PDP for Constellation

WHAT DO I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT?

For my dissertation I want to look at horror films. They have always been my favourite kind of movie, and being in Cath’s lectures I could really see the link between the theories she was talking about, and some of the films I’d seen. What particularly interested me was the idea of how there seem to be a limited variation in the type of women in visual culture; The Mother, The Seductress, The Virgin. The type I want to focus on is The Mother, in particular the Bad Mother.

I think this will be good for my subject practice, because it makes you think deeper about some of the meanings behind seemingly trivial things. And also what devices can be used to create atmosphere and SHOW who is “Bad”.

Some of the theories that Cath talked about in her lectures (especially those on the grotesque) I can use in my dissertation. Such as the Phallic Woman, the maternal imagination and liminality.

I will definitely be looking at a lot of the writings she gave us in the lectures, such as Kristeva and Creed, as I found what they had to say really interesting. I found Cath focused on the materiality of monsters, whereas I want to take a more feminist slant, and look specifically at the maternal aspect of those monsters

I wrote my essay in term 1 about distorted motherhood in American Horror Story, and really enjoyed it. I found I had maybe too much to write about though! Maybe in my dissertation I will use chapters to focus my ideas more, to look at the specific aspects of the maternal, instead of jumping around all the time. This will also stop me from getting off track and talking about unrelated things, which I found I was often doing during my first essay.

EXAMPLES I MIGHT USE 

There are loads of films that use the grotesque maternal. After doing some reading, I’ve realised a lot of films have some quite subtle hints to the maternal, but after looking out for them, you see them all the time (mostly I’m thinking about the Alien films). But this also makes me worry that I’m looking out for it too much! Like people who read too much into conspiracy theories and only see what they want to see. I’m going to try really hard in my essay to take that into account and see it from multiple viewpoints. I think that maybe in some of the books I’ve read, especially Creed, she does often see what she wants to see, and crowbars feminism in where maybe it’s not necessary.

But having said this, I think I want to look at “The Haunted House” as a metaphorical womb. I said this to my boyfriend and he scoffed a bit, and I can see his point. But there have been a few books that talk about it like Creed’s The Monstrous Feminine and this blog, which also talks about it in relation to The Shining;

http://thefilmemporium.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/critcal-analysis-shining-1980.html

I’m going to look specifically at the Shining in the chapter that I look at Haunted Houses and other metaphorical wombs (like the cliched cellar). I want to perhaps also look at “As Above so Below” because that represents Hell as a myriad of underground tunnels and caves, some of which are full of blood. As Creed points out “blood is one of the most common images of horror associated with the house”. Is this because they are a metaphorical womb?

HOW TO GO ABOUT RESEARCH

I think the best plan for doing my research is to read a few books that look at the kind of thing I want to read about such as Creed’s “The Monstrous Feminine” and Arnold’s “Maternal Horror Film – Melodrama and Motherhood”, and then decide on my chapters, based on what I found most interesting in those books. Then, using those chapter ideas, read more specific books and articles, noting down quotes that could be used to back up my arguments. Then use Cath’s columns method to work out what theories this quote backs up and what the meanings are within the quote.

My Chapters are going to be

• Symbolic Wombs
• Amoral Mothers and Classic Villains
• Uncanny Childbirth and link between bad mothers and bad children
• Men becoming the monstrous maternal

When I talked to Cath about this, she suggested that it might not be necessary for Men as Maternal to have it’s own chapter and maybe it should be combined with another. I can see where she’s coming from and I think it would go well in the second chapter. But I’m going to see how much I have to say about it before I decide whether it needs it’s own chapter.

I am considering changing the order of the chapters to make it more cohesive. I do think that the childbirth and children should be at the end, because that is the last stage of maternity I guess!

---