Monsters, Mothers,

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Monsters, Mothers, Others
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Quiz 6

• For Robin Wood, what role does "repression" play
  in horror films?
• For Wood, the concept of the Other is illustrated
  by Puritan perceptions of ____________ as "spawn
  of the Devil."
• Wood's basic formula of the horror film involves
  the threat posed by the Monster. What does the
  Monster threaten?
• Barbara Creed, following Julia Kristeva's ideas
  of abjection and horror, argues that abjection in
  horror films is frequently linked to femininity
  and to, in particular, the figure of the
  ___________.
• What, very briefly, is the relation of the abject
  to the self or "I"?

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The Alien Quadrilogy

• Alien, 1979, dir. Ridley Scott
• Aliens, 1986, dir. James Cameron
• Alien3, 1992, dir. David Fincher
• Alien Resurrection, 1997, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet

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• The question of whats Human and what is
  Alien/Other appears to be very clear cut in Alien
  series of films.
• But actually, the distinction between humans and
  aliens changes dramatically over the four films
  of series.

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That Dangerous Other

• In Aliens, aliens presented as opposite of human,
  monstrous, horrifying.
• Why Horrifying, Monstrous? What makes the aliens
  seem so terrifying, disgusting, etc.?
• How are the aliens presented?
• In appearance?
• Formally? (how are they shot, lighted, etc?)

6
Otherness and Repression

• Wood "Otherness represents that which bourgeois
  ideology cannot recognize or accept . . ."
• I.e. what is repressed, at both a psychological
  and social level
• Bourgeois society deals with otherness "either by
  rejecting and if possible annihilating it, or by
  rendering it safe and assimilating it, converting
  it . . . into a replica of itself."
• Think how this "either/or" applies to treatment
  of technology-come-to-life in many films?

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Otherness and Repression

• Tamed, Domesticated Servant vs. Threatening Other
  or Monster
• Applies not only to Technology, but also to
  anything we see--or our culture sees--as Other.
• Often fears about technology combined with other
  cultural fears False Maria? Borg? Replicants?
• Fears of "Dangerous" Female Sexuality, but also
  fears about Race Rebellion, Class Revolt,
  Communism, Homosexuality, etc.

8
The Other inside Us

• Importantly, Wood argues Otherness is not
  simply "something external to the culture or to
  the self, but also . . . what is repressed . . .
  in the self and projected outward in order to be
  hated and disowned."
• Monster/Alien/Other Represents qualities
  within ourselves (our culture) that we find so
  awful or frightening, we must reject and
  externalize.

9
The Abject / The Other

• The concept of the Abject is similar to what Wood
  describes as the Other.
• Both Abject/Other must be kept outside (don't let
  "it" get in) our space, our selves.
• Threat of the Other/Abject is always a threat to
  boundaries or borders of normality, of human,
  of the self.
• Fears of invasion or penetration (homophobia),
  infiltration (Red Scare), mixture (xenophobia,
  fear of racial miscegenation).
• Maintain boundaries (ourselves, our "purity")
  against that which might "infect" or "pollute"
  us.

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Abjection

• Abjection is, however, more specific idea than
  the Other.
• Refers to what "disgusts" us, that we reject or
  expel (or try to). Yet, strangely, also a
  fascination with the abject, a "perverse
  pleasure."
• Primarily, the abjection refers to the body, or
  to those aspects of the body that are not seen as
  part of the "living subject" bodily fluids and
  wastes, but also dead bodies ("bodies w/o
  souls"), body parts, flesh, guts, and gore.
• Obvious relation to horror films.

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Abjection

• In Creed's argument, three ways that horror films
  illustrate abjection.
• Images of abjection
• The border abjection as "that which crosses or
  threatens to cross the border" (often between
  "the clean and proper body" and the "abject
  body")
• Construction of maternal figure/body as abject
  (related to attempts of individuals to separate
  from maternal body, individuate themselves).
  Creed the monstrous-feminine.

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Abjection

• In Creed's argument, three ways that horror films
  illustrate abjection.
• Images of abjection
• The border abjection as "that which crosses or
  threatens to cross the border" (often between
  "the clean and proper body" and the "abject
  body")
• Construction of maternal figure/body as abject
  (related to attempts of individuals to separate
  from maternal body, individuate themselves).
  Creed the monstrous-feminine.

13
Abjection and Gender

• How is abjection related to gender identity?
• Creed/Kristeva image of woman's body, because
  of maternal (reproductive/sexual) functions,
  acknowledges its "debt to nature" and is more
  likely to signify the abject.
• Masculine identity traditionally built on
  individuation, differentiation from mother.
  Rigid boundaries that protect self against
  penetration, infiltration, by undifferentiated
  nature.
• Feminine identity traditionally seen as more
  relational, fluid, less emphasis on separation
  from mother. Mother-child dyad never completely
  abandoned.

14
Abjection and Gender

• Female, body, nature, all seen as more
  "undifferentiated" than opposites Male, mind,
  culture, all based on differentiation from
  bodily, natural. Maintaining boundaries/ order
  against undifferentiated, fluid otherness.
• Female sexuality, genitalia, menstruation,
  birth/reproduction often viewed as fluid,
  abject, messy, "disgusting" (requiring feminine
  hygiene products, etc.).
• Qualities associated with Male often become the
  qualities associated with Human Female qualities
  associated with Aliens, Monsters.

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Fluidity the Abject in Aliens
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Fluidity the Abject in Aliens
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Fluidity the Abject in Aliens

• Passage (that leads where?)
• Womb Birth/Reproduction
• Mother Alien Eggs, Slime, Wet, Squishy sounds
  (fluidity)
• Insect connection? Unchecked reproductive
  ability as abject, scary
• Penetration and Impregnation of human hosts
  (rather die Kill me)
• Bodys boundaries invaded, infected, and torn
  apart guts exposed (loss of boundaries of
  self--between inside and outside, self other)

18
Alien Resurrection (1997)

• In Alien Resurrection, however, the boundaries
  between Ripley and the aliens (human and alien)
  become less rigid, less defined.
• Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
• Delicatessen, City of Lost Children
• Writer, Joss Whedon
• Toy Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer