Photo courtesy of The Schlindz
Last night over a bottle of Gewurztraminer I got to thinking. Every thought I had was genius. oh how I esteem you Wine, you oily agent of loquacious ramblings. Nonetheless, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to create a horror film that is specifically female.
Horror is a difficult genre to crack and not end up on the misogynist side of the celluloid, as horror films are nearly universally anti-female. Woman as victim is usually the dictate, however when cast as the perpetrator the crimes often play off of male fears about women. For instance, CARRIE, a horror classic, might seem to be making a feminist statement with the character’s vengeful rath against her tormentors. However if we take a closer look we can see that Carrie’s ‘offenses’ are actually significant markers in female maturation. These are events that men do not experience and thus do not understand, for example: menstruation, the mental castigation among girl peer groups, the complex love/hate dynamic existent between mothers and daughters, and finally, the archetypal, subordinate role-bearer in traditional religious infrastructures.
The infamous shower scene in which Carrie gets her first period is the turning point in the film at which the audience now recognizes her as a freak, disgusting, sinful. This male fear of menstruation is resolved as this scene is echoed in the climax of the film. Soaked in blood, Carrie is made responsible for her own destruction. How does the joke go? I don’t trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die?
This reading of the film is filtered through the now three decades old theory of feminine criticism. Centered around Freudian concepts of male identification, the male gaze, it is difficult to find a film that subverts the theory.
Well guess what I found. FAT GIRL (A Mon Soeur).
A bientot mes amies.
