Johanna Isaacson

Stepford Daughters: Tools for Feminists in Contemporary Horror Johanna Isaacson

We are in the midst of a renaissance of the horror films with feminist themes, resurrecting the rich critical toolbox of the genre, and inventing new techniques to represent cultural fears and the contradictions of contemporary capitalism. Despite possession and zombies, feminism is alive and well in the horror genre. By exploring films that instinctively spook feminists, Isaacson draws out themes of social reproduction theory and illuminates a key to understanding the gendered logic of capitalism.


Films like Hereditary and The Babadook show women coming apart at the seams as the promises of both the family and waged work fail them. In Get Out, we see how poor women and women of color bear the greatest brunt of social reproduction, experiencing domestic work as a kind of possession or neo-slavery. Horror films that capture the terror of emotional labor reveal what happens when a person is alienated from her own smile. In "coming of rage" films such as Suspiria and Jennifer's Body we see the ways social reproduction leads to a futureless horizon. Robbed of their dreams but not their oppositional power, these heroines emerge as the monsters and avengers we need.