Includes bibliographical references and index. Includes filmography.
Contents:
Exit: Playing the Ball Back to the Universe. Unpleasant and Fun -- Only Humans have Gender -- Defining Horror -- The Structure of Mastering Fear -- 10. The Dark Stage -- Emotions -- What are Emotions? -- System 1 and System 2 -- Positive and Negative Emotions -- The Horror Experience -- Gender -- Throwing Like a Girl -- Thinking Like a Woman -- Gender and Change -- Evofeminism -- Play -- What is Play? -- Play Fighting -- From Animal Play to Human Play -- Playing on the Edge -- Aggression -- Three Basic Horror Narratives -- Horror as Play -- Child -- 2. Mud, Blood, and Magic: Genre and Gender in Pan's Labyrinth: Pan's Labyrinth (2006) -- Anchor Points and Default Rules -- Into the Labyrinth -- Fairy-Tale Expectations -- With a Child's Eyes -- The Meaning of Mud -- A Task and a Monster -- Beauty Meets the Beast -- A Trial and Disobedience -- The Meaning of Magic -- The Fantastic and the Melodrama -- Hero or Victim? -- A Final Anchor Point -- 3. The Bio-Logic of Vengeance in Let the Right One In: Let the Right One In (2008) -- The Vampire Triptych -- The "Piggy Game" -- Play Fighting and Cruel Play -- Sex and Gender: "I am not a girl" -- From Friends to Lovers: The Romeo and Juliet Theme -- The Bio-Logic of Justice -- The Ethics of Vengeance -- Scar as Passage and Border -- Conclusion -- Teen & Emerging Adult -- 4. "She Made a Choice": Werewolf Affordances and Female Character Development: Wilderness (1996), Ginger Snaps (2000), Hemlock Grove (2013 -- 2015), Bitten (2014 -- 2016) -- Lycanthrophy -- Werewolf Affordances -- Wilderness: Wolf as Zen Master -- Ginger Snaps: Menarche as Mayhem -- Menarche: Disease and Shame -- Hemlock Grove: A Crazy Vargulf -- Fantastic Transformations -- Explosive Plasticity as Character Development -- Deep Ecology -- Bitten: The Neofeminist Wolf -- Sex and the Single Werewolf -- Mastering Change and Desire -- The Evofeminist Werewolf -- 5. Lust, Trust, and Educational Torture: The Vampire Diaries: The Vampire Diaries (2009 -- 2017) -- Sexual Selection Theory Revisited -- Caroline: Stupid and Shallow -- The Sexual Emotions -- Abuse and Self-Confidence -- Managing Lust and Love -- Trust, Pain, and Play -- Friends and a Climate of Trust -- Restoring Trust -- Who Do You Trust? -- Trust, Educational Torture, and Change -- The Doubling of Choices -- Adult -- 6. Disgust and Self-Injury: In My Skin, Martyrs, Black Swan: In My Skin (2002), Martyrs (2008), Black Swan (2010) -- Disgust -- New French Extremity -- Self-Injury -- In My Skin: Fascinating Flesh -- Cut N Slash Transgression -- A New Ethics of Viewing -- Martyrs: Third Wave French Extremity -- When Self-Injury is Comforting -- The White Mouse -- The Feel-Bad Experience -- Black Swan: A "Delicate Cutter" -- Ordinary Disgust -- "To Beauty" -- The Magic Circle and the Moral Circle -- Conclusion -- 7. The Maternal Myth: Birth, Breastfeeding, Mothering: Inside (2007), Grace (2009), The Babadook (2014) -- Mother: The Good, the Bad, and the Real -- Inside: "Completely Unwatchable" -- Terror and a Real Maternal Body -- Who is the Good Mother? -- Grace: "It's All About Maintaining Your Diet" -- Milk: "A Whole New Level of Freaky" -- Mother Discourses -- The Babadook: "This Monster Thing" -- Meta-Play -- Princess Play and Monster Play -- Wild, Deep, and Dark Play -- Conclusion -- Middle Age -- 8. Home and Road: Carol's Change in The Walking Dead: The Walking Dead (2010 -- ) -- Graphic-Novel Carol and Television Carol -- Change -- House and Home -- Home Is Where You Die -- Alexandria -- The Chronotope of the Road -- The End of the Road -- Stepping Up -- "You Have to Change" -- Two Kinds of Freedom -- Eudaimonia -- Surviving Middle Age -- 9. Age Anxiety and Chills: Jessica Lange and American Horror Story: American Horror Story (2011 -- ) -- The Emotion of Interest -- Fiona, Supreme Witch -- Ageism -- Millennial and WAGs -- The Bad Mother -- Sex, Love, and Hell -- Freaks and Chills -- Piecing Together Elsa Mars -- Lange Doing Lange -- The Void of Identity -- Old -- 10. Abyss and Peak: The New Old Woman: Penny Dreadful (2014 -- 2016) -- Penny Dreadful and Patti LuPone -- The Old Woman -- Joan: Witch and Wise Woman -- The Witch in History -- Dr. Seward: Scientist and Survivor -- The Wise Woman in the White Room -- Cool and Edgy -- The New Old Woman -- Exit: Playing the Ball Back to the Universe.
Summary:
Mastering Fear analyzes horror as play and examines what functions horror has and why it is adaptive and beneficial for audiences, including women. It takes a biocultural approach, and focusing on emotions, gender, and play, it argues that the audience plays with fiction horror. In horror we engage not only with the negative emotions of fear and disgust, but with a wide range of emotions, both positive and negative, and the aim for us is to master these emotions. The book lays out a new theory of horror and analyzes female protagonists in contemporary horror from child to teen, adult, middle age, and old age. Since the turn of the millennium, we have seen a new generation of female protagonists in horror. There are feisty teens in Ginger Snaps (Canada, 2000) and The Vampire Diaries (CW, 2009- ), young women in Hostel: Part II (2007) and Bitten (Space, 2014- ), troubled mothers in Grace (2009) and The Babadook (Australia, 2014), and struggling women in the New French extremity with Martyrs (France, 2008) and Inside (France, 2007) as examples. At the edges of the genre films like Pan's Labyrinth (Spain, 2006) and Let the Right One In (Sweden, 2008) experiment with the fairy tale and social realism. Also, middle-age women have conquered the small screen with Carol in The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010- ) and Jessica Lange's characters in American Horror Story (FX, 2011- ). The horror heroine thus shifts from child to mother, from single to wife, martyr to vengeful victor, and these many forms show that horror is not just for men, but also for women, and not just for the young, but for audiences of all ages.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.