Dook (#3)*
Right off the bat, I can say that this film was a lot scarier than the other ones. In fact, I don’t think I ever
got scared while watching TCM or Nosferatu, but I got a snack after watching The Babadook and had to
wrap myself in a blanket and run back to my room. This time, I watched the film before doing the
readings (partially to see if I got a different understanding of them by reversing the order in which I did
things and partially because I tried to read them before the film and was not retaining a single thing). I
think this helped, because I was kind of struggling with the Monstrous Feminine reading because of how
theoretical it was. I couldn’t quite grasp the place of the abject because I couldn’t apply it to anything.
However, after watching the film and starting the article over I quickly could identify the Babadook as part
of this world. If the abject is “the place where meaning collapses [and] the place where ‘I’ am not,” then
both the Babadook as well as the mother, Ameila, once the Babadook enters her body, belong to it
(Creed 69). Especially since the Babadook is never seen in plain light and is always obscured by the
shadows, it becomes something undefinable and fluid-- both the Babadook and “abjection [are], above
all, ambiguity” (Creed 71). As soon as the Babadook enters Amelia, ‘she’ is not anymore. To escape with
her life she must cast off “what threatens life” and expel it through vomiting. Creed uses other bodily
functions like this to describe abjection, because what you expel (vomit, urine, pus) is not you. I really
liked this section of the article where she talks about corpses as abjection. She says:
got scared while watching TCM or Nosferatu, but I got a snack after watching The Babadook and had to
wrap myself in a blanket and run back to my room. This time, I watched the film before doing the
readings (partially to see if I got a different understanding of them by reversing the order in which I did
things and partially because I tried to read them before the film and was not retaining a single thing). I
think this helped, because I was kind of struggling with the Monstrous Feminine reading because of how
theoretical it was. I couldn’t quite grasp the place of the abject because I couldn’t apply it to anything.
However, after watching the film and starting the article over I quickly could identify the Babadook as part
of this world. If the abject is “the place where meaning collapses [and] the place where ‘I’ am not,” then
both the Babadook as well as the mother, Ameila, once the Babadook enters her body, belong to it
(Creed 69). Especially since the Babadook is never seen in plain light and is always obscured by the
shadows, it becomes something undefinable and fluid-- both the Babadook and “abjection [are], above
all, ambiguity” (Creed 71). As soon as the Babadook enters Amelia, ‘she’ is not anymore. To escape with
her life she must cast off “what threatens life” and expel it through vomiting. Creed uses other bodily
functions like this to describe abjection, because what you expel (vomit, urine, pus) is not you. I really
liked this section of the article where she talks about corpses as abjection. She says:
“Such wastes drop so that I might live, until, from loss to loss, nothing remains in me and my entire body
falls beyond the limit – cadere, cadaver. If dung signifies the other side of the border, the place where I
am not and which permits me to be, the corpse, the most sickening of wastes, is a border that has
encroached upon everything. It is no longer I who expel. ‘I’ is expelled.”
falls beyond the limit – cadere, cadaver. If dung signifies the other side of the border, the place where I
am not and which permits me to be, the corpse, the most sickening of wastes, is a border that has
encroached upon everything. It is no longer I who expel. ‘I’ is expelled.”
I really like the sentiment of this-- a little part of ‘you’ leaving your body every day and returning back to
the earth, until ‘you’ are gone and every part of what once was ‘you’ becomes earth again? Sick, dude.
Can’t wait.
the earth, until ‘you’ are gone and every part of what once was ‘you’ becomes earth again? Sick, dude.
Can’t wait.
Then, she talks about the mother figure as the abject in horror films. This was very obvious in The
Babadook as well, as everything she described-- a child struggling to break away from his mother, an
absent father, child both terrified of separation-- are all present in the film. It was especially relevant when
Creed mentions “the mother retain[ing’ a close hold over the child [because] it can serve to authenticate
her existence,” because not only is Samuel what makes her a mother, he is also the last concrete
connection to her late husband that she has left.
Babadook as well, as everything she described-- a child struggling to break away from his mother, an
absent father, child both terrified of separation-- are all present in the film. It was especially relevant when
Creed mentions “the mother retain[ing’ a close hold over the child [because] it can serve to authenticate
her existence,” because not only is Samuel what makes her a mother, he is also the last concrete
connection to her late husband that she has left.
As well while reading Freud’s The Uncanny after watching the film, I was able to easily identify his ideas
in the film. From the german heimlich, meaning homely, familiar, and free from fear, unheimlich, or
uncanny, is that which once was homely and familiar made terrifyingly ‘other’. Coming back to the scene
that exemplifies abjection, Amelia enters the world of the uncanny when she is possessed by the
Babadook.
in the film. From the german heimlich, meaning homely, familiar, and free from fear, unheimlich, or
uncanny, is that which once was homely and familiar made terrifyingly ‘other’. Coming back to the scene
that exemplifies abjection, Amelia enters the world of the uncanny when she is possessed by the
Babadook.
*dook #1 and dook #2 are Rita and Alison respectively
Has The Babadook entire both Alison AND Rita? Wow that is a powerful ghoul for sure! You demonstrate a really strong and thorough understanding of Creed's work here. Her work can often be difficult to take in because of its deep investment in psychoanalytic theory but you've really done a great job of unpacking it here. Hopefully, you can help other people work through it on our zoom discussion.
ReplyDeleteWow this is a really fantastic post! I really appreciate your usage of the Creed article to identify the mother as abject in horror as well as picking up on the idea of expelling what is not "us" through physical means. The way you unpacked and explained it really helps me to better analyze the film. Thank you!
ReplyDelete-Chelsea
I was definitely also having trouble fully grasping Creed's work, but I tried lol. I thought the son represented the abject in this case because of the mother's struggle to stay separated from him, and I had been considering the Babadook as a representation of grief that was a part of her. I hadn't thought of the Babadook as something that came from her but was separate, like vomit or pus. Makes it extra creepy that she keeps it in her basement lol
ReplyDeleteGoldbeck here. Something I've noticed in the few blog posts on this film that I've read so far is that folks seem to accept the Babadook itself as "real," as in existing in the physical world, and that's something I've been struggling with since there is ambiguity as to the monster's existence in the physical world of the film and I think this complicates our understanding of the Uncanny in this film. I really liked your blog post and am curious as to your thoughts on this. Miss you Karin and hope you're doing well!
ReplyDelete