[Week 3] Forum-The Monstrous Feminine and the Uncanny
Q: Discuss how Barbara Creed's idea of the feminine as monster is connected to Sigmund Freud's idea of fear and the uncanny.
In Barbara Creed's reading, she doesn't really answer why do people scare of the image of monster feminine, the way she keep describing the scene of body wastes and adjective woman figure are so confused to me at first because I am seeking for the truth and answer.
But maybe there isn't any solid answer to explain human's pervert mind. I guess eventually her words inspired me to come up with some assumptions by myself. As Creed mentions in the readings Horror and the monstrous-feminine An imaginary abjection, "in some horror films the monstrous is produced at the border between human and inhuman, man and beast (5, Creed), I realized it is interesting that the uncanny figure are all somehow look like human but not human, we are getting pleasure and fear from the most familiar but different at the same time objects. This idea links to Sigmund Freud's discussion of the definition of the German word "heimlich" in his reading "the Uncanny". After he uses 4 pages to illustrate the meaning of heimlich, (which I thought it was too repetitive at first), the final outcome become quiet surprising that the meaning of heimlich actually meets the same meaning as its antonym--"unheimlich"!!
As I mentioned in the class Zoom meeting, for the meaning of the word heimlich, the steps of the transitions are: heimlich - familiar - homelike - obscure - inaccessible to knowledge - unhemlich. It seems doesn't make sense but maybe it does. Because I always believe that this world itself is just a contradiction. When everything is revealed, everything is actually concealed. We won't find the thing that familiar to us be familiar anymore.
Go back to the topic about feminine as monster, as Creed mentions a lot that how can we be afraid of woman vagina if we all come from there at the beginning? Maybe the answer is the most familiar thing for us is also the most unsolvable issue in our mind. It might also relates to the big question of where do we all actually come from, where do the entire human being starts? When does the universe starts? Those are the questions that no one figure out, so that might be the reason why we are unconsciously scared about our origin since it is a unknown world even for now.
In Barbara Creed's reading, she doesn't really answer why do people scare of the image of monster feminine, the way she keep describing the scene of body wastes and adjective woman figure are so confused to me at first because I am seeking for the truth and answer.
But maybe there isn't any solid answer to explain human's pervert mind. I guess eventually her words inspired me to come up with some assumptions by myself. As Creed mentions in the readings Horror and the monstrous-feminine An imaginary abjection, "in some horror films the monstrous is produced at the border between human and inhuman, man and beast (5, Creed), I realized it is interesting that the uncanny figure are all somehow look like human but not human, we are getting pleasure and fear from the most familiar but different at the same time objects. This idea links to Sigmund Freud's discussion of the definition of the German word "heimlich" in his reading "the Uncanny". After he uses 4 pages to illustrate the meaning of heimlich, (which I thought it was too repetitive at first), the final outcome become quiet surprising that the meaning of heimlich actually meets the same meaning as its antonym--"unheimlich"!!
As I mentioned in the class Zoom meeting, for the meaning of the word heimlich, the steps of the transitions are: heimlich - familiar - homelike - obscure - inaccessible to knowledge - unhemlich. It seems doesn't make sense but maybe it does. Because I always believe that this world itself is just a contradiction. When everything is revealed, everything is actually concealed. We won't find the thing that familiar to us be familiar anymore.
Go back to the topic about feminine as monster, as Creed mentions a lot that how can we be afraid of woman vagina if we all come from there at the beginning? Maybe the answer is the most familiar thing for us is also the most unsolvable issue in our mind. It might also relates to the big question of where do we all actually come from, where do the entire human being starts? When does the universe starts? Those are the questions that no one figure out, so that might be the reason why we are unconsciously scared about our origin since it is a unknown world even for now.
Goonight Mommy(2015), Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala
Hi Jamie! This is an interesting discussion that you bring up here-- unconscious fear of our origin? I think that is a really complicated thing to wonder about because it feels to me that there is no real answer, or at least not an answer that can be proven to be right. Maybe it has to do with what Creed talked about in her paper about the mother figure as the 'abject'. The child is comforted by her and drawn to the safety of life in the womb, but at the same time there is a "prohibition placed on the maternal body" and becoming TOO close (especially once the child has become older) can lead to icky feelings about one's own sexuality and desires. The dissonance between these conflicting emotions, desire and shame, comfort and freedom, drive the child away while the mother struggles to keep hold of the dynamic. Kinda spooky.... also! Goodnight Mommy is heckin terrifying!!
ReplyDeleteI think that Creed's answer to why the figure of the monstrous-feminine is frightening has to do with boundary issues and that is why her work relies so much on Kristeva and ideas of abjection. Abjection is centrally about the boundary between the self and other or the self and the outside world. According to Creed, the figure the female creates a crisis about the boundary between the self and other for a number of reasons. One is that women literally give birth and are capable of creating another self. What is the relationship between this other person and its point of origin, the woman? Also, castration anxiety causes men to desire to join women in sexual intercourse but the fear of entering her is invoked because of castration anxiety. Hopefully, all of it will become clearer as we read more of her work and discuss it more.
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