Critical Perspectives

Dissertation Proposal OGR

Deanna Crisbacher
20/2/2017
 Dissertation Enquiry

Woman as The Witch in Horror

 Dissertation Synopsis
For my dissertation, I wanted to discuss how women are represented as The Witch in the horror genre in
cinema. My dissertation will aim to discuss the horror genre and relevant sub-genres and how it is often a
reaction to the female body. I will specifically focus on the sub-genre supernatural horror because in this
sub-genre the woman is often the monster/villain instead of the victim. I will discuss how they manifest as
ghosts, witches, demonically possessed, or other supernatural creatures. This dissertation will also explain the
theory of Abjection as described by Julia Kristeva. I explain how abjection and Feminism - how woman is
considered abject or other and why this is significant to feminist ideas. I will also discuss The Uncanny and
other Psychoanalytic theories/ideas by Sigmund Freud and how this relates to the reaction towards women,
especially seen in horror films. My essay will then link all of this back onto a specific film as an example - in
this case the film adaptation of Stephen Kings novel Carrie (1976/2013). I will examine this artefact and use
portions of the film as examples of ideas argued earlier in my dissertation. This will let me draw conclusions
about women being represented as The Witch in supernatural horror films and what this could mean both
as a viewer and as a society overall.
 Chapter 1 Synopsis
For the first chapter of my dissertation, I want to explain what horror is as a genre in film. Then, I want to
discuss the different sub-genres of horror such as the slasher, body horror, and supernatural horror. I want to
examine how women are treated in these different sub-genres such as how often in slasher films, there seems
to be a large amount of female victims which could be signs of misogyny. However, in supernatural horror
films, the female is often the monster in the form of some supernatural being. I want to then suggest that
these are both reactions to the female body, but just in different ways (slasher makes woman the victim,
supernatural makes woman the witch). I then want to discuss what the witch means or can bewhich
includes ghosts, demonically possessed, actual magic/witchcraftall of them are unrelenting, irrational,
emotional, primal and sometimes sexual/seductive (sometimes relating to religion as this stems back to sin,
seduction, Devil worship). This is a result of the womans body being a source of fear, confusion and being
considered other by men. I want to suggest that this fear of the abject is where women gain their power
when becoming the villains in supernatural horrorscausing some supernatural horrors to have Feminist
undertones/themes.
 Chapter 2 Synopsis
In Chapter 2 I want to define and explain the theory of Abjection as discussed in Julia Kristevas Powers of
Horror: An Essay on Abjection. I want to discuss how this relates to the female body being seen as other due
to the bodily functions that women experience that men do not such as menstruation, pregnancy, and
childbirth. I want to suggest that this is what causes women to be seen as other. I want to then relate this to
Sigmund Freuds concept of The Uncanny - despite everyone having been born, even the discussion of
women having periods is often met with disgustit is something recognisable and/or attractive but also met
with repulsion. I will also touch on Psychoanalysis as it relates to the unconscious mind and how womens
representation often says more about the person than those being represented. I then want to discuss how this
all relates back to Feminism, what Feminism is, and how feminists are trying to use this abjection to their
advantage/as a strength. I want to then discuss the monstrous feminine by explaining what it is (Barbara
Creed, reasons why the monstrous-feminine horrifies her audience are quire different reasons why the male
monster horrifies his audiencethe phrase monstrous-feminine emphasises the importance of gender in the
construction of monstrosity).
 Chapter 3 Synopsis
In my final chapter I want to use Stephen Kings novel Carrie and both the 1973 and 2013 film adaptations as
examples of how woman as the witch appears in supernatural horror films. I want to discuss how Carrie can
be considered a feminist icon due to her story of using her abjection as her power. I will look at the multiple
examples throughout the film that shows her gender as something other. She is laughed at for getting her
period, even though it is something that all women experience in their lives. Her mother is extremely
religious and fears Carrie will have sex, which she considers a sin even in marriage (which is hypocritical as
Carries mother would have had to have sex in order to give birth to Carrie - making Carrier herself a living
sin). Carries source of power - in this case telekinesis - stems from her lashing out and rejecting these ideas.
She gets revenge for being taunted and shunned for her normal bodily functions and renounces her mothers
hypocritical beliefs of sex and sin. I want to discuss how it is interesting that Carries powers only arise as a
self defence mechanism, causing the audience to be sympathetic towards her. Despite the horrors that
Carries powers produce, the audience is happy those who wronged her get punished. I want to suggest that
this film encompasses how it is absurd how women are considered other or abject and how Feminism can
use this as a reversal off power. I also want o discuss that women (at least in films) are sometimes forced to
become the very evil that is feared due to the ideas projected onto them.
 Current Research Pro-forma
Author: Carol J. Clover
Critical Position: Film Studies Professor
Title: Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in Modern Horror Film
Publisher/Publication: Princeton University Press.
Place of Publication: Princeton
Date: 1993
Chapter: Introduction: Carrie and the Boys/Chapter 1: Her Body,
Himself
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses feminism and The Final Girl in slasher films, interesting
quote(s) from Stephen King. Introduction about Carrie, other interesting
chapters about Freud, sex, violence against women including rape,
revenge, womens liberation.
Quotation:
Carrie is, in its more adult implications, an uneasy masculine shrinking
from a future of female equalityshes also Woman, feeling her powers
for the first time.
Author: Barbara Creed
Critical Position: Professor of Cinema Studies
Title: The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis
Publisher/Publication: Routledge
Place of Publication: London
Date:1993
Chapter: 1: Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection & 6: Woman as Witch: Carrie
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses abjection and femininity, woman as possessed monster/
monstrous womb/witch and other discussions about psychoanalysis and
more.
Quotation:
Although a great deal has been written about the horror film, very little
of that work has discussed the representation of woman-as-monster
Why has woman-as-monster been neglected in feminist theory and in
virtually all significant theoretical analyses of the popular horror film?
All human societies have a conception of the monstrous-feminine, of
what it is about woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject.
Freud linked mans fear of the woman to his infantile belief that the
mother is castrated.
 Current Research Pro-forma
Author: Sigmund Freud
Critical Position: Neurologist, Founder of Psychoanalysis
Title: The Uncanny
Publisher/Publication: Penguin Books
Place of Publication: London
Date: 2003
Chapter: The Uncanny (pg. 121)
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
This book is Freuds view of the uncanny, what it is, and how it makes
humans feel. It discusses how our childhood memories affects our mixed
feelings towards what humans consider to be something uncanny. Also
discusses psychoanalysis.
Quotation:
One such is the uncanny. There is no doubt that this belongs to the culture in order to generate neutered, nuclear families returns in horror
realm of the frightening, of what evokes fear and dread. It is equally
beyond doubt that the word is not always used in a clearly definable
sense, and so it commonly merges with what arouses fear in general.
Author: Barry Keith Grant
Critical Position: Professor of Film Studies
Title: The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film
Publisher/Publication: University of Texas Press
Place of Publication: USA
Date: 1996
Chapter: 14: Horror, Femininity, and Carries Monstrous Puberty
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Studies several different films and other texts to discuss women in
horror films. Discusses issues of sex/gender in the horror genre and how
women are represented in the genre including women in slasher films,
monstrous-feminine, puberty, and woman as monster.
Quotation:
Wood contends that the sexual repression demanded by patriarchal
films as in our nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for terror -
at the repressed familiar returns as unfamiliar and monstrous. Usually
situated among this body of contemporary films depicting the familiar
and familial as horrific, Carrie (1976) engages the language of fantasy to
represent the terrain of female adolescenceConflating questions of
femininity and the supernatural, the film renders Carries puberty not
simply in the hyperbolic language of melodrama, but in the violent
terms of horror
 Current Research Pro-forma
Author: June Pulliam
Critical Position: Instructor of Horror Fiction, English Professor
Title: Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction
Publisher/Publication: McFarland & Company
Place of Publication: North Carolina
Date: 2014
Chapter: 1. Subversive Spirits: Resistance and the Uncanny in the Young
Adult Ghost Story & 3. An ye harm none, do as ye will: Magic, Gender
and Agency in Young Adult Narratives of Witchcraft
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Argues young adult horror isnt as sexist as mainstream horror, discusses
types of monsters women can be and how that relates to femininity.
Other chapters discuss womens differing roles with ghosts in horror,
and other chapters about sexual politics in horror and magic, gender,
and witchcraft.
Quotation:
The ghost in the conventional ghost story represents the repressed, and
is a double of the girl that it haunts. The ghost embodies those aspects of
the haunted girl that are incompatible with her familys or her cultures
ides of normative femininity. So when the repressed inevitably
resurfaces, it emerges to the uncanny form of the ghost. The ghost gives
to the girl it haunts knowledge about the patriarchal culture in which
she lives.
Author: Julia Kristen
Critical Position: Philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, feminist
Title: Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
Publisher/Publication: Colombia University Press
Place of Publication: New York
Date: 1982
Chapter: 1: Approaching Abjection & 8. Those Females Who Can Wreck
the Infinite
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses the idea of abjection and the abject in depth. What makes
something abject and why it may be considered abject. Includes
abjection related to bodily functions, the human body, and sex. Also
includes ideas of abjection related to sexuality and uses theories by
Freud and other individuals to talk about what makes abject subjects
horrific in relation to the conscious and subconscious.
Quotation:
A wound with blood and pus, or the sickly, acrid smell of sweat, of
decay, does not signify death. In the presence of signified death - a flat
encephalograph, for instance - I would understand, react, or accept. No,
as in true theatre, without makeup or masks, refuse and corpses show
me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live.
 Current Research Pro-forma
Author: Kier-La Janisse Author: Tracy Borman
Title: House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Title: Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal, and Seduction
Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films Publisher/Publication: Jonathan Cape
Publisher/Publication: FAB Press Place of Publication: London
Place of Publication: England Date: 2013
Date: 2012 Subject/Key Points and potential use:

Subject/Key Points and potential use: The Introduction may have some useful definitions, terms or other
references.
Discusses the concept of female neurosis that proliferated in 19th
century literature and extended into 20th century cinema, the feminist
movement, is an autobiography about horror films, different chapters
separate into categories ex. Secret Ceremonies, Heal Me with Hatred
each discuss different films.
Author: Richard Nowell
Title: Where Nothing is Off Limits: Genre, Commercial Revitalisation,
and the Teen Slasher Posters of 1982-1984
Date: 2011

Author: Jack Sullivan At: go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

Title: The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural p=AONE&sw=w&u=ucca&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA264173332&it=r&asid
Publisher/Publication: Viking Press =78dfd7e591e601af6b273f63b0058b24
Place of Publication: USA
Date: 1986 Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses slasher films (including different types of slasher films), has a
May have some useful definitions, terms or other references. Violence-Against-Women Movies section that includes discussion of
feminism, misogyny, and American film culture
 Current Research Pro-forma
Author: Lawrence Raw
Title: The Scarlet Letter: A Feminist Horror Movie
Date: 2008
At: go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=AONE&sw=w&u=ucca&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA192001272&it=r&asid
=2c847bb660ff162070a4270c9bfb3de5
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses The Scarlet Letter (Book & Film), has some information about
witchcraft and how the 1972 adaptation reflected the time period in
relation to Feminism.
Author: Valerie Wee
Title: Patriarchy and the Horror of the Monstrous Feminine
Date: 2008
At: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2010.521624
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Compares gender politics between Japanese and American horror.
Discusses gender anxieties, and feminism being aligned with
monstrosity or evil. How characters in Ringu and The Ring are binary
opposites and evil spirits are out for revenge.
Author: Various
Title: Off|Screen: Gender & Horror - Part 1 & Part 2
Date: 2014
At: http://offscreen.com/issues/view/volume-18-issues-6-7
At: http://offscreen.com/issues/view/gender-horror-pt2
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Contains articles written by various authors about gender roles in horror
films, discusses a range of topics such as how horror is so gendered,
how it can be seen as misogynistic, and how it can also be empowering.
Author: Noah Berlatsky
Title: Carrie at 40: Why the Horror Genre Remains Important for
Women
Date: 2016
At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/03/carrie-stephen-
king-brian-de-palma-horror-films-feminism
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Argues women make up a large portion of horror fans. Carrie represents
a witch and menstrual monster, there are no male saviour in carrie
(main characters are all women).
 Current Research Pro-forma
Author: Lawrence Raw
Title: Horror: the film genre where men dont have all the fun
Date: 2014
At: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/halloween/11200852/Horror-
the-film-genre-where-men-dont-have-all-the-fun.html
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses how often people consider women in horror as only being the
victim, but also points out that Cat People, A Nightmare on Elm Street,
The Others, and The Woman in Black the women are in charge. Uses
texts like Men, Women and Chainsaws in discussions and talks about
how horror can be empowering for women.
Author: Britt Ashley
Title: In Horror Film The Witch, Terror Stems From Puritanical Control Of
Women
Date: 2016
At: https://bitchmedia.org/article/horror-film-witch-terror-stems-
puritanical-control-women
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Discusses the film The Witch and about Puritans, fear of womens bodies,
girls becoming women, women being seduced by the Devil, origin story of
Americathe female form as an embodiment of original sin: something to
be feared, judged, and controlledThe real terror wasnt a witchbut
rather the men dutifully deciding the fate of the women around them.
 Current Research Pro-forma
Director: Andrew Monument
Title: Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American
Horror Film
Production Company: Lux Digital Pictures
Place of Publication: USA
Date: 2009
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Covers the evolution of the horror genre within the American Film
Industry overall (not just about women).
Producer: Maude Michaud
Title: Bloody Breasts: Women, Feminism and Horror Films (web series)
Production Company: Quirky Films
Date: 2011
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Web documentary series, looking at gender roles and stereotypes,
interviews with women who enjoy horror films, overall discussions of
feminism and horror in filmmaking.
Director: Reyna Young
Title: Welcome to My Darkside: Women in Horror
Production Company: Last Doorway Productions
Place of Publication: USA
Date: 2009
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
Interviews women(actors, filmmakers, journalists) about what horror is,
why they like it, and womens roles in horror.
Director: Donna Davies
Title: Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror (TV documentary)
Production Company: Sorcery Films
Place of Publication: Canada
Date: 2009
Subject/Key Points and potential use:
TV documentary that looks at the women in horror and their
experiences, how they impact the industry and the genre and why the
actresses wish to be part of it.
 Bibliography
Batti, B. (2015) Monstrous Menstruation: On Periods and Pop Culture At: http://www.nymgamer.com/?p=12044 Accessed on:
13/2/2017

Bloody Breasts: Women, Feminism and Horror Films [Documentary Web-Series] Prod. Michaud. Quirky Films (2011) At:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXNeNBMdzAL9R3SQMyYC-IZpEzA1-QzA0 Accessed on: 26/1/2017

Borman, T. (2013) Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction London: Jonathan Cape.

Clover, C. (1992) Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender In The Modern Horror Film Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Creed, B. (1993) The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis London: Routledge.

Freud, S. (2003) The uncanny. London: Penguin.

Grant, B. (1996) The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film USA: University of Texas Press.

Janisse, K. (2012) House of Psychotic Women England: FAB Press Ltd.

Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of horror: an essay on abjection New York: Columbia University Press.

Nowell, R. (2011) Where nothing is off limits: genre, commercial revitalisation, and the teen slasher posters of 1982-1984
In: Post Script 30 (2) [online] At: go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=AONE&sw=w&u=ucca&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA264173332&it=r&asid=78dfd7e591e601af6b273f63b0058b24 Accessed
on: 26/1/2017
 Bibliography
Off Screen (2014) Issues of Gender in the Horror Genre, Part 1 At: http://offscreen.com/issues/view/volume-18-issues-6-7
Accessed on: 26/1/2017

Off Screen (2014) Gender and Horror Part 2 At: http://offscreen.com/issues/view/gender-horror-pt2 Accessed on: 26/1/2017

Pulliam, J. (2014) Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction North Carolina: McFarland & Company.

Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror (2009) Directed by Donna Davies [Television Film] Canada: Sorcery Films

Raw, L. (2008) The Scarlet Letter (1972): a feminist horror movie In: Interactions 17 (2) [online] At: go.galegroup.com/ps/
i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&u=ucca&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA192001272&it=r&asid=2c847bb660ff162070a4270c9bfb3de5
Accessed on: 26/1/2017

Sullivan, J. (1986) The Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural USA: Viking Press.

Wee, V. (2010) Patriarchy and the Horror of the Monstrous Feminine In: Feminist Media Studies 11 (2) [online] At: http://
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2010.521624 Accessed on: 26/1/2017

Welcome to My Darkside: Women in Horror (2009) Directed by Reyna Young [DVD] USA: Last Doorway Productions

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (2009) Directed by Andrew Monument
[DVD] USA: Lux Digital Pictures
 Bibliography
Ashley, B. (2016) In Horror Film The Witch, Terror Stems From Puritanical Control Of Women At: https://bitchmedia.org/
article/horror-film-witch-terror-stems-puritanical-control-women Accessed on: 20/2/2017

Berlatsky, N. (2016) Carrie at 40: why the horror genre remains important for women At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/
2016/nov/03/carrie-stephen-king-brian-de-palma-horror-films-feminism Accessed on: 20/2/2017

Billson, A. (2014) Horror: the film genre where man dont have all the fun At: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/halloween/
11200852/Horror-the-film-genre-where-men-dont-have-all-the-fun.html Accessed on: 20/2/2017