Abstract
Putting matters of corporeality, transgression, and excess at the centre of the discussion, this chapter unveils the concept of hunger – or the lack thereof – as an agent of horror in film. The horrors of the culturally inappropriate body are unveiled through horror images of food consumption, from overconsumption and forced consumption to starvation. The starving/anorexic body is particularly scrutinised, and the horrific implications of what it means to wilfully refuse food. In similar fashion, the obese body is also surveyed, and the repercussions of monstrous consumption. This chapter aims to show that, through the varying representations of ‘horrific’ food experiences, the ‘Gothic body’ emerges as a mutated and ever-changing concept. Ultimately, my analysis unravels the understanding of the eating body as ‘monstrous’, an entity that breaks the boundaries of cultural propriety, and is ‘horrific’ both conceptually and aesthetically.
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Piatti-Farnell, L. (2017). Consuming Hunger: Body Narratives and the Controversies of Incorporation. In: Consuming Gothic. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45051-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-45051-7_3
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