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Abstract
The Danish film A Horrible Woman (orig. En frygtelig kvinde, 2017) marked a pattern that can be identified throughout several decades of Danish filmmaking. Examples are found in contemporary films like Antichrist (2009), as well as in earlier Danish films like The Abyss (1910) and Red Horses (1950). In these and other examples, women characters exhibit monstrous behavior that can be construed as a form of othering. Furthermore, othering women and mothers by presenting them as terrible, abnormal, or monstrous in Danish (popular) culture goes well beyond the silver screen. In this article, ‘mother–daughter scholars’ Mira Chandhok Skadegård and Tess Sophie Skadegård Thorsen explore how monstrosity functions as a tool for othering in film and other media, offering both a (generational) and historical view, and a discussion of current constructions of monstrosity, on and off screen, in Denmark. The article argues that monstrosity, as a symbol of power and violence, becomes a particularly oppressive gendered gesture. The authors examine this in a correspondence with one another. In letter form, with shifting analytical positions between mother and daughter, a dialogue emerges between generations on questions of ‘(m)otherhood’ in Danish film and other Danish contexts, transitions of female film characters from passive to aggressive, and the role of monstrosity in othering non-white immigrant ‘(m)others’ in public discourse. Finally, the article argues for a different approach to ‘monstrous othering’. Through a reparative reading, it discusses whether there is empowerment and agency connected to being ascribed monstrosity.
Highlights
The First Monstrous Mothers “What woeful maternal fancy produced such a monster?” (Huet 1993: 3).In this article, we examine links between monstrosity, othering, and mothering in contemporary Danish contexts
As ‘mother–daughter scholars’ in different fields ([structural] discrimination studies; film [and media] studies), we look at how notions of mother, woman, and monster are connected in film, and the construction of immigrant mothers in Danish public debate
Based on a negotiation of the ways in which monstering and othering can be seen as reciprocal patterns in the filmic and social frameworks we draw on, we suggest that everyday others are monstered through their particular framings of difference
Summary
When I first wrote you about Marie-Hélène Huet’s (1993) work on mothers being blamed for producing monsters, I considered Huet’s argument and the precarious position of the mother as a particularity to the context (literature from centuries ago). In addition to bridging the gap, at least in part, between Braidotti’s (1999 [1996]), Halberstam’s (1995), and Huet’s (1993) definitions of monstrosity, the film Mary Shelley (2018) implies that monstering of others—in this case the director’s and audience’s monstering of Mary; and Mary’s ‘production’ of Frankenstein—can all be done through benevolent acts, good intentions, and more importantly, love. This suggests to me that a positioning of the monster, whether as other, or within, can be imbued with otherwise positively associated affects.
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