The Unsaid/ The Other

Female Monstrosity, Menstruation and Feminine Awakening in Film

The female character has been depicted throughout the history of cinema in the form of various tropes. The “Other” woman, ever since the time of the female vamp has been always a challenge; used in the stark comparison to the good girl image; the doting wife, the female role model and the female archetype of beauty vs. ugliness, madness or evilness. Women have always been depicted in the “Otherly” autre form whether through traditional religious scripture which then transcended to the early forms of art.

The female body has been handled with care for many years either through glorifying its sexuality or playing on its vulnerability. In a teenage flick like “The Breakfast Club” the two female protagonists –the beautiful, pampered Claire and the introverted, outcast Allison– are pitted against each other, with the Claire model significantly winning over Allison’s, when the latter takes after the more “accepted” feminine, Claire-like model to gain the admiration and romantic interest from the handsome athlete Andrew. In a very uncomfortable scene in the eponymous “Carrie – 1976”, menstruation and reaching womanhood are associated with acquiring supernatural powers. Blood is used as a symbol of both empowerment and alienation for our female protagonist. In the scene where a repressed Carrie discovers menstruation for the first time could be seen in parallel with the scene where the bucket of pig blood is thrown from high above down on her as she receives her prom queen title. She is dethroned in the most demeaning, humiliating way, and her initial discomfort with blood is linked to the emergence of her femininity as a sign of bodily maturation.

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