Egan 1 “Hell is a Teenage Girl”: Monstrous [Im]Perfection in Contemporary Horror Caitlin Egan California State University, San Marcos Egan 2 Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3 Dedication ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 4 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………..………….. 6 Chapter I: Perverse Obsession & Monstrous Mean Girls in “So Perfect” ………….………….. 26 Chapter II: Mean Girls & Monsters in Jennifer’s Body ……………………………….……….. 41 Chapter III: Mean Girls & Final Girls: Constructed Monstrous Identities in The Last Final Girl …58 Conclusion: Extensions & Different Angles to Examine the Monstrous Mean Girl …………....74 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………… 80 Egan 3 Abstract This thesis examines the monstrous female characters and horror archetypes in Stephen Graham Jones’ short story, “So Perfect,” his novel The Last Final Girl, and the Hollywood film Jennifer’s Body. In particular, this thesis aims at defining a subgenre, the high school mean girl narrative, that fuses the conventions of American Gothic, horror, and high school narratives. The “mean girl” character type is exaggerated and becomes monstrous. The monstrosity in these texts critiques the social pressure that adolescent girls face to adhere to an unattainable physical “ideal,” image, or reputation. The desire to achieve the unattainable results in monstrous identities. This thesis also explores the conventions of the slasher subgenre of horror as it pertains to the monstrous mean girl narrative. The final text discussed, Jones’ The Last Final Girl provides a critique of social pressures in a slightly different way than the other texts discussed. In “So Perfect” and Jennifer’s Body, the monstrous mean girls obsess over the perfect body, but in The Last Final Girl, Lindsay obsesses over the perfect “final girl” identity. In addition to literary analysis of the three target texts, this thesis also provides an overview of horror, American Gothic, and monster theory. Egan 4 Dedication First and foremost, thank you Rebecca Lush, my thesis chair, for helping me push my limits and for being an all-around great role model. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me and being just as excited about my topic as I am. I could not have finished on time without your encouragement. Thank you to my thesis committee, Mark Wallace and Yuan Yuan for sharing your knowledge and dedication to the topic. To my family, mom, dad, grandma, and my dog brothers Cody and Duke, for supporting me and feeding me during my highest times of stress. To Stephen Sly, my partner in crime, thank you for always believing in me and pushing me to be my best. To my second family, Ed, Kathy, and Penny, for giving me a place to sleep and write while my house was under construction. To all my friends for being understanding and supportive while I disappeared for two years, especially Morgan, Todd, Martina, Mike, Paige, Nick, Dana, and Natalie. Your friendship means the world to me and I couldn’t have accomplished this without you in my life. To the partners at Starbucks Encinitas Town Center for helping me stay grounded and letting me vent my frustrations. Thank you for giving me a positive change of pace and making me smile when I was almost too overwhelmed to function. Thank you to Susan Hause and Rachel Sato at Our Lady of Grace School for working with me and encouraging me even though I couldn’t always be around. Thank you Tanya Nakamoto for forcing me to watch Jennifer’s Body in 2011 because “it’s a really good movie!” I owe a thank you to all the music that pumped me up, inspired me, and kept me grounded as I worked through this milestone. The music I listen to played a huge part in inspiring my graduate writing, including The Flatliners’ Dead Language and Division of Spoils, Streetlight Manifesto’s The Hands That Thieve, and Frank Turner’s “Photosynthesis.” I still strive to be as poetic as my favorite musicians and songwriters. In the words of The Lawrence Arms, “I fell for the beat, but Egan 5 I stay down for the noise.” The noise kept me pushing through. To Catherine Cucinella, my professor, mentor, and friend, for always reminding me why I’m doing what I’m doing. Thank you for your constant passion and encouragement. To my wonderful cohort of strong, badass women, the most fabulous flamboyance of flamingos, Becky, Joyce, Kristin, Mari, and Rachelle. Going through this program with you was an absolute joy. I am forever grateful for the friendship and kind spirit of our group. To everyone listed, and to those in my life who are not mentioned, thank you for being part of one of the greatest adventures of my life. Egan 6 Introduction U.S. American society has an obsession with female perfection, and this obsession takes its toll on adolescents in particular. High school narratives often focus on the unnatural and harmful acts teenage girls perform to try and achieve an “ideal” physical identity. These literary and film narratives often depict “perfect” popular girls and “uncool” girls trying to fit in to a standard established by society. The lengths that young women go through to reach this standard are monstrous, and the horror genre provides a place to expose and exaggerate this social construct as physically monstrous. The monstrous female characters in the Hollywood film Jennifer’s Body, Stephen Graham Jones’ short story “So Perfect,” and his slasher novel The Last Final Girl critique the unnatural, monstrous nature of society’s expectations of young female perfection. In “So Perfect,” main characters Tammy and Brianne’s desire for physical perfection becomes monstrous as they go to repulsive lengths to achieve thin bodies, ultimately destroying their humanity. In Jennifer’s Body, the popular and gorgeous Jennifer becomes demonic after a sacrifice to the devil goes wrong. As she seduces and eats the young men at her high school, it is easy to see Jennifer’s “body,” or Jennifer’s monstrous half seeking revenge against those who objectify her. However, I will be arguing that Jennifer’s monstrous body exposes the monstrosity of social myths about female beauty and perfection. In The Last Final Girl, the story’s “mean girl,” Lindsay, orchestrates a slasher rampage known as the Billie Jean killings just to maintain her status as a horror film’s “final girl” and homecoming queen. Lindsay brings her obsession with the horror genre and outward appearance to life, leading to horrific consequences. My approach to examining monstrous female bodies in horror differs from earlier horror readings of women’s bodies as freakish or monstrous regardless of beauty because the monsters I Egan 7 am working with are the “ideal,” popular, and desirable female characters. All three texts take place in a high school setting and follow a similar monstrous “mean girl” narrative structure. The monster in this case is not the misunderstood goth with black lipstick and facial piercings, but rather the most popular girl in school; the girl every guy wants and other girls envy. These texts do not portray femininity as monstrous, they portray obsession with appearance and manipulation to conform to the idealized notion of perfection as monstrous. The Monstrous Mean Girl Narrative The “mean girl” narrative appears frequently in recent teenage films that critique high school social hierarchy and centers on a female student seeking revenge against a school’s popular mean girl, or clique who ridicules the rest of the student body. These films turn high school into anthropological studies, portraying each clique as though it is an entirely different culture. The “mean girl” clique tends to believe itself to be so influential that all other cliques desire to be like them. The most prominent and influential of these films to date is Mean Girls (2004). The story is familiar and predictable: there’s a new and mysterious student in town, Cady, and fascinated by her unique background, mean girl queen of the “Plastics” clique, Regina George takes Cady under her wing and transforms her into the meanest of the mean girls. Cady has ulterior motives. She befriends Janis Ian, an outcast and former junior high best friend of Regina George. Janis’ vengeful hate for Regina rubs off on Cady, and the two of them discover ways to sabotage Regina’s reputation. The film that paved the way for Mean Girls and first established the narrative pattern is arguably Heathers (1988). It portrays the 1980s version of the anthropological high school setting, similar to that of Mean Girls. The popular clique has a title, the “Heathers,” named for Egan 8 the fact that three of its four members share the name Heather. Its newest member, Veronica is fed up with the Heathers after she has a falling out with the alpha, Heather Chandler. Veronica and her new boyfriend J.D. orchestrate a series of murderous pranks. Their plan is to seek revenge by putting the popular students who have taken advantage of Veronica into humiliating situations. Each time, their plans backfire and they end up murdering the students. In order to cover their tracks, Veronica and J.D. stage the crime scenes as suicide attempts, and because of the popularity of the murdered students, suicide becomes the newest trend. I argue that all three texts I examine in this thesis fall into a new and emerging subcategory of horror—a hybrid genre that blends horror with the teenage mean girl narrative style to create what I am calling the monstrous mean girl high school narrative. The monstrous mean girl narrative is an emerging horror narrative phenomenon and is not limited to just the primary texts of my thesis. For example, Ryan Murphy’s campy horror series Scream Queens (2015-present) makes use of the mean girl formula as well.