Violating Bodies, Contesting Pain:Abuse and Violence in Select Body Horror Films

The violence and abuse (both physical and psychological) to which women are subjected to, hints at the sickening reality that the female body is treated as anything but a biological being and thus makes her claim over her own body dismissible. The paper attempts to do a close reading of the films Bedevilled (2010), The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016) and The Lodge (2019) to understand the dynamics behind the gendered violence against women and its depiction in films. The films considered for the study fall within the sub-genre of body horror. The body horror films encompass extreme violations of human body through means of death, decay, disease, mutation, parasitism, mutilation or as in certain instances the unnatural bending or twisting of parts of the body as often seen in horror films. The paper employs discourse analysis along with the theories of abjection (Julia Kristeva) and grotesque (Mikhail Bhaktin). The paper analyses the films within the context of social, political economic and cultural factors that influence the female protagonists. The paper further delineates how these factors operate within the realm of gendered violence to which the protagonists are subjected to. The paper also discusses about the psychological exploitation and dilemma of women. The films are placed within the theoretical frameworks of psychoanalysis and cultural studies. The paper also analyses ‘cinema’ as one of the most representative art forms being reflective of the society and the women of the community.

Keywords: Abjection, Body politics, Grotesque, Representation