THE NEW ASIAN FEMALE GHOST FILMS:

MODERNITY, GENDER POLITICS, AND TRANSNATIONAL TRASFORMATION

A Dissertation Presented
by

Hunju Lee

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Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
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February 2011

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 THE NEW ASIAN FEMALE GHOST FILMS:
MODERNITY, GENDER POLITICS, AND TRANSNATIONAL TRASFORMATION

A Dissertation Presented
by

Hunju Lee

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Approved as to style and content by:
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_________________________________________________
Anne T. Ciecko, Chair

_________________________________________________
Lisa Henderson, Member
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Amanda C. Seaman, Member

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Lisa Henderson, Department Head
Department of Communication
 DEDICATION

To My Parents, Jinwook and Jeong-Woo

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 ABSTRACT

THE NEW ASIAN FEMALE GHOST FILMS:

MODERNITY, GENDER POLITICS AND TRANSNATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

FEBRUARY 2011

HUNJU LEE, B.A., KYUNGPOOK NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, KOREA

M.A., KYUNGPOOK NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, KOREA
PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

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Directed by: Professor Anne.T.Ciecko

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My dissertation investigates the textual, intertextual, and contextual aspects of the

Asian films that I identify as the „New‟ Asian female ghost films; I focus closely on the
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films‟ visualizations of the monstrous feminine and other gendered/gendering

representations. I examine how the Asian countries‟ traditions of female ghost

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filmmaking, cultural heritages (such as the religions of Buddhism and Confucianism,

folktales, legends, myths, plays, and paintings), and other generic conventions for

cinematic horror influence the particular „hybrid‟ representational modes of the

„monstrous-feminine‟ in the „New‟ Asian female ghost films. My dissertation also

considers the ways in which the newly-revived female ghost films in East Asia and some

Southeast Asian countries reflect the local people‟s anxieties about the „compressed

modernity‟ that resulted from the Asian economic crisis and some gendered parts of the

relevant social discourse. In terms of the Asian genre‟s hybridity, I examine this

significant feature as one of the grounds to explain the films‟ global popularity,

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especially in relation to the current trend of Hollywood‟s remaking of the Asian films.

My dissertation, through a case study of four „New‟ Asian female ghost films

(Ju-On, Shutter, The Eye, A Tale of Two Sisters), responds to the question of how the

discussed historical and contextual elements involved with the emergence and

development of the „New‟ Asian female ghost films and the culturally reciprocal

relationships of the Asian films with other American/Western horror films are concretely

reflected in the gender representations present in the individual films. I also analyze the

American remakes of the four Asian films for the purpose of exploring the specific

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transformations that take place in the reworked versions, especially in terms of the

monstrous feminine images and other representations divided along the lines of sex and
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gender. I postulate several factors that have influenced the transformations, such as the

involved producers‟ and filmmakers‟ own readings of the differences and otherness in the
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original Asian texts; these individuals‟ own knowledge and assumptions about horror

filmmaking; Hollywood conventions of the cinematic horror genre; and Western ideas
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about the geopolitical place of Asia: Asian cities and nations, and Asian women.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………… v

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………….... 1

II. THEORIES ON GENRE OF CINEMATIC HORROR AND FEMINST

FRAMEWORKS FOR HORROR FILMS …………………………….. ……10

III. THEORIES ON CINEMATIC REMAKE, CROSS-CULTURAL REMA

KE, AND REMAKE OF CINEMATIC HORROR GENRE …………………34

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IV. THE NEW ASIAN FEMALE GHOST FILMS AND ALTERNATIVE
WAYS TO THEORIEZE CONTEMPORARY ASIAN HORROR
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FILMS ………………………………………………………………………..56

V. CULTRUAL TRADITIONS AND SOCIO-CULTURAL CONDITIONS

FOR FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF ASIAN FEMALE
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GHOST FILMS ……………………………………………………………… 80

VI. IMPACTS OF ASIAN CRISIS ON THE EMERGENCY OF THE NEW

ASIAN FEMALE GHOST FILMS ………………………………………….116
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VII .CASE STUDY 1: ANALYSIS OF THE FOUR NEW ASIAN FEMALE

GHOST FILMS, JU-ON, SHUTTER, THE EYE, AND A TALE OF
TWO SISTERS…………………………………………………......................138

VIII.CASE STUDY 2: ANALYSIS OF THE FOUR AMERICAN REMAKES,

THE GRUDGE, SHUTTER, THE EYE, AND THE UNINVITED ………….189

IX. CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………….....236

APPENDICES

A. FILMS VIEWED AND REFERENCED …………… ………………...257

B. AMERICAN FILMS REWORKED ASIAN HORROR FILMS

FROM 2000 TO 2010 …………………………………………………..265

BIBLIOGRAPHY ….................................................................................................267

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Contemporary Asian horror films have recently come to the forefront of Asian cinema due to the

global popularity of the genre. Through the use of genre-specific terminologies to indentify certain scary

films from Asia, including “New” or “New wave of Asian horror films” and “Asian extreme cinema,”

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modern Asian horror films have been read in very limited ways in the US. For example, according to
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current American media criticisms of Asian horror films that have been internationally well-received since
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2000, such films are usually defined as mere imitations of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring (Hideo

Nakata), this on account of the films‟ tendency to constitute monstrosity influenced by the counterparts in
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Ring. In addition to this, modern Asian horror films are often compared to the most popular trend in

Hollywood‟s repertoire of horror filmmaking, the subgenre of slasher films. Here, such textual elements

that American critics evaluate as the “differences” found in modern Asian horror films -- the internalized

psychic fear, the distinctive editing/sounding/visual shock, the slow paced and subtle terror, the destruction

of the usual conventions of cinematic horror genre, and the open ending – are more qualified than the

clichés of American slasher films, such as the typical final girl, the hero/heroine always triumphing over a

monster/serial killer, and the artificially-created fear constructed through the use of computer graphic and

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special effects.

Although the American media‟s critiques of modern Asian horror films are not entirely wrong, they

rarely consider the differences among the films produced by the separate Asian countries of Japan, South

Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Singapore. Through overemphasizing the influences of one film, Ring,

on the new cycle of horror filmmaking from Asia, what has been excluded from the current popular

discourse on modern Asian horror films is each Asian country‟s own cultural/cinematic traditions, which

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certainly affect each country‟s contemporary horror films. Another problem inherent in the US media‟s

critiques is when the critics define contemporary Asian horror films as qualified by what is deficient in
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current Hollywood horror films. Especially in the case of slasher films, the American critics imagine Asian
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horror films as „original‟ or „authentic‟ texts that have been produced without any influence, connection or

interaction from/with other American and Western horror films.

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Beyond the American media‟s totalizing, ahistorical, and authenticizing readings of contemporary

Asian horror films, what is most problematic are the ways of “masculinizing” the genre, especially through

the popular brand of “Asian extreme cinema.” The term “Asian extreme cinema” was initially coined by

the British-based Metro-Tartan Distribution (now Tartan Films) for marketing several recent films from

Asia (not exclusively horror films) to Great Britain and North America; the term is currently one of the

primary means of identifying modern Asian horror films. As the name would suggest, the promotion

strategies related to this industrial brand have emphasized filmic “extremities,” that is, excessive violence

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and cruelties in terms of the textualities of the Asian horror films categorized under that name, thus

targeting the already substantial male spectatorship of horror films. On the other hand, many of the Asian

horror films classified as “Asian extreme cinema” and thereby defined through the masculine connotations

of the term contain several cinematic/cultural features that can be open to feminist readings. That is, the

films usually deal with particular narratives centered on the figures of female ghosts: their premature deaths

and desire to avenge wrongdoers or anonymous, ordinary people.

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In that regard, my dissertation purports to study contemporary Asian horror films and the genre‟s

global popularity through the use of feminist perspectives, which have been disregarded in recent media
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and scholarly discourse about Asian horror films. Instead of using the universalizing and masculinizing
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terminologies so commonly used by the US media (i.e., terms such as “New” or “New Wave” Asian horror

films and “Asian Extreme cinema”), I indicate the particular type of modern Asian horror films I examine
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in my dissertation through use of a term that I‟ve developed: the New Asian female ghost films. The

generic category of the New Asian female ghost films includes films whose narratives are usually about

(prematurely) dead women‟s grudges and vengeful power; the films were produced in Asian countries such

as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand during and after the late 1990s.

In order to study the New Asian female ghost films through a feminist lens, my dissertation will

examine the gendered and gendering imageries and imaginations of the genre. To achieve this, my research

doesn‟t focus solely on analyzing the representations of gender in the individual films, but also considers

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the various historical, social, cultural, economic, and political contexts related to the formation and

development of the genre. In that regard, my dissertation will explain how the Asian films‟ images of the

monstrous feminine and other gender representations are intertwined with the Asian countries‟ long

traditions of female ghost filmmaking(s). Moreover, my study will also examine the ways in which the

modern Asian female ghost films that have been produced under the changed socio-cultural matrixes in the

Asian countries since the late 1990s are differentiated from classical Asian female ghost films in terms of

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the films‟ articulations of particular gender politics.

Concretely, in terms of the Asian countries‟ changed social, cultural, political, and economic
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conditions, I will focus on the Asian nations‟ modernities and modernizations, especially in relation to the
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„gendered‟ aspects of the relevant transformations. The Asian countries‟ transformations associated with

modernity and modernization have significant meanings regarding the countries‟ development of the female
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ghost film genre. For instance, the first heyday of female ghost films in certain Asian countries during the

1950s, 1960s, and 1970s can be understood as the cinematic responses to the countries‟ state-led

modernity/modernization projects and their subsequent effects on domestic women‟s lives, identities, and

roles, and also on Asian countries‟ gender politics. In addition, the later rebirths of female ghost films in

given Asian countries, which resulted in the emergence of the New Asian female ghost films, are definitely

related to the specific social discourse produced during the period of Asian crisis from the late 1990s to the

early 2000s. The popular social discourse deals mainly with the local people‟s discontent with

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contemporary problems caused by a so-called „compressed modernity,‟1 and the anxieties about their

countries‟ possible regression to a state of pre-modernity. In fact, many parts of these social concerns are

„gendered‟ and are articulated through/with representations of gender and other relevant themes in the New

Asian female ghost films. Another contextual dimension that helped produce this new style of horror films

relates to the transformations that occurred in the Asian countries‟ film industries during the Asian crisis,

including pan-Asian/transnational ways of filmmaking and changes in methods of film financing.

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After I discuss the cinematic/cultural traditions related to the Asian countries‟ female ghost film
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genres and the significant contextual factors that influenced the emergence and development of the New

Asian female ghost films, I will analyze four cases of the New Asian female ghost films, including Ju-On
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(Takashi Shimizu 2000), Shutter (Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom 2004), The Eye (Oxide
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Pang & Danny Pang Chun 2002), and A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim Ji-woon 2003). Through this more

detailed reading of my chosen cases, my study will be able to answer the question of how the discussed

historical and contextual elements are concretely presented and represented in the case films in terms of the

specific representations, images, motifs, themes, and narratives related to the monstrous feminine and other

gendered and gendering aspects evident in the four films. Moreover, the four cases will be analyzed in

relation to their features of hybridities, which I believe contributed to the global popularity of the New

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What the term indicates is the swift transformation from the pre-modern to the modern in the Asian
countries including South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, which were possible through the
development projects led by the authoritarian governments. This term will be more concretely explained
in chapter VI of this dissertation (pp.137-138).
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Asian female ghost films, producing a great desire, among American producers and filmmakers, to remake

the films. To examine the hybridized elements of the four Asian films, I will pay attention to the

complicated „intertexual webs‟ in which the films are situated. In doing so, the films‟ gendered

representations, themes, and motifs will be analyzed in terms of their relationships with other counterparts

in classical and contemporary American horror films (including American slasher films).

Relatedly, my dissertation will study the American remakes of the four New Asian female ghost

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films, these being The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu 2004), Shutter (Masayuki Ochiai 2008), The Eye (David
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Moreau & Xavier Palud 2008), and The Uninvited (Charles Guard & Thomas Guard 2009). The study aims

at understanding the transnational popularities of the representations of gender in the Asian films and also
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the particular ways of consuming and transforming the marked gender of the Asian films in the US. In that
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regard, my dissertation examines the various intertextual and contextual nexuses within which the original

Asian films are positioned to be transformed as their remade American versions. The intertextual and

contextual nexuses include the earlier films to which the involved producers and filmmakers refer, the

conventions of classical and contemporary American horror films, and American/Western assumptions and

stereotypes about Asian culture and Asian women (usually called Orientalism) that affected the involved

individuals‟ readings, understandings, and recreations of the „otherness‟ of the Asian originals.

In my dissertation, the following theoretical background and research methods will be used: First,

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in terms of examining the gendered aspects and feminine imageries in both the original Asian horror films

and the American remake versions, I will critically read psychoanalytic feminist film criticism, including

Mulveyan-Lacanian readings of phallocentric cinema, Creed-Kristevan works about the „monstrous-

feminine,‟ and other alternative feminist film theories about the cinematic horror genre that criticize what

Freeland calls „psychodynamism.‟ Moreover, what I want to overcome in my dissertation is the Western

feminists‟ „universal‟ ways of reading horror films, prioritizing what is universally repressed over the

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culturally and historically particular repression and fears. For instance, the Creed-Kristevan approaches to

horror films usually understand those images/representations/themes related to the „monstrous feminine‟ as
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mirroring „universal‟ cultural fears about the reproductive maternal body or archaic and pre-Oedipal mother.
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Separate from this, what I seek to investigate through analyzing the New Asian female ghost films

and the corresponding Hollywood remakes is what Wood calls „surplus repression,‟ which includes what
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has been repressed under the specific socio-political regime. In this regard, the figures of female ghosts in

the New Asian female ghost films can be symptomatically read as the cinematic representations of what

Asian societies had repressed but which began to return at the particular moment termed the „Asian crisis.‟

As a result, I argue that what was at stake, in terms of the projection of certain mass-distributed anxieties

during the time of Asian crisis onto the imageries and imaginations related to the female ghosts, was not

merely the universal phallocentric culture but the concrete gender politics articulated with the

contemporary Asian societies‟ postcolonial, local/global, capitalistic, and patriarchic contexts.

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 Second, my research is based on alternative theories of translation, cinematic remake, and

inter/cross cultural remake, including Benjamin, Gallop, and Grindstaff, whose theories go beyond the

limited authenticity and originality centered readings on American remakes of foreign films. Related to this,

my analyses of the Hollywood‟s reworking of the New Asian female ghost films don‟t focus only on the

textual dimensions of the remake versions, but also deal with various inter-textual/contextual aspects

surrounding the production of the American remakes. To investigate the intertexual/contextual aspects of

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the American remakes, I will refer to the relevant theories and methods from Kristeva and Genette.

Chapter II will focus on the feminist study of the cinematic horror genre, including psychoanalytic
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feminist theories on horror films and other alternative theoretical approaches focusing on gender ideologies
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and articulated with socio-political contexts. In this chapter, I will also deal with diverse psychological,

anthropological, and socio-political approaches to cinematic monstrosity. In chapter III, I will postulate
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different theories on cinematic remaking/remakes and inter/cross-cultural remaking/remakes, along with

the methodological issues to analyze remake films. Here, I will explain how my study of the American

remakes of the New Asian female ghost films can be differentiated from the usual approaches supported by

old theories on translation, through positioning both the original and remake texts within the broad

intertexual and contextual nexuses involved with the remaking activities. Chapter IV criticizes the current,

problematic ways of defining and classifying contemporary Asian horror films and the erroneous

assumptions supporting popular naming and categorization practices. In this chapter, I will talk more

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deeply about why the generic terminology of the New Asian female ghost films better represents the Asian

horror films that I study in my dissertation, also identifying the significant cinematic and cultural features

of the genre. Chapter V explains the Asian countries‟ cultural traditions that have influenced the births and

developments of the subgenre(s) of the female ghost films in those given countries. In this chapter, I will

also point out the way(s) in which modernization and relevant social discourse affected the popularity of

female ghost films in various Asian nations. In chapter VI, I will examine the social, cultural, political, and

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economic contexts that influenced the emergence of the New Asian female ghost films and the genre‟s

development, especially as it relates to the Asian financial crisis and the relevant social discourse. Many
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parts of the social discourse were gendered and had gendering effects, and were articulated with the typical
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representations of the monstrous feminine in the New Asian female ghost films. Chapters VII and VIII are

allocated for analysis of the visualizations of the monstrous feminine and the representations of gender in
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the four cases of the New Asian female ghost films, and the particular transformations of these

representations in the American remakes.

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 CHAPTER II

THEORIES ON GENRE OF CINEMATIC HORROR

AND FEMINIST FRAMEWORKS FOR HORROR FILMS

Theories of Cinematic Monstrosity

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It is not easy to define the genre of cinematic horror based on the limited number of subjects, themes,

and iconographies common to the category. In addition, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between
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horror and crime films, science fiction, adventure and fantasy. Thus, if there were to be one indisputable
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feature of the cinematic horror genre in terms of the intended emotional effect on the audience, it would be

the genre‟s aim to shock, disgust, repel – in short, to horrify the audience – and this impulse is what shapes
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the genre‟s other convention (Bordwell & Thompson 120).

Simply put, in the genre of cinematic horror, the thing or being that horrifies the audience is a

monster; therefore, the well-known literature about the genre (within film studies) has focused on the

character of the monster, the monstrous or monstrosity. As Hutchings suggests, in studies of cinematic horror,

questions about the monster or monstrosity can generally divided into two kinds: (1) how is the monster,

monstrosity, or the monstrous represented in the horror genre? And (2) what does the monster, monstrosity,

or the monstrous signify or symbolize beyond its visualization on screen? (Hutchings 34-37).

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 Some specific theories taken from psychology, anthropology, sociology, and feminism have provided

different responses to these questions. First, in terms of the representation of cinematic monstrosity or

monstrous images, scholars supporting Mary Douglas‟ theories of cultural anthropology believe that

representations of the monstrous or monstrosity in horror films are related to the problem of categorical

transgression. That is, film monsters are not just harmful or dangerous but „impure‟ or „unnatural‟ because

they continuously cross the categorical borders by which our social or cognitive orders are constituted, such

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as the divisions between life and death, human and animal, male and female, and young and old, etc. For

example, Carroll, in his book The Philosophy of Horror: or, Paradoxes of Heart (1990), argues that the
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dreadful feelings engendered by fictional monsters are not generated exclusively from the fact that monsters
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themselves are visually disgusting or horrific and provide directly unpleasant sensations. Rather, what

horrifies us is that the monsters remain in categorically interstitial statuses, thereby refusing full
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comprehension by our given cognitive system (Carroll 34-40). Carroll concludes that horror-viewing

pleasure can occur not only during the process in which the audience seeks to solve the enigma related to the

monstrous existence of the categorical transgression (to find some answer to the question of „what the hell is

it?‟), but also when they can finally “escape” from their discomfort and fear after answering the question.

This theory defines cinematic monsters as a sort of „other‟ that unstably stations itself outside our given

symbolic orders. As Carroll argues, this is why the general narrative of fictional horror ends up recovering

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the symbolic orders after the monstrous being(s) is/are eradicated. 2

Next, monstrous images or representations have been considered symptoms or metaphors of

something larger, hidden, or unknown in relation to the psychological, cultural, and social meanings and

functions of the cinematic monstrosity. According to Schneider, „the uncanny‟ feeling defined in Freudian

terminology results from the moment when viewers see the cinematic monsters whose images are connected

to their „repressed‟ infantile beliefs, such as womb fantasies, terrifying thoughts of being buried alive, and

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the castration complex, etc., which Schneider categorizes as, „when the repressed is returned.‟ Another

cause of the uncanny feeling relates to „the fictional reconfirmation of once believed but discarded primitive
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beliefs‟ like the ability of the dead to return to life. For example, Damien in the Omen series embodies a
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paradigmatic psychic narrative, thereby reconfirming our previously surmounted belief in the omnipotence

of thought (Schneider 169-172). Other psychological understandings/interpretations of the horror genre

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include those of Tarratt, for whom monsters represent the unconscious forces of the Id; those of Dadoun and

Neal, for whom monsters are fetishes, representing – and thereby disavowing – the anguish of castration;

and those of Twitchell, for whom „modern horror myths prepare the teenager for the anxieties of

reproduction‟ (Neal 98).

Wood makes some connections between psychologically-based explanations like Schneider‟s „return

of the repressed‟ theory and more socially, historically, and culturally oriented approaches to the genre. To

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See Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror: or, Paradoxes of the Heart (1990), 1-12.
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achieve this, Wood tries to combine psychological interpretations with Marxism, adopting Marcuse‟s

elaboration and extension of Freudian thought in order to analyze modern American horror films (Schneider,

„Toward an Aesthetic of Cinematic Horror‟ 131). For instance, Wood divides the concept of repression into

two subcategories: „basic repression‟ refers to the common, universal, necessary and inescapable repression

in the construction of human consciousness, and „surplus repression‟ refers to that which takes different

forms within different cultural and social contexts (Wood 78-80). In this regard, Wood points out that what

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has been repressed under the particular socio-political regime of modern American society, especially by its

nuclear family oriented system, is the sexual energy itself or non-family-oriented sexuality. Therefore, the
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basic formula of the modern American horror film is that normality (i.e., conformity to the dominant social
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norms) is threatened by the monster, the visualized manifestation of the repressed sexual desire or sexuality

(Wood 80).
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Beyond these psychological, anthropological, and socio-political approaches to cinematic horror genre,

the scholarly branch of feminist studies is also helpful in understanding horror films, but I will discuss this

theoretical approach in a separate section.

Psychoanalytic Feminist Criticism: Mulvey and Later Critics

According to Freeland, most current feminist studies of horror films are psychodynamic, chiefly

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emphasizing the viewer‟s motives and interests in watching horror films, and dealing with the

psychological effects such films have as their main attractions. In the psychoanalytic framework on which

this sort of feminist theory relies, women are described as castrated or as representing threats that evoke

male castration anxiety (Freeland 627-628).

Feminist film theory in general and psychoanalytic approaches to film in particular were launched

most notably by the publication of Laura Mulvey‟s influential essay, „Visual Pleasure and Narrative

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Cinema‟ (1975). As Mayne points out, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that most feminist film theory

and criticism of the last decade has been a response, implicit or explicit, to the issues raised in Mulvey‟s
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article: the centrality of the look, cinema as spectacle and narrative, and the importance of psychoanalysis
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as an analytical tool (Mayne 83). Laura Mulvey was influenced by the apparatus theory proposed by

Baudry and Metz in the 1970s, but at the same time marked „gender‟ on the genderless texts written by the
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apparatus theorists. Apparatus theory was distinguished from pre-1970s psychoanalytic film theory in that

it underscored the importance of cinema as an apparatus and as a signifying practice of ideology, the

viewer/screen relationship, and the way in which the viewer was „constructed‟ as transcendental during the

spectatorial process (Creed 4). Mulvey, in her daring „Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‟ essay, draws

upon key Freudian concepts of scopophilia, castration, and fetishism, as well as deriving influence from the

Lacanian theories of subjectivity formation. In her discussion, cinematic spectatorship is divided along

gender lines when the camera and male protagonist collaborate to function as the controlling look over the

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passive female heroine. Thus, pleasure in looking is split in terms of an active male gaze and a passive

female image.

Despite the female heroine‟s seeming passivity, the form and figure of woman is nonetheless

threatening because it invokes man‟s subconscious anxiety about sexual difference and castration. The male

protagonist could deal with this threat by subjecting woman to his sadistic gaze and punishing her for being

different. Or, he could deny her difference and fetishize her body by overvaluing a part of her body, such as

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her leg or breasts (Creed 11). Mulvey, later accepting some criticism about the absent discussion of female

spectatorship in her essay „Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‟, takes up the issue in a second article,
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„After thoughts on Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema‟ inspired by King Vidor‟s Duel in the Sun
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(1946)‟. In this essay, she postulates that a female spectator either identifies with woman as the object of

the narrative and male gaze, or may adopt a masculine position. But the female spectator‟s fantasy of
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masculinization is always to some extent at cross-purposes with itself, restless in its transvestite clothes

(Creed 11).

Mulvey‟s psychoanalytic, feminist approach to spectatorship and film viewing pleasure led to heated

debates and a plethora of articles from post-structuralist feminists, including Joan Copjec (1982),

Jacqueline Rose (1980), and Constance Penley (1985). They argued that, although Mulvey took questions

of gender into account, her perspective was not quite different from the previous apparatus theories, which

were part of a long tradition in Western thought whereby masculinity was positioned as the norm, denying

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the possibility of a place for woman. D.N.Rodowick also argues that Mulvey‟s approach to film

spectatorship is too reductive and her analysis of the female character on the screen and the female

spectator in audience does not allow for the possibility of female desire outside a phallocentric context

(D.N.Rodowick 7).

According to Creed, responses to Mulvey‟s theory of spectatorship followed four main lines. One

approach was to examine the female Oedipal trajectory; another approach, known as fantasy theory,

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focused on Freud‟s theory of the primal scene to explore the possibility of a fluid, mobile or bisexual gaze;

a third concentrated on the representation of masculinity and masochism; and a fourth approach, based on
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Julia Kristeva‟s theory of the „abject maternal figure‟ and on Freud‟s theory of castration, argued that the
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image of the terrifying, overpowering woman in a horror film and suspense thriller unsettles the prior

notions of woman as the passive object of a castrating male gaze (Creed 11).
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Among these four „post‟ Mulveyan approaches, only the fourth deals directly with the genre of

cinematic horror, including the important work of The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism,

Psychoanalysis by Creed (1993). The other three, however, have been implicitly or explicitly applied to the

books and articles to read contemporary horror films. Therefore, I will talk briefly about the first three

feminist criticisms here. I‟ve included a larger discussion of post-Mulveyan feminist readings of horror

films in the next section of this chapter.

Regarding theories of female oedipal trajectory, film critics including Tania Modleski, Mary Anne

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