“It’s so much bigger than I expected it to be and I am so happy and excited for that!” said Graduate Assistant of the Center for Women and Gender Equity Bryan Bove, who has been in charge of the Monstrous Women Double Feature happening on campus.
Bove said the event has become a big collaborative thing, as the CWGE, Browne Popular Culture Library, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Popular Culture Studies and the University Activities Organization have all teamed up to make the event occur.
The event will focus on the portrayal of women as monsters in popular culture.
There will be two showings and the first will feature “Jennifer’s Body” (2009) on Wednesday, Oct. 26 in the BTSU Theater Room 206 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. “Jennifer’s Body,” starring Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox, follows Needy as her best friend, Jennifer, starts exhibiting strange behaviors – all while boys in the school are turning up dead.
Following the screening will be a Q&A panel with the Chair, Graduate Coordinator and Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, Dr. Sarah Rainey-Smithback, Professor and Chair in the Department of Popular Culture Dr. Jeffrey Brown, and American Culture Ph.D. candidate Judy Clemens-Smucker.
Bove is in charge of the event and said “Jennifer’s Body” was not well received when it first came out.
However, with the help of the #MeToo movement, “there has been this major resurgence where people are viewing the movie through a more critical feminist lens,” Bove said.
On Monday, Oct. 31, the second screening will occur and “The Wasp Woman” (1959) will be showing in the Browne Popular Culture Library at 5 p.m.
The Popular Culture Library has an exhibit that explores the history of monstrous women in popular culture and folklore, as well as the definitions of monster. It includes movies, TV shows, books, comics and celebrity-oriented magazines, and it will be showing until the end of October.
People who visit the exhibit will have the opportunity to submit their name in a raffle for a gift basket, which includes a Hocus Pocus board game, two books, art prints of monstrous women in pop culture created by Bove and more. The winner will be announced during the screening of “The Wasp Woman.”
Bove took a class in the spring of 2020 titled, “Raging Women” with Kim Coates, and said it talked about feminine rage and the different instances in how women are portrayed as being “upset, angry or hysterical,” or monstrous.
The class inspired him to want to create an event that ties into both Halloween and the topic of feminine rage.
“I hope attendees will see some of these figures from a different perspective and see that sometimes the people we call ‘monsters’’ are really just made that way by the society and structures that exist around them. Look at things from a different perspective and understand that something that is called a ‘monster’ or ‘hideous’ is not what they seem,” Bove said.
