Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror

Mastering Fear analyzes horror as play and examines what functions horror has and why it is adaptive and beneficial for audiences. It takes a biocultural approach, and focusing on emotions, gender, and play, it argues we play with fiction horror. In horror we engage not only with the negative emotions of fear and disgust, but with a wide range of emotions, both positive and negative. The book lays out a new theory of horror and analyzes female protagonists in contemporary horror from child to teen, adult, middle age, and old age.Since the turn of the millennium, we have seen a new generation of female protagonists in horror. There are feisty teens in The Vampire Diaries (2009–2017), troubled mothers in The Babadook (2014), and struggling women in the New French extremity with Martyrs (2008) and Inside (2007). At the fuzzy edges of the genre are dramas like Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and Black Swan (2010), and middle-age women are now protagonists with Carol in The Walking Dead (2010–) and Jessica Lange's characters in American Horror Story (2011–). Horror is not just for men, but also for women, and not just for the young, but for audiences of all ages.

CHOICE

“A fascinating look at female viewership of horror, challenging the stereotype of horror as a male genre ... This is a landmark study.”

Stephen Prince, Professor of Cinema Studies, Virginia Tech, USA

“Rikke Schubart has written a lively and well-informed account of horror films and their emotional appeals, with particular reference to women viewers and issues of gender as presented in the films. Schubart injects humor into her writing, an attractive blend of academic rigor and serious analysis with playful, drily ironic observations, often of a very personal nature. This is an interesting, original and provocative study.”

Angela Ndalianis, Professor of Media and Entertainment, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

“Mastering Fear will be a game-changer! Rikke Schubart has produced an exciting and innovative book that is breathtaking in scope. While centred on horror case studies, it offers new perspectives for emotion, gender, feminist, cultural and horror studies. Conceiving of horror media as a mode of 'play fighting', Schubart develops a biocultural approach that she intertwines with her concept of 'evofeminism'. The reader goes on a rich and nuanced theoretical journey that challenges gender stereotypes and both understands and arms the female protagonist and spectator with powerful tools that master fear and positively shape identity. A must read!”

About the Author

Rikke Schubart is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the Institute for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark. Her research focuses on gender, genre, and emotions in cinema and media. Schubart's publications include Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror (forthcoming), Eastwood's Iwo Jima: A Critical Engagement with Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (2013, co-edited with Anne Gjelsvik), and Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970-2006 (2007).

Reviews

News