The hair that Wasn't there before : Demystifying monstrosity and menstruation in ginger snaps and ginger snaps unleashed

Given that they inherit many distinguishing features from oral narratives-the use of archetypal characters, recurring themes, reconstructions, prequels, and sequels-one could argue that of werewolf film is, for most part, art of adaptation. To produce a film about werewolves is to produce something instinctual, derivative, or even formulaic. Indeed, werewolf films often avoid originality, preferring to construct variations on known. And yet, Ginger trilogy1, a cycle of werewolf films that emerged out of Canada between 2000 and 2004, insists on both its tradition in werewolf folklore and its very modern, nontraditional representation of female sexuality. As Linda Ruth Williams explains, Try to imagine what Buffy Vampire Slayer would look like if it had been written by Angela Carter and you might get close to heady cocktail of high-school pubescence and feminist folklore that is Ginger Snaps (2001:36). Like many horror movies before them, Ginger (2001) and Ginger Snaps: Unleashed (2004) contribute to repressive discourses of sexuality that shackle women to reproduction, depicting female adolescences as origin of a two-fold curse; menstruation and monstrosity. And yet, Ginger and Unleashed use werewolf as a metaphor not just for horrors of puberty but also for limits placed on female sexual subjectivity. They also construct a radical model for menstruation education, uncovering powers and horrors of menarche by combining folk and scientific models for understanding menstruation. These films, in effect, demystify both werewolf mythology and menstruation biology by constructing composite notions of lycanthropy and menstruation that allow for radical forms of female sexual consciousness. Rejecting limited subject positions available to adolescent girls, though not afraid to use those expectations to their advantage, Fitzgerald sisters present two subversive forms of female subjectivity: Ginger (Katherine Isabelle) learns to derive pleasure from her monstrous identity and power and sexual satisfaction it affords, while Brigitte (Emily Perkins) constantly struggles against her developing monstrosity and bloodlust it produces, withdrawing from system of sexual exchange that destroys feminocentric kinship she values. WEREWOLVES: HISTORIES, CONVENTIONS, AND DEVIATIONS Werewolves have a long history in folklore and Ginger films both substantiate and subvert many of characteristics and conventions of this intricate past. The werewolf's lineage is a complex one that transcends cultural and historical contexts. Charlotte F. Otten traces figure from ancient myths of Homer and Ovid, through Middle English narratives such as Le Morte D'arthur, to biblical scriptures that reference humans' use of wolfish disguise, such as Christ's Sermon on Mount and Paul's address to Ephesians (1986:5). However, throughout this protracted narrative of maturation, figure's symbolic significance refuses to remain static. In Greek and Roman myth, werewolves provide a symbolic assessment of human morality, in scriptural contexts they warn of Satan's ability to prey upon spiritual weakness, and in Middle English narratives, they are pitiful victims of domestic plotting and crimes, such as poisoning and adultery (Otten 1986:7-8). Although some recent narratives also position werewolves as intransigently abject creatures who exhibit a complete disregard for dominant codes of moral and physical conduct, most modern werewolf narratives present them as pitiable monsters tormented by their beastly behavior and immoral impulses. As Chantal Bourgault du Coudray explains, the prototype of anguished and tragic Wolf Man torn between his human and lupine urges dominated representations of werewolf in twentieth century (2003:58). Perhaps because werewolf's narrative history is full of such complex representational contradictions, it manages to evade any simple signification as either source of fear or fascination, abhorrence or adoration. …

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