In our oldest stories, and in the stories we hear first as children heroes fight monsters. Monsters are meant to be feared, and cast aside, and killed. The monsters were supposed to teach us how not to act: independently, selfishly, or for personal gain. But what if, despite the intention of the story, women start rooting for the monster?  There are two types of monster women: the deliberately sexual, and the deliberately hideous. In both cases the warring forces of fear and desire, and of attraction and repulsion play into the complex desire for women to be monstrous. 

 

It is perhaps easiest to understand the attraction to monster women when that monster is deliberately sexualized. One of the most easily recognizable sexualied monsters is that of the vampire. Whether they are sexed up for teenagers in Twilight, or The Vampire Diaries, or for adults in shows like True Blood the media is currently saturated with images of the sexy vampire. There is one very interesting subcategory of this and that is the lesbian vampire. The documentary The Celluloid Closet, which discusses the portrayal of queer characters in the film industry, explains how the lesbian vampire came into being on the big screen after the Hays code “authorized [censors] to change words, personalities and plots.” The Hays Code was a strict set of “morally” based restrictions on Hollywood films that banned among other things the depiction of homosexuality. The documentary notes that “for all its effort the code didn’t erase homosexuals from the screen it just made them harder to find, and now they had a new identity as cold blooded villains.”  One of these cold blooded villains that became popular in films was the lesbian vampire. 

 

Vampires on their own have often been read as metaphors for sexual deviancy. When that vampire is a woman who preys on other women the sexuality already saturated in the vampire mythos becomes queer. The problem with the lesbian vampire trope is not only that vampires (and therefore lesbians) are sexualized, but that they are evil. This connects queer sexuality to evil, villany, and acts of deviance. 

 

 The trope of the lesbian vampire is actually older than Dracula. The trope originates in the 1872 novel by Sheridan Le Fanu Carmilla. The novel tells the story of a young noblewoman Laura whose family takes in a beautiful stranger her age after a carriage accident outside their estate. Laura becomes friends with the girl, Carmilla, but her new friend begins to show an uncomfortable affection towards her, and is eventually revealed to be a vampire preying on Laura. Carmilla’s preying on Laura is not only represented in the violent act of her bloodsucking, but in her affection for her innocent victim.  When she receives this affection Laura describes how she “experienced a strange tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a vague sense of fear and disgust.” The lesbian vampire from its very origins is a figure whose homosexual inclinations are to be seen as repulsive, even as there is an acknowledgment to attraction. This is the line that attractive females monsters walk: they are attractive, and we are supposed to desire what we find attractive, but through some other quality– in the case of the lesbian vampire the predatory characteristic tying her to murder and queerness– we are also supposed to find her repellant, and horrifying. The lesbian vampire trope has endured for 150 years like the undead monster herself. From its very inception in Le Fanu’s novel the lesbian vampire was tied to the violence, murder, and villainy of the vampire. The trope teaches that queer women are those who are dead, those who are evil, and those who therefore subvert the very laws of nature. It is no wonder that women who are exposed to this find something to fear in their desire. 

 

Another example of an attractive female monster is Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. The titular Corpse Bride is not really a villain, though she is an antagonist to Victor’s desires for most of the film. In the film Victor is practising his wedding vows for Victoria, his wife to be, when in reciting them he accidently gives them to a living-corpse: Emily. There are immediately differences between the two women, most notably that Emily the corpse bride is sexualized in a way that Victoria the living bride is not. Emily spends the film in a wedding dress that shows off her shoulders, arms, and a large portion of her legs. Victoria, the living bride, spends the film covered in a dress from head to toe. As a decaying corpse Emily really should be seen as a figure of disgust, and yet other than a few throwaway jokes with the maggot she is a corpse that is sexualized. This may seem odd, but feminist writer Helene Cixous offers an interpretation in her landmark essay “The Laugh og Medusa” when she writes , “men say there are two unrepresentable things: death and the feminine sex. That is because they need femininity to be associated with death.” The Corpse Bride is a figure tied in her very design, and concept with sexuality, and death. This is similar to the figure of the lesbian vampire above as vampires are undead, and also sexualized.  This has the rather unfortunate connotation of connecting being beautiful or sexy for women with being dead. 

 

The Corpse Bride is such an interesting example of a monster woman not just in how she is made simultaneously repulsive, and especially attractive, but in how her figure has been taken up in pop culture. There are multiple youtube makeup tutorials on how to achieve Emily’s look one of which by user “dope2111” on youtube has over 60 million views. Though Corpse Bride was released in 2005 it remains relevant in the popular imagination through its commodification. The best example of this would be the store Hot Topic which has a corner dedicated to Corpse Bride merchandise year round. There is a clear fan appreciation of the aesthetics of the film Corpse Bride, and of the character herself. There is a fascination with her as a gothic figure who is beautiful, and dead. Her look is to be achieved and emulated in cosplay.  

 

In Corpse Bride it should be noted that Emily is a cursed woman. She does not remember who murdered her, and so she is left in the in-between state of being a walking corpse until she finds peace. She also does not get that happily ever after ending of ending up with the guy. Once she is avenged Emily turns into a swarm of butterflies, an ambiguous ending implying that she “moved on”. The lesbian vampire too is a figure that is considered cursed, and gets an unhappy ending. The vampire is a figure considered cursed by their monstrosity. Carmilla does not get a happy ending, and is killed in quite the dramatic way as in the novel she is : staked, decapitated, and burned a fate which the reader is led to believe she deserves. This literal overkill is another example of how the lesbian vampire leads to a disgust of queerness. It is also an example, like Emily in Corpse Bride, of how cursed and monstrous women do not get happy endings. 

 

The most famous cursed woman, and the most famous female monster has to be Medusa. In legend Medusa was a beautiful woman who was raped in Athena’s temple by the god Poseidon. For this transgression she was cursed by Athena into a hideous monster who could turn men to stone with a look. Later in mythology she is killed by Perseus who uses her head and its ability to turn creatures to stone as a weapon.  There is a lot to unpack here, namely that Medusa is blamed and cursed for her own rape, the result of which is her eventual murder. This is a horrifying, and awful story. Medusa, like Carmilla, and like Emily the corpse bride is cursed, and like them she is killed. Unlike Emily and Carmilla, Medusa is not sexualized once she becomes a monster. Although she is noted for her beauty, and in a way punished for that very beauty, once she becomes a monster with snakes for hair she is seen as ugly. 

 

Medusa is fascinating not only for her fame as a monster, or the particular tragedy of her story, but in how she has been going through something of a reclamation as the values attached to her monstrosity have changed. In a popular post on Tumblr with over three hundred thousand notes user “takealookatyourlife” writes “Medusa was Defending Herself,” the post proceeds with other users tagging on and changing the original myth. Instead of Medusa’s monstrocity being a punishment for her own rape, her change is determined to be gift from the goddess Athena who gave her a a way to protect herself from men. This version literally empowers Medusa in her ability to turn men to stone, rather than punishes her. It also speaks to a notion that ugliness is empowering as it frees Medusa from the beauty, and subsequent rape that victimized her. Another tumblr post with over twenty thousand notes echoes a similar sympathy for Medusa. Written by user epicene-street-light the post hashtagged “#Medusa Avenging Squad,” laments that “Medusa deserved better,” because “a  fucking MAN decides hes gonna hunt you down and slaughter you for  sport like just because he can...and this man is considered a hero while you’ll be remembered as a monstruous, dangerous entity?”  This post reflects the growing discomfort with Perseus as a hero, and a rage at Medusa’s long tenure in history as a monster and a villain.

 

 A great example of this sentiment is the statue  “Medusa” by Luciano Garbati. The sculpture is of a naked Medusa.  She has snakes in her hair although she is not particularly ugly. She holds a sword in one hand pointed down, and the head of Perseus in the other, also held low, and not high in victory. (Unlike the way Perseus is often depicted holding her head aloft). Her head is held high, and her gaze forward, not proud, but defiant. To echo the sentiment of  takealookatyourlife “she was defending herself.” The statue went viral on social media in 2018, one yahoo article describes it as “the perfect avatar for women’s rage.” Medusa’s reclamation has been going on for decades, as previously stated Helene Cixious laughs with Medusa in her famous essay. All of these examples are modern adaptations and reclamations of an original myth in which Medusa was made a hideous monster punished for her sexuality even when sexuality was not her choice. 

 

The lesbian vampire, and the Corpse Bride are beautiful, sexualized monsters made beautiful in their connections to death, and this connection being tied to dissident values of sexuality. But what about monsters like the original Medusa? What about monsters who are hideous? To examine the lessons of hideous monster women we look first to the Sleeping Beauty monster Maleficent. In the original Disney movie she is a fairy, but doesn’t look like the other fairy godmothers who grant gifts to Princess Aurora. Unlike the three plump, matronly, and human looking fairy godmothers Maleficent is strikingly tall, green skinned, and has horns on her head. She is clearly monstrous in her appearance. She is also unrepentant and delighted in her own villany, proudly declaring herself “the mistress of all evil.” Her actions in the film are petty, and connected to our instinctual impulses against evil: she curses a baby to death because she wasn’t invited to the party. She then remains obsessed with this curse playing out for 16 years. 

 

The murder of babies has been connected in our consciousness with evil since the Renaissance witch trials when witches were burned under suspicion of killing babies or causing infertility. The crime is seen to be the highest kind of unnatural in a woman who should nurture babies not destroy them. If all of this wasn’t enough Maleficent turns into a dragon: one of the most terrifying, and deadly monsters in mythology. She also, like all the other characters mentioned here, is killed. Her petty motivations, her monstrous appearance, and her brutal death are all signs that she is supposed to be an unrepentant, and disliked figure. She is the villain, and monster meant to teach us not to be petty, not to be selfish, not to be independent, and powerful, and to value being matronly over  being monstrous. 

 

Maleficent is not beautiful, she is definitely a monster  and yet there are people who love her. Hot Topic sells T-Shirts of her. Perhaps most tellingly interest in her villany was enough for Disney to create a live action movie based around her. The film Maleficent does something similar to the musical Wicked which reimagines the Wicked Witch of the West as a heroine. Maleficent instead of being a green skinned monster reveling in her own evil is played by Angelina Jolie. So they clearly weren’t going for the ugly or monstrous route. The film turns her into Aurora’s protector (eventually) and not her killer. Maleficent is reimagined in a way that she is no longer much of a monster at all. 

 

In a similar vein to Maleficent is the Disney villain Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Ursula is even more dissident in appearance than Maleficent: she is fat, her grey hair implies she is old, and she has tentacles. In the same way that Maleficent looks nothing like the other fairies, Ursula looks nothing like the other mermaids. Also like Maleficent she seems completely delighted in her own evil, and her evil schemes. She too is on T-Shirts at Hot Topic and although she is supposed to be the despised villain she is adored by fan culture. Ursula, like all the monster women already mentioned, dies. Eric rams his ship into her, implaing and killing her. The phallic metaphor here seems obvious. Despite her appearance, her motivation to gain control over the sea for nothing more than power, and her brutal death Ursula is liked by fans. This begs the question: why are Maleficent, and Ursula, even when they aren’t being softened by adaptation, enjoyed for being villainous? It could be that their traits, and independence are seen as empowering as the witch figure so often is in pop culture.  Neither woman answers to anyone, especially not men, and as they die at the hands of men, princes, they may be seen as martyrs to feminism and victims of the patriarchy. There is something enjoyable in watching women who delight and are unapologetic in their rebellions. Even as these monsters are not sexualized there remains an appeal to them. 

 

There is an urge discussed in this essay that should be examined more closely, and that is the desire that cropped up in these examples to redeem the monster woman. As already mentioned Maleficent is stripped of her monstrous qualities of ugliness, and hatred in the remake starring Angelina Jolie. Medusa in her modern reimagining is either gifted with her monstrosity instead of cursed, or at least she is seen as a tragic victim in her unjust murder at the hands of Perseus. In the case of  Garbati’s statue she is completely reimagined as the victor of her battle. 

 

Even Carmilla has been redeemed in the 21st century. The youtube web series Carmilla is a reimagining of the original Le Fanu story. The web series takes place in the present day, and features Laura and  Carmilla in a mutual, and consensual relationship. The web series celebrates the queerness of its two main characters, and Carmilla is not villainized for it. In fact Carmilla isn’t really villainized at all. These reimaginings of these monster women need to be examined. On the one hand they can be seen as really positive things: in the case of Carmilla the webseries undoes the toxic associations with predatory violence and queerness embedded in the trope of the lesbian vampire. Medusa’s reimagining gives justice to a victim of rape and male violence. It is with these positive associations of these re-imagining that I consider the other side of this redemption of female monsters, and that is that before they are redeemed these women are stripped of their monstrous qualities. 

 

Maleficent is made into a hero, Medusa in Garbati’s statue is not very ugly, and Carmilla is tamed in that she drinks blood from bags, and rarely from humans in the webseries. The problem with redeeming monster women in this way is that it can reinforce the shame of their original monstrous qualities. When Medusa is imagined as the victor of her battle with Perseus she is beautiful. This reinforces the standards that beauty equals good, and ugly equals bad. Maleficent’s change in the live-action film to a matronly concern for Aurora would seem to reinforce the ideals of woman as mother, a rather dramatic shift from her cartoon incarnation where she witchly cast off such instincts. The Little Mermaid live film has not come out yet so it is uncertain what they will do with Ursula. She is still the villain of the film so she won't be redeemed, but there will be interesting implications in how sympathetic– and how thin– they make her. Ultimately the reimaging of monster women can serve good purposes such as creating avatars for feminist justice, and stripping away the predatory connotation with the lesbian vampire. However, it is important to think about what happens to the monstrous traits of these women when this happens. If these women are no longer terrifying and no longer villains then some of the dissident and divergent appeals and lessons they offer are lost. 

 

The main function of monsters is to terrify. If we look up to monster women are we supposed to be ashamed of being terrifying, or do we aspire to be terrifying? Women are traditionally shamed for the attributes invested in monster women: ugliness, power, selfishness, queerness, fatness, and/or indulgence to name a few, but the most central trait to the monster woman is that she is terrifying. Fear is a different emotion than repulsion, or disgust which when related to monster women usually has to do with their ugly appearance. Fright goes deeper than appearance; it speaks to an uncertainty of safety, or a threat. Monster women are threatening in the stories they are a part of. 

 

Monster women are also threatening outside of those stories for what they represent. The physical or violent threat of monster women: Carmilla's bloodlust, Medusa’s ability to turn men to stone, or Maleficent’s dragon are manifestations of the threat these women pose to the patriarchy. Carmilla’s queerness, Medusa’s feminist rage, or Maleficent’s independence are coded values placed in monster women that are meant to teach the immorality of the things they represent. The interesting part is the fact that these monsters still have fans. People who emulate their looks in makeup tutorials, or buy their t-shirts. Monsters are terrifying and their violent deaths are supposed to be lessons teaching women to not be terrifying. To reiterate: Carmilla is staked, beheaded, and burnt, The Corpse Bride is murdered, and then ambiguously passes on a second time with none of her desire fulfilled, Medusa is beheaded by Perseus for her own rape, Maleficent is slain by Phillip and tossed off a cliff, and finally Ursula is impaled by a ship. 

 

With the possible exception of Emily who was already the most sympathetic of these monsters, and if we excuse her original murder, all of these deaths are brutal, dramatic and over the top in their violence, but we are told they all deserved what they got. Because they were monsters. Because they were queer, or decaying, or dangerous, or selfish, or fat. Women see this; they see what these women were, and what they were killed for, and still we look up to monster women. We see these women who were terrifying, and we respect them for it. Women are taught from fairytales to be meek, to be damsels in distress, and to be the good girl. To be safe girls. Sometimes though women learn the wrong lessons. They grow up, and they decide to be queer anway, or fat anyway. They decide to be angry, to defend themselves, to be selfish, and independent, and loud. They decide to be monstrous. Women aspire not to be scared but to be terrifying. Not damsels, or heroes but monsters.