It is my assertion that through techniques such as hyperbole and alienation, depictions of the monstrous-feminine in Sherman’s Sex Pictures create a productive space for discussing and understanding Kristeva’s concept of the abject.īefore tackling Kristeva, it will be useful to more fully explain Barbara Creed’s notion of the monstrous-feminine. Cindy Sherman’s work provides a useful opening into these complex theories.
Thus, it is useful and necessary for feminists to understand the concepts of abjection and the monstrous-feminine, as well as how they intersect and relate to one another. As Jayne Ussher notes, this positioning of women’s bodies as abject has important implications for women’s lived experience (7).
Representations of the monstrous-feminine, as conceptualized by Barbara Creed, illustrate the ways in which femininity is feared and abjected in contemporary society. This analysis can be a useful tool for feminist theories of gender, sexuality, and embodiment. Why is it important to understand the abject? I argue that it can help us to understand why we regard some things as disgusting and repulsive. The abject is something so vile that I do not recognize it as a thing (Kristeva 2) I must violently reject it in order to assert myself as ‘I’, and ‘Not that’. The abject is constantly shifting and different for everyone, but Kristeva asserts that without it, we would have no way to understand ourselves as fully formed subjects in the symbolic order (Kristeva 4). Kristeva attempts to articulate an explanation of the abject in her seminal text, Powers of Horror.
It is that which cannot be assimilated, always within us, forcing an eternal repetition of repulsing and expelling that is doomed to fail. You DO NOT have permission to reprint/reproduce this material. Understanding Abjection: An Analysis of the Monstrous-Feminine in the Art of Cindy Sherman
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