Description
"This primer considers the representational and ideological work body horror carries out, from its encapsulation of biological concerns to wider sociological preoccupations that have been at the heart of body studies since their explosion in the 1990s. Traditionally occupied with themes of biology, pathology, and (lack of) bodily autonomy, body horror has more recently grown into a cultural forum for engaging with themes of racism, cissexism, and transhumanism, especially since Jordan Peele's breakthrough Get Out (2017). Rather than depicting these concepts, and the social processes they describe, allegorically or metaphorically, however, body horror's distinctive quality is to attempt to render them literally, vividly visible. Xavier Aldana Reyes provides an introduction to the intellectual inner workings of this subgenre, tracing its evolution from the splatter films of Cronenberg, Barker and Raimi in the 80s to cult classics like Tetsuo, as well as art house fare such as Titane. The book will engage with areas of study that have been central to film studies and to the humanities more widely more widely: how technological developments are changing our understanding of the human; how the human finds itself inextricably entangled to a natural world it is simultaneously shaping; the creative potential of counter-representation in relation to gender, sexuality and race. Using the subgenre as a window onto a large and influential body of film (and other) theory, each chapter represents a conceptual step forward: from the biological body to the body politic, and finally to the transformation by technology of the body itself. Readers will come away with not just a new understanding of a group of classic and contemporary films, but a thorough grasp of the work done by body studies/body theory"-- Provided by publisher.
