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Monstrous Possibilities The Female Monster in 21st Century Screen Horror Amanda Howell · Lucy Baker Monstrous Possibilities Amanda Howell • Lucy Baker Monstrous Possibilities The Female Monster in 21st Century Screen Horror Amanda Howell Lucy Baker School of Humanities, Languages, and School of Humanities, Languages, and Social Science Social Science Griffith University Griffith University Nathan, QLD, Australia Nathan, QLD, Australia ISBN 978-3-031-12843-1 ISBN 978-3-031-12844-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12844-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Maram_shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland In loving memory of Betty Sue Schoeneck Howell 1929–2020 who always enjoyed a good horror movie and to Fallon, who taught us the importance of Monster High A cknowledgements Stephanie Green is, as we say in Australia, a legend. Without her feedback and encouragement, this book would not have been completed. A poet with expertise in feminist theory, Gothic literature and horror cinema: what better alpha reader could one ask for? Rikke Schubart has also been a great influence on this work, through her example both as a horror scholar and as a fan, and especially as the driving force behind the Danish funded research network, Imagining the Impossible: The Fantastic as Media Entertainment and Play, which Amanda was lucky enough to be a part of from 2018 to 2021. Rikke and the other members of the network—Anita Nell Bech Albertsen, Marc Malmdorf Andersen, Cristina Bacchilega, Mathias Clasen, Stephanie Green, Jakob Ion Wille, Stephen Joyce, Jesper Juul and Angela Ndalianis—were a tremendous source of enlightenment and inspiration. Ideas related to Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night were developed during network meetings hosted by Angela Ndalianis at Swinburne University in 2019. Collaborative publications with Stephanie Green and Rikke Schubart also stimulated the ideas broached here, especially the co-edited special journal issue ‘“As If”: Women in Genres of the Fantastic, Cross-Platform Entertainments and Transmedial Engagements’. Continuum-Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 33(2) (2019). On a more personal note, this work would not have been completed without the love and support of family and friends in Australia and abroad during the chaos of the past two years. Additionally, there are many, many colleagues, friends and postgraduate researchers (some of whom aren’t even fans of horror, or the Gothic) who have provided insight and vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS inspiration over the years, including David Baker, Clare Burnett, David Ellison, Trish FitzSimons, Margaret Gibson, Jessica Gildersleeve, Sue Hess, Maryline Kassab, Claire Kennedy, Wendy Keys, Sam Lindop, J.S.A. Lowe, Hannah Ravell, Sean Redmond, Mark David Ryan, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska and Nike Sulway. Discussions about the Gothic, horror, gender, otherness, monstrosity and the uncanny with students in the courses Ghosts and the Gothic, World Cinema and Hollywood Cinema have been important to the ideas developed here—with a special shout- out to those fans who shared their enthusiasm for The Craft, Ginger Snaps and Jennifer’s Body over the years. Likewise, we are very grateful to the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, as the idea for this book was ini- tially developed during Amanda’s funded research leave in 2019. And, special thanks go to our HLSS Heads of School and Deputy Heads of School for Research, who were so supportive during its genesis: James Carson, Sue Trevaskes, Robbie Mason and Michael Ondaatje. The Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR) provided funds that contributed to Lucy’s ongoing employment in 2021 and also funded the copy-editing and indexing of this work. Centre Director Susan Forde has long been a tremendous source of support and encouragement to researchers of our School. Thanks too to GCSCR’s editor, Sue Jarvis, for her expert assistance. As this book was written during the years of the pandemic and the cata- strophic floods that hit Brisbane at the beginning of 2022, we must also extend our gratitude to those many people whose names we don’t know who worked tirelessly in service roles—in grocery stores, drug stores, hos- pitals, delivering food and medication, keeping the ambulances running, patrolling the rising floodwaters in our suburbs and helping with the clean-up when the waters receded. They kept us safe and well. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which our university stands and on which this publication was completed: the Yugarabul, Yuggera, Jagera, Turrbal, Yugambeh and Kombumerri peoples. We pay our respects to the Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. May 2022 Amanda Howell and Lucy Baker c ontents 1 Introduction: The Monstrous-Feminine Protagonist in Twenty-First-Century Screen Cultures 1 Part I Othered Mothers 25 2 Her Monster, Her Self: Amelia Sorts a Few Things Out in The Babadook 27 3 Hungry, Unruly and Bold: A Sitcom Mom’s Zombie Makeover in Santa Clarita Diet 45 Part II Reimagining the Girl 63 4 ‘I am That Very Witch’: Claiming Monstrosity, Claiming Desire in The Witch 65 5 ‘Not Yours Any More’: The Monstrous- Feminine Bildungsroman of The Girl with All the Gifts 83 6 Resistant Girl Monstrosity and Empowerment for Tweens: Monster High and Wolfblood 99 ix x CONTENTS Part III From Fragments of the Old 117 7 A Badass in Bad City: The Interstitial Artist and Monstrous Self-fashioning in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 119 8 Rage Is a Monster: Lily Frankenstein Takes Back the Night in Penny Dreadful 135 Part IV Cult Fandoms and Fan Productions 153 9 ‘We are the Weirdos, Mister’: Monstrous Performativity, Resistant Femininity and Cult Fandoms of The Craft, Ginger Snaps and Jennifer’s Body 155 10 From Monstrous Girlhood to Empowered Adulthood: Melissa Hunter’s Adult Wednesday Addams Web Series 175 Index 193 A A bout the uthors Amanda Howell is a senior lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia, where she teaches courses in screen history and aesthetics. Her research focuses on gender, genre, screen aesthetics and cultures in a sociohistorical frame, with a recurrent focus on horror as well as other ‘body genres’ such as action and the musical. Her publications on the Gothic and horror have appeared in journals such as Continuum, Gothic Studies and Genre, and she is the author of Popular Film Music and Masculinity in Action: A Different Tune (2015). Lucy Baker teaches in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University, Australia, across fields of sociology, cultural and media studies. Her research focuses primarily on adaptations, gender and fans. Her work has been published in journals including Continuum, Journal of Girlhood Studies and The Journal of Fandom Studies. Her monograph, Media and Gender Adaptation: Regendering, Critical Creation & the Fans (forthcoming, Bloomsbury, 2023), analy- ses adaptations and fanfic that change the gender of an original character and looks at how fans respond to those works. xi