‘She Was Not Like I Thought’: The Woman as a Strange Being in Masters of Horror

Abstract

The woman has appeared in many films as an unknown dangerous monster for men. Barbara Creed, in The Monstrous-Feminine. Film, Feminist, Psychoanalysis (1993), recognized the fear of women as a vampire and as witch. Masters of Horror (Showtime, 2005–2007) is a TV series that focuses their attention on distinct monsters, including female monster.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze some episodes of these two acclaimed TV series: ‘Deer Woman’ (Season 1 Episode 7) and ‘Jenifer’ (Season 1 Episode 4), in Masters of Horror. Both episodes show the struggle between the female threatening monster and the defensive male normalcy, where liberated women (they break the established rules) resist the males’ domination through cultural transgressions.

This chapter is based on different methodologies: cultural studies, history, discourse analysis and TV studies. That way, it will be essential to delve into the different readings about woman as a monster (dangerous creature for the established order) and as the otherness, where the flesh temptations (cannibalism, sex) and supernatural narrations place her outside society.

Citation

Moreno, E.T. (2019), "‘She Was Not Like I Thought’: The Woman as a Strange Being in Masters of Horror ", Gerrard, S., Holland, S. and Shail, R. (Ed.) Gender and Contemporary Horror in Television (Emerald Studies in Popular Culture and Gender), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 59-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78769-103-220191006