"I Eat Boys": Monstrous Femininity in Jennifer's Body

Abstract

The marketing strategy behind Jennifer’s Body capitalized on Megan Fox’s emerging status as a sex symbol. As a result of this, many reviewers criticised it for not fulfilling their male fantasies. Ten years after its release, Jennifer’s Body is now interpreted as a feminist story. This essay explores the limits and contradictions of these readings through an analysis of the depiction of female monstrosity in the film. It starts with the establishment of a theoretical framework on the representation of female monsters in horror cinema and of the monstrous teenage girl. The analysis will be structured in three parts. The first examines the use of irony and self-consciousness in the satanic ritual scene in relation to the film’s portrayal of male violence. The second part reads Jennifer’s monstrosity as a result of her neoliberal, over-sexualised femininity. The last section explores the relationship between Jennifer and her friend Needy, which makes both of them monstrous in their own distinctive manners. This essay posits Jennifer’s Body and its representation of the monstrous feminine as both a feminist denunciation of a patriarchal system and a perpetuation of the same clichés the film wants to subvert.