CHILDBIRTH AND PARENTING IN HORROR TEXTS
The Marginalized and the Monstrous
ALTERNATIVITY AND MARGINALIZATION
Series Editors: Samantha Holland and Karl Spracklen
CHILDBIRTH AND PARENTING IN HORROR TEXTS
The Marginalized and the Monstrous
BY
AMANDA DIGIOIA
UCL, London, UK
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Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2017
Copyright 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78714-882-6 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-78714-881-9 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-78743-275-8 (Epub)
CONTENTS
About the Author
About the Editors
Dedications
Acknowledgments
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amanda DiGioia is currently a doctoral student at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK. Amandas thesis examines women in the Finnish heavy metal music scene. Her research interests include horror texts, feminist theory, and Finnish culture and society and her work has been featured in Metal Music Studies, Horror Studies, and Fan Phenomena: Game of Thrones.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Samantha Holland is Senior Research Fellow at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her work is interdisciplinary: her educational background includes English Literature, Sociology, and Cultural Studies. Her first monograph Alternative Femininities. Body, Age & Identity (2004) was at the forefront of the current interest in ageing and subcultures. Since then she has published two other books: Remote Relationships in a Small World (Peter Lang, 2008, edited) and Pole Dancing, Empowerment & Embodiment (2010). Her research interests are gender, leisure, non-mainstream subcultures and ageing, utilizing feminist, ethnographic qualitative methods. She is currently the Acting Editor of Journal of Gender Studies, and book review editor for Loisir/Leisure.
Karl Spracklen is Professor of Leisure Studies at Leeds Beckett University, UK. His research encompasses sociology of leisure, leisure studies, leisure theory, cultural studies, and popular music studies. He is a world-class academic in metal music studies and the editor of the journal Metal Music Studies. He has published over eighty books, edited collections, papers, book chapters, and other outputs. Karl works across disciplines and subject fields, using history and philosophy to make sense of sociology and cultural studies.
DEDICATIONS
With love to my Uncle Barry
For Dana Sonnenschein for allowing me to become part of her pack
To my parents, for allowing their daughter to embrace darkness without judgment
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Monsters occasionally have many victims, and every now and then many midwives are necessary for something to be born. I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of the gestation and birth of this book, the child of my brain and the child of my heart. Dana Sonnenschein, to quote a character in one of the texts in this work: you are indispensable to me. Dana, I do not know what I would have done without you. Continue to spread your sunshine to everyone around you. To Karl Spracklen, for allowing me to talk to him about The Wicker Man for an hour in Helsinki, and to Sam Holland, for giving me this opportunity. Uncle Barry, thank you for making me a horror junkie. I am in deep gratitude to my parents for supporting me (the child they affectionately call Nosferatu) every step of the way. Titus Hjelm: thank you for supervising my PhD thesis! To Titus Babies: never put us in a corner. To my SCSU Womens Studies cohort Class of 2016 (and in particular Lauren, Kate, Betsy, Dayeshell, and Dixie): from slashing metaphorical tires to writing books! To my friends in The Garden Halls: from unfinished kitchens to lifelong friends. Jennifer Altavilla, I am so happy that I can call you my soul sister and best friend: thank you for all of your support throughout the years. For Sam Shaughnessy: I know, I saw. For Jules Bakes, Fabian Schuble, Brooke Mealey, and Imani Williams: the roommates of my heart forever. Heather Louise Creel and Charlotte Naylor Davis: thank you for all of the times you listened to me at Leon. To Jasmine Hazel Shadrack, for being black metal Ripley. For all of my friends in New Haven: slinte. To Bill McGrath and Ballymore. To Jon Levitt, McSorleys, and New York City. To Lyndsay Helfrich, the Precious, and nasty women everywhere. To M Selim Yavuz for answering many a panicked message reassuringly. To all of my Metal Music Studies colleagues, I am proud to stand by you all and raise the horns. To every friend who believed in me before I believed in myself: you are worth your weight in gold.
CHAPTER ONE
CONCEPTION
My Uncle Barry was the first person in my life to tell me that girls could love monsters. When I was young, Uncle Barry assured me that there was nothing wrong with a little girl who loved horror, who wanted to be a werewolf, or who rooted for Dracula and not Van Helsing. Uncle Barry not only encouraged my love of monsters, he created one, morphing me into the horror fiend that I am today. This affection for horror has followed me all of my adult life and has sometimes spilled over into my work. When I worked in a therapeutic group home as a counselor to teenage girls, I was always the staff member that the residents called into the living room when a horror movie was on television. The residents loved to watch them with me, mainly because I wouldnt flinch during the scary moments of those PG-13 films, which was a novelty to them. While they giggled and shrieked, my mind wandered. These young women were all in the custody of the Department of Children and Families. This means that the State of Connecticut had determined that the previous custodians of the girls sitting in front of me were not capable of ensuring that the best interests of the girls were served. Many of the horror films that the girls loved to watch had some element of abysmal parenting in them, and, more often than not, the negligent parent was the mother.
