Portrayal of women and feminist discourses in movies that present demonic possession and exorcism.

Cinema study, Film appreciation

This paper examines the literary representations of how paranormal films reflect, fortify, as well as test our thoughts of gender suitability, women's liberation, patriarchy, religion, and science. By calling attention to such representations, this paper aims to decipher these films, and specifically The Exorcism cinema, such as how the struggle amid exorcism and possession surface the social and cultural apprehension about the female sexuality and the strain among feminine virtue and sexuality that the patricentric is afraid of and seeks to direct. Furthermore, it shall also be detailed how this struggle and its depiction relates to women empowerment and society underneath, through, and in opposition to patriarchal composition. It may perhaps be that the evil possession is the women’s opportunity to retort back to patriarchal domination, that the male priests find menacing and must disperse. The idea is not just dealing with physicality here, it is dealing with society. It isn’t only about women’s sexuality and appearance of sexuality, it is that in the course of such phrase their empowerment, authority, and bureau are ratified, and this is why their sexuality must be subdued. The use of evil possession is not only to illustrate the anxiety we have about women sexuality but it is to demonstrate the stress we have regarding women voicing their opinions and their influence to be in charge of their own lives.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.