This new take would reveal important clues about patriarchal society, masculinity and their apprehensions. In reply to Freud’s male-centred views she claims that the woman is whole without a penis and that, along with the reproductive body, is what causes fear in men.
Creed’s theory is underpinned by a reversal of Freudian patriarchal world-view which holds the woman as an “incomplete” human being. In other words, while Freud formerly claimed that women terrify because they are abnormally castrated, Creed seeks to dismantle these assumptions by holding forth that the monstrous feminine is exactly men’s fear of the woman as a castrating other. Instead, Creed defends that women are primarily terrifying because they might castrate. Rooted in his explanations of the Oedipus complex, Freud suggests that a woman terrifies because she is a castrated human being. Moving from a feminist perspective to a psychology oriented analysis, her arguments move on to attack Freudian concepts of human psyque.
In doing so, she aims at providing a definition that may push the discussion beyond a mere dualism concerning the gender of the monster. Creed opts to use the term ‘monstrous feminine’ instead of ‘female monster, which, in her conception would oppose to the idea of a ‘male monster’. Her main thesis sustains that the prototype of all definitions (sic) of monstrosity related to the feminine is linked the woman’s reproductive body. She argues that when the feminine is constructed as monstrous, it is frequently done in conjunction with its mothering functions. The author examines the role of women in horror films challenging the dominant, patriarchal view which frequently puts the woman in the position of victim. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis.
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