UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Monstrous Resonance: Sexuality in the Horror Soundtrack (1968-1981) Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5715688d Author Woolsey, Morgan Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Monstrous Resonance: Sexuality in the Horror Soundtrack (1968-1981) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology by Morgan Fifield Woolsey 2018 © Copyright by Morgan Fifield Woolsey 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Monstrous Resonance: Sexuality in the Horror Soundtrack (1968-1981) by Morgan Fifield Woolsey Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Raymond L. Knapp, Co-Chair Professor Mitchell Bryan Morris, Co-Chair In this dissertation I argue for the importance of the film soundtrack as affective archive through a consideration of the horror soundtrack. Long dismissed by scholars in both cinema media studies and musicology as one of horror’s many manipulative special effects employed in the aesthetically and ideologically uncomplicated goal of arousing fear, the horror soundtrack is in fact an invaluable resource for scholars seeking to historicize changes in cultural sensibilities and public feelings about sexuality. I explore the critical potential of the horror soundtrack as affective archive through formal and theoretical analysis of the role of music in the representation of sexuality in the horror film. I focus on films consumed in the Unites States during the 1970s, a decade marked by rapid shifts in both cultural understanding and cinematic representation of sexuality. ii My analyses proceed from an interdisciplinary theoretical framework animated by methods drawn from affect studies, American studies, feminist film theory, film music studies, queer of color critique, and queer theory. What is the relationship between public discourses of fear around gender, race, class, and sexuality, and the musical framing of sexuality as fearful in the horror film? I explore this central question through the examination of significant figures in the genre (the vampire, the mad scientist/creation dyad, and the slasher or serial killer) and the musical-affective economies in which they circulate. I argue that attention to the ways in which music interacts with moving images and narrative in the horror genre provides a new way of interrogating the political history of sexuality in the United States, one uniquely equipped to theorize and analyze areas of culture that are often left unanalyzed because of their close engagement with emotions and the body. iii The dissertation of Morgan Fifield Woolsey is approved. Olivia A. Bloechl Robert W. Fink Robynn J. Stilwell Raymond L. Knapp, Committee Co-Chair Mitchell Bryan Morris, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv To those who root for the Monsters. To those who root for the Survivors. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction Affective Economies of the Horror Soundtrack 1 Chapter Two: Makers Monstrous Genre, Monstrous Gender, and the Cult Sensibility in the Horror Film Musical 53 Chapter Three: Monsters Consciousness Raising and the Message Sensibility in the Minoritarian Vampire Film 103 Chapter Four: Killers Masculinity and the Concrète Sensibility in the Slasher Film 161 Chapter Five: Conclusion The “Basic Formula” Revisited 209 Appendix: Filmography 224 Works Cited 227 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I was able to complete this project with the financial support of the UCLA Graduate Division Summer Research Mentorship, Dissertation Year Fellowship, and the CUTF Teaching Fellowship, as well as research funds from the Herb Alpert School of Music and the LGBTQ Studies Program. Countless people have helped me along the way; such is the nature of a project with idiosyncratic and interdisciplinary coordinates (intellectual, musical, political). But I must start with my committee. My co-chairs, Ray Knapp and Mitchell Morris, have enthusiastically supported every topic I’ve pushed past them, a quality I do not take for granted. Of course, without well-timed conversations in Mitchell’s office, I may never have ended up in Musicology, and without Ray’s gentle reassurance from day one to day 2,600 (approx.), I may never have finished. My brilliant and incisive mentors have let their light shine, enabling me to grow something truly my own, at my own pace. My gratitude cannot be measured. Though she may not know it, Robynn Stilwell was one of the first film music scholars I would read as an undergraduate; my scholarship would not be possible without her foundational work. And while Robynn came on late in the process, she was always a lively and joyous interlocutor. Bob and Olivia’s influences have, in many ways, bookended this project. Bob gamely travelled with me through every Academy Award-winning film score of the seventies before I started writing and provided truly heroic line edits as I finished. Olivia guided my theoretical thinking over the course of many transformative graduate seminars, and supported me personally and professionally as I transitioned to my new disciplinary home. Thank you. Finally, an honorary thanks goes to Allyson Nadia Field, whose generosity knows no bounds. She gave vii me my first platforms for guest lecturing and publication, and the work of this dissertation is all the richer and more complex because of topics I was inspired to pursue under her guidance. This project began to materialize sometime around my discovery that the bad feelings I associated with horror movies had diagnostic value, around age 11. Without the unflinching love and support of my parents, Claudia and David, it is unlikely that I would have undertaken this project. Thank you for encouraging me to follow my own path. I have been inspired by a long line of phenomenal music teachers: Cheryl Ciano Havens, Susan Daily, Inés Gómez-Ochoa, Peter Tavalin, Alex Ogle, Judith Serkin. Without them, my omnivorous approach to music might never have been. The instruction I received in writing—not academic writing but prose, poetry— has been central to the way I express my ideas about music. I am very grateful to Harry Bauld and Annie Boutelle for this care and attention. There are many professors, too, who guided me as an undergraduate struggling to make something meaningful in the spaces between three disciplines: film, music, and gender studies. Raphael Atlas, Lucretia Knapp, and Marilyn Schuster gave me license to explore my nascent ideas about music, horror, and gender. In directing my honors thesis, Ruth Solie and Elizabeth Young put their faith in me and my somewhat disreputable topic, an act of faith that fuels my pursuits to this day. Thank you, Linda Shaughnessy and Cathy Noess, for your support during my idyllic time at Sage Hall. I carry your warmth with me everywhere I go. My nine years at UCLA are no less scattered with formative influences. I matriculated with a cohort that defies description; they quickly became my family. Dalal Alfares, Jacob Lau, Jessica Martinez-Tebbel, Naveen Minai, Jocelyn Thomas: thank you for your aggressive affirmation, tender challenges, and astounding acumen. Barbara Van Nostrand, thank you for safely shepherding me along when I jumped the Gender Studies ship for Musicology, and for viii providing guidance and laughter whenever I needed it. I owe considerable thanks to my colleagues in Musicology as well: Benjamin Court, Natalia Bieletto, Christian Spencer, Marissas Steingold and Ochsner, Mindy O’Brien, Mike D’Errico, Oded Erez, Sam Baltimore, Zarah Ersoff, Tiffany Naiman, Monica Chieffo, Albert Diaz, Holley Replogle-Wong, Leen Rhee, Anahit Rostomyan, Wade Dean, and Schuyler Whelden. I will always think fondly of the intellectual community we shared in the seminar room and as TAs. Thanks to my undergraduate students, in particular to the undergraduate students in my 98T seminar on music and sexuality in the 1970s horror film. Thanks also to Diana King and Matthew Vest for opening many eyes to the wide world of library research on music in the horror film. Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Jim Schultz, Vicente Carrillo, Marika Cifor, Dafne Luna, Audrey Silvestre, and Bryan Wuest: thank you for making LGBTQ Studies my second home at UCLA. To my dear friends and compatriots in Musicology and across the University, Alexandra Apolloni, Hyun Kyong Chang, Andrea Moore, Gray Raulerson, Jill Rogers, Arreanna Rostosky, Tanya Barnett, Julia Kark Callander, Freda Fair, Dana Linda, Bo Luengsuraswat, Samantha Sheppard, Ken Shima, Lisa Sloan, Saundarya Thapa, Sharon Tran, Devon Van Dyne, Sarah Walsh, Mila Zuo: where would I have been without you? Ben Sher and Alex Grabarchuk, thank you for seeing me so clearly and entirely, and for the many adventures cinematic and musical (and, of course, emotional). To Vox Femina Los Angeles, UCLA’s Early Music Ensemble, Death in Venice Beach, and C3LA I also extend sincere thanks for keeping me grounded in my voice. And thanks to the trio of angels who helped me keep on keeping on when I felt like I had nothing left: Elizabeth Randell Upton for her outlining tips; Lita Robinson for her expert diagramming; and Christine Gengaro for daily encouragement and accountability check-ins. ix My lifelong friends Kristin Palladino, Christina Padrón, Amanda Rogers, and Jenn Billingsley have supported me through many struggles and transitions, and there is comfort in knowing that writing this dissertation was just the latest in a long series of perhaps ill-advised schemes they’ve watched me carry out. Thanks to Drag Race club for the weekly shenanigans and discussions of writing that was not my own. Thanks to Taylor Parks, David Findlay, and Alaina and George Kommer for their affection and understanding. Myleen DeJesus—librarian of my heart, domestic co-conspirator, and true soul mate— were it in my power, I would bestow upon you the honorary PhD in transnational karaoke studies you so richly deserve.