Title: The Monstrous-Feminine in Contemporary Japanese Popular CultureAuthor: Raechel Dumas
Series: East Asian Popular Culture #8
First Published: June 1, 2018
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Pages: 230
Genre: Feminism, Gender Studies, Non-Fiction, Pop Culture
Format: PDF
Source: University Library
Rating:
Synopsis:
This book explores the monstrous-feminine in Japanese popular culture, produced from the late years of the 1980s through to the new millennium. Raechel Dumas examines the role of female monsters in selected works of fiction, manga, film, and video games, offering a trans-genre, trans-media analysis of this enduring trope. The book focuses on several iterations of the monstrous-feminine in contemporary Japan: the self-replicating shōjo in horror, monstrous mothers in science fiction, female ghosts and suburban hauntings in cinema, female monsters and public violence in survival horror games, and the rebellious female body in mytho-fiction. Situating the titles examined here amid discourses of crisis that have materialized in contemporary Japan, Dumas illuminates the ambivalent pleasure of the monstrous-feminine as a trope that both articulates anxieties centered on shifting configurations of subjectivity and nationhood, and elaborates novel possibilities for identity negotiation and social formation in a period marked by dramatic change.
Review
Feminist theory and Japanese horror media, two of my favorite things all wrapped up in one book. I couldn’t help but pick this book up, the premise sounded incredibly interesting and as a research topic, it is. Dumas covers a number of both popular and lesser-known pieces of Japanese literature and video games. She covers a wide range of media types and analyzes the social commentaries contained within each work and links it to Japanese history and social anxieties. For the media I had already read, watched, or played, it was a delight to think about those works on a deeper level. For the rest of the works mentioned, my interest was piqued.
Despite the insightful dialogue about the monstrous-feminine in Japanese horror, it is important to note that this is a meaty academic text, and the writing can be dense, dry, and overlong. Dumas gets sidetracked frequently and it makes the text difficult to follow, it is not a light read. When the author does pull all of her scattered pieces together, her essays are sharp, insightful, and incredibly relevant. Chapter three in particular, which focused on evolutionary science fiction classics Parasite Eve and Queen of K’n-Yan stood out. I cannot recommend this book as a casual read, but it is a great analysis for readers interested in further studying the topic of feminism in horror media.
Quote
“The monstrous-feminine resurfaces as a potent threat to the patriarchal order, revealing the futility of mechanisms designed to delimit and constrain female bodies and behaviors.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Raechel Dumas
Raechel is now an Assistant Professor of Humanities at San Diego State University. While completing her PhD at CU Boulder, she specialized in modern Japanese literature and culture with emphasis on contemporary genre fiction. Raechel’s dissertation, entitled “Echoes from the Other Side: Gender, Space, and Psyche in Contemporary Japanese Genre Fiction,” forms the basis for her first book project, which explores the trope of the monstrous-feminine in contemporary Japanese literary and visual culture from the vantage of the uneasy cultural politics of Japanese postmodernity. Her research and teaching interests include Japanese and global popular culture, trauma narratives, digital and feminist poetry, and feminist, affect, and virtual theories.
Raechel was recently interviewed by The Daily Aztec about her teaching and research and new position at San Diego State University.
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