Hannah Neurotica, creator of the 'zine, Ax Wound, looks at the horror genre from feminist (and queer) perspectives:
"Ax Wound" is a derogatory term for a menstruating vagina. How perfect for a feminist horror zine title! It is my hope that "Ax Wound" will create a dialogue about gender in the horror/slasher/gore genre -- a genre typically thought to reinforce patriarchal values. I want both the 'zine and the website to provide a safe, stimulating environment for feminist horror fans of all backgrounds to discuss the themes of gender, sexuality, and culture in the genre both past and present. Ax Wound will also serve as a platform to help promote and bring together women in the horror industry.
In the spirit of the Halloween season, I thought we could look at the horror genre through the (alternative) feminist lens of Ax Wound (more or less contra- Carol Clover/Laura Mulvey). This 'zine is not a critique of the horror genre, but a celebration of it, striking the fancy of such horror aficionados as gore master Herschell Gordon Lewis, and self-proclaimed horror nerd Eli Roth. As a wannabe (especially B-movie) horror buff myself, I'm incredibly excited about this publication and its promotion of a genre that has been so viciously censured (namely by feminists) for its heavy immersion in misogyny. Hannah Neurotica's feminist love for horror is refreshing, and, as far as I know and from what I can gather from the anecdotal reviews of the 'zine on her website, her's is one of the best horror publications around.
For more on queering gore, check out Neurotica's radio interview with Israel Luna, writer and director of the new horror film, Ticked-off Trannies with Knives, or at least watch this teaser trailer (full trailer available on the film's website):
I'm sorry I didn't digitally comment earlier, but again, I am so glad you posted this.
I keep wondering about Ticked-off Trannies, and what thinking about this camp text-- I mean, this has got to be what one sort of new camp with trans central characters looks like, right?-- through queering, disidentification, and the kind of celebration of horror written about by Hannah Neurotica (which sounds a lot like disidentification, if you ask me) does for relation to it. This is serious troublemaking, of course, as plenty of groups have reacted with organized protest to the film's title use of the pejorative "tranny(/ies)" (GLAAD and others are in fact still in this battle). So there's our counteridentification.
Then our disidentification is even more fraught with trouble, isn't it? To the extent that I can sort of toss the rules of Mulvey/Clover out the window, there is pleasure in working through and against the awful and awesome imagery of Ticked-off Trannies. We know that director Israel Luna conceptualized the film as delightful revenge, as flipping the violence often aimed at LGBT people back onto would-be attackers, and he apparently also has a background working with trans folks, AND cast transwomen to play the leads. Fuck these fucking hurtful stereotypes, and let's have fun anyway, right?
So what can we make of how, with all that said, some trans folks are still pissed off about this representation? I don't think it's as simple as saying that I'm not upset only because I have masculine privilege-- not only transwomen are in uproar, and we can certainly also point to the transwomen involved in the project.
It seems a little bit like Ticked-off Trannies ends up relegated to the same land of abjection where we find Divine eating shit-- clearly NOT universally understood through the authorial intent of critical social commentary.