“My heart’s fine as long as my stomach’s not empty”: patriarchal horror, women’s excess, and fat liberation in Criminally Insane

ABSTRACT

Slasher film Criminally Insane might be understood as one that capitalizes upon and perhaps even further entrenches existing societal anti-fatness in mid-century America. Its fat protagonist, Ethel, wields a butcher knife against those who constrain her access to food or endanger her freedom, killing and even eating her victims. Audiences and film reviewers have thus far described Ethel’s behavior as violent resistance to “treatment” for her fatness at her own and others’ peril. However, this paper reveals that the film is far from straightforward in its approach to fatness. Using the work of Laura Mulvey and Susan Greenhalgh, I consider how Criminally Insane deploys and critiques the male and medical gazes, revealing their intertwined and co-constitutive work against Ethel’s body and autonomy. I contend that while it certainly deploys anti-fat tropes, Miller’s gory film also offers a robust analysis of patriarchal control and even briefly attempts to envision a world in which fat people, like Ethel, can truly be free.

KEYWORDS:

• Fat liberation
• horror
• film
• feminism
• male gaze

Acknowledgement

Sincere thanks to Dr. Samantha Pergadia whose generous mentorship made this paper possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kendall Dinniene

Kendall Dinniene is a PhD Candidate in English at Southern Methodist University. Their work examines how American fiction variously affirms, complicates, and resists dominant notions of fatness, and reveals how these notions are intertwined with and produce ideas about race, gender, sexuality, health, (dis)ability, criminality, and national identity.