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Women, Theory and Horror Film

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Women, Theory and Horror Film Gynaehorror: Women, theory and horror film A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Cultural Studies in the University of Canterbury by Erin Harrington University of Canterbury March 2014 ii CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................ 1 (RE)CONCEPTIONS: THEORISING WOMEN IN HORROR ................................................... 16 Horror and psychoanalysis .................................................................................................................. 18 Women, horror and psychoanalysis ................................................................................................. 23 Challenges to psychoanalysis .............................................................................................................. 31 Alternatives to psychoanalysis: the social, the mythic, the taboo ........................................ 36 From theories of horror to theorising with horror .................................................................... 42 Home invasions ........................................................................................................................................ 49 Rethinking space ...................................................................................................................................... 58 ROSES AND THORNS: VIRGINITY, VAGINA DENTATA AND FEMALE SEXUALITY ...... 61 Defining virginity ..................................................................................................................................... 62 Virginity in the horror film .................................................................................................................. 67 The virgin hero ......................................................................................................................................... 68 The sacrificial virgin ............................................................................................................................... 70 Male virginity: humour and horror .................................................................................................. 73 Virginity and generic compulsion ..................................................................................................... 76 From virgin to vagina dentata ............................................................................................................ 77 Representing the vagina: art and appearance .............................................................................. 81 The vagina denata in horror ................................................................................................................ 85 The Unholy: the slut, the virgin and the priest .............................................................................. 87 Teeth: reframing vagina dentata........................................................................................................ 89 Sex, abstinence and positive sexuality ............................................................................................ 91 Teeth, irony and empowerment ......................................................................................................... 96 Teeth and the sexual vigilante ......................................................................................................... 100 Enforcing heterosexuality ................................................................................................................. 102 iii THE LADY VANISHES: PREGNANCY, ABORTION AND SUBJECTIVITY ....................... 105 Constructing and challenging the pregnant subject................................................................ 107 Theories of pregnancy subjectivity ............................................................................................... 109 The body, abstracted: the displacement of the subject .......................................................... 117 The pregnant body in religious horror ........................................................................................ 118 The Reaping: the pregnant body as vessel .................................................................................. 120 Prophecy: the pregnant body as environment ........................................................................... 123 Foetal visibility and the dissolution of the female subject ................................................... 126 Inside: competing subjects ................................................................................................................ 131 Abortion and taboo .............................................................................................................................. 137 ‘Pro-life’ and Pro-Life ........................................................................................................................... 140 NOT OF WOMAN BORN: MAD SCIENCE, REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY AND ERASURE ........................................................................................................................................ 146 Science and masculinity ..................................................................................................................... 147 ‘Mad science’ and men making life ................................................................................................ 153 Fear of science ....................................................................................................................................... 156 The Unborn: mad scientists and madwomen ............................................................................. 160 Female mad scientists and Splice ................................................................................................... 165 Brave new worlds? Cyborg futures and pregnant subjectivity .......................................... 170 THE MONSTROUS MATERNAL: NEGOTIATING DISCOURSES OF MOTHERHOOD . 175 Psychoanalytic discourses of motherhood ................................................................................. 178 The legacy of Mrs Bates: Norma, Thelma and Nola ................................................................. 182 Maternalism and essential motherhood ...................................................................................... 189 Motherhood as instinct and imperative ....................................................................................... 191 Legal implications of transgressive motherhood ..................................................................... 193 Millennial mothering ........................................................................................................................... 196 The ‘horror’ of the single mother ................................................................................................... 198 Triangle: maternal atonement and perpetual punishment .................................................. 202 Grace: competing discourses of motherhood ............................................................................ 208 Monstrous motherhood ..................................................................................................................... 215 iv (RE)PRODUCTIVE BECOMINGS: A SCHIZOANALYSIS OF THE ALIEN TETRALOGY 219 Analysing the Alien tetralogy ........................................................................................................... 221 Ways of working with Deleuze and Guattari ............................................................................. 224 Schizoanalysis and / of horror film ............................................................................................... 227 Micropolitics: molarity and molecularity .................................................................................... 232 Micropolitics: lines of flight .............................................................................................................. 236 The Company .......................................................................................................................................... 239 Fascism and the Body without Organs ......................................................................................... 242 What do bodies do? .............................................................................................................................. 245 Schizoanalysis and becoming-Alien .............................................................................................. 247 Alien: the invisible maternal ............................................................................................................. 248 Aliens: the explicit maternal ............................................................................................................. 252 Alien3: the invasive maternal ...........................................................................................................
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