The vulva monster is an aesthetic trope that has existed across screen media since the rise of Postmodern cinema. The vulva monster itself is any on-screen monster whose mouth shares visual similarities to the human vulva. Given its prevalence and salacious appearance, “vagina monsters” have long been discussed among internet enthusiasts. Yet, academia has left it underexplored, often only including vulva monster examples in larger discussions of monstrous femininity and the psychoanalytic motif of the vagina dentata in the horror film. Yet this trope is not feminine and exists in multiple genres and screen environments. As such, horror frameworks are often inadequate for understanding the meanings of these monsters. I use close textual analysis to unpack the cultural and political meanings and impacts of media environment on our affectual experience with the vulva monster. In this work, I ask: What logics are at play in making a body monstrous and how does the vulva monster's body negotiate affects and meanings concerning gender and the other? What historical precedents and aspects of genre and screen environment influence the aesthetic and narrative presentation of the vulva monster? I orient my analysis within a feminist posthuman, new-materialist ontology that understands the body as being in a state of becoming with material, discursive, and affective forces. These forces inform the logics behind making a fictional body monstrous. To account for the trope’s variability, I employ a flexible theoretical approach I call “the Gender-Monstrous”—a genre-informed lens that employs the monster and feminist storytelling as methodology—to explore the visual and postcolonial histories of the vulva monster and the ways genre and other cinematic elements change our discursive and emotional relations with the monster.
Carrie Ann Russpatrick successfully defended her dissertation on 20 June 2025.
Trial lecture
Designated topic: "How has queer theory intervened in and transformed the field of film and media studies? Please present a lecture answering this question by combining theoretical mapping with a close reading of film/media objects not included in the dissertation"
Evaluation committee
- Professor Jacqueline Stacey, University of Manchester (first opponent)
- Professor Eugenie Brinkema, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (second opponent)
- Professor emeritus Ove Solum, University of Oslo (committee administrator)
Chair of the defence
Supervisors
- Professor Steffen Krüger, University of Oslo
- Professor Timotheus Vermeulen, University of Oslo