Barbara Creed's Portrayal Of Women In Popular Horror Films

Women in popular culture and cinematic representations offer what ‘Barbara Creed calls it “monstrous-feminine”’ in different guises: ‘the archaic mother, woman as monstrous womb, woman as the witch, for instance-while others address them matters of sexual desire-the femme castratice and the vagina dentata’. The woman and her capacity to disturb normal ontology to give birth fascinate, repulse and intrigue. From the psychoanalytic viewpoint, the monstrosity of the maternal body is ambiguous, a ‘man’s fear of woman linked to the belief that the mother is castrated’ (Freud cited in Vachhani 653). Creed postulates that ‘the feminine is not per se a monstrous sign; rather, it is constructed as such within a patriarchal discourse’ (Vachhani 656).
Additionally, ‘numerous horror films are populated by familiar female monsters such as witches’ (Vachhani 653) which gives weight to the depiction of the different facets of the monstrous-feminine.
In hindsight, representations of women are a mere production of the dominant male’s perceptions and assumptions of the female. Braidotti stipulates that ‘teratos suggests prodigy and demon and evokes fascination and horror’ (Vachhani 649). In western visuals, women ‘most closely address fears of women’s reproductive functions and the maternal’ (Vachhani 653). Therefore, women mostly are described as the monstrous feminine to ensuring the continuation and protection of the progeny. Salisbury states that Creed’s monstrous feminine reflects ‘male anxiety and the effect it had on subsequent conceptualizations of women’s bodies’ (67) and originates since the Aristotelian assumption-‘De Secretis Mulierum’, ‘an exposé of the mysterious workings of the female body’
(68).