'She Needs More': The Villainization of Infertile Women in Horror Films

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Paper Session: Visual Communication Studies Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Infertility is a condition feared by women for its pain and hardship, and for its accompanying societal shame and stigma. Such demonization of this condition appears callous and out-of-touch with today’s seemingly sympathetic culture, but representations of infertility in horror films reveal prejudice lurking beneath society’s veneer of compassion for childless women. Film history and feminist theory analyze traumatic birth in cinematic horror. Far fewer studies, however, investigate the cinematic interpretation of a woman’s struggle to achieve that birth. This project considers representations of infertility on film, particularly these depictions situated within frameworks of horror. Horror plays on persistent stereotypes of infertile women as selfish, as turning playing God via science, and as resorting to creating unnatural families. Given these tropes and their staying power decades after adoption of fertility medication and in-vitro fertilization, has empathy for infertility truly pervaded society, or do cinematic representations indicate latent fears and prejudices?

Author

• Brooke Edge, U of Colorado - Boulder