Rikke Schubart

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• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Southern Denmark

Looking at television series True Blood (2008–), The Vampire Diaries (2009–), and The Walking Dead (2010–), this article analyzes positive emotions in horror: the sexual emotions, trust, and hope. The article starts by substituting the positive-negative dichotomy of emotions with seeing emotions as coming in a “package” (Solomon) and having a “stor...

This article explores the motifs of pet and play in the Alien franchise.It is grounded in biocultural theory and draws on play research fromanthropology, ethology, and linguistics (Huizinga, Burghardt, Bateson)and research in pets from animal studies and philosophy (Melson,Tuan, Fudge). The article develops three levels of play to discuss theaudien...

A fundamental assumption regarding fantasy worlds is that they need to have a certain degree of internal coherence and consistency, otherwise the audience’s ability to immerse themselves in the storyworld will collapse under the weight of its contradictions. It is time to reconsider some of our ideas about storyworld design. “Building” imaginary wo...

This article examines the emotions of wonder and disgust in the Swedish film Border (2018, Gräns) by Iranian-Swedish director Ali Abbasi. The article draws from emotions studies (Frijda 1980, Haidt et. al, 1994, Silvia 2006, Kelly 2011, Burton 2015), the concept of liminality (Turner 1974), and Levi-Strauss’ theory of totem animals (Levi-Strauss 20...

This article is in Danish. It examines how monsters have transformed from being monstrous to becoming wonderful. Dragons, trolls, vampires - these used to be terrifying and today they are cute. The article discusses the meaning of the monster and the transformation of this meaning.

This article focuses on the figure of an aging and powerful witch pitted against younger women in three contemporary fairy tale movie adaptations: Snow White and the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (Tommy Wirkola, 2013), and Maleficent (Robert Stromberg, 2014). Each film transforms the aging witch from stock villain...

This chapter analyses a newcomer in fantastic TV drama: the female teen leader. It also analyses a TV series instead of a film series, because today the TV medium has become a site for innovative storytelling and experimental protagonists. The chapter focuses on three elements: age, edgework, and battle mind. Bioculturalism combines theories from t...

This article discusses how the choice of actress Gal Gadot to play Wonder Woman negotiates between comic book fans’ expectations and society’s gender schema. It has taken 75 years for the industry to produce a film adaption of Wonder Woman, perhaps due to the ‘problem’ of female muscles. This article focuses on the significance of Wonder Woman’s mu...

A central aim of this Special Issue is to explore the (aspirational) hypothesis that, because they encapsulate imaginative acts and creativity, the genres of the fantastic open up spaces of possibility, offering new affordances, new perceptions of what might be possible. In relation to this, we are particularly interested in the roles played by wom...

This is the TOC and introduction to Mastering Fear. The book analyzes horror as play and examines what functions horror has and why it is adaptive and beneficial for audiences. It takes a biocultural approach, and focusing on emotions, gender, and play, it argues we play with fiction horror. In horror we engage not only with the negative emotions o...

index for Mastering Fear: Women, Emotions, and Contemporary Horror

Rikke Schubart has written a lively and well-informed account of horror films and their emotional appeals, with particular reference to women viewers and issues of gender as presented in the films. Schubart injects humor into her writing, an attractive blend of academic rigor and serious analysis with playful, drily ironic observations, often of a...

Penny Dreadful explores the darkness that exists not only in the physical world but also in the human mind. In it, monstrosity takes the familiar form of witches, werewolves, vampires, the revived and reconfigured undead—Dr. Frankenstein’s monsters—who kill and maim, but the series also routinely explores other, more mundane, forms of cruelty and d...

This paper analyzes the witch Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) in ensemble horror series Penny Dreadful (2014–16). Witches have been television material since Bewitched (1964–72), usually in comedy or light drama, and often for teen audiences. Penny Dreadful, however, is a horror-gothic show for adults, and Vanessa a woman plagued by her powers. She is tra...

This is the introduction. Women of Ice and Fire: Gender, Game of Thrones, and Multiple Media Engagements explores women in the transmedia GOT universe, which consists of George R. R. Martin’s book series, the HBO television show, computer games, and online fan activities. Here are eleven chapters by eleven scholars who differ in their views on the...

George R.R. Martin’s acclaimed seven-book fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire is unique for its strong and multi-faceted female protagonists, from teen queen Daenerys, scheming Queen Cersei, child avenger Arya, knight Brienne, Red Witch Melisandre, and many more. The Game of Thrones universe challenges, exploits, yet also changes how we think of...

‘This world’s divided into two kinds of people: The hunter and the hunted,’ big-game hunter Rainsford says in The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and self-assuredly continues, ‘Luckily, I’m a hunter. Nothing can ever change that.’ Well, he will discover that in the manhunt movie even the hunter can become prey. The manhunt movie is a subgenre of the Hol...

This paper examines the middle age Horror Heroine, who is also a mother, in three recent television series: Survivor Carol in The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010–), vampire Olivia in Hemlock Grove (Netflix, 2013–), and Supreme Witch Fiona in American Horror Story Season Three (FX, 2011–).It pursues two questions, one theoretical and one analytical: first,...

“This world’s divided into two kinds of people: The hunter and the hunted,” big-game hunter Rainsford says in The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and self-assured continues, “Luckily, I’m a hunter. Nothing can ever change that.” Well, he will discover that in the manhunt movie even the hunter can become prey.The manhunt movie is a subgenre of the Hollyw...

This book assesses how Clint Eastwood’s diptych of films about the battle over Iwo Jima reflects war today. It highlights the fact that, with Flags of Our Fathers (2006) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Eastwood made a unique contribution to film history, being the first director to make two films about the same event (together these works tell th...

This article analyses the new horror heroine in a number of recent horror moview with Beth (Lauren German) in Hostel II (2007) as primary example. This horror heroine may at a first glance look like an updated version of Carol Clover’s Final Girl, however, I argue that she constitutes a reconceptualization of the female protagonist in the horror fi...

Fra første faerd var Michelle Yeohs star persona "den nye kvinde": single, staerk, selvstaendig og intelligent, fuld af intens energi og viljestyrke. Men hun har vaeret vidt omkring såvel genremaessigt som tematisk, inden hun slog igennem hos et vestligt publikum i selskab med James Bond i filmen Tomorrow Never Dies. Her leverede hun sit personlige...

I MedieKultur nr. 38 anmeldte Søren Kjørup Torben Grodals bog Film- oplevelse – en indføring i audiovisuel teori og analyse. Her følger en redigeret version af dels Torben Grodals svar på anmeldelsen og Søren Kjørups replik.

I krig og kærlighed gælder alle kneb, siger man. Artiklen undersøger, hvorledes det amerikanske militær søgte at udnytte tilfangetagelsen af menig Jessica Lynch under Irakkrigen den 23. marts 2003 til at skabe en myte om en kvindelig soldat, der blev taget til fange, mishandlet og befriet under dramatiske omstændigheder. Forsøget mislykkedes, da jo...