The Desire to Be Terrifying: Pop Culture and The Female Monster
One of the essential elements to storytelling is conflict. When writing stories it is often a good idea to have the audience invested in one side of the conflict to generate investment in the story. Stories therefore often have two sides: the good, and the evil. As an audience we are supposed to cheer for the good and in characters in the form of heroes, while opposing the evil and characters in the form of monsters. Monsters are in the truest sense creatures, or sometimes people who are no longer human. Monsters are meant to be feared, and cast aside, and killed. An analysis of our monsters or the things we fear can tell us a lot about our values, and the traits we abhor in the same way analyzing our heroes tells us about the virtues we admire (or are taught to admire). A particularly interesting kind of monster is the female monster. In fairytales, the stories we are first told and often the first we remember, girls are classically cast in role of the damsel in distress. Through princesses we were taught the value of being beautiful, of talent (being able to sing for example), and of falling in love. However,there is another role available to women in fairytales: that of the monster. The monsters teach us how not act: independently, selfishly, or for personal gain. But what if, despite the intention of the story, women start rooting for the monster? The monster represents that which we are not supposed to be, and so she is the perfect figure to use to examine how female characters can be used to pass down certain ideologies. The female monster also shows how consumers of media can subvert these intentions by deciding they want that which they are not supposed to. There are two types of monster women: the deliberately sexual, and the deliberately hideous. By studying Emily in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, the legend of Medusa, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and Ursula from The Little Mermaid I will examine how 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 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 trope of the lesbian vampire is well documented. The documentary The Celluloid Closet which discusses the portrayal of queer characters in the film industry explain how the lesbian vampire came into being on the big screen after the Hays code “authorized [censors] to change words personalities and plots.” (15:43-15:53). 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.” (16:45-16:56). One of these cold blooded villains that became popular in films was the lesbian vampire. Vampires on there own have often been read as metaphors for sexual deviancy. The old vampires myths were of men, biting young girls, on their necks, sucking their life force...it becomes clear how modern adaptations of vampires have remained associated with sexuality. When that vampire is a woman who preys on other woman the sexuality already saturated in the vampire mythos becomes queer. The problem with the lesbian vampire trope is not only that vampires are sexualized, but that they are evil. As demonstrated by the Hays code this connects queer sexuality to evil, villany, and acts of deviance. The lesbian vampire trope through the connection of lesbianism with vampirism intrinsically connected the figure of the lesbian with hyper-sexually which is a problem as lesbian are still often festished to this day. The trope also connects female queerness to the predatory evil of murdering vampires.
Though the Hays Code contributed to the popularity of the lesbian vampire, as it made villainized queerness the only acceptable form of queerness this trope is actually much older than tv. 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” (Le Fanu 29, emphasis mine). The lesbian vampire from its very origins then 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 vampire is a creature of desire, and this brings to mind Helene Cixous writing, “who surprised and horrified by the fantastic tumult of her drives...hasn’t accused herself of being a monster,” (Cixous 1943). Laura is excited and fearful of Carmilla’s affection, and Cixous writes on how women connect their desires with something monstrous. The lesbian vampire trope is an example of how we can be taught to do that. 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 then 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. Emily is clearly supernatural and not simply human as her skin is blue, she has a maggot living in her eye, and her limbs are attached with stitches. As a decaying corpse Emily really should be seen as a figure of disgust, and yet other thea a few throwaway jokes with the maggot she is a corpse that is sexualized. This may seem odd, but Cixous offers an interpretation 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”(1951).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. Like the lesbian vampire who subverts the “natural” law of heterosexuality in her unnatural state of being undead, the corpse bride is able to express a sexuality to her being that the living Victoria can not. 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 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. The question of course is why the popular imagination has latched on to her. There is a fascination with her as a gothic figure who is beautiful, and dead. Her look is to be achieved and emulated.
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 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”. It is important to note that she did not get the love, or marriage she desired, but dies a second a time. 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 she “was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire, who uttered a piercing shriek at the moment, in all respects such as might escape from a living person in the last agony. Then the head was struck off, and a torrent of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body and head was next placed on a pile of wood, and reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the river and borne away.” (Le Fanu 84-85). Carmilla is staked, decapitated, and burned a fate which the reader is lead to be 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 a happy ending.
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. Though 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 with many folklores and legends Medusa is going through a bit of a rewriting in the pop culture imagination as the values attached to her monstrosity have changed. In a popular post on Tumblr with over three hundred thousand seven 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 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 not only does he kill you but he keeps your head as a weapon???????? effectively using you and your body for his own purpose exactly like your rapist??????????????? like??? and this man is considered a hero while you’ll be remembered as a monstruous, dangerous entity????????????????????” (tumblr). This post refelcts 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. Garbati’s statue was created because he wanted to answer the question “What would it look like, her victory, not his? How should that sculpture look” (Yahoo!Finance)? The answer is a sculpture of a naked Medusa, she has snakes in her hair though is not particularly ugly. She holds a swords 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 look 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.” It makes sense that in the wake of the Me Too movement our social consciousness has changed in way way that we decided to relabel a figure thought a monster so long because of rape, into a hero, and survivor. Though this is of course, only a modern adaptation, and reclamation to an original myth in which Medusa was a hideous monster.
The lesbian vampire, and the corpse bride are beautiful, sexualized monsters made beautiful in their connections to death, and this connection also tied to dissident values of sexuality. But what about monsters like the original Medusa? What about monsters who are hideous? Do they create the same pleasure/fear relationship Laura experienced with Carmilla? The same attraction/and repulsion created with the decaying beauty of Emily? Are there other monsters like Medusa who are reclaimed, stripped of their monstrosity, their villany, and ugliness? The answer to that last one in the case of Sleeping Beauty monster Maleficent is yes. In the original Disney movie she is a fairy, but doesn’t look like the other fairy godmothers who grant gifts to the 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 evil proudly declaring herself “the mistress of all evil,” and hanging out with her goblin minions, and crow companion in an evil castle. 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, or perhaps more generously not to be independant and powerful towards the murder of babies. She 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, like Medusa, interest in her villany was enough for Disney to create a live action movie based around her. The film Maleficent, does something similar to 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 a monster, which erases the appeal the original cartoon had for people who enjoyed her as an unrepentant, delightfully evil monster who could turn into a dragon.
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 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 though supposed to be the despised villain is adored by fan culture. Ursula like all the monster women 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 marty's 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.
The main function of monsters is to terrify. When these monster are looked up to that offers an interesting question about the twin roles of fear and desire. If we look up to monster women as 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, indulgence to name a few, but the most central trait to the monster woman is that she is terrifying. Fear is a different emotion then 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 apart of. They are often violent, or dangerous. 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, 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. The reason is 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 the good girl. To be safe girls. Sometimes though women learn the wrong lesson. 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 to be terrifying.
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 a Carmilla in a mutual, an consensual relationship. The web series celebrates the queerness of its two main characters, and Carmilla is not villainized for fit. In fact Carmilla isn’t really villainized at all. These reimagining of these monster women needs 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 or 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 these women before they are redeemed 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. 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 beauty of 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 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.
In the first stories we are told as children we are given simple dichotomies of good, and evil, of heroes and monsters. Monsters are supposed to be the most obviously irredeemable, and hated of our characters. This position in storytelling places monster as a sign for the values of a society. All the things that are supposed to be abhorred, and pushed away are placed on the monster. When the monster is a woman something interesting happens: sometimes she attractive, and sometimes she is hideous. When a monster is attractive there is usually some moral lesson meant to police the sexuality of women by attaching it to immoral characters. When the monster is hideous there are also remains these moral lessons in shame. Something goes wrong in the telling of these stories though. Women see the terrifying monster, and instead of being ashamed of her terror, she aspires to it. There is a strength in the unrepentant power of monstrous, terrifying woman that should be preserved and not adapted out as we carry our monsters with us in the 21st century. Women are taught to be safe, but instead they do something truly monstrous when instead they learn to be terrifying
Works Cited
“Carmilla-Season 1 Playlist.” Youtube, uploaded by KindaTV, 19 Aug 2014‒2nd Dec 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QzRfvkJZ4&list=PLbvYWjKFvS5rX2yv-k5AJ8oxPoZ9zHcpe&index=1.
Cixous, Helene. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
2nd Edition, edited by Vincent B. Leitch, William E. Cain, Laurie Finke, Barbara Johnson, John McGowan, T Denean Sharpley Whiting, and Jeffrey J. Williams, W.W Norton & Company Inc, 2010, pp 1942-1959
Corpse Bride. Directed by Tim Burton, Mike Johnson, Warner Bros, 2005.
“Emily (Corpse Bride) Halloween Tutoral” Youtube uploaded by Dope2111, Sept 23 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RYvxzkuHFo&t=3s
epicene-street-light, “Medusa Avenging Squad,” Tumblr.https://mckitterick.tumblr.com/post/164335338610
Le Fanu, Sheridan. Carmilla. 1872. Feedbooks, 2003.
Maleficent. Directed by Robert Stromberg, starring Angelina Jolie, Walt Disney, 2014.
Sleeping Beauty. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Walt Disney Productions, 1959.
takealookatyourlife, “Medusa Was Defending Herself,” Tumblr. https://mckitterick.tumblr.com/post/164335338610
The Celluloid Closet. Directed by Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, Arte, 1995.
The Little Mermaid. Directed by Ron Clements, John Musker, Walt Disney, 1989
“The story behind the Medusa statue that has become the perfect avatar for women’s rage.” Yahoo!Finance, Oct 3 2018,