This book focuses on how the abject spectacle of the 'monstrous feminine' has been reimagined by recent and contemporary screen horrors focused on the desires and subjectivities of female monsters who, as anti-heroic protagonists of revisionist and reflexive texts, exemplify gendered possibility in altered cultures of 21st century screen production and reception. As Barbara Creed notes in a recent interview, the patriarchal stereotype of horror that she named 'the monstrous-feminine' has, decades later, 'embarked on a life of her own'. Focused on this altered and renewed form of female monstrosity, this study engages with an international array of recent and contemporary screen entertainments, from arthouse and indie horror films by emergent female auteurs, to the franchised products of multimedia conglomerates, to 'quality' television horror, to the social media-based creations of horror fans working as 'pro-sumers'. In this way, the monograph in its organisation and scope maps the converged and rapidly changing environment of 21st century screen cultures in order to situate the monstrous female anti-hero as one of its distinctive products.
Edition
Language
Place of publication
Publishing group
Springer International Publishing
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-3-031-12843-1 (9783031128431)
DOI
10.1007/978-3-031-12844-8
Schweitzer Classification
Amanda Howell
is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia, where she teaches courses in screen history and aesthetics. Her research focuses on gender, genre, screen aesthetics and cultures in a sociohistorical frame, with a recurrent focus on horror as well as other 'body genres' such as action and the musical. Her publications on the Gothic and horror have appeared in journals such as
Continuum, Gothic Studies
and
Genre
and she is the author of
A Different Tune: Popular Film Music and Masculinity in Action
(2015).
Lucy Baker
teaches in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia, across fields of sociology, cultural and media studies. Her research focuses primarily on adaptations, gender and fans. Her work has been published in journals including
Continuum, Journal of Girlhood Studies
and
The Journal of Fandom Studies
. Her monograph
Media and Gender Adaptation: Regendering, Critical Creation & the Fans
(forthcoming, 2023) analyses adaptations and fanfic that change the gender of an original character and looks at how fans respond to those works.
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Monstrous-Feminine Protagonist in Twenty-First-Century Screen Cultures.- Part I: Othered Mothers.- Chapter 2: Her Monster, Her Self: Amelia Sorts a Few Things Out in
The Babadook.-
Chapter 3: Hungry, Unruly and Bold: A Sitcom Mom's Zombie Makeover in
Santa Clarita Diet.-
Part II: Reimagining the Girl.- Chapter 4: 'I am That Very Witch': Claiming Monstrosity, Claiming Desire in
The Witch.-
Chapter 5: 'Not Yours Any More': The Monstrous-Feminine
Bildungsroman of The Girl with All the Gifts.-
Chapter 6: Resistant Girl Monstrosity and Empowerment for Tweens:
Monster High and Wolfblood.-
Part III: From Fragments of the Old.- Chapter 7: A Badass in Bad City: The Interstitial Artist and Monstrous Self-fashioning in
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.-
Chapter 8: Rage Is a Monster: Lily Frankenstein Takes Back the Night in
Penny Dreadful.-
Part IV: Cult Fandoms and Fan Productions.- Chapter 9: 'We are the Weirdos, Mister': Monstrous Performativity, Resistant Femininity and Cult Fandoms of
The Craft, Ginger Snaps and Jennifer's Body.-
Chapter 10: From Monstrous Girlhood to Empowered Adulthood: Melissa Hunter's
Adult Wednesday Addams
Web Series.
