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Bond, Chloe May

University of British Columbia

While the presence of the “monstrous-feminine” (Creed, 2022; 2024) has received considerable critical attention within the study of literature and film, exploration of this phenomenon within music fandom is markedly limited to date. By flagrantly disregarding the bounds of normalcy, this innately abject figure rejects “the [violent] social and cultural ‘rituals’ the patriarchal symbolic order has constructed to protect its borders” (Creed, 2022, p. 12) in creative ways. In this thesis, I build upon an interdisciplinary foundation of fan studies, monster theory, posthumanism and gender studies to explore how “Swifties”, an especially prolific and generative fan community, collaboratively define, conceptualise and operationalise monstrous femininity. Using an approach informed by Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis, (Brock, 2018), I examine fans’ responses to Taylor Swift’s latest studio album, titled The Tortured Poets Department (2024) from the perspective of an aca-fan, unpacking the multifaceted ways in which Swift stories monsters – as both a victim of patriarchal treachery and a perpetrator of abject feminine power. Through my analysis, I propose that Swifties develop a unique ‘theory’ of monstrous femininity that is distinctly multidimensional. The findings of this research highlight that fans devise interpretive ‘ground rules’ for their discussions, which emerge from their dialogic relationship with Swift, and assert that liminality, ambivalence and transgression are key characteristics of monstrous femininity. Ultimately, I argue that precarity can be productive; where monsters are made and unmade lie opportunities for us to reframe our deeply ingrained fears of the unknown and instead look through otherness to a more hopeful future. This thesis adds to a growing body of scholarship that embraces the figure of the monster as a meaningful form of resistance to patriarchal norms, and advocates for fandom and youth culture as exciting spaces in which academia might seek to break new theoretical ground.

Text

2024-12-23

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89978

Children's Literature

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/