The Monster’s Time of the Month: Carrie’s Mystery, Autonomy, and Monstrosity

Abstract

This project discusses Carrie, a 1976 film that deals in the bloody tensions of autonomy and monstrosity through the story of one girl’s paranormal entrance into womanhood. I seek to address how the evolution of feminine power on a religious and political scale is reflected in the horror of Carrie; and how mystery, sexuality, and monstrosity are articulated and shaped by the signs and motifs of the era. This project discusses the film through a semiotic and historical lens, incorporating previous literature into a perspective that analyzes the representation of menstruation and monstrosity within the country’s anxieties surrounding gender and autonomy. Though the bloody legacy of Carrie persists through homages and remakes, its true permanence stems from its paranoid, paranormal obsession with the power and unwieldiness of the pubescent, menstruating female body. As an essential example of female villainy within postmodern horror, the film’s representation of the developing female body reflects anxieties around gender and sexuality as prominent features of American paranoia.