Publication Date
2020
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
First Advisor
May, Brian
Degree Name
M.A. (Master of Arts)
Legacy Department
Department of English
Abstract
Viewing the film Mama (2013) through the lens of a certain Gothic text, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, reveals similar fears of the feminine alongside the focus of the nature of the in-between. These commonalities between the texts reveal an emerging trend in modern monster-horror films—the narrative-driven analysis of the role of the other and multiculturalism in the social consciousness. In this paper, I examine how Mama as an Imperial Gothic film builds on the tradition of indigenous stories, like La Llorona, and the Gothic. By referencing and combining these histories in the genre markers, it uses motherhood and the other to express the traumas and relationship between “colonized” and “colonizer” in the 21st century. The growth of the Imperial Gothic genre represents a movement towards a “neo-Imperial Gothic” which looks towards how to deal with Imperialism in the present and future rather than focusing on the traumas and fears of the past.
Recommended Citation
Gamble, Caitlin, ""Don't Look at Her, She's Mad": Mama and Frankenstein Reveal Modern-Day Preoccupations" (2020). Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations. 7055.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-thesesdissertations/7055
Extent
69 pages
Language
eng
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.
Media Type
Text
