John Cassavetes), who move into an apartment in New York where they befriend their seemingly harmless but overbearing neighbors, Minne (Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar for her role) and Roman Castevet (Signey Blackmer). Rosemary quickly becomes pregnant, and the film then follows her painful, difficult, and confusing pregnancy. Despite the assurances from Guy, Minnie, Roman, and even her doctor, that her pregnancy is normal, Rosemary – and the audience – know that something is wrong. As her suspicion grows, in the film’s dénouement, Rosemary discovers that, in a pact reminiscent of Doctor Faustus, Guy promised his first born to a coven of witches, of which Minnie and Roman are part, in order to further his acting career. She discovers that she was raped by Satan, and has given birth to a Devil-child. The power of the film resides not only in its impressive combination of the naturalistic depiction of contemporary urban life with the surreal and fantastical depiction of the Satan-worshipping witches. It also resides in the way in which the film raises a number of complex questions:  To what extent does a woman, pregnant or otherwise, “own” her body? To what extent can or should a woman’s (pregnant) body be subject to social concerns? Physically and socially, where is the divide between the mother’s body and the baby’s body? By raising these questions, Rosemary’s Baby is not only concerned with the spiritual but, also, the social possession of the female body.

The primary horror of Rosemary’s Baby lies not only in the creation and realization of an abject, grotesque, and demonic baby, but in the little control Rosemary has over her body and her pregnancy. After she discovers she’s pregnant, Minnie and Roman recommend a doctor who tells Rosemary not to read books, talk to friends about their experiences, or take vitamin pills. Instead, he recommends that Minnie makes her a daily drink. Discouraging Rosemary from gaining alternative opinions and pieces of advice from books and friends, and conspiring with Roman and Minnie to force Rosemary into consuming a strange drink, the doctor abuses his position of power; he controls Rosemary both physically and mentally. Even after Rosemary loses weight at the beginning of her pregnancy, complains of being in crippling pain for a number of months, and generally looks ill, the doctor assures her that this is perfectly normal. Betrayed, controlled, and manipulated by seemingly trustworthy people – her husband, elderly neighbors and doctors – Rosemary’s Baby plays on contemporary social, legal, technological, and medical anxieties regarding the “ownership” of the pregnant female body through this heightened and fantastical narrative about spiritual possession.

Rosemary's neighbors are a bit overbearing...
Rosemary’s neighbors are a bit overbearing…

Released in 1968, Rosemary’s Baby reflects a time of change regarding the control over the reproductive female body. The Pill was approved for contraceptive use in 1960 giving women, at least in theory, greater control over their sex lives. The 1960s was an intense period regarding abortion laws in the States, eventually culminating in the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision Roe v. Wade. For A. Robin Hoffman, situating the film within its social and historical context is crucial as “we cannot understand what is horrifying about a horror movie without understanding the contemporaneous fears and concerns that penetrated both its production and the viewing public who first screened it.” Although Hoffman suggests that Rosemary’s Baby is a “social document of the growing horror of pregnancy…as reproductive technology and legal actions colluded to empower the fetus at the expense of the previously sacrosanct pregnant woman,” I relocate the horror of the film away from the visibility of the fetus and back onto the woman’s pregnant body. The horror, as played out in the narrative, is not primarily that the baby is a Devil-child, but that Rosemary has been coerced into carrying and then giving birth to this monstrous child. In this way, through the spiritual possession of Rosemary’s body, the film plays on the contemporary social anxieties surrounding the changing reproductive and sexual authority and autonomy women gained over their bodies due to the advances in medicine, technology and the law during this time.

However, the issue of bodily possession not only reflects the contemporary anxieties over a woman’s ownership of her body through pregnancy, but the assumption and investment in the pregnant body as a social issue. In the film, Rosemary’s body is subject to intense and constant scrutiny from other characters. She’s told she looks too chalky, too tired, too thin. Although these comments often stem from a place of genuine concern for Rosemary’s health, there’s an underlying assumption that the pregnant body is one on which we can freely comment. Indeed, at one point, as Rosemary’s (male) friend, Hitch, claims that “I was alarmed by her appearance”, Roman responds, “She has lost some weight, but that’s quite normal. Later she’ll gain, probably too much.” Roman’s response demonstrates the way in which the pregnant body, particularly with reference to weight, is constantly kept under surveillance. This is also true in our wider culture today. A regular feature in celebrity gossip magazines and newspapers, the “baby bump watch” observes the female celebrity’s weight gain (and then weight loss after the baby is born), maternity style, and diet and exercise regimes. As in the case of Kim Kardashian, the pregnant woman is viciously mocked and chastised if she does not fulfil the desired expectations. Likewise, among “normal” people, if a pregnant woman should choose to drink or smoke, she becomes the subject of disgust and disapproval due to the moralizing attitude society has towards her. Whilst there may be good health reasons not to drink and smoke (once again, we trust the doctors for this advice), it is the demand that women fulfill certain expectations, and the assumption that people have the authority to comment and criticize on another women’s body which is most worrying. Crucially, it demonstrates the extent to which a women’s autonomy over her body is limited. The child, the human race’s investment for its own continuation, and the embodiment of society’s futurity, becomes such a critical and crucial concern that the pregnant women’s body becomes a site of fleshy societal possession.

Gossip magazines and newspapers have a firm idea as to what constitutes the "acceptable" pregnant body, and they ridicule those who don't conform to it
Gossip magazines and newspapers have a firm idea as to what constitutes the “acceptable” pregnant body, and they ridicule those who don’t conform to it

The final way in which Rosemary’s body becomes possessed is sexually. When Guy “sells” Rosemary to the witches, demonstrating his consideration of patriarchal entitlement over her body, Rosemary passes out after eating a drugged dessert made by Minnie, and is then raped by Satan in a bizarre, surreal, and extremely disturbing sequence. Later, after she’s awoken from this “dream” – the boundary between the imagined and the actual are indistinguishable at this point–, she finds scratches over her body, and Guy tells Rosemary that he “didn’t want to miss baby night”. In other words, he admits to marital rape. Although Rosemary seems a little upset and distressed at this, the film glosses over this fact. Given that marital rape, astoundingly, wasn’t made illegal in all 50 states until 1993, the film offers no position for Rosemary to be outraged at this violation. Her body, it seems, really does belong to her husband.

Rosemary wakes up from "baby night" with scratches all over her body
Rosemary wakes up from “baby night” with scratches all over her body

Famously and controversially, the sexual possession of the female body is not contained within the intertextual parameters of the film. In 1977, Roman Polanski, the film’s director, was arrested and charged with five offences against a 13-year-old girl, Samantha Gailey, including rape. Although he initially pled not guilty, Polanski later admitted to the charge of rape, but fled to France before he was sentenced.  The United States authorities have failed to extradite him and, to this day, the charges remain pending. For some, particularly in the case of Woody Allen, the need to separate art from the artist is crucial. I remain skeptical over the auteur approach to filmmaking because, although film directors often have a pervasive vision and the overall authority when making creative decisions, it also neglects the contribution made by other departments including producers, screenwriters, and cinematographers. In this way, I do not read Rosemary’s Baby as wholly Polanski’s vision. Nevertheless, the crimes of which he has been accused are abhorrent, and a discussion of the possession of the female body, particularly the sexual possession of Rosemary’s body, must be read in light of these crimes. For me, on a personal level (for I do not wish to speak on behalf of women who have experienced sexual abuse and may perceive and react to the film differently), these crimes lessen the impact of the moments of resistance in the film. At one point, at the beginning of her pregnancy, Rosemary gets a haircut, suggesting her desire to reclaim her body, even in a small way. Similarly, at another point in the film when Rosemary, looking particularly ill, throws a party, a group of her female friends rally around her and encourage her to seek a second opinion due to her current doctor’s failure to acknowledge her difficulties with the pregnancy. Crucially, they shut Guy out of their conversation, claiming it’s for “girls only”. This moment, whilst in other circumstances, may powerfully demonstrate the way in which women, as a communal force, are able to undermine patriarchal dominance, for me feels hollow. Infiltrating the way in which I read the film’s inter-textual moments of the resistance, the extra-textual events forcefully undermine the moments of power and autonomy offered to these women.

Through the fantastical spiritual possession narrative, Rosemary’s Baby powerfully and effectively reveals the contemporary social, medical, legal, technological and even, to an extent, sexual anxieties surrounding the possession of women bodies which remain relevant and pervasive today. However, although the film reveals these anxieties, it fails to resist them, and even, through the acts of the director, becomes complicit in them. Nevertheless, by continually challenging the way in which the female body – pregnant or otherwise – is considered to be “owned” by outside patriarchal forces, we can anticipate a future where the female body is unanimously her own. In other words, we can anticipate a future where the female body is neither spiritually nor socially possessed.

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Sarah Smyth is a staff writer at Bitch Flicks who recently finished a Master’s Degree in Critical Theory with an emphasis on gender and film at the University of Sussex, UK. Her dissertation examined the abject male body in cinema, particularly focusing on the spatiality of the anus (yes, really). She’s based now in London, UK and you can follow her on Twitter at @sarahsmyth91.

 

Does ‘Jennifer’s Body’ Turn The Possession Genre On Its Head?

‘Jennifer’s Body’ is not a traditional female possession film. The genre is generally typified by mild mannered asexual women who begin to act in overt and sometimes pathologized sexual ways once they become possessed. Jennifer’s sexuality, on the other hand is firmly established at the beginning of the film, from her clothing, the way she interacts with both her best friend Needy and the males in her school, to where she casually mentions that she is “not even a back door virgin anymore.”

This post by staff writer Gaayathri Nair appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

When Jennifer’s Body first came out in 2009, both writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kausama attempted to frame the movie as a feminist subversion of the horror genre. In interviews they both talked about horror being a genre that actually has a lot to offer women in terms of empowerment, in particular referring to the “final girl trope.”  Despite their intentions, I’m not sure if Jennifer’s Body can be read as a movie that defies the sexist tropes of both the teen and horror genres. As a possession movie, it is certainly a departure from many of the tropes of the genre and I think the movie does have moments of brilliance. However it falls down for me because it relies on teen and horror movie staples of competitive female friendship, a young women that is constantly objectified on screen and then finally punished for her sexuality.

Jennifers-Body-jennifers-body-16931422-675-1000

In Jennifer’s Body, Jennifer, played by Megan Fox is offered as a virgin sacrifice by a less than mediocre indie band to the devil in order to launch themselves into the big time. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, Jennifer is not actually a virgin and so a “demonic transference” occurs where she comes to life but happens to be possessed by a succubus.

Jennifer’s Body is not a traditional female possession film. The genre is generally typified by mild mannered asexual women who begin to act in overt and sometimes pathologized sexual ways once they become possessed. Jennifer’s sexuality, on the other hand, is firmly established at the beginning of the film, from her clothing, the way she interacts with both her best friend Needy and the males in her school, to where she casually mentions that she is “not even a back door virgin anymore.”  Jennifer’s position as a person who is sexual and enjoys sex is very clear. It is also clear early on that she knows the effect her looks have on the people around her. She knows that her best friend is captivated by her and uses that to her advantage to keep her in line. She loves the small measure of power her sexuality gives her over the boys she knows desperately want to screw her but can’t. Jennifer chooses exactly who she wants to have sex with; she favors more mature guys who are out of high school.

Jennifer-Body-21

Unfortunately, it is this preference for more worldly guys that gets her into trouble. Her interest in the lead singer of the band that has come to play at the bar of her small town literally gets Jennifer killed. This is par for the course in horror movies; women who actively engage in expressing their own sexuality are normally punished and often lethally. However in this case, Jennifer’s lack of purity saves her. The fact that she is not actually a virgin means that she gets a second shot at life.

In more traditional possession films, the female victim is fearful of her possession. She generally tries to fight against it and is often pathologized as mentally ill, for example in The Exorcist and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Jennifer revels in her new found possession. She loves the power and strength it gives her. She compares it to feeling like a goddess and that feeling is worth the lives of a few paltry high school boys in order to sustain it. She feels no guilt or conflict about her appetites at all.

Unfortunately for Jennifer, her best friend Needy discovers how she is sustaining herself and is unimpressed, especially since Jennifer targeted a particular boy who she was friends with and then also tries to eat her boyfriend. So here, just when it all starts to get interesting we fall into the regular yawn-fest that is a female friendship that is not really a friendship at all and is instead characterized by petty fights over boys and jealousy.  Sure this is on an extreme level, but that is what it really boils down to.

jenbody_shot1l

To me the movie would have been so much better if it hadn’t come down to Jennifer’s jealousy of Needy spending time with her boyfriend. It would have been so much more satisfying if the final showdown was not between Jennifer and Needy, but between the two of them and the members of Low Shoulder who sacrificed Jennifer for their own ends in the first place.  Needy leaves the end of the movie with some of Jennifer’s powers minus the need to consume human flesh and takes her revenge on the people that hurt her friend. She deals with Low Shoulder eventually, but their demise feels like a sad afterthought when it is they who are in fact the arch villains, not Jennifer. For me, while Jennifer’s Body was interesting in the way it dealt with the tropes of the possession movie genre, it wasn’t revolutionary enough. It had so much potential and could have gone so much further; instead, it feels like a cop-out.


Gaayathri Nair is currently living and writing in Auckland, New Zealand. You can find more of her work at her blog A Human Story and tweet her @A_Gaayathri

 

‘Demons:’ Finding New Language for an Old Cult Classic

I am a horror fan and most times I root for the monster. There, I said it. I root for what should be the feared. The dreaded Other. With all the loaded symbolism that the horror genre represents (fear of sex, fear of the unknown, fear of death and decay, xenophobia etc), I find it cathartic and often liberating to root for the disruption of life as we know it. I love watching humans deal with chaotic change.

Movie Poster of "Demons"
Movie Poster of Demons

Confession.

I am a horror fan and most times I root for the monster. There, I said it. I root for what should be the feared. The dreaded Other. With all the loaded symbolism that the horror genre represents (fear of sex, fear of the unknown, fear of death and decay, xenophobia etc), I find it cathartic and often liberating to root for the disruption of life as we know it. I love watching humans deal with chaotic change.

Chaotic change occurred for Hollywood in the 1980s when pretty much everyone I knew owned a VCR player and collected VHS tapes. People could lounge in the comfort of their own homes for just $1 (I remember paying that the first time I rented a tape at the neighborhood video store, before chain retailers like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video existed). For a junior high kid, this was cinema gluttony on the highest order. I could practically watch anything as many times as I wanted in my pajamas eating chocolate pudding and drinking Dr Pepper.

Although I was exposed to Italian giallo films early on at the drive-in while in grade school with classics like Suspiria, my viewing of the film Demons in the comfort of my living room introduced me to a whole new level of crazy Euro-gore. It also gave me a sneak peek of an actress who would later become a good friend in my adult years.

Demons (1985) has all the elements that make a great Euro-gore campy flick: tons of unearthly bodily fluids, unholy creatures ripping out of humans, bloody demonic possession, supernatural Nostradamus predictions, and a movie theater built on top of a gateway to hell. Classic Italian horror has no chill and will throw in everything and the kitchen sink. The actors are gorgeous and the movie has the quintessential throbbing 80s soundtrack with, for goodness sakes, Billy Idol’s “White Wedding” pumping the action along. Microwave popcorn heaven. The movie plot was ripe for a horror cinefile like myself.

Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paula Cozzo) arrive at the theater.
Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paula Cozzo) arrive at the theater.

 

In a nutshell, Demons follows two college students, Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paula Cozzo), as they arrive at an ominous movie theater to see a free screening of an unknown movie. Cheryl was given a flyer in a subway station by mysterious man wearing a silver half-mask that concealed part of his face. Cheryl convinces Kathy to skip classes. In the theater lobby they encounter other movie patrons arriving, including a Black pimp and his two working-girls, one white, the other Black. Rosemary (the Black working-girl) sees a demonic silver mask hanging on a motorcycle display. She playfully puts on the mask only to have it scratch her face and draw blood. This being horror’s obligatory symbolic penetration (orally) of a female character. It’s the catalyst that ignites the evil to come.

 

Rosemary Wears Mask
Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) playfully wears mask that cuts her cheek.

 

Eventually the audience settles in to watch what turns out to be a horror movie (surprise!) about people discovering an ancient book and the same silver mask that Rosemary put on in the theater lobby. Rosemary’s wound starts to bleed again while watching the events unfold onscreen, so she goes to the restroom to staunch the blood flow, which has gotten worse, .. …yikes…it’s turned into squirting yellow puss. She becomes demon possessed and transforms into a hideous, green vomit-spewing supernatural contagion. Shenanigans ensue.

 

Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) becomes possessed.
Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) becomes possessed.

 

What I always found to be a cool element of Demons was the film in the movie foreshadows what is to come for the film audience. And there are moments when the audience senses that this “movie” they are watching is not fiction. Eerily, a demon-possessed character in the theater film actually watches the mounting terror of the audience watching it back. The watchers become the watched. There’s also a subversive moment in the film that I latched onto as a kid, that I still find thrilling as an adult. The character of Rosemary (Geretta Geretta) on the surface plays into the classic stereotypical trope of the hyper-sexualized Black woman (she’s a hooker), and also the tiresome trope (and sad joke) of Black and/or non-white characters always dying first. But in Demons, Rosemary doesn’t die, she becomes transformed into a horrific Other, and takes everyone with her. She could kill people outright, or if she scratched anyone, they would turn into a demon too. I loved that element in the film. If she goes down, everyone goes down. She doesn’t disappear or fade into the background as Black characters often do. Hell, even the scorned Black pimp, Tony (Bobby Rhodes), takes on leadership of a more altruistic kind at one point in the film.

The beauty of revisiting old films that you loved as a youngster is that you get to change your mind about it as an adult. My first go-round with the film, I enjoyed the over-the-top craziness, and was actually excited when the heroine, Cheryl (The Final Girl), gets away with another theater patron, George (Urbano Barberini–The Final Boy) in what was a thrilling escape from the literal bowels of hell inside the possessed theater. But Demons throws in a Michael Jackson Thriller video ending, and has Cheryl break the fourth wall by turning around and showing us she has turned into a demon herself. This twist was foreshadowed by the slow camera pan towards the back of her head. I saw it coming but was thrilled nonetheless. Miss Goody two-shoes doesn’t get away.

But in hindsight, I’m now disappointed with this ending.

As an adult I had the pleasure of reading texts about filmmaking, horror theory, and feminist texts discussing the horror viewership of women and all the subtext that brings. As an adult, I view film with a more critical gaze, looking at context as well as content. Fresh eyes bring fresh views. What bothers me now about Demons that bugged me on the surface as a kid, is that Cheryl and George, the characters we are supposed to root for, start off as equals in the beginning, and end up taking on binary gender roles by the end.

 

Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and George (Urbano Barberini) sense evil in the film they watch.
Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and George (Urbano Barberini) sense evil in the film they watch.

 

Cheryl and George are strangers when we meet them at the eerie theater. They are both on neutral gender ground. They both are frightened by the movie that they watch together, and they are both proactive in surviving. By sharing Cheryl’s emotional state, George is feminized in a way, and by sharing George’s active behavior in protecting themselves, Cheryl is given masculine traits. There is a balance. But once their friends are possessed and killed, Cheryl becomes a falling, weepy, girly mess that George has to prod along and save. George changes from clean cut preppy-looking Golden Boy in the beginning, into some Mad Max Samurai Warrior hybrid by the end. He turns into a movie superhero. Cheryl turns into a movie damsel you want to scream at. Patronizing patriarchy wins.

 

Tony the Pimp (Bobby Rhodes) leads other demon possessed theater patrons after more victims.
Tony the Pimp (Bobby Rhodes) leads other demon possessed theater patrons after more victims.

 

There is a moment near the end of the movie where gender balance appears to be restored. The mysterious man who gave away tickets to the evil screening stands atop the theater roof where Cheryl and George have made their way up to. There is a struggle, and both Cheryl and George impale the bad buy’s head through a metal pipe together. Shortly thereafter, we learn Cheryl’s real fate. As an adult, this is the moment that shows a missed opportunity to have the rare Final Girl/Final Boy moment alive and together at the end of the movie. Equally frustrating now is the fact that the narrative followed Cheryl in the beginning, castrated her agency in favor of some random guy, and steals her away at the end. Such a different read from my teenaged-self. But of course I’ve watched thousands of hours of film since then. I now have new language to call out what I couldn’t contextualize back then. However, I still have love for this film.

My favorite part of loving this crazy movie is the fact that many years later, while attending the Sundance Film Festival, I was able to share a townhouse with the actress who played Rosemary, Geretta Geretta. I walked into the townhouse kitchen knocking snow off of my boots, saw Geretta and squealed, “Ohmigod! You were in Demons!” Geretta stared at me and said, “You remember that movie? How old are you?”

Me (Lisa Bolekaja) and Geretta Geretta (my beloved Rosemary) hanging out at our favorite Hollywood Thai spot.
Me (Lisa Bolekaja) and Geretta Geretta (my beloved Rosemary) hanging out at our favorite Hollywood Thai spot.

 

We’ve been friends ever since. I convinced her to start going to horror conventions to show people that women love horror too. Rosemary the Demon is just as iconic as Jason, or Freddy, or Michael. Female horror monsters need to be admired and respected too. And Demons is a cult classic. Geretta agreed.

Who would’ve thought that the demonic monster I was rooting for as a teenager would end up being my friend in real life? But it makes sense though. I love monsters. And they love me too.

 

Geretta Geretta taking my advice and bringing female horror icons to conventions worldwide.
Geretta Geretta taking my advice and bringing female horror icons to conventions worldwide.

Because Being Female is Frightening Enough: #YesAllWomen and ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’

In the film a young girl, Emily Rose, perishes following a protracted period of “attack” by demons while under the protective care of Father Moore, a Catholic priest. Female attorney Erin Bruner is chosen to defend Moore against charges of negligent homicide in Emily’s death. Through the two’s connection to the girl throughout the film, each undergoes what I’ve called here a “conversion experience,” as they learn more about the possibility that demons really do exist—demons that can be read to correspond to the challenges that women face in culture every day. Even before the advent of #YesAllWomen, a film like ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ shows us how to overcome skepticism and create a connected community of individuals committed to sharing troublesome experiences in the service of awareness and activism.

Emily possessed
Emily possessed

 

This guest post by Rebecca Willoughby appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Elliot Rodger’s killing spree in Isla Vista, California in May of 2014, incited much controversy, as did the Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen, which subsequently emerged as a forum for women to share experiences of sexism and misogyny in everyday life.  Yet, attitudes of skepticism persisted: many Twitter users seemed resistant to the idea that ALL women, at one time or another, experienced circumstances and situations that made life difficult, if not downright annoying or even unbearable.

What’s frightening is that some of the most prevalent types of experiences women reported using the hashtag could be considered normal, everyday occurrences. But female Twitter users describe these moments as uncomfortable, and sometimes terrifying. Perhaps this is why it seems useful to examine the hashtag within the context of the horror film, particularly possession films, which tend to emphasize women’s bodies being acted upon by external forces. The use of the supernatural—specifically, the presence of demons— in Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) can be illustrative of the horror of #YesAllWomen’s sexist experiences, and the skepticism with which they are sometimes met. The film’s unique combination of courtroom drama and horror film emphasizes its investment in skepticism and seems to allow the film to ask: how can we, as viewers, ever really believe this might be “based on a true story”?

In the film a young girl, Emily Rose, perishes following a protracted period of “attack” by demons while under the protective care of Father Moore, a Catholic priest. Female attorney Erin Bruner is chosen to defend Moore against charges of negligent homicide in Emily’s death. Through the two’s connection to the girl throughout the film, each undergoes what I’ve called here a “conversion experience,” as they learn more about the possibility that demons really do exist—demons that can be read to correspond to the challenges that women face in culture every day. Even before the advent of #YesAllWomen, a film like The Exorcism of Emily Rose shows us how to overcome skepticism and create a connected community of individuals committed to sharing troublesome experiences in the service of awareness and activism.

Skepticism in possession films, or films about [usually female] mental instability certainly isn’t unusual. One of the best examples may come from classical Hollywood, in the form of George Cukor’s 1944 classic, Gaslight, wherein the heroine is convinced by her con-artist husband that she is going crazy, when in fact he is manipulating her environment. Bitch Flicks guest writer Elizabeth Brooks usefully points out that possession films, specifically, often make a point of “gas lighting” female protagonists. While audience members may begin to share the heroine’s perceptions and doubts about her reality, often other characters in possession films are skeptical: the parish priest, the victim’s family, boyfriend, sister, you name it.  Emily Rose and Erin Bruner exemplify an oppressive truth: that violence, misogyny, and sexism experienced by one woman—represented in the film as demonic attacks on Emily—initially divides these two women from any sort of communication concerning those issues. In fact, in the film the two never meet. By the end of the movie, however, Erin’s own trials have linked her physically and emotionally with Emily via several terrifying incidents.

Emily's long walk
Emily’s long walk

 

The first occurrence of otherworldly forces and their attack on Emily look a lot like a rape. Emily is alone in her dorm room at night, smells something burning, and goes to check it out. We see Emily alone at the end of the long hallway, and we’re startled along with her when a door slams at the end of the corridor; she latches it and returns to her room. She gets back into bed, and suddenly her blankets begin to slip off. Indentations appear in her mattress on either side of her body, and she is forced down onto her back.  Her night-shirt is slowly lifted up toward her midriff. As she tries to force it back down, she grapples with an invisible assailant, but her hands are forced to her sides. Then, suddenly the weight is lifted, and she vaults out of bed and onto the floor, screaming. It reads like a rape to me, even if a spiritually-coded one. Weirdly, no one on screen involved with Emily’s case voices this opinion as a possibility. Instead, the lawyers, doctors, and other professionals involved in Emily’s case collectively move right from superstition and spiritual attacks to illegal drugs to epilepsy and psychosis.

The film vacillates between having viewers believe that Emily’s trials are the machinations of the spirit world, and entertaining the possibility that Emily may be psychotic and epileptic. This balance alone, along with the combination of horror film tropes with courtroom drama, makes the film unusual. Additionally, a wide range of female types populate the margins of this film, leaving viewers with perhaps an atypically rich tapestry of female experience. We see a female judge, and a madam fore-woman of the jury. We see Emily’s traditional, devout housewife mom, her encouraging and faithful sister, the female family doctor, and a female anthropologist expert witness. Professional women and homemakers; average citizens and hopeful youth, even with a reasonable range of representation of racial and ethnic backgrounds. In other words, the population of #YesAllWomen in a microcosm, all represented in a world with flaws Emily’s possession calls stark attention to.

Dr. Briggs, a medical expert witness for the prosecution, provides a glaring example. While under cross-examination, he asserts that he would have tranquilized Emily, force-fed her, and administered electro-shock treatment (against her will if necessary) to save her life. Certainly such a course of action would have completely deprived Emily of dominion over her own body—as the “demons” do. “Possession” in this film is not only a spiritual, but physical term: Emily’s welfare and control over her own treatment is repeatedly assaulted by the prosecution and the (usually male) representatives of the medical community. Though Emily aims to become an educated, professional woman herself, her choices are frequently disparaged, and anyone who supports them—her father and Father Moore specifically, are—forgive the pun—demonized.

Father Moore allows Emily to reject the traditional, patriarchal view that medical illness must be treated with drugs and doctors. Additionally, he chronicles her resistance to these oppressions in the form of a tape of the exorcism, which eventually finds its way to Erin. This archive serves as evidence of Emily’s experience that can be shared with a wider community, making it more difficult to refute. Like Twitter archives, Father Moore attempts to preserve and disseminate proof of Emily’s attacks, just as #YesAllWomen serves as proof of the multitude of challenges women face in everyday existence.

Erin's talisman
Erin’s talisman

 

To rebut the over-zealous doctor witness and his extreme stance on Emily’s treatment, Erin locates an anthropologist studying contemporary cases of demon possession in the third world. Erin believes this woman may “see possession for what it really is. Maybe we’ve taught ourselves not to see it. Maybe we should try to validate the alternative.” This alternative is learning to see Emily’s plight as what Dr. Sadhira Adani calls a “basic human experience,” which we might read as the situations and circumstances of #YesAllWomen.

Sadhira Adani believes Emily is “hypersensitive,” which we may see as a positive framing of Emily’s resistance or sensitivity to the flaws of patriarchal culture. In other words, Emily’s “problem” is NOT hysteria, psychosis, or epilepsy, but rather clear vision. Further, while it’s certainly a production decision not to use extensive special effects in the film, a lack of effects may also indicate that what happens to Emily is all the more “realistic.” Without what reviewer Liese Spencer calls “Linda Blair fright makeup” Emily’s plight is more relatable to the average audience member—especially female audience members who might more readily pick up on the alignment of Emily’s possession with a more universal women’s issue.

Two sequences from the film tie Erin to Emily through their experiences of fear. After learning that a man Erin previously helped to acquit has killed again, she rushes into a restaurant ladies’ room to compose herself. Visual parallels to Emily’s rape scene abound: the doors of the stalls echo the dormitory doors lining Emily’s hallway, and square mirrors mimic the hallway’s bulletin boards. As Erin splashes her face with water, we hear another door slam—a woman emerges from a stall to check her makeup.

At Erin’s home, the clocks stop, she smells something burning, lights go out when she tries to investigate, she breaks a glass, and finally the door to her apartment seems to open on its own. The significance of the open door should not be missed: like the unlatched door in Emily’s first attack—which this scene also closely mimics—it could mean an intruder has entered Erin’s apartment, intending her harm. She is alone, as Emily was.

Finally, as Erin recounts her experience of finding a locket to Father Moore, she describes a moment after these events which seems to push her to the realization that she and Emily may be more connected than Erin initially imagines.

We see Erin in flashback as she recounts the experience of finding the locket. She considers what it might mean if “demons really do exist.” But just then she finds the locket on the sidewalk, coincidentally inscribed with her own initials. At this moment, she does not feel alone. Instead, she says, it made her feel as if “no matter what mistakes I’d made in the past, at that moment, I was exactly where I was meant to be; like I was on the right path.” This is the purpose of female community, of which #YesAllWomen is a prime example. Erin’s conversion experience is underway after she’s been made to feel some of the same fears as Emily, to be made to feel lost, alone, and even under “attack,” and also after finding this talisman that acknowledges these feelings and knits her to something larger than herself.

Visiting Emily
Visiting Emily

 

However, Erin’s conversion is not so simple; her privilege and ambition run deep. Soon she is back to her power-hungry and results-oriented self, speaking in purely legal terms and seeming to ignore the communicative experience she’s just recalled. One last frightening experience seems to be what is needed to get Erin fully on board with the female community Emily signifies.

Erin awakes late at night, alone in her bedroom. We hear whispering, which quickly turns into a distant-sounding scream. When she gets out of bed to investigate, she finds that the tape of Emily’s exorcism is in her living room playing, having turned on by itself. She turns it off, mouthing Emily’s name. Emily’s story has now become her focus.

Emily’s final vision of the Blessed Virgin (the ultimate female symbol of sacrifice) is recounted in a letter that Father Moore gives to Erin once he’s sure her conversion is complete. In it, Emily tells of a dream she has the day after her exorcism. In another flashback, an unseen force leads Emily through a mist. Viewers see Emily have an out-of-body experience. As she leaves her physical body behind, THIS Emily looks beautiful and healthy, not battered, twisted, and weak. Yet the Virgin gives her two avenues of action: she can relinquish her body and die, achieving peace; or stay in her body and suffer. It seems a simple choice, but the Virgin assures Emily that if she stays, her suffering will mean something; her story will help others.

It is for this reason that Father Moore has risked his freedom, for this reason that Erin jeopardizes her powerful position to help in sharing Emily’s experiences—but only after she’s had frightening experiences of her own. Their exposure to Emily’s case initiates a conversion experience by which they are both then unable to deny the pitfalls of women in patriarchy, even from their privileged positions.

In the final scenes of the film, Erin and Father Moore appear vulnerable and displaced, if satisfied. He says he cannot go back to his parish, and Erin has refused her law firm’s offer of partnership. Where will they go now? What will they do? They appear at Emily’s grave, as if on a pilgrimage, observing her epitaph, which reads “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

Ostensibly the goal of any horror film is for the viewer to experience some fear and trembling; the combination of these goals with the framework of logic and justice found in the courtroom drama allows The Exorcism of Emily Rose to achieve a broader aim. We can read Emily’s “hypersensitivity” as vulnerability, a vulnerability that she must summon the courage to share in order to communicate a broader, societal concern that would otherwise remain in the shadows. Spiritual trials aside, Emily’s plight is indeed the plight of all women.  Father Moore and Erin Bruner may be the first who achieve symbolic salvation through describing and disseminating Emily’s fear and trembling to others. The Exorcism of Emily Rose and #YesAllWomen illustrates that communication, supportive community, conversation, and awareness are often the first step to activism.

 


Rebecca Willoughby holds a Ph.D. in English and Film Studies from Lehigh University.  She writes most frequently on horror films and melodrama, and is currently a lecturer in Film/Media Studies at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.  

 

‘The Conjuring’: When Motherhood Meets Demonic Possession

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in ‘The Conjuring,’ and specifically she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

This guest post by Caroline Madden appears as part of our theme week on Demon and Spirit Possession.

Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in The Conjuring; specifically, she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.

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Carolyn, the mother, is the most affected and punished by these disturbances. She is physically punished when she wakes up one morning to see bruises on her back. Other bodily harm occurs throughout the hauntings. The spirit goes so far as to pretend to be Carolyn’s daughter when playing a family game with her. She is then dragged to the cellar and attacked.

the-conjuring-lily-taylor- carolyn perron possess basement cellar

Carolyn is the only one who is constantly singled out by the demon. The father is not dealt with at all. While the daughters are also horrified and attacked by the spirit, punishing the daughters is just another way for the demon to get at Carolyn. Carolyn cares for her daughters, and it is devastating for her to see them attacked. This is quite a simplistic characterization, for Carolyn is written to merely serve the theme of the story rather than as a dynamic female character. Being a mother is her main characteristic, but she is established as warm and caring one, thus allowing the demon to prey and try to destroy her strong bond with her daughters.

But why is the demon attempting to destroy this relationship between mother and child? Why is the demon trying to attack this loving family and destroy their content life? When Carolyn brings in paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren, with some research they discover that the demon is that of a woman named Bathsheba. They learn that in the 1850s, Bathsheba was married to a rich farmer named Sherman. Together they had a child, and when it was a week old the father caught Bathsheba sacrificing her baby to the devil. Bathsheba then hanged herself after proclaiming her love for Satan, cursing anyone who tried to take her land. Carolyn learns that Bathsheba specifically seeks out the punishment of mothers, all who have lived on this property before her, in order to have them sacrifice their children to the devil.

While female characters are often the ones singled out for possession, The Conjuring takes another interpretation by viewing possession through the lens of motherhood. We have often had possessed fathers who go on to wreak havoc on their family, such as The Amityville Horror (who the real-life Warrens also investigated) and The Shining. The mother character is often the one to protect her child against the man. (Most notably, Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance in The Shining.)

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It is perhaps more believable and less horrifying when a father figure turns on their family, for it is more common or widely seen for fathers or stepfathers to be abusive to a family. While mother abuse does happen, it is thought to be quite rare. It is far more horrifying for a once loving mother to turn into an evil, abusive, and psychotic one. When we hear of heartbreaking stories of child abuse or murder at a mother’s hand we often exclaim, “How could a mother EVER do that?” whereas if we hear about a man committing abuse, it is merely shrugged upon and seen as something that always happens. In reality, women who hurt children are not worse than men who hurt children; both are equally awful.

Motherhood in society is more often debated upon and mothers are seen as the sole caretakers for a child. Mothers have to live up to often highly unrealistic standards. If they fail, they are criticized and condemned. Those who rise to those magic standards are seen as noble, for they are doing “the most important job a woman can do.” It is more “acceptable” for a father to walk out on a family or fail to rise to the occasion of fatherhood; you won’t hear much criticism or outcries. But if a mother does, she is deemed horrible and selfish. So in all, it is seen as more shocking and thrilling for a mother to turn against her children in violent and horrifying ways.

the-conjuring-lili-taylor-joey-king-kyla-deaver-warner-bros

After being attacked by Bathsheba, Carolyn is eventually possessed by her. When she wakes up from a nap, she sees Bathsheba lying on top of her. Bathsheba then vomits in her mouth in order to get inside Carolyn and possess her to elicit her last final punishment. Bathsheba will use Carolyn to kill her children and sacrifice them to the devil, as she has so many times before with other mothers. The now possessed Carolyn behaves as normal, conspiring with her husband and the Warren’s to take the children back to the hotel where they will be safe. Then we see Carolyn take two of her daughters, Christine and April, back to the house. The girls are frightened and do not know what is wrong with their mother.

The Warrens and Carolyn’s husband rush back to the house where they find Carolyn trying to stab her daughter Christine with scissors. They eventually are able to tie the possessed Carolyn to a chair to perform an exorcism. Despite being tied up, Bathsheba continues to punish Carolyn with the most painful physical abuse thus far. Carolyn spits and vomits huge amounts of blood, nearly choking on it. When anyone tries to take her outside, Bathsheba makes Carolyn’s skin sizzle and mottle with severe burns. Bathsheba levitates the chair and quickly slams it down on the hard concrete basement floor. Her husband begs Carolyn to “be strong” and “fight” against the demon, but it is clear that it is beyond her power to try and stop this.

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The possessed Carolyn eventually escapes and goes to try and kill her other daughter April, who is hiding under the floorboards. Lorraine Warren tries the final act to bring Carolyn back. Lorraine recounts a special memory with her daughters at a lovely day on the beach. Through the power of the special relationship between mother and child, Ed Warren is able to complete the exorcism and Carolyn is able to return to her normal self. For at her heart, Carolyn is a good and caring mother, and there can be nothing to sever that.

The demon attempts to destroy (what is seen as from society) the most sacred bond, the bond between a mother and child. The demon wants to completely destroy all of those relationships, as she had destroyed that idea of motherhood when she killed her child for Satan. But in the end Bathsheba still slightly wins. Even if she was exorcised and Carolyn’s role as a caring mother won out in the end, her daughters still have scarring memories of their mother while she was possessed. Although only for one night, they still suffered from the hands of abuse. Those memories may linger on and alter the viewings of their mother. Bathsheba was still able to alter the mother and daughter relationship but not in the way that she had hoped.

The-Conjuring-1024x421 carolyn perron basement cellar hide and clap bathsheba hands

The Conjuring is one of the unique horror films where possession is examined through the eyes of motherhood. We have seen possessed fathers wreaking havoc and terror on their families but not as many mothers. A violent and uncaring mother will always be scarier than a father. An abusive and evil father, we see those horrors more often in everyday life. The Conjuring plays on the already pre-existing attitudes we have to see violence inflicted by mothers on their children as to be of a most evil nature.

 


Caroline Madden is a recent graduate with a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory. She writes about film at Geek JuiceScreenqueens, and her blog. You can usually find her watching movies or listening to Bruce Springsteen.

 

You Never Want to Do Something Interesting: How ‘You’re Next’ Became One of the Most Empowering Horror Films for Women

It has been dissected time and time again on the way the horror genre has misrepresented women both on the screen and off, but whenever a film comes along and represents a female character as something different, we immediately bring praise to the filmmakers. While this practice is admittedly problematic, the only reason we stress the importance of these “strong female characters” is in large part due to the lack of positive female representation.

This woman comes from a land where they eat Vegemite by choice. Of course she's tough.
This woman comes from a land where they eat Vegemite by choice. Of course she’s tough.

 

This guest post by BJ Colangelo previously appeared at her blog Day of the Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

It has been dissected time and time again on the way the horror genre has misrepresented women both on the screen and off, but whenever a film comes along and represents a female character as something different, we immediately bring praise to the filmmakers.  While this practice is admittedly problematic, the only reason we stress the importance of these “strong female characters” is in large part due to the lack of positive female representation.  The “weak” female character has proven to be a safe staple within the horror genre, and somewhat of a requirement in the slasher genre.  Simply put, no one ever wants to do anything interesting.  Witness Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Sharni Vinson, and the creation of You’re Next.

I wonder what George Orwell would say about this...
I wonder what George Orwell would say about this…

 

We’ve all seen the advertisements, a majority of us own those damn animal masks, and some of us horror geeks have giant boners for AJ Bowen and Barbara Crampton.  You’re Next was the talk of the horror world, and the overall consensus is that the film kicks all sorts of ass. (It does, trust me.) People keep bringing up how You’re Next has taken the home-invasion sub-genre and spun it on its head.  Most importantly, however, is the fact You’re Next may very well be one of the most empowering horror films for women, ever.

(NOTE: If you haven’t seen You’re Next, you need to 1. stop what you’re doing and see the film and 2. understand that this piece is an analysis and events of the film WILL be spoiled.)

Oh my god, adopt me.
Oh my god, adopt me.

 

Starting with the matriarch of the family, we have horror demi-goddess, Barbara Crampton as “Aubrey.”  While this character on the surface seems to be following the trend of every other not-exactly-sober mother in a slasher film, Aubrey brings something that few other maternal horror figure has: heart.  Aubrey is one of the most well-constructed mother characters because of her undeniable love for her family. Mothers in horror films are often seen as skeptical, heartless, drunk, or cruel.  Aubrey is very protective of her family and showcases this throughout the entire film.  She questions things when no one else will and despite the obvious dysfunction of her children, she dedicates herself to them just the same.  What struck me as the most empowering, is the fact Aubrey actually mourns.  Most horror movie mothers are seen as women flying off the handle with absolutely no control of their lives. They panic and make stupid decisions.  Aubrey on the other hand realizes the situation at hand and mourns for her family. Her true dedication and love for her family is admirable, and unlike most of the mothers we see in horror films.

But bringing home a starving artist was my extent of rebellion!
But bringing home a starving artist was my extent of rebellion!

 

Aimee, the golden daughter of the family (played by Amy Seimetz) is one of the more minor characters and is killed off early because of it.  The daddy’s girl and “princess” of the children appears to do no wrong.  She is immediately shown as the least liked of the siblings, but the most adored by the parents. Her death brings out the strongest reaction from the parental units, but the weakest reaction from the rest of the family.  Her good-girl persona seems to be something she uses to her advantage (overly excited introductions to other people, extreme affection towards her father) but is also something she desperately wants to rid out of her life (meet my starving artist/filmmaker boyfriend wearing the douchiest scarf this side of a Bright Eyes concert played by Ti West, TAKE THAT DAD!). However, she represents an ideal that a lot of women strive to possess. How do we treat ideals, ladies and germs? WE KILL THEM OFF AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.  Ideals are boring, one-dimensional, and unrealistic.

I may look like Olivia Wilde in TRON, but I will bone you in ways Freud could never interpret.
I may look like Olivia Wilde in TRON, but I will bone you in ways Freud could never interpret.

 

Wendy Glenn as “Zee” makes for an incredibly interesting female villain.  Most female villains are seen as nothing more than pure evil, while Zee represents the true complexity of the female mind.  Although she is originally viewed as an unenthusiastic familial girlfriend being dragged against her will to a gathering with her dysfunctional potential in-laws, we quickly discover her character is actually quite unique.  It’s important to note that throughout the entire first 3/4 of the film, Zee is acting.  She is playing into the roles assigned to her and does them effortlessly. Once the big twist is revealed, Zee is no longer the doting girlfriend. She is 100 percent handling her instincts and her motives. At this point, her boyfriend, Felix, is no longer her motivator. She has done her best to comfort him in his time of need, but her demands are her demands.  She tries to seduce Felix while laying next to the corpse of his dead mother, and when he declines she responds, “You never want to do anything interesting.”  While it may be a bit exaggerated, Zee stomps on the idea that women are not sexually aggressive and the idea that women aren’t as sexually creative as our male counterparts.  Hate to out my lady friends, but women are just as big of perverts as men. Showing this sexually progressive woman was refreshing to see (even if her kink was a little TOO far for my comfort zone). This progressive attitude is thanked by being the only female character not murdered by an animal, but instead by her fellow woman.

OH MY GOD! I WILLINGLY WORE A RUFFLED COLLAR TO A DINNER PARTY!
OH MY GOD! I WILLINGLY WORE A RUFFLED COLLAR TO A DINNER PARTY!

 

The snobbish WASPy lover of Joe Swanberg, Kelly, is played beautifully by Margaret Laney.  Kelly is the woman everyone knows and plays nice with even though they can’t stand her.  Entitled, selfish, judgmental, and a total prude, Kelly represents that rich girl who lives off of Mommy and Daddy’s money and therefore feels like she’s better than everyone else.  She completely hits the panic button when disaster strikes and runs purely off of emotion, a very stereotypically “girly” reaction to chaos.  She also serves as the two-sided opposite to Zee and Erin.  Zee and Erin both want what Kelly and Aimee have (money and an established life of stability).  This is represented physically by the fact that both Kelly and Aimee wear their hair up (a symbol of a dignified and “put together” lady) while Zee and Erin don their hair down.  Although, Kelly is not perfect as she DOES show the most skin of any of the characters in the film, and does pop pills.  How is this woman thanked for her attitude? The judgmental bitch is thrown like a stone in a glass house — through a glass window.

Don't let Step Up 3D fool you, she's a bonafide badass.
Don’t let Step Up 3D fool you, she’s a bonafide badass.

 

Most obviously, we were given the most bad-ass final girl this side of Nancy Thompson. Sharni Vinson’s “Erin” ushered in an entirely new form of female final girls.  Unlike the virginal final girls that only survived because they fell into the trope of being pure and exactly what society wants women to be (sexually attainable without having sex), Erin was a strong-willed female character capable of defending herself using a combination of beauty, brains, and brawn.  She remains cool and collected when necessary but not without the guts to completely bludgeon to death anyone that crosses her.  With the booby trap preparation skills that would make Kevin McAllister proud, Erin understands that in this life, you’ve got to take care of yourself.

Erin is never once dressed scantily (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and she’s never over-sexualized. She’s merely your everyday woman living the way she chooses.  She’s progressive in that she left a TA position (meaning, this is where her mentioned student loans are coming from as this would forfeit any scholarship) to be with the professor she had fallen in love with.  Whether or not Barrett made this intentional, there’s also a remarkable feminist analysis of Erin’s strength.

*I’m about to put on a psychoanalytical/psychosexual hat, you’ve been warned.* Erin is a female fighting a bunch of male animals with incredibly phallic weapons.  In the Animal Kingdom, the alpha male is always seen as a dominant and physically aggressive creature while the alpha female is important for breeding purposes. Erin completely changes the game. Her male animal attackers are shooting arrows at her (reminiscent of the way animals “mark their territory” and determine things to be off-limits to other animals) or trying to insert overly long phallic machetes (hurray for wiener imagery) into her body.  99.99 percent of the time, female horror victims express pains in sounds that resemble an orgasm.  Erin expresses pain with barbaric wails or subdued sounds of pain; never once does she sound post-coital. This simple action shows that Erin is a woman that is not defined by the male sexuality, but secure in her own identity. *Takes off psychoanalytical/psychosexual hat.*

The “strong female lead” we were promised with the Evil Dead remake and didn’t get was hand delivered on a silver platter in the form of Sharni Vinson.  Kudos, Barrett/Wingard. You hit one out of the park for women in horror.

YOU’RE NEXT PASSES THE BECHDEL TEST. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

 


BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.

 

‘Sinister’: Or as I Like to Call It, “Don’t Move Your Family into a Murder House”

‘Sinister’ is a film in which the viewer is expected to root for a man whose personal dreams trump his entire family’s sense of safety in their own home – which is fucked up and frustrating and detracts from a film with some incredibly freaky moments.

Sinister-Ellison-and-Tracy
“What if I don’t tell my wife it’s a murder house? Then it’s cool, right?”

 

Written by Mychael Blinde.

Sinister is a film in which the viewer is expected to root for a man whose personal dreams trump his entire family’s sense of safety in their own home – which is fucked up and frustrating and detracts from a film with some incredibly freaky moments.

 

Sinister-Moving-Day-at-the-Murder-House
Moving day at the murder house!

 

Here’s the story in a nutshell: True crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) hasn’t published a hit in a decade, so he has the genius idea to move with his wife, son, and daughter into a house where the previous occupants were hanged from a tree in the backyard. What better way to reclaim his true crime fame and fortune? And the house was so cheap! Murder houses are the best!

 

Good thing they dressed Ellison like this so we know he’s a serious writer.
Good thing they dressed Ellison like this so we know he’s a serious writer.

 

He finds a projector and a series of seriously intense and utterly horrifying snuff films in the attic and is like, SWEET! STATUS UPGRADE HERE I COME! Increasingly terrifying things begin to happen in the house and to its occupants, but so what if Ellison is subjecting his family to a living nightmare? After he publishes his book they’ll all be living the dream! HIS dream!

SPOILERS:

Perhaps you’ve seen the film in its entirety and are thinking, “But what about the ending?! Ellison is punished for his actions! Therefore the moral of the story is that it is wrong to force your family to move into a murder house and to lie to your wife about it and to stay there even when super ominous shit goes down repeatedly and your family hates it there – the film doesn’t endorse his behavior!”

To which I’ll reply: Sure, the film doesn’t endorse his behavior, but it does ask us to like Ellison Oswalt, to sympathize with his struggles, and to respect his decisions. Sure, he gets punished – along with his ENTIRE FAMILY who are ALL COMPLETELY INNOCENT –  but the film doesn’t ask us to want him to be punished. We’re supposed to root for Ellison.

 

C. Robert Cargill and Scott Derrickson, serious writers IRL.


Sinister
 writer C. Robert Cargill and Sinister director and writer Scott Derrickson were both conscious of the character’s inherently unlikable nature when creating the film, and in interviews they explain that Ethan Hawke was cast specifically because of his charisma and likability:

Cargill:

“How we ended up with Ethan was that Scott and I knew we had written a relatively unlikable protagonist and needed an actor who could win the audience over with pure charisma. Not a lot of actors can do that. Ethan was at the top of a short list.”

Derrickson:

“After I wrote the script, I loved it and I was very excited about it. But then I kind of had a panic attack and I thought ‘this guy is so unlikable, he’s so flawed, is the audience going to turn on this character and just not like this movie because they don’t like Ellison Oswalt?’  I really racked my brain trying to think of an actor who the audience wouldn’t turn on and would find consistently interesting even though he was making bad decisions from the beginning. It really came down to Ethan. I thought Ethan was the right guy for the movie above anybody else.”

The film’s creators strive to justify Ellison’s stupid decisions in several different ways throughout the film. Here are all the reasons we are given as to why Ellison makes the incomprehensible decision to move his unwitting family into a murder house, and why he doesn’t move out immediately when things get weird, in roughly the order we’re given them:

 

– Ellison is all about justice; he is like the Superman of literary dudes.

Here’s Ellison calling the police after finding the snuff films. When they answer his call, he hangs up — he’s decided to go it alone.
Here’s Ellison calling the police after finding the snuff films. When they answer his call, he hangs up — he’s decided to go it alone.

 

When Ellison’s wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), expresses her frustration with the many ways his true crime research negatively impacts their children’s lives, he responds with:

“Bad things happen to good people and they still need to have their story told. They deserve that much.”

This is classic Manpain – Ellison is burdened with the emotional anguish and literary responsibility to make things right for people he’s never met and to whom he has no relation.  Not only must he provide for his family, but he must bring about justice for these strangers, at any and all costs. Nobody’s paid the price like he has paid the price.

 

– Ellison’s dream in life is to be a famous writer.

“Dear Diary: So far life is super great in my new murder house!”
“Dear Diary: So far life is super great in my new murder house!”

 

Later in the film, Tracy – again! – expresses her frustration with the many ways Ellison’s true crime research negatively impact their children’s lives, and he responds with:

Ellison: What else do you want from me?!

Tracy: How about a home where we feel safe, Ellison? How about a life that doesn’t involve our kids drawing and painting the sick details of some horrific tragedy? Or working out their deep-seated anxieties by doing bizarre shit in the middle of the night?…There are plenty of other ways you can provide for this family.

Ellison: Doing what? Teaching? Editing journalism textbooks?

Heaven forbid he support his family by writing college textbooks – that’s no path to fame and fortune. Much better for him to risk irreparably scarring his children’s psyches by raising them in a murder house!

 

– Tracy will leave him and take the children with her if this book “goes sour like the last two.”

Tracy serves dinner to her family.
Tracy serves dinner to her family.

 

Let’s take a moment to talk about Tracy. She is a woefully underwritten character whose only role in the film seems to be getting mad at Ellison for all the stupid things he does, and then forgiving him and supporting him some more, raising the kids and making him coffee – “Your father’s very particular about his coffee,” she tells their daughter Ashley (Clare Foley).

After (FINALLY!) discovering the truth about her new home’s grisly history (almost an hour and a half into a two hour movie!), Tracy calls Ellison out on his narcissistic, myopic bullshit:

Ellison: Don’t you understand that writing is what gives my life meaning? These [books] are my legacy!

Tracy: I have always supported you doing what you love, Ellison. But writing isn’t the meaning of your life. You and me, right here, this marriage, that’s the meaning of your life. And your legacy, that’s Ashley and Trevor. Your kids are your legacy.

It is incredibly satisfying to hear Tracy say all of the things I want to scream at Ellison, but she inevitably returns to her role as the dutiful, supportive wife, and the Oswalt family continues to stay in the house. This is a story about a man and his dreams and his nightmares and his goals and his fuckups, and she’s relegated to the sidelines, has absolutely no agency, no purpose except to support Ellison and take care of the kids. And she is literally the only adult female in the ENTIRE film.

Her threat to leave Ellison feels like the filmmakers feeding us another reason for Ellison to continue his “work,” despite his family’s growing sense of fear – another burden on his man-pained shoulders.

 

– He’s doesn’t believe in “any…um, you know…stuff.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure I can fight it with a bat. I don’t believe in any of that…um, you know…stuff that you can’t fight with a bat.”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure I can fight it with a bat. I don’t believe in any of that…um, you know…stuff that you can’t fight with a bat.”

 

After Ellison is ripped through the floor of his attic – the power went out in the middle of the night and he heard weird thumping noises up there, so naturally he clamored on up to go spelunking – he meets the town’s Deputy.

 

Actual quote from the film: “I wouldn’t sleep one night in this place. Are you nuts? Four people were hung by their necks in the tree in your backyard.”
Actual quote from the film: “I wouldn’t sleep one night in this place. Are you nuts? Four people were hung by their necks in the tree in your backyard.”

 

The deputy is never named; there’s a running joke that his name is (or might as well be) “Deputy So and So.” He plays the Fool to Ellison’s King Lear (another guy who makes a monumentally stupid decision in the beginning of his story that causes everyone in his family to die). Deputy So and So provides comic relief (and I found him to be pretty darn hilarious), but he also serves to shed light on Ellison’s position in this supernatural situation and to speak truth to Ellison’s power.

When Ellison finally freaks out enough about the house’s eerie happenings to seek guidance, he reaches out to the Deputy:

Ellison: Now, I don’t believe in any…um, you know…stuff.

Deputy: Stuff, you mean, the supernatural, the metaphysical, the paranormal, that type of stuff?

Ellison: Right.

Deputy: Right. Of course you don’t. You never would have moved into a crime scene if you did. But here we are, having this conversation.

Ellison is a guy who sincerely does not believe that there exist such things as ghosts, or demons, or evil pagan deities – and if he really didn’t believe in any of that stuff, then the attack of the evil house monster is totally not his fault, right?

Except it’s still a murder house! Even if there were no malevolent presence, his kids would still be taunted and traumatized in school, he still would have to lie to his wife – it would still be a violation of his family’s sense of security.

Nevertheless, his disbelief is trotted out as yet another reason why a viewer should be accepting of his decisions to move to the murder house, stay in the murder house, and watch all the murder footage making faces like this:

 

It’s not Ethan Hawke’s fault that Ellison is so stupid; the fault lies the premise of the film.
It’s not Ethan Hawke’s fault that Ellison is so stupid; the fault lies the premise of the film.

 

So what’s truly driving Ellison? His sense of justice? His literary aspirations? His love for his wife? His manly skepticism about all things supernatural?

He’s doin’ it for the fame!

Here are two quotes from two separate interviews with the director, Derrickson:

[H]e stays in the house because he has an even deeper fear of losing his status. It’s really a film about a guy who is trying to recover his lost fame and glory. And his fear of not recovering that riches and fame is the driving fear in the movie.”

He’s staying because as much as he’s afraid of what’s on those films, as much as he’s afraid of the weird things that are starting to happen, he’s much more afraid of not regaining his status as a great true crime writer.’

There you have it, folks. The filmmakers want us to like a guy who’s more afraid of losing his status than losing his entire family’s sense of safety in their own home.

 

RESEARCH
RESEARCH

 

Ellison accomplishes very little during his time “researching.” He watches snuff films, writes obvious questions on sticky notes, drinks, watches snuff films, drinks, watches old interviews from when he was briefly famous, drinks, and then watches snuff films again.

Ellison doesn’t solve the mystery; Deputy So and So figures it out. And when we finally reach that pivotal moment, when the family’s inescapable doom is revealed, the crucial information that the Deputy has uncovered seems like it should have been discovered way earlier in the investigation.

In a Sinister review titled Mr. Boogie, meet scarier Mr. Google, film critic Peter Howell writes:

“It’s a given that people do dumb things in horror movies, such as failing to switch on the lights when they enter a dark room. Ellison does all these things and more. A certain indulgence is required, but Sinister writer/director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cargill expect too much.

“Dumb becomes lazy way too often…Why doesn’t Ellison flip when he discovers a scorpion and a poisonous snake in his attic? Why does he need glasses, but takes them off to peer into the darkness?

“Most important of all, why doesn’t Ellison just use Google to research the links between the killings at his house and similar ones across the U.S.?”

Being forced to watch Sinister’s selfish, ineffective, narcissistic protagonist run around being an idiot for two hours ruins the few aspects of this film I do find to be well executed (pun intended): the found footage and the night terror sequences.

The found footage films are shot on actual 8 mm, and both the music and the visuals are utterly horrifying. I won’t post any pictures of them here — the images are that disturbing. The night terror scene –  in which the son, Trevor (Michael Hall D’Addario), unfurls out of a cardboard box screaming – is another astoundingly terrifying moment:

 

Don’t worry — it’s just a night terror…
Don’t worry — it’s just a night terror…

 

Also, I am fascinated by films that implicate the viewer in a character’s crime: Ellison isn’t supposed to watch the found footage, so by extension neither is the viewer, and yet here I am watching him and watching it, complicit in his sin. How does our willful consumption of this hideously gruesome material impact our lives?

But these great moments are invariably spoiled by Ellison’s obnoxious Manpain.

 

And now presenting the graphic violence in the context of its impact on Ellison!
And now presenting the graphic violence in the context of its impact on Ellison!

 

We see the most gruesome of the snuff films’ content reflected in his glasses, or blurred behind him while he turns to booze to ease his pain. We see the images projected onto his body:

 

Ellison’s body becomes the locus of the murder footage.
Ellison’s body becomes the locus of the murder footage.

 

The message becomes

HEY MEN: Everything is about you! Even other people’s murders are about you! GO AND LIVE YOUR DREAM! Lie to your wife if you need to! Traumatize your children! Only you can instill justice in this screwed up world! Only you can make things right! Only your status matters! YOU ARE THE DECIDER!

 

“I am the decider!”
“I am the decider!”

 

The family doesn’t leave the house until Ellison is directly confronted by the supernatural being in a face-to-face, unequivocally malevolent encounter. When Ellison tells Tracy that they have to pack up and leave immediately, she hesitates for the briefest moment, and he has the audacity to scream at her: “GO!!!” Nevermind that she never wanted to move into this house in the first place – or that even before she knew it was a murder house she wanted to leave! — now that HE feels frightened, it’s time to get out immediately.

The unfortunate consequence of prioritizing the likability of this mind-numbingly stupid male protagonist: the one woman in the entire film is relegated to the sidelines, serving no purpose but to yell and be yelled at, to make coffee and get murdered.

________________________________________________________________________________

Mychael Blinde writes about representations of gender in popular culture at Vagina Dentwata

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

recommended-red-714x300-1

One Feminist Critic’s Battle With Gaming’s Darker Side at NPR

The tyranny of maternity on TV by Mary McNamara at Los Angeles Times

Lena Dunham Adapting YA Novel ‘Catherine, Called Birdy’ Into Movie by Julia Zdrojewski at BUST

Wonder Woman’s Kinky Feminist Roots by Katha Pollitt at The Atlantic

Elizabeth Peña paved the way for Latinas in Hollywood at PRI’s The World

Frances McDormand is much more than the role in Fargo that made her famous at PRI

How Gail Simone changed the way we think about female superheroes by Alex Abad-Santos at VOX

How One Casting Director Made Television More Diverse by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong at Fast Company

Director Justin Simien on Dear White People and Black Stories in Hollywood by Jesse David Fox at Vulture

“Pride” is a Joyful Film About the Need for Unlikely Allies by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake’ to Return for Season 2 by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

5 Things to Know About Jane the Virgin by Nolan Feeney at TIME

London Film Festival Review: ‘Honeytrap’ – Engaging Story of a Young Woman Who Lets Yearning for Acceptance Spiral Out of Control by Wendy Okoi-Obuli at Shadow and Act

Working with Laverne Cox, Standing in Solidarity with Trans Women of Color by Mitch Kellaway at The Advocate

Everything We Know About ‘XX,’ The All-Female Horror Anthology You’ve Been Waiting For by Kate Erbland at Film School Rejects

 

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

 

 

 

The “Blurred Lines” of Body Horror and Rape Culture

The idea of “coulda, shoulda, woulda, didn’t” in regard to the source of most body horror films is very reminiscent of the way we as a society deal with victims/survivors of rape. Why is it that people immediately feel bad for MacReady and the boys when they’re attacked by The Thing without ever telling them they were “asking for it” by playing with a stray animal, but at the same time we’re still seeing news reporters and politicians try and discredit rape victims and assume it was the victim’s fault? Body horror is very closely related to rape culture because it puts a mask on the violence of rape by putting it in the context of an “other worldly invasion” and makes it permissible to revel in the other person’s destruction.

Still from John Carpenter's The Thing
Still from John Carpenter’s The Thing

 

This guest post by BJ Colangelo previously appeared at her blog Day of the Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

Body horror is undoubtedly one of the most complex horror movie subgenres. Rooted in the innate fear of meeting our demise, body horror films have played a prominent role in the expansion of practical effects and social commentary within the horror genre. Body horror can also be called “biological horror,” “organic horror,” or “venereal horror,” classified as a work of horror fiction where the horror is predominately extracted from the graphic destruction or degeneration of the body.  The subgenre includes disease, decay, parasitism, mutilation, mutation, anatomically incorrect limb placement, unnatural movements, and fantastical expansion. The fear of the unknown is one thing, but when that fear lives inside of you, there’s no escaping or hiding from one’s own mortality.

Poster for 1958's The Fly
Poster for 1958’s The Fly

 

1958’s The Fly is arguably the film that pushed body horror into the threshold of the horror pantheon, and the films have only gotten more unsettling and graphic with its successors. Advertising with a slogan of “100 pounds to the first person who can prove it can’t happen!” The Fly took away the fear of “other” and instead rooted horror in the realm of possibility. What separates body horror from the other subgenres is perhaps theirrefutable future of destruction. Afraid of sharks in the sea? Don’t swim. Afraid of Jason Voorhees? Don’t have anything to do with Crystal Lake. Afraid of ghosts in the house? Call a priest or move. Afraid of the monster growing within you? Pray that medical science can assist you, or enjoy feeling yourself crumble to pieces. In body horror, there are no “rules” for survival. Body horror forces us into the world of the unknown, and there would appear to be no way out. In fact, most people will look to other unknowns to help with their own unknown.  Religion, theoretical science, voodoo, ancient texts, astrology, and many others have all been cited as resources for those struggling with some sort of internal ailment.

Rick Baker's phenomenal make-up work for The Incredible Melting Man
Rick Baker’s phenomenal make-up work for The Incredible Melting Man

 

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of body horror is that the line between victim and hero is very much often blurred. Those suffering are literally the ones to blame for their predicament. Sure, Dr. Brundle in The Fly should have double checked his Telepods before experimenting upon himself and perhaps the kids from Cabin Fever should have been a little more careful about how they dealt with the infected drifter, but do they deserve the horror inflicted upon their bodies for not being overly cautious? The idea of “coulda, shoulda, woulda, didn’t” in regard to the source of most body horror films is very reminiscent of the way we as a society deal with victims/survivors of rape. Why is it that people immediately feel bad for MacReady and the boys when they’re attacked by The Thing without ever telling them they were “asking for it” by playing with a stray animal, but at the same time we’re still seeing news reporters and politicians try and discredit rape victims and assume it was the victim’s fault? Body horror is very closely related to rape culture because it puts a mask on the violence of rape by putting it in the context of an “other worldly invasion” and makes it permissible to revel in the other person’s destruction. If we see a person raped in a film, we immediately feel a sense of sympathy, but when we see someone invaded by an alien pod or even a tree, we are filled with extreme delight. The over-exaggerated and graphic nature of body horror presents a safe distance for the audience to feel a great sense of schadenfreude.

Ripley 7 in Alien: Resurrection looking a lot like Brother Fred in Monster Man
Ripley 7 in Alien: Resurrection looking a lot like Brother Fred in Monster Man

 

Body horror is a parallel to rape toys with those “infected” with the taboo subject of sometimes enjoying their transformation and again being demonized for it. Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby was actually as excited as she was naive, Ripley enjoyed using her conjoined alien DNA to her advantage in the Alien franchise, and Ginger Fitzgerald in Ginger Snaps greatly enjoyed “snapping” into a werewolf.  When this happens, our sense of compassion is toyed with and often muddled within the story. How could anyone possibly be okay after enduring something like this? How could they get better? Wouldn’t it be more comfortable for everyone if they just died? — and that’s what’s really screwed up.  We champion survivors, but they always seem to have that smell of tainted goods from then on. In the end the “thing” that took over the body is what becomes the defining characteristic of the victim almost to the point of overshadowing the victim. What do you remember about Dawn in Teeth other than the fact she has vagina dentata? Do you care about the demised futures of the people sewn up in The Human Centipede, or are you forever remembering them as the people forced to go ass-to-mouth for eternity? We remember all of the infected folks in Night of the Creeps, but what about their dates? Do you know any of their names? No, because they’re not important. The victim is what is important. Throw that parallel on every rape revenge movie and the picture becomes a little clearer. This isn’t trying to say rape victims “liked” it or anything like that but rather that there are plenty of rape victims who don’t allow the situation to completely destroy and ruin them. Like Ginger embracing her werewolf transformation and making it her own, there are plenty of survivors of rape who live their lives like something other than a character on Law & Order: SVU.

I'm surprised this shot from Slither doesn't have a BRAZZERS logo on it
I’m surprised this shot from Slither doesn’t have a BRAZZERS logo on it

 

Body horror also offers the most thinly veiled solution to the “invader(s)” — kill them. We kill The BrundleFly, we torch The Thing, we squash the Slither slugs, and we kill the “host” of The Brood.  This, by proxy, is what also justifies all rape revenge movies. Based cinematically, rape should be a capital crime. The other undiscussed side to body horror is once something is “birthed,” the person that served as the “host” is crazy or unstable if they want to keep it alive and in their care. Madeline is seen as insane for wanting to continue to feed human blood to her baby in Grace when logical people would assume she should just destroy her. Even after knowing the truth about the child, Rosemary smiles and rocks her baby. These actions are seen as shocking and terrifying, but if a rape victim with the ability to become with child wants to rid themself* of their rape-caused pregnancy…they’re monsters.  (*Day of the Woman accepts that not all people with the ability to have children are women or identify as women and are continuing to become more open and educated with identification pronouns.) What degree of ownership and responsibility is attached to Body Horror? Audiences often spend the film screaming KILL IT! KILL IT! and find people like Blair in The Thing crazy for wanting to keep the parasite alive. We as humans like to think of ourselves as the most valuable creatures in the universe, but to The Thing, we’re nothing more than a host.  In the same regard, human children see “Mother” as nothing more than a host and a means of survival. That’s why most babies cling to their mother more than their fathers. It’s not a matter of preference, it’s a survival tactic. If someone implanted you with a demon baby, you’d be screaming for it to go, but if someone implants you with a rape-caused baby, you’re a demon if you don’t want to raise it. With few exceptions, there aren’t many body horror movies where society has tried to coexist with the issue.

My junior year prom date, or Three Fingers in Wrong Turn 2
My junior year prom date, or Three Fingers in Wrong Turn 2

 

So what about victims/survivors of body horror that continue to walk amongst us?  The most general way to examine these individuals is to look at mutants. Mutant horror films are just whitewashed body horror. These individuals cannot control the way that they are but because they live unconventionally and are seen as “damaged,” they are treated as lesser thans. Not exactly horror, but think about the X-Men. We’ve got people that can’t help what has happened to them and are fighting for the right to coexist with the general public. Play that card on rape victims, and their endless fight for better laws and after treatment, and it becomes clearer that we treat rape victims less like humans and more like mutants. These are people to feel sorry for and to try and “fix.” These are people who are inspiring simply for existing, or terrifying for being proud of it.

A still of Bob Costas at the Sochi Olympics...I mean Najarra Townsend in Contracted
A still of Bob Costas at the Sochi Olympics…I mean Najarra Townsend in Contracted

 

(IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM DO NOT READ AHEAD) What happens when we have a film that deals with both body horror and rape culture?  Eric England’s Contracted shows a film about quite possibly the most terrifying disease a person can contract from sexual contact. We only assume at the end of the film she became a zombie, but what if it was something more? What if that wasn’t even her final form? At the moment of her transformation, she’s finally taking control of her life in all aspects–from her mom, her lover, her friend, but because she’s now a deteriorating mess, we’re meant to see that change as a bad thing. Much like rooting for the last man on earth in I Am Legend even though he’s the parasite to the new world, who are we to say that Samantha in Contracted isn’t now exactly who she’s meant to be? Sounds a bit like that Justin Bieber, “everything happens for a reason” quote in regards to rape, doesn’t it?

The Act of Killing was Oscar snubbed, but I promise there are reasons to live, Bio-Cop!
The Act of Killing was Oscar snubbed, but I promise there are reasons to live, Bio-Cop!

 

Rape culture is a complex thing to understand, and it will always be interpreted differently by other people. However, I firmly believe that whether infected by an other worldly creature, contracting a disease, becoming the product of an accident, or simply being born with it, body horror is an exaggerated reflection of rape culture in Western civilizations. While we may not have to worry about being implanted with pod people, we do have to worry about becoming a victim of rape. The only difference is that unlike a Pod Person or an Alien chestburster, we can’t teach these creatures to “not chestburst”; but we do have the ability to teach people not to rape.

 


BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.

‘Life After Beth’ and the Trouble With Absent Presence

Though Plaza gives a committed physical performance, clearly having a ball in monster make-up, it’s really all she’s given to do. She isn’t even given much room to be funny in the supposed comedy. It’s as if Plaza has been cast in a feature length sketch-show, playing all manner of stereotypical “girlfriends from hell.” I imagine it on ‘Saturday Night Live’: first a short musical theme, “The Girlfriend from Hell,” then Plaza making a snarky comment to her boyfriend and vomiting pea soup all over him.

Poster for Life After Beth
Poster for Life After Beth

 

Horror-comedy Life After Beth is the kind of movie that’s very easy to explain.

Girl dumps Boy, Girl dies and comes back as a zombie with no memory of the break-up, Boy continues to date her even though he’s a little afraid of her.

But there’s not a lot else. Even the titular character is scarcely more than a name. After sitting through the slim 89 minutes of I Heart Huckabees writer Jeff Baena’s directorial debut, I’m still left wondering who Beth is. And what did she care about besides her boyfriend and sex?

Aubrey Plaza plays the dear departed Beth Slocum, cut down by a snake bite during a solo hike, leaving behind her stalker ex-boyfriend, Zach (Dane DeHaan). Zach hasn’t taken her death very well. He dresses in black and ignores his parents and brother, preferring to spend time with Beth’s grieving parents (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) who treat him like a son. When the Slocums stop contacting him, he stalks and spies on them to find out why. Quickly, he discovers they have been hiding Beth, who has mysteriously returned from the grave, unaware of her own death.

A scheme is hatched. Beth’s parents will continue to cherish “the miracle” of her resurrection and Zach will get his girlfriend back and have a second chance to get it right and take her dancing and on hikes like she always wanted. Keeping Beth a secret is crucial, they will continue to hid her return and keep her in the dark about what had happened to her. But her sudden fits of rage, rotting body, and crazy strength make things difficult.

From Beth’s perspective this would make an intriguing premise; she is confused, strange things are happening to her body, things she can’t control, and that’s the stuff horror movies are made of. Yet, despite her lone presence in the title, the poster, and Plaza’s top billing, the film is never about Beth. The story belongs to Zach.

 

 Beth’s all-consuming lust for Zach is painted as monstrous
Beth’s all-consuming lust for Zach is painted as monstrous

 

Though Plaza gives a committed physical performance, clearly having a ball in monster make-up, it’s really all she’s given to do. She isn’t even given much room to be funny in the supposed comedy. It’s as if Plaza has been cast in a feature length sketch-show, playing all manner of stereotypical “girlfriends from hell.” For a good while she’s the horny girlfriend who needs to be reminded not to rip her boyfriend’s clothes off at any opportunity, then she plays the jealous girlfriend who’s convinced any women her boyfriend talks to is sleeping with him, after that she’s briefly Linda Blair in The Exorcist, before finally ending the film as a rabid dog biting at anything that gets too close. I imagine it on Saturday Night Live: first a short musical theme, “The Girlfriend from Hell,” then Plaza making a snarky comment to her boyfriend and vomiting pea soup all over him.

But who was she when she was alive? What does Zach love so much about Beth that he couldn’t get over her, it had to have been more than just her potential to act as a sex robot. What kind of memories do her parents cherish about her?
None of these questions is answered.

To make a film that centers around a death, that death has to mean something to the audience. There are many ways to do this, from the inherently sad (child deaths) to the anguished (and unbefitting of a comedy) mental breakdown of the surviving characters. The main problem with Life After Beth is that the titular character never once felt like a real person, a once living girl who happened to be named Beth. Instead, she felt like a construct invented by writer and quickly named for a catchy title. All she is is a girl named Beth, no more fleshed out in the finished film than she would be in a rough plot line, this guy’s girlfriend and this couple’s daughter. She matters to people but she never achieves personhood herself and so is difficult to care about.

 

Beth and Zach finally go on the hike they always wanted
Beth and Zach finally go on the hike they always wanted

 

While the film opens with a brief glimpse of a scared (still living) Beth lost in the woods and looking for cell service, this is all we see of her. As we are never allowed to know Beth; her presence as a zombie is robbed of any sense of irony or tragedy, which would make it entertaining to watch. The short grief narrative the film opens with only serves to remind us that these stories are about absence. Even when Beth returns, she is absent, a dead girl given a flesh and blood presence, yet never a voice. Throughout the film, Beth is fetishized as a dead girl, and in one scene, Zach masturbates with a scarf she had left behind.

 

Zach keeps Beth’s scarf and uses it to masterbate
Zach keeps Beth’s scarf and uses it to masturbate

 

Beth’s constant desire for Zach is meant as a source of humour, notably as she pops out of the roof to ask him to go for a hike. Though he was originally the one obsessively in love with her, even stalking her family, she is seen as the pathetic one. Her lust is uncontrollable and as it morphs into murderous and cannibalistic impulses, and the high female libido is painted as monstrous. Moreover, the destruction of the attractive female body is intended as a source of dark comedy and Beth is de-personified to the point where, when she finally dies again, it’s with Zach shooting her in the head to put her down, again like a rabid dog.

In this light, there is something disturbing about seeing her tied up and chained to washing machine for the last act. In order to handle her, Beth must be trapped and contained, with her boyfriend, a person she had tried to break up with, in complete control and possession of her.  The situation continues to be horrific for Beth, but but her character’s zombification means she is no longer a person with a perspective of her own. When Zach finally apologizes for how he treated her as a living person, she’s no longer there and the apology is more for him than her.

 

 As she becomes less human, Beth is kept captive and watched over by Zach
As she becomes less human, Beth is kept captive and watched over by Zach

 

Parts of the Life After Beth reminded me of 2012’s Ruby Sparks, another film about a girlfriend who exists only as a male fantasy and to tell us something about him. However, Ruby Sparks, whether successful or not, played with this idea to expose something troubling about the stories we tell in our culture. Life After Beth makes no such commentary. Sure Zach needs to come to terms with his girlfriend’s death but Beth’s return didn’t do much to change this central fact. Throughout the film he vacillates between refusing to give her up and feeling burdened by her presence. Narratively, the film would have worked better if Beth’s resurrection occurred because Zach made a selfish wish, as would have given both him and Beth room to grow.

Toward the end, the film changes gears completely, as people everywhere begin returning from the dead. This larger zombie apocalypse creates a rift in the narrative, and expects us to shift gears, stop caring about Beth and Zach, and start caring about the fates of Zach’s family and their fight to survive.

 

Plaza pays an unusual physical role and is allowed to be unattractive
Plaza pays an unusual physical role and is allowed to be unattractive

 

As much as I disliked this movie, I can’t imagine how insufferable it would be without Aubrey Plaza as Beth. She’s obviously enjoying herself, playing a role so different from anything she’s done before, and it’s enjoyable to watch that. There’s definitely some fun in the role of Beth, which allows Plaza to be monstrous and unattractive.

Life After Beth tries to be a romantic comedy and a zombie movie, yet forgets how to deliver either laughs or scares. There are a few bright spots: Mrs. Slocum feeding her hands to her monster-daughter and Beth tumbling down a hill with a stove strapped to her back, but they are few and far between. The running gag, of zombies liking smooth jazz, is one of those touches that seems hilarious on paper but cloying when translated to the screen.

It’s always great to see fresh twists on old stories, but we can’t forget what made the old stories great in the first place. With no build-up of the relationship and no reason for the resurrection, there’s nothing left to care about.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Kiy is a Canadian writer and journalist living in Toronto, Ontario.

Women with Disabilities: The Undiscussed Horror Staple of Female Characters

The slut, the virgin, the bitch, the girl next door, the mother, the creepy old lady, the evil little girl, and the final/survivor girl. Female archetypes and stock characters within the horror genre are rampant and well known. From a movie poster alone, we can often times figure out exactly what a woman’s place and purpose is in a horror film. However, there’s another “type” of woman that we frequently see in horror films that no one seems to want to talk about.

"God closed my eyes so I could see only the real Gwynplaine"

This guest post by BJ Colangelo previously appeared at her blog Day of the Woman and is cross-posted with permission.

The slut, the virgin, the bitch, the girl next door, the mother, the creepy old lady, the evil little girl, and the final/survivor girl.  Female archetypes and stock characters within the horror genre are rampant and well known.  From a movie poster alone, we can often times figure out exactly what a woman’s place and purpose is in a horror film.  However, there’s another “type” of woman that we frequently see in horror films that no one seems to want to talk about.

Physically, sensory, or mentally disabled women have been popping up in horror films from the very beginning. The Man Who Laughs is often regarded as the first horror film, and the female lead was a beautiful, blind woman.  From the very beginning of the horror genre, the damsel in distress character was the quickest way to write a story.  “Girl needs saving from someone or something, man saves girl from someone or something, girl is indebted to man and thanks him by kisses or marriage, the end.”  Whether it was because male writers needed to make their female characters SUPER vulnerable or whether they needed an excuse to make a woman “weaker,” adding a physical/mental/sensory disability to a woman became a quick way to differentiate female characters from the usual damsel in distress.  The beginnings showcased disabilities as a major reason for the demise of female characters.  1959’s The Tingler had a creature that could only be killed by screaming.  The death in the film that acts as the catalyst for the entire movie was centered around a woman who was a deaf/mute, and therefore, could not “scream for her life.”  We can’t have a woman be brave enough not to scream when frightened, so we must make her mute.

Fiona Dourif as "Nica" in Curse of Chucky

Physical disabilities appear in many films as a way to hinder otherwise “strong” female leads.  The 1979 midnight movie The Visitor showcases a woman forced into a wheelchair by her evil daughter in order to prevent her ability to escape her child, and to make her a weaker target for her boyfriend to impregnate her.  More recently, we’ve been exposed to a protagonist who uses a wheelchair in Curse of Chucky, who also plays the only character with any sort of intellect and moral compass.  Putting a character in a wheelchair completely raises the stakes.  Stairs are out of the question, speed is a major concern, the ability to hide is greatly reduced, and the fact someone could easily come behind and control the movement and direction of a character is horrifying.  However, throwing a wheelchair on a character immediately develops a sympathetic relationship between the character and the audience.  We immediately understand the difficulties that can be present for being in a wheelchair, and before anything happens, we immediately feel for her.  This concept presents itself regardless of the age of the woman in the wheelchair.  Would You Rather contains an elderly woman in a wheelchair and from the very beginning of the film; she is immediately the character the victims of the game of “Would You Rather?” want to protect.

Jennifer Lynch's Boxing Helena

 

This then brings us to the characterizations of amputees.  In horror films, amputated women seem to fall into two categories.  We have women who have been amputated as some sort of a punishment, and women who have turned their amputations into something of empowerment.  In Jennifer Lynch’s controversial directorial debut, Boxing Helena, we see a woman who is amputated solely so she cannot run away.  In Saw VI, Tanedra Howard’s character must amputate her own arm to survive one of Jigsaw’s traps, and is later shown in Saw 3D as a painfully angry victim who, although survived death, has been forever punished as a one-armed woman, only gaining a positivity in the form of better parking at the mall.  To counteract these women punished with amputation, we have characters like Cherry Darling in Planet Terror who have taken a very Ash J. Williams approach to amputation by replacing the missing limb with a weapon.  Her machine gun leg has made her character an iconic figure and one of the most recognizable women with a disability in horror.

The mute protagonist of Ms. 45

 

Sensory disabilities (blindness, deafness, muteness) are often used as a catalyst to further along story lines. Ms. 45, The Eye, The Beyond, Julia’s Eyes, and even Orphan included either sensory disabled protagonists or supporting characters. The loss of sight, sound, or speech is something that many people fear to begin with, so much like having a character with a physical disability, presenting a major character unable to see, hear, or speak immediately raises their stakes.  Female characters are often blind or deaf, giving the freedom for story tellers to write circumstances they would normally be unable to construct.  Why can’t Ms. 45 call the cops and find justice for her attack?  She cannot speak.  Why can’t little Max tell when her adopted sister Esther is plotting her demise?  She cannot hear.  Characters in horror films vitally depend on their senses for survival.  Taking one of their senses away change the way the protagonist must play the game to be alive at the end of the film.

Fairuza Balk after going "crazy" in The Craft

 

However, the most problematic portrayal of women in horror lies in the representation of mental illness and mental disabilities.  Unfortunately, society already has a stigma in place for mental illnesses, and artforms reflect this poor mentality.  In 2012, Bitch Flicks ran an AMAZING piece by Megan Kearns titled “That ‘Crazy Bitch’: Women and Mental Illness Tropes in Horror” that encompasses everything that I could possibly write about this topic.  My favorite quote from the piece states:

“And the Crazy Bitch trope helps perpetuate mental illness stereotypes. It has many sister tropes infesting horror too. Like the Hysterical Woman, where female characters are depicted as overly emotional and irrational, The Madwoman in the Attic, a trope where a character with mental illness is locked away, isolated from society, and the Nervous Housewife, where men doubt women’s paranormal experiences and patronize them. Jen Doll at The Atlantic Wire gives us “10 tropes about women that women should stop laughing about,” including “the crazy.” As Doll astutely observes, calling someone “crazy” is a way to put people (often women) down and for the accuser to feel better about themselves, all while being insulting to those who who struggle with mental illness.”

Ultimately, it appears that the growing awareness of ableist behavior is changing the way we treat people with disabilities in cinema, especially with female characters in horror films.  Female tropes and archetypes will always exist, but gaining a stronger educational grasp on why characters are written the way they are is the most sure-fire way to learn how to provide better portrayals and influence less offensive media.  I must thank comic artist and Day of the Woman reader Shannon LeClerc for suggesting that I tackle this topic.  Of course I in no way scratched the surface of disabled women in horror films (is there a book on this subject?), but the best way to make a change and gain a better understanding is to open a dialogue and actually discuss the situation.  Women with disabilities are a prominent character type, and we will only gain a solid understanding if we talk about it.

 


BJ Colangelo is the woman behind the keyboard for Day of the Woman: A blog for the feminine side of fear and a contributing writer for Icons of Fright. She’s been published in books, magazines, numerous online publications, all while frantically applying for day jobs. She’s a recovering former child beauty queen and a die-hard horror fanatic. You can follow her on Twitter at @BJColangelo.

The Allure of the Female Ghost in ‘Ringu’

Horror. It’s a genre that ignites different reactions: excitement, disgust, fear or indifference. Who would have thought that an inanimate object – and the female ghost that comes with it (free of charge) – could be so frightening? The enigma of the monstrous female can be found throughout history in literature, movies, and contemporary pop-culture. An array of female monsters are waddling around in our hazy pop-culture memories. Think of the witch, vampire, psychopath, and the scorned ghost. The term “ghost girl” has now even levitated itself to our cultural lexicon.

Reiko and Ryuji mean business
Reiko and Ryuji mean business

 

This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.

Horror. It’s a genre that ignites different reactions: excitement, disgust, fear or indifference. Who would have thought that an inanimate object – and the female ghost that comes with it (free of charge) – could be so frightening? The enigma of the monstrous female can be found throughout history in literature, movies, and contemporary pop-culture. An array of female monsters are waddling around in our hazy pop-culture memories. Think of the witch, vampire, psychopath, and the scorned ghost. The term “ghost girl” has now even levitated itself to our cultural lexicon.

The Japanese horror genre gained popularity since the fifties, thanks to a group of visionary directors such as Masaki Kobayashi (Kaidan), Nobuo Nakagawa (Ghost Story of Yotsuya) and Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba). These directors usually brought adaptations of traditional Japanese stories, but they were not afraid to experiment with other genres or even psychedelic influences. The crux is that the appeal of the Japanese horror movie lies in the fact that the genre constantly renews itself, while ensuring to remain faithful to its roots.

In 1998, a new creative and commercial momentum took place thanks to Ringu (Ring), an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Koji Suzuki. The story has some elements from the 18th-century Japanese ghost story Bancho Sarayashiki. Director Hideo Nakata managed to visualize a clever but vulnerable heroine, and themes were subtle interwoven by using the power of the media to portray the heroine’s fears. Ringu, an unusually oppressive  movie, became a blockbuster, followed by the inevitable sequels, American remake, a television series, and a series of comic books.

Ringu follows the storyline of the TV journalist Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) who investigates a bizarre rumor: her niece Tomoko and three of her friends apparently died after seeing a videotape. Reiko hears stories that the videotape kills the people after they have watched it, and they all die in the exact the same way. Reiko investigates the story, finds the videotape, and ends up watching it herself. Soon after, Reiko receives a phone call with the news that she has only one week to live. What follows is a race against the clock, in which Reiko tries to figure out the origin of the videotape. Her ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) tries to help her break the curse and find the true story behind the cursed videotape and the connection with a psychic who died 30 years ago and her child Sadako.

Reiko has to make a though choice. To watch or not to watch.
Reiko has to make a though choice. To watch or not to watch.

 

Why are we so enthralled with female monsters? In The Monstrous Feminine, cultural critic Barbara Creed refers to Freud’s controversial theory of castration anxiety – children notice the difference between boys and girls aka penis or vagina, boys are of the opinion that something is taken away from girls, and this makes them worried – in dreams, myths, and in movies this fear translates to the symbolic loss of a phallic symbol. It can be a sword, a motorcycle, or car. When you flip the coin, the vagina is portrayed in a less favorable way. All too often the vagina is depicted as a dangerous – monstrous – hole to be avoided at all costs. This is described as the “vagina dentata,” the symbolic representation of a vagina with teeth, making the Freudian castration anxiety tangible within the story. In popular culture, the vagina dentata can for example be seen as the eye of Sauron in The Lord of The Rings or the desert monster Sarlacc in the Star Wars trilogy.

Creed also connects the creation of female monsters with abjection. She refers to Julia Kristeva who defines abjection as that which crosses borders, positions, rules and identity, system and all that disturbs the peace. In other words, anything beyond the strict limits of the phallic order and that aims to disturb the order. The abject not only crosses borders but draws the existence of limits itself into question, and thus the existence of the phallic order. This abjection is strongly related to the patriarchal vision of femininity. Creed describes horror movies where the monster is portrayed as abject as an “attempt to separate out the symbolic order from all that threatens its stability, particularly the mother and all that her universe signifies.”

For this reason, there are many movies that don’t have a male but a female monster. Abjection includes everything that we consider to be dirty. It’s what we learn as a child that is seen as bad and what we need to suppress. In particular, bodily secretions such as blood, urine, mucus, and pus. The horror genre plays with this fear of the abject and wants to break taboos. In Ringu, Sadako, the female ghost is portrayed as a lurchy and dirty, rotting dead girl with long, dark hair that obscures much of her face, dressed in white, and her fingernails are broken and bloody. Yuck.

The ghost Sadako
The ghost Sadako

 

We find Freud’s idea of castration anxiety also within the psychoanalytic film theory in terms of the male gaze. Laura Mulvey argues that cinema ideally is meant for the male audience: “The determining male gaze projects its phantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. ” The problem lies in the fact that the woman is just a lust object on the screen, but that the male viewer meanwhile still has that (irrational) fear of the woman.

In Japanese horror  movies, they flip the script, and more often than not the focus is only on the eyes. This is also the case in Ringu. For a long time we do not even see the eyes of Sadako, and the tension builds up until the moment when we get to see them. In general, people blink around 15 times per minute. Ghosts don’t blink. They seemingly stare with an endless gaze ahead. But there’s another ambiguity. Sadako’s eyes show no sign of life; they are merely hollow, black orbs. At the same time they seem to register all the movement in her environment, and her looks are purposeful and deadly. It’s almost like the gaze of Medusa. In that sense, Sadako’s Medusa’s gaze is projected from the male gaze. The woman stares back at the man. In Ringu, it’s the woman who actually kills with her ​​looks. Ryuji symbolizes the male voyeur and gets punished. The fear of the man is a reality here.

Reiko watches the video tape
Reiko watches the video tape

 

Throughout the movie, director Nakata leaves room for your own imagination and strengthens the feeling of uneasiness that the story evokes. To be quite honest, on paper, the plot for the story line is at first sight not scary at all. The strength of Ringu lies in its absence and not particularly the gore that is visible on the screen. The hard, screeching and metallic, non-diegetic sounds, ups the creepiness of the movie. The editing, camera angles and lighting, lift the mediocre plot to the next level. The videotape – a seemingly innocent inanimate object (!) – of Sadako stands symbol for the mass media and for the pernicious influence they have on society. After all, only the people who watch the videotape die.

Ringu keeps your attention because – let’s be real here – the female ghost is a fascinating entity. All too often the source of their pain has nothing to do with the supernatural, but it’s a painful residue of their human lives. Sadako wanted vengeance, but her vengeance was randomly destructive. This makes her all the more powerful. You can see this in Kabuki and Noh theater also known as Oiwa, in which the spirit of a woman returns to her husband, who poisoned her. Unlike the average monsters in other horror movies, ghosts can think, feel, and they have a certain consciousness. Sadako holds the power to haunt us in our dreams. Yikes.

Ringu gave our pop-culture some of the most indelible images. The movie came out in 1998, and since then a variety of female ghosts have graced our screens. It would be interesting to see how this genre can renew itself over and over again. Let’s see what the future of horror brings.

[youtube_sc url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JruLV_Wjkp4″]

 


Giselle Defares loves television shows like Äkte Människor and The Fades;  movies like The Fall, The Invader, High Fidelity. See her tumblr here.