Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror

"This book offers a fresh theory on one of the horror genre's most recent permutations, a rewriting of the family horror that has marked its narratives since the late 1960s. Jackson elegantly argues that these new films represent a transitional moment in the representation of the family, in which 'patriarchal culture' finds itself 'trapped between a future it cannot envision and a past it cannot forget.' The chapters offer insightful and far-reaching readings of films about which (due to their newness) little has been written. Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror is sure to set the stage for further scholarly and popular discussions of family horror." - Aviva Briefel, Professor, English, Cinema Studies, Bowdoin College, USA

Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror is the first book-length project to focus specifically on the ways that patriarchal decline and post-feminist ideology are portrayed in popular American horror films of the twenty-first century.Gender and the Nuclear Family in Twenty-First-Century Horror is the first book-length project to focus specifically on the ways that patriarchal decline and post-feminist ideology are portrayed in popular American horror films of the twenty-first century. Through analyses of such films as Orphan, Insidious, and Carrie, Kimberly Jackson reveals how the destruction of male figures and  depictions of female monstrosity in twenty-first-century horror cinema suggest that contemporary American culture finds itself at a cultural standstill between a post-patriarchal society and post-feminist ideology.