From Fetish Objects to Horror Objects: nude elderly women in horror

• In Event: Sociology of Sexualities Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Sexuality and Gender I

Abstract

Media analysis has demonstrated how women are depicted as threats to social disorder due to how women’s reproductive capacity aligns them with nature, contrasting them with how society is coded as male because of their association with control and order. This article asks whether this representation varies by age. Through the application of Patricia Hill Collins’ theory of controlling imagery, I study sixteen films released between 2014-2024 to understand the extent to which the troupe of the nude elderly woman in contemporary horror films reinforce or challenge the conceptualization of femininity as a dangerous force which needs to be restrained. My findings suggest that while a majority of films use the naked elderly woman as a form of controlling imagery that limits all women to the status of spectacle objects, several films challenge this narrative by humanizing these women and demonstrating how all women will eventually be stigmatized for aging unless the patriarchy is challenge. These results help develop an understanding of the media’s capacity to disrupt hegemonic social structures by representing marginalized groups as subjects as opposed to objects.

Author

• Aryana Safaee, University at Albany, SUNY