Barbara Creed The Monstrous Feminine Pdf Creator
In almost all critical writings on the horror film, woman is conceptualised only as victim. In The Monstrous-Feminine Barbara Creed challenges this patriarchal view by arguing that the prototype of all definitions of the monstrous is the female reproductive body.With close reference to a number of classic horror films including the Alien trilogy, The Exorcist and Psycho, Creed analyses the seven `faces' of the monstrous-feminine: archaic mother, monstrous womb, vampire, witch, possessed body, monstrous mother and castrator. Her argument that man fears woman as castrator, rather than as castrated, questions not only Freudian theories of sexual difference but existing theories of spectatorship and fetishism, providing a provocative re-reading of classical and contemporary film and theoretical texts.
Contents.Early life Barbara Creed is one of Australia's most well-known commentators on film and media, she is a graduate of Monash and La Trobe University, completing her doctrinal thesis and research on the cinema of horror. Whereby she used feminism and feminist theory and psychoanalysis in order to ascertain specific exercises within horror films. Creed is currently within the School of Culture and Communication at the where she is a Professor within.Overall, Creed's work is of interest to and and how these theories can be applied within horror films.
Her work is derived seriously on the subjects of feminism, psychoanalysis, and post culturalism. Her themes of investigation incorporate, horror cinema, film, depictions of sex in graphic society. However, it is clear that film theory and feminism are two of her greatest interests and influencers. Her work relies on a number of theorists including,. Creed more recently has had a clear focus on human and on screen and animal studies.can be considered as one of Creed's clear feminist influencers, Creed studied in great depth and her notion of the abject.
Creed wrote an essay on and film in 1985 for the British Film Journal. Creed's Monstrous Feminine which was published in 1993 can clearly been seen as influenced on her earlier work on Kristeva.Key Focuses Throughout history women's representation within horror films has consistently represented as weak, submissive and highly sexual. Creed argues that within horror movies, the male gaze is extremely obvious which can be noticed through concepts and visually. Concepts of female sexuality are inherent within horror movies, a common theme is that virtuous women are survivors at the end of a film, and women who exhibit sexual behaviour commonly die early on. This shows the concept that sexually active females are harlots who warrant death and only the pure woman deserves to live.
Women are commonly shown in horror movies as weak and pathetic, however when they are represented as the villain they are innately evil, due to their reproductive system.Kristeva's Abjection Creed further acknowledges the notion utilized by, abjection according to Kristeva is the failure to distinguish what constitutes as self and what is other and is a breakdown of borders between human existence and non-existence. Creed argues that abjection theory is profoundly engrained within themes of and she focuses on how horror emphasizes boundaries of humanity and beyond.
Within horror films this theory of a border and the breaking of rules is extremely important in regards to the formation of the monstrous, the notion suggests that anything that navigates across this ‘border’ is considered abject. Theory therefore can be applied to the monstrous feminine through the mother-child relationship, the mother's womb and milk stimulate horror in regards to the female body and further brings her back to an ‘’. Work As a whole, Creed's works focus on the and the impact of upon the genre. Creed focuses on and 's works in semiotics. Creed's work with psychoanalysis validates its usefulness in the feminist film theory field. The Monstrous-Feminine. The Monstrous Feminine refers to the dominant interpretation of horror films which conceptualises woman as predominantly a victim.
Barbara Creed, through the Monstrous Feminine observes this position of woman as victim within horror films, and challenges this overriding, understanding. Barbara Creed challenges this viewpoint through arguing that when the feminine is fabricated as monstrous, it is commonly done through association with the body and other mothering tasks.
Creed utilizes the expression ‘monstrous feminine’ as it accentuates the significance of gender in relation to the construction of her monstrosity, she also refrains from using the term ‘female monster, as it suggests a mere “role reversal of the ‘male monster”. According to Creed, the monstrous feminine horrifies her audience through her sexuality for example, she is either constructed as pure virgin or whore. Barbara Creed argues that concepts of the monstrous feminine within horror arose from male concerns regarding female sexual difference and castration. Creed argues that there are a variety of different appearances of the monstrous feminine which all reflect female sexuality: archaic mother, monstrous womb, possessed monster, and castrating mother.Monstrous-Feminine and the Types of Monsters Barbara Creed's the Monstrous Feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis looks at the types of monster women play in horror films, particularly examining archaic mothers, and mythological adaption's of characters. Creed analyses women as monstrous through their roles in horror movies as, archaic mothers, possessed monsters and mythical creatures like and her severed head.
In her discussion of the many ‘faces of the monstrous-feminine’, she draws on concept of to describe how patriarchal society separates the human from the non-human, and rejects the ‘partially formed subject’.Creed firstly considers woman as in such films as Dracula and The Hunger (1983), where she talks about the image of the ‘archaic mother’ with the female vampire being ‘mother’ and her lover or victim as ‘child’ in which she promises eternal life to. She also looks at the portrayal of desire and relationships in the horror film, stating that when the two female vampires kiss there is an eruption of blood in the women's mouths representing that lesbian relations are deadly and consequential.The Monstrous Feminine also looks at the monstrous figure of witches, in which Barbara Creed critically examines the history of the ‘witch’ from to the rise of. She identifies that early historical definitions of ‘’ were associated as healers or users of magic, but during the fourteenth century in the ‘’ or ‘’, witchcraft was seen as a sin and a service of the devil. Barbara Creed looks at movies like and and critiques the way in which they represent adolescent young women particularly as ‘possessed’ or ‘demonised’ during the stages of puberty.
She states that the use of blood and gore are used to depict women as demonised or monstrous, and how both these possessed women are on the verge of menstruation and the blood used to symbolise this suggests a fear of.Another key monstrous figure that Barbara Creed discusses frequently in her work, is and her severed head. Is defined as a mythological creature that's stare can turn people to stone, particularly men, and has a head covered in snakes which Creed believes to be a deadly symbol of the. The term was coined by and follows the myth that the female genitals are monster-like with teeth, and as Creed discusses, are feared as they are alleged to actively set out to castrate men. Barbara Creed frequently mentions in her work that horror movies play on this fear of the and even include it visually in films, through enormous toothed or to settings such as dark and narrow hallways, deadly traps and doors, and spaceships like in. Types of Monstrous-Femininity. in. Possessed Monster in.
Monstrous Womb in. Vampire in. Witch in. Femme Castratrice in and. Castrating Mother inThe Monstrous Womb A woman's reproductive system since the beginning of time has been constantly depicted as abhorrent and intimidating. Barbara Creed has a particular emphasis on this idea of the monstrous-womb, throughout history the maternal body has been considered a source of anxiety to the.
Creed argues that a woman's deep connection to natural events such as reproduction and birth is considered ‘quintessentially grotesque’. Creed reflects back to the classical where the is depicted in connotation with evil and the devil. Within horror movies is continually depicted as monstrous, the 1979 movie clearly depicts this theory. These ideals are clearly imbedded within phallocentric philosophy. Creed's ideology of the woman's reproductive system is analyzed within the works of Kristeva.Freud, Psychoanalysis and Women as Castrators. Sigmund FreudThe Monstrous Feminine discusses the psychoanalysis theories of, primarily his ideas of and the female genitalia as monstrous. Creed examines Freud's of sexual difference, and the marking of female sexuality as dangerous, as he believed women had the and that they were castrators of men.
The idea of is derived from Freud's concepts of sexual difference, believing that women are substantially different from men, and that all women desire to be a man or masculine-like, suffering from a ‘. Works on talks about the theory that women once had penises and are in themselves castrated, resulting in the formation of the female genitalia, and due to this ‘penis envy’, seek to castrate men of their penises. He applies this to his understanding of, as exampled by Barbara Creed in the monstrous feminine, where he compares the female genitalia to Medusa as men fear castration from the sight of her. Other Works Media Matrix: Sexing the New Reality Barbara Creed's ‘ Media Matrix: Sexing the New Reality’ explores the impact of media and technology on subjects like the self, identity, and representation in the public sphere. She includes a definition of ‘Matrix’ in the introduction of this book, which is described as a ‘; place in which thing is developed’, which links to her discussion of the monstrous feminine. In the beginning of this piece, she discusses movies like and in relation to the concept of ‘jacking-in’, that is the use of technology to alter reality and experience life in other people’s minds much like virtual reality. Creed argues that the development of technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has allowed people to experiment with reality and time and disassociate one’s self from their own reality, as well as challenge ideas of ‘fixed personal identity’.
Media Matrix also examines the role of media and news in the modern era, and particularly looks at how it is for the majority made up of stories that showcase the horrific, evoke fear and the. This is defined as what she calls ‘crisis TV’, where news reporters focus on disasters to provoke anxiety and immediacy, and bring the abject into reality. Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny In Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny, Barbara Creed reflects on the representation of men in the horror genre, and specifically how they are portrayed differently to women. This piece offers a feminist analysis on sexual difference in the horror industry and the symbolic order in which the male monster challenges innate and is ‘caught between the opposing forces of culture and nature, the civilised and primitive’.
Throughout this piece, she makes connections to the notion of the ‘primal uncanny’, which suggests that men as monsters are often connected to women, death and animals. The ‘primal uncanny’, as Creed looks at, was firstly discussed in work as just the ‘uncanny’ that linked to ideas of psychoanalysis and castration. Yet, only really considered death and the feeling of horror in relation to male monsters and didn’t examine the role of women, nature and animals. Phallic Panic draws on many examples of male monsters from the classic film adaption of and the male, to vampires and mad scientists, as well as the relationship between ‘beast’ and man.
Darwin's Screens In Darwin's Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time and Sexual Display in the Cinema, Creed examines the uncanny again through 's works with and origins. Creed uses films that were influenced by Darwin in the nineteenth century to analyze film techniques related to Darwin's works.
Awards and Committees Most Recently, at the University of Melbourne in 2013, Barbara Creed establishedIn 2006 Creed was chosen to be a member of The Australian Academy of the Humanities. Creed is on a variety of worldwide editorial panels.Publications Barbara Creed has published a variety of material within her time, some of these publications include, The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism.
Psychoanalysis (1993), Media Matrix: Sexing the New Reality (2003), Phallic Panic: Film, Horror & the Primal Uncanny (2005) and Darwin's Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time and Sexual Display in the Cinema (2009).See also Notes. ^ Gear, Rachel (2001). 'All those nasty womanly things: Women artists, technology and the monstrous-feminine'.
Women's Studies International Forum. 24 (3–4): 321–333.
^ Creed, Barbara (1993). The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. ^ Creed, Barbara (2005).
Phallic Panic: Film, Horror and the Primal Uncanny. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Grant, Barry Keith (1996).
What Is A Monstrous Feminine
The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film. Austin: University of Texas Press. ^ Chaudhuri, Shohini (2006). Feminist Film Theorists. London and New York: Routledge. Kristeva, Julia (1980).
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press. ^ Creed, Barbara (2002). Jancovich, M (ed.).
Barbara Creed The Monstrous Feminine Pdf Creator Free
'Horror and the monstrous-feminine: an imaginary abjection'. Horror, the Film Reader: 67–76. Freud, Sigmund (1991).
On Sexuality: Three essays on the theory of sexuality and other works. London: Penguin Books. Harrington, Erin (2018). Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film: Gynaehorror. New York, NY: Routledge. Retrieved 17 October 2018. ^ Chanter, Tina (2010).
'Abjection, or Why Freud Introduces the Phallus: Identification, Castration Theory, and the Logic of Fetishism'. The Southern Journal of Philosophy. 42: 48–66. ^ Creed, Barbara (2003). Media Matrix: Sexing the New Reality. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Allmark, Panizza (2007). 'Masculinity in crisis: the uncanny male monster'. Cultural Studies Review. 13 (1): 223–227.
Creed, Barbara (2009). Darwin's Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time and Sexual Display in the Cinema.