List Books » The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (Texas Film and Media Studies Series)
Authors: Barry Keith Grant
ISBN-13: 9780292727946, ISBN-10: 0292727941
Format: Paperback
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Date Published: December 1996
Edition: (Non-applicable)
An undying procession of sons of Dracula and daughters of darkness has animated the horror film genre from the beginning. Indeed, in this pioneering exploration of the cinema of fear, Barry Keith Grant and twenty other film critics posit that horror is always rooted in gender, particularly in anxieties about sexual difference and gender politics.
The book opens with the influential theoretical works of Linda Williams, Carol J. Clover, and Barbara Creed. Subsequent essays explore the history of the genre, from classic horror such as King Kong and Bride of Frankenstein to the more recent Fatal Attraction and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other topics covered include the work of horror auteurs David Cronenberg, Dario Argento, and George Romero; the Aliens trilogy; and the importance of gender in relation to horror marketing and reception.
Other contributors include Vera Dika, Thomas Doherty, Lucy Fischer, Christopher Sharrett, Vivian Sobchack, Tony Williams, and Robin Wood. Writing across a full range of critical methods from classic psychoanalysis to feminism and postmodernism, they balance theoretical generalizations with close readings of films and discussions of figures associated with the genre.
The Dread of Difference demonstrates that horror is hardly a uniformly masculine discourse. As these essays persuasively show, not only are horror movies about patriarchy and its fear of the feminine, but they also offer feminist critique and pleasure.
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | When the Woman Looks | 15 |
2 | Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection | 35 |
3 | Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film | 66 |
4 | "It Will Thrill You, It May Shock You, It Might Even Horrify You": Gender, Reception, and Classic Horror Cinema | 117 |
5 | Bringing It All Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange | 143 |
6 | Trying to Survive on the Darker Side: 1980s Family Horror | 164 |
7 | Genre, Gender, and the Aliens Trilogy | 181 |
8 | Taking Back the Night of the Living Dead: George Romero, Feminism, and the Horror Film | 200 |
9 | Gender, Genre, Argento | 213 |
10 | "Beyond the Veil of the Flesh": Cronenberg and the Disembodiment of Horror | 231 |
11 | The Horror Film in Neoconservative Culture | 253 |
12 | Horror, Femininity, and Carrie's Monstrous Puberty | 279 |
13 | The Monster as Woman: Two Generations of Cat People | 296 |
14 | Here Comes the Bride: Wedding Gender and Race in Bride of Frankenstein | 309 |
15 | King Kong: The Beast in the Boudoir - or, "You Can't Marry That Girl, You're a Gorilla!" | 338 |
16 | The Stepfather: Father as Monster in the Contemporary Horror Film | 352 |
17 | Burying the Undead: The Use and Obsolescence of Count Dracula | 364 |
18 | Daughters of Darkness: The Lesbian Vampire on Film | 379 |
19 | From Dracula - with Love | 388 |
20 | The Place of Passion: Reflections on Fatal Attraction | 401 |
21 | Birth Traumas: Parturition and Horror in Rosemary's Baby | 412 |
Selected Bibliography | 433 | |
Notes on Contributors | 439 | |
Index | 443 |