Deleuze and the Gynesis of Horror : From Monstrous Births to the Birth of the Monster

"Applying Deleuze's schizoanalytic techniques to film theory, Deleuze and the Gynesis of Horror demonstrates how an embodied approach to horror film analysis can help us understand how film affects its viewers and distinguish those films which reify static, hegemonic, "molar" beings from those which prompt fluid, nonbinary, "molecular" becomings. It does so by analyzing the politics of reproduction in contemporary films such as Ex Machina; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Mad Max: Fury Road; the Twilight saga ; and the original Alien quadrilogy and its more recent prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant . Author Sunny Hawkins argues that films which promote a "monstrous philosophy" of qualitative, affirmative difference as difference-in-itself, and which tend to be more molecular than molar in their expressions, can help us trace a ?line of flight? from the gender binary in the real world. Deleuze and the Gynesis of Horror demonstrates how the techniques of horror film - editing, sound and visual effects, lighting and colour, camera movement ? work in tandem with a film's content to affect the viewer's body in ways that disrupt the sense of self as a whole, unified subject with a stable, monolithic identity and, in some cases, can serve to breakdown the binary between self/Other, as we come to realize that we are none of us static, categorizable beings but are, as Henri Bergson said, "living things constantly becoming.""-- Provided by publisher Applying Deleuze's schizoanalytic techniques to film theory, Deleuze and the Gynesis of Horror demonstrates how an embodied approach to horror film analysis can help us understand how film affects its viewers and distinguish those films which reify static, hegemonic, "molar" beings from those which prompt fluid, nonbinary, "molecular" becomings. It does so by analyzing the politics of reproduction in contemporary films such as Ex Machina; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Mad Max: Fury Road; the Twilight saga; and the original Alien quadrilogy and its more recent prequels, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. 0Author Sunny Hawkins argues that films which promote a "monstrous philosophy" of qualitative, affirmative difference as difference-in-itself, and which tend to be more molecular than molar in their expressions, can help us trace a "line of flight" from the gender binary in the real world. Deleuze and the Gynesis of Horror demonstrates how the techniques of horror film - editing, sound and visual effects, lighting and colour, camera movement - work in tandem with a film's content to affect the viewer's body in ways that disrupt the sense of self as a whole, unified subject with a stable, monolithic identity and, in some cases, can serve to breakdown the binary between self/Other, as we come to realize that we are none of us static, categorizable beings but are, as Henri Bergson said, "living things constantly becoming." Cover Half title Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Essential Motherhood and Egalitarian Feminism: The Conundrum of Sexual Difference Beyond the Binary: Opening up the Body without Organs Schizosophy of the Monstrous 1 Mother, (m)Other Transcendental Empiricism: Deleuze’s Cinematic Philosophy The “Volatile Body” in Schizoanalysis Pure Difference and the Post-human Family 2 Mother (of) Monsters Becoming the Monstrous-Feminine Last (wo)Man Standing, or The Final Girl in Schizoanalysis Molar Beings, Molecular Becomings, and the Putting into Discourse of “Woman” 3 Meet Your Makers Becoming-Woman: The “Universal Girl” and the Ever-Shrinking Man Escaping (or Not) the Binary Machine Law of the Father versus the Law of the Jungle The Psychomechanics of Becoming-Monster 4 It’s a Monster (Baby) The Blood Is Gives Life: Evolution in Underworld Prey Becomes Predator: Molecular Ruptures in Twilight’s Hegemonic Narrative The Post-human Resistance 5 The Post-human Family Queering Creation The Spiral of Time Family as Survivor Assemblage Molecular Motherhood, or the Monstrous Body (Re)imagined Notes References Films Index "Deleuze and the Gynesis of Horror takes a Deleuzian perspective on motherhood, mothering, and mothers in contemporary horror film, outlining a monstrous philosophy of both embodied film analysis, examining how film changes its viewers, and affirms sexual difference, ultimately offering hope for a twenty-first century, post-human family"-- Provided by publisher 1. Mother, (m)Other -- 2. Mother (of) Monsters -- 3. Meet Your Makers -- 4. It's a Monster (Baby) -- 5. The Post-Human Family -- Bibliography -- Index