Women in Horror: What Kills You Makes You Stronger by Rikke Schubart

Women and horror, once thought an exploitative mix, today is a powerful and feminist cocktail. Learning from fear is adaptive, empowering, and transformative, and attractive to female audiences.

Based on her recent book Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror (2018) Rikke Schubart in this talk explores the character Carol in AMC’s The Walking Dead. First part introduces transmedial Carol, second part analyzes Carol in AMC’s show, and third discusses the author’s dialogue with AMC about Carol.

Carol was supposed to die in season three, however, became so popular with fans that she became female protagonist and The Walking Dead became the most watched drama series in US cable history. The talk examines tropes of “home” and “road,” the first conventionally linked to women and the second to men. Home and the road are used to develop Carol as a character, to form her motives to kill, to develop her self-growth, freedom, and ethics. By learning, changing, stepping up, and claiming the freedom to make her own choices, the middle-age and ordinary Carol subverts the negative gender stereotype and age stereotype.

Rikke about herself:

I am a film scholar and an author. I write about women and the fantastic genres, especially horror. In my research, I ask, is it good for us to feel fear in fiction if we avoid fear in real life?

My answer is, yes, stories about fear are good because fantastic fiction allows us to play with our emotions. It makes us stronger, wiser, more creative, and mentally more robust. When we enter alternate worlds, we can face our deepest fears and wildest dreams. And when characters die, we don’t. We live and learn.

Here is a selection of my recent publications:

“Introduction: ‘As if’: women in genres of the fantastic, cross-platform entertainments and transmedial engagements.” Green, S., Howell, A. & Schubart, R., 24 jan. 2019, I: Continuum.

““I am Become Death": Managing Massacres and Constructing the Female Teen Leader in The 100.” Schubart, R., feb. 2019, A Companion to the Action Film. Kendrick, J. (red.). New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, s. 417-438.

Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror. Schubart, R., 2018, New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 384 s.

Women of Ice and Fire: Gender, Game of Thrones and Multiple Media Engagements. Schubart, R. (red.) & Gjelsvik, A. (red.), 2016, 1 udg. Bloomsbury Academic. 288 s.

Furthermore, I started The Single Series, self-help books for divorced women. I also write fiction.

More information you find here:

https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/da/persons/rschubart

http://rikkeschubart.com/

Further activities during the stay in Tromsø are:

“Playing with Monsters: Horror, Emotions, and (Un)real Danger” for the master class HIF-3111 Manufacturing Monsters, Tuesday 23 April 2019, at C1003, 8:30-10.

“Thinking with Magic Media: The Transformative Powers of Fantastic Imagination from 3,000 BC to 2019” for the bachelor class MDV-1001 Multimediale Dokumenter, Wednesday 24 April 2019, 10:15-12.

Supervision of PhD students.

We are happy to connect this event to ENCODE and Manufacturing Monsters.