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The Horrors Of The Female Body In Monster House

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Home Sweet Home: Exploring the Horrors of the Female Body in Monster House The architecture of the “haunted house” centers on the uncanny, distorting the familiarity of an entity while still encompassing the original characteristics that make it familiar to the human eye. It is this landmark of horror that terrorizes a group of kids, D.J, Jenny, and Chowder in the 2006 animated film Monster House as they attempt to make sense of the supernatural elements that surround the house. And yet the house is not a house, but the embodied spirit of the owner’s — Mr. Nebbercracker’s — deceased wife: Constance. In the throes of their investigation, the kids learn that the house is alive along with the land it is built on, possessing human organs, eyes, …show more content…

In her monstrous form, Constance protects the house and Mr. Nebbercracker by eating any individual who sets foot on the property with her slithery tongue and splintered wood teeth. However, the feminine nature of the house is first implied by Jenny when she points out the uvula which Chowder mistakes for the uterus, seemingly grossed out (Monster House 53:58-53:22). Thus, a close connection is formed between monstrosity and female reproductive bodily functions. The ‘grotesque’ bodily structure of women in this sense produces the monstrous, as it wards off the male individual: it is a site dedicated to evil. As Creed mentions, “the notion of the castrated woman is a phantasy intended to ameliorate man’s real fear of what women might do to him… specifically, he fears that woman could castrate him both psychically and in a sense physically” (Creed 6). Although Constance was previously humiliated for her appetite and large appearance, she utilizes consumption as a weapon to revolt against the higher order, that is, to emasculate men. Constance innately abjects humanity and embraces the monstrous

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