Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror

Jones, Steve (2015) Torture Born: Representing Pregnancy and Abortion in Contemporary Survival-Horror. Sexuality & Culture, 19 (3). pp. 426-443. ISSN 1095-5143

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Abstract

In proportion to the increased emphasis placed on abortion in partisan political debate since the early 2000s, there has been a noticeable upsurge in cultural representations of abortion. This article charts ways in which that increase manifests in contemporary survival-horror. This article contends that numerous contemporary survival-horror films foreground pregnancy. These representations of pregnancy reify the pressures that moralistic, partisan political campaigning places on individuals who consider terminating a pregnancy. These films contribute to public discourse by engaging with abortion as an individual, emotional matter, rather than treating abortion as a matter of political principle or a political “means to an end.” This article not only charts a relationship between popular culture and its surrounding political context, but also posits that survival-horror — a genre that has been disparaged by critics and largely ignored by scholars — makes an important contribution to sexual-political discourse. These films use horror to articulate the things we cannot say about abortion.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Published online 16-11-2014
Uncontrolled Keywords:	abortion, pregnancy, horror, film, popular culture, politics
Subjects:	L200 Politics P300 Media studies
Department:	Faculties > Arts, Design and Social Sciences > Design
Depositing User:	Steve Jones
Date Deposited:	19 Nov 2014 09:11
Last Modified:	12 Oct 2019 19:41
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/18231

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