Re-Presenting the Female Body: Parody and the Female Grotesque in Eve Ensler's Vaginas and Bellies

Abstract

The treatment of women's bodies has been a central concern for Eve Ensler as can be seen in many of her works that not only question widely-received repressive representations of the female body but also explore alternative liberating ones, especially her two plays The Vagina Monologues (2010), The Good Body (2010), and the V-Day campaign, a global movement to stop violence against women. The body has been regarded as a contested site of ideologies and social regulations since Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish (1979) showed how the body serves to manifest the powers that be. In The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body, Ensler tries to break gender codes and bio-discipline that oppress women and replace them with alternatives that respect women through an affirmation of their corporeal entity. Under Ensler's treatment, the female body is not only a surface of ideological inscriptions but more importantly can also be a point of departure from which to build recognition and awareness.In The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body, Ensler toys with the idea of re-presenting female bodies to challenge and subvert conventional patriarchal representations, which are often concealment and diminishing of the female body. Ensler deploys parody and the female grotesque in The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body to re-define the interpretational context in which to perceive the female body. Challenging conventional patriarchal disciplinary regimes which practice stringent surveillance and regulations on the female body, Ensler's parodic representations of the abject woman and grotesque portrayals of the unruly chaotic woman confront repressive perceptions of the female body via laughter and blatant offence.Debunking repressive perceptions of the female body, Ensler fills the interpretational void with affirmative options which undo the vilification and open up possibilities of being at ease with the female body. Ensler's re-presentations of the female body successfully wrecks the control of signification and interpretation from the patriarchal regime and gives it back to women on their own terms.