Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Freud

Broadcast 31 October, 2024. Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

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Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) remains a seminal text in the field of gender and cultural studies, used by film critics and feminists alike to (psycho)analyse depictions of feminine sexuality in cinematic and cultural texts. In 2022, Creed revisited the subject of her earlier work, examining the depiction of the ‘monstrous-feminine’ in a range of new films over the last two decades, alongside shifts in feminist discourse since the original publication of her landmark text. The Freud Museum is delighted to welcome Barbara Creed in dialogue (online) with Perry Hughes discussing the depiction of femininity and female sexuality in horror cinema, and the relevance of psychoanalysis and the work of Freud in assisting critical and cultural analysis.

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Speakers:

Barbara Creed is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne. She is the author of eight books, including The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (1993, second edition 2024), Darwin’s Screens: Evolutionary Aesthetics, Time & Sexual Display In The Cinema (2009); Stray: Human-Animal Ethics in The Anthropocene (2017) and Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema (2022). Her writings have been translated into nine languages. She has made several documentary films including the landmark Homosexuality: A Film for Discussion (1975). Barbara has been invited to participate in international research events, including at the Courtauld Institute (UK), and the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of the Sciences (US).

Perry Hughes is Exhibition Programme Manager the Freud Museum London. His research interests are the use of psychoanalytic theory to analyse film and literature, particularly regarding depictions of gender and sexuality. He also recently completed a PhD in Literature at Kingston University London for his thesis titled: ‘Maternal Oralities and Amorous Appetites: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Gender, Sex and Nourishment in Literature from De Troyes to Milton’.