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Taking in a wide range of film, television, and literature, this volume explores 21st century horror and its monsters from an intersectional perspective with a marked emphasis on gender and race. The analysis, which covers over 70 narratives, is organized around four primary monstrous figures--zombies, vampires, witches and monstrous women. Arguing that the current horror renaissance is populated with willful monsters that subvert prevailing cultural norms and systems of power, the discussion reads horror in relation to topics of particular import in the contemporary moment--rampant sexual violence, unbridled capitalist greed, brutality against people of color, militarism, and the patriarchy's refusal to die.
Examining ground-breaking films and television shows such as Get Out, Us, The Babadook, A Quiet Place, Stranger Things, Penny Dreadful, and The Passage, as well as works by key authors like Justin Cronin, Carmen Maria Machado, Helen Oyeyemi, Margo Lanagan, and Jeanette Winterson, this monograph offers a thorough account of the horror landscape and what it says about the 21st century world.
List of contents
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Monster Matters
1.¿Staying Woke in an Undead World
Section 1: Lurching Engagements with Gender, Race and Class
Section 2: Eradicating Rape Culture Zombie-Style
Section 3: The Hopeful Apocalypse and the Zombie Child
Section 4: Undead Conservativism: "Legitimate" Zombie Rape and "Necessary" War
2.¿Draining the Imperialist White-Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy
Section 1: The Rise of the Vampire Activist
Section 2: Post-Traumatic Vampire Disorder
Section 3: Ethical Vampirism
Section 4: Viral Vampires and Dystopian Futures
3.¿Wicked Good
Section 1: Revising Witch History
Section 2: Patriarchy Be Damned
Section 3: Post-Millennial Fantasy and Fairy Tale Witches
Section 4: Conjuring Retribution
4.¿Woman, Thy Name Is Monster
Section 1: Gothic Monstrosity in Feminist Guise
Section 2: Get Out of My House! Banishing Systemic Monsters
Section 3: Gendered Discontent in 21st Century Creature Features
Section 4: Medusa Figures in Post-Millennial Horror
Conclusion: The Monster's Tools
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Film and Television Series
Index
About the author
Natalie Wilson is a gender studies professor at Cal State San Marcos in San Diego, California. Her blogs include Dead Ends and Professor, What if.
