Monstrous Feminisms

HON 394

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 13: Animatronics, CGI, and Making Monsters

In Little Shop of Horrors, the filmmakers were charged with not only constructing a viable on-screen monster, but one that could sing, dance, and rap. The monster in this film is a Venus fly trap named Audrey II—not exactly your traditional horror monster, although I guess it is technically an alien Venus fly trap, so maybe that counts. Regardless, the filmmakers had to design and operate six different fly trap puppets that ranged six different sizes. Throughout the film, no blue screens or opticals were used—the filmmakers relied solely on the various puppets. At its biggest size, 60 technicians were needed to operate the one-ton puppet. Sometimes, they would only get through three to four lines of a song each day in rehearsal, since operating the puppet was so taxing.

One of the biggest challenges the filmmakers faced was getting the puppet to move smoothly and convincingly. Ultimately, they were able to get the puppet to move so well, or at least look like it was moving well, by shooting in slow-motion. Rather than shooting at the usual 24 frames per second, they shot the puppet scenes at 12 frames per second, then sped the film up later. In the scenes where Rick Moranis interacts with the puppet, he had to lip sync and pantomime in slow motion so his action would match the dialogue later.

The puppets were designed by Lyle Conway. He had horror inspiration behind his design, explaining: “Initially, Frank was favoring a cartoony sort of look — a soft kind of thing like they had in the stage show — but as time went on I think he realized that kind of look would have been at odds with Roy’s designs. My preference for the plant was more horrific, tending towards a fifties or sixties horror movie type of thing — an Invasion of the Saucer Men feeling. After a lot of discussion, Frank and I met somewhere in the middle.”

Link: https://monsterlegacy.net/2014/04/13/mean-green-mother-from-outer-space-audrey-ii-little-shop-horrors/

[hardcockforhitchcock]

“I’ll make a bet. The more you deny, the stronger I get. You start to change when I get in. The Babadook growing right under your skin.” 

-The Babadook (2014)

[madimargolishon394]

I loved how, in The Babadook, the monster could be so many things. It takes the shape of the mother, child, and husband. Simultaneously, it represents regret, shame, and repression itself. The film creates an ambiguity around the monster, and this open-endedness becomes part of its power—and part of what makes it so terrifying. By letting the Babadook be all of these things at once, the film questions the essentialism of horror. What you think you know, you don’t, and what used to be true isn’t anymore. The ambiguity itself becomes horrifying.

At the same time, I think this ambiguity also helps explain why The Babadook was so easily taken up as queer. These open ends leave space for alternate interpretations. Discussing the tradition of queer readings, theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick suggests, “We needed for there to be sites where the meanings didn’t line up tidily with each other, and we learned to invest those sites with fascination and love” (“Queer and Now”). The Babadook’s lack of stable meanings sets it up as a prime site for queer displacement. When explicit representation isn’t available, coded sites like The Babadook allow for alternative outlets. Accordingly, interpreting the Babadook as gay becomes a sort of reparative reading. Sedgwick contextualizes her own work as an effort to “keep faith with vividly remembered promises made to ourselves in childhood: promises to make invisible possibilities and desire visible; to make the tacit things explicit; to smuggle queer representation in where it must be smuggled and with the relative freedom of adulthood, to challenge queer-eradicating impulses frontally where they are to be so challenged” (“Queer and Now”). In light of Sedgwick’s explanation, reading the Babadook as queer can be understood as part of a history of survival and a tribute to (queer) childhood. Like we talked about in class, reclaiming the Babadook as a queer icon falls under a long-established, camp history. In this sense, even though the meme came from a random Netflix glitch, a queer Babadook reading is not so far of a stretch. Both the narrative of the film and the externally imposed queer reading reflect instances of making the invisible visible and bringing hidden thoughts to light.

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 16: Childhood Monsters

One of my favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone and one of the first episodes I ever saw was “It’s a Good Life.” In this episode, six-year-old Anthony can control the world around him and read other people thoughts with only his mind. Whenever things in my house went missing growing up, my family would reference “the cornfield”—the place where Anthony sent people who crossed him. I had almost forgotten about Anthony and the cornfield until, last year, I came across the short story by Jerome Bixby that the Twilight Zone episode was based on.

Both the original short story and the TV adaptation present a “childish” version of horror. However, the horror isn’t centered on what’s frightening to children, but rather on children themselves as frightening. In the opening narration of the episode, the narrator explains, “[The people] have to think happy thoughts and say happy things because once displeased, the monster can wish them into a cornfield or change them into a grotesque, walking horror… This is the monster. His name is Anthony Fremont. He's six years old, with a cute little-boy face and blue, guileless eyes.” This story shifts the helplessness and lack of control associated with childhood onto the adults. Anthony’s perspective takes precedence, and the adults must censor their own thoughts to conform to his desires. Even his parents are deprived of their privacy and forced to defer to his wishes. Accordingly, this story situates the child’s vision as monstrous. In the short story, the narrator concludes, “Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops—but it was a good day” (Bixby 448). The characters are denied even the meaning of their words, creating a disparity between what the characters think or say and what they really mean. By prioritizing the child’s unyielding and unreliable perspective, Bixby makes Anthony’s perspective horrific.

[madimargolishon394]

In class, we talked about how predatory Paul appears in this scene. Even the formal techniques position him in power and as consuming Bea’s body. This scene shows his complete lack of understanding and his feeling of ownership over her—especially since, at this point, Paul doesn’t even think the woman in front of him is truly his wife. He repeats over and over that his wife wouldn’t act like this, asking where his wife went. It seems particularly disturbing, then, that he still feels so entitled to his wife’s body, even when he thinks it’s not her. These actions further complicate his “nice guy” image—is he truly a nice guy if the only woman he respects is his wife? That said, I really liked Honeymoon!

[madimargolishon394]

The Most Overlooked & Underrated Characters in ‘Get Out’ Are Black Women

These 3 Black women are more important than you think…

I loved Get Out! But I think this article touches on a lot of ways the film could have better handled intersectionality. This article shows the particular vulnerability of Peele’s female black characters and how the film could have given more nuance to these black women.

[spideyys]

Get Out (2017) dir. Jordan Peele “If there’s too many white people, I get nervous.”

[madimargolishon394]

One of the aspects that stood out most to me about Get Out was the way the film uses microaggressions to show hostility towards black people. Throughout the film, white characters express encoded, or even just thoughtless, comments to Chris. However unintentional—or even well-intentioned—these comments show judgment being passed. During his first conversation with Chris, for example, Rose’s brother says, “With your frame, your genetic makeup? If you pushed your body, I mean really trained, you’d be a beast.” The comments of the other relatives, even when less overtly designed to get a rise out of Chris, follow the same pattern. In similar backhanded-compliment fashion, the Aunt tells Rose and Chris how much her husband loves Tiger Woods. Each of these comments, though seemingly insignificant and innocent, constitutes genuine oppression. When these judgments are passed on a daily basis, as a constant feature of someone’s life, they begin to add up—and wear the person down. Like Chris says, “It’s not what he says, it’s how he says it. You know?” All these constant microaggressions are aggregated into a macroaggression, an idea the film makes literal. As we find out, these comments don’t just denigrate the black people they’re directed to; they represent a real, physical threat on the part of this white family. Accordingly, microaggressions like these show that however “not racist” the white people in this film claim to be, they are all complicit in the oppression of the black characters.

[madimargolishon394]

Genre-bending in horror

I loved the idea of a horror rom-com (or really any type of rom-com) so I had been excited for Spring and was especially disappointed when it fell short. Thinking about genre-bending in Spring, though, made me think of another film that pushes genre boundaries, Little Shop of Horrors. This film takes the combination of horror and rom-com, then throws in musical for good measure. So possibly the perfect combination? I think part of what makes Little Shop of Horrors succeed in crossing and combining genres is that fact that it’s a comedy. Since the audience expects the film to be lighter and more absurd, it’s easier to tolerate incongruous genres and story elements. Or maybe it just succeeds because Rick Moranis is in it.

Along the same vein, I think it’s funny that the film has two different endings. Apparently, viewers hated the original ending so much that Frank Oz, the director, cut and re-released a new, happier ending. First of all, I think that’s hilarious, and I’m really glad he did that because Ellen Greene’s character deserves a happy ending. But, secondly, I think that also speaks to the way genre shapes expectations and even encourages (or forces?) filmmakers to conform to those demands. Maybe the directors of Spring will re-release a new ending for their movie. But probably not.

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 18: Thriller versus Horror

Targets, the 1968 directorial debut of Peter Bogdanovich, is much more thriller than it is horror, though it has plenty of horrific moments. It follows Bobby Thomson, seemingly normal, all-American insurance agent, as he snaps and goes on a killing spree. His serial killing starts with his wife and parents, then expands to innocent passersby in the street that he has no connection with. Bobby starts killing for no apparent reason and with no discernible motivation. The film never gives him one, either, which is part of what makes it so disconcerting. The film plays on the idea that anyone could be a killer and that a serial killer doesn’t have to look like a monster. Those ideas are some of the same ones that appear in Psycho, American Psycho, and Silence of the Lambs. Like we talked about, in those films, serial killers are often romanticized and elevated above the status of mere psychopath. However, this is where Targets differs. Bobby’s killings are filmed in a more callous, matter-of-fact way. The film itself is less stylized than the other three films, presenting his murders as realistic and gritty. Here, the serial killer is not someone interesting and misunderstood, but someone beyond reason and undeserving of understanding.

Though Targets is best classified as a thriller—the focus of the film is distinctly the suspense surrounding Bobby’s killings and his ultimate capture—this film interacts with the horror genre and its conventions in interesting and funny ways. First, the inclusion of Boris Karloff as one of the main characters could threaten to turn any film into horror. The inseparability of Karloff from his incarnations as Frankenstein and other monsters links the film back to a more horrific interpretation. The film plays with this idea further by making Karloff’s character, Orlok, none other than an aging horror film actor. In the film, Orlok voices the complaint that people are no longer frightened by old-fashioned horror, like monsters and the supernatural. Instead, they now find real-life news stories more horrifying. In this sense, maybe Targets could be considered horror as well as thriller—it’s just the new, realistic type of horror that Orlok mentions.

[livelifeonlegendary]

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 14: Body Horror and Gynecology

One movie that stands out to me as an example of body horror is the film Frozen. (And not the Disney one. I feel the need to clarify whenever I talk about this movie lol). Though it doesn’t deal with specifically gynecological horror, this whole film centers—and lingers—on the body horrors three characters face as they escape a stuck ski lift. Dan, the first to attempt escape, jumps from the ski lift only to fracture both his legs. The bones poke through his skin, and the camera doesn’t shy away. Joe, the next one to go, suffers from frostbite until his body is torn apart by wolves. Even Parker, the only one to survive, has to endure body horror of her own. The ski lift lands on her ankle, and the camera stays on her outstretched, unconscious body until someone comes to save her. Throughout the movie, the body horror that each character faces makes up not only the horror of the film but all the plot points, too. The entire narrative is in terms of what horrors each character can face and what horrors leave their bodies destroyed beyond saving.

Mentioning David Cronenberg also made me think of eXistenZ, the only of his films I’ve seen, as another example of body horror. In this film, ports that tap into the spine and nervous system are “installed” directly into people’s bodies to allow them to participate in a virtual reality video game. This film draws horror from the intersection of technology and the body. The possibility for infection and improper installment makes this modification of the body horrific.

Thinking about body and gynecological horror also made me think back to the surgery in American Mary. In the film, Ruby’s procedure and its outcome aren’t very horrific—everything is properly anesthetized and generally routine. It’s not until afterwards, when Mary goes home and throws up, that the horror comes through. The film focuses less on a graphically horrific procedure than on the horror of surgery itself, the horror of surgery as an idea. I was reading an essay on intersex surgery by Iain Morland, and even though it wasn’t about film or horror, I thought it gave an interesting way of looking at genital surgery. In this essay, Morland argues that a queer theory based on pleasure is a disservice to post-surgical intersex individuals for whom genital surgery has diminished or destroyed their capacity for pleasure. By applying this essay to American Mary, surgery itself becomes a site of horror—tying back to the idea of medical mismanagement that this prompt mentions. Morland says, “The surgeon’s touch has the force to detach, move, reshape, and even injure such [body parts]… Put differently, the surgeon’s desensitizing touch makes bodies strange” (Rutledge Queer Theory Reader 455-456). Morland’s claims frame surgery as the source of body horror. Horror becomes inherent in the surgical room and procedure.

Part of this horror comes from the lack of control that surgery entails. Even when the surgery isn’t graphically horrific, as in American Mary, it still signals forfeiting power to the surgeon. According to Morland, the patient willingly gives the surgeon “the ability to see without being seen” during the time of anesthesia (456). This lends itself to a sort of voyeurism, like the type we talked about in terms of Psycho and Peeping Tom. If body horror is “the cinema of violation and destruction of the body,” then the surgery itself is the destruction and the onlooking surgeon represents the violation—of the body, its privacy, and its control. Mary’s reaction suggests that even she is horrified with her powerful, spectatorial position. Morland’s essay helps situate not just the body, but surgery itself, as the site of body horror in American Mary.

[madimargolishon394]

I wrote this post about surgery before we watched The Skin I Live In and read Reyes’ essay, but seeing Almodóvar’s film made me want to come back to this. A lot of the themes from Iain Morland’s essay and American Mary apply back to The Skin I Live In, especially in terms of voyeurism. In my last post, I talked about voyeurism as inherent in surgery or, at least, that surgery acts as a vehicle for voyeurism. In The Skin I Live In, the voyeurism of surgery is made manifest. Robert’s Panopticon screens broadcast Vera’s every move, giving him the opportunity to look at her as much as he likes with no apparent way for her to look back. This film translates the one-way gaze of surgery to Vera’s existence as a whole. However, at the same time the film reinforces surgery as voyeuristic, it also presents ways to counter that interpretation.

First of all, the film gives Vera the chance to return the gaze. Even though she might not actually be able to see the man behind the screen, she looks back into the camera. Both Robert and Zeca have to contend with her stare on the screen. Additionally, surgery and scars themselves act as a way of “looking back.” While Vera’s skin heals, she is left with scars that trace the path of the surgeon’s knife. These lines provide a visual record of the surgical cuts that anesthesia obscures from a patient’s memory. Even though this sort of looking back is asynchronous—Vera can only “look back” after the fact—the scars of her surgery still challenge the idea that the surgeon can see without being seen. Scars let Vera return the gaze by other means.

(Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Vera ultimately loses her ability even to be scarred. Her newly non-puncturable, non-wrinkleable skin would exclude her from this type of resistance. Barring transgenesis, then, I think this claim still applies.)

[drelliessattler]

Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs, 1991) // Dana Scully (The X-Files, 1993-present) ↳ Clarice Starling was one of the biggest influences for the character of Dana Scully (x)

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 14: Body Horror and Gynecology

One movie that stands out to me as an example of body horror is the film Frozen. (And not the Disney one. I feel the need to clarify whenever I talk about this movie lol). Though it doesn’t deal with specifically gynecological horror, this whole film centers—and lingers—on the body horrors three characters face as they escape a stuck ski lift. Dan, the first to attempt escape, jumps from the ski lift only to fracture both his legs. The bones poke through his skin, and the camera doesn’t shy away. Joe, the next one to go, suffers from frostbite until his body is torn apart by wolves. Even Parker, the only one to survive, has to endure body horror of her own. The ski lift lands on her ankle, and the camera stays on her outstretched, unconscious body until someone comes to save her. Throughout the movie, the body horror that each character faces makes up not only the horror of the film but all the plot points, too. The entire narrative is in terms of what horrors each character can face and what horrors leave their bodies destroyed beyond saving.

Mentioning David Cronenberg also made me think of eXistenZ, the only of his films I’ve seen, as another example of body horror. In this film, ports that tap into the spine and nervous system are “installed” directly into people’s bodies to allow them to participate in a virtual reality video game. This film draws horror from the intersection of technology and the body. The possibility for infection and improper installment makes this modification of the body horrific.

Thinking about body and gynecological horror also made me think back to the surgery in American Mary. In the film, Ruby’s procedure and its outcome aren’t very horrific—everything is properly anesthetized and generally routine. It’s not until afterwards, when Mary goes home and throws up, that the horror comes through. The film focuses less on a graphically horrific procedure than on the horror of surgery itself, the horror of surgery as an idea. I was reading an essay on intersex surgery by Iain Morland, and even though it wasn’t about film or horror, I thought it gave an interesting way of looking at genital surgery. In this essay, Morland argues that a queer theory based on pleasure is a disservice to post-surgical intersex individuals for whom genital surgery has diminished or destroyed their capacity for pleasure. By applying this essay to American Mary, surgery itself becomes a site of horror—tying back to the idea of medical mismanagement that this prompt mentions. Morland says, “The surgeon’s touch has the force to detach, move, reshape, and even injure such [body parts]… Put differently, the surgeon’s desensitizing touch makes bodies strange” (Rutledge Queer Theory Reader 455-456). Morland’s claims frame surgery as the source of body horror. Horror becomes inherent in the surgical room and procedure.

Part of this horror comes from the lack of control that surgery entails. Even when the surgery isn’t graphically horrific, as in American Mary, it still signals forfeiting power to the surgeon. According to Morland, the patient willingly gives the surgeon “the ability to see without being seen” during the time of anesthesia (456). This lends itself to a sort of voyeurism, like the type we talked about in terms of Psycho and Peeping Tom. If body horror is “the cinema of violation and destruction of the body,” then the surgery itself is the destruction and the onlooking surgeon represents the violation—of the body, its privacy, and its control. Mary’s reaction suggests that even she is horrified with her powerful, spectatorial position. Morland’s essay helps situate not just the body, but surgery itself, as the site of body horror in American Mary.

[notanothernailblog]

Happy Pride month from the Babadook!! 

(if you’re confused, here is an answer)

I love love love this so much even though I couldn’t get as much detail as I wanted I’m still pretty happy with it! 

[sunshien-deactivated20220126]

one time my animation lecturer said that betty boop was an lgbt icon and i asked him about it afterwards because i was like “i didn’t kno betty boop is gay?” and he said that she wasn’t gay but was like adopted by gay culture basically and i cannot fucking believe that in like 30 years time some fresh faced film student is gonna have to walk up to their lecturer and say “i didn’t kno the babadook is gay?”

[madimargolishon394]

Challenge Post 15: Horrific Spaces

If horror films use spaces as characters, then the bunker in 10 Cloverfield Lane is simultaneously the enemy and the hero. After getting into a car crash, Michelle, the main character, wakes up in an underground bunker. Her captor, Howard, claims that some sort of apocalyptic event has rendered the outside atmosphere unlivable and that, for her own safety, he has brought her there and refuses to let her leave. Part of the horror comes from the ambiguity of the bunker. It represents both good and bad, safety and endangerment, freedom and captivity. However, Michelle doesn’t know which it truly is, and, unless she wants to test out the effects of radiation first-hand, it is seemingly impossible for her to find out.

On the one hand, the bunker is surprisingly homey. Howard has planned for comfort in the face of the apocalypse, which, to him, comes in the form of VHS tapes, board games, and an old juke box. The rec room is filled with books, the dining room is stocked with canned food and china dishes, and the entire bunker is equipped with ventilation and filtration. Wallpaper, of course, even covers the walls. However, what is supposed to be comforting about the bunker is at the same time unnerving—and this tension becomes a source of horror.

For all the outward comforts and amenities the bunker offers, it is still a prison. Michelle finds herself a captive, forced to call the bunker home against her will. In this film, the idea of the home becomes horrific. “Home” is a place you have to share with strangers and where you must stay forever. Even the wallpaper, for all its intended charm, is patterned with bars—a constant reminder of the bunker’s inescapability. Because of the bunker’s presentation, the viewer, like Michelle, must constantly weigh which is more horrific: inside or outside—the home that’s not a home or the risk of death by radiation.

By framing the bunker as inescapable and unknowable, the film roots the horror in the setting itself. The bunker acts as a physical manifestation of Michelle’s internal conflict, whether to trust Howard and everything he’s told her or not. With the alternative the risk of death, Michelle is forced to rely on the source of her horror, both Howard and the bunker, a dependence which is horrific in itself. As far as the film is concerned, Howard and the bunker are interchangeable in terms of their threat to her.

Overall, the bunker not only serves as the setting, but sets the stakes and echoes the conflict of the film. This horrific space actively works against Michelle, situating horror within the home. In the end, though, Michelle escapes the bunker and destroys it—only to find something worse waiting for her. In this sense, the horror that used to be contained to the bunker alone now extends to all the surrounding world. The same way Michelle was unable to feel at home in the bunker, she can no longer feel at home anywhere on earth. Once and for all, the setting of the film signals the inescapability of horror and the untenability of the home, communicating all of this through its horrific spaces.

[theliteraryjournals]

We will be monsters, alone in the world, but we will have each other.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

(via

theliteraryjournals

)

[o-8]

The best character in this movie @A@/

When in doubt, KICK EVERYTHING