Representation of motherhood in the action/science fiction/horror genres is a varied and, sometimes problematic. I wrote my MA dissertation on the topic, mainly focusing on the graphic novel series Saga, however, I touched upon may examples in film alongside this.
After intensely studying motherhood in film for a good few months, I can’t help but want to explore it further, so this is the beginning of an on-going series of essays on motherhood in films, I could branch out into TV, go back to graphic novels, who knows!
I mentioned as I began this introduction that the representations are often problematic, this is partly down to the fact that women have often been portrayed as the Other to men, characterised by sexuality and a fear of the unknown.
This fear often led to the persecution of women, especially during the witch trials, where women were thought to be the servants, and the sexual slaves of Satan. Women’s reproduction has often been associated with the supernatural, indeed, our menstrual cycles were believed to be ruled by the cycles of the moon, like some kind of period werewolf nonsense.
Even today, so many men find women’s reproductive capabilities distasteful, even though it is the very thing that they desire. Periods are called disgusting, the whole concept of pregnancy comedies being a thing is a testament to how we view female reproduction when it isn’t being used for sex for desire rather than its primary function.
It is a rather confusing position for us ladies, who are told time and time again that we are meant to be sexually attractive, but periods and hair and all of the other things that we have should be hidden. Why are men so grossed out by the true nature of our sexuality? Indeed, when women grow older and no longer have periods, that are so gross to men, they are then not desirable because they are old.
Women’s reproductive systems were a thing of great concern to twentieth-century psychologists including our good old pal Sigmund Freud, who regarded the womb as ‘unheimlich’ or ‘uncanny’. This lack of understanding of the reproductive system has led to endless images of women as dangerous and unstable. Hysteria, for example, a condition found only in women was said to be a condition of ‘emotional excess’ causing fainting, nervousness and sexual desire, that was identified by ancient scientists as a problem that was related to the uterus (Tasca, 28). It is no wonder that some of these ideas still permeate popular culture, especially when portraying female characters in films.
The female heroine in film is a complicated issue, it is great that we are seeing more women in active roles in these films, but Jeffrey Brown raises this question: “When women are portrayed as tough in contemporary film, are they being allowed access to a position of empowerment, or are they merely further fetishized as dangerous sex objects?” (43), going on to suggest that these heroines are simply enacting masculine qualities “rather than providing legitimate examples of female heroism” and the feminine qualities of the heroine are all but written off in an attempt to appeal to the male consumer.
(Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow in Iron Man 2)
What is so off-putting about a more every-day representation of the female form? When looking at a number of examples it is clear to see how real feminine issues are viewed by creators of these forms of media. The unknown nature of women is, in most cases displayed as mysterious, dangerous and even monstrous. One only needs to look at horror films of the 1970s such as Alien (1979) and Carrie (1976) to see the correlation between femininity and monstrosity.
When more archetypal elements of womanhood and femininity are portrayed in film they are more often than not seen as undesirable, especially when the focus lies on reproduction, such as menstruation, pregnancy and motherhood. Kelley Oliver highlights films such as Knocked Up in which “not only is Alison (Katherine Heigl) screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs but also shows her crowning as part of its gross-out humour”, going on to state that “pregnant women giving birth are imagined as excessive, out of control and violent” (110-11). This is exemplified in horror films, reducing the on to a monstrous and, in some cases, a more primitive form.
The 1976 film Carrie, for example, illustrates this notion of the monstrous /supernatural, as when Carrie White reaches puberty, she gains telekinetic powers, which turn deadly after she is publicly humiliated by her classmates. Shelley Stamp-Lindsey suggests that “the film presents female sexuality as monstrous and constructs femininity as a subject position impossible to occupy” (34). The monstrous nature within Carrie stems from her arrival into the world as a sexually mature woman, her period. The positioning of this event with the discovery of her powers suggests anxieties around sexual maturity, Carrie is “a female monster, but sexual difference is integral to the horror she generates (36).
Reproduction, childbirth and pregnancy are all utilized in horror films and treated with the same amount of fear, from the domestic setting of Rosemary’s Baby to the deep space setting of the Alien films. Rosemary’s Baby is “a movie that heralds both the birth of horror and the horror of birth in modern cinema” (Fischer, 75) that follows the conception and birth of the spawn of Satan, resulting in “a skewed documentary of the societal and personal turmoil that has regularly attended female reproduction” (75). Alien, on the other hand, depicts birth and reproduction in its most monstrous form as Kelley Oliver suggests that “watching the birth scene from Alien along with the birth scenes from most of the pregnant comedies gives a new appreciation for how horrific popular images of birth really are” (110).
In collecting images of the monstrous or unconventional reproductive female in films/ television, I will be writing a series of essays that explores how we have viewed women in popular culture over the years and analysing if there have been any significant changes, and if not, why? Can action heroines be mothers as well as being badass fighters? Why is motherhood seen as a negative burden? Hopefully, all these questions will be explored, if not partly answered over the course of these essays.
I have ten solid ideas at the moment, but I really hope this can turn into a collaborative/ long-term series of essays! If you have any ideas that you think will be relevant, give me a shout!
Works Cited:
Brown, Jeffrey A. “Gender Sexuality and Toughness: The Bad Girls of Action Film and Comic Books.” Dangerous Curves. Mississippi: UP of Mississippi (2001). Print.
Fisher, Luc7. “The Horror Film, Birth Traumas: The Parturition and Horror in Rosemary’s Baby.” Cinematerinty: Film, Motherhood, Genre. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1996. JSTOR. Web.
Oliver, Kelley. “Accident and Excess: The Choice to Have a Baby.” Knock Me UP, Knock Me Down. New York: Columbia UP, 2012. JSTOR. Web.
Stamp-Lindsey, Shelley. “Horror, Femininity and Carrie’s Monstrous Puberty.” Journal of Film and Video 43.4 (1991): 33-34. JSTOR. Web.
Tasca, Cecilia. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Pracitve and Epidemiology in Mental Health 8.1 (2012):110-19. Web.
Siobhan of the Dead 