The abject must be "radically excluded" (p. 5 This re-drawing of boundaries creates a sense of security, of inside/outside. In a literal sense the expression refers to abject secretions like excrements, blood, or puss elements that threaten the subject's 'own,' proper body ( corps propre) and therefore have to be expelled. So-called abjects point towards the impossibility of such an ideal transcendence of the physical. Kristeva conceptualizes the Semiotic as contrast and precondition to the Symbolic, bound to be overcome and outgrown in order for 'culture,' society and subjectivity to exist. Since the child experiences himself as one with the mother and with nature, this authority is not yet associated with guilt and shame and is therefore radically different from the 'Law of the Father' which structures the Symbolic. Maternal authority is the trustee of that mapping of the self's clean and proper body it is distinguished from paternal laws within which, with the phallic phase and acquisition of language, the destiny of man will take shape. Kristeva describes her function as follows: The maternal figure is of the utmost importance in this process. 3 Here the child learns to differentiate proper and improper, clean and unclean areas of the body. Kristeva calls this space chora (Plato's "empty space") it presents a preverbal dimension of language structured by sensual impressions and the bodily needs of the child, not by language. This process starts for the child in the Semiotic, a pre-Oedipal space experienced as an undifferentiated continuum between his/herself, the surroundings and the mother's body.
In The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection 2 Kristeva develops her theory of the abject, its relation to the concept of the mother and its significance in the constitution of the subject. Before doing so, I will recapture Creed's line of argument, itself based on the work of Julia Kristeva. In my reading of the film I will therefore concentrate on how the film uses and reworks this concept of what Barbara Creed has termed the monstrous-feminine to offer a new spin to the old tale of the girl and the monster. Significantly, this subjectivity is inextricably linked to notions of monstrosity. 1 Gender-based approaches, however, have been rare so far, which is surprising in the discussion of a film that, as I would argue, both centers on and problematizes a specifically female subjectivity. In 1992 Candyman was released it is a moderately successful horror movie (now spawning, as reports have it, its second sequel) that has since received considerable critical attention for its complex representation of a variety of issues. Representing the Monstrous-feminine in Candyman Andrea Kuhn (Erlangen) "What's the matter, Trevor? Scared of something?"
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