The readings Female Monsters: Figuring Female Transgression in Jennifer’s Body (2009) and The Witch (2013), Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema and The Witch went along with some readings in Topic 8 Monstrous Feminine. They talked about “crossing boundaries and religious discourse and society’s expected order of things”. With the societal expectations comes the patriarchal order and the woman fitting into her expected role of submission to man. Even though the films were in different time periods, there were similarities since each of the main female characters had to overcome societal or religious boundaries to free themselves.
In The Witch, we see the focus on the borders between normal and supernatural and between good and evil. Even the setting shows that idea with the house (normal/good) and the forest (supernatural/evil) with the river (border) running between them (Female Monsters). Early on in the film, we see the witch as a beautiful, seductive image that turns into something evil that leads to death. This image goes as far back as Adam and Eve where Eve is blamed for tempting Adam to sin. Throughout the film, there is a focus on Thomasin’s maturing body showing her as a beautiful sexually attractive female, not unlike the witch. It showed her brother looking at her lustfully and the mother was concerned about her seducing the brother and father. Even though she wasn’t evil, her family still accused her of witchcraft because they couldn’t explain what was going on. After the supernatural deaths of her other family members and Thomasin killing her mother in self-defense, she seems to make the choice that she may as well cross over since she has nowhere else to go. After being wrongly accused for so long, she was crossing over to the very thing she had been defending herself against and her final expression was one of pleasure.
In Midsommar, it wasn’t as straightforward as normal/supernatural. At first, it just seemed like Dani was a basket case and it implied there was always some kind of drama going on with her family. After the death of her family, her boyfriend does not provide the support she needs and instead of dealing with her feelings, she feels like she has to suppress them and try to act normal around others. This is what she saw as the expectation of societal order when it came to dealing with the loss. Any time she starts freaking out, she feels like she has to apologize and try to “get it together” so she won’t be rejected. Once they arrived at the commune, the use of drugs and camera work made the perspectives interesting. While the guys are interested in learning about the community for an academic purpose, Dani seems to be trying to get a deeper understanding. It shows her starting to bond with the females and giving in to their comfort but at the same time wishing that her boyfriend would offer her that same comfort. She needed the acceptance that she was getting from the community but was struggling to let go of her past and suppressed feelings. After she caught her drugged out boyfriend having sex with someone else, she was finally able to let go and cross over. She was finally in control of herself and ultimately made the choice to sacrifice her boyfriend showing that she felt powerful with the community supporting her.