Document Type
Honors Project
Abstract
This paper explores the horror film as a site of self-creation. Using Michel Foucault and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that the horror genre primes the viewer for an embodied, affective experience, and the resulting interaction between self and screen constitutes and redefines the self. By engaging with Jordan Peele’s Get Out, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and The Fly, and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, I explore how horror films engage our physical bodies and rework our experience and understanding of race, disability, and collectivity. These interactive experiences of filmviewing allow us to conceptualize the cinema as a tangible site of identity creation, positioning filmgoing as a political practice of community.
Recommended Citation
Hueser, Emily C., "Being Scared in a Secondary Universe: Experiencing the Self Through the Horror Film" (2026). Media and Cultural Studies Honors Projects. 16.
https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/hmcs_honors/16
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