Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror

by Kimberly Jackson

Overview

Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror is the first book-length project to focus specifically on the ways that patriarchal decline and post-feminist ideology are portrayed in popular American horror films of the twenty-first century. Through analyses of such films as Orphan, Insidious, and Carrie, Kimberly Jackson reveals how the destruction of male figures and depictions of female monstrosity in twenty-first-century horror cinema suggest that contemporary American culture finds itself at a cultural standstill between a post-patriarchal society and post-feminist ideology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137536778
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Edition description:	1st ed. 2016
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.02(d)

About the Author

Kimberly Jackson is Associate Professor of English and Chair of the Department of Language and Literature at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. She is the author of Technology, Monstrosity, and Reproduction in Twenty-First Century Horror (Palgrave, 2013). Her work has been published in such journals as Victorian Literature & Culture, Horror Studies, and Theory, Culture, and Society, as well as numerous edited volumes.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The "Post'" Era: Defining Post-Patriarchy and Post-Feminism
1. Impossible Womanhood and Post-Feminist Hegemony in Bertino's The Strangers and Pierce's Carrie
2. Like Son, Like Father: Tracing the Male Possession Narrative through Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, Koepp's Stir of Echoes, and Wan's Insidious and Insidious 2
3. Family Horror and Media Saturation in Verbinski's The Ring and Derrickson's Sinister
4. Returning to the Archaic Mother: Collet-Serra's Orphan, Muschietti's Mama, and Flanagan's Oculus
Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book offers a fresh theory on one of the horror genre's most recent permutations, a rewriting of the family horror that has marked its narratives since the late 1960s. Jackson elegantly argues that these new films represent a transitional moment in the representation of the family, in which 'patriarchal culture' finds itself 'trapped between a future it cannot envision and a past it cannot forget.' The chapters offer insightful and far-reaching readings of films about which (due to their newness) little has been written. Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror is sure to set the stage for further scholarly and popular discussions of family horror." - Aviva Briefel, Professor, English, Cinema Studies, Bowdoin College, USA

Editorial Reviews

Jackson traces some of the differing representations of gender and family in twelve recent horror films, at each juncture comparing them to films of previous decades, displaying lucidly the progression in thematic representations. ... this book is focused in its aims, argues with lucidity and a clear style, which makes Jackson’s arguments both compelling and insightful.” (Kathryn Haldane, Film Matters, 2017)

From the Publisher